"I didn't want him to go." Lise's voice was almost a whisper.

There was no adequate or comforting response. Militza wished there were. "He loves you very much; he'll be back." He would try, she knew; he'd fight his way through hell if he had to. She just hoped his strength and courage were enough.

"I'm so afraid." Lisaveta's tea was untouched before her, her face pale with fatigue, her apprehension visible in her golden eyes.

"You'll feel better in the morning. All the black melancholy seems worse somehow when one's tired." Militza wished she could offer some guarantees, something more substantial than platitudes, but it was a deadly game about to be played out at Kars and she couldn't bring herself to lie about that fact. "Drink your tea," she soothingly said, "and then go to sleep. Everything will seem less daunting in the morning."

"I'm sorry to be so fainthearted." Lisaveta's smile over the rim of her teacup was rueful.

"Your concern is natural, my dear. Very soon, though," she added, her smile bolstering, "the Turks will be defeated and we'll all breathe easier. You must sleep now." Lisaveta had faint lavender shadows under her eyes. "I'll have you shown up to your room."

"Could I see Stefan's room?" Setting down her teacup, Lisaveta rose. "If you don't mind." She wanted to feel his presence before she slept, wanted to see glimpses of his spirit, wanted to touch his pillow and hairbrush, sit in his chair, smell the scent of him on his clothes.

"Of course." And with the smallest gesture of her hand, a footman appeared. "Are you going to be all right?" There was solicitude in Militza's voice, for Lisaveta's desolation was obvious.

Lisaveta nodded.

"Would you like company?" Militza felt helpless to mitigate her pain. Lise was so new to the warrior's culture, too swiftly separated from her husband, a stranger to so much in Stefan's life.

"No, thank you," she softly replied, "if you don't mind." They were both being painfully courteous, anxious to please each other.

Militza smiled and then chuckled. "Darling, this is your home. Please do exactly as you please."

Lisaveta smiled back. "I see you must have had a hand in Stefan's upbringing."

"One never actually had a hand on Stefan so much as simply being there to pick up the pieces. He was a headstrong boy." Neither her tone nor her expression was disapproving. "He has in fact," she finished, "been the joy of my life."

"He does that, doesn't he?" Lisaveta's features were less grave, her golden eyes taking on a warmth. "Without even trying."

"He does indeed," Militza emphatically replied.

A few moments later, Lisaveta stood on the threshold of Stefan's bedroom suite while the footman lighted several of the wall sconces. The gas flames shimmered and fluttered briefly before the crystal fixtures turned into a brilliant glowing white, and when he left she remained motionless just inside the door, her gaze taking in her husband's bedroom for the first time. One entire wall was curtained in white gauze, luminous now as the moonlight competed with the fitful shadow and light of the enormous interior space, glistening white against the green silk of the side draperies and valances.

Walking slowly over to the windows, Lisaveta remembered a warm summer night scented with lily, and leaning her head against the gossamer curtains, she felt the coolness of the glass beneath her forehead. The warm summer was gone, their time in the mountains long past; she could feel the chill of fall in the air and the bleakness of fear in her heart. So recently married, she might as swiftly be widowed, she morbidly thought. And tonight when she wished Militza to offer her assurances, Stefan's aunt had instead been more subdued than expected. How did soldiers' wives cope? Was there some prayer for consolation, some wish or hope one could petition for, some solace in this awful loneliness?

She moved then as if drawn by invisible hands to Stefan's large bed. The balconies fronted all the bedrooms in this wing and this room was very similar to the one she'd stayed in last time, but Stefan's bed was different, larger, darker, more masculine, a mahogany-and-tulipwood marquetry cut on massive lines. Climbing up onto it, she sat in the middle of the forest green expanse of silk coverlet, looking like a flower blossom in her peach silk gown, her skirt in poufs about her, her glance surveying the immensity of the room.

And that's when she saw it.

A note directly in her line of vision, an envelope with her name on it propped against the mantel. Her heart stood still.

Sliding off the bed, she approached it cautiously, dread and longing both prominent in her mind. Stefan had written it. Short hours ago he'd held that exact envelope in his hand, his words the closest she could come to having him near. She wanted to snatch the letter down and devour the words and feel for a transient moment as though he were here. But apprehension held her hostage against that impulse and she stood beneath the ornate and polished mantel, reluctant to know what her husband might have written her before riding off to war.

She lifted it down finally because her longing was greater than her fear. But the weight of that fear crumbled her to the floor, where she sat before the small fire the footman had set before he left and read Stefan's letter. She cried as his words unfolded across and down the page; she cried for their beauty and tenderness, for his sweetness and devotion. He was more articulate in many ways than she in expressing the imagery of love.

"When the war is over," he'd written, "we'll join the eagles in the mountains and show them our new baby… I can scent the wind and freedom even now."

There was hope in his words and a love so intense she hardly noticed the menace of the closing phrase he had written so reluctantly.

She reread his scrawling script over and over, his strength evident in the rhythm and form of his letters, his spirit alive in his words. In the silence of his room, surrounded by objects familiar to his world, his cologne lingering in the air, photos from childhood displayed on the walls and bureau tops, she could almost hear him speak of his love for her. She could almost hear his deep rich voice echo within the confines of his bedchamber, his love surrounding her, and she prayed to all the benevolent gods to protect him and bring him safely home.

She slept that night in his bed with his note clutched in her hand, as a young child might cling to a cherished toy or a young woman ardently in love to her lover. She dreamed of mountain landscapes and moss-covered mountain pools, of starlit ceilings and a rain-damp bridegroom on a honeymoon night.

It wasn't till morning that she found the second note. She was dressed already and wandering about Stefan's room, thinking as she walked: he sat here and stood here and brushed his long dark hair before this mirror and wore these slippers in his leisure and wrote at this desk-

The small white envelope was addressed with the single word "Baby."

It lay pristine and chaste on the red-embossed leather of the desktop.

He'd left no instructions concerning its unsealing, although addressed as it was to their baby, the implication was perhaps to wait until its birth. And she intended to, she decided a moment later, as if that punctiliousness would annihilate the panic beginning to creep into her mind. There was no need to write to their child now; he'd be home certainly-at some point-in the months before its birth.

She moved back a step as though she were standing on the brink of an abyss.

She found herself a moment later seated on a chair on the far side of the room, clutching the chair arms with undue force, her eyes trained on the stark white envelope. Why had he written?

She poured herself a glass of water from the carafe on the nearby table and moistened her dry mouth, forcing herself to look away from the object of her terror. Catherine the Great's tall cypresses stood majestically against the blue morning sky, marching down the hill in solemn procession, immune to the years and her puny fears. She wished she could deal as tenaciously with her emotional turmoil and persevere like Catherine's trees.

In the end she rose, walked over to the desk and opened the envelope as perhaps Stefan had intended.

No! she silently screamed as she read. No! No! No! She felt herself trembling when she'd finished, her heart beating in her chest as though she'd run ten miles. Stefan had written this note to his child because he wasn't coming back!

"Masha!" she screamed into the sun-dappled silence of the room, struck with fright, unable to move. "Masha!" she cried. A bird sang its morning song somewhere beyond the window as though it were unaware shadows were beginning to cover the earth. "Masha," she whimpered, helpless against her pain, a great darkness overtaking her, and she crumpled to the floor.

Lisaveta woke in Stefan's bed, Militza holding her hand, the room filled with hushed and reverent servants. She remembered instantly, and her eyes filled with fear.

"You mustn't worry," Militza said, wishing she could soothe that trepidation. "Stefan wouldn't want you to worry."

"I'm frightened, Masha," Lisaveta breathed, her voice so faint it was barely audible.

"He didn't mean to frighten you, Lise. He only wanted to talk to his child before he left." Militza stroked Lisaveta's hand as one would a distrait child.

"He'll be back?" It was a heartrending plea.

"Of course he will," Aunt Militza firmly declared. "Stefan's invincible." But her own confidence was shaken by Stefan's note. His tone was almost prescient, alarming in a man who'd always felt indomitable. "Would you like to see the vineyards or Stefan's special Barb horses? We could take a small picnic with us and make a day of it." She could have been coaxing a small child.