‘Anna, for God’s sake!’
‘We must catch her! He’ll hurt her! Let me go!’ Anne cried out, struggling.
Sergei tightened his hold, turning her to face him, shaking her a little to get her attention. ‘Don’t be a fool, you can’t go after her on foot! He wouldn’t let you get near her anyway. Be still, Anna! There’s nothing we can do now. Oh Lord, we’ll lose the other horses if we don’t calm them!’
And he let go of her to run to the head of his gelding, who was snorting and tugging at his rope. Nasha was there, too, soothing the ponies, and Sashka looking frightened. Anne suddenly became aware of the pain in her hand, looked down at the red rope-burn across her palm, and burst unexpectedly into tears.
In a moment, Sergei, abandoning the horses to Nasha, had crossed to her again, and taken her in his arms, holding her close against him and murmuring, ‘Anna! Annushka! It’s all right. Don’t cry.’ Anne wanted to obey him, but the excitement and shock of it all had for once overset her usual self-control. ‘Oh don’t cry, doushkal. She’ll be all right. He won’t hurt her – he just wants her for his herd. It’s a compliment really.’
Anne tried to respond, but only cried harder. His arms were unexpectedly strong and comforting, and she leaned against him gratefully, and tried to say something, which came out as a gulp and a sob.
‘What is it, Annushka? Oh, there, don’t cry! We’ll get Quassy back, don’t worry.’
Over Sergei’s shoulder, Anne caught sight of the children watching her gravely, and it was enough to make her recover her senses. She must not take comfort from Sergei like this. She pulled away from him, and he allowed her to go, transferring his hold to her wrist, and uncurling her wounded hand.
‘Poor darling, does it hurt very much? Wait, I have a clean handkerchief here. Let me bind it up for you.’
‘No, no, I’ll do it,’ Anne said hastily.
‘Nonsense,’ Sergei said. ‘How would you tie it, one-handed?’
She submitted, allowing him to fold the clean linen and bind it around her palm. ‘We’d better get back to the house, so that we can dress it properly,’ Sergei said. ‘And then perhaps you ought to go to bed and rest. It’s been quite a shock for you.’
Anne almost smiled at this picture of her fragile sensibility. ‘Thank you. I’m quite all right now,’ she said, fumbling for her own handkerchief. She dried her face, and thought as Sergei watched her solicitously how absurdly young he looked when he was being protective. ‘As for going to bed, there’s no question of it. We’ll have to ask Mishka to get a party together at once, to go after Quassy. She still has that rope on her headstall. I’m so afraid she’ll catch it in something and hurt herself.’
Sergei shook his head. ‘Don’t be silly. The stallion would never let us get near her, even with a dozen men. The only way to separate her now is to drive the whole herd in and corral them, which is what will happen at the muster tomorrow. We’ll get her back then. Don’t worry, she’ll be all right.’
‘But supposing–’
‘Don’t suppose! There’s nothing else to be done. Come, we had better pack the things and get back. We’ve got Quassy’s saddle to carry, too. Look, do you think you could ride Nabat astride? He’s not broken to side-saddle. Then if you could take Nasha up behind you, I can ride her pony and carry the saddle. That will be the best way. Can you manage the reins, with your hand, or should I lead you?’
‘No, I’m sure I can manage,’ Anne said, and meekly allowed Sergei to go on organising everything since he seemed to be enjoying it. He helped her mount his gelding, and Anne was very glad now that she had had those lessons from Grishka. Nabat felt uncomfortably broad after Quassy. Her thigh muscles ached from the unaccustomed position, and her hand hurt, but there was nothing to be gained by complaining. Sergei threw Nasha up behind her, helped Sashka to mount his pony, and almost stepped astride Nasha’s pony with the spare saddle over his arm.
It seemed a very long ride back, and by the time they reached the house, Anne felt exhausted. Zina tutted over her hand, and dressed it with sweet oil, and noting the heaviness of Anne’s eyes, insisted that she have a warm herbal bath and retire to her room for a rest. ‘You will need to be fresh for tomorrow,’ she said reasonably. ‘It will be a very long day.’
Naturally, neither Anne nor the children were allowed to take part in the muster itself, but mounted on quiet ponies, they were able to watch the beginning of it from the hillside above the valley. Irina was there too, but not on Iskra. She had been very much upset by the narration of what happened to Quassy, and had taken the precaution of shutting her own mare in the stable for the day, and coming out on a safe pony.
Down below the herd grazed. Anne strained her eyes, but could not pick out Quassy from that distance, even allowing for the rope and headcollar. The stallion was on a little rise to one side, scenting the wind, seeming already uneasy, though he could not yet have caught the smell of the men who were approaching from downwind, thirty of them on horseback, and another twenty on foot, with whips and sticks with which to make a noise to head off the horses if necessary. The watchers on the hillside could see the cordon of riders approaching, stretched out across the open end of the valley. The plan was to drive the horses up the headland and through the gulley, and down the woodland track to the bottlenecked corral which had been built about half a mile from the house.
A horse whinnied, and the mares stopped grazing and looked about them uneasily, and called their foals to their side. The stallion’s head was up high, turning this way and that, and then he saw the movement out beyond his herd, and stamped his foot warningly. He left his eminence and trotted down the side of the herd, and his gait was long and smooth and floating; despite his solidity he moved with effortless grace, barely seeming to brush the grass.
The mares were beginning to draw together and move away from the approaching cordon, but the stallion was suspicious. He reached the far side of the herd and halted, head up, staring at the riders, trotting a few steps one way, then whirling on his haunches and trotting the other way, keeping between his mares and the threat, yet not knowing quite what the threat might be. He could smell the men, but the ridden horses confused him; and all the while his herd was drifting away from him up the valley, bunching in closer as the valley narrowed.
Finally he whirled away and raced the length of the herd, turning at the front to halt the mares, who looked uneasily over their shoulders, and then at him, uncertain which imperative to obey. One or two tried to break back, their foals running and turning with them as if attached by invisible cords, and the stallion whinnied to them anxiously. Then Anne saw a glint as one of the leading riders – probably Mishka or Grishka – raised his shotgun in the air, and a moment later there came the flat slamming sound of an explosion, which echoed back and forth across the narrow valley.
It was all that was needed. The mares who had tried to break turned away from the sound in panic, and the whole herd began to move up the valley at a trot. The stallion went with them, circling at that same, effortless, flying gait, bunching the mares closer together, unwittingly doing exactly what his pursuers wanted.
‘We’d better go now, if we’re to get to the corral before they arrive,’ Irina said. ‘You mustn’t miss that part, Anna – it’s so exciting! One year they managed to break out, and it took two days to drive them back again once they had scattered. That was in the days of the old stallion, of course. He was very clever, and very fierce, and he knew all about the muster. This is the new, young one – there’s no knowing what he may do.’
‘I don’t understand what’s to keep them on the path through the wood,’ Anne said as they turned their ponies away from the valley. Across country, they should easily reach the corral first. ‘They could scatter amongst the trees, and you’d never catch them.’