‘Fetch me a bowl, boiling water and thread,’ he commanded. A serf went for the water, while the children scurried off after the bowl and the thread; and then they watched in breathless silence, Nasha’s golden eyes utterly unwavering, as the Prince went to work. The chestnut leaves and the rue he bound with thread and quickly and skilfully fashioned into a garland, and tied the ends together. The other plants he tore up and threw into the bowl, and then poured on the hot water and waited for the mess to draw, much in the way one would make camomile tea.
‘Now, a bottle. And you, English Lady, will come and help me, for she will not like to take the medicine.’
‘I had better help you, sir,’ Sergei said firmly. ‘If the mare struggles–’
The Prince held up his hand. ‘We will not force her – we will persuade her. Come, all of you – you may watch.’
A number of grooms gathered at a safe distance beyond the stable door, too, so that it was quite a throng which eventually witnessed the Prince gently lift the garland over Quassy’s head and hang it round her neck.
‘For forgetfulness,’ he murmured to Anne. “The smell of these plants drives memories out of the head. And the medicine for calming, for easing of the heart’s pain, and for forgetting. Hold her head up – so – and I will do the rest.’
Quassy rolled her eyes as the Prince pushed her head up so that her muzzle was pointing at the roof, but she did not struggle, and Anne had no difficulty in holding her in that position. The brownish liquid had been poured off the mashed leaves into the bottle that was kept in the tack room for administering drenches, and now the Prince, crooning to Quassy, slipped the neck of the bottle into the corner of her mouth, upended it, and stroked her throat firmly so that she was obliged to gulp it down. When the bottle was empty he nodded to Anne to let her go, and the mare lowered her head, sneezed a few times, smacked her lips, and then shook herself violently from head to foot and looked about her like one just waking up from a deep sleep.
Nasha clapped her hands and cried out. ‘Oh, she’s better already! You can see! Anna, see, she’s better!’
Anne smiled at her. ‘Yes, I see.’ She turned to the Prince. ‘Thank you sir,’ she said. ‘I am most grateful to you. And what must I do now?’
‘Do? Nothing! Let her wear the garland until tomorrow. After that, you are quite safe. You may ride her as usual – yes, even to the Valley of the Horses itself. She will ignore the herd as if they were not there. Even the stallion she will treat with indifference.’
Anne thanked him again, and he turned to the children. ‘You have seen a wonder here today, and heard many more. You will not forget the name of Akim Shan Kalmuck.’
They nodded acquiescence to the proposition, and Anne was inwardly amused at his desire to impress the children, which seemed to her akin to the Lesghians’ craving for sweetmeats.
‘And one day,’ he went on magnificently, ‘you may come to my village, and I will show you the tiger, which was given to me in tribute by the Pasha of Kavzan, and which lives in a cage and eats from my hand, and wears a collar of magnificent emeralds from Marakata.’
The children’s eyes were as round as saucers, and Anne privately thought it was an exit line better than anything Drury Lane had ever offered. Sergei was evidently less impressed. They escorted the Prince back to his people, and returned the children to the care of Nyanka, and when they were alone again he said, ‘It’s as well there was nothing more than common herbs in that potion, or I should have been forced to prevent him administering it.’
Anne looked at him with amusement, wondering how he would have hoped to achieve that. ‘Just as well,’ she agreed, ‘for I don’t think he’d have relished being prevented.’
Sergei looked a little angry. ‘You think I’m afraid of that – that posturing barbarian?’
‘Not at all, Seryosha. I’m sure you aren’t, which is what worries me. But he hasn’t hurt Quassy, and perhaps he may have helped. She certainly responded to him.’ He only grunted, and Anne went on, ‘If she seems calm tomorrow, I shall be very glad to be able to ride her again.’
He brightened. ‘There are other horses you can take. Why don’t we go out for a long ride tomorrow? There are lots of places you haven’t seen yet. I’d like to show you the beechwoods and the deer and the place where the eagles nest. Just you and I,’ he added hastily, perhaps reading her mind. ‘I don’t want to take the children, because they’ll slow us down, and there is such a lot to see. Do say yes, Anna!’
‘I shall have to see if I’m wanted for anything,’ Anne said. ‘You forget, Seryosha, I am supposed to be Natasha’s governess.’
‘Pho!’ he protested. ‘As if any of that matters here!’
By the evening, the horse sale was over, and the tribesmen were dispersing, packing up their wares, and the goods they had acquired from each other, hitching the new horses they had bought together for the long ride back to their territories. The corrals were dismantled, the hurdles stacked away in the barn, the manure raked aside and carted to the dung heap, the bars dismounted from the house windows. Soon there would be nothing left to show there had been a horse fair, except for the beaten patch of earth, the fire-scarred cookpit, and the smell of horses lingering in the air.
The Kiriakovs began to think of returning to their normal routines, though it was hard that evening to shake the images of the last two days out of their minds. A simple meal was served, and the gathering on the verandah afterwards was more than usually thoughtful.
Urged by Sergei, Anne asked Irina rather diffidently whether she might go out for a ride the next day.
‘Is Quassy safe?’ Irina asked. ‘I heard about your friend the Prince and his magic cure.’
‘I’ll go and check on her in a little while. But if she’s still restless tomorrow, perhaps I could take one of the stock horses. Sergei wants to show me some of the places I haven’t seen yet.’
‘Of course you can,’ Feodor said promptly, ‘but I advise you most strongly not to go too far afield. Seryosha, you know where the safe places are. Don’t forget that the local tribes are often attracted further down from their usual hunting runs by all the coming and going of the horse fair. You may come across them in unexpected places. Stay to the well-marked paths, and keep your gun ready to hand.’
Sergei nodded gravely. ‘Of course.’
‘The children mustn’t go,’ Irina said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘We weren’t thinking of taking the children, Mama,’ Sergei said, repressing his gratification, even as Nasha’s mouth turned down in disappointment.
‘If it’s really dangerous…’ Anne began doubtfully, thinking of the savage aspect of some of the tribesmen she had seen; but Sergei interrupted.
‘Of course it’s not, as long as you’re careful, and I promise you I will be. Don’t you think you ought to go and look at Quassy now, and see if she’s any quieter?’
‘If the Prince’s potion is anything like his stories,’ Anne said mildly, getting to her feet, ‘she’ll probably have grown wings.’
But the first glance told her that Quassy was better. Still wearing her garland of aromatic leaves, she was pulling quietly at her hay rack, completely relaxed and evidently at peace. She turned and knuckered a friendly greeting as Anne appeared, but showed no disposition for trying to jump out of her box, or call for the herd. She even had one hind foot cocked, inelegant, but comfortable.
‘Well,’ Anne said, leaning over the box door, ‘what a difference! The Prince’s potion worked!’
‘You don’t really believe all that nonsense, do you?’