Kate Furnivall - The Russian Concubine

The Russian Concubine — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Russian Concubine" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...125

The Russian Concubine

KATE FURNIVALL

Hachette Digital

www.littlebrown.co.uk

Table of Contents

Kate Furnivall was inspired by her mothers story to write this book. The Russian Concubine contains fictional characters and events, but makes use of the extraordinary situation that was her mothers childhood experience - that of two White Russian refugees, a mother and daughter, stuck without money or papers in an International Settlement in China. Kate Furnivall and her husband live by the sea in the beautiful county of Devon.

The Russian Concubine

KATE FURNIVALL

Hachette Digital

www.littlebrown.co.uk

In memory of my mother,
Lily Furnivall,
whose story inspired my own. With love.

Acknowledgments

My warmest thanks go to Joanne Dickinson at Little, Brown for her enthusiasm and commitment and to Teresa Chris for her unfailing belief in the book. Many thanks also to Alla Sashniluc for providing me with Russian language with such energy and to Yeewai Tang for providing Chinese language with such grace.

A big thank-you to Richard for opening the door in my mind that took me into China, and to Edward and Liz for their invaluable encouragement. I would also like to thank the Brixham Group for listening to my woes and giving good advice, and Barry and Ann for taking me out to play when I needed it. And most of all, huge thanks to Norman for all his insight, his support, and his cups of coffee.

Russia
December 1917

The train growled to a halt. Grey steam belched from its heaving engine into the white sky, and the twenty-four freight carriages behind bucked and rattled as they lurched shrieking to a standstill. The sound of horses and of shouted commands echoed across the stillness of the empty frozen landscape.

Why have we stopped? Valentina Friis whispered to her husband.

Her breath curled between them like an icy curtain. It seemed to her despairing mind to be the only part of her that still had any strength to move. She clutched his hand. Not for warmth this time, but because she needed to know he was still there at her side. He shook his head, his face blue with cold because his coat was wrapped tightly around the sleeping child in his arms.

This is not the end, he said.

Promise me, she breathed.

He gave his wife a smile and together they clung to the rough timbered wall of the cattle wagon that enclosed them, pressing their eyes to the slender gaps between the planks. All around them others did the same. Desperate eyes. Eyes that had already seen too much.

They mean to kill us, the bearded man on Valentinas right stated in a flat voice. He spoke with a heavy Georgian accent and wore his astrakhan hat well down over his ears. Why else would we stop in the middle of nowhere?

Oh sweet Mary, mother of God, protect us.

It was the wail of an old woman still huddled on the filthy floor and wrapped in so many shawls she looked like a fat little Buddha. But underneath the stinking rags was little more than skin and bone.

No, babushka, another male voice insisted. It came from the rear end of the carriage where the ice-ridden wind tore relentlessly through the slats, bringing the breath of Siberia into their lungs. No, itll be General Kornilov. He knows were on this godforsaken cattle train starving to death. He wont let us die. Hes a great commander.

A murmur of approval ran around the clutch of gaunt faces, bringing a spark of belief to the dull eyes, and a young boy with dirty blond hair who had been lying listlessly in one corner leapt to his feet and started to cry with relief. It had been a long time since anyone had wasted energy on tears.

Dear God, I pray you are right, said a hollow-eyed man with a stained bandage on the stump of his arm. At night he groaned endlessly in his sleep, but by day he was silent and tense. Were at war, he said curtly. General Lavr Kornilov cannot be everywhere.

But I tell you hes here. Youll see.

Is he right, Jens? Valentina tilted her face up to her husband.

She was only twenty-four, small and fragile, but possessed sensuous dark eyes that could, with a glance, for a brief moment, make a man forget the cold and the hunger that gnawed at his insides or the weight of a child in his arms. Jens Friis was ten years older than his wife and fearful for her safety if the roving Bolshevik soldiers took one look at her beautiful face. He bent his head and brushed a kiss on her forehead.

We shall soon know, he said.

The red beard on his unshaven cheek was rough against Valentinas cracked lips, but she welcomed the feel of it and the smell of his unwashed body. They reminded her that she had not died and gone to hell. Because hell was exactly what this felt like. The thought that this nightmare journey across thousands of miles of snow and ice might go on forever, through the whole of eternity, that this was her cruel damnation for defying her parents, was one that haunted her, awake and asleep.

Suddenly the great sliding door of the wagon was thrust open and fierce voices shouted, Vse is vagona, bistro. Out of the wagons.

The light blinded Valentina. There was so much of it. After the perpetually twilit world inside the wagon, it rushed at her from the huge arc of sky, skidded off the snow, and robbed her of vision. She blinked hard and forced the scene around her into focus.

What she saw chilled her heart.

A row of rifles. All aimed directly at the ragged passengers as they scrambled off the train and huddled in anxious groups, their coats pulled tight to keep out the cold and the fear. Jens reached up to help the old woman down from their wagon, but before he could take her hand she was pushed from behind and landed facedown in the snow. She made no sound, no cry. But she was quickly yanked onto her feet by the soldier who had thrown open the wagon door and shaken as carelessly as a dog shakes a bone.

Valentina exchanged a look with her husband. Without a word they slid their child from Jenss shoulder and stood her between them, hiding her in the folds of their long coats as they moved forward together.

Mama? It was a whisper. Though only five years old, the girl had already learned the need for silence. For stillness.

Hush, Lydia, Valentina murmured but could not resist a glance down at her daughter. All she saw was a pair of wide tawny eyes in a heart-shaped bone-white face and little booted feet swallowed up by the snow. She pressed closer against her husband and the face no longer existed. Only the small hand clutching her own told her otherwise.

The man from Georgia in the wagon was right. This was truly the middle of nowhere. A godforsaken landscape of nothing but snow and ice and the occasional windswept rock face glistening black. In the far distance a bank of skeletal trees stood like a reminder that life could exist here. But this was no place to live.

No place to die.

The men on horseback didnt look much like an army. Nothing remotely like the smart officers Valentina was used to seeing in the ballrooms and troikas of St Petersburg or ice skating on the Neva, showing off their crisp uniforms and impeccable manners. These men were different. Alien to that elegant world she had left behind. These men were hostile. Dangerous. About fifty of them had spread out along the length of the train, alert and hungry as wolves. They wore an assortment of greatcoats against the cold, some grey, others black, and one a deep muddy green. But all cradled the same long-nosed rifle in their arms and had the same fanatical look of hatred in their eyes.

Next page

1234567...125

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Russian Concubine»

Look at similar books to The Russian Concubine. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Bree Bellucci

The monster concubine

Fran Furnivall

Shack-Ups!

Kate Aitken

Kate Aitkens Cook Book

Martin Springett

Kate and Pippin: An Unlikely Friendship

Kate Biberdorf

Kate the chemist : the big book of experiments

Getaway Guides

Russian for Beginners: The Best Handbook for learning to speak Russian! (Russian, Russia, Learn Russian, Speak Russian, Russian Language, Russian English, Russian Dictionary, Travel Russia)

Kate Furnivall

The Girl from Junchow The Concubines Secret

Kate Furnivall

Under a Blood Red Sky

Kate Furnivall

The Jewel of St. Petersburg

Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Fairy Ring

Kate Furnivall

The Concubines Secret

Pai Kit Fai

The Concubines Daughter: A Novel

Discussion, reviews of the book The Russian Concubine and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.