In Saint Petersburg Militza intended calling on all her old friends to inform them she might be in need of their favors.

Even though she wished Stefan to renege on his engagement for his own future happiness, she wasn't unaware of the possible consequences. Prince Vladimir Taneiev was known for his vindictiveness; many political rivals rued the day they'd opposed him. Several were spending their remaining years in Siberia thanks to his implacable vengeance, and while Irina and Nadejda might be foolish and superficial, it would never do to underestimate Vladimir.

However… she felt she had sufficient influence herself to oppose any possible obstacles Vladimir might establish, provided she could convince Stefan to sever his ties to Nadejda. And Stefan's personal relationship with the Tsar was a very strong advantage. To a point.

Through bitter experience they all knew there were circumstances where even the Tsar had bowed to pressure.

On the same July night that Militza sat at her desk composing a list of friends in Saint Petersburg who might be needed should Vladimir turn difficult, and Stefan and Lisaveta were dining alfresco under the dark whispering pines, Choura was the featured entertainment at a bachelor party in Tiflis at Chezevek's Restaurant.

The windows were all thrown open to the heated night air, and Captain Gorsky, the host for the night, was in shirtsleeves in the middle of the floor encouraging Choura with energetic hand clapping and smiles. The Caucasian music had a pulsing rhythm of drumbeats interwoven with melodies both plaintive and voluptuous. The sound seemed to tremble in an insistent, fevered undulation, angry at times, hypnotic at intervals, convulsive, monotonous and galvanic. And Choura danced in her own expressive way: languorous and slow, stamping and impetuous, in a stylized version of courtship, of pursuit and retreat and ultimate seduction. She was wild and untamed, her dark eyes flashing, the lamplight flickering and glittering off her necklaces and rings and bracelets as she whirled, her bare feet barely touching the floor, her red silk skirt fluttering like flower petals in the wind. Her black lace blouse barely covered her firm young breasts, and when she smiled in sensual invitation, Captain Gorsky wasn't alone in planning on spending a portion of his wealth on the beautiful Gypsy girl, now that she was back in circulation.

When the musicians fell silent on a flourish of drumbeats, a roar of applause erupted in the room as every man gave vent to his approval.

The party was in celebration of a junior officer's engagement, and all the high-priced courtesans in Tiflis were in attendance. Since Stefan was on cordial terms with many of them, and since Stefan rarely missed occasions of this nature, he was repeatedly asked for.

"He's with his new lover up in the mountains," Choura cheerfully replied to those interested parties, "and he paid me fifty thousand roubles for my time." She was proud to announce the amount of her new worth. Stefan's payment would serve notice her prices had gone up. And when the identity of this newest paramour was demanded, her answer was equally cheerful. "Countess Lisaveta Lazaroff," she'd announce, a fact she'd discovered after her return to Tiflis, when one of the Gypsy grooms in Stefan's stables relayed the gossip from the villa on the hill. "He's taken her captive," she would finish with obvious relish.

"Captive!" the courtesans whispered with a particular breathy eagerness memories of Stefan induced.

"Captive!" the officers breathed, their imaginations running wild.

Had the lady screamed or fought or passionately yielded?

Yes and yes and she didn't know, Choura would answer with a suggestive smile. But if she hadn't yielded eagerly, certainly she had yielded.

The scandal was delicious. Leave it to Stefan, everyone said, to abduct a lady. He'd always been a law unto himself. Like his father, they said.

She must be extraordinary in bed, the ladies all thought, for Stefan's transient interest in women was well-known. He'd never stirred himself to pursue a woman before; an abduction indicated staggering attention. They were incredulous. What does she look like? they asked then, intrigued by her unique success. And the men listened, too, because they wanted to visualize this unusual woman.

"She's pretty," Choura said blandly, seated on Captain Gorsky's lap like a dark and languorous kitten.

"More than pretty for Stefan, I'd say," a woman remarked, her escort's head nodding in agreement.

Choura shrugged, not inclined to unduly praise her successor. "I suppose," she said.

"Is she small? He likes small women," a petite blonde reclining on a floor cushion noted, her waist hand-span narrow.

"She's tall."

"No!"

"With brown hair."

"Brown hair? She can't." This was not a paragon of conventional beauty; this was not a woman in Stefan's usual style.

"Well, she does," Choura complacently replied. She was now richer than a shopkeeper for her friendship with Stefan, and as a businesswoman who was secure in her own beauty, she was without personal jealousy for her replacement, although she was amused by the difficulties Stefan might encounter. "She was screaming at him, too," she said with a grin. "I mean screaming."

She must be good in bed, the men all decided, because surely her looks didn't appear remarkable. And screaming at Stefan? Normally he wouldn't have stayed a second in company with a vituperative female. Wherever had he found her?

"She was thrown away by the Bazhis," Choura added as if the men had spoken aloud.

Aha, everyone agreed, male and female. To have survived the Bazhis was superhuman. She was a superwoman, and the men hoped that when Stefan tired of her, as he surely would, the Countess would consider one of them to entertain her. No one contemplated love in their speculation on Stefan and his latest bed partner, but certainly, they decided, carnal passion was the proper phrase-unique, spectacular carnal passion to so fascinate Stefan.

Oblivious to the sundry contemplations of their relationship, Stefan and Lisaveta basked in a contentment rich with passion and amity, their world insular, isolated by choice, their existence narrowed to two people and love.

They didn't worry about scandal and gossip; both were immune to the motives inspiring such concepts. Stefan, of course, was inured after a lifetime in the limelight, and Lisaveta, for exactly opposite reasons, was equally inured. She had lived too long in her own self-contained world, in which respect and personal choices and one's actions were determined without considering what other people thought. And both were intelligent enough to understand that wealth and position made most things possible in the world.

They entertained each other with openness of spirit and joy through the multitude of days. They slept when they wished and woke without schedule; they teased each other and smiled and made love, of course, in infinite variety. They lay in the sun in the afternoons sometime and swam then to cool off; they rode occasionally and walked the mountain trails and ate the Spartan meals prepared by the servants from the village nearby. Stefan frequently cooked for Lisaveta himself with a competence she should have perhaps expected.

He showed her, too, where the eagles nested on the rim of the escarpment, and they lay flat on their bellies overlooking the valley miles below, watching the adult pair teach their young how to fly.

The blue open sky was above and below them, the wind blowing their hair, the sun warm on their skin, the eaglets endlessly fascinating as they swooped and tumbled and steadied themselves on the cresting wind currents, soaring for lengthening distances.

"I envy them," Stefan said one day, rolling over on his back as he followed the flight of the fledgling, "that freedom. At times like this," he went on in a quiet voice, looking up into the sunlit sky, "I don't want to go back."

"At least not for a thousand years," Lisaveta agreed, her chin propped on her hands, the wind blowing her hair in tossing ringlets.

Some days they read to each other under the pines near the house or lying on the terrace, Stefan reading some of the verses he'd composed and surprising Lisaveta with the rich emotion in his poetry. She'd never glimpsed that intense and introspective side of him. In turn she'd read-or rather recite, because she knew them by heart-her favorite poems of Hafiz in the original Persian. Stefan would answer her in his mother's language, its melody sweet, he said, to his ear.

They never talked of the war or the days ahead; by unspoken agreement they conversed only of topics without contention. In silent understanding they wished to enjoy each other's company as if the days were numbered for eternity.

It was a tremulous balance of happiness-like a shadow or a dream, ungrounded and bound to dissolve when reality intervened.

Stefan resisted thinking of the passing time or his furlough's end.

Lisaveta pushed aside any feelings beyond their temporary enchantment, existing only in the golden glow of her happiness, refusing to think of tomorrow.

But one morning Haci rode into the courtyard and their underlying fear of time had to be faced. From the bedroom window they watched him dismount and brush the dust from his trousers and wipe the sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand.

He glanced up to Stefan's bedroom window and saw them and waved. Their holiday was over.

Their trip down the mountain was quiet, partly because constant alertness was necessary for survival on the rugged trail and conversation was distracting, but primarily their silence was the uncommunicativeness of voiceless feelings. Both Haci and Stefan faced a return to the front; the Turks had had time to reinforce their defenses while the Russians were bringing in new troops. Their increased fortifications would be costly to the Tsar's army, and white one could briefly set aside the savagery of war with a beautiful woman on a mountaintop or in a Tiflis brothel, the return to battle and the imminence of death were prominent in both men's minds. Additionally, Stefan had to struggle with a feeling of loss. It was an unfamiliar melancholy directly related to Lise, a novel and unwelcome sensation he forcibly attempted to suppress.