Sweet Love, Survive (39 page)

The hulking monster was coming toward him with the red-hot iron.

“Try that once too often and you won’t have a guinea pig left,” Apollo whispered, his head flung back, the last shreds of strength ebbing away. His hair was dark with sweat and his fingers cramped, resisting the raw agony.

“You hang soon, anyway,” the guard said, applying the iron with emotionless eyes.

And just before the darkness engulfed him, a wisp of a grin crossed Apollo’s mouth. By God, he gloated, he’d finally made the bastard talk.

    Kitty discovered two days after the fact that Karaim had departed with his men. In a frenzy she confronted Iskender-Khan. “I wanted to go to Tiflis!” she screamed, quite unconcerned with the row she was making in front of several visitors he was entertaining.

“Ah, Kitty, my dear,” the old chieftain replied calmly, rising to meet her and murmuring quiet apologies to his guests as he moved to the doorway where Kitty stood.

Indifferent to tradition and protocol, Kitty shouted, “I’m not sitting here, waiting—I’m leaving!” Her voice blasted through the hushed room like an anarchist’s bomb.

Taking her arm, Iskender turned Kitty aside. “It’s too dangerous.” His voice was moderate, reasonable.

“I don’t care,” Kitty cried, her hands clenched into fists at her side.

“It’s no place for a woman.” A placating attempt at chivalry. He touched her shoulder gently and she shook him off.

“Don’t you dare say that!” Kitty retorted through gritted teeth, fed up with mountain tenets of what a woman could and could not do.

“Apollo wouldn’t approve if I let you go,” Iskender patiently explained. It was true.

That touched off the explosion. Kitty was nearly hysterical, and this was not the time to bring up male prerogatives. She
rounded on him. Her face, appallingly white within the framing mass of honey-apricot hair, was unflinching. “I don’t care!” she hissed and, in a whirl of silk, left.

“I’m sorry,” Iskender apologized, turning back to his guests. “As-saqr As-saghir’s woman is distraught. His capture, following their son’s illness, has taken its toll on her nerves. Now, as we were discussing: Ali, could you see that the streets are clear between Krasilnava and Bebutovskaya on the morning of April twelfth? And Shirez, about the touring car …” Kitty’s female hysteria was dismissed from his mind as plans went apace for Apollo’s rescue.

Frustrated in her efforts to convince Karaim to take her along and irritated by Iskender’s patronizing behavior, Kitty finally lost her temper completely and decided to take matters into her own hands. Something she should have done a long time ago, she thought. The months with Apollo had made her soft. Good Lord, she’d run her own affairs for years with no help from anyone. It was about time she broke out of the cushioned confines love had woven around her.

Several hours before dawn the following morning, Kitty and the Cub were passing through the last sentry post guarding the mountain aul. Mother and son, dressed in dark peasant garb, sat atop a mountain pony packed high with Kurdistan carpets and went unnoticed in the lengthy caravan of burdened horses leaving Dargo in the train of an Armenian rug dealer.

The Armenian, whom Kitty had approached the previous evening, was richer by a ruby-and-diamond necklace valued in the range of two years’ income. Only for such an extravagant price would he have even considered spiriting As-saqr As-saghir’s woman and child out of the village. If Iskender-Khan were to discover his part in her flight, his life would be worthless—less than worthless, for he would be hounded from one end of the earth to the other. Patting the heavy necklace, he prayed to all the gods he knew.

At Shura, Kitty and the caravan parted company. Purchasing a ticket for herself, she and the Cub boarded the train for Tiflis. She wasn’t certain what she would do when they
reached Tiflis, but she had to be near Apollo. She had plans and would begin by looking up the only acquaintance she knew there: her former music teacher, Professor Pashkov.

The interior of the car she entered was a mass of humanity. Since the Revolution, privacy was almost impossible unless one was high in the party ranks. Compartment walls had been torn up for firewood along with doors and woodwork. The cushioned seats had been ripped apart, broken windows haphazardly boarded up, the floors littered with refuse.

Kitty and the Cub found a corner among a group of mountain villagers traveling with their stock of newly made rifles they were going to sell in Tiflis. The journey passed safely until the outskirts of Tiflis when two guards came into the car checking identity papers. When a hand was held out to receive hers, Kitty replied she had lost them. Two calculating eyes studied her. Behind the black, voluminous peasant garb was a startlingly attractive blond woman.

“An Ossete?” the soldier brusquely asked. That mountain tribe was almost wholly blond, distinctive in the Caucasus where dark-haired, dark-eyed coloring prevailed.

“Yes,” Kitty quickly replied, and hoped he didn’t know the language.

“A little out of your territory, aren’t you?”

“My late husband’s from Dagestan. I’m returning home to my people.”

“Your husband’s dead?” A familiar gleam Kitty had seen so often in Stavropol lit in his eyes.

Uneasily, she answered, “Yes.” The guard’s scrutiny now became attentive, taking her in from head to toe, dwelling at length on the Cub sleeping in her arms.

“No papers, hmmm?” There was no mistaking the lust kindling behind his small, inset eyes. He patted the pistol on his hip. “Come with me. I’ll have to …” The pause was deliberate. “Interrogate you.”

Kitty followed him, with a pounding heart, through three railroad cars, everyone glancing away prudently from the by now familiar sight of an arrested individual. Though fear seized her, deep down she was determined to suffer no further
indignities at the hands of a Bolshevik. Her hand slipped down into the folds of the blanket wrapped around the Cub and eased the
kinjal
handle slightly from its sheath. Apollo had insisted she learn to wield the mountain dagger, and for the first time since the endless lessons, she was thankful for his insistence. She could almost hear him quietly saying, “Slide it in between the second and third ribs. No, no, you’re too high; down there.… Didn’t I tell you it was easy?” And when she had become fast and expert he’d teased her into performing for Iskender one night. She’d never forget the glowing pride in Apollo’s voice when she had gotten under Iskender’s practiced guard and touched him
lightly
exactly over his heart. “What did I tell you, Pushka,” Apollo said, excitement warming his voice. “You have to admit she’s good.”

The guard was motioning her into a small compartment at the far end of the car, the third in a row of rooms in a once plush sleeping car. She followed him in and he shut the door. The click of the lock left her in no doubt of his intentions.

“Women without papers, or at least the pretty ones, spread their legs for me in payment.” He uttered the blunt statement matter-of-factly, as one might mention the price of the morning newspaper. Evidently familiar with the procedure, he was already reaching for Kitty.

Backing away until her legs met the cushions of the padded seat, Kitty nervously said, “The baby. Let me lay him down on the floor.”

“Get rid of the brat anywhere. Just hurry—we’ll be into the station at Tiflis in minutes.”

Turning away from him, Kitty bent to set the Cub in the corner of the compartment and slid the
kinjal
into her hand during the apparent adjustment of his blanket.

She came up from the floor in one smooth crouching lunge, up and under the guard’s arms, by now half raised in astonishment. Even before the surprise fully registered on the crude, unshaven face, her gold-hiked
kinjal
neatly slid between the ribs Apollo had pointed out to her time and time again. One short, sharp cry, and the guard’s ruptured heart
failed to beat again. Kitty jumped back from his towering bulk crashing downward.

Filled with horror, Kitty looked for a frozen moment at the still twitching body. Realizing suddenly that the train would be pulling into Tiflis at any moment, she started to roll the guard’s body behind the door. He was very heavy, but—pushing, shoving, and heaving—she made progress. She had to keep the murder from being discovered until she was safely away. Losing precious seconds, she gave the body a final pull, then turned and seized the Cub.

Moments later the train was pulling into the station, and the commotion was sufficient to hide anyone wanting to melt into the crowd. The Cub chose that time to wake up and complain noisily, but in the turmoil of chattering passengers intent on leaving the train no one noticed a young blond woman and a lustily squalling baby.

Praying that Professor Pashkov still lived at the address Kitty remembered, she set off on foot to find him. An hour later, Kitty was able to relax for the first time since stealing out of Dargo. The Cub had been fed and bathed, she had washed away the dust of the journey, and Professor Pashkov’s quietly efficient wife, Grunia, had put together a wholesome, if modest, tea.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Kitty was saying for the tenth time since her sudden arrival.

“Stay as long as you wish.”

“I don’t
have
much time,” she confessed, and went on to relate the story of Apollo’s capture and her precipitous journey south to attempt … something. “I brought my jewels with me, hoping maybe to bribe someone. I thought I’d try to petition the prison commander.”

“It’s extremely uncertain of success, Countess.” The professor went on to explain that he had become a musical commodity much in demand by the high-ranking army officers for their entertaining. His reputation as a violinist was well known, and at least he was able to keep from starving. He was too old to emigrate, he explained to Kitty when she asked the obvious question; his whole life had been spent in Russia,
and with so few years left he didn’t care to spend them in a foreign land. Soon it was decided that Kitty would go as his accompanist that evening to Colonel Ismailovich’s; the commander of the Metekhi was often in attendance. He would be easier to approach informally this way than within the confines of the prison.

A gown and shoes were purchased with a small sapphire ring, the Cub was left in the tender care of Madame Pashkov, and Kitty and the professor entered the colonel’s home shortly before ten.

“I should discourage you in this madness.” Professor Pashkov sighed, carefully arranging his music on the stand of cherrywood. “Won’t you reconsider, Countess?” His bushy white eyebrows came together in a worried frown.

Kitty looked up from the music she was vigorously pushing around above the ivory keys of the grand piano and met the professor’s eyes. “Just point out the commander to me when he walks in,” she replied in a tight, quiet voice. Then a small smile touched her lush lips, and her tone changed, permeated by a delicate sadness. “I have to try. If I didn’t, I could never live with myself.”

The professor sighed again. “Very well. He’s short, dark, and affects a cavalry mustache. I’ll let you know the minute he enters the room.”

“And then, God willing, we’ll see what half a million roubles’ worth of jewelry buys,” Kitty uttered with a nervous exhalation.

As it turned out, there was no need for the professor to point out the commander of the Metekhi when he entered. The moment Commander General Tergukasov came to the drawing room, his eyes were drawn to the vision in blue playing the piano. The woman with blond curls and bare shoulders was the most stunning female he had ever seen. For a count of ten he stood arrested in the archway and then, bold by nature—an asset in a military man—he strode in a straight line across the room to the slightly elevated dais. He took the two shallow steps in one light leap and his graceful hand came down on Kitty’s fingers. The small, dark-haired man smiled
winningly and said, “Mademoiselle … no one as lovely as you should have to work for a living.” His hand dropped away from Kitty’s, his heels clicked together in the old imperial manner, and he bowed slightly, the smile lighting up his black eyes. “Please, golden angel, be my guest tonight.”

Kitty’s wide green eyes, surprised and faintly alarmed, lifted to his, and the impact of those splendid eyes stopped the words in his throat. Her eyes were delicious, vulnerable, luminously green, framed in heavy lacy lashes. It was unheard of for General Tergukasov to be at a loss for words; an apt turn of phrase was his forte. Wrenching his glance from the lure and spell of those enormous eyes that seemed to offer unknown promises even while they retreated in fear, he turned his head briskly to Professor Pashkov and said curtly, “The
mademoiselle
is through at the piano.”

“But sir,” Kitty interjected nervously before the professor could speak, “Colonel Ismailovich has engaged us for the entire evening.” She didn’t want to give up her opportunity to meet the commander of Metekhi prison, and if this stranger insisted on monopolizing her all night, what chance would she have to make his acquaintance?

Violin tucked under his arm, Professor Pashkov said in carefully enunciated tones, “I’m sure, Katherine, Colonel Ismailovich will understand. After all, General Tergukasov is the guest of honor.”

The general missed the involuntary clenching of Kitty’s small hands. Smoothing the crushed peau de soie, Kitty replied in a breathy, slightly brittle voice, “General Tergukasov, how nice of you to interrupt a working girl’s tedium.”

“From this moment,
mademoiselle
, consider your working career over.”

“Oh, really, sir, you’re too kind … and it’s
madame
.”

Dark brows moved up a fraction. “Is your husband here tonight?”

“No. My husband was lost in the war.”

Sharp black eyes looked at her in a straightforward way. “I should say I’m sorry, but I’m not. Children?”

“One. A son.” Kitty had never encountered such directness, and while blunt, it wasn’t unkind.

“Hmmmm” was all he said for a long moment and then, apparently tabulating all the answers in some form satisfactory to his whims, he took Kitty’s hand in his and pulled her up from the piano bench. “Come, madame …” He paused and looked at her inquiringly.