The pale September sun was far from its zenith when the muezzin appeared on the balcony. But invoking the name of the Lord brought neither relief nor serenity this time. No one in Ghimri listened, except for the council.
The women ran all over the place, yelling as they gathered their possessions, rounded up their children, and grabbed their chickens. Experience had taught them that they had no choice but to flee. To escape with their meager possessions by the peaks and the steep slopes that led down to the river and hide deep in the forest, where they would listen and wait. The giaours were afraid of being ambushed in the woods, and perhaps this would discourage any chase. Maybe this time they would decline to die from the single shot of an invisible assassin, especially when the prize was so unappealing—a few chickens and women who were so worn out by successive pregnancies, back-breaking fieldwork, and daily chores that, at twenty-five, they looked twice their age.
The same turmoil reigned in Shamil’s seraglio. Bahou-Messadou’s daughter, the heftily built Patimat, rushed back and forth, stringing on her bracelets and necklaces, hiding the rest of her jewelry and the silver plate beneath the loose floorboards, at the bottom of a hole where they had been safe two years ago when she had fled to the forest.
That was all she had salvaged from the first attack. Her husband and son had both been killed.
The five Polish deserters who guarded the treasure at Bahou’s home loaded the khans’ chests on mules from the stables. Like the women, they knew what the advent of the Russians meant. They knew what followed submission to the czar and the annexation of a country to the empire, for less than four years ago, they had seen how the Russian army had reestablished order in Warsaw. They knew all too well how Nicholas I smothered revolts and treated the vanquished.
All former officers, they had been humiliated, stripped of their ranks, and deported to the Caucasus, where the peasant-soldiers starved them and forced them to take on the most degrading tasks, treating them worse than serfs. Thus they paid for their taste for liberty in the service of the conquerors, dying courageously for a cause they viscerally rejected, the triumph of the Russian Empire. Until the day when, with nothing to lose, they had gone over to the enemy.
The Dagestani imams could count on their hatred. Every one of these men would consider it a joy and an honor to massacre those who had tortured them. Knowing as they did the fate that awaited them if captured, they never allowed themselves to be taken alive.
Shamil’s assignment of the Polish soldiers to his mother’s house had been a carefully calculated move.
“Where is Bahou-Messadou?”
Fatima, ready to leave, ran up the terraces of Ghimri toward the assembly room, the youngest of her two sons strapped to her back.
“Have you seen Bahou?” she asked the panicked women anxiously, one after another. “Is Jamal Eddin with her?”
At the muezzin’s call to prayer, the council members rose to perform their ablutions and pray. God would tell them how to behave toward the invaders. They left together and headed toward the mosque.
It was then that Bahou-Messadou committed her second mistake of the day. She left with them.
She had scarcely crossed the threshold when Ullou Bek turned to Urus-Datu, the head of the council.
“Now’s the moment. Take her,” he said. It was a suggestion more than an order.
Bahou was astounded.
“No servant of Mohammed would show such a lack of respect toward someone who is old and poor.”
“You’re not as old and poor as you pretend to be, Bahou-Messadou.”
“And you’re not a true Muslim, Ullou Bek. The infidels pay you, and you serve them like the dog you are,” she snapped back.
“Yes, they pay me. And they’ll pay all of you, if you take a step toward them. The first to do so will receive the best treatment and the finest gifts. Those who linger will receive less. Go welcome them at the gates of the village, go with your women and children, go to them freely. They’ll ask nothing of you, except that you live in peace with the Great White Czar. What do you have to lose?”
Bahou-Messadou straightened up to her full height and threatened the men of Ghimri. She knew why they hesitated.
“The vengeance of Shamil! Remember what he did to the khans of Avaria and the people of Untsukul, and all those who surrendered to the Russians.”
“The Russians will defend you. If you are protected by the power of the Russian cannons, Shamil cannot harm you.”
“Will they defend you the way they defended Kunzakh and protected the khans there?” Bahou answered, with more than a little irony.
“As they are avenging the khans of Avaria at this very moment, taking back the lands that belong to them. As they burned the villages of Arakhanee, Irganai, and Akulgo as a reprisal for Shamil’s actions at Kunzakh. As they will burn Ghimri and kill you all.”
“Don’t listen to Ullou Bek. The Russians have sent him here to lull you with his words. They’ll kill you anyway. Since there aren’t enough of you to defend the village, you should burn it yourselves, run with what remains of the harvest, and join Shamil. Then the giaours will find nothing to eat, drink, or steal here.”
Old Urus-Datu was still skeptical.
“What about the treasure?”
“The Poles will take it into the forest with us.”
Ullou Bek shook his head back and forth in disapproval with a low whistle.
“In the forest,” he said with scorn. “The Russians will follow you, and believe me, they’ll catch you. But if you offer them something amounting to a bargaining chip”—he gestured offhandedly toward Bahou-Messadou—“something they’re interested in, then they’ll offer you something in compensation. If not…”
He raised a hand toward the ruins of the mosque and the charred watchtowers.
Bahou-Messadou spit on the ground at his feet.
“If you’re afraid, Ullou Bek, give your saber to the women and hide beneath our veils.”
In a lightning gesture, the head of the council blocked the khan’s kinjal in midair in its trajectory to behead her.
“Take her away,” he ordered. “Throw her in the pit with the other hostages.”
The pit, which the giaours called “Shamil’s well,” was just outside the village. It consisted of a hole that had been dug vertically into the rock face, with an entry hatch. It had been the titanic work of Russian prisoners, whom Shamil considered his slaves. He forced the hardest of tasks upon them, with the ultimate purpose of exchanging the wealthier ones, the officers, for exorbitant ransom.
These captured men from raids on the Russian forts and the villages that had surrendered to the infidels, hostage taking, horse thieving, and the theft of arms and livestock—all this made up the treasure of Shamil’s war chest.
Shamil despised luxury and ostentation and was not interested in acquiring wealth for himself. His life was based upon piety, discipline, and austerity. Though he was keen to acquire, personal interest was not an element of his greed. Unlike most of his fellow citizens, he had never intended that the treasure of Kunzakh serve his personal needs or desires. The booty was a tool, nothing more, a means to resist. He counted on using it to buy the favor of the tribal chiefs and to pay his spies, the Armenian merchants, and the Polish soldiers he recruited in the forts. He planned to use it to acquire the rifles that the English adventurers, determined to impede the czar’s march toward India, had offered to the Chechens and the Cherkesses—for a price. He wanted to bargain for horses in Kabarda, a city famous for its swift and hardy stallions, so that he could establish a network of intertribal messengers. And he wanted to have a medal struck to honor the heroism of his murids and compensate them for their feats of courage. He wanted to take care of the families of the wounded and the dead. And much more. From the least significant decisions he made to the most brutal cruelties he committed, all were motivated and justified by his dream of a strong and free Muslim state.