Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“Bless you, Grisha, for coming through the lines once again,” Timofey replied. “What news do you bring from the front?”

“The pace is quickening,” the grizzled farmer replied. “Kappel has put Penza a hundred versts behind him, with Ryazan square in his path. And Gaida has taken Nizhni Novgorod after a three-day battle against heavy resistance.“

“News to warm my heart,” Timofey said, stomping his felt boots in the snow to stay warm. “How soon before they reach us here?”

“God only knows. Three hundred versts is a long way for Kappel’s men to cover.”

Timofey unbuttoned his coat at the throat and fished out some folded papers from under his tunic. These were his notes from Zhanna’s trial, written with invisible ink on the reverse sides of some discarded ledgers.

“Take these with you, but don’t you or your brother come back here until the White Army is less than a day’s ride away,” he told the old man. “There is no point in risking your life otherwise.”

“As you wish, Timosha. We will do our best,” the courier answered.

“All right, then. Go with God.”

Timofey walked across the street and stopped to light a cigarette while the courier returned to the stable for his horse. Between puffs, the priest considered how similar was the situation in Ryazan to that in Yekaterinburg during the summer of 1918, when the approach of Czech and White forces had prompted the Chekist Commissar Yurovsky to seek higher approval to murder the tsar and his family. Now the same man had sought Moscow’s approval to execute the Maid. Would he receive it in time?

The former cleric, dressed in the simple hand sewn garb favored by Old Believers, so that his full beard would not lead people to think him a priest, waited until the courier was out of sight before retrieving his own horse and retracing his path to Ryazan. With the days grown so short before the winter solstice, he had little time to spare if he was to reach the monastery before dark.

* * *

The following morning, the Maid was brought to the chapel for trial at the usual time. Today, however, she appeared more dazed and unfocused than ever before. Timofey asked one of the other examiners, a young monk who had expressed sympathy for Zhanna in private, what happened to her during his absence.

“For two nights they have kept her awake under continuous abuse and threats, with only bread and water for rations,” the monk whispered. “I believe the judge greatly fears her sharp tongue today, of all days, when her verdict will be read.”

Spotting Zhanna’s defense counsel in a corridor, Timofey left his seat and approached the lawyer.

“What on earth have they done to that poor girl?” Timofey asked the man in a low voice after taking him aside into an alcove.

“Last night the judge threw a party on the occasion of his bastard son’s engagement and, in a drunken state, brought some revelers to the Maid’s cell solely to oppress her,” the lawyer replied. “While she was at her toilet, they snatched away her uniform once its cords and eyelets were unfastened, and replaced the outfit with a simple frock of coarse brown wool that offered her no protection at all. On returning to her cell, a Party official attempted to ravish her but was stopped in time by a watchful guard. After that, Zhanna slept very little, fearing the man’s return. Disgusting! And these are the dregs who now claim to lead the Holy Church?”

In the next moment, the two men heard a commotion down the hall that signified Bishop Fyodor’s entrance into the chapel. They separated and hurried off to take their assigned seats.

The bishop climbed into his chair slowly and with great effort, the gray cast of his complexion and the dark circles under his eyes supporting the defense attorney’s claims of revelry the night before. Zhanna looked even worse. She swayed from side to side where she stood, unable to hold her balance, and shivered in her thin knee-length frock. From time to time, her head drooped and jerked up suddenly again. Timofey looked about and saw pained expressions on the faces of all but a few of his fellow examiners.

“The court is now in session,” Bishop Fyodor intoned in a monotone. “Have the assessors weighed the evidence and reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor,” his two colleagues recited in unison.

“Good. You may hand your written decisions to me,” the judge ordered, taking a folded sheet from each assessor and laying the two sheets to either side of his own. He opened each in turn, read it, and folded it again. “The court’s verdict is unanimous,” he announced. “The accused stands convicted on charges of heresy, blasphemy, apostasy and rebellion against the sacred doctrine and laws of the Holy Church. The accused is accordingly declared anathema, expelled from the church, and is remanded to the civil authorities for punishment, having been previously convicted in absentia by a tribunal for counter-revolutionary activities.”