Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [98]
I folded the cryptic letter, and looked around the table.
“Well?” the rotmistr said.
“This may seem odd to ask,” I said, “but is there a place nearby where Chinese engineers gather?”
Captain Kurashov did not seem surprised. “There’s a Chinese settlement near the Buryat village,” he said. “Furriers, but there may be engineers too. If you want to get there, you may want to hire a caribou or a dog sled, but caribou would be easier if you’re used to horses. I assume you will be looking for our horses or them men who took them?”
I slept in the barracks—simple rooms smelling of pine, with narrow wooden benches which were about as comfortable as the ones in the train. I was so used to sleeping on wooden benches that beds seemed a half-remembered and puzzling extravagance, a nice conceit but something that had little to do with me. When I stretched out on my bench and closed my eyes, the barracks thudded and swayed with the steady rocking movement of the train; I imagined a lonesome whistle, and fell asleep right away.
Volzhenko shook me awake what seemed like moments later. The dark barrack was filled with dozens of soldiers’ bodies, their sour smell and uneven snoring. “Wake up,” Volzhenko said. “It’s six in the morning, and we’d better get moving if we want to get to the Buryat village.”
“Are Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi coming with us?” I asked and sat up, rubbing my eyes with both fists, the grit of sleep grinding into my swollen eyelids that wanted only to close and get some more sleep.
“Yes,” Volzhenko said. “Kurashov found us a sleigh and three horses, and it shouldn’t take us more than an hour to get there. Are you sure that this is where we should be going?”
“Somewhat,” I said. “In any case, I guess I’ll have a chance to try that Buryat tea you were so eager to share.”
Volzhenko’s teeth flashed in the dusk. “I told you that it was an interesting experience, not necessarily a pleasant one.”
“You’re just mad that you fell for it and now you want everyone else to do the same.” I rolled out of the bed, and cringed when my bare feet hit the frozen floor with an uncalled for thud. “It’s cold here.”
“The sort of thing you would expect in the middle of winter in Siberia,” Volzhenko said amiably. “Put your furs on, you’ll feel better.”
I collected my jacket and the coat from the foot of the bed where they were folded for safekeeping as well as providing additional warmth for my feet, and put them on. I could’ve used a clean shirt, but Volzhenko standing next to me deterred me from putting one on. The reverse corset felt unpleasantly mushy, as if it was welding itself to my skin, becoming some porous and smelly flesh. I only sighed and hoped that I would be able to detach it when time came for me to become a girl again.
The sleigh and horses, covered with felt blankets, waited by the stable adjacent to our barracks. Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi, barely visible in the gray morning light, outlined against the long blue snowdrifts hopped from one foot to the other, their hands stuffed in their sleeves. By mute consent, Volzhenko took the reins, and the rest of us piled in the back of the sleigh. There were blankets and felt spreads, and Kuan Yu offered me a flask filled with hot and sweet tea. Thus equipped, I felt prepared for the trip to the Buryat village, and only hoped my interpretation of Jack’s note was correct. Finally, I had time to sit and think about the meaning of it as well as the tremendous leap of faith he had taken leaving his note—a mere trifle, so easily lost—in the wake of his destructive appearance. Of him staging the distraction—so much like his old self in that—to attract my attention. Such dramatics, however, also seemed excessive.
Volzhenko steered the horses along the narrow road, packed snow hard as a pavement. A sliver of the sun curved over the black treetops on the horizon and the three horses neighed in unison, as if greeting the new day with jubilation it did not, in