"And what is he after?'

'To win the prize. Become rich and famous, noble and powerful—'

'Gracchus,' Marianne interrupted him with a good deal of impatience, 'if you can't bring yourself to talk more clearly you and I are going to fall out. What is all this nonsense?'

Then Gracchus embarked on what sounded like the wildest fairytale. He explained how, a short time before, a fantastic story had blazed through steppes and forests like wildfire. Count Platov, the almost legendary Ataman of the Don Cossacks and now the acknowledged leader of all the companies, or sotnias, of other regions, had promised, just as in the chivalrous tales of old, to give his daughter's hand in marriage to any cossack, whoever he might be, who should bring him Napoleon's head.

At that the fever had mounted in every cossack village, or stanitsa, and every man who did not own a wife had risen up in answer to the great chief's call, and in the hope of winning the fabulous prize. They had polished up their weapons, saddled their horses with the high wooden saddles covered with sheepskins, and pulled on their boots. Some of them in their frenzy had even contrived, more or less discreetly, to do away with wives who had suddenly become an embarrassment.

'Shankala's husband was one of those,' Gracchus concluded. 'He claims to be certain of winning the Ataman's daughter, but where he gets his certainty, don't ask me. Even Shankala doesn't know.'

'Out of an even greater conceit than the rest of his fellows!' Marianne exclaimed indignantly. 'These savages have no idea! The Emperor's head indeed! I ask you!' Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she added: 'But Gracchus, does this mean the woman was innocent when they tried to drown her? I must say I find it hard to believe.'

Evidently Gracchus did too. He pushed back his cap and scratched his red thatch, shifting from foot to foot, then letting his fingers stray to the still visible marks of the gipsy's fingernails.

'That,' he said, 'is a matter we did not touch on. With a woman like that you never know. All she told me was that once his first passion died down Nikita had neglected her and relegated her to the position of a servant to his mother. All things considered, if that's true and she did deceive him, he'd no one but himself to blame. It seems to me he was a poor enough fellow.'

'Indeed? Well, that's no reason to go and find out. And if you want us to remain friends, Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche, I'd advise you not to let Shankala use you to obtain her revenge either. Supposing you were to come out of it alive, I wonder how your grandmother, the laundress in the rue de la Revoke, would welcome such a daughter-in-law?'

'I know well enough. She'd stick out two fingers in the sign against the evil eye and then she'd be off to the cure to sprinkle her with holy water. Then she'd show both of us the door. Don't worry, Mademoiselle Marianne, I've no wish to reduce still further what little chance we have of ever seeing the rue Montorgueil and your house in the rue de Lille again.'

He touched his cap and was moving away to help the driver unhitch the horses when Marianne, struck by the cynicism of his last words, called him back.

'Gracchus! Do you really think that in trying to reach the Emperor we are running into serious danger?'

'It's not so much because we are trying to reach him, it's just that when the Little Corporal goes to war he doesn't do things by halves and we're likely to find ourselves, as they say, caught between the hammer and the anvil. And random shots aren't always as random as all that! But we'll do the best we can, won't we?'

And, whistling his favourite marching song more furiously out of tune than ever, Gracchus went off cheerfully to attend to his everyday duties as groom, leaving Marianne to her thoughts.

CHAPTER TWO

The Duel

On the eleventh of September they came to the outskirts of Moscow. It was a fine, bright day and the earth basked in the sunshine of late summer. But the warm light and the beauty of the countryside could not dispel the sense of tragedy that loomed in the air.

The road passed through the pretty, picturesque village of Kolomenskoy, with its old, brightly painted wooden cottages, large pond with several families of ducks upon it and clumps of trees in which the pale trunks of birches mingled with slender, fragrant pines and rowans borne down with great bunches of crimson fruit.

But farther west the guns were firing and there was an endless procession of vehicles of every kind, from tradesmen's carts to gentlemen's carriages, driven by rigid, sleepwalking figures with set faces and haunted eyes. Plants and buildings alike had their freshness smothered in a choking pall of dust.

In this crowd of refugees the kibitka's progress was like that of a swimmer struggling against the current of a mighty river. For three days they had been unable to obtain a change of horses. All those that could be found were already between the shafts. The stables were empty.

Jason might fret and fume in his impatience to travel day and night until they had put Moscow behind them but they were still obliged to halt every day at nightfall to rest the horses, although the men took turns to stand guard to prevent them being stolen.

They had lost their driver. The last man had refused to proceed beyond the posting house at Toula and had run away, helped on by Jason's belt laid about his shoulders for trying to take the horses with him. That night they had been forced to quit the posting house in a hurry and seek refuge in the near-by forest because the man had gone for help to the estate of Prince Volkonski and had returned to his erstwhile employers reinforced by a gang of men armed with staves. The firearms with which Gracchus had prudently provided them had sufficed to hold them off for long enough for the party to make good its escape but they had supped that day off whortleberries and spring water only.

The crowds they passed were strangely silent, showing no sign of panic. The crested broughams and barouches of the nobility, built in London or Paris, waited patiently among the assortment of Russian conveyances, from the travelling telega to the urban droshky with its driver in his long robe with a brass plate on his back, including kibitkas of every size and even common-or-garden tree trunks slung on four wheels.

In the midst of all these, old men, women and children trudged uncomplainingly through the dust, their bundles on their backs and their eyes on the road ahead. The only sounds were the shuffle of feet and the creaking of wheels and this silence was the most impressive thing of all for it was heavy with resignation.

Now and then a priest appeared, accompanied by a deacon or two and sheltering some precious relic under the folds of his black robe, before which the peasants would kneel piously. The gates of the big estates were guarded by karaoulny, old soldiers with white hair who had lost an arm or a leg in Catherine the Great's wars. And all the time, like a knell, the distant menace of the guns.

No one took any notice of the dusty, travel-worn kibitka forcing its way against the current of refugees. Once or twice someone would glance up indifferently for a moment, too preoccupied with their own troubles to betray much curiosity.

But when they came to the end of the village, Jason, who had taken over the reins from Gracchus, brought the vehicle to a standstill beside the impressive entrance to a large monastery whose dull blue domes rose close beside an ancient wooden mansion.

'It's madness to go on,' he said with conviction. "We'll turn back and make a detour round the city to join the road to St Petersburg.'

Marianne had been dozing against Jolival's shoulder but she sat up at once.

'Why should we avoid the city? It's not easy, I grant you, but we are making progress. There's no reason to change direction now and risk losing ourselves.'

'And I'm telling you it's madness,' Jason repeated. 'Can't you see what's happening, all these people running away?'

'What they are running from holds no terrors for me. The very fact that we can hear the guns means that the French are not far off, especially if the exodus from Moscow has already begun.'

'Marianne,' he said wearily, 'we are not going over all that again. I've told you time and again that I don't want to meet Napoleon. I thought we had agreed that if we came within reach of the invading army Jolival should take charge of this mysterious warning you want to send to your Emperor and then catch up with us later on the road.'

'And you thought I'd agree to that?' Marianne cried indignantly. "You talk of sending Jolival to Napoleon as if it were no more than going to post a letter. Well, let me tell you something. Look at all these people round us. The roads must be packed like this in all directions and we have absolutely no idea where to look for the army, or for the Russian army either. If we separate we're lost. Jolival would never find us again. And you know it.'

Arcadius, alarmed at the angry turn the argument was taking, made an effort to intervene but Marianne silenced him with an imperious gesture. Then, as Jason still sat hunched in his seat, remaining obstinately silent, she snatched up her valise and sprang down into the road.

'Come, Arcadius,' she said imperatively to her old friend. 'Captain Beaufort would rather part from us than involve himself in any way with the army of a man he so dislikes. He has done with France.'