The Kindness of Enemies

1. SCOTLAND, DECEMBER 2010

A few minutes into the lecture, I ran out of words. I stalled. I left the subject I was teaching and stood staring. Gaynor Stead was sitting in my class. She should not be in this room because this was a second-year class and she was repeating third year. It was really her, not a lookalike. No one else had that dopey look or that shaggy hairstyle. But, it flashed through my mind and made my shoulders weak, perhaps I was the one who had walked into the wrong room, I was the one who was going over revision questions on the Crimean War instead of the Bolshevik Revolution. I searched the faces of the students for some indication. They seemed undisturbed at my presence, yawning this early in the morning, pushing away damp fringes from their eyes, hunched as usual over laptops and notes. The room smelt of cheap shower gel, a mix of deodorants and styling mousse. ‘Excuse me a minute,’ I said. I took my bag and left the room. I stood in the corridor, I checked my timetable, I checked the room number and completely reassured of my sanity, I walked back in. Laughter gurgled in my throat now. Gaynor Stead must have surpassed the breadth of her own stupidity. She was now sitting in classes she was not required to take, listening to a course she had (disingenuously, erroneously, miraculously) been awarded a pass for at one resit or the other.

As the students filed out at the end of the class I was tempted to stop her. But I did not trust myself. Could I be civil after she had falsely accused me of breaking her finger? She, on her part, did not acknowledge me in any way. I gathered my lecture notes and with them I saw a pro-life leaflet that didn’t belong to me, a picture of a foetus in sad blue tones. One of the students must have put it there either when I was out of the room or earlier when filing in. Perhaps it was Gaynor out to intimidate me. Perhaps that was why she was here. To target me. But this was a ludicrous idea. How on earth would she know? I was being paranoid, too easily rattled.

Surgical instruments used in the abortion process. I put the leaflet away and for the first time felt the urge to escape. But where to? To go back to Malak and see the vacuum Oz left behind? To fly to Sudan and sit at my father’s deathbed? Instead I went into town because I needed to be surrounded by people, by normal life.

I needed tea and cake, not proper food, and I found a shop that specialised in cupcakes. All kinds of them were set out, with different coloured icing and flavours: lemon, chocolate and raspberry. My mother, to make life in Khartoum less austere, had at one time started her own cake business. She baked at home and then delivered by car but it was not easy. There was a sugar shortage; cooking gas was difficult to get — she had to sit in the petrol queue for hours in order to refuel. I helped her as much as I could. In the kitchen, answering the phone for orders and going with her in the car to deliver. We had to be nice to all the customers. This was difficult when they cancelled orders after my mother had started baking or they delayed bringing back the containers in which we had delivered the cakes. When we passed by to pick them up, they would spend ages searching their kitchen and end up saying, ‘Oh, we must have lent that tray out.’ Then my mother would raise her voice to harangue them and they would take offence, punishing us by withdrawing their custom.

My mother knew how to make only three cakes: chocolate, which was popular; pineapple upside down which needed tinned pineapples — and these, being imported, were not always available at the grocers; and a honey one that was inferior to the one her friend Grusha Babiker specialised in. It upset my mother that Grusha would not share her recipe. Even though Grusha had none of our income woes, she insisted on keeping her recipe a secret. I remember my mother talking to Grusha on the phone and then crying afterwards. But she could have been crying about something else and not what Grusha had said. She could have been crying about the time a good batch of baking had used up all the gas before she got round to cooking my father’s lunch. He came home to find the table set but with bread and cheese as the meal. He banged the table so hard that some of the plates shattered to the ground. Then he walked out of the house and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember his return. Most likely he came back late, after I went to bed.

My mother had trained as a physiotherapist. She met my father when he tore his rotator cuff playing volleyball. He was in the university team, conspicuous because he was black, he would say. Conspicuous because he was handsome, she would insist. He was shy undressing in front of her. Women, where he came from, did not treat men, did not touch their naked shoulder. My mother found his shyness endearing, his inhibitions intriguing. Their courtship was not smooth. He blew hot and cold but she pursued him. ‘I was smitten,’ she later said. ‘I didn’t think.’ He did, though. He thought that she would come to her senses. He depended on this and eased himself into the relationship, allowing her to treat his shoulder and type up his thesis. There were romantic photos of that time, cigarettes in their hands, smiles, hers always broader and more optimistic. In the wedding photo, a civil ceremony in Georgia, an almost bewildered look in my father’s eyes, as if time and circumstances had caught up with him. As if what he had judged to be inexorably shifting and amorphous had unexpectedly crystallised.

They arrived in Sudan together. He had omitted to tell his family of his marriage and presented them with a pregnant wife. The muted celebratory homecoming was adjusted to include a Sudanese wedding. My mother objected to being decked out as a Sudanese bride. She hated the henna, the sandalwood and the gold. She wouldn’t fit in. What did she imagine? What were her expectations? I know because she spoke about them; they remained vivid in her mind, for years, because they never materialised.

My father, despite his PhD from the Soviet Union, against all the odds of his generation, struggled to earn a living. This was the reason their marriage failed. Nothing else. Their quarrels were in tangent to this and so in the sporadic times of plenty, there were happy moments, humdrum silent days, stretches of peace. The three of us slept outdoors in the front yard, just below the high wall, my father dragging out the three beds and spraying water on the red bricks of the ground. Thinking I was fast asleep, they would go indoors to their bedroom and then later come out to lie down with their cigarettes and talk in low voices. I liked dozing to the sound of their voices, the pink glow of the cigarettes in the dark. They wouldn’t talk finances at that time of night; instead they spoke about films they’d seen or exchanged news of friends and neighbours. My father, for all his seriousness, enjoyed satire and rumours.

He made a mistake when he prohibited her from working as a physiotherapist. He should have defied convention but maybe the foreign marriage itself was his limit. It would shame me, he said to her, if you touched other men’s backs and shoulders and legs. He did not object to the cake business but my mother registered the curtailment of a vocation she loved. She held it against him, drawing it out in subsequent quarrels, making digs whenever she could. Ironically, when she married Tony and moved to Scotland, her Russian qualifications also hindered her ability to work. But by then, she cared less and felt too old to retrain. By then, even without a divorce settlement from my father, she was content with coffee mornings and shopping, and crucially, Tony was earning enough.

It was not through the cakes that my mother first met Tony. But he ordered a pineapple upside down so that he would see her again. I sat in the car while she rang the doorbell of his villa and went in. The reason I remembered that day was that his was the only villa in which the railing running over the front wall was shaped in letters from the English alphabet. It was as if the villa had at one time been a nursery. For a time I enjoyed looking at the letters while sitting in the front seat, then the back seat, then the driver’s seat until I got hot and bored. I hooted the horn and felt foolish when the few people walking down the street stared at me. At last I got out of the car and rang the bell. Instead of yelling at me, my mother came out animated and smiling. To placate me she bought me a Pasgianos from the corner store. The bottle was warm and I drank it all in one go.

Before the baking, when I should have been in nursery school but I wasn’t, my mother used to lie in bed during the day and read novels in order to improve her English. The bed was in the sitting room because we didn’t have proper furniture. It was something that annoyed her but my father said, so what, very few Sudanese had chairs and sofas in their sitting room, just string cots pushed against the wall. Aunty Grusha and Yasha had a dining table and everything in their house was neat and modern. But we were different; we were unlucky because my father was unlucky. He was on the wrong side of the government and the wrong side of the market. So my mother would lie down in that sunny sitting room, the fan spinning above us while I played on the floor with a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle was of a scene in Bambi and some of the pieces were missing. It didn’t matter to me, though, because I knew which pieces were missing and I worked around these absences. The sand of our cement floor poked up in between the greenery of a European forest but Bambi and his mother were whole.

Once I looked up from the puzzle and stared at the cover of the book my mother was reading. The large capital letters in green and orange nestling close together and the little picture at the bottom that was hidden by her fingers. I was happy that she was settled in one place. I could work on my puzzle and then look up to catch her turning a page or circling her ankle as it rested on top of her knee. Her toenails were the exact colour of Little Red Riding’s hood, another jigsaw I had. I liked the way my mother’s hair fell over the pillow. She had yellow shoulder-length hair, but near her neck the hair was darker. And her eyebrows too, which she plucked diligently, were darker. My own hair was different — it was like my father’s even though I was a girl and it should have been like hers; instead it was a mistake, a bush to touch and in photographs, a cloud. Like other white mothers with black daughters, my mother had no clue how to deal with it. It left her bewildered and helpless, it made her feel incompetent.

I was searching for the piece of Bambi’s eyes which was central to the whole jigsaw when I noticed a movement and saw that my mother had raised one knee and hugged it to herself. The dress she was wearing slipped and her thighs were white and smooth all the way to her grey underpants. Milky white, not like her face and arms, which were regularly touched by the sun. A pressure rose in my chest but also a glow as if I was wearing a golden necklace that weighed too much. Even though I was with her, even though I could move towards her for a cuddle and a kiss, I was not like her and might never be, I was in another place, lonely because she would never join me. I stood up and walked to the bed. With my whole hand, I pinched her inner thigh as hard as I could, until she cried out and dropped the book and scolded me — but she was laughing now and tickling me, tickling my stomach, feet and armpits until I was squealing. When I burst into tears, she thought that it was because I had laughed too much.

One day my mother wanted to go and see a film at the cinema but my father didn’t. They argued about it and instead my mother went with Grusha and her husband. I didn’t like that: to stay a whole long evening with my father all by ourselves. He didn’t speak to me. There was a power cut so we sat in the moonlit garden. He with his drink and radio and I with nothing to do but look at our tall metal door and will my mother to walk through it. There was talk coming from the radio and military music among the static. My father didn’t walk indoors to the bathroom. Instead he stood up and peed into the flower bed. This upset me and he laughed, saying it was good for the plants. He gave me a sip of his drink and it tasted like perfume. I didn’t understand what the radio was announcing but it couldn’t have been anything cheerful because he became sullen again. It was as if I could read his thoughts and this made me anxious. I wanted to help him but at the same time I wanted to move away. I wanted to be her daughter, not his. Yet I empathised with him, I knew that he was uneasy about my mother and this, in turn, made me worry that she would not come back from the cinema. I went and stood by the door, leaning on the warm black metal, aching to run out and search for her. Years later, when Tony appeared on the scene, I spent many such evenings alone with my father. We never spoke about her but she was the tension between us, the new meaning of shame, a restrained lurid excitement. I felt that I was her accomplice because that metal alphabet on the walls of Tony’s villa beckoned me to a better life, the first rung on the ladder of opportunity, and my father was the one we both kicked away.

These dips into the past guzzled time. Three cupcakes for lunch and I drank my last mug of tea without sugar and milk. More people were coming into the café carrying their Christmas shopping; I should leave to make room for them to sit. Instead I looked out of the window and saw the girl in hijab who had come with Oz to my talk on Monday. She was crossing the street with the calmest of expressions. Most likely she had not heard yet about Oz’s arrest. The belt of her coat was undone and her purple Uggs looked like they were brand new. She saw me and smiled a little, like there were no hard feelings between us, like there could be a beginning. Behind her two bearded men walked in the same direction. This was a higher than usual rate of Muslim sighting for our small town. It was Friday of course and they were heading to the mosque. I thought of Oz missing this prayer and of Malak praying for his release.

On the way out of the café, I threw the pro-life leaflet into the bin. A friend once said to me, ‘You’re not the first or last woman to have had an abortion. Get over it.’ But I was a Sudanese woman or at least, when I learnt the facts of life, I was preparing to be one. No matter how much I changed when I came to Britain, changed my behaviour and my thoughts, there would be layers of me, pockets, membranes and films that would carry these other values and that other guilt.

The thought of guilt led me back to Oz. What if he wasn’t innocent? How could I be sure of anything? Sit on the fence and be neither this nor that, believe in everything, believe in nothing. Know only excess and hunger. Too much sugar in my blood and a need for a roof over my head. The repairs to my flat were likely to take weeks, delays because of Christmas, delays because it was winter. Until then I would be a nomad, living in temporary accommodation and on the weekends with Tony or friends. The afternoon sun was hidden behind more snow clouds. It was time for me to head back to the university.

Iain walked into my office and closed the door behind him. He said, ‘I’ve just had two officers in my room interviewing me about Oz Raja.’

Why Iain? Because even though he was head of the department, he was Oz’s tutor too. I should have expected this.

‘What did they want?’ I wanted my voice to sound casual. Business as usual, as if this was another administrative issue, serious and urgent, but not out of the ordinary. I noticed that Iain’s hair was even bigger than usual today. He must have been a Duran Duran fan back in the eighties.

‘They wanted to know if Oz had been behaving suspiciously. They wanted to know if he drinks alcohol.’

‘He doesn’t.’

‘They wanted to know if he has a girlfriend.’

I paused for a second and then I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ Why drag the girl into this?

Iain shifted his weight. He pressed his back against the door. ‘They wanted to know whether he had always worn a beard.’

On another day, on another occasion we could have been laughing. All of this was the stuff of jokes. ‘Yes,’ I replied. I noticed Iain’s shirt was striped and his tie was striped, navy bars straight and slanting.

His voice rose a pitch higher. ‘They wanted to know why in the reports we submitted about the students vulnerable to radicalisation, Osama Raja’s name never showed up?’

I had written these reports. Two of them. I had written them well and I had written them with care. But I had not written them about Oz.

‘I had everyone backing out of this saying they won’t spy on their own students.’ Iain spoke more softly. ‘You volunteered for the training course. You wrote these reports. So what happened?’

He was right, hardly any academic member of staff wanted the added task of monitoring their Muslim students. ‘This is Scotland, not Bradford,’ was one of the comments, and ‘We don’t have enough Muslim students to justify the time and effort.’ I remembered Fiona Ingram saying, ‘I will not shop my students and end up losing their trust in the process!’

But I had no qualms. I had figured out, long ago, that it paid to do what the competition found difficult, distasteful or even just a waste of time. Besides, we had to show, in addition to our publications, that we were undertaking Continuing Professional Development. Attending this training course would count as such. It was held at another university and I went by train. It was only as I gazed out of the window at the Scottish green and shimmering grey sea, that I admitted to myself that I was doing this to distance myself. From Hussein and from the titles of my papers. The two consultants who led the workshop were ‘industry specialists’ and not academics. It was assumed that we agreed with the effectiveness of the strategy to prevent radicalisation and by extension another terrorist attack. I remember thinking, ‘If you say so.’ I remember knowing that I was a hypocrite; I remember the reach to grab yet another opportunity. But the awareness was banal and familiar, like the fact that I was overweight, another fault I could live with.

Later, I applied what I had learnt at the course and referred two students. One of them was an international post-grad who was skipping classes. The UK Border Agency had already suspended one Scottish university’s licence to sponsor overseas students — so it was right that I should expose any irregularity. The other student, son of a halal butcher in Glasgow, was a nasty little number. Misogynist, anti-Semitic and homophobic, he had no qualms in sharing with me his extremist views. Instead of trying to argue some sense into him, I let him speak his mind and ended up writing a report that swarmed with details. There was no point in attending a training course if I was not going to put what I had learnt into practice.

I opened my mouth to explain but Iain went on, ‘Why couldn’t you identify Oz as being at risk, when now the police have him in for supporting websites that recruit Chechen Jihadist fighters who are linked to al-Qaeda? And what on earth were you doing in their house when he was arrested?’

The last question was the easiest to answer. To start with my research on Shamil was the sturdiest of footholds. To talk of the snow, their house, their connection to Shamil soothed me. He heard me out without interrupting.

‘Oz didn’t tick the right boxes,’ I said to Iain.

He remained standing and I remained sitting. The stripes of his shirt dazzled my eyes. They merged and moved. ‘Oz wasn’t lonely, he wasn’t depressed or isolated. He didn’t seem to me to have more political grievances than average. He wasn’t disadvantaged, and he wasn’t estranged from his family. His parents are divorced but his father supports him. His father is, as far as I gathered, a successful businessman in South Africa and his mother’s an actor, so I judged Oz to be integrated and well adjusted. They’re pretty well off. I mean, how many people can afford a state-of-the-art treadmill in their house?’

My last sentence didn’t soften the mood. Iain’s head was tilted down towards me. I noticed that he was holding a pen in his hand. ‘Natasha, if this boy is found guilty how are we going to look?’

‘He’s not guilty,’ I said.

‘The police don’t go around arresting people at random.’

‘It still doesn’t make him guilty.’

Iain spoke to me as if I was someone else. ‘You aren’t answering my question. So I will ask you again. If he goes down, how are you going to look?’

‘Not good.’

‘That’s right. And I don’t want that and you don’t want that. So here is what you’re going to do. You are going to write me a report on every conversation you’ve had with Oz Raja. I want every email he sent you and every paper he’s ever submitted in your course.’

So I would write that he made snowmen and chopped practised cutting their heads off with a sword.

So I would write that he joked spoke about setting up a jihadist camp in the countryside.

So I would write that he was researching weapons used to use for jihad.

I must have scowled. I might have even shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at his shirt stripes any more. They were like electrical circuits.

Iain said, ‘I think the police might want to ask you more questions and check your desktop. I hope they won’t decide to seal off this room. Everyone walking down the corridor will want to know why!’ His tone then became friendlier, as if we had finished a meeting and now we were chatting informally. He even put his hand on the back of my chair. ‘Natasha, you’re astute enough to know what needs to be done. You’ve always been an asset to us and I want you to continue to be so.’

He turned to leave the room. He put his pen in the pocket of his shirt and his hand on the doorknob. ‘And I don’t need to remind you that your contract of employment warns you against bringing the university into disrepute.’

No, he did not need to remind me. And I noted that he had not mentioned Gaynor Stead or the fact that her complaint had been upheld. A complaint against me was already in the system, being examined, being processed. Iain would expect me to feel grateful that he hadn’t brought this up. He would expect me to respond.

2. DARGO, THE CAUCASUS, SEPTEMBER 1854

Quickly it became also about money. Zeidat towered over her. ‘Shamil Imam doesn’t want it for himself; he doesn’t care.’ Her Russian had improved or more likely Anna was finding it easier to understand. ‘Look how we live!’ Zeidat’s hand swept over the bare room ridiculously referred to as the guest quarters, the walls stained with damp, the tired cushion Anna was sitting on. She was mending a ragged piece of netting brought in to protect Alexander from the flying insects that bit him through the night.

‘Look,’ Zeidat repeated as if Anna, in this confinement, had not noticed the broken chimney or the small lopsided window — and this room, as she had found out, was one of the better ones.

Anna continued with her sewing while Zeidat paced up and down. This flexing of muscles, her voice louder than usual, was because Shamil was away. His departure, a dawn gallop of horses, had not woken Anna. After bedtime, she would listen to Alexander’s steady breathing and to Madame Drancy who snored softly in her sleep. For hours, Anna would vibrate with injustice until, in the middle of an unspoken accusation, sleep would dunk her down and keep her oblivious to the break of dawn and the early movements of the aoul. ‘Lazy,’ Zeidat had said in front of the other women. ‘Brought up in the lap of luxury, never done a day’s work. Satan pisses in her ear, that’s why the infidel can’t hear the call to the dawn prayers,’ she would laugh to the others, who always objected, who often defended Anna. Shamil’s orders were that she be treated as a guest but she was not fully shielded from Zeidat’s daily knocks, her twists of the mouth and sighs of exasperation. Today she was even more reckless because she was the one solely in charge now, she commanded and forbade. So breakfast had been water and dried bread for the hostages, no tea. Later, Anna guessed, it would be tepid unappetising soup or even no dinner at all.

Zeidat swept down and squatted in front of her, her breath dry and sour. She clicked her fingers in front of Anna’s face so that the diamond on her ring flashed. ‘Recognise this!’ It had belonged to David’s mother; it was looted from Tsinondali. ‘Your husband is rich, isn’t he? So he needs to pay us. We must have fifty thousand roubles. We need to build our villages again, the ones you burnt down, the trees you cut down, the crops you destroyed, the pastures you razed, the cattle you did not pull away like decent warriors but shot down for no reason other than that you are evil Russians.’

I am Georgian, not Russian.

It was difficult to stop the words from coming out but still it was a challenge that she welcomed. Being able to restrain herself was itself a reassurance that she had control. She needed these proofs throughout the day. A little while ago, when Zeidat walked in, Anna had ordered Drancy to step out of the room and noted with bitter satisfaction the reply of ‘Yes, Your Highness’. Insisting that Alexander continue with his lessons, asking him to speak French at all times with Madame Drancy. She was clinging to who she had been, insisting on being more than a prisoner. ‘Anna, Princess of Georgia’ was how Shamil had addressed her. He knew who she was.

‘Write a letter,’ Zeidat hissed.

‘I have written to my husband.’

A smirk. ‘And he has not paid up. Maybe your husband has forgotten you. Write to that rich tsar of yours. Tell him to pay your ransom. Beg him for help.’

‘No.’ She should have heeded the warnings and stayed in Tiflis for the summer; later on she should have escaped immediately to the forest. Now, especially, she could not approach the emperor when he was so troubled by the campaigns in the Crimea.

Zeidat looked like she wanted to hit her. She opened her mouth but Anna interrupted, ‘The tsar will not hand over Jamaleldin.’ She remembered him clearly now as the exotically handsome aide-decamp, walking two paces behind the tsar. ‘And Jamaleldin himself would never want to come here.’

A vagueness skimmed over Zeidat’s eyes. Jamaleldin was not her son; perhaps that was why she cared more about the money. But Anna had heard Shamil say, ‘I want my son back.’ She had understood him because of Lydia.

Zeidat cocked her head to one side. ‘The tsar will return Shamil Imam’s son. And your husband will pay the money.’

‘My husband does not have fifty thousand roubles.’

‘Liar,’ Zeidat snorted.

‘I am not a liar. His wealth is in the land.’

‘Then he will have to sell it, won’t he?’

‘We don’t sell our land. It belongs to our ancestors and to our children. It is more than a possession.’ Tsinondali was vivid to her, more so than the present. Tsinondali was big and bright and waiting for her. When she was young, her father would speak disapprovingly of a neighbour who sold his land to cover debts, of a cousin who neglected his estate, of a friend who mistreated his serfs. The land was a responsibility, part of the fabric of the family. Not for sale.

Zeidat stood up. ‘Haughty, haughty. Do you think I believe such nonsense? Sell, borrow, steal, we don’t care. We want both: Jamaleldin and the money. Otherwise what will happen? You asked Shamil Imam this when you were presented to him and what did he say? He said “Our ordinary laws and customs will apply.” Did you understand what he meant? Of course you didn’t. Well let me explain. It means no more of the “guest” nonsense. It means you are a prisoner-of-war, like any prisoner. How do you treat us, you Russians, when our men fall into your hands? When our women fall into your hands?’ She squatted down again close to Anna. ‘Let me tell you, I lost sisters in Akhulgo dear to me, one a cousin and another a close friend. When the village fell, they could see the Russian soldiers climbing up, coming close, they could not escape and so they knew the Russians were going to capture them; do you know what they did? They covered their faces with their veils and jumped from the cliffs.’ Zeidat’s voice rose to a pitch. ‘Because being captured by the Russians is worse for a woman than death. Do you understand what I am saying? If the negotiations fail, you, Anna, would become a prisoner-of-war. You would be tossed out of my home and I would do it gladly. If the money isn’t paid, if Shamil Imam doesn’t get his son back, he will hand you over as a gift to his favourite naib. You understand, Anna, what I mean by the word “gift” — of course, you are not a child. That is our custom. Already every day now one of his naibs approaches him with an offer to purchase you. So write to the tsar.’

Anna pressed her hands together to hide their tremble. Her fingers were slippery. ‘I will not write to the tsar asking for a ransom and if you refuse to take the lead from Imam Shamil and treat me as a guest, then the least you can do is address me as he does, by my title.’

Zeidat picked up Alexander’s netting and stood up. It was one agile movement, a smoothness in her voice. ‘Maybe when your son is itching and crying, you will start to see sense.’

In this room, which was poorly lit even in the daytime, Anna had strained her eyes repairing the bigger holes in the netting. She now watched Zeidat carry the material out of the room. The sewing materials were one of the few things David had been able to send. Along with combs, soap, towels and a shawl. A serf from Tsinondali had made the perilous journey and had been allowed to speak to her for a few minutes, though not in private. He reassured her that David and all their friends were doing all they could to secure her release. No doubt the serf would go back and report on how thin she had become. She gave him a letter to David but she was only allowed to write about the ransom, nothing else. With a wooden pen and piece of wool soaked in ink (the only writing materials provided), she had managed a few stilted sentences, no information about their life, except that they were in good health, well looked after.

She read David’s letter only once. It made her stay awake at night, silently shouting at him. On the day of the kidnapping, he said — I thought you had escaped to the woods when I saw the flames rising up from the direction of Tsinondali. Why he had not rushed back home — the correct military procedure was to lie in ambush waiting for the enemy’s return. Why he had not attempted to save her — I know from experience that they prefer to slaughter, God forbid, their prisoners rather than loose them, I could not take such a risk. How the serfs found Lydia — they recognized the lace shawl … Where she was buried — in the Church of St George which has escaped the fire. When he found out about the burial and the kidnapping — two days later, when it was safe for me to leave the fort.

When it was safe for me to leave the fort.

The lace shawl.

She had wanted to tear up the letter. But she had controlled herself. Why make Zeidat laugh at her? Why upset Alexander? She had not torn it up but she had not read it again. David was telling the truth, she knew, when he said, I am doing everything I can to secure your release but, strangely enough, she did not believe in him. Nor did she doubt him, or question his abilities. He was telling her the truth but the truth did not always inspire faith. That was what she lacked often these days after the denial and the extravagant hope had passed, especially after the ransom sums were bandied about, more extortionate, it seemed, by the minute. Was it greed or compensation? She was not sure. Crops burnt, villages destroyed, forests felled … why? Her faith was wavering, not only that they would go back to Georgia but in who was right, who was winning; what was it all for?

Madame Drancy was better than her in this respect. She impressed Anna with her determination to be a true Christian, patiently carrying her cross. She would read aloud from the Imitation de Jesus-Christ, the only book that managed to reach them. ‘This is my true comfort,’ she would say, a little dramatically, tears in her eyes. Often she gave in to sobs and hysterics whenever she missed her mother or fell ill. These easy feminine tears made Anna envious. She was all dried up after Lydia, too angry to cry.

Of course David was doing everything he could to secure her release, but every day he seemed further away, detached from this strange new life. She would not even want to tell him about it, ashamed of what she had been reduced to. But again, his letter should have given her nourishment. One would think, she mused, that such a letter would be my lifeline, my consolation, my link. Instead its words rattled rather than soothed her, kept her awake, her body lengthened with passion, her dreams, when they finally came, carnal and unfulfilling. The nights were hot and the room poorly ventilated. Thighs stuck together, sweat pooling under her breasts, her hair damp on the pillow. Last night she had sensed a familiar tug that folded into a gentle ache, a promise of a trickle. It had been more than a year since she had leaked this monthly blood, since first carrying Lydia. Welcome old friend. To reassure her that she was still fertile. To promise her future princes and princesses.

When they had first arrived in Dargo, it was stifling nights following long empty days. Total imprisonment in this one room for at least two weeks. ‘Is this how you treat your guests, Imam Shamil?’ she had berated him the next time they met, finding herself matching his tone, using his words. ‘No fresh air, no sunlight, no exercise. No wonder we are poorly.’ He relented immediately; Anna and Madame Drancy to have full and free access to all of the women’s quarters, Alexander to play outdoors with the children of the aoul, even all day if he wanted to.

What did they do with themselves, Shamil’s women? Anna’s hosts were themselves like prisoners huddled in these quarters. Rooms of stone that opened into a gallery, screened by a high wooden fence, through which they could look out at the rest of their household. Shamil had his own separate building adjoining the mosque, a reception room in which he conducted meetings and received visitors. His rooms, which roused Anna’s mild curiosity, were not shared by any of his wives. Instead he visited them in turn, knocking on their door, waiting for permission to come in.

‘Is it true,’ she asked Chuanat, who arrived sneaking in another netting for Alexander, cake and tea for his mother, ‘that you ransomed yourself to Shamil to save your family?’

Chuanat smiled with her usual warmth. ‘That’s what I wanted them to believe but, no, I fell in love with him. I could not leave him.’ When they had first arrived in Dargo, Anna had noticed that Chuanat was plump. In fact she was pregnant and now due to give birth. Her trousers were hitched above her bulge; she needed extra pillows to lean upon.

Anna had plenty of questions. How could Chuanat bear this life? Did she not mind sharing Shamil with Zeidat and Ameena? Does not love wane after years of marriage and children?

‘When he comes back safe from battle, I am so relieved. It is as if I am seeing him again for the first time, fresh feelings and we start all over again. He is so handsome, I sometimes think he has bewitched me. If the story about the mountain lion is true, then it would be easy for him to ensnare a young girl. The first day I saw him, the way he looked at me, it was as if he knew everything about me and I didn’t have to explain myself. I was young when I was captured. Treated fairly well on the journey, no one laid a finger on me, but I cried for my family. Then he became my family. He replaced everything I lost, and more. He never asked me to change my religion. ‘Chuanat, my Christian wife’, he made everyone say it, like him, with respect. ‘We worship the same God,’ he told me, ‘and when you are ready I will show you shorter, quicker, more direct routes to Him. I will lead you.’ My mother had wanted to give me to the church. Yes, I had been destined for the Armenian Church — but I had my own misgivings though I kept them to myself. I loved my Lord and wanted to serve Him; I even liked how the nuns lived, how peaceful they were and orderly. I liked their clean life removed from the bustle of the markets, away from the competition and envy and always wanting more. But I wanted children, I imagined myself a mother and that made me think that I would be out of place in the convent, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other nuns, somehow, I would let them down. Now here I have everything I wanted.’ She laid a hand on the bulge of her stomach. ‘They are all inseparable, the baby and the prayers.’

‘But it is so basic, this life. How can you bear it? No music, no rides, no books. These stone rooms. The food is horrible, the clothes are horrible.’

Chuanat nodded, ‘Yes, I wish Shamil would permit us to dress better. A bonnet and a cloak — I would like that. But not the other things, not at all. It would have been basic too in the convent. Now I feel I have plenty. The outside world doesn’t interest me. When I pray behind him I am happy. I am peaceful. Shamil has brought me closer to God, because he is close to Him. And there is such a blessing in being with him, in serving him. It is a kind of intoxication that does not diminish or become stale. It is as close as I can get to Heaven. He is gentle with us. Have you seen him with the children? He always gives them fruit and toffees.’

Anna had seen him once carrying a pretty girl, while her crippled leg hung over his arms. She was his daughter, from Zeidat. His two older daughters were from the late Fatima; they were thirteen and ten.

‘He is one thing at home and another outside. He has never raised a hand against any of us. He knows when I am tired, he knows when I am remembering my family; he understands when someone has upset me.’

‘And the others?’ Anna prodded. Polygamy disgusted her but at such close quarters it was interesting.

‘Zeidat’s father is Sheikh Jamal el-Din, Shamil Imam’s teacher. Zeidat could not find a husband because of her sharp temper and difficult ways — so in gratitude to his teacher and to ease his mind, Shamil married her. I did get jealous when he married Ameena. But she is too young, she does not appreciate him. I don’t know what is wrong with this girl, she is moody and doesn’t know what she wants. You know she once set fire to Zeidat’s room! Over a quarrel about a piece of silk! She flew into a rage and burnt all of Zeidat’s clothes. And Imam Shamil did not punish her.’

Ameena visited Anna later that day. She often did, keen to hear stories about Petersburg and the tsar’s court or to ask Madame Drancy about Paris. Anna found her a harmless distraction as well as a welcome source of information about the household. It was Ameena who told her that the elderly lady, Bahou, was Jamaleldin and Ghazi’s maternal grandmother, mother of the deceased Fatima. The one who looked like Ameena was her mother, the middle-aged Tartar was the governess of Shamil’s daughters, the steward’s wife, a visitor and so on. Today Ameena took Anna by the arm. ‘Come, let me show you something special.’

They walked through the gallery to the building that housed Shamil’s quarters. Anna began to feel wary even though she knew he was away. Curiosity kept her from turning around. Ameena pushed open a door and they were in Shamil’s room. In the dim light Anna smelt cloves or camphor. When her eyes adjusted she saw, hanging over the fireplace, a scimitar, a sword and some pistols. The pistols were Georgian, mounted in silver. The sword had an Ottoman cartouche and there was gold Arabic calligraphy inscribed on the blade. The hilt was of animal horn and there were vegetal decorations on the crossbar.

The walls of the room were a simple white and there were a few Caucasian rugs on the floor, a wooden trunk pushed against the wall, a copper basin and jug. What surprised Anna most were the books, manuscripts and journals lining the shelves of more than one wall. There was a stack of the St Petersburg paper, the Russki Invalid. It was a simple room, no opulent chair, no desk, no clocks or cigar boxes, no globes and no decoration. And yet she wanted to linger, to absorb the solemn atmosphere, the stillness that almost had a colour. She looked more closely at the books, their Arabic script, a stack of letters, ledgers full of accounts. Ameena moved towards the trunk and said, ‘Come and see his clothes.’

Anna shook her head but Ameena had already lifted the lid of the trunk open. Anna looked down at green and brown woollen cloaks folded neatly, the heavy twisted white that made up his turban. She flushed because she was snooping and she should not be. She had told him that first time, My rank and upbringing forbid me to lie. I will not trick you. Ameena was naive to bring her here; perhaps she would be punished for it.

‘Let us go back.’ She turned to see Ameena holding a pistol in her hand. There was a strange expression on her face. She pointed it at Anna. It could not be loaded, but the sudden fear made her whole body tingle. ‘Put it back, Ameena.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is not yours.’

‘Or because your life is worth thousands of roubles? How much do you think my life is worth? One thousand, five hundred? How much is a childless wife worth?’

She did not feel frightened any more. ‘You are still young, Ameena, there is plenty of time for you to have children.’

Ameena mounted the pistol back on the wall. ‘I was teasing you,’ she said. She linked arms with Anna as they left the room. ‘But you weren’t afraid at all. If this were Drancy, I would have laughed my fill at her hysterics.’

The next day Chuanat gave birth to a girl. She lay propped up on cushions, dark shadows under her eyes but smiling, the baby swaddled in her arms. Her room filled up with women and a tray of rubbery Turkish Delight was passed around. The celebration would have been bigger had it been a boy. ‘We are waiting for her father to name her,’ Chuanat smiled. ‘I have already sent a message to him. Would you like to hold her, Anna?’

She could not refuse, though it brought back gusts of disbelief, one battering memory after the other. She had crooked her arm in exactly the same way, made sure Lydia’s head was supported, felt her own body large in comparison, a bulwark against harm. All babies were alike but not identical. There was the delicate skin, dewy, sometimes flaky, hair on the arms like threads. There were the exquisite movements, the slight toss of the head, mouth open rooting for milk, a yawn, a push of the elbow, a drawing in of the knee; these exact same movements the mother had felt in the womb. And then there were their eyes, large and steady because they held knowledge of other worlds. Later, in a few years’ time, they would carry names that defined them; they would find out on which side of the war they belonged. Later they would learn the legends and the proverbs, hear them from an older cousin or a younger aunt. When will blood stop flowing on the mountains? When the sugarcane grows in snow. But not yet, in these early days of their life — they were above it all, pure and holy.

Chuanat’s eyes were on the baby. She was a new mother, attuned to her infant’s needs, the two of them in harmony with each other, understanding and possessive. Anna handed her back the baby and left the room.

She went up to the roof, another concession she had fought for and won — fresh night air. She walked slowly around, breathing, wishing it were a full moon so that she could see more of the mountains. It had been almost four months since they were kidnapped, three months in Dargo. How slowly time passed! She must think of Alexander and not of Lydia. She must talk to Alexander more. He was left too often with the other children, fussed over by the women of the household. Madame Drancy had been shocked to hear him speak their captor’s language but Anna did not object. She was relieved that he was adjusting to this new situation better than she was. Last month he had been ill and it had intensified her anger to watch him suffer, away from the amenities of home and reliable medical care. It was true her captors were deeply concerned but their strange herbs and concoctions alienated her further. Nor were such cures successful. Shamil slaughtered a sheep and wrapped the feverish Alexander with its skin. It was the best cure, he explained to Anna, but it only partially reduced his temperature. ‘He must sleep in the gallery,’ she had insisted. ‘It is the stifling air in the room that is bad for him.’ Shamil agreed and checked on Alexander several times a day. ‘See how kind he is,’ Chuanat was quick to point out. ‘He loves children.’ But Anna was more sceptical. In this war of kidnaps and ransom, Alexander was a valuable hostage.

Madame Drancy joined her on the roof and they circled around, walking more briskly. Sometimes they counted the rounds they made, sometimes they timed themselves and kept going for a full hour. ‘I want to go for a walk,’ she had demanded of Shamil and he had not understood. ‘Is there nowhere to go? Is there no such thing here as an outing? Perhaps I can walk through the village.’ He relented and left it to Chuanat to organise. But it required such extensive arrangements, deliberation on who would be included in the group, what route they should take, what time was best, which of the guards could be spared to accompany them, that by the time they set out a heaviness weighed down what should have been a recreation. The village was all narrow steep roads, poverty-stricken families who either stared, jeered or followed.

The houses embedded in the mountains reminded Anna of burrows. Uneven, lopsided, with no sense of symmetry or continuity. She stumbled over the rocks, her burka (non-negotiable) dragging her down. Of course there were no parks, no pavilions, no fountains, no boulevards. What did she expect? It was a relief to return to the house. She never asked to go out again.

Madame Drancy, matching Anna’s wide strides with quick short steps, was assessing the consequence of Chuanat’s confinement. ‘We are fully at the mercy of Zeidat now. No tea, she insists. It is bad enough that there is no morning coffee at all, but why no tea? And this will continue for six weeks. Really six weeks of confinement for a new mother is too long. Another peculiar custom is that they bury the afterbirth. Is that not quaint?’

‘It must be the practice of the mountain tribes.’

‘Onion water for dinner! I went to the kitchen to see if I can find any scraps but the cook barred my way.’ She slowed a little. ‘I am not valuable to them, Your Highness.’

This was true and Anna was unable to contradict her. She wanted to keep walking, the movement soothing in itself. She did not want Drancy to lag behind. ‘We must keep our strength up, Madame Drancy. Exercise and fresh air. At least Zeidat gives Alexander a proper meal.’ Once or twice she had found herself asking him to save her a boiled egg or an apricot. It shamed her to do so.

‘I thought I could make myself valuable by teaching Shamil’s daughters French. But the only book I have with me is the Imitation. They object to its content and I cannot risk it being taken away from me.’

Anna remembered Drancy in the drawing room of Tsinondali, her neck bent over La Dame aux Camélias. The Crimean War had ended her plan to open a bookshop in Tiflis; now the highlanders had disrupted her career as a governess. She said, ‘Madame Drancy, I will do everything I can to compensate you for this predicament.’ She paused and reminded herself to say ‘when’ and not ‘if’. ‘When we go home, I will insist on you accompanying us. I will not leave without you. You will receive your full salary and I am sure that Prince David is taking you into account in the negotiations for our release.’ Madame Drancy’s thanks did not lessen the listlessness that crept over Anna. It had not been easy to make these promises; her pace became slower as a consequence.

The heavy footsteps of the sentry could be heard coming up the stairs. Soon it would be the end of their outdoor session. They would be locked up for the night, another of Zeidat’s provocations. Make the most of these last minutes, breathe in. A northern cloud had the inflated shape of a churn of cream in the kitchen of Tsinondali and that star reminded her of the diamond badge of office she had worn when she was presented at court.

3. DARGO, THE CAUCASUS, OCTOBER 1854

Shamil visited his teacher first before he went home. He felt Chuanat waiting for him, eager to show off the new baby, but a vague sense of unfinished business drew him to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. Grimy from travel, the din of battle still in his ears, he needed the calmness that the elderly man possessed. Sitting on the floor, they ate a meal of pilaf and raisins. Jamal el-Din said, ‘In your absence another message came through from Tabarsaran wanting you to send a representative with an army. They want Sharia rule so that they can be strong enough to resist the Russians.’

‘I will send them three thousand troops and three naibs. One will not be enough.’

‘Good. Is it true that you dismissed Umar al-Salti?’

‘He turned back on the road.’

Sheikh Jamal el-Din chuckled. ‘They say it was because he had recently taken a new wife.’ Saintly and learned, but he was partial to gossip.

Shamil frowned. ‘Is that an excuse? I appointed him as a naib, heading over a thousand, I tell him to set up camp up on Rughchah and he turns round!’

‘He was more suited to overseeing the gunpowder factory.’ Jamal el-Din had always been impressed by how the river’s current powered the machinery.

They spoke of the martyrs of the battle. Muhammad al ‘Uradi al Hidali, a scholar. Batir al-Militi, renowned for his courage, had been injured and died a few days later. Youth they did not know personally, brothers, sons, husbands and fathers. Winners who had been granted a life unlike this one, men who were to be missed and envied.

Jamal el-Din complimented him on Ghazi’s latest success in Shali. ‘At first,’ Shamil explained, ‘he was forced to retreat and rode through the night back to the mountains. He fell asleep across his saddle but a rider caught up with them saying that the Russians were in pursuit. The men gathered around him and started to sing Sleep no more, Ghazi Mohammed/ Sleeping is done/ The Russians are upon us/ There is a war to be won.’

‘And win it he did,’ said Jamal el-Din, taking a sip of water. ‘Now Muhammad-Sheffi will train even harder to catch up with his brother.’ He was Fatima’s youngest son, born in the difficult days after they were driven out of Akhulgo.

‘He rides well but his shooting is still mediocre.’ Shamil chewed on a raisin that was particularly tough.

‘Once,’ Jamal el-Din swallowed his last mouthful, ‘there was a man strolling through his grounds followed by his slave. When he reached the vegetable garden, he cut off one cucumber from its vine and took a bite. It was bitter so he gave up on it and tossed it to his slave. The youth ate it all up. Surprised by this the man asked, “Why did you eat it? Didn’t you find it bitter?” The slave replied, “Yes, it was bitter but you have been so generous to me and every day you give me the most delicious food so I felt ashamed to refuse something which, for once, was not tasty.”’

Jamal el-Din sat back, gesturing for Shamil to wipe clean the dish. ‘The man turned to his slave and said, “You have gained your freedom. Go now as you please.”’

Shamil fetched water and a basin so that they could rinse their hands. He would drink tea later with Chuanat. She always had the samovar ready by her side.

‘You did not consult me on the kidnapping of the princess,’ Jamal el-Din said.

Shamil bristled but he understood now why he had been drawn here, to face the disapproval he had suspected. ‘With due respect my master, but I do not usually go over with you every raid and operation.’

‘If you had asked my permission I would not have given it. And that is why you did not ask my permission.’

Shamil felt young, like a child caught out. He expected to receive a loving reprimand, a chuff on the shoulder, a gentle tug to his ear. ‘She is valuable,’ he said. ‘High enough to shake the tsar.’

Jamal el-Din’s eyes widened. He leaned forward. ‘You’re not going to ask me why I would have withheld my permission.’

‘It is too late to ask.’ His voice was louder than he expected it to be.

‘This is a new arrogance in you, Shamil.’

‘I want my son back.’

‘You want your son back?’

‘Yes, I want him with me where he belongs.’

‘You want. You want. Weakness lies in desire.’

‘I see no harm in trying, in making another attempt.’

Jam el-Din raised his voice. ‘All this and no harm.’

Shamil flinched. ‘I was appalled at how much she suffered on the journey. And the loss of the daughter was unfortunate to an extreme. But now she is in my house, living with the same amenities as my family. I have ordered my wives to treat her as a guest.’

Jamal el-Din interrupted him with wide eyes, his tone slightly mocking. ‘You entrusted my daughter as a hostess!’ He knew Zeidat’s faults, indeed they were well known. How the gentlest of men could father a shrew, how an upbringing steeped in wisdom and compassion could produce a fanatic, was in itself a curiosity to puzzle over.

Shamil’s voice took on a more defensive edge. ‘I myself make sure that the princess gets good food. Her son was ill and I fetched him the rarest herbs but they didn’t cure him. At last I sent down into Tiflis for medicine. What more can I do?’ He was speaking too much and he was conscious of his voice getting louder. ‘If Her Highness continues to suffer it is not my fault but the fault of the pampered lifestyle she has been accustomed to.’

‘I see no blessing in this risk you are taking. My heart is not at ease.’

Shamil glanced at his old teacher, the delicacy in him that came from a life of peace, eyes toned by books, tongue moist from reciting the praises of Allah, sensitive fingers that tended plants, milked goats, folded prayer rugs. He said, ‘Sheikh, leave warfare to me. I know more about it.’

‘Who is the go-between in this?’

‘Isaac Gramoff, an Armenian interpreter serving in the Russian army. He knows our dialect.’

‘From where?’

‘He’s lived among the mountain tribes all his life.’

Jamal el-Din sat back and closed his eyes. ‘Return her to her husband.’

Shamil lifted up his hands in exasperation.

Jamal el-Din opened his eyes, pointed his finger and raised his voice. ‘I am telling you: return her to her husband.’

It was a direct order and Shamil stood up. ‘No.’

Jamal el-Din looked up at him with eyes that still requested, that still held out. ‘What do you mean, “no”?’

‘Until my son comes back, she is staying.’ He picked up his gun, which was hanging on the nail on the wall, and walked out of the door.

He walked out of the door without kissing his teacher’s hand, without begging as he had always done these past thirty years for blessings, for support, for prayers to grant continuous triumph in battle, without humbling himself to kiss his sheikh’s feet, knowing that only in this humility, in this love could the spray of a miracle reach him, to anoint him invincible in the face of the enemy. He walked out of the door into heat, haste and darkness; it was several yards before he stopped and collected his bearings. The night was dense, moonless. The crescent to herald the new month, a sacred one, had not yet appeared. Autumn was holding off this year — usually by now the nights were pleasant. He needed a bath but a bath would not resolve the angry sadness he had landed in. This grappling with ugliness, this touch of inner disease. There was no merit in a student defying his teacher, no sweetness in a murid disobeying his sheikh. In his own aoul, his wives five minutes away, his children waiting and yet he veered into exile.

Decades ago Shamil had sworn allegiance to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. He had soaked up the sheikh’s Sufi teachings, eager for enlightenment, eager for the grace and strength that came from the Creator. Ghazi Muhammad al-Ghimrawi, too, had been a disciple. Together they had stood up in prayer and gone into seclusion; together they chanted and studied. And they had known that perfection could not be reached without the instructions of a master; they were seekers and Sheikh Jamal el-Din their spiritual guide. Keeping company with him yielded more than reading one thousand books; loving him was the gate to a higher love. Yet Ghazi Muhammad al-Ghimrawi dared to stand up to his teacher, opting for action when the older man favoured passivity. Al-Ghimrawi threatened the tribes that did not implement the Sharia; he raised the banner for jihad against the Russians. After his death, Shamil had succeeded him; by then the foundation of resistance had been laid down, the jihad in full swing.

Now stopping on the outskirts of the aoul, feet away from the sentry who would think he was inspecting them, he tried to calm himself with this thought. Jamal el-Din had always disliked war and hostage-taking; he had always turned away from conflict and strife. But I have a son who belongs with me, I have a son in need of rescue.

He could retrace his footsteps now and continue to reason with Jamal el-Din. He could beg for forgiveness and then explain. But what was there to explain and why was it that Jamaleldin’s return was an urgent priority only for him? It was the pressure from the naibs for a high ransom that was stalling the negotiations. If it were up to Shamil, it would be a straight hostage exchange. And yet his hands were tied; the community privileged over the individual, and the People’s Council was in need of funds. ‘Be patient and fear Allah in the hope that you will flourish and He will remove the evil with which the infidels oppress you.’ Is that not what he told his men? ‘Do not lose heart and do not grieve, for you are the exalted. We are servants of Allah, all-powerful Victor over all, who resists those who oppose his Sharia. Peace be upon those who hear the word and follow its best meaning.’

He turned and started to walk home, still troubled. Fear did not usually steal into him so easily and yet here it was. It had slung itself around his neck as soon as he left Jamal el-Din’s home. If the sheikh now held off his spiritual support, would Jamaleldin not come home? Would the hostage negotiations fail? Until now there had been not been a single word from St Petersburg about the return of Jamaleldin. Shamil walked faster to shrug off the pessimism. He was driven to succeed and through Allah’s will he would succeed. He must not contemplate failure.

It was Zeidat who met him at the door. He said, ‘I will inspect the guest quarters now. Announce me.’

‘There is no one there. The Russian is visiting Chuanat. Have a bite to eat first while I heat up the water for your bath.’ She tossed the invitation out with more efficiency than concern. He knew that the usual wifely duties held no interest for her. Dishevelled more often than not, jingling her keys and bossing the servants, she was more fulfilled priming his pistols and sharpening his sabre. Nothing pleased her more than sitting with him to mull over the administration of his troops or to assess the merits of a particular naib. She had sharp opinions on everything from battle tactics to who should be promoted and who should be punished. With time, the care of their permanently disabled child had, thankfully, mellowed and restrained her, thickening also the bond between them. He loved her best when she stirred his resolve with eloquent elegies of the martyrs; her fine eyes, the only likeness to her father, glowing and sincere. But not today.

He strode past her and walked into the guest quarters. ‘What’s this?’ he bellowed and kicked over a rusty pot of dirty onion water. ‘Is this supposed to pass for soup? Is this what you have been giving them?’

Zeidat’s protests did not have the slightest effect on him. ‘Since when did the chimney break down and why wasn’t it fixed straight away?’ Now both of them were shouting at the top of their voices; soon Zeidat was reduced to tears.

He ignored her and headed towards Chuanat’s room. In her was his comfort, in her was tranquillity and what was beautiful in this ugly world. Charged with self-doubt, restless, saddened, he felt himself pouring towards her, mother of his newborn, his pearl and gentle friend, who never thwarted his desires, never contradicted, never held back loyalty and love. But when he entered her room, it was Anna who caught his attention. Anna standing up holding the baby, the light of the fire on her hair and foreign dress. She turned and looked at him with the haughtiness of the injured, the stark knowing eyes of a parent who had lost a child. He sensed in her what she had not yet acknowledged; her need to conceive was only dormant, poised to unfurl. ‘What will happen to me if the negotiations fail?’ she had asked the first time they met and he had felt bored by her question. ‘Our rules and customs will prevail’ meant handing her over to the chief of one of the dithering mountain tribes not yet won over to the resistance. Now, seeing her turn towards him with his newborn in her arms, royal blood rising to her cheeks, he changed his mind. Anna, Princess of Georgia. If the negotiations failed, he would not give her to anyone else.