gallop. For all their terror at the sight, Marianne and Barbe could not help listening with an involuntary stir of pleasure to the beauty of those voices, their harmonies as deep and solemn as the age-old Russian earth, but it was a pleasure that only showed itself when they were sure that they themselves had not been seen. Then the bearded horsemen would vanish like a dream beneath the lowering sky as the echo of their warlike singing died away.
But there was nothing dreamlike about these waiting here by the river. Silent and still as statues, they looked menacing and very far from poetic.
'Get ready,' Barbe said softly.
Marianne was already doing so. Rachel Levin had taught her how to cover her face and hands swiftly with the fine, alarmingly coloured membranes which had once formed part of the stock in trade of many a cunning beggar. Marianne had become adept at the horrid game and within seconds she was lying flat on her back in the bottom of the cart, wrapped from head to foot in a grubby blanket and with her eyes closed and her face dramatically covered with dark, purplish-red blotches. The effect was positively frightening. As the cart drew up she uttered a groan worthy of any actress.
One of the cossacks had the horse by the bridle and Barbe launched immediately into a flood of cringing speech. Marianne naturally understood not a word of this, but she did catch the sound of the borrowed names Solomon had bestowed on them. They were Sara and Rebecca Louria of Kovno, going home so that Rebecca might die in peace.
Rebecca, of course, was Marianne. She had chosen that name for herself in memory of the woman in Constantinople who had saved her life when her son was born. It had seemed to her that it would bring her luck.
Just at that moment, however, she was beginning to have doubts about this because the voice that alternated with Barbe's sounded very violent and aggressive. Things did not seem to be going according to plan.
'Watch out!' Barbe's whisper came suddenly in French.
The supposed invalid caught her meaning and moaned industriously, letting her head roll from side to side on the sack of oats that served her as a pillow. All at once, she saw through half-closed eyes a hairy head thrust into the body of the wagon an inch or two from her face. The kibitka was filled with a reek of stale tobacco and rancid fat, so nauseating that it made her retch most convincingly. Then the man poked the butt of his gun inside and jabbed her in the ribs with it so that she screamed aloud, while Barbe broke into a fresh spate of tears and entreaties.
The cossack withdrew almost at once, muttering what was evidently a stream of fierce profanities. The next moment, the vehicle was moving again and Marianne was on the point of sitting up to nurse her aching ribs when Barbe hissed at her: 'Don't move! They're coming with us.'
'What for?'
'They say this is a military area and we are breaking the law. They say we must go with them.'
'Oh my God! Where to?'
'How should I know? To their camp, I expect.'
'But – but what about our permit?'
'They don't care for that. Or for your sickness either. All that interests them is the horse and what's inside the wagon. I think – they're going to kill us.'
Barbe did not sound in the least frightened as she said it. It was a simple statement of fact, a little sad but resigned. Marianne gulped and shut her eyes. Even the sight of the way Barbe's broad shoulders had drooped suddenly was depressing. And once again Marianne was determined not to die.
She felt with an icy hand for the hunting knife at her belt, hidden under her many shawls, and made up her mind to use it to sell her life dearly at least. The wind rose in a sudden squall, roaring along the valley and sending a wet, snowy blast into the kibitka. Crows lifted their harsh voices from somewhere near at hand and the sudden dreadful feeling came to Marianne that she was lying in a hearse and it was bearing her inexorably to her grave. It was then that she began to pray under her breath.
Escorted by four cossacks, the kibitka continued on its way along the Berezina until it came to a primitive bridge made of tree trunks and beaten earth and, looking down on it, the hamlet and little castle of Studianka. Barbe let out a groan.
'Saint Casimir! There are more cossacks there, hacking the bridge down. We'll never get across, even if these should let us go.'
Meanwhile, the men with the kibitka had begun shouting.
'What are they saying?' Marianne whispered.
'It's very strange. They're telling them to stop a moment as they want to get the wagon across before the bridge is down. I don't understand it at all.'
She was not given long to wonder. Both the cossacks and the wagon had come to a standstill and in an instant two huge, bearded giants had snatched Barbe from her seat, ignoring her screams of protest. Two more took hold of the supposedly sick woman by her head and feet and pulled her out of the back. Playing her part to the end, she made no attempt to resist but only groaned more loudly, thinking they would lay her down in the snow.
Then she saw that they were close by the bridge. The cossacks had dismounted and Barbe was struggling like a fury in the grip of three of them. They were carrying her towards the river. In sudden terror at the sight of that dirty grey water and the big, yellowish-coloured lumps of ice in it, Marianne began to scream and tried to struggle, but in vain. The men's grasp held firm and she felt paralysed with fear.
Forgetting where she was, she began to scream aloud in French: 'Help! Help! Save me!'
She was answered by such a roar that it seemed as if the earth itself had burst asunder. At the same time she felt herself swung up and tossed into the cold air. Then the river waters closed over her cries.
The water was freezing cold and fast-moving, made still more dangerous by the floating ice and the fact that it was in spate. Marianne felt that she was falling into a bottomless abyss, a cold hell that ate into her bones. Instinctively she tried to swim. Letting go the blanket round her and her enveloping shawls, she managed to struggle to the surface. Arms and legs were already numbed with cold but she forced them to the proper motions for swimming. Then, suddenly, her foot struck against something solid. She stood up and found that there was firm ground under her feet. There must be a ford, and the bridge overhung the ford because when she wiped the water out of her eyes she saw that she was quite close to one of the wooden piles. She reached out and clung to it.
To her surprise, the bank from which she had been thrown was empty. The kibitka was still there but there was no one with it. At that point it occurred to her that Barbe must have suffered the same fate as herself and she began searching the river with her eyes. She saw nothing and her heart contracted. Whether from the cold or because she could not swim, poor Barbe must have perished.
Frozen to the marrow, her teeth chattering, Marianne let go of her pile and staggered to the bank where she dropped on to the frosted grass. Her heart was thudding like a bass drum in her breast, filling her ears with a noise like thunder. She knew that she must get up and move about if she did not want to die of cold instead of drowning. The instinct of self-preservation was so strong that she did not give a thought to the fact that by coming out of the water she was likely to fall into the hands of her former persecutors again.
She dragged herself up the gently sloping bank and as her eyes came level with the road she understood at last that the thundering had not been only in her head. A short way off, between the river and the village, the cossacks were engaged with some other horsemen – horsemen who could only belong to the Grand Army.
Marianne felt as if the heavens had opened for her. Her fingers twined into the frozen grass were insensible to cold or pain as she followed the combat with her eyes. It was an unequal fight: some fifty cossacks to half a score of French who, though fighting like lions, were evidently getting the worst of it. Already three men were down and two horses lay dead in the snow.
'Oh God,' she prayed. 'Save them! Save us all!'
A great shout came in answer. Another little troop of horse had emerged beside a clump of trees at the top of the slope. This time there were perhaps a dozen of them. An officer in a plumed hat, evidently a general, broke away from the group and rode forward a little way, observing the skirmish by the river. He sat on his horse for a moment, the feathers in his hat streaming in the wind, then suddenly he pulled it off, drew his sword and, pointing to the fight, cried: 'Forward!' in unmistakable French.
