They reminded her, in their physiognomy and their dress, of the Prince who had tried to buy Quassy from her. She was not entirely surprised, therefore, when during the course of the morning, he rode into Chastnaya with a small retinue of followers, and claimed her exuberantly as an old acquaintance.
‘English Lady, I have come! I greet you, in the name of the Most High,’ he said, with a graceful bow from the saddle of his handsome horse. Anne had forgotten how overpowering he was, and was glad of the presence of Sergei close behind her shoulder. The Prince turned his eagle’s beak of a nose in Sergei’s direction and surveyed him with bright, feral eyes, taking in his youthful good looks, and military bearing. ‘It is your husband, the light-eyed one?’ he asked, not without a hint of approval.
‘It is not,’ Anne said firmly. ‘But, sir, you spoke as if you knew I would be here.’
The Prince raised his eyebrows. ‘Assuredly I knew it.’
‘But how? How could you?’
The Prince looked loftily amused. ‘Akim Shan Kalmuck knows everything. It is his business to know everything. I wish to see the English lady again, but also,’ he added sternly, ‘I come to buy horses. At Chastnaya are the best horses in the Caucasus – yes, better even than the horses of the Five Hills of Pyatigorsk. So I have said – and it is true.’
He pronounced the words as one speaking Holy Writ, and then glowered around him, as though anyone were likely to argue the point. Sergei, at Anne’s shoulder, whistled the tune of the song he had sung her on the day of the picnic, and she suppressed a smile. Evidently the Prince knew it too, for he bared his white teeth in his savage smile, and said, ‘I come to buy horses – women I never buy. Always, since I am young man – younger than you – I have any woman I want. Except English Lady. Still my offer is good – I will marry you,’ he offered generously, ‘with no dowry but the black mare.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Anne said gravely, ‘but I do not wish to marry.’
The Prince looked from her to Sergei speculatively, and then shrugged. ‘And how is she, my horse, my black karabakh mare with the north wind in her blood?’ he went on.
‘She is perfectly well, but her spirits are oppressed,’ Anne told him, and explained the circumstances. The Prince listened attentively, frowned a moment in thought, and then to Anne’s surprise and slight alarm, prepared to dismount.
‘I will see her,’ he announced.
‘Really, sir, she is not for sale,’ Anne began, and he frowned at her.
‘I will see her. Akim Shan Kalmuck knows everything about horses. I will cure her of her melancholy – yes, for you I will do this, though I am begged in vain by men from Batoum to Kizlyar to give of my great wisdom. Bring me to the karabakh!’ He raised a hand in an imperious and theatrical gesture, which so delighted Anne, reminding her of the Demon Prince in a farce she had once seen at Drury Lane, that she had no more thought of resisting him.
The Prince handed his horse to his nearest attendant, waved them back and spoke a few words to them in the language Anne didn’t understand, and then drew his robe about him in a lordly way and looked to her to lead the way.
Sergei didn’t like it at all, but since the Prince, most courteously, was leaving all his bodyguard behind, it would have been churlish to object. Besides, he comforted himself, whatever else he was, the Prince was a horse lover, and would not harm Quassy; and as long as he, Sergei, was present, he could do nothing to harm Anne.
As the strange trio crossed in front of the house on the way to the stables, Nasha and Sashka came running down from the verandah. Nasha thrust her hand into Sergei’s, while Sashka too flung himself passionately around Anne’s knees, so that she was obliged to pick him up to release herself.
‘Where are you going?’ Nasha cried.
‘Take me!’ Sashka pleaded.
The Prince looked at the scene with interest.
‘Your children! Ah, so you are married! That is why you refuse me! Of course, I am a Christian too – I may have only one wife. A pity – that is a healthy boy! I said you would make a good wife. Akim Shan Kalmuck is never wrong. About horses and women, never wrong.’
Though she was blushing, Anne had no great wish to disabuse the Prince, especially as the truth would have been too complex to explain, so she merely averted her eyes, hitched Sashka up against her shoulder, and continued towards the stable.
The grooms were made very nervous by the sight of the Prince, even in the company of Anne and Sergei, and they backed away and glanced this way and that, like horses who have smelt a mountain lion. Anne set down Sashka and unbolted the stable door, and stepped aside for the Prince to enter, wondering how Quassy would react to him.
She needn’t have worried. He stood in the doorway and slowly held out his hands, speaking in a continuous low murmur words which she didn’t understand, and which she guessed from Sergei’s expression he didn’t either. But Quassy understood them. Her ears shot forward, and she looked at the Prince intently. Still talking, he began to smile, his eyes taking on a soft shine, his voice caressive. Quassy’s eyes began to glow too, her body relaxed, and her head lowered, and after only a few moments she stepped forward confidently and dropped her muzzle into the Prince’s outstretched hands.
‘God! How did he do that?’ Sergei muttered. Anne watched, enthralled, as the Prince examined the mare, running his hands over every part of her, resting his ear to her neck and breast and flank to listen, smelling her breath and her skin, looking into her eyes. Finally he stepped up close to her, put his arms round her neck, and resting his cheek against hers, closed his eyes and remained quite still for several minutes. During the examination, Quassy stood as still and docile as though she had been mesmerised – which, Anne thought, she probably had.
The Prince sighed, released the mare, and stepped back, turning to Anne to say firmly, ‘She has a broken heart, but I can cure her.’
‘You can make her forget?’ Anne said.
He looked approving. ‘Ah, you understand! Yes, I can make her forget. I need herbs – common herbs, easily found. Your serfs will fetch them for me. While they are gone, you will serve me with refreshments –’ he looked around ‘ – there, under that tree.’
It was a strange, dreamlike interlude. Two astonished, and very nervous, serfs were told off to collect the herbs, and sped on their way by the addition of what was evidently a blood-chilling threat from the Prince, though fortunately for Anne she did not fully understand it; she herself ordered another serf to bring suitable refreshments at once. Then they all sat down on the ground under the tree, the Prince with his back to the trunk, and Anne, Sergei and the children in a semicircle in front of him, and he began to talk.
The children were enraptured, and even Anne was soon drawn out of herself, away from the sensible, practical world she had always tried to inhabit, into a realm where the most exotic fantasy seemed to be able to come true. He told them of battles and feats of daring, of single combat with the champions of oriental kings, of chests of treasure discovered and princesses’ hands won, of elephants and dragons and monsters and talking beasts. When the refreshments came, he consumed them without once pausing in his narrative flow, and no one would have dreamed of hoping to share the contents of the tray with him.
When the serfs came back with the plants, Anne saw that they were indeed unremarkable – yellow mullein, common cinquefoil, leaves from the horse chestnut tree, catnip, camomile, and feathery blue-green sprays of rue.