The Lost Souls of Angelkov by Linda Holeman Read Free Book Online

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I n 1827, Grisha had been born Timofey Aleksandrovitch Kasakov in Chita, a village in the eastern province of Irkutsk in Siberia. The town closest to the west was the Buryat enclave of Upper Vdinsk.
    When Grisha, or Timofey—Tima—as he was then called, left Chita for the small city of Irkutsk, the five-hundred-mile journey taught him something about his own resilience. He was fifteen years old, and he left home on his horse, Felya, carrying a small number of rubles, saddlebags of food, two heavy yak-hair blankets, the few pieces of clothing he owned, a small collection of books, his father’s crucifix and his mother’s Tibetan prayer wheel, and a wooden flute his brother, Kolya, had given him. He also carried the far heavier burden of guilt.
    It was June, and along the rough, muddy trail to Irkutsk, Tima encountered thunderstorms that rolled across the steppes with terrifying power, and midges that drove him nearly madas he slept under the stars, rolled in his blankets. Walking, stumbling, fighting to keep his footing, he led Felya through quagmires and rushing streams. When he ran out of food, he bought what he needed from the hamlets he rode through.
    One afternoon, two ragged men accosted him as he stopped to let Felya drink at a narrow river, grabbing at his saddlebags. He escaped them easily, but felt threatened for the first time in his life. At the next village he bought a long-handled knife. Every day he was thankful for his Don horse. Felya was agile, with the immense endurance of the Russian horses bred for harsh climates and conditions.
    When he finally arrived at Irkutsk, two weeks after leaving Chita, he stood on one of its main streets and looked around him in wonder.
    He planned to spend only one night there, buying more food and then riding on. He had to take advantage of the weather. He wasn’t sure how far he would get before Siberia’s early autumn descended, but once it did, he would have to stop and find work. He could easily die travelling in the winter months through the isolated steppes and wooded taiga of Siberia as he attempted to cross the low Urals leading to European Russia.
    Irkutsk tempted Tima with sights and sounds he had never dreamed of in tiny Chita, but he knew he couldn’t stay. He needed to get as far west as he could, as quickly as possible. Nikolai—Kolya—was somewhere in Irkutsk. He couldn’t take a chance on his brother seeing him.
    He pushed away thoughts of Kolya for this one night in the exciting city. He spent some of his carefully hoarded kopecks to board Felya. He bought cabbage soup and a dish of marrow and peas and drank four bottles of cheap, sourbeer. He was walking, slightly unsteadily, back to the stable, thinking he’d spend the night in the straw with Felya if no one threw him out, wondering if Felya had been given the oats he’d paid for or if he’d been cheated and the horse was munching low-grade hay.
    A young woman in a doorway beckoned to him.
    Heady from the beer, flushed with the exhilaration of the wooden streets with their oil lamps and bright storefronts, Timofey went to her. He allowed her to take his hand and lead him through the doorway and into a room partitioned with hanging blankets. Timofey tried to ignore the moans and whispers in the hot, stinking room.
    “What’s your name then,
moy sladki
? Eh, sweetheart?”
    “Grigori,” he said after a moment. “Grigori Sergeyevich Naryshkin.” He combined the names of three of his father’s old friends. He did not want to be Timofey Aleksandrovitch Kasakov anymore. Although he knew there was almost no chance of anyone recognizing his father’s name, he wanted a new start. He no longer wanted to be thought of—even by himself—as the son of a revolutionist and the brother of the sweet, trusting boy he’d betrayed.
    “Ah, Grishenka, my beauty,” the girl said. “Haven’t you got some eyes, eh? All the girls must love those eyes.”
    “How much?” he asked, trying to keep his