Boris Akunin - Turkish Gambit

Without looking round, Erast Fandorin hissed: 'This particular partisan's rifle isn't loaded.'

Varya looked to her left (the Bashi-Bazouks were there), then to her right (horsemen in tall fur hats loomed into view on that side as well); then she glanced behind her - and through the sparse brush she saw a truly remarkable sight.

There were horsemen galloping across the meadow: at the front, racing along - or rather flying through the air - on a powerful black stallion, his elbows held out jockey-style, was an individual in a wide-brimmed American hat,- ambling along in pursuit came a white uniform with gold-trimmed shoulders; then came a tight pack of a dozen or so Kuban Cossacks scurrying along at a fast trot; and bringing up the rear at a considerable distance, bouncing up and down in the saddle, was a perfectly absurd gentleman in a bowler hat and a long redingote.

As Varya gazed, mesmerised, at this bizarre cavalcade, the Cossacks started whistling and hallooing wildly. The Bashi-Bashouks also began making a fearsome din and bunched together into a tight group - the remainder of their number were hurrying to their rescue, led by the ginger-bearded bek. Varya and Fandorin were forgotten now; the terrible men had lost interest in them.

Bloody slaughter was imminent, but Varya forgot all about the danger as she turned her head first one way and then the other to observe the fearsome beauty of the spectacle.

The battle, however, was over before it had even begun. The horseman in the American hat (he was very close now, and Varya could make out his sunburnt face and little tuft of beard a la Louis-Napoleon and his light moustache with the ends curled up) pulled hard on his reins, coming to a total standstill, and out of nowhere a long-barrelled pistol appeared in his hand. Bang! Bang! - the pistol spewed out two angry little clouds of smoke and the bek in the tattered beshmet swayed in his saddle as if he were drunk and began slumping over to one side. One of the Bashi-Bazouks grabbed hold of him and threw him across the withers of his steed, and instead of joining battle, the entire horde galloped away in retreat.

The pursuers streaked past Varya, past the weary Fandorin leaning on his rifle - the magical marksman, the horseman in the snow-white uniform (one general's gold shoulder strap glinted brightly) and the Cossacks with their lances bristling.

'They have a Russian officer!' the volunteer shouted after them.

In the meantime the last member of the miraculous cavalcade, a civilian gentleman, had ridden up and halted - he did not appear to be interested in the pursuit.

His bright, round eyes peered sympathetically at the rescued couple over the top of his spectacles.

'Chetniks?' the civilian gentleman asked with a strong English accent.

'No, sir,' Fandorin replied in English, adding something else in the same language that Varya did not understand, since in her high school she had studied French and German.

She tugged impatiently at the volunteer's sleeve, and he explained apologetically: 'I s-said that we are not chetniks, but Russians on our way to join our own people.'

'What are chetniks?’

'Bulgarian rebels.'

'Oh, yoor a laydee?' The Englishman's fleshy, good-natured face mirrored his astonishment. 'My, my, what a masquaraid! I didn't know Russians uses wimmin for aspionage. Yoor a haroin, medam. What is yoor name? This will be vcree intrestin for my reedas.'

He pulled a notepad out of his saddlebag, and it was only then that Varya spotted the three-coloured armband on his sleeve with the number 48 and the word 'Correspondent'.

'I am Varvara Andreevna Suvorova, and I am not involved in any kind of espionage. My fiance is at the general headquarters,' she said with dignity. 'And this is my travelling companion, the Serbian volunteer Erast Petrovich Fandorin.'

The correspondent hastily doffed his hat in embarrassment and switched into French.

'I beg your pardon, mademoiselle. Seamus McLaughlin, correspondent of the London newspaper the Daily Post.'

'The same Englishman who wrote about the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria?' asked Varya, removing her cap and tidying her hair as best she could.

'Irishman,' McLaughlin corrected her sternly. 'Which is not at all the same thing.'

'And who are they?' asked Varya with a nod in the direction of the swirling dust and rattling gunfire. 'Who is the man in the hat?'

'That peerless cowboy is none other than Monsieur Charles Paladin d'Hevrais, a brilliant stylist, the darling of the French reading public and the trump card of the Revue Parisienne.'

'The Revue Parisienne?’

'Yes, one of the Paris dailies. With a circulation of a hundred and fifty thousand, which is a quite remarkable figure for France,' the correspondent explained rather offhandedly. 'But my Daily Post sells two hundred and forty thousand copies every day. How's that?'

Varya swung her head to and fro to shake her hair into place and began wiping the dust off her face with her sleeve.

'Ah, monsieur, you arrived in the nick of time. Providence itself must have sent you.'

'It was Michel who dragged us out this way,' the Briton, or rather Irishman, said with a shrug. 'He has nothing to do here, attached to the general HQ, and the idleness drives him wild. This morning the Bashi-Bazouks were getting up to a little mischief in the Russian rear, so Michel set off in pursuit of them himself. Paladin and myself are like his lap dogs: wherever he goes, we go. In the first place, we're old friends from back in Turkestan, and in the second place, wherever Michel is, there's always bound to be a good story for an article . . . Ah, look, they're coming back. Empty-handed, of course.'

'Why "of course"?' Varya asked.

The correspondent smiled condescendingly but said nothing, and Fandorin, who so far had taken almost no part in the conversation, answered for him: 'You must have seen, mademoiselle, that the Bashi-Bazouks' mounts were fresh, but the pursuers' horses were exhausted.'

'Precisely so,' McLaughlin agreed with a nod.

Varya gave them both a cross look for conspiring so outrageously to make a woman look like a fool. However, Fandorin immediately earned her forgiveness by taking an amazingly clean handkerchief out of his pocket and applying it to her cheek. Oh, she had forgotten all about the scratch!

The correspondent had been mistaken when he declared that the pursuers were coming back 'empty-handed' - Varya was delighted to see that they had managed to recover the captive officer after all: two Cossacks were carrying the limp body in the black uniform by its arms and legs. But had he - God forbid -been killed?

This time the dandy whom the Briton had called Michel was riding in front. He was a young general with smiling blue eyes and a rather distinctive beard -bushy, carefully tended and combed to both sides like a pair of wings.

'They got away, the scoundrels!' he shouted from a distance, and added an expression that Varya did not entirely understand.

'There's a lady present,' said McLaughlin, wagging his finger. He removed his bowler hat and ran a hand over his pink bald patch.

The general drew himself erect and glanced at Varya, but immediately lost interest, which was natural enough, considering her unwashed hair, scratched face and absurd costume.

'Major-General Sobolev the Second of His Imperial Highness's retinue’ Michel announced and glanced inquiringly at Fandorin.

But Varya, thoroughly vexed by the general's indifference, asked: 'The second? And who is the first?'

Sobolev was astonished. 'What do you mean? My father, Lieutenant-General Dmitry Ivanovich Sobolev, commander of the Caucasian Cossack Division. Surely you must have heard of him?'