Turkish Gambit

Chapter Six IN WHICH PLEVNA AND VARYA EACH WITHSTAND A SIEGE

On the one hand, things were going very badly; you might even say they could not possibly be any worse. Poor Petya was still languishing under lock and key -after the Plevna bloodbath the noxious Kazanzaki had lost interest in the cryptographer, but the threat of a court martial remained as real as ever. And the fortunes of war had proved fickle: the golden fish that granted wishes had turned into a prickly sea scorpion and disappeared into the abyss, leaving their hands scratched and bleeding.

But on the other hand (this was something that Varya was ashamed to admit even to herself), her life had never been so . . . interesting. That was the word: 'interesting'. That was it exactly.

And the reason, in all honesty, was obscenely simple: it was the first time in Varya's life that she had been courted at the same time by so many admirers - and such admirers too! Her recent travelling companions on the railway or the scrofulous students of St Petersburg could not possibly compare. No matter how hard she tried to suppress it, these banal, womanish feelings still sprang up like weeds in her vain, foolish heart. It was terrible.

For instance, on the morning of the 18th of June (a most important and memorable day, concerning which more below) Varya woke with a smile on her face. Before she was even awake and had barely even sensed the sunlight through her tightly shut eyelids, even as she was still stretching sweetly, she was already in a cheerful, happy, festive mood. It was only afterwards, when her mind had woken up as well as her body, that she remembered about Petya and the war. With an effort of will Varya forced herself to frown and think about sad realities, but something quite different kept creeping into her stubborn, drowsy head, in the manner of Agafya Tikhonovna: if she could supplement Petya's devotion with Sobolev's fame, and Zurov's daredevil panache, and Charles's talent, and Fandorin's piercing glance . . . But no - Erast Petrovich did not suit the case, for not by any stretch of the imagination could she number him among her admirers.

Nothing really seemed clear as far as the titular counsellor was concerned. Varya's position as his assistant remained, as ever, purely nominal. Fandorin did not initiate her into his secrets, although he was apparently dealing with real business of some kind, not just trivialities. He either disappeared for long periods or, on the contrary, simply sat in his tent receiving visits from Bulgarian peasants wearing smelly sheepskin hats. Varya guessed that they must be from Plevna, but her pride would not allow her to ask any questions. What was so remarkable about that anyway? It was not as if people from Plevna were rare visitors to the Russian camp. Even McLaughlin had his own informant, who provided him with exclusive intelligence on the life of the Turkish garrison. Of course, the Irishman did not share this knowledge with the Russian command, stubbornly citing his 'journalistic ethics', but the readers of the Daily News knew all about Osman-pasha's order of the day and the massive redoubts that were springing up around the besieged town, growing mightier by the hour.

This time, however, the Western Division of the Russian army was making thorough preparations for battle. The storming of Plevna was set for today, and everybody was saying that the 'misunderstanding over Plevna' would certainly be set to rights. Yesterday Erast Petrovich had traced out a diagram of all the Turkish fortifications for Varya on the ground with a stick and explained that, according to absolutely reliable information in his possession, Osman-pasha had 20,000 askers and 58 artillery pieces, while Lieutenant-General Kriedener had moved up 32,000 soldiers and 176 field-guns to the town, and the Roumanians were due to arrive at any time. A cunning and strictly secret disposition of forces had been devised, involving a concealed outflanking manoeuvre and a diversionary attack. Fandorin had explained it all so well that Varya had immediately believed in the imminent victory of Russian arms and stopped paying much attention - she was more interested in watching the titular counsellor and trying to guess how he was connected with the blonde girl in his locket. Kazanzaki had said something strange about a marriage. Could she really be his better half? But she was too young to be his wife - no more than a little girl!

Varya knew about her because three days earlier, when she looked into Erast Petrovich's tent after breakfast, she had seen him lying sound asleep on his bed fully dressed, even in his dirty boots. He had been missing for the whole of the previous day, which meant he had probably only returned shortly before dawn. Just as she was about to creep quietly away she had suddenly noticed the silver locket dangling out of the sleeping man's collar on to his chest. The temptation had been too great. Varya had tiptoed across to the bed, keeping her eyes fixed on Fandorin's face. Lying there breathing regularly with his mouth slightly open, the titular counsellor looked like a mischievous little boy who had smeared powder on his temples as a prank.

Varya had gingerly picked up the locket with her finger and thumb, clicked open the lid and seen the tiny portrait. A pretty little china doll, a real Madchen-Gretchen: golden curls, little eyes and little mouth, tiny cheeks. Really nothing special. Varya had cast a glance of disapproval at the sleeper and blushed bright red: the bright-blue eyes with the pitch-black pupils were peering gravely at her from under their long lashes.

Trying to explain would have been stupid. Varya had simply fled, which was not so very clever either, but at least an unpleasant scene had been avoided. Strangely enough, afterwards Fandorin had behaved as though the episode had never happened.

He was a cold, disagreeable man, he rarely joined in other people's conversations, and when he did he was bound to say something that made Varya's hackles rise. Take, for instance, that argument about parliament and the sovereignty of the people that had blown up during the picnic (a large party of them had gone off into the hills and dragged Fandorin along with them, although he had been dying to go back and skulk in his lair).

Paladin had started telling them about the constitution that had been introduced in Turkey the year before by the former grand vizier Midhat-pasha. It was very interesting. Would you believe it - an uncivilised Asiatic country like that, but it actually had a parliament, not like Russia.

Then they had started arguing about which parliamentary system was the best. McLaughlin was for the British system and Paladin, even though he was a Frenchman, was for the American, while Sobolev campaigned for some indigenous Russian system of the nobility and peasantry.

When Varya had demanded the franchise for women, they had all made fun of her and that crude soldier Sobolev had started scoffing: 'Oh, Varvara Andreevna, once you women are given the vote, you'll elect a parliament full of nothing but your own handsome little darlings and sweethearts. If you women had to choose between Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and our Captain Zurov, who would you cast your vote for? You see?'

'Gentlemen, can people be elected to parliament compulsorily?' the hussar had asked in alarm, and the general mood had become even merrier.

Varya had struggled in vain to explain about equal rights, citing the American territory of Wyoming, where women had been allowed to vote and nothing terrible had happened to Wyoming as a result. No one had taken anything she said seriously.

'Why don't you say anything?' Varya had appealed to Fandorin, who had promptly distinguished himself by saying something that would have been better left unsaid altogether.

'Varvara Andreevna, I am opposed to democracy in general.' (He had blushed even as he said it.) 'One man is unequal to another from the very beginning, and there is nothing you can do about it. The democratic principle infringes the rights of those who are more intelligent, more talented and harder-working; it places them in a position of dependence on the foolish will of the stupid, talentless and lazy, because society always contains more of the latter. Let our compatriots first learn to rid themselves of their swinish ways and earn the right to bear the title of citizen, and then we can start thinking about a parliament.'

This absolutely outlandish declaration had left Varya completely flummoxed, but Paladin had come to the rescue.

'Nonetheless, if a country has already introduced voting rights,' he had said gently (the conversation, of course, was conducted in French), 'it is surely unjust to disenfranchise half of mankind, and the better half at that.'

Remembering those remarkable words, Varya smiled, turned on to her side and began thinking about Paladin. Thank God that Kazanzaki had finally left the man in peace. It had been General Kriedener's decision to base his strategy on the contents of some interview! Poor Paladin had been eating his heart out and pestering absolutely everyone he met with his explanations and excuses. Varya liked him even more when he was feeling guilty and miserable like that. Previously she had thought him just a little too conceited, too accustomed to general admiration, and she had deliberately kept her distance, but now the need for that had fallen away, and Varya had begun to behave quite naturally and affectionately with the Frenchman. He was cheerful and easy to be with, not like Erast Petrovich, and he knew such a terrible lot - about Turkey and the ancient history of the East, and French history. All those places he had seen, driven by his thirst for adventure! And how charmingly he narrated his little recits drolesl - so witty, so lively, without any false posturing at all. How Varya adored it when Paladin responded to one of her questions with a significant pause and an intriguing smile and then said: 'Oh, c'est toute une histoire, mademoiselle.' And then, unlike that tight-lipped Fandorin, he would immediately tell her the story.

Most of the time the stories were funny, but sometimes they were frightening. Varya remembered one of them particularly well.

'Mademoiselle Barbara, you berate Orientals for their lack of respect for human life, and you are quite right to do so.' (They had been discussing the atrocities committed by the Bashi-Bazouks.) 'But after all, these are savages, barbarians, who have not yet developed far beyond the level of tigers or crocodiles. Let me describe to you a scene that I observed in that most civilised of countries, England. Oh, c'est toute une histoire . . . The British place such a high value on human life that they regard suicide as the most heinous of sins - and the penalty they apply for an attempt to do away with oneself is capital punishment. They have not yet gone that far in the East. Several years ago, when I was in London, a prisoner in the jail was due to be hanged. He had committed a terrible crime - somehow he had obtained a razor and attempted to cut his own throat. He had even been partly successful, but he was saved by the timely intervention of the prison doctor. Since I found the judge's logic in this case quite astounding, I decided that I must watch the execution with my own eyes. And after using my connections to obtain a pass for the execution, I was not disappointed.

'The condemned man had damaged his vocal cords and could do no more than wheeze, so they dispensed with his final word. Quite a long time was spent on squabbling with the doctor, who claimed that the man could not be hanged - the cut would re-open and the hanged man would be able to breathe directly through his trachea. The prosecuting counsel and the governor of the prison consulted and ordered the executioner to proceed. But the doctor was proved right: the pressure of the noose immediately re-opened the wound and the man dangling at the end of the rope began sucking in air with an appalling whistling sound. He hung there for five, ten, fifteen minutes and still did not die, although his face turned blue.

'They decided to summon the judge who had passed sentence on him. But since the execution took place at dawn, a considerable time was required to wake the judge. He arrived an hour later and issued a verdict worthy of Solomon: take the condemned man down from the gallows and hang him again, but this time tie the noose below the cut, not above it. They did as he said and the second attempt was successful. There you have the fruits of civilisation.'

Afterwards Varya had dreamed in the night of a hanged man with a laughing throat. 'There is no death,' the throat said in Paladin's voice and began oozing blood. 'You can only go back to the starting line.'

But those words about going back to the starting line belonged to Sobolev. 'Ah, Varvara Andreevna, my entire life is an obstacle race,' the young general had complained to her, shaking his close-cropped head bitterly. 'But the umpire keeps disqualifying me and sending me back to the starting line. Why, judge for yourself: I began in the horse guards and served with distinction against the Poles, but got involved in a stupid affair with a Polish girl; so it was back to the starting line. I graduated from the General Headquarters Academy and was given a posting to Turkestan, and then there was a stupid duel with a fatal outcome; so it was back to the starting line again, if you please. I married a prince's daughter and thought I would be happy - I was anything but ... So there I was on my own again, right back where I started, with my dreams shattered. I managed to have myself sent off to the desert again and I was as hard on myself as I was on everyone else. I only survived by a miracle, but still

I'm left empty-handed yet again. Here I sit vegetating like some useless hanger-on and waiting for a new start. But will it ever come?'

Varya felt sorry for Paladin, but not for Sobolev. In the first place, Michel's complaints about being sent back to the starting line were overdone - at the age of thirty-two he was, after all, a general of the imperial retinue, with two Orders of St George and a gold sword; and in the second place, he was far too obviously bidding for sympathy. No doubt when he was still a cadet his senior comrades had explained to him that victory in love could be won in two ways: either by a cavalry charge or by painstaking excavation of the approaches to the over-compassionate female heart.

Sobolev excavated his approaches rather ineptly, but Varya was flattered by his attentions - after all, he was a genuine hero, even if he did carry that idiotic bush around on his face. When it was tactfully suggested that the form of his beard might be modified, the general had taken to haggling: he would be willing to make such a sacrifice, but only in exchange for certain guarantees. However, the offering of guarantees did not enter into Varya's plans.

Five days earlier Sobolev had come to her in a happy mood; at long last he had been given his own detachment - two Cossack regiments - and he was to take part in the storming of Plevna, covering the southern flank of the main corps. Varya had wished him a successful new start. Michel had told her he had taken Perepyolkin as his chief of staff, describing the tedious captain as follows: 'He followed me around, whingeing and gazing into my eyes, so I took him. And what do you think, Varvara Andreevna? Eremei Ionovich Perepyolkin may be tedious, but he certainly is sound -he's from the general staff, after all. They know him in the operations section and they provide him with useful information. And then I can see that he is personally devoted to me; he hasn't forgotten who saved him from the Bashi-Bazouks. And, sinner that I am, I prize devotion above all else in my subordinates.'

Sobolev had more than enough on his hands now, but only two days ago his orderly Seryozha Bereshchagin had delivered a sumptuous bouquet of scarlet roses from His Excellency. The roses were still standing as firm as the heroes of the Battle of Borodino, showing no signs of drooping, and the entire tent was permeated with their dense, sensual scent.

The breach created by the general's withdrawal had been promptly filled by Zurov, a firm believer in the cavalry charge. Varya burst out laughing as she recalled how jauntily the captain had carried out his initial reconnaissance . . .

'A veritable bellevue, mademoiselle. Nature!' was what he had said that time when he followed Varya as she went out of the press club to admire the sunset. Then without wasting any time, he had changed the subject. 'Erasmus is a wonderful chap, don't you think? A heart as pure and white as a bed sheet. And a splendid comrade, even if he is a bit sulky.'

Then the hussar had paused and glanced expectantly at Varya with those insolently handsome eyes. Varya had waited to see what would come next.

'A fine, good-looking brunet too. Put him in a hussar's uniform and he'd cut a fine figure altogether,' said Zurov, doggedly pursuing his theme. 'He may go around looking like a bedraggled chicken now, but you should have seen the old Erasmus! An Arabian tornado!'

Varya had gazed at the fibber mistrustfully: she found it absolutely impossible to imagine the titular counsellor in the role of an 'Arabian tornado'.

'What could possibly have brought about such a change?' she had asked, hoping to learn something about Erast Petrovich's mysterious past.

But Zurov had merely shrugged: 'The devil only knows. It's been a year since we last saw each other. It must be a fatal case of love. You think we men are all heartless, insensitive dummies, but in our souls we are ardent and easily wounded.' He lowered his eyes sorrowfully. 'A broken heart can make an old man of you even at twenty.'

Varya had snorted: 'At twenty, indeed! Trying to hide your age does not become you.'

'Why, not me, I meant Fandorin,' the hussar explained. 'He is only twenty-one.'

'Who, Erast Petrovich?' Varya had gasped. 'Oh, come now, even I am twenty-two.'

'That is exactly what I mean,' Zurov had said, brightening up. 'What you need is someone a bit more mature, closer to thirty.'

But she had stopped listening, astounded by what he had told her. Fandorin was only twenty-one? Twenty-one! Incredible! So that was why Kazanzaki had called him a 'wunderkind'. Of course, the titular counsellor had a boyish face, but the way he carried himself, that glance, those greying temples! What chill wind could have frosted your temples so early, Erast Petrovich?

Interpreting her bewilderment in his own way, the hussar had assumed a dignified air and declared: 'What I am leading up to is this: if that rascal Erasmus has beaten me to it, then I withdraw immediately. Whatever his detractors may claim, mademoiselle, Zurov is a man with principles. He will never try to poach anything that belongs to his friend.'

'Are you speaking of me?' Varya had asked in sudden realisation. 'If I am "something that belongs" to Fandorin, you will not try to poach me; but if I am not "something that belongs" to him, you will try. Have I understood you correctly?'

Zurov jiggled his eyebrows diplomatically, but without the slightest sign of embarrassment.

‘I belong and always will belong to nobody but myself, but I do have a fiance,' Varya had reprimanded the insolent lout.

'So I have heard. But I do not count monsieur the detainee among my friends,' the captain had replied in a more cheerful voice, and the reconnaissance was complete.

The full-frontal assault had followed immediately: 'Would you care to wager with me, mademoiselle? If I can guess who will be first to come out of the marquee, you will favour me with a kiss. If I guess wrong, then I shall shave my head, like a Bashi-Bazouk. Make up your mind! Of course, the risk you would be taking is perfectly minimal - there are at least twenty people in the marquee.'

Varya had felt her lips curl into a smile despite herself. 'So who will be first?'

Zurov had pretended to be thinking hard and shaken his head despairingly: 'Aagh, farewell to my curly locks . . . Colonel Sablin. No! McLaughlin. No . . . The bartender Semyon, that's who!'

He had cleared his throat loudly and a second later the bartender had come strolling out of the club, wiping his hands on the hem of his long-waisted silk coat. He had looked up briskly at the sky, muttered: 'Oh, I hope it's not going to rain,' and gone back inside, without even glancing at Zurov.

'It's a miracle, a sign from above!' the count had exclaimed, stroking his moustache as he leaned towards the giggling Varya.

She had expected him to kiss her on the cheek, the way that Petya always did, but Zurov had aimed for her lips and the kiss had proved to be long, quite extraordinary and positively vertiginous.

Eventually, when she felt that she was about to choke, Varya had pushed the impetuous cavalry officer away and clutched at her heart.

'Oh, I'll slap your face so hard,' she had threatened in a feeble voice. 'I was warned by decent people that you don't play fair.'

'For a slap to the face I shall challenge you to a duel. And naturally I shall be vanquished,' the count had purred, goggling at her.

It had been quite impossible to be angry with him . . .

A round face appeared in the door of the tent. It was Lushka, the excitable and muddle-headed girl who performed the duties of maid and cook for the nurses, as well as lending a hand in the hospital when there was a large influx of wounded.

'There's a soldier waiting for you, miss,' Lushka blurted out. 'Dark-haired he is, with a moustache and a bunch of flowers. What shall I tell him?'

Speak of the devil, thought Varya, and smiled to herself again. She found Zurov's siege technology highly amusing.

'Let him wait. I'll be out soon’ she said, throwing off her blanket.

But it was not the hussar strolling up and down beside the hospital tents, where all was in readiness to receive new wounded; it was the fragrantly scented Colonel Lukan, yet another ardent aspirant.

Varya heaved a heavy sigh, but it was too late to withdraw.

'Ravissante comme l'Aurore!' the colonel exclaimed, first dashing to take her hand, then recoiling as he recalled the manners of modern women.

Varya shook her head in rejection of the bouquet, glanced at the gleaming gold braid of the Roumanian ally's uniform and asked coolly: 'What are you doing all decked up in your finery first thing in the morning?'

'I am leaving for Bucharest, for a meeting of His Highness's military council,' the colonel announced grandly. 'I called round to say goodbye and at the same time invite you to breakfast.' He clapped his hands and a foppish barouche hove into view from around the corner. The orderly sitting on the coach box was dressed in a washed-out uniform, but he was wearing white gloves.

'After you,' Lukan said with a bow, and Varya, intrigued despite herself, sat down on the springy seat.

'Where are we going?' she asked. 'To the officers' canteen?'

The Roumanian merely smiled mysteriously in reply, as though he were planning to whisk his companion away to the other side of the world. The colonel had been behaving in a rather mysterious manner just recently. He was still spending night after night without a break at the card table, but whereas during the initial days of his ill-starred acquaintance with Zurov there had been a hounded and downcast air about him, he seemed entirely recovered now, and although he was still throwing away substantial sums of money, he did not seem dispirited in the least.

'How did yesterday's game go?' asked Varya, looking closely at the brown circles under Lukan's eyes.

'Fortune has finally smiled on me,' he replied with a beaming smile of his own. 'Your Zurov's luck has run out. Have you ever heard of the law of large numbers? If you carry on betting large sums day after day, then sooner or later you are bound to win everything back.'

As far as Varya could recall, Petya's exposition of this theory had been rather different, but it was hardly worth arguing about.

'The count has blind luck on his side, but I have mathematical reckoning and a huge fortune on mine. There, look' - he held up his little finger - 'I have won back my family ring. An Indian diamond, eleven carats. Brought back from the Crusades by one of my ancestors.'

'Why, did the Roumanians actually take part in the Crusades?' Varya exclaimed rather too hastily, and had to endure an entire lecture on the colonel's family tree, which proved to go all the way back to the Roman legate Lucian Mauritius Tulla.

Meanwhile the barouche had driven out of the camp and halted in a shady grove. Standing there under an old oak tree was a table covered with a starched white cloth on which such an abundance of tasty things was laid out that Varya immediately began to feel hungry. There were French cheeses, and various fruits, and smoked salmon and pink ham, and crimson crayfish, and reclining elegantly in a little silver bucket was a bottle of Lafite.

It had to be admitted that even Lukan possessed certain positive qualities.

Just as they had raised their first glass, there was a deep rumbling far away in the distance and Varya's heart skipped a beat. How could she have allowed herself to become so distracted? The storming of Plevna had begun! Over there the dead were falling, the wounded were groaning, while she . . .

Guiltily pushing away a bowl of emerald-green early grapes, Varya said: 'My God, for their sake I hope everything goes according to plan.'

The colonel drained his glass in a single swallow and immediately filled it again. Still chewing on something, he observed: 'The plan is, of course, a good one. As His Highness's personal representative I am acquainted with it and was even involved to some extent in drawing it up. The outflanking manoeuvre under cover of a range of hills is particularly original. Shakhovsky's and Veliaminov's columns advance on Plevna from the east. Sobolev's small detachment distracts Osman-pasha's attention in the south. On paper it all looks quite beautiful.' Lukan drained his glass. 'But war, Mademoiselle Varvara, is not fought on paper. And your compatriots will achieve absolutely nothing.'

'But why?' Varya gasped.

The colonel chuckled and tapped the side of his head with one finger. 'I am a strategist, mademoiselle, I see further ahead than your general staff officers.' He nodded towards his map case. 'Over there I have a copy of the report which I forwarded yesterday to Prince Karl. I predict a total fiasco for the Russians and I am certain that His Highness will be adequately appreciative of my perspicacity. Your commanders are too arrogant and self-assured; they overestimate their own soldiers and underestimate the Turks. And also their Roumanian allies. But never mind - after today's lesson the tsar himself will ask for our help, you shall see.'

The colonel broke off a handsome chunk of Roquefort and Varya's mood was finally ruined.

Lukan's gloomy predictions proved correct.

In the evening Varya and Fandorin stood at the edge of the Plevna road as the wagons bearing the wounded drove past them in a never-ending line. The tally of casualties was not yet complete, but at the hospital she had been told that the ranks had been reduced by at least seven thousand men. They had also told her that Sobolev had distinguished himself by drawing the thrust of the Turkish counter-attack - if not for his Cossacks, the rout would have been a hundred times more devastating. Amazement had also been expressed at the satanic precision demonstrated by the Turkish gunners, who had shelled columns while they were still making their approach, before the battalions had even been deployed for the attack.

Varya told all this to Erast Petrovich, but he didn't say a word. Either he knew it all already, or he was in a state of shock - she couldn't tell.

The column ground to a halt: one of the wagons had lost a wheel. Varya had been trying to look at the maimed and injured as little as possible, but now she glanced more closely at the lopsided wagon and gasped; she thought she recognised one wounded officer's face, a patch of dull white in the radiant dusk of summer. She went closer and discovered she was right: it was Colonel Sablin, one of the regular visitors to the club. He was lying there unconscious, covered with a blood-soaked greatcoat. His body seemed strangely short.

'Someone you know?' asked the medical assistant accompanying the colonel. 'A shell took both his legs off all the way up. Really bad luck.'

Varya staggered back towards Fandorin and began sobbing convulsively. She cried for a long time, until her tears had dried up and the air had turned cool, and still they kept on bringing back the wounded.

'In the club they take Lukan for a fool, but he turned out to be cleverer than Kriedener,' said Varya, because she simply had to say something.

Fandorin looked at her inquiringly and she explained: 'He told me this morning that the attack would be a failure. He said the dispositions were good, but the commanders were poor. And he said the soldiers weren't very . . .'

'He said that?' Erast Petrovich queried. 'Ah, so that's how things are. That changes . . .' He broke off and knitted his brows.

'Changes what?'

No reply.

'Changes what? Hey?' Varya was beginning to feel angry. 'That's a very stupid habit you have, saying "A" without going on to say "B"! Tell me what's going on, will you?' She really felt like grabbing the titular counsellor by the shoulders and giving him a good shaking. The pompous, ignorant little brat. Trying to act as if he were the Indian chief Chingachgook.

'It is treason, Varvara Andreevna,' Erast Petrovich declared, suddenly forthcoming.

'Treason? What kind of treason?'

'That is precisely what you and I are going to find out.' Fandorin rubbed his forehead. 'Colonel Lukan, by no means a towering intellect, is the only one to predict defeat for the Russian army. That is one. He was acquainted with the troop dispositions and as Prince Karl's representative he even received a copy. That is two. The success of the operation depended on a secret manoeuvre carried out under the cover of a range of hills. That is three. The Turkish artillery shelled our columns by map coordinates, square after square, when they were out of their direct line of sight. That is four. The conclusion?'

'The Turks knew beforehand where to aim and when to fire,' whispered Varya.

'And Lukan knew beforehand that the assault would be a failure. Oh, and by the way - five. In recent days this man has suddenly come into a lot of money.'

'He is rich. Some kind of family fortune, estates. He told me about them, but I wasn't really listening.'

'Varvara Andreevna, not very long ago the colonel tried to borrow three hundred roubles from me and then, in a matter of days, at least according to Zurov, he lost perhaps as much as fifteen thousand. Of course, Hippolyte could have been exaggerating . . .'

'He certainly could,' Varya agreed. 'But Lukan really did lose an awful lot. He told me so himself today, just before he left for Bucharest.'

'He has gone away?'

Erast Petrovich turned away from her and began thinking, from time to time shaking his head. Varya tried approaching him from the side in order to see his face, but she didn't notice anything particularly remarkable. Fandorin was standing with his eyes half-closed, gazing up at the bright star of Mars.

'I tell you what, my d-dear Varvara Andreevna,' he said, speaking slowly, and Varya felt a warm glow in her heart - firstly because he had said 'my dear', and secondly because he had begun to stammer again. 'It appears I shall have to ask for your assistance after all, although I promised . . .'

'Why, I'll do anything at all!' she exclaimed rashly, then added quickly, 'in order to save Petya.'

'Well, that's splendid.' Fandorin looked into her eyes searchingly. 'But it is a very difficult task, and not a very pleasant one. I want you to go to Bucharest as well, to look for Lukan and try to investigate him. Shall we say, try to find out if he really is so rich. Exploit his vanity, boastfulness and foolishness. After all, he has told you more than he should once already. He is sure to spread his plumage for you to admire.' Erast Petrovich hesitated. 'You are, after all, a young and at-t-tractive individual . . .'

At this point he coughed and broke off, because Varya had whistled in amazement. She had finally won a compliment from the Commendatore's statue after all. Of course, it was a feeble sort of compliment - 'a young and attractive individual' - but even so, even so . . .

Then Fandorin immediately had to go and spoil everything. 'Naturally, you cannot travel on your own, and it would 1-look strange. I know that Paladin is planning to go to Bucharest. He will certainly not refuse to take you with him.'

No, he is definitely not a human being, he is a block of ice, thought Varvara. Imagine trying to thaw out someone like that! Could he really not see that the Frenchman was already circling round her} Of course he could - he saw everything; it was simply, as foolish Lusaka would put it, that he couldn't give a tinker's damn.

Erast Petrovich apparently interpreted her dissatisfied expression in his own way. 'Don't worry about money. There is a salary due to you, with travelling expenses and so forth. I shall issue it to you. You can buy something while you are there, amuse yourself a little.'

'Oh, I shall have no reason to be bored in Charles's company,' Varya said vengefully.