The Golden Sabre. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ sabres hung in scabbards from their saddles and all of them had rifles. The horses, crowding in around her, looked as wild as the men. ‘To what do we owe this honour?’

      The sergeant peered and leered at her, split between appreciating this rich plum of a girl and wondering what she was doing here. A Turkic-speaking gentleman, he also only vaguely understood what she had said to him in Russian. He straightened up and nodded to one of his younger soldiers.

      ‘Question her.’

      The young soldier pressed his horse forward, likewise leered down at Eden. She felt she was being visually molested as the horsemen crowded round her; Nikolai had warned her what might happen if these Tartars took it into their heads to come out from Verkburg and pillage the estate. Now here they were and if they found the man they were looking for, God help him. And, what was worse, God help her and the children.

      ‘I am in charge here—’ said Frederick.

      Eden hit him with her handbag and the soldiers laughed and cheered. Frederick drew himself up and almost got another whack with the handbag. ‘Shut up, Freddie. What can we do for you, corporal?’

      ‘We are looking for an American in a motor car—’

      ‘That must have been he who passed us and covered us in dust,’ said Olga.

      ‘Children should be seen and not heard,’ said Eden, trembling inside, seeing two of the soldiers now leering at Olga. ‘Of course it was he, who else could it have been?’ She looked up at the young corporal. ‘He was travelling north at a great speed, out there on the Ekaterinburg road. He went by us in a cloud of dust and disappeared up the road.’

      The corporal conveyed this information to the sergeant, who peered and leered again at Eden. She and the children were still tightly encircled by the horsemen. She felt more threatened now than ever before in her life; somehow she felt more endangered now than in the Revolution riots two years ago in St Petersburg; even the flight from that city had not had any close moments of danger. These Tartars, savages on horseback, could do what they wanted with her and the children and there would be no one to stop them. The estate workers were too far away, the house servants were probably already cowering in the cellars; Nikolai, she knew, was a reliable coward and the American, who had brought these men here, was an unknown quantity. She felt suddenly overcome by fear and the heat and was ready to collapse. She would be unconscious when she was raped for the first time, which was probably the best way to be.

      The sergeant straightened up, snapped something to his men in his own tongue and all six of them suddenly whirled their horses about and went galloping off down the avenue, disappearing like evaporating ghosts into the shadows of the poplars. Eden, halfway to fainting, came back to full consciousness.

      ‘Just as well they decided to go,’ said Frederick. ‘I’d have shot them with Father’s gun.’

      ‘Just what we need,’ Eden said to Olga. ‘A stupid twelve-year-old hero. We’d have all been dead before you could have loaded the gun.’

      ‘It’s already loaded,’ said Frederick. ‘I’ve had it loaded for weeks, just in case.’

      ‘I had mine ready, also just in case.’ Cabell came out of the barn carrying a Winchester rifle. ‘Those bastards looked—’

      ‘Mr Cabell, could you please moderate your language?’

      Cabell took off his hat and inclined his head. ‘Sorry. I’ve been talking to myself for so long, I keep forgetting … Thanks, Miss Eden. You could have given me up to those guys, you know. I wouldn’t have blamed you.’

      ‘Never!’ Frederick was a one-boy defender against the invaders. ‘Those men are barbarians!’

      ‘Do be quiet, Freddie,’ said Eden. ‘Mr Cabell, where were you intending to go?’

      ‘I was heading for Ekaterinburg. But I’m not going to make it now – when I blew my tyres I bugg – messed up the wheels. I’ll have to go on foot, unless I can buy a horse from you.’

      ‘We shall sell you a horse,’ said Frederick. ‘We have dozens – Ouch!’

      Eden hit him with her handbag, but did not give him a glance.

      ‘Mr Cabell, if you go by horse you will have to travel at night. They will be watching for you all the way to Ekaterinburg. As soon as those men get back to Verkburg they will send a message through on the telegraph to all the villages and towns between here and Ekaterinburg. These White armies do fight amongst themselves, but they also co-operate with each other sometimes. We’ll give you a horse and you can leave after dark.’

      ‘Miss Eden, you are a peach. And very resourceful, if I may say so.’

      Eden blushed under the compliment and Olga said, ‘I love to hear a man compliment a woman. It is the way things should be.’

      Cabell raised an eyebrow, then bowed. ‘At your service, Miss—’

      ‘Princess,’ said Olga. ‘Princess Olga Natasha Aglaida Gorshkov.’

      ‘I am Prince Frederick Mikhail Alexander Gorshkov,’ said Frederick, not to be out-ranked.

      ‘And I am plain Miss Eden Penfold.’

      ‘Not plain,’ said Cabell, smiling. ‘And I’m delighted to meet a fellow proletarian. As for you two aristocrats, buzz off while I talk to Miss Penfold.’

      ‘We stay,’ said the two aristocrats. ‘This is our house—’

      Eden raised her handbag again, but Frederick and Olga moved back out of range. Cabell looked at the two children, then shrugged. ‘Okay. Are there any servants here besides that guy Nikolai?’

      ‘There are four in the house, but they can be trusted,’ said Eden. ‘It is the workers out in the fields I’m not sure about.’

      ‘One of them is a Bolshevik,’ said Frederick. ‘That fellow Vlasov. He spits in the dust every time I pass him.’

      ‘So should I if I were not a lady. That doesn’t make me a Bolshevik. But Freddie is right – there are some out there who are not to be trusted. Nikolai has told me of some of the talk that has been going on lately.’

      Nikolai had come across from the stables and stood just behind the two children. He did not understand the conversation in English, but he looked as worried as the others. He kept glancing down the avenue, waiting for the Tartars to come thundering back and kill them all.

      ‘The car under that cover in the barn,’ said Cabell. ‘Does it go?’

      ‘It hasn’t been driven since Prince Gorshkov went off to the war last December,’ said Eden.

      ‘What sort is it?’

      ‘A Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost,’ said Frederick. ‘There are only nine Rolls-Royces in the whole of Russia and the Tsar had two of those. But Father’s is the fastest of them all.’

      ‘A Rolls-Royce, eh? Then that means I couldn’t borrow it or buy it?’

      ‘Exactly,’ said Eden firmly. ‘You will take the horse and leave tonight.’

      Cabell СКАЧАТЬ