Wise though, I thought.
'That's no basis for trust,' he continued, 'especially given your – everyone's – natural fear of them. But I always knew, right from the very start.'
'What happened?' I asked. 'Right at the start?'
'It's a long story, Aleksei, from a long time ago.'
'What happened?' At first I had asked idly, but now I was insistent. Whatever he had to tell me could be of incalculable help in fighting the Oprichniki, and might even help me to understand how Dmitry could be so accepting of them.
Dmitry looked at me and understood that I wasn't going to let him run away from this one. He took a deep breath.
CHAPTER XVII
'IT WAS BACK IN '09,' HE SAID, 'WHEN IT SEEMED LIKE THE TURKS were our only problem – and what a problem! You must have been down in the south-east then, across the Danube, but in the west, we were having real trouble. The Turks were way further north and I was trying to organize Wallachian peasants to do some of the fighting for us – to save their own country.'
Dmitry walked over to stare out of the window, the cold sunlight causing the burnt skin of his cheek to glisten.
'But it was useless,' he continued. 'They had no more wits than the serfs, and they were a darned sight slower to take an order. Still, I suppose they'd learned over the years that driving out the Turks just made it easier for us to move in – us or whoever happened to be fighting the Turks at the time. Anyway, things had gone badly and we'd been pushed right back up into the Carpathians. There was me and about fifteen locals – only one of them spoke any French – cut down from a force of over a hundred.
'It was late winter – you couldn't call it spring yet – and though the winters are nothing like as cold down there as they are here, we were high up in the mountains, so we felt it. Darkness fell, and we could see the torches of the Turks on the foothills below us, climbing up after us. There must have been ten of them for each one of us and, although it was going to take them a good couple of hours to reach us, reach us they would. And you know what they're like with prisoners.'
He turned slightly and nodded towards my hand and its missing fingers. I said nothing.
'I was all for carrying on up the mountain. At least then there might be some hope that they'd give up pursuing us, especially with the cold, but the others had lost it. They just sat around the fire muttering to each other and wouldn't move. The one I could understand said they were waiting for the 'saviour'. I said we'd all be seeing Him soon enough, but it turns out they were talking about some local mythic hero – though it might as well have been Christ, judging by the way they crossed themselves whenever this 'saviour' was mentioned.
'It was some local warlord from the Middle Ages; a ruthless type, but pretty handy at dealing with invading Turks. A genuine figure, if they were to be believed, which was all very well, but not much use to us four hundred years later. The idea was, of course, that he would 'rise again', much like Christ, when the country was in its direst need. Nothing very original; you'd get the same basic plot from peasants anywhere in Europe.'
He paused briefly and I could see his shoulders stiffen.
'But there was a slight difference. This redeemer lived and died not five versts from where we were camped. His castle was still there – in ruins, of course. Two of the Wallachians wanted to go up there – to beg for help – but the rest were scared, the one who'd been translating for me included. I went along with the two of them, not that I thought we were going to be saved by a four-hundred-year-old ghost, you understand, but I hoped these ruins might turn out to be defensible.
'The three of us clambered over steep, rough ground for ten minutes until we unexpectedly – for me, though not for the other two – came to a road. There was a bright moon to guide us and so, what with the road, we moved much more swiftly. I began to think that if the castle did turn out to be something we could use, then we might really have some chance of holding out until the Turks got bored. But as I cheered up, the two Wallachians' mood darkened. They muttered to each other and began to walk more slowly until eventually they stopped, and seemed to be discussing whether to go on at all.
'I thought, to hell with them, and just carried on down the road. It did the trick because before long, they'd caught up with me again. It was odd, though, the way they'd hang back a little way behind me, but always stay close. I couldn't tell whether they were looking to me for protection, or just making sure that I was delivered up to whoever we might find at our destination.'
Again Dmitry paused, lost in thought as he stared out into the distance.
'It was the reaction of the two of them that first told me we'd arrived. I didn't even see it, but suddenly one of them pointed and they both froze, looking. It must have been in plain view for ten minutes already but it wasn't until I looked that I saw. It was built into the mountainside – almost growing out of it – and it suddenly became clear to me that it was not a line of rocks that overhung the road we'd been walking down, but the walls of a vast, ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.
'We went up to the gateway of a courtyard. The whole place was utterly dilapidated, but it must have been unassailable in its time. I could certainly believe it dated back to the Middle Ages. Even so, it wasn't completely decrepit; across the courtyard I could see, set in a projecting doorway of massive stone, a great wooden door had survived – old, and studded with large iron nails.
'My two companions were muttering amongst themselves. As they finished, one of them made visible efforts to compose himself and then he marched hesitantly into the courtyard. The other raised a hand to tell me to remain where I was, though I needed no prompting. Inside the courtyard, the first one was staring up at a high window, his eyes fixed on an occupant that I could not see, and that I doubted he could either.
'He threw himself to his knees in front of the door and raised up his hands and shouted out what I took to be his plea for help, always staring up at that window. He continued to cry out, now beating at his breast, now tearing his hair until finally he flung himself forward and I could hear his bare hands beating against that heavy wooden door. At length the sound stopped and we waited. The Wallachian inside the courtyard just lay still, slumped against the door. The one with me glanced nervously around, his eyes coming to rest on each of the windows above us in turn, looking for someone who would answer his countryman's plea. But answer came there none.
'After perhaps ten minutes, the one inside the courtyard pulled himself to his feet and came back towards us, shaking his head dolefully as he looked at his friend. With no words passed between them, they turned and headed back down the road from which we had come. My plan had been that we might make some use of the castle, and though it had the makings of a strong position, I was in no mood to remain there alone. I briskly caught up with them.
'Our return was much quicker than had been the journey up to the castle. I might have become lost, but the others had no problem finding the camp. Those who had remained had sunk into a fatalistic silence, and it took no words from us to convey the failure of our mission. Ridiculous as it had seemed to me both before we set out and after we returned, there had been a moment when I had been half expecting to see their saviour emerge from the castle and come to our aid.
'The Turks were much closer now, and soon, as well as being able to see their torches, we could hear their shouts from one to the other as they spread out to surround us. We knew the time was close. I rose to my feet, and the others did likewise. I was armed with a musket, a pistol and a sword. Some of the others had swords, some merely knives. Through the trees I could now begin to make out the shapes of men, each in a pool of light cast by his own flame. And then we heard the sound.