Ingenious pain Andrew Miller (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Dyer says: 'It will cost you a horse.'

About shakes his head. 'No, sir. Already you have lost one horse. It was yours to lose. You shall not now lose one of ours. Consider your position. With us you will, not today, but shortly,

have passage, either to the nearest town where you may hire a conveyance, or even to St Petersburg, for we also are headed there and would consider it a privilege to deliver you to the Empress. Without us, however . . .' He shrugs expansively. 'You see, sir, it is us who have the whip in hand. Does it not seem so to you. Reverend?'

'Both seems and is, monsieur.'

Dyer picks up a piece of the black bread, examines it, puts it down. He says: 'What I require, sir, is your word of honour you shall fetch me to St Petersburg with all possible dispatch. That there will not be an hour's unnecessary delay. It is agreed?'

About looks to the Reverend. The Reverend nods. About holds out his hand. 'It is agreed.'

Reverend Julius Lestrade to Lady Hallam

Plunge'^ 18 November Dear Lady Hallam, I do not know when I shall be at leisure to post this letter. I am at present in a monastery between Konigsberg and Riga, and apart from a little village — of which more later — we are quite in the wilderness and up to our noses in snow, having been overtaken upon the road by a very considerable blizzard.

Our party, all of whom are well, though somewhat in need of good beds, has been joined by none other than one of the doctors we were following to St Petersburg! It is Dr Dyer, who had the misfortune to be robbed and assaulted by the man he was travelling with. A very mysterious business with nearly fatal consequences for the postillion, who was shot in the arm and is

dangerously ill, poor man, and lying no more than two yards from where I now write to you. Dyer, who was struck a terrific blow to the head, has recovered remarkably and is indeed an unusual man in every way. Cold-blooded and apparently indestructible. We hope he will operate on the postillion tonight or tomorrow morning, for it is evident that the mans arm must come off if his life is to be spared. His tongue has a covering of brown fur and is very red at the edges.

How long we shall be detained here it is hard to say. The weather improves, which is to say there is no new fall of snow, but there is a great deal of it upon the ground and the road may remain impassable for weeks! Our salvation may lie in the discovery of some wooden runners in the stable here which are commonly used in these parts to turn a coach into a kind of sledge. Unfortunately this metamorphosis will not be easy to enact, adjustment being necessary both to the runners and to the axles of our machine.

Today at noon we had an expedition over the snow to the village to obtain provisions — myself. Monsieur About, Mr Featherstone, and a boy who is named Ponko, who was our guide. We were at first deterred by the thought of how we should travel over such deep snow. Yet to all things there is an answer. An old monk, who, apart from the boy, is the only inhabitant of the monastery, led us to a great cupboard, which, from the prodigious quantity of dust and old spider s webs, might have dated from the time of the Ark. Here he showed us the ingenious footwear of his former brothers; shoes like racquets made from strips of hide bound to a wooden rim, each about the size of a large frying-pan. Many had decayed, but we did at length find four pairs to suit us, and in this manner set off over a white, sparkling sea.

Monsieur About had sensibly provided himself with a pair of painted spectacles against the glare of the reflected sun, the brilliance of which incommoded Mr Featherstone and myself a good deal at first. More troublesome, however - until we had to

some degree mastered their use - were the snow shoes. I do not care to remember how often I up-ended myself, and once down, your Ladyship has no idea how difficult it is to regain one's feet, not to mention one's dignity! Mr Featherstone was at a similar pass and even Monsieur About had his Gallic nose in the ice upon two or three occasions. Yet we learnt from our mistakes and from Ponko's example, and were soon progressing like water beetles over the surface of a pond.

Our first intimation of the village was a haze of grey smoke; one of the houses at the edge of the village - which are all of wood — had burnt down. From the way in which the snow was trampled around the smouldering beams it seems that the villagers had all come to their neighbour s aid, though, to be sure, to little purpose, as the house was destroyed. Ponko was quite excited by it and no doubt told us the whole story, for he babbled and drooled, poor boy, and pulled the most extraordinary faces.

In the village proper there was not a soul abroad, the only sign of life being a large mastiff that snarled very menacingly at our approach but retreated as soon as Ponko fired off a few snowballs. There was no church in the village, nor any place of Christian worship. When I mentioned this to About he said the denizens of these parts were not necessarily Christian at all, and that they preferred the gods of their ancestors, that many still worshipped Nature, and that the priesthood was forced even now to cut down certain trees sacred to the people. Did I not wonder where all the brothers from the monastery had