Turkish Gambit Read Free Page B

you from?'
    'Erast Petrovich Fandorin. A Serbian volunteer. I am making my way home from Turkish captivity.'
    Thank God 1 Varya had already decided he must be a hallucination. A Serbian volunteer! From Turkish captivity! Glancing reverentially at his grey temples, she was unable to refrain from asking, and even pointing impolitely with her finger: 'Is that because they tortured you there? I've read about the horrors of Turkish captivity. And I suppose that's what caused your stammer too?'
    Erast Fandorin frowned and replied reluctantly. 'Nobody tortured me. They plied me with coffee from morning till evening and conversed exclusively in French. I lived as a guest with the K-Kaimakam of Vidin.'
    'With whom?'
    'Vidin is a town on the Roumanian border, and a kaimakam is a governor. As for the stammer, that is a c-consequence of an old concussion.'
    'So you escaped?' she asked enviously. 'And you are on your way to the active army to continue the fight?'
    'No, I have done quite enough fighting already.'
    Varya's face must have expressed extreme bewilderment. In any event, the volunteer felt it necessary to elucidate: 'War, Varvara Andreevna, is abominable and disgusting. In war no one is right and no one is wrong. And there are good and bad on both sides. Only the good are usually k-killed first.'
    'Then why did you go to Serbia as a volunteer?' she asked heatedly. 'Nobody drove you to it, I suppose?'
    'Out of egotistical considerations. I was unwell and in need of treatment.'
    Varya was astonished. 'Can people be healed by war?'
    'Yes. The sight of others' p-pain makes it easier to bear one's own. I found myself at the front two weeks before Chernyaev's army was routed. After that I had more than my fill of wandering through the mountains and shooting. Thank God, I don't th-think I hit anybody.'
    He is either trying to strike a pose or is simply a cynic, Varya thought, rather annoyed, and she remarked caustically: 'You should have stayed with your kaimakam until the war was over. What point was there in escaping?'
    'I did not escape. Yusuf-pasha let me go.'
    'Then what on earth brought you to Bulgaria?'
    'A certain matter,' Fandorin replied curtly. 'Where were you heading yourself?'
    'To Tsarevitsy, to the commander-in-chief's headquarters. And you?'
    'To Bela. Rumour has it that His Majesty's staff is located there.' The volunteer paused, knitted his narrow eyebrows briefly in displeasure and sighed. 'But I could go to the commander-in-chief.'
    'Really?' Varya exclaimed in delight. 'Oh, let's go together, shall we? I really don't know what I should have done if I hadn't met you.'
    'There is really nothing t-to it. You would have ordered the landlord to deliver you into the custody of the nearest Russian unit, and that would have been the end of the matter.'
    'Ordered? The landlord of a koichma! ’ Varya asked fearfully.
    'This is not a koichma, but a mehana.' 'Very well, a mehana. But the village is Moslem, surely?' 'It is.'
    'Then they would have handed me over to the Turks!'
    'I have no wish to offend you, Varvara Andreevna, but you are not of the slightest interest to the Turks, and this way the landlord would m-most certainly have received a reward from your fiance.'
    'I would much rather go with you,' Varya implored him. 'Oh, please!'
    'I have one old nag, on its last legs. It cannot take two of us. And all the money I have is three kurus. Enough to pay for the wine and cheese, but no more . . . We need another horse or at least an ass. And that will require at least a hundred.'
    Varya's new acquaintance paused while he pondered on something. He glanced across at the dice-players and sighed heavily once again: 'Stay here. I shall be back in a moment.'
    He walked slowly over to the gamblers and stood beside their table for five minutes, observing. Then he said something (Varya could not hear it) at which all of them instantly stopped casting the dice and turned towards him. Fandorin pointed to Varya and she squirmed on her