When Anne read that letter, she was roused out of her lethargy by a consuming loneliness and longing for him. She had been alone in the house now for ten days; parted from him for almost two months; and the crazy idea came to her that there was nothing to stop her from going to him. Tsarevo was about a hundred miles from Moscow, but the Smolensk-Moscow High Road was a good one, and she could be there, with fast travelling, in two days – and it would take the army at least two days to reach it from Viazma. She could be there at the same time as him! In two days she could see him again!
Well, why not, she argued with herself? People did travel with armies. Many wealthy, aristocratic officers travelled with an entire household, coaches and cooks and all the comforts of home. Prince Kutuzov lived like a pasha, with a tentful of dancing girls to soothe his brow at the day’s end.
But he was not like that, her conscience told her. Like the austere Tolly, he lived hard when on campaign. Her presence would be an embarrassment. He might even think it improper of her to have come.
Then she had a better idea. Basil owned a hunting-lodge, Koloskavets, in the wooded hills above Borodino, a village on the same road about seventy miles from Moscow. There was nothing in the least improper about going there, to her own husband’s property. He had told her to go out of Moscow into the country, hadn’t he? And with the entire Russian army between her and the French, it must be safe. Once there she could write to him, telling him where she was, and then he could make his own time for coming to see her.
In the face of such determination, the dissenting voice retired, and she jumped up and rang the bell for Pauline with her pulse leaping at the prospect of positive action, and the thought of seeing him again.
All along the road, at every stop, Anne heard the name of Kutuzov on every lip as that of his country’s saviour. The army had been retreating in the most cowardly way for months, and Napoleon had got scandalously near Moscow; but now Kutuzov had come, things would change. He would stand and fight the Monster, and beat him, and Russia would be saved! He was a true Russian – not like Tolly, who was really a German, and Bennigsen, who was a Swede. Prince Kutuzov was the real article, and a cunning old fox, and there was no need to fear that Napoleon would get any closer to Holy Moscow now than Tsarevo. Napoleon would find he had met his match at last.
Anne, who had met Kutuzov once, and knew quite a lot about him from hearsay, couldn’t help wondering at the faith that was invested in the fat, elderly, one-eyed sybarite; but still she found herself affected by it. She began to think that perhaps it would really all be over in a week or two. One good battle, and the men would come home!
At Mozhaisk, the next town before Borodino, a road from the south joined the Smolensk-Moscow High Road, and here her coachman had to hold back to allow a group of horsemen – Caucasus irregulars by the look of their dress and horses – to take the road ahead of them. She wondered vaguely if they were part of Sergei’s troop, and why they were scouting on this, the wrong side of the main army. They didn’t seem to have an officer with them. The man at the head of the troop was a Tartar in a leather cap trimmed with black sheepskin, wearing a striped surcoat over the glint of body armour; a tall man on a magnificent bay Khabardin, with crimson tassels and gold discs on its bridle.
He turned his head as he reached the turning and looked straight into the carriage window, straight into her eyes; and then waving his men past him with an imperious gesture, he turned his curvetting horse three times on the spot and drove it, against its better judgement, away from its companions and up to the carriage. He stooped from the saddle to look in through the window, his teeth bared in a savage smile, and the pearls in his ears quivering.
Pauline gave a little squeak of alarm and drew back, and Anne laughed, because the situation was so strangely familiar.
‘Amongst my people,’ he said, ‘there is a saying that where there have been two meetings, there must be a third, and that it will portend great things, for good or for ill. Twice have we met, English lady; and now I find you here, to meet a third time. May the Great One bless you.’
‘And you also, Akim Shan,’ Anne said. It was the most astonishing thing; and yet she didn’t feel at all surprised. Russia had done that much for her. ‘What are you doing here, with your men?’
‘We have come to fight the battle,’ he said with dignity. ‘We are Tartars, and the Russians have called a Tartar to lead them at last against the foe.’
‘You mean Prince Kutuzov?’
‘The one-eyed, yes. So we have answered the call.’
‘But this war is not your war,’ Anne said, mildly puzzled. ‘Why should you fight?’
He grinned. ‘Because life is for battle and glory. As long as a man can sit his horse and wield his sword, he will seek honour in the field of battle, and the victor’s spoil, and a noble death.’
‘The tiger’s death, and not the jackal’s?’ she said. He met her eyes keenly.
‘So, you remember! It is in my heart that I should have married you, whether you would or not.’
‘I should not have suited you,’ Anne said gravely. ‘So you have come all the way from the Caucasus?’
‘To make an end, yes. Many of our people have come – but you know this,’ he added, his eyes narrowing. ‘The fair one, who was not your husband, he took sixty men from Pyatigorsk of the Five Hills, and another twenty have since followed.’
‘Yes, I knew that.’
‘So, is it that you now go to be with him on the eve of battle?’ he asked with a hint of approval.
‘Not the fair one, but my husband,’ Anne said. Not for Akim Shan’s knowing, the complication of the issue. ‘I have a house in the hills near here, at Borodino, and I mean to wait for him there, and send word where I am, so that he can come to me if his duties give him the leisure.’
‘Who is he, this husband of yours?’ he asked suspiciously. Concealing a smile, Anne played the game gravely. ‘He is a great man, the right hand of the Emperor, and adviser to General Tolly, who was leader before Prince Kutuzov was called. His name is Count Kirov.’
Akim Shan’s eyes narrow still further. ‘I know this name. It is the name of the fair one who took the men from Pyatigorsk.’
‘The name is the same. It is the fair one’s father.’
Akim Shan considered for an instant, and then smiled with enlightenment. ‘Now I understand everything! And now I see that you are a powerful woman, as I knew when I first met you, and you would not sell me the black mare! But it is not fitting that you should ride alone in this way. I, Akim Shan Kalmuck, will escort you to the place you speak of; and then I shall myself take your message to your husband. Come, tell your men to drive on! I am a prince of my people, and if you live fifty years, you will never again have such an escort!’
‘I’m sure of it,’ Anne laughed. It didn’t seem possible now that anything would ever surprise her again.
On the night of August the 31st, Anne lay in the arms of her lover again. What did it matter if the blankets smelled rather damp, and the bed dipped spinelessly in the middle? Between her own sheets, which she had brought with her, she stretched in the luxury of being naked and feeling the touch of his skin against her own, and of knowing that they had the whole night and most of the next day to be together.