“It is much easier to ride astride, in breeches,” Cordelia said doubtfully. “In fact, we have no sidesaddle.”
Father Josif waved his hands. “Ride astride. Wear breeches, but wear a skirt over them.”
“I don’t like it,” James said in English, frowning again. “Those Greek bandits were all set to ravish you.”
Cordelia winced at his frankness. “If I’d been dressed as a boy, sooner or later they would have searched us for the diamonds and found out. And not all guides will be as accommodating and uninquisitive as Dinko about my...my need for privacy. Truly, James, I’d rather not have to worry about betraying myself.”
“The Turks are looking for a man and a woman,” he reminded her.
The priest caught the word “Turk.”
“Montenegro is not part of the Ottoman Empire,” he told them. “It is ruled by the Prince-Bishop Petar. Nor do the Albanians love the Turks, though both are Moslems.”
James gave in, and Cordelia donned a skirt before they went on their way. Very soon the track narrowed and climbed again, and she had no chance to talk to him about his unnecessary fear of damage to her reputation. After all, the Greek brigands had not ravished her; she had not succumbed to James’s caresses; Mehmed Pasha had not made her an inmate of his harem. She was chaste, so she had nothing to fear.
Father Josif brought them to the next village as the sun set. Under his aegis, they had no difficulty hiring a guide for the morrow. The villagers killed and roasted a sheep to celebrate the coming of their peripatetic priest, and the feast went on long into the night. When Cordelia and James at last retired to their tent, they both fell asleep at once.
The days that followed offered no better opportunities for serious discussion. Winter was settling on the wild country; the way was hard. After riding and walking from dawn to dusk, then finding pasture or fodder for the animals, lighting a campfire, and setting up the tent, dusk to dawn was for exhausted sleep. At least they always found a guide and never again were caught on a narrow path in a snowstorm.
Most of the villages they passed through were Albanian. Cordelia never had the slightest reason to fear for her virtue—though she soon discovered virtue was the only aspect of women the Albanians did respect—and no one glanced twice at her costume of trousers under a skirt, any more than they had in Istanbul.
Sometimes she imagined what her life would have been had she stayed in Istanbul: her own house, three servants to take care of her, warm rooms, plenty to eat, clean clothes, a hammam five minutes walk away. Then James would smile at her, or take her hand to help her over an obstacle, or give her the best bit of a goose he had shot. And then she remembered Mehmed Pasha, who would have visited whenever he fancied, to paw her and undress her and make her his whore.
She turned her imagination instead to what life would be like when she reached England, as the respectable daughter of Sir Hamilton Courtenay, Baronet, of Hill House, Fenny Sedgwick, Norfolk. It sounded very grand. In her mind, she furnished it with all the most beautiful objects she had seen in Italy, Germany, Austria. The garden would be full of roses—Mama had loved roses.
But Mama had never talked about her father. Cordelia could not picture him, only his eyes, brown like her own, filled with tears of joy at the return of his long-lost child.
Anticipating that happy day did not stop her dreaming about baths, from the hammam to the tin-plated tub in front of the fireplace, laboriously filled with buckets. The only washing she did these days was to scrub face and hands with snow melted over the campfire. James was sprouting a beard perforce, fair and curly, and itchy, he complained.
As for laundry, rinsing out her shift and drawers occasionally and drying them at the fire was the best she could manage. That was embarrassing enough. She was grateful that James always washed his own intimate garments.
Thank heaven her monthly flow was late. She was sure of it, though she had lost track of days and weeks long since. Her mother had told her the timing could be upset by emotional disturbance, of which she had certainly suffered plenty in the past month! Perhaps being usually cold and often tired and rarely having quite enough to eat had some effect, too. She could only hope it would last until they reached civilization.
She was out of luck.
That day they stopped for their midday meal by a stream which, in the strange way of the country, emerged full-fledged from underground. After running several miles along the pleasant valley, it very likely disappeared into a hillside again. Of course that meant the valleys did not interconnect, or they would have reached the coast long since.
James had explained the phenomenon: the mountains were limestone and water tended to dissolve it rather than carving a way through it—hence also the caves where they sometimes took shelter. The limestone produced little soil, accounting for the lack of vegetation on the stark, rugged peaks.
However, today their campsite was sheltered from the north wind by leafless woods. For once there was plenty of frost-yellowed grass for the animals, all three lean now, with shaggy winter coats. Their guide, Bashkim, told them the flocks and herds of his mountainside village grazed this valley during the winter. While the sheep, goats, and cattle were still fat from summer pastures, the herdsmen drove them to the far, north-west end, then they slowly moved along as the grazing was exhausted. They had not yet reached this point.
While James and Cordelia unloaded Achates and hobbled him and the ponies, Bashkim went off to gather firewood. They had discovered that a hot drink at midday, even if they had only a pinch of herbal tea or coffee to add to the water, revived their spirits and energy. When possible, it was worth the extra time.
Cordelia retreated into a thicket of evergreen bushes, emerging a few minutes later with a bundle of linen carefully wrapped so that the bloodstains were hidden.
“I must wash a few things,” she said to James.
“Good idea. I’ll change my...ah...ultra-unmentionables and join you.”
Kneeling on a stone on the bank of the stream, Cordelia scrubbed and squeezed her drawers and her monthly cloths in the icy water. The worst was done by the time James came over, but for the next few days she was going to have to launder frequently, whether there was a stream available or not.
Her head bent, she asked, “I don’t suppose we could stay here for a day or two?”
“My poor girl, are you dreadfully tired?”
“Not really,” Cordelia said honestly, and then wished she had seized the excuse. “At least, not more than usual and not as much as I used to be.”
“Just tired of getting up every day and hopping into the saddle? It grows tedious, I agree, and this is a pleasant spot— considering the time of year—but I doubt Bashkim will agree to a delay. He’s already nervous about having agreed to take us within sight of a Montenegrin village.”
“Who can blame him? It was in his own great-grandfather’s time the prince-bishop ordered every Moslem in Montenegro slaughtered.”
“Not I, and I comprehend his wanting to get it over with and return to his herdsman friends here in the valley as soon as may be. In fact, if we delay I fear he may renege.”
She sighed. “I suppose so. It’s just that...I mean, I...that is...”
“What is it, Cordelia?” James asked patiently.
Peeking at him, she saw he was smiling. “You know about...” Her cheeks felt hot enough to warm her hands by their glow. “You know that women, every month...”
“Is that your trouble! Of course I know, dear girl. Do you feel unwell? Or is riding astride too difficult?”
“No, it’s uncomfortable but I can manage. Only, you see, there is a stream here for washing...”
“Ah, I do see. But we can easily melt enough snow in the bucket for you to do your laundry when there is no river nearby.”
She nodded, eyes still cast down. “I know, but I could not without you seeing. I did not want to have to...to discuss it with you.”
“I’m sorry you are still shy with me after all we have been through together,” James said soberly. “Particularly since, after trying for days to come up with another answer, I have concluded that the only way to preserve your reputation is for us to be wed.”
“Wed!” Cordelia turned to stare at him.
He was concentrating on his washing, his profile anything but happy, not looking in the least as if he wished to marry her. Well, even to save her reputation, which she didn’t consider endangered, she was not going to marry someone who did not want her. Not, she reminded herself fiercely, that she had any desire whatsoever to tie herself for life to a penniless scapegrace.
“Oh no,” she said, “I cannot possibly marry you.”
James gave her an exasperated glance. “My dear girl, don’t be stubborn. I tell you, I have thought and thought and I cannot find any way out of it. We shall never be able to keep this journey secret from everyone. We simply have no choice.”
“Of course we do. I have not lost my virtue. I don’t want to marry you and I shan’t.”
“Just attend to me a minute, will you? You don’t understand. It’s not a matter of whether your virtue is intact, it’s what people—”
“Hush!” She held up her hand to silence him, trying hard to believe she was imagining the distant thunder of hooves, the shouts and yelps and gunshots. “Listen! Bandits? Soldiers?”
He cocked his head, then grabbed her hand. “Quick, into the bushes. It’s not much of a chance but it’s the only one we have!”
Chapter 20
Like hunted animals, they crouched in the bushes. Cordelia turned a pale, wide-eyed face to James and he put his arm around her shoulders.
“Perhaps the Montenegrins are slaughtering Mohammedans again,” she said, in a whisper although the racket of hooves and men’s raised voices and barking dogs would cover a shout. “Bashkim said they covet the grazing.”
“If so, while I hate to think of them murdering the poor chap, maybe they would let us go in peace.”
“No, listen, I’m sure they are shouting in Albanian.”
Concentrating, James agreed. Between them, they had picked up quite a bit of the language and though he made out only a few words, those were plain. Unfortunately, given the Albanian propensity for blood-feuds and brigandage, that did not mean either the guide or he and Cordelia were safe.
A sudden hush fell, so quiet James heard the bushes rustling in the wind. No, not the wind. The sound was coming directly towards them.
“Dogs?” Cordelia breathed.
As he shook his head, his finger to his lips, a massive, ugly head parted the leaves a few yards away. Long nose snuffing the air, vicious tusks, small, angry red eyes, the wild boar took a few more steps forward. James noticed blood on its flank.
Then it smelled them. It stopped, the mane of grey-black bristles along its spine standing erect, making it look even huger. Five feet nose to tail, James was prepared to wager, and thirty stone if it weighed an ounce. And unfriendly.
It swivelled to face them, pawing the ground.
“I’ll try to distract it. You go that way.” Moving slowly, he took off his hat and held it out at arm’s length, away from Cordelia. Then he waved it vigorously up and down. The boar snorted and turned its head to watch.
Cordelia inched to her knees and started to creep away. With a squeal of fury, the boar charged her.
“Run!”
She jumped up and ran, pushing wildly through the bushes. James leapt to his feet. As the boar passed, he flung himself full-length on its back.
The beast charged on, barely staggered as his weight hit it. He got one arm round its throat, grabbed a handful of coarse bristles with the other hand, clung to its flanks with his knees, and hung on like grim death. They burst into the open hot on Cordelia’s heels.
She stumbled, fell, rolled aside. The boar altered course. Miraculously hands were there to pull her out of the way.
Surrounded now by shouts, barks, the smell of its tormentors—men, dogs, horses—the boar sped on, intent on escape. But James was on its back. He didn’t dare let go, sure he’d be trampled beneath the sharp hooves, gored by the hideous tusks. He tightened his grip on its neck, pulling its head up with some vague idea of throttling it at least enough to slow it down, though what he would do then...
It reacted by jerking its head downward and charging on at full tilt, straight into a tree-trunk.
Half stunned, the boar shook itself. James ignominiously fell off. Then the hunters arrived. Yelling men dragged him aside. Dogs darted in and sprang back. A dagger gleamed and plunged. The dazed boar gave a shudder, toppled, raised its head, lay still.
“Poor thing,” said Cordelia as she arrived panting. “James, you were simply splendid!”
James was a hero. Not that his exploit had been of much use to anyone, but for sheer derring-do none had ever seen the like. No one had ever ridden a wild boar before, the Albanians declared, for if any had a song would surely have been made upon the feat to make sure it went down in history.
He and the boar were borne off in triumph towards the hunter-herdsmen’s encampment, despite his protests. Left behind, Cordelia managed to persuade Bashkim not to desert her, and to help her reload Achates. Rescuing her and James’s laundry from the bank of the stream, she fastened it to the load to blow dry in the wind. Modesty be damned, she thought crossly.
They plodded along with the laden donkey. Long before they reached the camp, the odour of roasting pork wafted to their nostrils. At least James was watching for her. He came grinning to meet her, the anise scent of raki on his breath.
“There’s a feast in preparation,” he said, helping her down from Dido’s back, “to celebrate my reckless idiocy and the successful hunt. We’re invited. That is, I am. They don’t really invite women to their feasts, but of course I insisted.”
“We were hoping to reach the next village by nightfall,” Cordelia protested, rather feebly as the smell of pork made her mouth water. Not to mention the sight of the carcase, sizzling on a spit over red-hot coals in the space between the thatched stone huts.
Bashkim had ridden ahead to speak to his friends. Now he came back and said firmly in his broken Turkish, “Tonight we stay here. Tomorrow to village.”