The Great White Czar was not wearing the traditional Russian uniform, with its epaulets, gold-tipped silk cords, military decorations, and golden crucifix. Instead, a gleaming ghizir covered his breast, the row of cartridge belts festooned with silver. He wore the tightly cinched cherkeska of the Caucasian Montagnards, with his pants tucked into his boots and a pair of splendid crossed kinjals slipped into his belt, as was customary. The severe expression of his heavy-lidded steel-gray eyes was impenetrable. The high forehead, the beauty, the nobility, and authority of this face—in fact, everything about this individual—was the incarnation of Jamal Eddin’s idea of a commander. His unusual height—gigantic in comparison to most of the other men at court—made him immediately stand out. A colossus. His gait, the way he held his head, his adamantly imposing presence—the child recognized it all.
Milyutin observed the child’s reaction and immediately understood. The illusion was almost complete. The idea had never occurred to him, the comparison had never entered his head, but today, standing next to this child dressed in what appeared to be a costume matching the emperor’s, the likeness struck him for the first time. Because of his age, his size, his complexion, and his look, the czar could not help but evoke the image of his father, the imam Shamil. The same majesty and the same austerity governed his features, the same sense of theater. And, as the crowning detail, the same escort.
Following in his steps marched not the harbingers and pages who had preceded him, but Lesghiens, Avars, and Chechens. A detachment of twenty Montagnards, all of them splendid in their red cherkeskas, rich sheepskin hats, and leather boots, armed with kinjals, sabers, and crops, served as his praetorian guard.
“The bravest warriors of the empire,” Milyutin whispered in Jamal Eddin’s ear, “the fiercest and the most loyal. The emperor places all his pride and his confidence in these men. They alone are chosen to serve him and to protect and defend him.”
Milyutin chose to omit one crucial detail of his otherwise appealing discourse. The men, hand-picked for their handsome looks, did indeed accompany the czar wherever he traveled. However, he had failed to mention that Nicholas I was not wearing the costume of the murids, as Jamal Eddin might have thought, but rather the uniform of the Terek Cossacks, the “Christian settlers” of the Caucasus. In fact, he was dressed as the ataman of the Cossacks, the generalissimo of the troops that fought the Montagnards.
Why tell him?
Having lived so long among the Montagnards, fighting them and hating them and fearing them, the Cossacks had eventually adopted their dress, their customs, their arms, even their horses and equestrian exploits. They differed in only one respect, thought Milyutin, but it was the most important one—religion. In any case, ever since Akulgo, the Montagnards had belonged to the same people as the Cossacks. They were all Russians.
The young officer drove this last point home by concluding, “That, Jamal Eddin, that is the empire!”
Even if the boy had understood his words, the lieutenant could see that they scarcely inspired the reaction he had expected. Glancing at the child’s face, he was surprised to see what a transformation the vision of these wealthy, powerful Muslims, submissive to the infidels and serving the czar, had wrought.
In four months, Jamal Eddin had never allowed Milyutin even a glimpse of his feelings. Through silence and reserve, he had steadily expressed his disdain for the giaour. But now his features were suddenly contorted with contempt, indignation, and anger at his own people. This time, he lost control of himself.
His eyes flashed, his face flushing dark with fury as he watched these believers who had abandoned the inhabitants of Akulgo and deserted his father.
Cowards. Pacifists. Hypocrites. The words, all those words he had not said for months, crowded into his head and filled him with murderous indignation. The words swirled in his mind.
To the hypocrites, I make it known that I will obtain by brute force what they refused me in my kindness. My warriors will descend like black clouds on their auls.
His hatred was so obvious that his guardian was taken aback.
Traitors to the imam Shamil, traitors to the Almighty.
Though the child said nothing, the officer was sure the child would spit his anger and disgust out before everyone. In the Caucasus, Milyutin had seen how the defeated branded the traitors—not their flesh, but their honor—by spitting spectacular and copious jets of saliva in their faces. He wouldn’t give his prisoner the chance to do this. Grabbing him by the elbow—their first physical contact since the child had been kidnapped and wounded—he pulled the child along behind the others in the cortège.
The procession of courtiers followed the emperor, leaving the White Hall, crossed the Marshals’ Room, its walls hung with the portraits of the three hundred generals who had defeated Napoleon, and arrived in the Throne Room.
The sight of the Montagnards had so enraged Jamal Eddin that he had paid no attention to the ladies around him in their feathers and finery, nor had he noticed that the czar had offered his arm to someone as they walked on. Now he was in for a new shock.
He did not see the throne. He did not see the tree. All he saw was the empress, standing in the middle of the room as she accepted the good wishes of the court for the New Year. Incandescent beneath her tiara and diamonds, fluttering in her veils, she shone like the bird-woman of the Dagestani legend. Her face set with stones, wearing a necklace of golden fruits, she was like a fiery creature rising with beating wings out of the flames. But in contrast to the monsters of the mountain, this bird-woman did not seem evil at all. She stood in the middle of an immense carpet, more splendid than any he had ever seen, even at the mosque, a carpet of flowers that was like a garden of paradise.
Slim in her radiant gown, with a supple waist and fine wrists, she embodied all the canons of Caucasian beauty as she stood there greeting her guests. Her pale, sweet face, a bit melancholy in repose, lit up with each compliment. Behind her were two girls whose only ornaments were roses. Roses everywhere—in their hair, at belt and bodice. They were the freshest and most beautiful creatures Jamal Eddin had ever seen. Even Milyutin was visibly full of admiration. Behind the princesses were other girls, who were equally modest and well-behaved, if not as pretty.
The members of the council who had gathered in the antechambers entered one by one, followed by the members of the senate, the aides-de-camp, and the generals. All came to kiss the empress’s hand and to pay their respects to the children. At the end of this interminable chain, Lieutenant Milyutin and Jamal Eddin would take their turn. They would cross the Throne Room, advance, bow and kiss the hand of—The child shot a terrified look at his guardian, one of panic that held, beneath it, a veiled threat. Not them, not him! With a barely perceptible gesture, his stance became defensive. It was the boy’s second visibly emotional response of the day. Milyutin smothered a smile.
“Let’s say Grand Duke Mikhaïl Pavlovitch demanded his presence here to impress him or, better still, to stir his emotions,” the lieutenant said to himself. “Well, his method worked, at least better than any of my paltry efforts.”
Poor Lieutenant Milyutin, he thought, with an inner chuckle. For four long months, he had been confronted with the placid fatalism of the Orient. It was clear that he had no idea what he was doing, that he was ill-matched for the role. And now? Would he drag Jamal Eddin to the middle of the room, force him to bow with a hand on his head, oblige him to publicly kiss the glove of the idol? He knew the child well enough to know how stubborn he could be. Jamal Eddin would not stand for it, and given the fuss that would ensue, it was scarcely worth the trouble.