Tyrant, prince and fool
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Arkady's childhood had been filled with tales of the Caucasus, this untamed beauty of the south, inhabited by ruthless people and horrors untold. A graveyard of heroes filled with the corpses of poets, princes and soldiers alike.
One of these graveyards had been Akhulgo.
Hundreds of Russians and Avars had given their life in battle, disease and hunger, all for fair Akhulgo.
It was a ruin now, left to rot and be a home of ghosts.
In many ways, Lovushka's dark walls reminded Arkady of the paintings he had seen of Akhulgo as he stepped into the courtyard.
But it was not the shadows of its walls that fell on him there.

He only caught a glimpse - a ray off light hitting a golden sabre, medals glistening blood red in the setting sun and a face covered in scars towering on the stairs above him, before a voice like thunder and ice cracked the air.

"I see, St. Petersburg finally managed to send one who is not wrapped in a shrout- or tell me, boy, did you take the wrong turn when they send you to die in Crimea instead?"

Arkady was unable to produce a word.
The kapitan stood there like a modern Prometheus. His presence demanded the authority of a man that had created mankind.
Nevertheless, the punishment of the modern gods had not been kinder to him.
His face was split in four by slashes of a bayonet. Four-faced he was just like Svetovit in the myths of old, only that one of his dark blue eyes was clouded by a milky fog.

Arkady somehow managed to click his heels as the kapitan rushed downwards.
But with each step he descended, the more the kapitan seemed to look down on Arkady.
When he stood before him, contempt disfigured his sharp, pale features.

"Petersburg never sends its rough jewels", he stated. "It always sends its fool's gold."
Hot shame flushed Arkady's cheeks.
He suddenly became very aware of his soft hands, smooth cheeks and his tailored, unscathed uniform.
They made him feel like a boy in a man's world.

"Commandant Krassotkin", Arkady croaked. At least he had read that name on the letter given to him by the polkovnik. "I am lieutenant Bessmertny. I was transferred to-"

The kapitan interrupted him with a simple gesture of his hand.
"I know. They always do. Say-", his lips curled into a dry grimace as he lifted Arkady's chin with the tip of his riding crop. "What made them send you here? A lethal duel? Gambling, maybe? Debt? A liasion?"

A liasion? Who would even want him?
Young Bessmertny stiffened.
"Political reasons, kapitan."

"Political reasons?", Krassotkin repeated - voice sharp and brows lowered.
Oh, Nikolai Krassotkin indeed enjoyed to play tsar in this little fortress of his.
After all, his emperor had assigned him to this post - and that was nearly better than a crown granted by god himself. So the tsar of Lovushka tasted treason in this words.
"What kind of politics? Western ones?"

Arkady felt what was coming, so he attempted a hint of diplomacy.
"Liberal ones, kapitan."

Krassotkin's face grew even darker as a muscle in his face twitched dangerously.
"Elaborate."

"Politics that see equal value in every man and woman. Even in the serfs.
Or the ethnicities that too desire to be heard in this great-"

Krassotkin's hand was quicker than Arkady's voice.
His grip tightened around Arkady's collar, pulled him closer until Krassotkin's hot breath burned on his cheeks.
Before Arkady could even blink, the kapitan hissed:
"Oh, I know your kind. Yesterday you suckled on the milk of our great nation like leaches feast on blood. Now you have turned into parasites - only to become tomorrow's traitors. Equality you say, freedom you preach, but in the end, you just want to throw us all into chaos and disorder. A bullet should have put you out of your misery just like Pavel Pestel and the rest of his decembrist filth."
Krassotkin scrunched his nose while Arkady had become pale as chalk.
"But why should they waste a perfectly fine bullet on your kind, when they could make the Circassian barbarians waste one on you?"
He let go of Arkady and the boy stumbled two steps back.

"I-I-", he stuttered.
Humiliation burned in him, hot and white.
Was that what he was without Mikhail? Without Hedwig? Without Anatol?
A pathetic nothing?

"I am the son of a count! My mother was a princess", Arkady protested, but knew how weak he sounded.

And then, Krassotkin smiled his crude smile.
He knew.
"Oh, honorable Count Felix Bessmertny, wasn't it? Last time I visited St. Petersburg, his wife was a whore and his only heir the little bastard son she threw him."

The lieutenant flinched back- and suddenly Arkady was twelve again.
She has slept with a peasant, the dead mistress, he had overheard a kitchen maid.
A whore through and through, the cook had replied. If I had been the Count, I would have let her bastard freeze to death in the cold.

"You can't- You can't say that!"

"Oh, can't I?"
The kapitan leaned forward.
"I have seen things that would make your blue blood freeze in your veins, little Bessmertny. Trust me, I can do so much worse", Krassotkin whispered into Arkady's ears. The hairs on his neck rose. "Maybe you too should become their witness. Don't you think?"

"I'm here to follow your command, kapitan", Arkady choked.

"Wonderful, what a diligent subordinate", Krassotkin sneered and clapped his hands. "Consequently, you will be overjoyed to hear that you will oversee the soldiers during the guards' first night shift."

Bessmertny blinked - then gulped. "Yes, kapitan."

As Arkady left, Krassotkin wondered whether shadowless, forget-me-not eyed Bessmertny would even survive the night.

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Arkady was prepared for many things when he entered his quarters.
He did not require luxury for he had spend many nights hidden in a wooden chest, too scared of the Count's great palais and its ghosts in St. Petersburg.
But whatever he had expected, he had not expected this.

As he opened his door, a plume of alcohol and sweat struck him.
He stumbled back into the dark corridor, then - a voice.

"Huzzah, a new face! Finally!", a young man screamed, jumped up and knocked down the chair he had just sat on. Before Arkady could even twitch, the stranger had grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around.
"Say, comrade, a toast! Drink with me! Georgian Kvareli? Medovukha? A bottle of Vodka?"

Arkady - completely overwhelmed and half- dragged into the chamber - simply stuttered:
"I am - I am afraid I have to decline-"

"Well, no alcohol? Fine. I do, however, have bought very fine tabacco from -"

Arkady had stopped listening for his mind had finally processed where he even was - and who he was talking to.

The room was not big, but at least not drowned by shadow. There was an arched window carved in the thick, dark stone.
Two beds, one desk and the stranger in the middle of it.

He looked like a French bohemien. His tousled hair was coloured like honey, even his smile was crooked and his uniform wrinkled.
Only his moustache was well groomed - oh, and well groomed it was.

The stranger whirled around and pressed a half empty bottle filled with god knows what liquid into Arkady's hands.
Only then did he realize that the man's chest was naked. Or at least his uniform was unbuttoned and the linen shift gone, revealing hard skin covered in oil and sweat.
The lieutenant immediately blushed.

"Who are you?", Arkady finally pressed out, more confused than malicious.

The face of the other lieutenant light up.
"Well, Petritsky of course! Your friend, my dear-"

"-Arkady. My name is Arkady."

"Well well, my pretty friend", Petritsky smiled wide. "Welcome to Lovushka, the ninth circle of hell."

Damn Dante Aligheri, he thought.
"Pardon?"

Arkady made a point to put the bottle down on the next table and turn his back to Petritsky, his gaze fixed on his side of the room.

He had ordered his coachman to carry his luggage into the fortress.
Mostly his uniforms, but also books - the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, but also of Anatol's favourite author and namesake Taras Shevchenko, an Ukrainian poet -, fine boots, paper, ink and his mother's golden broach.
Yet, as he stood in this chamber, all of his belongings felt like pure useless vanitas.

Sighting, Arkady strode to the bed and the nightstand next to it.
It was not empty.
There was a bible on it, directly next to an icon of the mother of god, her pale face hidden behind a blue veil.

Arkady frowned.
"Is this... Is this yours?"
Oh lord, he did not doubt that there were many sins for Petritsky to confess. Even though he did not strike him as a religious man.

"What? This stuff? Do I look like a pious grandmother to you?" Petritsky's laughter shook the room as he let himself fall onto his bed. It ached beneath him. "No, it belonged to your predecessor. But you can throw it away - there is no one left to miss it."

Arkady felt cold claws sliding down his back.
There is no one to miss it. Something about those words made his fingers tremble.
"My predecessor?"

"Yes. Lieutenant Smirnov. Oder Sokolov? Only his god knows. Not that it matters anymore."

Not that it mattered - would Petritsky say the same about Arkady when the inevitable occured?
He only croaked:
"What happened to him?"

Petritsky shrugged his shoulders and kicked his feet up and down.
"Disappeared. Many of the common soldiers do, but also him, this priest officer. Do you know how drunk I had to get so I did not have to hear his fervent prayers every night? My liver barely survived it."

"Disappeared? Just like that? Not fallen in battle or-"

"Oh, it's too soon for so many questions!"

"It's evening already."

Petritsky sighted and uprighted his body, emptying his bottle with one last gulp. "Maybe Krassotkin was annoyed enough to push him of the wall. Maybe the Circassian mistress and her men have killed him."

"The Circassian mistress?", Arkady echoed.
"I was not aware Imam Shamil had female murids."

"Well, I don't know, but I certainly would like to experience this female charme! Apparently, the Ottoman sultan has not filled his harem with these women without a reason!" Petritsky winked at him but Arkady only wanted to melt in shame and seep into the ground.
"But, on another hand, my dear Anatol-"

"Arkady", he corrected Petritsky instinctively.

"Well, my sweet Arkasha, want to be a darling and fetch me another bottle of wine?"

Bessmertny blinked. And blinked again.
Arkady wondered if he had actually fallen of his horse and cracked his head. Maybe this Circassian had indeed shot him and not missed. Maybe he was in the feverish clutches of death right now.
At least that would be more plausible than this... person.
"There's a wine cellar? In this fortress?", he only managed to say.

"Of course! Now go and be a dear, won't you?"

Arkady did not answer, only turned around and left.
He was happy to escape the stench of alcohol and the mother of god's merciless eyes.

The hallway was empty and dark.
Cold had slipped through the cracks in the walls and Arkady shivered as he wandered down the stairs, deeper into Lovushka's intestines.

Few common soldiers crossed his path.
Their faces were hollow and pale, even their gazes were lowered.

Soon, his only companion was the oil lamp in his hands, flickering while he entered the cellar.
A pool of darkness swallowed him and his vision was reduced to a small circle of golden light.
He could only see the grey shapes of barrels and bottles reaching to the ceiling. On some there were dark letters smeared on the wood. They were unintelligible.

He continued into the shadows, one endless step after another as his mind finally calmed in the cool and quiet air.
Arkady was finally alone. No coachman, no Krassotkin, no Petritsky, no Circassian dieing in his arm.
Alone. Finally alone.

Before he could even notice, his vision blurred and his knees became soft.
In the next second, he cowered next to a barrel, arms wrapped around his knees and fingers trembling.
What had he just gotten himself into? He was no revolutionary. He was not even a real soldier and now he was here, in a war, in a place stranger than another planet.
He snorted. Maybe that was why this Petritsky was so fond of the wine in this cellar.

There was no one he could turn to.
Only the bottle and dusty memories, to this sweet smell of wine and the embrace of the night.
He had always liked the dark. It was his friend.

Arkady wanted to scream, just scream and let this storm burst out of his chest but he could not. He only pulled his legs closer and -
Something clinked in the shadows. His boots had touched something.
Instinctively he lifted his lantern.

A gold gleam reflected the light and there it laid, a single golden epaulette, glistening.

Arkady reached out for it.
His hand was wet as he touched it- the gold was covered in red liquid.
And the stench... It was sweet, yes, but it also stank like metal.
Blood.

The realisation hit him like a lightning bolt. This was not wine. This epaullete was covered in blood.

He jolted backwards against the barrel.
The corpse in the forest. He remembered, oh, he remembered it too well.
His torn uniform had been missing an epaulette.
It was not a Circassian hand that had taken his life.
He had been murdered here in Lovushka, here in the walls meant to protect him.

Arkady had come to replace a corpse.

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