Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [234]
There had been fighting in the ravine. Before the Turks came, Mengli-Girey had sent his people away, and had ridden to join the forces in Caffa with fifteen hundred loyal men. Since then, the mountain fortress must have seemed to offer refuge to those few Genoese who escaped, or who found themselves outside the walls of their city at the time of its investment. But Ahmed Pasha, of course, had forestalled them. The bodies they passed, as they rode up the crooked, overhung path between precipices, had been stripped down to the boots: you could only tell their race because of their colouring, and the absence of beards, and the length of their hair. Occasionally, when the dress had been so hacked it was not worth removing, you could tell from that, too.
Some time ago, Julius had stopped speaking. There had been no women’s corpses, so far. Nicholas had thought of reassuring him: the caves were not easy to find, and their labyrinthine depths offered infinite perils from ambush. A small troop of Turks, unwilling to linger for nothing, might well not trouble to stay. Certainly, there was none remaining here now.
On the other hand, before they went, they might have had hardihood enough to explore. They might have found what they were looking for, including Anna. Or they might have found her too late. It was three months since the Turks entered Caffa, and there was no longer a beneficent Khan to send a bag of meal or some dried fish from the fortress. That Khan was in Constantinople, and his brother ruled, with his new Tudun, in Caffa.
The monastery of the Dormition had been looted, and the odour of incense had been replaced by other, stale smells signifying contempt. The chalky saints, staring imperviously down through the trees, appeared unimpressed. So far, they had met no one alive. As the path grew narrow and steeper, they dismounted and led their horses quietly. They were both soaked with sweat, and sleeplessness, rarely of consequence to Nicholas, seemed to be clogging his limbs, already stiff from their night on the ground. He felt disembodied, and its reverse. He felt the way he had done at his last meeting with Anna, when the wine had spread through the warp and weft of her dress, and stained her skin underneath, as with cherries. You will not give me a child? Then lie still, and I will take one.
If Julius were dead, would you love me?
Dear Christ.
The boulder crashed upon them at the next bend. It came from high on the rock-face above them, tearing its way through the trees and knocking them both off their feet. Nicholas lay, hearing one of the horses screaming, and was for a moment unable to stir. Then he heard Julius cursing, and found that the broken branch that had pinned him was movable. Nicholas was scrambling up, and Julius was half on his feet with his sword out, when the second boulder arrived, followed by the thud of bodies descending, and an angular implosion of clubs, distorted like light-beams through trees. Nicholas regarded them, hollow-eyed, from his fresco, and was not entirely sorry when one of them put him to sleep.
When he awoke, someone was apologising in Russian. The relief was so great that, despite a crashing headache, he laughed. ‘Dymitr, you bastard!’
The cave was dim, as he remembered. The row of cocky hats, of course, was no longer there: he had abstracted them himself, and the owner would no longer need them. He saw, hanging above him instead, the broad, thick-skinned faces of the men he had played chess with, and bought furs from, and in whose presence he had first been introduced to the Cairene justiciar Ibrahiim. Dymitr Wiśniowiecki said, ‘We are sorry. There have been many brigands, as well as Turks. But how were we to know, you fool, that you would come back?’
He could not see beyond the circle of faces. He began, ‘My merchant friend Julius —’ and was interrupted by lascivious groans.
‘Ah! We know now why you both came. Look! The love birds! Is it not beautiful?’
They leaned back to afford him a view,