Scarlet in the Snow Read Free Page B

. .’
    ‘Well, it’s time I started then,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Besides, it’s a bright morning and the snow’s tight-packed; I’ll go swiftly and will be back long before nightfall, before you even know it!’
    Mama protested a little more, but I could see she was relieved, and very soon she gave in. She made me promise I’d wear my very warmest fur coat and take with me several blankets and two flasks of hot tea, which I’d refill at the Count’s. The horses were hitched to the sleigh, the painting, carefully packed in blankets, was wedged in beside me and, bundled into my furs, I cracked the whip and we set off.
    It was indeed a lovely morning; the air was clear as a crystal bell, the snow sparkling, and the winter sun shone out of a pale blue sky. I stopped once briefly for a good long swallow of hot tea, but otherwise kept going. It was very cold but in my fur coat and hat and gloves I was beautifully warm. The horses went like the wind and I was so enjoying the long drive on my own over the whispery snow that it came as something of a surprise when I saw the tall gilt gates of Count Bolotovsky’s estate loom into view.
    I was there less than an hour. I did not see the Countess at all, but on stating my errand was whisked straight into the Count’s presence. A big bear of a man with huge shoulders and a kind, craggy face, Count Bolotovsky was delighted with the prompt delivery of his painting, and even more delighted with the look of it. So delighted was he in fact that he gave a large bonus over and above the agreed fee, slipping it into an envelope, along with an invitation to all our family to attend a dinner-party hewas giving in a few weeks’ time, in honour of the visit to our region of his new wife’s second cousin, Duke Nikolai Koronov, who was a relative of the King himself. I thanked the Count profusely, thinking of how excited Anya and Liza would be when they heard about the dinner-party. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when I told them, and I couldn’t wait to see Mama’s when she opened that envelope and saw how much money was there!
    He would have asked me to lunch but I said I must get back, so I was given a quick snack of a large delicious chicken pie in the kitchens, and my tea-flasks were refilled. As I was finishing the last crumbs of the pie, one of the servants leaned over to me and asked, ‘Where does your way lie, child?’
    I described it as best I could. She nodded gravely. ‘Mind you go well,’ she said, ‘for strange things have been glimpsed thereabouts at night. Some say Old Bony herself keeps house in the forest there and lures folk in to destroy them.’ I smiled and thanked her and said she must not worry, I would be sure to be home before dark, and I set off again, my heart light and my belly warm with the good food I’d just eaten. I was singing to myself as we started our journey home, somewhat slower than on the way there, for the horses were a little tired. But it didn’t matter; we had several hours of daylight ahead of us, and we’d easily reach the village long before nightfall. And the servant’s warning I did not worry about at all.
    But we were only about halfway home when a wind sprang up and the sky began to fill with a mass of bruise-coloured clouds. Anxiously, I cracked the whip, urgingthe horses to go faster, faster, faster, trying to outrun the storm that I knew must be coming. And coming so fast that there was no hope of arriving at the village before it hit. I had to reach the shelter of the woods, for to be caught out in open ground when a blizzard hit was a sure recipe for disaster. Shouting desperately at the horses over the mounting shriek of the wind, I turned them in the direction of the line of woods I could see in the near distance. The poor beasts strained and strained, running as fast as they could, for they, too, instinctively knew the danger we faced.
    Then the blizzard was upon us in a blinding, stinging whirl of ice and snow