Her mouth watered at the dark, dry morsel, but she waved it away. “You’ll need to keep your strength up. Especially if your injury affects your work.”
The injured man raised an eyebrow. “Most prisoners would slit someone’s throat for an extra piece of bread.”
“If the Bolsheviks take my decency from me, then they’ve won. I won’t take bread from the injured.”
He cracked a smile. “Why are you here?”
It was a long story, and he was a stranger, so she told a shortened version. “The Cheka condemned my family to death. I escaped, but I was captured again, and the agent commuted my sentence to fifteen years hard labor. Not that I expect to survive that long.” Hunger was her constant companion now. Lice infested her hair, even though she’d cut most of it off. Her body had grown unpleasantly lean, her limbs were like sticks, and she was constantly cold. The temperature was already falling, and it would get far worse far too soon. She might not survive another winter, not if she had to begin it so underweight.
“Why was your family condemned?”
“We were aristocrats. And my father served the tsar. We left when the Bolsheviks took power, went to the Ukraine, but I suppose his past actions were enough to brand him as a counterrevolutionary.”
The man grew thoughtful. “Your father’s name?”
Nadia hesitated but not for long. The Bolsheviks knew who she was. There was no longer any need to hide her identity. “Baron Ilya Ivanovich Linsky.”
“I met Baron Linsky a few times. You’re his daughter?”
“Yes.”
He studied her, probably seeing a face that didn’t resemble her father’s at all. “Your father may not have told you, but he was getting supplies for General Alexeyev and General Kornilov. I’m not surprised the Bolsheviks wanted him shot. He was dangerous to their cause.”
It took a few moments for the words to register. “No. We were planning to go to France until the Bolsheviks were defeated.”
“He may have been planning to send you and your mother away. But I don’t think he was planning to leave. Knowing him, he was going to stay and fight. Not with a rifle. With supplies and a talent for logistics.”
Could her father have been planning to send his family off to safety while he stayed behind? Yes, of course. Papa wouldn’t have left unless all hope was gone. He was tied to the land, bound to Russia for better or for worse. He would have considered emigration desertion, and desertion was something her father would never be guilty of. That was why they’d gone to the Ukraine. Not to escape but so he could better liaison with the Cossacks and royalist troops in the south of Russia. She wished he would have trusted her with the truth.
“Miss Linskaya.” The man held out the bread again. “Take this, not as payment for medical care but as a gift to the daughter of a man I once had the privilege of serving with. A man I admired. Take it as a gift from a former officer to a former lady, in memory of a happier, more chivalrous time.”
Nadia hesitated, but then she took the bread. If it was given to honor her father, how could she refuse? “What is your name, sir?”
“Kirill Sokolov. I used to be a polkovnik. But that was another time.”
He’d held a high rank. Now he sat in a makeshift camp for enemies of the Bolsheviks. And with one arm broken, his chances of survival seemed small. “How long is your sentence?”
“Five years.” The corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. “But I hear they’ll increase it tenfold if I’m caught trying to escape.”
Nadia’s eyes flashed around. No one was close enough to hear them other than Sokolov’s friend. “Be careful. The guards have informants.”
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
Sokolov met her eyes and held them. “If there are informers, they don’t include the daughter of Baron Linsky, I’m sure of that. Tell me, Miss Linskaya. If you could escape, where would you go?”
“It’s Mrs. Sedláková now. I married a Czech. If I were free, I would try to find him again. Have you any news of the legion?”
Sokolov frowned, as if he had bad news. Worry wove its way around her chest and hitched tight. What if the legion had been cut off, surrounded, destroyed? “The Czechoslovaks are no longer serving on the front.”
Relief made it easier to breathe, but Sokolov’s words hinted at disapproval. “Are they going home?”
“No. Guarding the railway to keep it open. But we needed them at the front. So many times we needed them, and they wouldn’t join us.”
“It’s not their fight.”
“It may not have started as their fight, but when they went to war with the Bolsheviks, they provoked massive retribution from the Red Army. We’re having to face it alone.”
She understood Sokolov’s frustration, but she wanted Filip and the others to be safe, and guarding the railways seemed far less dangerous than fighting the Red Army. On the other hand, she wanted the Reds defeated. “How are things at the front? We don’t get much news.”
“We’ve had setbacks. But the war’s not over yet.”
***