The Longest Winter (16 page)

James, sitting close to the entrance, got up and walked about, warming his chilled blood. He blew into his hands. He glanced at the glimmering figures of the recumbent girls. They had given him brave companionship. The menace of Ferenac was an obscenity, but political fanatics were always the most pitiless. Who was the man Avriarches he had mentioned? Avriarches, felt James, carried further menace. What day was it when Franz Ferdinand arrived in Sarajevo? Tomorrow? The day after? Or was he to be killed by Ferenac in Ilidze? But Ferenac would not go to either Ilidze or Sarajevo if he thought the fugitives had escaped to inform on him. No, he would not go anywhere until the situation was clearly resolved for him.

Sophie and Anne moaned a little. They were restless on their cold, hard bed. They did not often come face to face with this kind of crisis, one that was such a frightening assault on mind and body. They moved in a rich, cultured and privileged society, remote from the rigours and
hardships of the rest of the world. But it had not turned them into spoiled and bloodless caricatures. They had survived Ferenac and his hunters with courage this day, and without complaints or tears. James knew he must return them unharmed to their bright citadel of life, they deserved no less.

He heard a sigh, a rustle. They were finding the stone floor primitive, discomfort battling with exhaustion.

‘James?’ Sophie whispered his name.

‘Can’t you sleep?’ He went over to her. Anne was fitfully dozing beside her.

‘I’ve been asleep. It isn’t the softest of beds, though.’ Sophie kept to a whisper, not wanting to wake Anne. ‘James, they won’t come back here now, I’m sure they won’t. So you must get some sleep too.’ As naturally as she could she went on, ‘It’s not much good any of us being prim and proper, you know. You must lie down with us, we’ll all keep each other warm. Please?’

She was being entirely sensible. His bone-weary condition tempted him. So did the warmth she exuded. She reached, took his hand and made the decision for him. He came down between her and Anne as she made room for him. She felt the coldness of his clothes. He must be frozen. She put her body bravely to his and her warmth generated both comfort and pleasure. He relaxed, using his folded woollen pants as a pillow. They pressed close. It was as instinctive as practical. In the darkness Sophie blushed to her roots. James was so undeniably masculine,
so firm against her. She had been worried about him, now she worried about herself. There was a desire to be held, a desire to be wanted. She could not resist responding to the moment. She put her arms around him and drew closer. Warmly she snuggled. Sweet heat surged into her. She hid her crimson face in his shoulder because of the delicious excitement the physical contact brought.

James’s chilled veins thawed and warm blood flowed.

Anne gave a restless moan, sought the comfort of another body. The three of them lay close. Sometimes they slept, sometimes they fitfully chased the elusive. The warmth was only partial, the hard ground inescapable. Aching hips awoke them, they turned, they twisted and they dozed in spasms.

Sophie turned for the hundredth time. There was coldness all down her front, warmth at her back. In turning she found warmth for her front. She cuddled, snuggled, found blissful comfort for one more short space and thought how good, how lovely.

James awoke. A dark head rested on his arm, a soft curving body slept warmly against his. Cold cramp made him curl his toes and stony ground tortured his hip. He moved. Sophie gave a dreamy whimper and clung. He stayed still. His hip went numb. Sophie murmured. He closed his eyes.

Sophie awoke. The fissure was grey with dawn light. Cold draughts besieged her back, but the
warmth in her stomach and thighs was so good. Her open eyes vaguely surveyed a crumpled tweed jacket. It belonged to James. It was James. She was shamelessly, tightly aligned with him, her arms around him. A little tremor quivered through her and sensations of sweet pleasure disturbed her. His head lay on his folded woollens, his face was a little gaunt and his chin blue. The cut on his forehead was marked by dried blood. How hard his body was. Colour suffused her. So this was James. He was sleeping like the dead even on this uncharitable ground, with Anne cuddled up behind him. He was not an ordinary man. He was much more like the new image forming in her mind. And her images were never of ordinary men.

Slowly she withdrew her arms and sat up. She realized then how her body ached, how icy her feet were, how dry and wretched her mouth. And the hem of her petticoat felt coldly damp around her ankles. She stood up. Her knees were stiff. James moved and turned over. His head rested on her handbag. She picked up his woollens and went to the entrance. The light in the east was pale, the dawn still and silent. The sun would soon be up. She slipped off her petticoat and sidled into the open. She laid petticoat and pants out over flat rocks.

In the east the pale light strengthened and soft colour began to invade the neutral sky.

A man sat on a stone ledge high in the hills. In his fifties, he was black of beard and immense of girth. A shaggy fur hat was on his head, his dark grey woollen shirt was worn over a cotton one and his black baggy trousers were tucked into his boots. A cartridge belt was around his waist. A rifle, its butt on the ground, rested against the ledge. The man Lazar was talking to him.

‘Describe them again, my friend,’ said the bearded man, called Avriarches.

‘The women? Again?’

‘Again.’

Lazar described the baronesses. Graphically. Avriarches picked his teeth with a splinter of wood. Occasionally he spat. Sometimes he smiled. Lazar had a talent for describing women. Apart from that he was a rat-faced runt. Or so Avriarches thought.

‘But you’ll have to be careful,’ said Lazar, ‘Ferenac thinks they’re aristocrats.’

‘So you keep saying. Does it mean something to Ferenac? It means nothing to me. They’re all the same under their petticoats. Except that
these, who knows? I might send them back after a month or two and collect a pretty price for them. If I can catch them. If I don’t I’ll break someone’s teeth for wasting my time.’ Avriarches spat. ‘You say they slipped Ferenac? Who is this Ferenac?’

‘One of the chosen,’ said Lazar.

Avriarches showed big teeth in a huge smile. It made Lazar shift uneasily on his feet.

‘Chosen?’ Avriarches’ laugh was a gusty bellow. ‘God must have come down in His world to choose a man who can’t even keep a pair of flying petticoats in sight. What is he chosen for?’

‘To put an end to the archduke. He must get to Sarajevo this evening to meet others there. He doesn’t want these people to get there before him, he doesn’t want them to get there at all. They know about him, he says.’

Avriarches, eyes wandering in apparently lazy fashion over the steep, sloping hillsides to the winding river far below, said, ‘Idiots and incompetents, all of you. And what’s one more archduke to worry about? There’s always a dozen to take the place of the one before. Sit down. Don’t move. Some of my men might be here soon. They shoot anything which moves in these hills.’

‘I know that,’ said Lazar. He sat, then went on grumblingly, ‘It upsets people at times.’

‘Oh, people,’ said Avriarches carelessly. He surveyed the panorama above and below. The early morning sun was softening the bleak ridges. Far beneath them the river seemed a narrow,
winding ribbon of shining light. Straggling pinewoods were tiny blotches of green. ‘That is where the women and the man disappeared?’ he said.

‘Somewhere there,’ said Lazar, pointing downwards. ‘That’s why Ferenac sent me up here to find you. Yesterday I only saw one of your men.’

‘I don’t appear in person for every pipsqueak. But so, last night I received your message. I was to come and collect the women. This morning, here I am, and you tell me they have disappeared, that I am to find them for myself.’

‘They’re hiding and if anyone can flush them out it’s you,’ said Lazar. ‘We only ask that you let us have the man. Ferenac wants to silence him and Dobrovic wants to talk to him. You see, he almost killed friend Dobrovic, who has lost some teeth and needs a new nose.’

‘Almost?’ Avriarches was disgusted. ‘He’s a weakling, then. I know that Dobrovic, nothing more than another runt. The skinniest of my women could eat him.’ The big Greek spat again. His eyes, as hard and as bleak as the stone, moved in restless search. ‘See here, my friend, I don’t like this. I hope I’m not being foxed. Look, there’s nothing, and it’s well after dawn. They wouldn’t wait as long as this to creep out of their hole. Either they’re not where you think or they’ve slipped your chosen one again. If that’s the case, what am I doing here? My time, pipsqueak, is valuable. I’ll wait only a little longer.’

He could wait patiently when necessary. It had a way of bringing its rewards in the end. He had
learned this and so much else from his father, a man supreme in his trade, God rest his roaring soul. It was his father who had taught him that laws were made by authorities to cripple men. It was the duty of any self-respecting man to reject all laws made for him by governments. Strong men of inviolable self-respect made their own laws and cracked the heads of anyone who did not see eye to eye with them. True, his father had been forced to leave his country, Greece, because of the prejudices and hostility of successive governments, but all the family retained fine, colourful memories of their homeland. What a living they had made, what tigresses of women they had tamed, what a mote in every government’s eye they had been. There you could dance on the top of a hill all day, drawing the fire of sweating lawmakers who couldn’t have hit an ox stuck in a shop doorway.

Of course, when they had brought the army in to make things a lot more uncomfortable than the police, his father had finally left the country in disgust. But Bosnia had provided good new ground for a man of his ability.

He, Avriarches, had become chief of the band when his father, as drunk as a fiddler at a gipsy wedding, had fallen off a mountain ledge in the best traditions of his kind. He had not disgraced his father’s memory. He could roar as loudly, rob as rumbustiously and, if necessary, cheat the devil himself.

It would be something to catch up with the Austrian women whom that pipsqueak Lazar had
been on about. Especially if they were aristocrats. It offended the authorities mightily when he abducted any woman of substance. They kicked up the devil of a racket and swore to slit his throat or hang him once and for all. They often sent soldiers when he made this kind of trouble, but it took more than the provincial soldiers of Bosnia to corner Avriarches, son of Old Devilguts, as his father had been called. In any case, he usually returned women of substance after a month or so. Their fathers or husbands were glad to pay and to say nothing. No man liked to shout about the fact that his wife or daughter had spent a single night, let alone a month of nights, with Avriarches.

Austrian women. Yes, that would panic the Bosnian authorities and turn the Austrian governor red with rage. There would be swarms of police and soldiers. There would be a few fireworks, but they would bargain with him, like they always did, like they always had to when the safety of delicate hostages was in the balance. Well, life had been rather quiet lately. This could be enjoyable. And afterwards, a price for the pretty pair? No, not a price. A ransom.

Avriarches smiled hugely.

But that runt Lazar had better be right. If anticipation as pleasurable as this led to disappointment, he’d split the hills with the weasel’s head.

He watched. He would watch for ten minutes more and then, if there was still no sign, he would call up his men and have them flush the
whole valley. But better first to convince himself he could not localize the search.

James shifted. He winced at the cramping pains. He had slept, after all, and more heavily than he would have believed. The fitful naps had finally lengthened into spells of welcome sleep. Suddenly aware of light, he sat up violently. That was the light of a risen sun. Damn, he thought, they should have been up and away at dawn. And Sophie, for God’s sake, there she was, sitting at the entrance, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up and cradled, her head resting. She was dozing in full view of anyone across the river.

He rushed at her, pulled her back into shadow. Her head jerked up.

‘Sophie, you idiot!’

Sophie stared bemusedly for a moment. Then angry pride flushed her face.

‘You are speaking as one idiot to another, I presume?’ she said stiffly.

‘Why the devil didn’t you wake me?’ He was dark, bristly, scowling. ‘We ought to have been out of this place thirty minutes ago.’

She could have told him she let him sleep on out of compassion, that she herself had dozed when she did not mean to. Instead she said, ‘I am sorry I am such a disappointment to you, but you will understand of course that I have the natural failings of every idiot.’

‘Oh, Sophie.’ He shook his head at her, brought her to her feet. Sophie, hurt and unusually
sensitive, kept her face turned away. ‘Sophie, don’t you realize you could have been seen?’

‘I’ve said I am sorry.’

Anne groaned and woke up. James went to help her to her feet. Anne winced at her stiffness. He checked his impatience, smiled at her and rubbed her hands. Sophie, comparing this with his treatment of her, turned her back on them, shocked to feel tears stinging her eyes. Anne winced again, this time at the pain of rushing pins and needles.

‘We must go,’ said James.

‘Yes,’ said Anne, ‘but I look a dreadful mess, don’t I?’

‘We both do,’ said Sophie in a tight voice, ‘and James is a disillusioned man this morning.’

James looked at them. They were dishevelled, their clothes creased and dusty, their white shoes scratched and stained. But he saw beyond all that. He did not give a tinker’s cuss for their state or care if they ended up looking like scarecrows as long as he delivered them safely to their parents. And the baron would be out again this morning, looking for them, that was certain, just as it was certain that he had been out looking for them last evening.