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I longed for a brandy, decided I didn't dare have even one. I couldn't afford to dull my senses. Leaving the library, I wandered restlessly about downstairs, not actually wringing my hands but showing every other symptom of taut nerves. I encountered no one. The servants were all occupied elsewhere, silent. My garnet velvet skirt rustled with the sound of whispers as I moved slowly about the empty corridors. Where was Vladimir? Had he come back inside? What had he said to Orlov? What had Orlov replied?

Why had they both looked up at the house? I felt sure they had been talking about me. The house was cold. I shivered, scolding myself for this attack of nerves, and finally I went back upstairs and moved down the hall and looked out over the front.

The sun was going down. The dark gray sky was streaked with golden orange banners, and the blinding white snow was burnished with orange light, as though the world were aflame. The light gradually faded, banners blurring to a misty pink, darkening to gray, the sky slowly turning purple-gray. How desolate the land looked, how bleak, the leafless, ice-encased trees like skeletal phantoms in the distance, frozen immobile by the cold. What a horrible, horrible country this was, seething with violence and unrest. As the last light disappeared, as the purple sky melted to black, I heard a wolf howling in the woods. It was a bloodcurdling sound, all the more chilling in the stillness.

Three days and nights it would take us . . . perhaps more. Vulnerable, exposed in an open sleigh, in a country alive with starving wolves and bloodthirsty peasants who

... who butchered and burned. There might well be ablizzard, snow turning to sleet, sleet turning the world into a silver-gray fury of blinding, battering chaos. What were our chances of safely reaching St. Petersburg? Slim indeed, I told myself, and then I frowned and straightened my shoulders and turned away from the window.

All right, Marietta, you've had your little spell. Now, by God, you're going to pull yourself together and show some spunk. You've been in far worse situations than this and you always came through. Stop it at once.

A footman was lighting the cheap wax candles in the hall as I went back to my bedroom. He was the first human being I had seen in-I glanced at the huge clock near the staircase-in an hour and forty-five minutes. It had been that long since I sent Grushenka back downstairs, since Gregory and his brothers and the drunken, disorganized band of cossacks charged off to join Alexis's and Feodor's men to pursue the peasants. How much blood would be spilled during the next day or so? How many innocent men would die? What was it about this dreadful country that turned men into savages with a lust for blood?

I went into my bedroom and closed the door. The tub had been taken away. The bedcovers had been turned back.

Nerves still taut, I sat down in the chair near the fire and gazed at the flames and listened to the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Where was Vladimir? He must be inside the house somewhere, but I hadn't seen him. Was he, even now, stationed in the hall outside my bedroom, standing guard? I mustn't think about that now.

I must close my eyes and relax ... relax. In less than a week, ifI were fortunate, I would be on a ship on my way to America. I would see Em again and Randy and I would see those wide, sun-swept plains and the cottonwood trees and the endless blue skies that turned to dark velvet at night and blazed with stars. How they had blazed that night that Jeremy took me into his arms and . . . He was there. He was smiling that crooked, teasing smile. I clung to him.

I awoke with a start. Grushenka was shaking me. Her gray eyes were full of alarm. For an instant I was still in Texas, still in Jeremy's arms, and he was telling me everything would be all right, and then the dream shatteredand I saw that the fire had burned down and that the clock showed ten minutes after ten and I couldn't believe that I had actually fallen asleep. Grushenka stepped back, clutching nervously at the dark sable cloak wrapped'

around her shoulders. I stood up and brushed the folds of my garnet velvet skirt, still rather dazed. Grushenka bit her lip.

"I –I waited for you downstairs. I waited and waited and when you didn't come I -"

"I fell asleep, Grushenka. I was SO tense and nervous I knew I had to relax, and-oh my God! Did anyone see you come up to my room?"

Grushenka shook her head. "Everyone-all the servants, they-they're in their rooms, terrified. Mathilda is on her knees, praying fervently. They are afraid Pugachev's men will attack the house and burn it now that Count Orlov and his cossacks have gone."

"Nonsense," I said. "There's no way Pugachev's men could know the house is unprotected."

"Pugachev has spies everywhere. He knows everything that happens, almost before it
does
happen. I-I'm frightened myself," she confessed. "We must leave quickly."

I was already kneeling down, pulling the bag of coins out from under the bed. "Have you seen Vladimir?" I asked over my shoulder.

"Not since we saw him down in the courtyard. Maybe he's in his room, too. I stepped outside and spoke to Mitya before I came up to your room. He told me there are three other guards posted outside. One of them is already dead drunk and sprawling on the steps of the barracks. The other two are wandering around with rifles at the ready, looking for peasants."

"So we just have two guards to worry about-and Vladimir."

Reaching up under my petticoats, I tied the sash securely around my waist. The bag of coins sewn to it rested heavily against my left thigh. I picked up the soft gray gloves and began to pull them on. Grushenka was very upset, casting apprehensive looks toward the window.

"Do-did you hear something?" she whispered.

"Just the log crackling in the fireplace."

"It-it sounded like-like shouting. In the distance."

I stretched my fingers and smoothed the gloves up over my wrists. "You're imagining things, Grushenka."

"I'm just so-so frightened. I've had this peculiar feeling all day-the village priest calls it the second sight. I'm very sensitive, and I
feel
things. Before something happens I seem to-to know. The day Dmitri was gored to death by a bull I-I kept seeing a field and seeing blood and-"

She cut herself short, her cheeks pale, her gray eyes enormous and full of apprehension. Illiterate, raised in a land of dark superstitions and even darker religious mysticism practiced by charlatan priests who thrived on the ignorance of their flock, it was not surprising that a

high-strung girl should be a prey to such feelings, genuine or not. I took her hands and squeezed them.

"It's going to be all right," I told her.

"I know. I'm just-"

"You're just nervous. So am I."

"I'll feel much better when we-when we get out of this house."

"I'll be ready in a moment."

.Picking up the dark silver-gray mink cloak, I draped it over my shoulders and fastened it at my throat, and then, reaching under the pillow, I pulled out the pistol.

Grushenka stared at it with wide eyes, as though it were some animate thing that might bite or snap. Holding it at my side, half-hidden by the folds of my skirt, I moved over to the bedroom door and opened it. The candles had burned down to half their length, ridged with streaks of melted wax. Wavering yellow-orange light leaped and licked at the walls, the darkness between all the gloomier.
No
one was in sight.

"You have to leave all your lovely clothes," Grushenka said, glancing at the wardrobe.

"Clothes can be replaced," I replied. "Come."

Grushenka followed me into the hall, keeping behind me as we crept silently toward the stairwell. My own nerves were taut again, my heart beating rapidly. I fully expected Vladimir to step out of a shadowy doorway and block our way. We would use the back stairs, of course. It would be madness to use the main staircase ... I paused.

Damn! The rifle. I had forgotten it. I would have to go down to the library and collect the rifle and ammunition and powder horn. Why hadn't I had the sense to sneak them to the back hall earlier, when I was wandering through the empty house?

"What-what is it?" Grushenka whispered.

"I have to go down to the library," I said.

"But-"

"The rifle. The powder horn. The ammunition."

"I –I was so nervous I forgot about that."

"So did I. You go on down the back stairs, Grushenka.

I'll meet you and Mitya in a very few minutes."

"I'll go with you. You'll need someone to help carry-"

"This cloak has large inside pockets. I won't have any trouble. We're wasting time, Grushenka. Go on. Wait for me outside the kitchen door."

The girl hesitated, extremely worried, and then she scurried silently down the hall and turned in the direction of the back stairs. I hesitated for a moment, too, standing at the top of the stairs, not at all relishing crossing that great expanse of hall downstairs with all the candles burning, being so exposed and vulnerable. It couldn't be helped.

I took a deep breath, then started down. The third step from the top creaked loudly. It sounded like a gunshot in the stillness. I flattened myself against the wall, thankful the stairwell itself was shrouded in shadow. I waited.

Nothing happened. I took another deep breath and moved on down to the landing.

The great, gloomy hall was bathed in murky yellow.

orange light as candles spluttered in their holders. Furniture threw long shadows across the hardwood floor with its worn Persian runner. The huge clock in its ornate wooden case tick-took, tick-tocked, the brass pendulum swinging slowly to and fro, the monotonous noise only accentuating the ominous silence. The house seemed to be waiting for me to make one more move, seemed to be listening. I moved down one step, then another, repressing an urge to scream.
Where the hell was Vladimir?

I moved down one more step. He came out from behind the giant clock and stood looking up at me.

My heart leaped. I seemed to freeze. The dark black brown eyes glowed with hostility and ... and something else. His lips twisted into a sardonic, mocking smile. In his black boots and dark blue velvet livery, with the furtrimmed blue cape around his shoulders, he was a terrifying sight, gigantic, as tall as a tree, it seemed, that powerful physique solidmuscle. His head was uncovered, the thick blond hair gleaming dark yellow in the candlelight.

Shadows lightly brushed the lower part of that fierce, not unattractive face. The eyes glowed, dark hot coals, glowing, gleaming. The sardonic smile was utterly chilling.

"You go somewhere?" he asked. His voice was much too polite.

"I –I came down to fetch another book from the library."

"In your cloak?"

"The house is extremely cold-or hadn't you noticed."

"I think you lie," he said.

"I don't give a good goddamn what you think."

Don't let him see that you're frightened. Play it haughty. Don't, for Christ's sake, let him suspect you're scared to death and can hardly keep from swooning.

"The haughty lady," he said. His voice was ugly now.

"Always so cold, so imperious. You put Vladimir in his place, you believe. You remind him he is dirt beneath your feet."

"If the shoe fits," I retorted.

He scowled darkly. "What does this mean?"

"It's an English expression," I said coldly. "I'm afraid I haven't the time to explain it now."

"You are in a hurry to fetch this book."

"That's right."

"You lie. You trick me once. You make the fool of me.

This won't happen tonight. Tonight I put you in
your
place."

"Oh?" I was blithely unconcerned. "And just where is my place?"

"On your back, like the whore you are."

I stared at him in horror, my blood icy as I recognized what else burned in those hostile eyes. He moved nearer the foot of the stairs, standing in a pool of candlelight, and I saw the enormous bulge in the fork of his breeches and knew what he planned to do. My knees wobbled, threatening to fold up beneath me.

"Don't-s-don't come any closer," I warned.

"I take you right here in the hall, on the floor, with all of the candles burning. I take you with all my force, pounding hard, thrusting deep, laughing as you squirm and squeal beneath me. You probably enjoy this kind of punishment.

You probably beg for more."

My throat went dry. I tried to speak. I couldn't.

"I wait a long time for this," he told me. "The first time I see you I know I will someday have you. You are in your bath in the English inn, and I pull you up out of the water and dry you off and later on I must take the barmaid by force in the upstairs broom closet. She squeals and squirms against the wall as I thrust. I cover her mouth with my hand. I force her because I cannot have you. After I am spent I take her throat in my hands and squeeze a little and I tell her if she reports this to anyone I come back and choke her to death. She keeps her mouth shut, and I take her several more times before we finally leave the inn."

"You-you're unspeakably vile," I whispered.

"She is a whore, like you. She grows to love that broom closet."

He moved a step nearer. The bulge was throbbing, straining against dark blue velvet. His eyes were glittering with brutal desire, black-brown flames snapping.

His mouth lifted at one corner in another mocking smile as he savored his power, my helplessness. I was gripping something in my hand, gripping it so tightly my palm and fingers hurt. The pistol. I had actually forgotten I had it.

My hand was at my side, the pistol concealed by the swell of my skirts.

"Stay back," I said.

"You are afraid."

"Not at all."

"Your voice shakes."

"Stay back, Vladimir. I'm warning you."

He laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that reverberated in the stillness. I gripped the pistol tightly, a deadly calm possessing me now. I looked at him standing there near the foot of the stairs and knew without question he wasn't going to lay a hand on me. The laughter faded away, the silence heavier than before, and I, too, thought I heard dis.