Freedom Pledge by M.J. Twomey

Author:M.J. Twomey [TWOMEY, M. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781954224018
Publisher: M.J.Twomey Publications

Chapter Seven

September 19, 1854, before dawn

* * *

Why are those flunkies more important than me? Orlov paced outside the enormous green tent in the darkness and fired another glance at the heavy flaps. General Kiriakoff was doing this deliberately to teach him who was in charge. He brushed his hand down his sodden frock coat, and shame heated his face. That bastard serf had scorched it for naught. He checked the watch in his hand again. Five o’clock. Damn it, why had Kiriakoff’s minions roused him so early if the wretch wouldn’t meet him?

Reeking of char, unwashed flesh, and horse dung, the hasty camp bustled as infantry filled in their abandoned sleeping holes; serf soldiers didn’t deserve the luxury of tents. Those who had finished their labors hunched around feeble campfires, stirring bowls of soup made from rotten cabbage and garlic, many coughing and hacking up phlegm. Gallopers tended skinny horses or warmed themselves by fizzling fires as the sound of drunken singing drifted down the hillside.

His eyes tightened. Rabble. It was a wonder they hadn’t dragged along their disgusting sprawl of camp followers—whores, camp wives, and ill-begotten spawn. They hadn’t had time, that was why. The scum would catch up soon enough.

At long last a redheaded lieutenant in a mud-splattered white uniform marched from the tent in his fancy boots and clicked his heels in front of Orlov. It had stopped raining some time ago, but it was biting cold. The lieutenant looked like one of those soft city aristocrats, pale and fresh-faced, not hard like that flinty-eyed lancer Orlov had escaped earlier. Now, that Britisher had been a bastard. His men too; they’d fought like wildcats. Good Cossacks were dead because of that devil. Some of his best men.

The lieutenant stiffened, his head and shoulders thrown back, his elbows almost touching his spine, and saluted. “Colonel Orlov, General Kiriakoff will see you now.”

The lieutenant was short and round with a receding hairline, a pocked face, and stupid blue eyes. Just one more fool placed in a position of authority for no reason other than who his father was. Orlov looked up at the rain-filled sky and shook his head in what he hoped was a disparaging way.

“Lead on, Lieutenant.”

Why hadn’t he heard any news from Captain Denisov? With a hundred riders searching the grasslands, they should have killed the lancers by now. He tightened the hand behind his back into a fist. If Maxwell was right and they’d seen him signaling . . . Prince Menshikov would blame him if his cousin was discovered spying, and Menshikov was not a forgiving man.

A soft puff of heat met him when the lieutenant opened the tent flap. Inside, a handful of senior officers lounged around the fire blazing in a burnished brazier, quaffing vodka or brandy and smoking cigarettes. A fellow with silver hair sat at a table, pouring over a map weighted down with two swords. General Kiriakoff—who else could he be—was about sixty and lean, with a long shriveled face.

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