Alexandra Lapierre - Between Love and Honor

The elders could rage all they liked. But at this very moment in the mosque of Ashilta, the approval of Sheik Jamaluddin confirmed the legitimacy of the election of his pupil, as chosen by the troops.

Bahou-Messadou drove her point home.

“You should elect a third imam so you won’t be left to yourselves, without a spiritual guide. That is what Sheik Jamaluddin said.”

“There was a time when Sheik Jamaluddin held an entirely different point of view!” Ullou Bek exclaimed.

The head of the council intervened.

“What do you know of Sheik Jamaluddin, woman, other than the fact that the first of your descendants bears his illustrious name? I myself heard him forbid your son to take up arms. Back then he said that, even if we were prepared to fight the infidels, a religious leader who preached the Tariqa in a mosque should not do so.”

“Sheik Jamaluddin changed his mind,” Bahou insisted.

“And do you know why?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We’re listening.”

“Because the believers owe allegiance to no one. To no one!” She enunciated each word explicitly, looking Ullou Bek directly in the eye, a breach of propriety that, in such extraordinary circumstances, all the men ignored. “No one but the faithful who are favored by Allah.”

“That is to say,” Ullou Bek countered, his words dripping with sarcasm, “to your son.”

“To the mullah who possesses both the wisdom of the religious science of the Tariqa and the military talents of a warrior chieftain,” she corrected him.

“Shamil is not that man! Shamil is not favored by Allah. He wants absolute power so that he can take our property. Look what he did with the treasure of the khans of Avaria!”

At last.

Bahou-Messadou took a deep breath. Finally they had broached the subject that had been on all their minds, the object of all their worries: the treasure of the khans of Avaria. Now they would evoke the real reason for this discussion, the reason that made them fear Russian reprisals and gave rise to this urgent need to make a decision. The events of the last month justified their questions. The upheaval of the past two days demanded they find an answer.

Today, September twenty-fifth, the muezzin would call the faithful to the second prayer of the morning.

Four weeks ago, on August twenty-fourth, Shamil had left Ghimri with all of his men to join Hamzat Bek, the leader and second imam, who had taken the place of Khazi Mullah, slain during the attack. They had left to conquer Kunzakh, the capital of Avaria, a community under Russian subjugation, six hours away on horseback.

Hamzat and Shamil had taken the city and all the property of the ruling family. They had decapitated the khanum, the widow of the khan, who had been the infidels’ ally. They had executed all of his followers and massacred his three sons.

Hamzat Bek had then moved into the palace, with all their treasure. Shamil had returned home to Ghimri. That was five days ago, on September twentieth.

The same evening, a messenger came to Ghimri to tell Shamil that Hamzat Bek had been murdered by Hadji Murat, the foster brother of the heir of one of the khans. He had stabbed Hamzat in broad daylight in front of the mosque of Kunzakh, then fled.

Within the hour, Shamil had called a meeting of Hamzat Bek’s warriors to elect a new imam.

“But Shamil,” they had said, “we already have a leader. It’s you.”

He had refused their offer twice, but twice more they voted for him. Time was short, and vengeance could not wait.

Shamil had finally accepted their choice, but not without demanding that each of them make a solemn oath to obey him, in blind faith and absolute submission. He then gathered his murids together and galloped off toward Kunzakh.

There, he sacrificed all the prisoners, confiscated the treasure, and kidnapped the last child of the khans, a boy of eight. The ruling house of Avaria, once the realm of the Russians, seemed to have been definitively wiped out.

The plunder and the child had been loaded on mules and sent to Ghimri, where the boy had been strangled in public, his body thrown from the bridge over the Avar Koysu. The coffers of booty had been carried to Bahou-Messadou’s home. This had all taken place the day before yesterday.

Shamil had immediately left for his investiture and the official consecration by the heads of all the tribes of the Caucasus at the mosque in Ashilta. Just yesterday.

And tomorrow the Russians would attack with a vengeance and try to recover the treasure.

How could they deal with this threat? Perhaps by taking the imam’s nearest as hostages?

They could be used as barter.

Either in negotiations with the Russians or, later on, in negotiations with Shamil himself.

No matter, as long as Ghimri was able to keep the wealth of the ancient capital of Avaria.

That was what Bahou-Messadou had come to talk to them about, the treasure that Shamil’s Polish soldiers, deserters from the czar’s army who had converted to Islam, were guarding at this very moment in the outbuildings of her apartment.

As it happened, she did not have time.

All of them could hear the clamor in the village below as a breathless messenger burst into the room where the council was meeting.

“The Russians are coming!”

The Russians. The members of the council greeted the news in stony silence.

They made not a move and uttered not a question, which was unusual for these fierce and vivacious old men, so adept at eloquence and irony. Discipline of body and mind prevailed as they demonstrated the impassive dissimulation of long habit.

They barely shifted their backs from the wall. Their heads held high, their palms remained at their knees. No one moved a muscle. The black line of their hats seemed to have been traced upon the red background of the carpet. The looks in their eyes revealed nothing. Not agitation nor contemplation of danger, nor the excitement of imminent combat. Even the expression in Bahou-Messadou’s eyes, now glassy and half-closed, had become vague.

Everything seemed so serene that the messenger was suddenly ashamed of his own precipitation. He took a deep breath and decided to deliver the most urgent information deliberately and calmly.

“They have crossed the Avar Koysu at the Devil’s Bridge. They are taking the lower path. There are a hundred of them and they are four hours from here. They are burning every aul in their path.”

Urus-Datu thanked him with a nod.

Then Urus-Datu turned to the muezzin and, in a single concession to the danger at hand, asked him to issue the call to the second prayer of the day. This was a ploy learned from Shamil, who had not hesitated to advance the ritual time for prayer by a few dozen minutes during difficult negotiations in order to gain time. The decision of the elders, to resist or surrender, could only be made after turning to Allah.

The pale September sun was far from its zenith when the muezzin appeared on the balcony. But invoking the name of the Lord brought neither relief nor serenity this time. No one in Ghimri listened, except for the council.

The women ran all over the place, yelling as they gathered their possessions, rounded up their children, and grabbed their chickens. Experience had taught them that they had no choice but to flee. To escape with their meager possessions by the peaks and the steep slopes that led down to the river and hide deep in the forest, where they would listen and wait. The giaours were afraid of being ambushed in the woods, and perhaps this would discourage any chase. Maybe this time they would decline to die from the single shot of an invisible assassin, especially when the prize was so unappealing—a few chickens and women who were so worn out by successive pregnancies, back-breaking fieldwork, and daily chores that, at twenty-five, they looked twice their age.