The horse did his best to obey. Perhaps he understood that all too soon they would return to the stifling confines of her aunt’s estate. For now, his smooth stride seemed to outrun all Nadia’s grief and disappointment, and she felt as carefree as she had in the prewar days, before events had irrevocably altered her life, her family, and her class. Konstantin galloped across one field, then another. Nadia had never explored this part of the countryside, but they were heading in the correct direction, and Konstantin knew the way back.
A whistle of an undulating pitch rang in her ear. What was that? Artillery? The whine ended in an explosion of fire, dirt, and feather grass. Konstantin reared in alarm and swerved into a ditch. Then, despite her best efforts to hold on, Nadia was flying.
And falling.
She woke with a roaring headache and a view of five half-shaved men standing over her. Half-shaved wasn’t entirely accurate. One had only a bit of shaving lather on his chin, two had it spread across their entire cheeks and jaws, and the remainder had taken but a swipe or so at their cheeks before they’d been interrupted. All wore uniforms with an unfamiliar badge on their left arms. Nadia squinted so their collar patches would come into better focus. They weren’t officers.
“Are you all right, miss?” The words were Russian, polite enough but not polished.
The warm boots and charcoal-gray riding habit she wore failed to stop the winter chill from seeping through her skin, but the weather was the least of her worries. She needed to find Konstantin.
Then there was the problem of the men. They didn’t look menacing, but Nadia wasn’t so ignorant as to not recognize the extreme vulnerability of her position. She was all alone, far from manor or village, surrounded by five soldiers.
“Miss, can we help you?” The man who spoke had curly brown hair and a face hidden by shaving lather. “Some of the artillery lads were testing one of their pieces. I’m sure they didn’t mean to frighten your horse.”
She ought to have paid better attention. She hadn’t meant to ride into the path of a field gun. Smoke circled skyward to the west—the explosion hadn’t been close enough to harm her, but the fall had left pain gripping her head and each of her limbs. The hatless man with the curly hair waited for her answer, and her governess’s oft-repeated advice about dealing with the unrefined elements of society came to Nadia’s mind: be polite, but display no warmth. Showing fear would make them bolder, so she would have to look brave. From her position in the dirt and snow, she did her best to straighten her shoulders. Movement accelerated the pace of the thumping in her head. “I need my horse.”
The man nodded. “I’ll find it.”
“Plan to ride it again?” Another man asked. He’d almost finished shaving the stubble along his jaw but not the blond mustache, and a bit of shaving lather still dotted his chin.
“Naturally.”
He held a hand out, and she accepted his help back to her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut as her vision swirled. Perhaps staying on the ground would have been wiser.
The blond man grasped her elbow to help her balance. “Perhaps you should sit again. That was a hard fall. I daresay you knocked your head soundly enough to earn a rest.”
“I’m quite all right.” Nadia absolutely would not lounge about with a group of enlisted men. “But I do need my horse.” Would they steal Konstantin? It wouldn’t be the first horse her family had lost to theft, but it would be a long walk back.
“Filip will find it. He’s our best scout.”
“I thank you for your assistance, Mr. . . .”
He tugged at the brim of his cap. “Dalek Pokorný. At your service, miss.”
The others spoke their names as well, far too quickly for her to remember them all, but any questions about their nationality disappeared. “You’re Czechs?” According to Papa, the Czechoslovak Legion was the best fighting unit in the Ukraine. Everyone else was demoralized or torn between old loyalties to the tsar and new loyalties to myriad other factions. The Czechs, on the other hand, were united in their goal to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian Empire they’d once been part of.
Two of the remaining men nodded. The third, a man with fair skin, wavy brown hair, and a cut on his jaw, didn’t. “I’m a Slovak. And I spent a year assisting a doctor in a camp for war prisoners, so I’d be happy to examine your head.”
Nadia lifted a hand to the coiffure below the brim of her riding hat where several smooth strands of hair had escaped the hairpins. The Slovak had undoubtedly picked things up from the doctor in the prison camp the same way she’d learned from the doctors in the Petrograd hospital where she’d volunteered as a nurse, but her injury wasn’t serious. “I’m sure that isn’t necessary. I must be on my way.”
“You’re barely standing straight. How do you expect to ride?” That was the blond one.