Valentina (16 page)

He bound her securely and carried her towards her horse. ‘Don't cry, lady,' he muttered. ‘It'll make him worse to you. He loves to see suffering. There's naught I can do for you now.'

‘Now,' Alexandra said. ‘What has happened to my sister?' She was sitting in the small study where she had entertained De Chavel the night before he left, and she was leaning back in her chair, her fingers pressed together, watching the man before her with half-closed eyes. She had last seen him when he brought the newspaper more than a month before; Janos and Ladislaw her two senior footmen were on either side of him, holding his arms.

He had been lurking near the house, and they had brought him in and challenged him. Ladislaw didn't think his explanation satisfactory and he had informed the Princess. So far she had extracted a confession from him that he had been living on the estate and had in fact paid a local family to lodge him, and had sent one of them off with a message the very day after her sister had left Czartatz.

‘You've been spying on us, haven't you?' Alexandra said gently.

The man shook his head; he was grey with fear. ‘No, Highness, I swear it!'

‘Yes, Highness,' she mocked him. ‘Who paid you to spy on this house? Who sent you to spy on my sister? If you don't answer, I'll have your eyes put out,' she added. ‘With that!' There was a poker in the heart of the blazing log fire; the man's eyes went to it and almost rolled up in his head with terror.

‘The Count Grunowski, Highness. I didn't want to do it, but he forced me—he threatened—'

‘I can imagine how difficult it was for you,' she sneered. ‘What did he want you to do? Answer me, or you'll suffer. And by God I'll put that iron to you myself!'

He fell on his knees, grovelling. ‘He told me to report anything I saw or heard when I came here. I told him the Countess was going to leave and go to Warsaw. He sent me back to watch and send word the moment she set out. That's what I did, Highness, I swear that's all. I was too frightened to refuse him!'

‘So you sent him word when she left here,' Alexandra said. She leant forward, her slanting eyes glittered in her face like jet.

‘Yes, Highness,' he whimpered. ‘I sent the message. I think he was going to take her by force.'

‘Exactly,' she said. She dropped her hands suddenly. ‘She is in his hands by now. Why are you still here, Judas? Didn't you want your reward?'

‘I was to spy on you,' he said. ‘You were to be seized too, if you tried to follow her. Oh God, Highness, have pity on me! I had no choice but to obey him!'

‘Enough,' Alexandra snapped. ‘Janos, take that miserable dog outside and cut his throat!'

She got up and went to pour herself some wine, impervious to the screams of the spy who was dragged out of the room. Theodore had caught Valentina; she was sure of it, and she was only too thankful that her instincts had prevented her from giving immediate chase to her sister. She too would have been taken prisoner. Now she could begin the search for her, while he waited for the report from his spy which would never be sent. She had cursed herself again and again for going hunting that day and leaving Valentina, and as often she cursed the Frenchman who was responsible for her sister's reckless action. She drank the wine in one swallow and filled up the glass again. Her sister had been gone for four days. If she was in the Count's hands then he would probably take her to Lvov, if indeed he hadn't murdered her on the road. It would depend on where he had caught up with her; if he found her at one of the inns on the way, then someone must have seen the abduction. She might gain information in that way which would indicate the route they had taken. Alexandra made up her mind. She wrenched the bell-rope, and shouted at the footman who came in answer; he was a handsome, strapping man in his late twenties and a few months ago she had intended taking him as a lover before Valentina came. Out of respect for her sister's feelings, she had postponed the plan. She didn't even remember his name at that moment.

‘Tell my maids to pack some clothes for me, and have my horse saddled. I shall need Janos and Ladislaw to come with me; tell them to dispose of that wretch's body, and make ready. I want enough food and water to last a week, and tell them to come armed. Hurry!'

Two hours later she set out, her big black horse leading the others in a powerful sustained gallop that ate up the miles. It took Alexandra only two days to reach the inn where the Count had found Valentina. It was very silent; they saw the charred skeleton of a burned-out coach and Alexandra sprang down from her horse and ran inside the open door. There was no sign of anyone; the central stove was out, and when she touched it, it was cold. In the outer kitchen they saw bloodstains which had dried on the floor, and a moment later there was a shout from Janos, who had been searching outside. He had found two shallow graves, and they were newly dug. Alexandra ordered him to open them; she didn't believe that Valentina was dead. It wouldn't be Theodore's way to kill her quickly and bury her. She had taken two men with her; Janos confirmed that their bodies were in the pits.

‘Where is the innkeeper?' she demanded. ‘Where the devil is everyone? They can't have murdered them too!'

‘It's possible, Highness,' Janos said. ‘If they wanted no witnesses.'

‘Then search till you find the bodies,' she ordered. ‘I'll look upstairs.'

In the little room she found her sister's gloves; for the first time in many years, Alexandra's eyes filled with tears; quickly she wiped them away and swore angrily at her open weakness. She ran down the stairs and shouted to Ladislaw.

‘Have you found anything? Where are you?'

‘Here, Highness. I've found the innkeeper and his wife: they were hiding in the stables.'

The old man lay on a heap of straw, his wife crouching beside him. Both were dumb with terror; the woman's hands picked at her clothes and her mouth worked in soundless weeping. Alexandra stood over them; she saw that the straw where the man lay was stained with blood and that his chest was bare under a ragged blanket. She knelt quickly beside them and they shrank back, the woman making a wild movement to cover her husband.

‘Don't be afraid,' Alexandra said. ‘We're not going to hurt you. Tell me what happened here.' She addressed herself to the woman. ‘He's hurt,' she said. ‘Who did it?'

‘Some men came,' the woman quavered. ‘They attacked me and they beat Ruben. That's all we know, lady. We've done no wrong, leave us in peace! I beg you, my poor man can't walk yet, he's so weak.…'

‘There was a woman here,' Alexandra persisted. ‘I've seen the coach. I've seen the bodies of her servants. What happened to her?'

‘I don't know, lady.' The woman shook her head; she was rocking backwards and forwards in distress. ‘They tied my head up so I saw nothing. I don't know what happened after that. When I came to myself they were gone and I found Ruben hanging from a tree—' She began to cry.

The old man raised his head and looked at Alexandra. His eyes were sunken in his head with pain, but hatred gleamed in them. Hate had given him the strength to live after his wife had cut him down. ‘They took her away,' he whispered. ‘I heard the man say something as they came out of the house. They had whipped me hard—but I heard something.'

‘What was it?' Alexandra said. ‘Think well. That woman was my sister. She's been abducted. What did this man say?' She felt tempted to take him and shake him violently.

‘He told them to mount up. I heard him say something about Warsaw. That's all I can remember.'

‘It's enough.' Alexandra got up.

‘If they come back,' the woman wailed, ‘if they know we've told you anything—what will become of us?'

‘They won't return again,' she said. ‘You've nothing to fear now. My servants will put your man to bed in the house; Janos! Take him inside, see what you can do for him. And you take this.'

She emptied her purse and poured the gold and silver into the woman's hand. ‘When I find the man who took my sister,' Alexandra said quietly, ‘I'll remember what he did to you.'

By night they had covered a good distance; they camped out, and started off again as soon as the first light came into the sky. Warsaw. All the way Alexandra had been thanking God that they had found the innkeeper alive. He hadn't taken her to Lvov; this must mean that he was acting with the authority of the Diet, or some of its members. Valentina was going to Warsaw as a prisoner of her own government. That meant there was still a chance of appealing to the French authorities before any harm could be done to her.

It would depend on what the latest news was from Russia; it couldn't be encouraging or the Polish Government would never have dared authorise the kidnapping. If France was declining, then French protection for her sister could be safely ignored by her enemies. It was one thing to claim the immunity of the French Secret Police list while that force was operating in the country and its power was backed by the might of Napoleon himself; it was another matter when the occupying armies had gone and the only reports of them were rumours of defeat and crushing casualties. The protégée of Colonel De Chavel had little hope of escaping her countrymen's revenge under these circumstances.

During that long journey, covered in dust from endless fast riding across the rough countryside, hungry and thirsty and stiff with nights spent sleeping on the ground, Alexandra planned what she must do. And the most important part of that plan was to get to whatever French authority she could find before Count Grunowski or the Diet's agents got to her.

September 18th had been a fine warm day, the Emperor Napoleon and his armies had been quartered in Russia's ancient capital city for five days, and the relief of capturing Moscow had only been tempered by finding it abandoned. Not a shot had been fired at the French after Borodino. The Russian General Kutuzov had withdrawn his sadly depleted forces from that dreadful battlefield, leaving the road to Moscow open for Napoleon, and they had entered the city itself in deathly quiet a week after the battle of Borodino had begun. The wounded came on after the army, travelling slowly in wagons and those who could walk dragged themselves on foot in straggling columns. In one of the leading wagons some senior staff officers were brought in the van of the main forces, and De Chavel's first sight of the famous golden domes of Moscow was when he was lifted out on a litter and carried to an improvised hospital on the outskirts of the main city. The French had taken over one of the noblest fine stone-built palaces as their main hospital; it was more suitable than the large rambling wooden buildings which were of much earlier date. The Colonel lay as still as possible while he was being moved, holding to the wooden sides of the litter with his left arm. The amputated right arm ached and twitched and tried to clutch with phantom fingers. The pain in his cut nerve ends had been unbearable at first; he had been unconscious for most of the second and third days after the battle, now he suffered agonies from his lost arm.

His friend Major Macdonald had told him that he was crippled; he rode part of the way with him in the wagon as they made the lurching journey away from Borodino towards Moscow, and tried to explain to him that there had been no hope except to take his right arm off. De Chavel hadn't answered immediately; he hadn't really understood. He was so weak from loss of blood that he fainted at the least exertion; his chest throbbed with every breath, though the wound was healing well and had stayed clean. His right arm had a demonic life of its own, this arm which Macdonald said had been cut off. He couldn't believe it, when he could raise it high above his head and every finger moved at his command. Only when he tried to look at it for confirmation did he see the bloody shoulder bandage and the useless knotted sleeve of his shirt. He had turned his head away and said quite distinctly, ‘God damn you, Major, why didn't you let me die?' and then lost consciousness again.

He was used to it now; he knew he was crippled, his career finished, condemned to a civilian life if he survived at all. And out of his despair he found the will to live, to conquer his pain and his wound and rise to fight again before it was too late. He lived for this hope; he swallowed the weak soup they gave him when his stomach revolted at food, he bore the agonies of having his dressings changed, and fought the impulse to give way to weakness and sleep until the sleep became a death coma. He refused to die, and while others in the wagon with him faltered, and their bodies were taken out and buried by the roadside, De Chavel hung on in spite of everything. Out of the thirty officers who started out from Borodino in the wagon, he was one of the eight remaining to be quartered in the empty Russian palace.

Food was short, and the Russians had poisoned most of the water supply; there were no stores or fodder left, and crowds of troops roamed the deserted city, getting drunk on looted cellars, carrying away furs and jewels and gold. It was almost as if the treasures and the wines and brandy had been left behind deliberately to undermine what was left of the army's discipline. The effects were so serious that the Emperor issued orders that the looting was to stop, and further offenders would be shot. It was useless to try and make the men disgorge what was already stolen, and soldiers added their loot to their packs, many of them throwing away equipment or ammunition to make room for women's silk dresses and sable cloaks. The ballroom in the house had been turned into a generals officers' ward, and all through the four days it was filled and emptied as more wounded were admitted, died and were replaced. The journey from Borodino had accounted for half the subsequent fatalities. The surgeons were doing their best under impossible conditions; the doctor who had performed the operation on De Chavel had gone down with dysentery and was a patient in the ward. Clean water was one of the army's worst problems; men had died in thousands from the effects of drinking from polluted streams, and the loss of cavalry and pack horses had been catastrophic. One hundred thousand men were all that were left out of the half a million who had crossed the River Niemen three months before, and contrary to everyone's hope, the Russians had given no indication that they wanted peace. De Chavel knew little or nothing of their situation; he was too weak to think of anything except in the narrowest terms of his own hospital environment, and that was distressing enough. Ney had been to see him after the battle; it was a signal honour for the Marshal to visit him, but he was delirious and didn't recognise him. Macdonald had spent as much time with him as he could, and hounded the orderlies to take care of him with the dogged spirit of his Scottish ancestors. Murat had sent him a bottle of fine burgundy, which he was too sick to drink and which was stolen by one of the orderlies, but the Marshal stayed away; he hated suffering and army hospitals. The Emperor himself had enquired after him, and then forgotten what he had been told. There were so many casualties, and he had lost forty Generals at Borodino, among them men he could ill afford.