The night of the massacres—just last night—her son’s first act had been to pray. His second was to honor the dead. His third, to punish. The gorges of the Avar Koysu resounded with the cries of the hypocrites and the pacified who had led the Russians here. Their horribly mutilated corpses rotted, unburied, between the two watchtowers, an abject lesson to those tempted to go over to the infidels.

General Lanskoy, one of the few who escaped the massacre, had returned to the fort at Temir-Khan-Chura, more dead than alive. The spies later declared he died of fright, succumbing not to his wounds but to jaundice. The others lay at the bottom of the abyss, among the bats that flew through the obscurity of the chasm below Ghimri. Shamil had had nearly a hundred of the dogs thrown off the cliff, delivering them to the eagles and vultures below.

Men from the neighboring communities, women and children of Arakhanee, Irganai, and all the auls that the scouts had razed on their way to Ghimri, had arrived en masse to help dig graves and join the murids. They participated in the funeral ceremonies with chants and dances that lasted through the night on the roof of Shamil’s house. It was another miracle: his house was still standing, perfectly intact. The cannons and the flames had not touched it.

The shouts of the believers blended with the wailing of the mourners and made the few survivors in the pit shiver in fear. Prisoners of the Caucasus, the new Russian captives were perhaps the only ones who understood how little their Christian arrogance had convinced the local population. On the evening following the massacre, Shamil could thank the invaders. Their brutality had served the holy war, driving the last waverers into his arms.

Compelled to choose between two parties, both capable of decimating their ranks, the Montagnards much preferred men of their own blood and faith. There was nothing to be gained by befriending the infidels. The Russians tried to buy their submission, but they never kept their promises and they never paid. In twenty years, they had proven their duplicity, paying both rebels and pacified in the same way, murdering even their own partisans. They had even shot the khan, Ullou Bek.

Terror for terror, in the eyes of the people, the yoke of Shamil was the more worthy. Serving God and fighting for their freedom epitomized all that remained of Muslim honor. The imam was right.

In her mind’s eye, Bahou saw him as she had yesterday evening, standing on the roof at his full height of six foot two, facing the mountain as he led the mourning and addressed the crowd.

“I have come to you with the Koran and the sword, and I will lead you. Take comfort, the day of deliverance is at hand. This world is a carcass, and he who would win it is a dog, but we shall rid it of the infidels for good, as it is written.”

After the horrors of the day before, she finally allowed herself a mother’s pride. Never given to vanity or coquetry, she nonetheless reveled in his beauty. She admired Shamil’s naturally noble carriage and the elegance of his clothing, as she had last night at the funeral ceremonies. She liked the lighter coat he wore, which was a deep black. She loved to see his white turban shine in the night, his arsenal glinting at his belt. Her son’s weapons were such sacred objects that not even Fatima was allowed to touch them. He took pleasure in cleaning them himself. But on those rare evenings when he was at her house, he left the privilege to Bahou.

A vague smile crossing her lips, she relived the moment when the murids had cheered him. The time of bad omens, when she had spilled the water and feared that Shamil might not be able to return to save them, that morning seemed long ago. Today she was confident. Allah watched over them. She no longer doubted that her son enjoyed divine protection. She saw as proof the ultimate and unexpected resistance of Urus-Datu, which had saved them from the worst fate. Had the Russians not slaughtered the elders, Shamil would have been compelled to avenge their betrayal of his children, his wife, his sister, and his mother. He would have had to strike the elders in the flesh, along with all of their descendants, their sons and grandsons—even those who had opposed the hypocrisy of their fathers by following him to Ashilta, the bravest of the brave. The families of the elders would then have sought vengeance, taking a life for a life, pursuing the blood relatives of Shamil from one generation to the next, extending their reprisals far beyond Ghimri. It was the law of kanly. This was the evil that Shamil feared and fought everywhere, the vendetta that was capable of tearing his Muslim brothers apart.

Bahou knew that her son’s real battle was not the one he led against the Russian invaders, but the struggle against disaffection among the believers. They had elected him. What had he to fear in the future? She imagined the echo of the chant she had heard in the night, one voice, in unison, crying “Shamil, imam!” And his answer, ringing out in all its power over their voices.

“Be strong,” he thundered. “Be vigilant. Prepare your weapons, fortify your villages, and mortify your flesh, for soon you will mortify that of your enemies. We shall nail their hands to our doors, their heads will roll down our mountain slopes, and the rivers will run red with their blood.”


Fatima followed her mother-in-law down the path to the water. She too was replaying in her mind the scene she had witnessed the previous evening.

Like Bahou-Messadou and the other women of Ghimri, she did not usually attend any public gatherings, not even the djighitovkas, the famous equestrian games held outside the town gates. She had never seen her husband’s remarkable litheness as he nudged his horse into an instant gallop beneath the posterns, nor had she ever heard him harangue the crowds. Until the day before, she had only known of his reputation for powerful eloquence.

Yesterday had been the first time, and it still struck her like a revelation. True, she knew that students from Koranic schools far away came to listen to him preach at the mosque. Like them, no doubt, she was impressed by his passion, his authority, and the fire of his conviction. But at home, Shamil was given to silence and rarely raised his voice. By nature he was a man of few words, but in the privacy of their room, she could scarcely shut him up. She never tired of hearing him whisper the tales of his adventures in her ear, as he had that night when he returned from battle. Fatima knew the words relieved his tension. He told her of his admiration for the imam Khazi Mullah, his dead friend, the story of their first victories and defeats, his hesitations about the future and his doubts about decisions he must make. He always ended with the same question.

“What do you think?”

She was too humble and too clever not to sense the direction in which his instincts were leading him. She tried to follow him along the paths he had already outlined, confirming her approval of decisions he had already made.

“Fatima, what do you think?”

The very few times she had hesitated or expressed doubt or disagreement, he had asked her to explain her reasons. She dared to do so, revealing her concerns. He teased her about her fears, but he always listened.

But yesterday, when she had seen him on the roof like a gigantic dark shadow hovering over his murids, she had been taken aback. It was the shadow of God on earth. This morning, this strange impression lingered, one that Bahou absorbed as well with the same surprise and pride.


As they reached the courtyard, the two women found Patimat plucking the chickens found beneath the rubble with exaggerated vigor, obviously fuming with ire.

Her stoutness was a sign of her status; it also kept her from having to go down the mountain to draw water or work in the fields. Instead she was mistress of all domestic chores, a distribution of roles that no one dared to challenge. Shamil’s return necessitated a thorough housekeeping. She must reopen the reception rooms and prepare big meals for visitors from neighboring villages and the naïbs, the leaders of his army. But the Russians had slit all the sheep’s throats and burned all the stores of barley.

This morning, though, Patimat was not grousing about the material problems of the household. Her brother had just ordered her to pack up everything for a move from Ghimri. They would leave the village tomorrow. To go where? No answer. She knew where this new caprice came from. Really, Shamil was far too receptive to his wife’s influence. A man like him! For years now, Patimat had been encouraging him to take a second wife—advice that did nothing to improve relations with her sister-in-law.

Absorbed in her thoughts, Patimat said nothing to the peasants whose villages had been destroyed; anonymous figures, slumped beneath their veils, they silently gutted the chickens at her feet.

To leave Ghimri, the burial place of their ancestors, the cemetery where her own husband rested? Winter was coming, and the Russians would not return for a while. Why go into exile with no threat on the horizon? Bahou would be all for it; she had always hated Ghimri. The prospect of this maternal betrayal was the ultimate irritation. Yes, of course the old lady talked about marrying her off to a man of Ashilta. And negotiations with his relatives, the visits it would require of Bahou, and the preparations for a wedding could not be carried out from here. No matter, Patimat could wait. She was in no hurry. Her brother still needed her, more than ever, in fact. Fatima let her children run all over the place. She would be incapable of overseeing the organization of the seraglio and the apartments of the new imam. What would happen to Shamil’s precious manuscripts, his speeches, and his weapons, to all that he treasured, without Patimat? What would happen to the Koran that he had inherited from Khazi Mullah, whose iron fittings she polished, and that she wrapped up in the finest material every night?