Anastasia had managed to dress herself in one of the dead guard’s uniform and greatcoat, drag me outside, and put me in the coal barrow. She’d pushed me as far as the woods before she’d collapsed and was huddled near me covered with a snow-crested blanket.
Snow falling on my face had roused me, my belly and side were on fire, and the rest of me was numb. “Anna,” I whispered, trying to get my feet on the ground.
“Sevgi. You’re alive,” she sobbed in relief. “You’ve lost so much blood.”
“Thirsty. Cold,” I moaned. “Help me up.” Between the little help I gave her and her own considerable aid, I was able to slide out of the cart and onto my feet.
“There’s a woodcutter’s shed about a quarter kilometers in. I think we can make it,” I said. “I need something to pack the holes.”
“I did that with my dress and under things,” she said frankly without blushing. “You have three holes across your stomach and chest.”
“We’d better hurry then. Blood leaves a bright trail in the snow. Are you hurt?”
“Something hit me in the head. I was leaping to protect Alexei when you pushed me aside. Otherwise, these holes would be in me.” Her blue eyes were wide, calm, and unafraid. My hand rose to the bullet crease on the top of her head that had seared off her hair and left a narrow furrow.
“You remember your name, Grand Duchess?” I asked as she pulled my arm over her shoulder and we staggered off into the forest.
“Anastasia Romanov, Sevgi.” She began to hum a chant she’d heard us marching to and the silly tune let me keep my feet moving when I wanted to lie down and die.
It took us hours to make the quarter kilo trek and only an innate sense of direction got us there. I’d stashed an old motorbike in the shed and to my relief; it was still there along with the cache of rubles I’d accumulated. We rested; she started a fire in the fireplace and set a kettle of snow on to melt. I pulled off my greatcoat, lifted my tunic and slowly eased the wad of blood soaked lawn and lace from my stomach.
Four blue stained purplish holes with puckered edges stared back at us. Two of them had the bullets visible from under the skin and with my pocketknife heated until it was red, I pried them out. The other two were deeper, past muscle and God knows how far inside me.
My attempts to reach them left a fresh blood flow and fire flaring like angry tigers gnawing on me. She took over, poured melted water and carbolic on the punctures, held me as I shrieked in agony and passed out.
I woke in a princess's arms and her tears bathed my face. “Sevgi.”
“Princess, my name is Aidan, not Sevgi,” I breathed. “I was born in 1957 in Cornwall. My father is Lord Griffon Argent, the Earl of Bowden and I am the Honorable Aidan Michael Darancourt Griffyn Argent.”
Her face above mine was calm, beautiful; strong as her mother’s and not lost in fantasy like her father’s. She said nothing, just stroked my face as sweat made me feel suddenly soaked.
“Fire’s hot,” I mumbled. “Warm in here. We can’t stay. They know about this place. Look here soon.”
“Can you drive that thing?”
“In my sleep,” I grinned. “Where’s my coat?”
She helped me sit up, stand and pull on the heavy wool greatcoat issued by the Bolshevik Army and in the inside pocket, I pulled out the silver flask given to me by one of my former comrades. Filled with harsh, homemade vodka, I’d dumped it out and replaced it with Napoleon Brandy from the Tsar’s own supply.
Three or four nips and the fire in my belly were replaced with another kind, the kind that warms your blood and stiffens your spine, makes you a lion instead of a mouse.
I stood up on the seat, kicked the starter and the beast of a machine grumbled to life in a belch of blue smoke. The Grand Duchess, unrecognizable in ugly soviet uniform and coat climbed behind me, gingerly holding her arms around my waist. One of her tiny, surprisingly strong fingers found one of the bullet holes in the wool and touched me. The warmth was electric, sent a jolt through me that I felt to the top of my head. She felt it too, and thought she had hurt me. “I’m sorry, Sevgi. I mean, Aidan.” She switched to English. “I learned my English from a French tutor,” her accent was French, light and pleasant.
“Jetu.”
“You speak French, too?”
I pushed the bike off and we traveled slowly through the trees until I found a deer trail that eventually became a road out of the woods but was never more than a simple lane graded by animals and sledges. The interstate highway system was a thing of the far future; you made your way cross-country literally by cross-country, making roads as you went.
“I speak French, English, Russian, Polish, German, whatever we need to speak,” I answered finally. We rode until I couldn’t stand or hold the bike up anymore and she helped me push it into an old barn to hide it. We burrowed into a haymow and slept like the dead. I had no dreams not even of falling into bed with a princess.
She woke me by her soft, subtle crying. I woke, groggy and disoriented, couldn’t remember where I was until I saw her golden head bent over her hands.
“Anna,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. How long did I sleep?”
She wiped her cheeks; I saw blood on her hands and hoped it wasn’t hers. She saw me looking, smiled faintly, and said, “I checked your stomach. You stopped bleeding except when I pulled the dressing off. You slept for about four hours. Dawn’s coming.”
I could see the first hints of it through the slits in the barn siding. “Anything to eat around here?” I asked, looking round. Scythes hung from the rafters along with harnesses so old and brittle they would disintegrate if you touched them. Logging chains lay coiled on the floor, old wooden hay forks. No animals and any manure I saw was so old it had dried out. The people who had lived on this farm had most certainly eaten their livestock to survive the Russian winter.
I looked in the potato bin and it was bare, too. Even the oats were scraped down to the bottom and mice ate the few grains left. At that point, I would have been happy to eat a mouse. You couldn’t even cook grass, it was buried deep under the snow, and there wasn’t any to be found in a forest. Grass didn’t grow under the trees.
“I saw a pond out back,” she said hesitantly.
“Cattails?” I asked, hopeful and at her nod, I was able to creep out with her help.
It had stopped snowing which meant the temperature had dropped, the sky above the crowns was a pure cold blue, and crimson tipped where the sun rose. It bathed the small pond in molten gold and silver, reflecting off the ice.
I could see cattails around the edges but I wasn’t sure if the ice was thin enough to break and reach the roots. Cattail bulbs were edible, sort of like a starchy potato.
She had found a pick bar and between the pair of us, was able to hack a hole in the edge of the water and dig out four or five tubers.
Twenty minutes later, we were gnawing on the roasted tails if not with enjoyment, at least with grim satisfaction.
We left the deserted farm an hour later, on a road that had seen some travel. The ruts were deeper and more numerous, hand lettered signs pointed the way to Minsk. I wanted to reach the Caspian Sea or the Elbe and take a boat rather than risk travel overland.