Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [275]
They were good Cossacks. In a flash both men were up and armed. Andrei was with the horses, keeping them quiet. Pavlo was watching, listening.
The sounds were from across the river. They were soldiers marching through the shadows. In the faint light from the stars, Pavlo saw the outline of bayonets. Two people, the officers presumably, were talking in low tones: in the stillness, their voices carried easily across the river.
‘I did this before once, up by Yaroslavl,’ he heard the officer say. ‘Catch them at dawn, that’s the thing. We’ll have the whole village in our hands before they even know we’re there.’
The tramping feet went on. Pavlo estimated there were forty or fifty men. He waited until they were past.
There was not a moment to lose. The village must be closer than they thought.
Quickly the two men saddled their horses and started downstream.
‘We’ll go down the river on this side and get ahead of them before we cross,’ Andrei said.
It was not easy to make much speed in the darkness. The troops had already got past the little town of Russka when the two Cossacks reached it. As they did so, they noticed the boy who had seen the troops pass sliding down the stream in his little boat.
Daniel moved from house to house, waking the villagers.
They came out in the darkness before the grey dawn, a little confused, obviously frightened, some of them wrapping themselves in cloaks against what seemed to them to be a morning chill.
At each house, Daniel calmly entered and, waking the head of the household said quietly: ‘It is time.’
Maryushka stood inside the little hut they had been occupying, watching her mother. Though she had been up all that warm night in only a linen smock, the little girl had now started to shiver uncontrollably.
Arina seemed very calm. By the light of a taper, she quickly arranged her dress and put her feet into her shapeless bast shoes. She took a long shawl and draped it over her shoulders. Then she tied a scarf over her head. Then she ran her hands once, carefully, down her thighs. It was a little gesture she always made before she went to church.
Today, however, she did one other thing which the shivering girl noticed.
Slowly, rather meditatively, she reached over to her left wrist, on which she always wore a gold bracelet. It was a fine piece of work, set with a single, large amethyst, and Maryushka knew that her mother was very attached to it. Now however she took it carefully off and laid it down beside the stove.
‘What are you doing?’ the girl whispered.
Arina smiled at her kindly.
‘These are earthly things, Maryushka,’ she said gently. ‘But now we are going to a heavenly kingdom.’
Then her mother went quietly over to a corner of the room and came back with a small container.
She had seen her mother and some of the other women go out into the woods a few days before and return, after several hours, with some unusual berries. They had been several hours more in one of the huts, making something with these berries, and then Arina had come home with this little container; but she would not tell Maryushka what it was.
Now Arina poured some liquid out into a little wooden cup and brought it over to her.
‘Drink this.’
It looked dark.
‘What is it?’
‘Never mind. Just drink it.’
The liquid tasted strange. A kind of bitter juice.
Arina looked at her carefully.
‘You’ll stop shivering soon.’
‘Did the other children get this?’
‘Yes. Some of the grown-ups too, I dare say.’
There were many berries in the Russian forest. Some had extraordinary properties. One, in particular, was used by the Raskolniki upon these occasions.
They went outside.
All the villagers were coming out of their huts now, and making their way silently towards the little church. Maryushka looked around for the soldiers, but there was no sign of them yet.
At the church, some of the men were putting the ladders in place. She saw her father, watching over everyone, as they gathered.
For several minutes they waited. She saw Daniel and three of the older men go round from hut to hut, to make sure that no one