As luck would have it, the invitation was for the very evening of the day the boy arrived, after an extensive campaign and a journey of several thousand versts across the country. And so? This was such a rare privilege, such a precious favor, that no one would even have considered postponing.

The uncle shot a puzzled look at his protégé. His own disappointment so annoyed him that he could find no adequate way to break the silence.

He had no children of his own. His sister had married beneath her station, her spouse a local squire from the Moscow area. They hadn’t the means to give their children an adequate education, so he had seen to the progress of the boys, the third one of whom was not yet ten. He made sure they were admitted to the best lycées and introduced to the higher circles of society. His affection for the eldest, Dmitri Alexeyevitch, now went far beyond any family obligation toward a poor relative. Despite the boy’s uncompromising character, he saw in him a reflection of his own character, a patience, a level-headedness and cleverness that excluded neither tenacity nor passion. And he knew that Dmitri admired him and returned his affection.

Dmitri had been wounded twice during the siege of Akulgo. Perhaps the scars were deeper than the young man cared to admit.

A diplomat by nature and a courtier by trade, the count tried other means, short of blatant flattery, to lighten the atmosphere and rescue the conversation.

“Akulgo,” he repeated. “Now that was some baptism by fire! You never do things halfway, do you? Typical of you, my boy, and quite a feat of arms. I’m proud of you. General Grabbe wrote to tell me that your conduct was impeccable.”

The shadow of a smile played about the lieutenant’s lips.

“General Grabbe gives me too much credit,” he replied.

It was impossible to tell whether his tone expressed modesty or bitterness. But at least he had responded.

“You’ve begun your career under the orders of a great general, and you’ve lived through a historic moment,” the count insisted.

“Nonetheless, the siege cost us three thousand men.”

The uncle sensed, if not criticism, then at least a certain reticence. He deftly changed sides.

“Three thousand, as many as that?”

“Three thousand Russians in two months. Dead or mutilated.”

“What a slaughter for a pile of rocks!”

“And the carnage isn’t over down there.”

Kiselyev began to smile beneath his moustache. Fine, the conversation had taken off again. All he had to do was let it ramble on.

“What? Not over?” he exclaimed. “The Caucasus has been pacified; it’s a complete success.”

Dmitri restrained himself from showing his impatience. “Who says so?”

“Grabbe himself, in his report to the emperor. He wiped them off the map, you wiped them off the map, all the rebels!”

“With all due respect for General Grabbe, I think he is mistaken. And if His Majesty does not take necessary measures, very rapidly—”

This time it was the count’s turn to frown.

“The czar knows the situation in the Caucasus, down to the finest details. He is better informed than you or anyone else as to what is going on there. He knows everything. ‘The necessary measures’—what kind of a phrase is that?”

“General Grabbe needs more resources and his officers more intelligence.”

Kiselyev recognized his own dynamism in his nephew, but this time did not admire it.

“I’d advise you not speak in these terms later on.”

“Uncle, if you only knew what shortcomings I’ve seen with my own eyes, the ignorance and stupidity of some of our own captains!”

“It is not your place to judge your superiors.”

“Our troops are poorly trained, poorly organized, poorly fed, and poorly equipped.”

“What are you talking about? The Russian army is the most powerful in the world. The emperor takes care of his soldiers, he gives them his time, his energy, and his love! He loves you—you, the young—because you are faithful, disciplined, and handsome.”

“Handsome, yes, on the parade ground, no doubt,” Dmitri cut him off. “But this is no parade, and it’s not an ordinary war, but a holy war.”

The count softened. He had gone through the same kind of crisis Dmitri was experiencing. This contrast between the horror of war and the placidity of home. He never should have arranged to bring the boy to see the czar so soon after being in the throes of action. It was his mistake, an error in judgment.

“His Majesty is perfectly conscious of the difficulties you have had to face,” he said soothingly. “He considers all the complications. And as a matter of fact, that is why I managed to have you invited here this evening, as the victor of Akulgo.”

Dmitri was no longer listening.

“And there’s something else. We’re so sure of our own superiority that we don’t take the Montagnards seriously. We aren’t remotely curious about their culture, their tribal structures, their politics, or their religion. We can’t even fathom the possibility that we could learn something from them, if only from the way they fight. Yet if we knew them, it would help us to defeat them.”

“They’re already defeated,” the count muttered sternly. “The war is over. They’ve given up. They’ve even given us their children so that we can make good little Russians of them. This mission you just completed, at Tsarskoye Sielo, this boy, the rebel’s son you brought there—that is striking proof. Finally they understand what’s good for them!”

Milyutin chose not to follow this unexpected turn in the conversation. Yes, he had just delivered the small prisoner in his care to the Alexandrovsky Cadet Corps at Tsarskoye Sielo. So?

It was precisely this, this last journey, that he still couldn’t stomach.

Four months earlier, during the peace negotiations with the Montagnards, he had seen how General Grabbe had treated his hostage. How he had had him imprisoned in the camp. How he had had him sent to the fort at Temir-Khan-Chura. And from there, how, with violence—

He tried to chase the images from his mind and returned to strategic considerations.

“For the past fifty years, Uncle, ever since the reign of Catherine the Great, all of our generals have been crying victory. All of them, one after another, General Fézé, General von Klugenau, and now General Grabbe. One day, their arrogance and their blindness will cost the empire dearly.”

“The wars of pacification have put enough of a strain on the treasury and weighed too heavily on the crown and on the czar,” the count snapped, losing what remained of his patience, “for you to come here this evening and explain to us that they were poorly conducted and, what’s more, that they’re not over. Anyway, why should they continue? As you pointed out, there is no gold in the Caucasus, no silver, no iron—nothing. If the Montagnards are as poor as you say they are, why don’t we leave them alone so they can fight it out among themselves? Why are we knocking ourselves out?”

“Why?” Dmitri stared at the count. Could a man so well read really be asking such a naïve question?

“Because we have no choice, Uncle! The chain of the Caucasus is a fortress that cuts the empire in two. It runs all the way across the country, from the Black Sea to the Caspian, barring our path along a thousand versts. We cannot permit an enclave inhabited by hostile Muslims to separate us from our people, the Orthodox Christians in the south. How can we accept the fact that the routes leading to our own territories—the roads to Georgia and to Armenia—are constantly subject to the raids of a bunch of fanatics whose goal it is to extend the power of Islam? How can we abandon our western ports that look to Constantinople and to Europe, and the eastern ones facing Asia, without sacrificing the fleet and giving up trade? As for the security of our frontiers, protecting ourselves from the invading Turks, from Persian incursions, and from England’s designs on Afghanistan and India depends entirely upon holding the Caucasus. We have no choice but to conquer the tribes and colonize the land. Pacify. But how?”

“To hear you tell it, that, indeed, is the question.”

“In any case, not the way we’re going about it now, by massacring the population. Do you want to know the truth? Our brutality serves only the imam Shamil.”

“The imam Shamil is dead.”

“The only man we should have killed,” the young man muttered angrily, “the one we allowed to get away, out of sheer stupidity, is not dead.”

“Dead or on the run, it’s all the same, now he’s worth nothing. Grabbe says he’s just a miserable wretch sneaking from cave to cave, defenseless and without resources, abandoned by his people there in the mountains. We’ll catch him sooner or later.”

“He is alive. He is free.”

“He has been defeated, Dmitri!”

“But he’s kept what is essential: his honor, his weapons, and something more. After the miracle of his escape from Ghimri eight years ago, the miracle of his flight from Akulgo has transformed him into an indestructible figure. He has become a legend in his own eyes, and in the eyes of the Dagestanis and the Chechens too. Now they’re all as convinced as he is that he’s God’s Chosen One. The death of all his companions, of his sister, of his second wife, even of his youngest son in atrocious conditions—all that changes nothing. As for kidnapping his heir, his desire for revenge—which has now become very personal—dictates that he must survive. For the Russians, the nightmare is just beginning.”

“You’re exaggerating, Dmitri Alexeyevitch.”

The young man restrained himself only with great effort.