“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
A loose lecherous chuckle came from the one closest to her. “Enjoying the view.”
She felt her cheeks flush. Her thin muslin dress was plastered to her body where sweat and sodden foliage had streaked the material. Defensively she looped her arms in front of her but shook her hair back from her face in a gesture of defiance. The three loomed closer, and one moved behind her to cut off her retreat. Caging her. She breathed warily. She couldn’t see their faces behind their black hoods, but she could tell by the speed of their rangy limbs and the eagerness in their voices that they were young. The other two men seemed slightly older, more solidly built, and kept themselves farther away across the break in the trees, murmuring to each other in low tones. She couldn’t tell from their masks whether they watched her, but the taller of them was clearly the one in authority.
Why were they here in Tesovo? What were they planning? She had to get away, had to warn her father. But two of the young men started shouldering each other, jostling like jackals for the spoils.
“Who are you?” she asked, to shift their thoughts from herself.
“We are the true voice of Russia.”
“If that’s so, your voices should be heard in the Duma, our parliament, not by me in a forest clearing. What use is that?”
“I can think of one use,” the stockiest of the three responded. He touched her breast with the tip of his rifle.
She knocked it fiercely to one side. “You may claim the land,” she hissed, “but don’t think you can claim me.”
His two companions burst out into coarse laughter, but he yanked his belt from his waist and wound one end around his fist, swinging the buckle threateningly. “Bitch! Suka!”
Valentina’s heart slid into her throat. She could smell his anger on him, sour in the fresh morning air.
“Please.” She addressed the tall man among the trees. There was a stillness about him that frightened her even more than the unfocused energy of his men. “Please,” she said, “control them.”
The man stared back at her from within the dark folds of his hood, slowly shook his head, and walked away into the forest. For a moment she panicked and her hands clenched together to stop them shaking. Yet it seemed that he’d left instructions because the man to whom he’d been talking pointed abruptly to the one standing behind her.
“You,” he said. “Deal with her. The rest of you, follow me.”
Deal with her.
They were well trained, she’d give them that. The angry one with his belt in his fist strutted away at once with no comment, the other alongside him. Behind her the solitary figure shifted his rifle purposefully and shuffled his homemade boots in the damp earth.
“Sit,” he ordered.
She thought about it.
“Sit,” he said again, “or I will make you.”
She sat.
AN HOUR PASSED, MAYBE MORE. VALENTINA LOST TRACK OF time. Her limbs ached and her head cramped. Each time she attempted to move or to speak, her guard made a sound of disgust behind her and jammed the metal tip of his rifle into whichever part of her anatomy took his fancy: her ribs, her shoulder, an arm. Worst was the nape of her neck.
But he didn’t shoot her. She clung to that faint thread of hope.
What were the others doing? The question ricocheted around inside her skull, splitting her thoughts into a thousand answers.
They could be thieves. She hoped so fiercely that they were here to rob her father’s house that she almost convinced herself it was true. Here to steal the antique paintings, the gold statues, the Oriental carvings, her mother’s jewels. It had been tried before, so why not again? But what thieves would wait till daylight? What thieves were stupid enough to rob a house when the servants were up and about?
She pulled her knees to her chest. Sank her chin on them and in return received a prod in the spine from the rifle, but behind her heels she’d dragged a stone to within reach. She wrapped her arms around her shins and shivered in the breeze that was thinning the mist. Not that it was cold, but she was frightened. Frightened for her parents and for her sister, Katya, who would be rising from their beds about now, totally unaware of the black hoods that stalked Tesovo. Katya was only thirteen, a blond bubble of energy who would come bounding into Valentina’s room to entreat her for a swim in the creek after breakfast on their first morning at Tesovo. Mama liked to keep to her room first thing in the morning, but Papa was a stickler for punctuality at breakfast. He would be ruffling his whiskers and glaring at his pocket watch because his elder daughter was late.
Papa, be careful.
“Are you Bolsheviks?” she asked suddenly, tensing herself for the blow.
It came. On the neck. She heard something crunch.
“Are you?” she asked again. She wished she could turn and look into his hooded face.
“Shut your mouth.”
The second blow was harder, but at least he had spoken. It was the first time she’d heard his voice since he’d ordered her to sit. She wasn’t certain how far behind her he was crouched, silent as a spider, except that it was obviously less than a rifle length away. She’d been submissive so long, he must have dropped his guard by now, surely. If she was wrong… She didn’t care to think about that. She needed to lure him within reach.
“You know who my father is?”
The rifle slammed into the side of her jaw, jerking her head almost off her neck. “Of course I bloody know. You think we’re stupid peasants or something?”
“He is General Nicholai Ivanov, a trusted minister in Tsar Nicholas’s government. He could help you and your friends to-”
This time he thrust the tip of his rifle against the back of her head, forcing it forward till her forehead was jammed against her knees.
“Your kind is finished,” he hissed at her, and she could feel his breath hot on the bruised skin of her neck. “We’ll trample you bastards into the earth that you stole from us. We’re sick of being kicked and starved while you stuff your greedy faces with caviar. Your father is a fucking tyrant and he’s going to pay for-”
Her hand closed on the stone hidden under her skirt. With a violent twist she spun around and slammed it into the front of the hood. Something broke. He screamed. High-pitched, the way a fox screams. But she was too quick, gone before he could pull the trigger. Racing, ducking, dodging under branches and plunging into the darkest shadows while his cry fluttered behind her. She could hear him charging through the foliage and two shots rang out, but both whistled past harmlessly, raking the leaves and snapping off twigs as she stretched the distance between them.
She slid down a slope on her heels, desperate to find the river. It was her route out of the forest. She swerved and switched direction till she was certain she had lost her pursuer, and then she stopped and listened. At first she could hear nothing except her pulse in her ears, but gradually another sound trickled through: the faint but unmistakable ripple of water over rocks. Relief hit her and to her dismay she felt her knees buckle under her. She was stunned to find herself sitting upright on the damp earth, fretful and weak as a kitten. She forced herself shakily back onto her feet. She had to warn her father.
After that she moved at a steadier pace. It didn’t take long to locate the river and set off along the narrow track that ran along its bank. Disjointed thoughts crashed around inside her head. If these hooded men were revolutionaries, what plans did they have? Were they just hiding out in Tesovo’s forest, or had they come here for a specific purpose? Who was their target? That last one wasn’t hard. It had to be Papa.
She clamped her lips together until they were bloodless in an effort to silence the shout of rage that roared inside her, and her feet speeded up again, weaving a jerky path through the overhanging branches.