Even Shibshiev seemed to have vanished from sight.
Of course, his services were no longer of any use. But overwhelmed by emotion at his meeting at the Winter Palace, Jamal Eddin had forgotten to ask that Shibshiev be dismissed. If the latter had had any suspicions regarding the purpose of Jamal’s trip to Petersburg, they were confirmed by the gold chain that glittered around his neck upon his return. In addition to the fact that no Montagnard was allowed to wear an ornament of gold next to the skin, Shibshiev had immediately guessed the significance of the medal that dangled there, hidden beneath Jamal’s collar.
The engagement dinner at Machouk, officially confirming the czar’s approval, left no doubt in his mind as to what was to come. This unspeakable disgrace inspired in him a single reaction—the desire to kill.
His choice and his duty were now clear. He must assassinate the son of his imam.
Knowing this, Jamal Eddin was constantly on his guard and extremely attentive where Lisa’s security was concerned in the weeks that followed the announcement of their marriage.
But Shibshiev did nothing.
Unpredictable to the very end, he was unusually silent. He made no threats, no speeches, no scenes. Nothing. Outraged, and probably terrified by the act that Shamil’s son was about to commit, he melted into the landscape and fled.
“Good riddance!” thought Buxhöwden, who had always strongly disapproved of Shibshiev’s presence in the regiment of lancers at Torjok.
No one would see his shadow skulking around after Jamal Eddin in the forest of Machouk anymore.
But one day, when it was nearly autumn and the sun had dipped low between the distant mountain peaks, Jamal Eddin sensed a threatening presence as he rode through the woods with Lisa. They dismounted. Lisa was leaning against the tree where he had just tied up the horses. He bent over to take her hands and kissed them one by one. She smiled, her eyes sparkling. He bowed before her, and she looked down at the nape of his neck. He stood up straight; she did not resist when he took her in his arms. He felt her go limp in his embrace as he slowly kissed her eyes and mouth. Her blonde curls cascaded over her shoulders, and for a moment he held her head, with its golden hair and pale face, in the crook of his arm. She raised her lips to his, and Jamal Eddin was carried away, consumed, burning within.
Suddenly he started, and his eyes flew open.
She raised her head.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
He drew his weapon and bounded forward. There was no trace of Shibshiev in the surrounding thicket.
He hurried back to her with long strides. He looked about sharply, his kinjal still poised, on his guard and ready to protect her. Something inscrutable about his intensity stirred her deeply. His eyes were narrowed, his black hair pushed back off his forehead, and he moved like a slender and nimble animal in the wild. She was dazzled, not by any danger at hand, but by his beauty and by the miracle of being loved by this man. She chose to make light of this rush of emotion and laughed.
“Did you see Satan?” she teased him.
“I saw nothing.”
“And for good reason. He’s not crazy, this devil, he knows he’s lost all his power. He must have left Torjok by now.”
Jamal Eddin was still worried.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go home.”
The warning in the forest was the last.
Jamal Eddin was experiencing a period of joy too perfect, a degree of happiness too intense to allow any anxiety to enter his mind. He had overcome wrenching indecision; his contradictory feelings were a thing of the past.
He forgot about Shibshiev.
The two ceremonies would take place when the czar was available. His schedule was heavy and complicated, and he was not especially in the mood for festivities. Jamal Eddin sensed this and searched for a way to speed up the plans for his wedding day.
His usual reserve, the calm he expressed when he was away from Lisa, gave way to agonizing impatience. When he leaned down to take this slight young woman in his arms, when he carried her to a green clearing in the shade of the trees and laid her on the moss, when she pulled him close, their bodies enlaced, he could no longer contain his passion, and their pleasure became a torment. They had dreamed so long of the moment when they could love each other that desire was turning into torture.
“This is becoming unbearable,” he murmured, his face pale as he untangled himself from her embrace.
She said nothing but understood completely. If her parents’ trust in Jamal Eddin was such that they had promised her to him, he could not take her from them before they were married. He would have to wait. Like them, he must have faith in life, in this promise of happiness, in the czar, and in God.
She sensed the violence of the restraint he imposed upon himself in order to respect his word, implicitly given to the Olenins, and how he suffered in refusing what Lisa held out to him. She loved him all the more for his scruples, his force of will, even his sense of honor.
“Hold me,” she murmured, “hold me back.”
He clasped her tightly against him.
At the double declaration of war—against Turkey in October, and France and England in March—La Potemkina was obliged to postpone the date for the festivities. With the signature of a defensive alliance between Prussia and Austria and the consequent conscription of the Army of the West, to which Jamal Eddin belonged, she put it off a second time.
The czar was convinced that the main attack would come through the Balkans and Poland rather than the Crimea, so he sent his elite troops to protect the Western frontier against a Hapsburg invasion. The Uhlans’ departure for Warsaw and, from there, for Lublin became imminent.
In the little wood at Machouk, all the couples who had been floating on air descended abruptly back to earth. Buxhöwden and Marina, Milyutin and Tatiana whispered a thousand vows and embraced a thousand times. There were no farewells and no tears, just a very tender and serene au revoir. Yes, tomorrow the Torjok lancers would leave for war. But they would be back the day after. The Ottoman fleet had already been sent to the bottom of the Black Sea. The army in the Caucasus—the troops normally engaged in fighting Shamil—would soon crush the forces of Mustafa Sherif Pasha. On every front, victory over the Turks seemed assured, so much so that the Persians sought to protect themselves from the Russians by signing a treaty of neutrality. As for the French and the English, the czar’s troops had already planned a heavily armed reception for them if they attempted to land in Crimea. That left the Austrians, but the Uhlans could take care of them.
Like the Hungarian conflict five years ago, this war would be as short as it would be glorious.
Jamal Eddin and Lisa walked arm in arm beneath the tall trees. They felt so inextricably tied that it seemed that the blood of each beat in the other’s veins.
“I want to take you away with me now, this very instant.”
He stopped and took the young woman’s face in his hands. She did not move. His voice trembled with passion.
“Next time.”
The little diamond teardrops hanging from Lisa’s ears sparkled between his fingers.
“The next time I hold you this way, it will be for the rest of our lives.”
Jamal Eddin had no sense of flashback when he departed for the Polish border. On the contrary, everything had changed; the world looked entirely different to him. He was leaving as a Russian officer, engaged to a Russian girl. For the first time, he knew the future belonged to him. He felt at peace with himself as he never had. He was twenty-three years old, he was happy, and he was in love.