Kirov was on his feet, walking up and down as his mind began to work again for the first time in weeks. ‘Moving south, is he? But if he has all that train along, he can’t be meaning to mount a military campaign. He must be retreating – heading back for the border.’
‘Then why is he going towards Kaluga?’ Anne asked.
‘In the hope of capturing our supply depots, and taking a more southerly route to Smolensk, I suppose. He wouldn’t want to march back the way he came, along the High Road – it’s picked clean. There’s nothing there but trampled fields and burnt villages.’
‘Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘There’s more danger than that on the High Road, Colonel,’ Adonis commented neutrally. ‘A lot of the peasants who cleared out when the French came through have drifted back now. Their field crops have been trampled and their villages destroyed, and they’re out for vengeance. There are bands of armed peasants in the outlying villages, and living rough in the woods, just waiting for a chance to show the French what they think of them.’
‘But why did Napoleon make that elaborate feint along the Old Road? I suppose he must be hoping to slip past our army on the New Road without a battle. What are our generals doing, Adonis?’
‘Wasting time, as usual, Colonel,’ he said with a grimace. ‘The Prince-General got the news yesterday, but he said he couldn’t move off until the horses that were out on foraging parties had come back into camp. They’re going to march off tomorrow, to try to catch the French at the road junction at Maloyaroslavets.’ He grunted. ‘Thank God for this rain, and Napoleon’s cleverness! If he’d gone directly by the High Road, he’d have passed our army before the Prince-General woke up, and be in Kaluga by now!’
The mention of rain made Anne aware of the state of the hearth rug. ‘You’d better go and get dried off,’ she advised, ‘before you come down with an influenza too.’
Adonis looked offended. ‘I’ve never been ill in my life,’ he said. ‘That’s for women and weaklings.’
Anne laughed as he stalked off, but when he was gone, she turned to Nikolai, her smile fading like June snow. ‘What happens now?’ she said quietly. ‘It is the end of this place for us, isn’t it?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think so. It’s time to move on.’
‘Are you going back to them?’
‘I don’t know. It depends a great deal on what happens next, how Kutuzov means to handle it. In his position I think I would simply let the French go, confine them if possible to the worst road, harry them and delay them where possible, and let the winter take care of them. But there’s bound to be pressure on him to attack and finish them off.’
‘They shouldn’t be allowed to escape,’ Anne said. ‘Especially Bonaparte. If he gets away, the war will go on, maybe for another twenty years.’
‘No, my love. This campaign will finish him. He will have lost his reputation as well as his army. Didn’t I tell you he had overreached himself when he invaded Russia? His star is waning – all things have their season.’
Anne was almost in tears. ‘No, you don’t understand! He’s a monster! He’s a black magician! If he gets away he will somehow – somehow – make it all right with his people. He’ll find another army, and it will all begin again. He must be destroyed.’
‘He will be. Don’t be afraid, Anna! It’s all over for Napoleon, I promise you!’
She looked unconvinced, but said, ‘What about us? What shall we do now?’
He thought for a moment, and then said, ‘I think we had better collect Rose and take her to Tula – that’s the first thing. 1 should like to see Lolya again, too. Then we can decide what to do.’
She searched his face for information. Would he be able to leave the campaign alone, having come with it so far? Wouldn’t he want to be in at the kill, if kill there was to be? He said ‘we can decide’ – but he meant ‘I shall decide’.
‘We’ll be farther from the army at Tula,’ she said quietly.
‘There are regular military couriers coming to Tula every day. We’ll get the news there as quickly – and more accurately – than we get it here,’ he said.
She had her answer.
They arrived in Serpukhov early in the afternoon of the next day, to learn that a piecemeal battle was being fought at Maloyaroslavets. Kirov was evidently disturbed by the news, and even more so by his inability to find out any reliable details of the action. It seemed that a French advance guard had reached the town the night before, and the Russian advance guard, arriving this morning, had driven them out, but failed to finish them off. Since then other divisions had been arriving singly through the day, and each side had pitched some, but not all, of them into the battle.
Prompted by Anne, he managed to return his mind to the task in hand, and asked a passer-by for the direction of the Belinski house. They found it without difficulty – a small but modern and well-built house on the outskirts of the town, with a very young pleasure-garden to one side of it, and the factory to the other.
Adonis was prepared to jump down and knock on the door, but Anne forstalled him, thinking the sight of him might well frighten any provincial servant into fits. She went herself, and was glad that she had, for a round-eyed maid of no more than fourteen opened the door to her, and stared up in awe and consternation at Anne’s hat.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said kindly. ‘I am Madame Tchaikovskova, and I believe you have my daughter staying here with you.’ The maid’s mouth hung a little open, but she didn’t seem to be able to think of an answer. ‘Is your mistress at home?’ Anne pursued.
‘Tanya? Who is it?’ A voice emerged from the depths of the house, closely followed by the very ornately dressed figure of a middle-aged woman, with high-piled curls of a shade of gold nature surely had never intended. ‘Ask the name, you stupid girl! How many times have I told you–’ She stopped dead at the sight of Anne. ‘And who might you be?’ she asked, with a suspicion Anne could not wholly blame, in view of the presence only forty miles away of the Emperor Napoleon’s Grande Armde.
‘Madame Belinski? I am the Countess Tchaikovskova, Rose’s mother. I believe she is staying here with you?’
A remarkable series of expressions passed across the marshmallow-pink face, which seemed to leave its owner as incapable of speech as the maid. Kirov had now descended from the carriage and came up behind Anne, and she heard his voice from behind her, gently prompting.
‘I’m afraid we’re letting the cold air into your house, madame. May we come in?’
‘Oh – oh, why, yes – do! My manners! I’m so sorry. You must excuse – we weren’t expecting you, you see, and dear Zho-Zho didn’t say–’ Her hands fluttered about her like panicking birds, alighting now on her hair, now her bosom, now brushing down her skirts. ‘I’m not dressed for receiving visitors, as you see. You really must excuse me, dear Madame – and Monsieur Tchaikovsky – oh, do come through into the drawing-room!’
‘Please, you mustn’t disturb yourself,’ Anne said, following the retreating figure. ‘I am sorry to have come upon you unannounced like this, but as things are at the moment–’
‘Oh, time of war – of course, of course! And the things you must have witnessed, madame, are not to be told! Moscow burning! Such a terrible thing! Those French are monsters, monsters, and so I’ve always said! And Belinski was beside himself when he heard – well, I shouldn’t have liked to be a Frenchman coming into the room just then! To set fire to our holy city, and after all we’ve done for them! Well, I said to Belinski, I said it would serve them right if we all stopped speaking French after this, just to show them! Only of course one can’t speak Russian in the drawing-room, it sounds so odd, and I never learned English…’