Black Sea Horan: Confrontation
King Charles and his retinue swept into the Turkish camp at Stanilesti and rode right up to the command area: a collection of ornate tents atop one of the hills, just far enough away from the action to be out of any danger. Rose only had time to register some vague impressions: apparently the Russians were surrounded, entrenched on a low promontory butting up next to the River Pruth, while the Turks, many times their number, pressed in on all sides of the wide strip of no-mans-land in between the two armies. No shots were being fired while the peace negotiations were ongoing; heavy silence hung over the two armies, the exhausted soldiers of both sides dug in to wearily await the decisions of their superiors.
Charles jumped from his horse at the entrance to the largest tent, not even waiting for the boy who ran to grab the reins, and marched regally inside without being announced. Several of his lieutenants followed behind, and Thorsten gingerly pulled Rose down from her mount and helped her past the flaps, as well.
The picture inside was one of sheer opulence, utterly at odds with the war outside. Heavy damasks and silks draped everywhere, while silver and gold glittered and gleamed. A number of men were lounging on a circle of low settees: the peace negotiations. All of them were now staring, openmouthed, at the upstart young Swedish King who had burst in upon them so rudely. The man at the center back of the circle, sitting on what could almost be termed a throne, was staring daggers, his face slowly turning purple with outrage.
A man dressed in more northern (and more normal, to Rose's eyes) attire detached himself from the ring of observers standing around the tent's margins, hurrying to Charles's side, greeting him with a low bow, then half-turning and launching into translations between his liege and the sitting circle. "Poniatowski," Thorsten identified him in a murmur in Rose's ear, then proceeded to name the others present that he knew: Mehemet Baltadji, the Grand Vizier and commander of the Turkish army on the throne; the commander of the Janissaries; a couple of bearded men in dark, heavy wool uniforms which Thorsten assumed to be the Russian delegates; and Devlet Giray, Khan of the Crimean Tatars.
This last, Rose recognized immediately as the Prince who had taken her time jumper back at the slave market before rejecting herself. She stared at him for a moment out of the corner of her eye; he was still a commanding presence, even in such glittering company, lean and sharp as the blade he carried.
Then, her eyes were drawn to the man standing at attention behind the Khan's divan, who was staring fixedly at... her. His black eyes glittered, while a strange, tiny smile played around his mouth. It took her a moment, and then she gasped, drawing Thorsten's attention.
"What?" he asked.
"That man behind the Khan. He's the slaver Captain, the one who captured me and brought me to Caffa – and gave the jumper to Giray."
Thorsten swiveled and stared back at the Captain, then dismissed him, turning back to the action. He nudged Rose's arm to bring her attention back there, too, and she tried, though her eyes kept returning of their own accord.
Charles, the time jumper apparently momentarily put aside unmentioned, was arguing with the Grand Vizier about the terms of the treaty through Poniatowski. Thorsten began whispering translations of both sides to Rose in English. Just as Jared had told her all those weeks ago, the terms as they stood were very light: Russia was to be let off with just the return of the forts they had captured recently around Azov, and the ships they had been building there (which Thorsten had just returned from observing), while the Russian troops themselves – and their leaders, including the Tsar - would be allowed to escape capture, merely marching tamely back to their own country. Charles was furiously denouncing this idea, urging the Grand Vizier to attack, ending the Russian threat for good.
"No," Thorsten reported Baltadji as saying, "I have won enough. It is against the Prophet's law to deny peace to an enemy who begs it." Charles reacted to that, but the Vizier overrode him, sternly. "I have command of the army and I will make peace where I will!"
"Then allow me to do battle with my men," Charles proposed, "I will win far more concessions, if that is what you are after."
"No," was the final reply. "I have spoken. This is the will of Allah. You will not attack." The Vizier stared haughtily down the carpet at the Swedish King, his match in the "regal disdain" department, Rose decided.
There was a tense silence, then Charles inclined his head a fraction of an inch. "As you will," he said stiffly. "I have better things to do." He swiveled around to face Giray. "Mighty Khan, may I have a word with you in private? We have something to discuss."
Giray was as shocked by the impolite request as anyone else in the room, but covered it smoothly. "By your leave, Vizier?" Baltadji nodded, glad to be rid of the rude, intrusive king, and Giray rose from his couch and sailed out of the tent side-by-side with Charles, neither giving the other precedence. Thorsten, Rose, and Charles's lieutenants sprang to one side and bowed – Rose again returning the glance of the slaver Captain who had followed in the Khan's wake.
Giray led the King to (apparently) his own tent, slightly smaller than the Vizier's, but only a little less opulent, the door guarded on the outside by a pair of hulking soldiers wielding long, curved swords, bare in their hands. Charles turned and motioned Thorsten and Rose in, but told the lieutenants and Poniatowski (to his surprise) to wait outside. The slaver Captain ignored him, walking past him into the tent, so there were five.
Giray settled himself into a carved wooden chair in this "front room", partitioned from the rest of the huge tent by hanging carpets, and graciously motioned Charles into another, facing. The Captain took up his stance behind his Khan once more. Charles said to Thorsten, "Your turn to translate," so he left Rose standing by the door and went to stand behind his King's chair, mirroring the Captain. Rose found a small stool near the door and sank onto it, grateful to be off her feet and out of the saddle.
"What is it you wish of me?" the Khan asked in his own Tatar language. Thorsten, glancing at Rose, began translating into English rather than Swedish. Charles seemed not even to notice, switching also to English without turning a hair.
"It is a matter of property, Lord Khan," he began. "Her property, to be precise." He waved a hand in Rose's direction, and she immediately wished he hadn't, as every eye fastened on her. She shifted uneasily on her stool.
The Khan dismissed her with a glance, as he had done before. "I do not understand."
"There is an item which belongs to her, which is now in your possession, I believe," Charles elaborated, trying to conceal his eagerness behind the polite language and failing.
"I do not know this woman. How could anything of hers be in my possession?"
"Actually, Lord Khan," Rose broke in, "It was stolen from me by the man behind you."
Giray's eyes had not even flickered, giving the impression that he did not even hear the voice of a mere woman. When Thorsten translated it, he raised an eyebrow at Charles, then lifted a hand, signaling the Captain.
Rose flushed at the slight, then caught the eyes of the Captain, his brow furrowed. He'd forgotten. She used the same motion she had before with Thorsten and Charles, rubbing two fingers of her right hand over her left wrist, and saw his face clear with memory. Then he leaned over Giray's shoulder and whispered into his ear, apparently reminding the Khan of the bauble he'd acquired at the slave market.
"I still do not see," the Khan continued, even as he motioned the Captain back again without acknowledgement. "What is so important about that ugly leather decoration?" Rose wasn't sure if that was his real assessment – he'd certainly seemed interested back there in the market – or whether he was simply downplaying it to drive a harder bargain.
Charles, however, unused to the ways of Turkish haggling, blew it by leaning forward, letting his enthusiasm show. "It's more than a decoration, Lord Khan. Much more. It's the most important thing in this whole godforsaken country."
Giray's eyes glittered. "How so? What is this thing?"
Rose let her breath out in a hopeless, exasperated sigh as the Swedish King threw caution to the wind. Leaning forward more, speaking in a low voice that wouldn't carry outside the tent, he foolishly put his cards on the table. "It's a device for traveling through time, Giray. For moving through history. For changing history."
Thorsten had sucked in his breath, and stopped translating. "My lord," he whispered, "do you really want – "
"Say it!" Charles snarled. He waited until Thorsten swallowed hard, then repeated what he had said in Tatar.
The Khan was bewildered, certain the translation was faulty. "I do not understand."
"I know you are as angry about this treaty as I. You have been pushing for this war as eagerly as I have been, and now... victory is slipping away. But with this device, Khan, we can return to days that have already happened, and make them go the right way! We can return to yesterday and lead the charge against the Russians here. Or we can go back to any other day, and change things. Battles lost that can be won. Voyages not made that can be made. Important messages that never made it through, given to their receivers as planned. Giray... we can change history."
Thorsten had been dutifully translating, however unwillingly. He didn't look at Rose, now. For her part, she felt the jumper slipping further out of reach. Even now, the treaty could be being signed, her life could be ticking away...
Giray turned his head towards the Captain, murmuring instructions, and waved him through the hanging carpets to the back of the tent, where faint noises of items being moved about began to emerge. "He is retrieving this device, since he knows what it looks like," he said through Thorsten. Charles could barely contain his eagerness. The Khan leaned forward, finally intrigued, and began asking Charles for more details. Before the King could get too carried away, though, Rose had to break in.
"Forgive me, my lords, but you're both forgetting something. Your majesty..." He looked around at her and nodded shortly, unwillingly acknowledging their bargain. She turned to Giray. "Lord Khan," she began, adopting Charles's wording, "I'm the only one who knows how to use the – device. You need me to go anywhere."
For the first time, he turned and looked fully at her, taking in her appearance in the Swedish uniform, then looking sharply at her face, before murmuring something with a tiny smile lifting one corner of his thin mouth.
"Like the Greek Sybil," Thorsten translated, "we are under your tutelage."
That was likely the best she was going to get. She would have to work for her return home somehow later. She nodded her head at him, and he turned back to Charles.
Before he could speak, though, something else broke in on Rose's consciousness. The noises from the rear of the tent had stopped some time before, and all was silence. She looked at Thorsten, alarm growing in her eyes. "Thorsten," she whispered urgently, getting all their attention again.
"Shouldn't he be back by now?"
Thorsten's head whipped around towards the back wall, communicating her question to the Khan wordlessly. Giray sprang from his chair and was at the carpets in one long step, ripping open a gap between them. At his heels, the others watched as he strode into the empty room and across to a low table bearing an open chest, the contents of it spilled across the surface. He took one look at those contents, then whirled back around, shouting for his guards. None of them needed to ask why. The Captain had stolen the time jumper and escaped out the back, rolling through the gap under the free-hanging walls.
The four of them ran for the doorway, Giray continuing to shout orders at his guards and soldiers in Tatar. Charles added his voice to the confusion, yelling similarly to his own lieutenants and troops, ordering them to look for the missing man.
Thorsten and Rose simply halted together in front of the tent, their eyes frantically scanning the camp, looking for the Captain. It was Rose who spotted him in the spreading confusion, long minutes later. He had made it all the way to the front lines, and was attempting to sneak across the no-mans-land to the Russians.
"Thorsten!" she croaked to get his attention, pointing to the tiny figure in the distance.
Thorsten took one look and went absolutely, ice-cold still. "Bad Wolf..." he rasped, his voice strangled – then suddenly he yelled to Charles at the top of his lungs, sounding like the wrath of God himself. "CAROLUS! HAN ÄR STYGGA VARGEN!"
Rose gasped as the name dawned. The slaver Captain was the Russian spy he'd been tracking.
Charles whipped around, following the line of Thorsten's pointing arm, and spied the quarry. Shouting to his men, he leapt for his horse, whirled the animal around, and sent him at an instant gallop down the hill through the camp. The two hundred men who'd come with them from Bender mounted in a moment and thundered after him, swords drawn.
Khan Giray also followed a moment later, not understanding the Swedish, but spying the man he had trusted headed over to the enemy camp. He also ran for his own horse, saddled and waiting nearby, and yelled for his mounted soldiers.
Thorsten unfroze and mounted up with all the others, yelling over his shoulder to Rose, "Stay there!", and he was gone, too, pounding down the hill.
Rose stood alone, utterly frozen, unable to move, barely breathing, her hands held to her cheeks, staring horrified at the unfolding drama.
As Charles and his men reached the front Turkish lines, the Khan and the Tatars on their heels, the soldiers sitting there rose to their feet, their mouths dropping at the sight. Some of them whirled around to see what the fuss was about, and spied the figure slipping towards the enemy. Rifles were yanked up and fired, but none of them hit the Captain/spy, who simply began running flat out, no longer sneaking, desperately trying to reach the Russian lines.
Those Russians, of course, jerked their heads up at the commotion, and began returning fire. Too late. The combined Swedish and Tatar cavalry came roaring across the gap and crashed into the Russian camp at full speed, trailing the Turkish infantry behind, as they scooped up their weapons and followed the horses without orders.
At that moment, a Turkish cannon crashed, sending its fiery ball screaming across the gap and into the Russian lines.
The Second Battle of Stanilesti – which never occurred in the Alpha universe – had begun.