When it came to dressing, Anne refused assistance with a firm gesture which produced only a resigned shrug, though the old woman insisted on handing her each garment, running her fingers appreciatively over the fabric and making what were evidently admiring comments. The clothes smelled of smoke and food, and it was disagreeable putting them on for the third day running. The realisation that it was the third day dispelled the last of the night’s confusion and restored a sobered sense of reality: so much time had been wasted already in the search for Natasha. Anne brushed her hair quickly and twisted it up behind as neatly as possible, and then turned to the old woman.
‘I must go to my friends at once. Will you take me to them?’ she said clearly. The old woman grinned again and nodded, evidently not understanding. Anne pointed to the door, to the old woman, and to herself, and this seemed to work. The old woman beckoned with a bony finger, and led the way out of the room, chattering all the time, but in an undertone, as if to herself. Anne followed her through a labyrinth of stone corridors, until she stopped at a doorway and stepped aside, gesturing Anne to go through. Anne did so, and found herself in the banqueting hall of the previous night. It was quite empty; and when she turned to ask the old woman where her friends were, she found she had gone.
There followed a long and anxious wait. She expected someone to come from moment to moment, and moment by moment her anxieties grew. Did anyone know she was here? She imagined the others assembled in some other place, waiting for her as she was waiting for them, the precious hours ticking away uselessly. She possessed no watch, and in this shadowy place with the small, high windows, there was no way to judge the time of day. The thickness of the walls prevented any sound from penetrating: it was so quiet, she might have been alone in the world.
She had time to worry about everything: her safety, that of the others – was she a prisoner? would they be allowed to leave? The horses – would Quassy be returned to her? About Natasha, in self-defence, she would not think. Hope would be too painful until there were cause; despair too easy, too debilitating. The headache she had woken with had not gone away, and she was very thirsty too: the cup of coffee the old woman had given her had gone nowhere towards slaking the throbbing desert inside her.
And then at last, after she had despaired several times of ever being rescued, there was a sound of footsteps, and voices which quickly resolved themselves into familiarity. The men, led by Sergei, came into the room by the far door, and she turned to greet them with enormous relief.
Sergei ran to her and took her hands.
‘Anna! Are you all right? I was so afraid we wouldn’t see you again! We’ve been waiting for ages in a sort of ante-room, and no one came, and we didn’t know where they’d taken you.’
The others crowded round, and there was a moment of confused explanation and useless questioning. In the midst of it, Anne felt a chill sensation which made the hair rise on the back of her neck, and turning abruptly, she saw that the Prince had come in by the door at the back of the dais, and was standing watching them with a smile of dark amusement. Following the direction of her eyes, the others fell silent. The Prince advanced a few steps, and his eyes gathered their attention.
‘Good morning, my guests. I trust you slept well,’ he said neutrally.
Feodor spoke for them. ‘Sir, we are grateful for your hospitality, but the day is already far advanced, and we have been waiting since sunrise for the news you promised us.’
The Prince’s brows drew together a little. ‘You are impatient,’ he said.
Sergei growled, but Feodor restrained him with a glance, and managed to say calmly, ‘Understandably so, I hope, sir. It is a matter of the gravest importance to us. Have you news for us? We should be grateful to hear it without delay.’
The Prince was silent a moment, almost as if he were debating whether to answer or not. Anne watched him with doubt and apprehension. In the gathering strangeness of last evening, she had become used enough to him to accept him almost as normal; now in the light of a new day, he seemed more darkly alien than ever – incalculable and unapproachable.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I have news for you.’
Feodor looked at him with mingled hope and apprehension. ‘You know where she is?’
‘I know where she is,’ the Prince said indifferently. ‘At least,’ he corrected himself, ‘I know where she was two days ago. It is a place called Kourayashour, about forty versts from here to the south-east, high in the mountains.’
Anne thought briefly of Irma’s ‘vision’ – a high place, she had said, and cold. The Prince went on.
‘My people made enquiries, as I promised, and one of them found a tribesman who had heard of the child being in that place. He knows it well – he trades with the people of that region. He agrees to take you there. He waits outside.’
The inflection of his voice plainly indicated that he had finished, that this was all the information he wished, or was able, to give them; but the Kiriakovs looked at each other a little helplessly, unable to absorb the implications so rapidly.
‘But has he seen her? Is she safe? What sort of a place is it?’ Feodor asked.
‘It is a village of the Chechen people,’ the Prince answered a little impatiently, as if that question alone were worth answering.
‘But how did she get there? Have they captured her? Is she their prisoner?’ Feodor persisted.
The Prince made a small, brushing-away gesture with his hand. ‘I have kept my part of the bargain, and more,’ he said. ‘I promised you information – I provide you also with a guide. I can tell you nothing more.’
‘But–’
‘Consider this – that nothing moves in my village or in the mountains around it without my permission. If she is in Kourayashour, it must be by the will of the chief man of those people. Now go – you waste time.’ He began to turn away, clearly indicating that he had finished with them.
Feodor bowed. ‘We are truly grateful for what you have done, Akim Shan Kalmuck. The Kiriakovs of Chastnaya are in your debt. We will go now with all speed. I hope to God the child is still alive.’
The Prince paused at those words, his teeth bared in what was not quite a smile. ‘I think you do not perfectly understand. The people of Kourayashour are Chechen. I myself am a Christian, and a most civilised man, as you have seen. But the Chechen belong to the Prophet, whose name be honoured! Such people have no respect for women. The women of their own faith they regard merely as – useful. But other women, women not of the Faith–’ He shrugged, and it was an unlovely thing to see. His eye was quite expressionless, and Anne felt a cold chill settle in her stomach. ‘You hope that she is alive,’ he concluded, ‘but if the Chechen have her, you had far better hope that she died quickly.’
A servant led them through the passages and out into the hot sunshine of the courtyard before the house, where their men and the horses and the guide all awaited them. The guide said that his name was Kizka. He was a short, broad-faced, yellow-skinned man with straight black hair and a drooping black moustache, and he sat astride a strong, thick-coated, mouse-grey mountain pony with the patience of a rock. Feodor and Sergei engaged him in a brief conversation, and then gathered round the others to discuss their plans.