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27 December, 1872 (Old Style)
Kakrina Village, Sanjak of Tarnovo, Danube Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Levski's boots hit the ground and he kept running.
Away from the inn, through a neighbor's garden, over that wall into a vineyard. Manure flew away from his soles as he churned forward, arms out, warding off vines.
Shouts behind him. The sounds of breaking tomato stakes. Gunshots. Two voices cursed in Turkish. There had been three gendarmes in the raid. The last would be going for his horse.
The road.
Hoofbeats.
Levski sprinted. The nearly full moon cast shadows like trapdoors over ground that might be slick ice, sharp rocks, or potholes of any size. There was no time to imagine what would happen if he stepped on any of them. There. The last house in the village.
Another crack of gunshot. Levski could do nothing but run.
He crossed a field, hit the edge, splashed into an irrigation canal. Icy water clamped around his ankles and another bullet cracked off a tree-trunk. A blackberry bramble tried to claw out his eyes. Still better than a noose.
"Ha." He breathed. A chance!
Face buried in his elbow, Levski turned and leaped straight into that bramble. Thorny whips raked over his scalp, but even so the plant was more merciful than the Sultan's justice. Still hung with last summer's leaves, the long purple and brown canes closed around him.
Levski breathed.
Cold air slid like a knife in and out of his ribs. His teeth chattered, his legs burned. His left ear hurt like the very devil.
Levski brought a hand up to the side of his head and found it hot and sticky with blood. There was blood, in fact, all down his face and chest. A bullet must have grazed him, and he hadn't even noticed.
A deep shudder ran through him.
Too close. This was too close!
His hands shook as he patted his sash. He had dropped his dagger, or else he'd never managed to grab it as he'd fled the inn. By some miracle, though, he had his boots. His pistols, both of them. And the papers! Thank God the membership rolls were safe.
Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, called Levski "the lion" by Bulgarian separatists in three countries, had borne the revolutionary standard in battle, organized dozens of secret committees, and generally humiliated the Ottoman authorities for a decade. He was a haiduk, a bandit, and if they caught him this time, they'd hang him.
The scratches stung on Levski's scalp. His head felt as if he'd pressed it into live coals. Blood trickled off his chin. And out there in the moonlight, boots sank almost silently into the stubbly earth.
There, just beyond the curtain of thorns, was the gendarme. He had dismounted, leaving his horse in the middle of the field. His face silhouetted itself against the silvery sky as he looked up and down the brush-choked canal. Hunt the fugitive, or go back? Help with the other two prisoners? Let Levski run north, where all the villages were Turkish, and let him either get captured or freeze to death?
Levski's hands no longer trembled. Even numb with the cold, they knew how to pull free and load the pistols. He would need a disguise. Best not to damage the man's uniform.
Stones and old leaves ground under the balls of his feet.
The gendarme turned back toward his horse and Levski rose behind him.
3 June, 1876
Brăila, Brăila County, Romania, Ottoman Empire (vassal)
The guard released Levski's arm as if flicking an old newspaper into the gutter.
"Tsk," he said, and that was all. The prison gate rattled shut, and Levski was free again.
He had not been executed by the Turks. He had escaped, crossed the Danube, returned victorious to his fellow haidutsi bandits. Levski even discovered a talent for finances that had pumped resources into the revolutionary cells scattered across his homeland. He organized lines of communication, laid plans. Over four patient years, Levski welded together a mighty engine of war, filled its tank, stoked its boiler, and called forth its flame.
And the Romanians had arrested him.
They had thought they were doing Levski a favor. Romania was still technically a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. If the Sultan forced the issue, they would have to extradite the infamous Bandit-Lion of Bulgaria. Instead, the Romanians had kept Levski safe and relatively comfortable while his revolution messily self-destructed.
It was June, and beautiful. Warm and breezy, with heavy-scented blossoms on the lime trees and young storks gawking on every chimney. The sun smiled down on chestnut trees like boiling green clouds. Somewhere nearby, a cow lowed. The April Uprising was over, and all of Levski's friends were dead.
Levski put his hands on his knees and bent over, fighting the wave of dizziness. He would not be sick. He would not weep.
He rose up, and went back to Bulgaria alone.
19 December 1877
Tashkessen Village, Sanjak of Sofia, Danube Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
It was the night after the first day of battle, and bitterly cold.
Shakir Pasha was long gone, and the detachment he'd left behind was now completely encircled by the Russian army. As with the rest of this war, the question wasn't whether the Turks would withdraw, but how much damage they would do along the way.
Hateful little pins of ice gusted against Levski's face. Heavy clouds veiled the moon, and all the lights in the village had been put out. This meant Levski only had to smell the blood and gunpowder. Only hear the occasional moan, mutter, or crack of bullet. The rest he imagined.
The waste. The pleasure in waste. Today, we reduced one hundred men, their families, and their homes to sticky gravel. Tomorrow, God willing, we'll do better: one hundred and fifty.
Levski rubbed his hands down the crusty cotton of his looted Ottoman uniform. He'd waded through blood, mud, and filth for the past 15 years, but now it was up to his neck.
The Russo-Turkish war had started with the Herzegovinians. At first, Levski had envied them. Their uprising had not mis-fired and fizzled, it had spread! As little as ten months ago, Levski had been coordinating with haidutsi revolutionaries in Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Romania.
He still winced at that memory. "A big enough flock of ravens can scare off the jackal," he'd told them.
Instead, their squabble had attracted a bear.
The Russian army had swept down the Caucuses and the Balkans in two enormous pincers. The flimsy revolutionary network that Levski had so painfully re-knotted had been either swept away or eaten up by this thundering, bellowing war. Levski himself had been reduced to a "volunteer translator." A flea on the back of the Tsar's beast.
The only choice left to him was where and when to bite.
Levski got down on his belly and crawled through the midnight battlefield. Freezing sludge infiltrated the hole in the front of his jacket.
"Help," he croaked in Turkish. "Help me, in God's name!"
The answering voice managed to whisper and bark at the same time. "Shut up! Keep your voice down. Who is that?"
Levski put out his right hand, but kept his left pressed over his stomach. "Help me, brother, please."
The barking whisperer crouch-ran to Levski and grabbed him around the wrist. Levski allowed himself to be hauled up and pulled toward the safety of a broken garden wall.
Levski didn't give the guard time to ask again who he was. "Mehmed?" he said "is that you, my brother?"
The guard shook his head, the movement more heard than seen in the pitch blackness. "Who's Mehmed? I'm Abdulmejid. Who are you?"
"Abdulmejid, my friend! But don't you know me?"
Levski gave the name and regiment of the man whose uniform this had been, and Abdulmejid seemed to believe him. "Oh, uh, right. Are you injured?"
"Yes, sir!" said Levski. "Grievously!"
"Well, if you've got arms and legs, there's nothing the medics will do for you."
"I've been shot, sir. Gutshot."
Abdulmejid leaned forward, squinting at Levski's left hand and the bloody hole in the jacket around it. In this light, he wouldn't be able to see much. Just smell.
The guard backed away, choking, "God's mercy and peace be on you!"
"Thank you, sir. Is there anywhere I could have something hot to drink?"
"Why bother? It'll just pour out of you again. God, that smell! I would kill for a cigar. Damn this war."
"Please, sir. I have information."
Abdulmejid shook himself out of his muttering trance. "What? Idiot! Why didn't you say sooner? You came from the southeast? What's…" He stood straighter, staring into the freezing blackness over Levski's shoulder. Remembering home? His voice when he spoke again was small. "…what's…going on out there, soldier?"
"Russians." Levski kept the relish out of his voice. "They're dug in, sir. On the high ground on both sides of the road. And they have the road too. Cannon emplacements stand ready to start the bombardment as soon as there's light."
Abdulmejid cursed. "That puts them in range of the munitions stores! We'll have to move them…again." His voice sagged with hopeless exhaustion. "Don't…just don't tell anyone, alright? Don't want to cause…a panic."
It was too dark for Levski's expression to be visible, but still the bandit did not grin. "Please, sir, is there anywhere I can have something hot to drink? I feel so cold."
The guard shuddered as if a vampire had knocked on his door. "Go," he snapped. "Get yourself to the mess tent. Maybe there's something there for you. Maybe there's a place for you to lie down and…and rest. God knows there's nothing for anyone out here. Just go."
Levski saluted and hobbled past the guard and into the besieged village. He didn't know where the mess tent was and didn't care. Instead, with many stops to identify himself and inform anyone who would listen that they were doomed, Levski made for the konak.
Every big village had a konak: a combination trading post, court-house, and mansion for the Turkish official who oversaw life in the village. This one was a typical three-story rectangle, looming behind its garden walls. Levski took his hand away from his fictional gut-wound and knocked on the gates.
"This is Abdulmejid from the southwestern guard post!" he yelled. "I have news! The Russians have us completely surrounded!"
The gate creaked open. Levski squinted in the light of a lantern.
"What the devil are you yelling for? Do you want all the soldiers to hear you? You'll start a – hey! You're not Abdulmejid."
Levski slid through the gap in the gate, smiling. "No, no, I said I'm from Abdulmejid. I crawled out of the field just now and he sent me here. Knocked out since this afternoon, but I know where the Russian emplacements are. I must tell the Pasha at once."
The door guard gave Levski a disgusted look. "You smell like you rolled in a latrine. And do you even speak English?"
Levski kept his smile up. English? Then it was true. Shakir Pasha had left behind Baker Pasha, an exiled Englishman with a reputation for getting into difficult situations, then cutting his way out. Fine.
"Tell me and I'll tell the Pasha," said the door guard.
Levski told the guard the terrible truth, then asked for something hot.
"To drink or wash in? Maybe there's something for you in the stables."
Levski did indeed go to the stables, and he did wash himself in a trough. He confirmed that the horses with western-style horseshoes were still here, and spent half an hour pacing and getting warm, waiting for his news to spread.
Once he decided that he'd waited long enough, Levski left the stables and walked around the back of the konak to the kitchen entrance with its depleted stacks of firewood. He knocked, lied, entreated, told the staff about the Russian attack to come.
A panicked manservant made a run for it, but agreed to swap clothes with Levski first.
"Chai!" called a voice from upstairs.
Levski gave a low laugh, gripped his pistol, and located the teapot of Baker Pasha.
There were two Englishmen up there, not one. The first, with a large mustache, was sitting on a western-style chair at a table strewn with maps and cigar butts. The other was pacing in front of the boarded-up windows, wearing an Ottoman uniform and a much smaller mustache. They both looked up as Levski emerged from the narrow servants' stair, balancing the teapot and cup on its tray with one hand.
"There you are," said the man with the small mustache. "Only one cup –"
Levski dropped the tray and raised his pistol.
"You are surrounded," he said. "Surrender."
Their conversation so far had been in Turkish, but the large-mustached Englishman narrowed his eyes and spoke Russian. "Aha. Another of Ignatiev's henchmen."
Small-mustache – Baker Pasha – yelled something in English. Levski caught the word "shoot."
"Put your hands on the table, sir," he said in Russian, "and don't move. I don't want to have to kill you."
"Yes," said the seated man, "you'll want to take Baker's surrender." His hand moved as if to grab a half-smoked cigar on the table, but he stopped himself. "I suppose it won't do any good to tell you than your Tsar is in direct violation of the Treaty of Paris?"
"He isn't my Tsar, and I've never been to Paris."
The Englishman nodded to himself. "Aha. Not Russian after all. You must be one of those haidutsi. A Bulgarian separatist. Your Russian is quite good."
"My Turkish is better," said Levski in that language, "unfortunately." He jerked his chin toward Baker. "Will you surrender?"
"And give myself over to Gurko's mercy?" The question might have been ironic, contemptuous, or honest. Probably Baker himself didn't even know.
"Listen to me," said the other man, now also in Turkish. "You can't take both of us hostage. You can't march us through all of Baker's soldiers. Your only choices are to kill us and escape, or else join us."
Levski did not let a muscle twitch. "Join you?"
"Yes! Don't you see what's happening here?" The man leaned over the table, as if crouching to leap. "You're just trading one yoke for another. The Russians have all the vices of the Turks and none of their virtues. Shall the Bulgarians share the fate of the Poles? The Circassians?"
Circassian mercenaries employed by the Sultan had murdered hundreds of Bulgarian women and children last year. Levski spat on the floor at mention of their name.
"Bad move, Burnaby," said Baker Pasha.
"Listen," said the seated man – Burnaby. "If the Tsar is allowed to capture Constantinople, that will only be the beginning of a territorial expansion that will put all of Africa and the Near East in danger of falling into Russian hands! Europe will not allow this, and the war that follows will crack the continent in two."
"You should surrender," advised Levski.
But Burnaby wasn't listening. He was caught up in his own argument, eyes alight with speculation. "An arrangement could be made. As with Egypt, for example. We have similar plans already for Khiva, the Catholic territories, and the Caucasus. Imagine: the Knyazdom of Bulgaria, under British protectorship!" Burnaby nodded to himself. "I swear to you I will make every effort to sway my government in your people's favor, but there's nothing I can do while you're pointing that gun at me."
Shouts from beyond the windows. Baker Pasha seemed to hear them, but Burnaby was staring at Levski. The man's need to be understood was almost painful. No, not understood. Justified. Burnaby could not bear to learn he was on the wrong side of history.
"Will you join us?" he asked. "It takes bravery to see the future and march towards it."
"This is not bravery, what you're doing," Levski told Burnaby. "It's cowardice. You don't know what will happen if Russia wins this war, and that uncertainty terrifies you. You know what the Turks are doing to us, yet you support them because you prefer…" what was the English expression? "…the devil you know."
Burnaby shook his head, eyes wide, teeth clenched.
Levski sighed. Botev might have been able to make the right arguments, but Botev had been shot last spring.
The British spy looked away from Levski. He let out a long breath and shook his head. "Shoot me or let me go or take me prisoner, it won't matter. Nothing of importance will be decided in this room."
Levski wagged his head in agreement. "I know that. All I want is to stop you from burning this village."
At the window, Baker Pasha twitched. "Wait a moment. This is all a game. You've been stalling us."
"Well, yes," said Levski. "Haven't you been trying to stall me as well?"
Baker scowled and Burnaby laughed. "I've got to give you credit, sir. Yes, any second Baker's men will rush up those stairs and kill you. But you still have a chance -"
"They won't," said Levski. The shouts from outside had mostly died away. "Because I told them the same thing I told you: you are surrounded. They listened."
Baker swore fluently in Turkish and made a dash for the stairs. Levski let him. He kept his eyes and his gun pointed at the spy. "Come with me, Mr. Burnaby."
26 June, 1879
Tarnovo, Tarnovo okrug, Principality of Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire (vassal)
Vasil Levski stood with the other ministers before the National Assembly, watching the new prince take his oath, thinking about security holes.
Those houses across the street. An assassin could be disguised as a manservant – no, better yet, a maid. Another agent, dressed as a chimney sweep, would deliver to her a rifle disguised as a brush…
And we'll have our freedom.
The prince's name was Alexander Joseph von Battenberg. Born in Verona to a Hessian father and Polish-German mother, but none of that mattered. This vacant-eyed boy with the medals on his chest was the nephew of Tsar Alexander II.
The Russians had indeed won the Russo-Turkish war, but the western Powers had intervened. They'd cut great swaths out of Bulgaria's original territory, accusing Russia of attempting to establish a powerful Slavic puppet on the Balkans. Russia vehemently denied this, then planted a Russian prince on top of what was left.
Levski considered: what if he stepped out of this crowd of respectful politicians, pulled out a revolver, and just shot Battenberg?
His hands trembled where they pressed against his hips. God, what a lovely thought. To be a bandit again. The fingertips of his right hand probed at the edges of his pocket.
But he had left his gun at home.
He could bribe one of the Russian soldiers guarding the prince. Deliver him fox-glove tea in the morning. Surely the upcoming move to the new capital would present an opportunity to slip in a knife.
The coronation ground forward and Levski kept his face blank, waiting.
9 August, 1886
Sofia, Sofia okrug, Principality of Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire (vassal)
How can a man change his mind?
Vasil Levski stood before the window of his office, hands clasped behind his back, watching the clouds break over the hunched back of Mount Vitosha.
The square in front of the new National Assembly bustled with evening business. Apricot light shone on the westward faces of the young buildings.
The tears caught Levski entirely by surprise. Why? This was good, what was happening, wasn't it? In accordance with his plans. So why weep? Why lose his vision at this time of all times, when he must see clearly?
There was to be a coup.
Levski shuddered, gasped through the hand he pressed to his mouth. At least he managed to stay silent. No secretaries or distinguished colleagues blundered into the room to see his shame. He was Finance Minister now, but he kept to the habits of his time as Minister of the Interior, when his desk contained state secrets.
Another habit he'd kept was the collection of those secrets.
Levski blinked his eyes open and there they were: accounting tables, records of honors bestowed after the Battle of Slivnitsa, copies of intercepted letters.
The letters contained bribes to several Bulgarian generals.
Join the Russian army and retain your rank. Increase your pay. Remove the inconvenient monarch.
And none of the conspirators told me!
Even more humiliating, Levski hadn't noticed until now. He'd thought the Minister of War was simply stupid, rather than a traitor. That contempt was probably why nobody had asked Levski to join the plot. Or tried to kill him.
Bitter old Levski. Still in the government because nobody could forget his bravery before independence. No one could forget how he'd insulted them, either, when they were trying to build a government. For seven years he'd beaten his head against other people's plans for his country and achieved nothing but damaging his vision.
Except now, just before the end, when God chose to give Levski one last, clear view, just before it became too late.
The troops were already in place. There would be a midnight raid on the Royal Palace. The guardsmen saluting the officers who strode through the gates and doors, all the way to the royal bedchamber. The disrespectful knock. The honeyed threats, the cutting smiles. No harm will come to you, Your Royal Highness. Just sign this abdication. Battenberg wouldn't take long to capitulate.
Then the puppet government. The counter-coup, which would weaken the country whether or not it succeeded. Then some new prince to run this little country just like all the other little countries in the shadow of the Powers. They would fight their little wars, draw and re-draw their wrinkled little borders. Every spring, a new map of the Balkans as more men died.
And Levski would survive, just as he always had. Making his plans, playing his part, winning every battle and losing every war.
Levski doubled over with the effort of staying silent. He wanted to howl. When will I accomplish something? If he'd been executed at thirty-five, would Bulgarian history have changed in the slightest?
No.
It felt like a weight falling through him. As if some heavy organ had dropped away.
Levski straightened and blinked. People streamed down the dirt roads, and smoke rose from chimneys, white against a sky gone dusty indigo. The mountain had faded from view.
When had Levski's plans ever done him any good? His successes had always been opportunities spotted, moments seized, ways of thinking and acting that put him where he needed to be.
And where he needed to be was not in this office.
Levski did not run toward the palace of the prince. He walked, boots thumping briskly down the rutted boulevard, as if he had important business to attend to.
The air had turned cool, but the heat of the day still radiated off the ground and buildings. The full moon overpowered the gas lamps on the gates of the palace. The konak, Sofians still called the building.
"You there. Halt!"
Levski stopped and turned, allowing his own self-doubt to put a bite into his voice. "Who's that? Don't you know who I am?"
The man – the boy – came closer, squinting at Levski's face. "Minister Kunchev?"
"Call me Levski."
The name still carried some weight. The boy swallowed and stood straighter, rifle-tip quivering. "Sir! You, uh, can't go further."
"And why not?"
"State emergency, sir?" he swallowed.
Levski stepped closer, smiling, ducking his chin, and lowering his voice. "You mean the coup?"
The boy sagged. He was so relieved he didn't have to lie to his childhood hero, it was as if his strings had been cut. "You know about it, sir."
"Know about it? Who do you think organized it?"
The plan had unfolded in the minutes it took Levski to leave the National Assembly. A lie centered upon a lovely, glowing wish.
"We will make Bulgaria a great democracy," said Levski, "clean and holy."
The boy licked his lips.
"What's your name, son?"
"Yordan, sir."
"Whose?"
"Angelov."
Levski straightened. "Cadet Angelov, I need your help. Escort me to the prince."
"But, sir! It's too soon, sir! The generals aren't here yet."
"The generals are in the pay of Tsar Nicholas III. You know that, right? Do you want him to have our prince, or us?"
Angelov's brows wrinkled. "You said you were organizing this coup."
"Which means I know more than you, doesn't it?" Levski spun on a heel. "Come."
He swept up five cadets on his way to the palace gates, and five palace guards between there and Prince Battenberg's apartments. Any second now, the cadets and the guards would compare stories and realize they were actually on opposite sides.
Quickly, heart thudding, Levski stepped up to the door. Knocked.
"Yes?" came the reply. "Is this an emergency? I was dining." The prince's Bulgarian had become quite good.
"Your Royal Highness." The honorific stank in Levski's mouth. "There is to be a coup."
A pause. The voice when it spoke was clearer, as if the princ
e was just an inch beyond the door. "And if I shoot you through the keyhole?"
Levski took a breath. Behind him were the loyal palace guards. Behind them, the cadets, who were loyal as well, but to something else.
"Your Royal Highness. If you shoot me, then I won't be able to rescue you."
15 April 1894
Levski tapped down the corridor of the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, surrounded by hatred.
Behind him, the now ex-headmaster was trying to kill Levski with the force of his glare. The teachers and staff ducked their heads as he passed, but the trained eye could see the contempt in their shoulders and fists. Jumped-up peasant they were thinking.
And the students. Levski had stopped the political purge, so the young men in the corridor were all still openly socialist. Openly angry, too. Levski didn't need his decades of experience to know what they were thinking.
"Dog," they whispered. "Traitor. Boot-licker."
Levski did not respond. He knew they were wrong.
His men saluted as he approached the doors of the school and said, "Mr. Prime Minister."
That was wrong too, in a way. Survive the revolution, make yourself indispensable to the king, trade favors among the powerful, and you too may find yourself called "Mr. Prime Minister."
What was a title, wondered Levski as he returned the salute. What was the ache in the joints of his hand? Surface distractions. Deep down, he wasn't a social climber, or the stooge of the king, or a politician, or an old man. Not really. He was a haiduk.
The last haiduk, if I can help it.
The rock struck him as he passed through the door. It sailed expertly between two guards and the wall of the building, and hit Levski hard on the hip. He stumbled, cried out. Then, as gloved hands caught him, "Don't kill the boy! Bring him to me." And once he had caught his breath. "Don't hurt him."
Because of course it was a boy. Angry enough to hurl a rock at the Prime Minister, but still unsure. He had aimed low.
They caught the miscreant quickly. Levski's hip ached like the devil, but he had had enough time to compose his list of questions. There were only two.
"Put him in the carriage with me," Levski told his guards.
"Is that safe, sir?" asked the guard in a tone that meant that is not safe, sir.
Levski shifted his weight and shot his man a pained look. "I trust you removed any weapons he was carrying?"
The guard saluted. "We haven't disabled him, sir. You told us he was not to be hurt."
"You think I can't defend myself if he comes at me with his bare hands?" Levski reached under his seat, setting off another flare of pain, and extracted his pistol from its cupboard.
"Ah," said the guard. "Very good, sir."
The boy was soon pushed into Levski's carriage. He was large and burly, the collar of his school uniform tight under a face still more petulant than heroic.
Levski set his gun on the seat next to him and said, "Sit."
The boy's eyes flicked to the gun. "So you can shoot me?"
He had a southwestern accent. The Ottoman Empire still controlled this boy's homeland, which explained the anger. "I can shoot you easily enough while you're crouching there on the floor. You missed my hand, after all." Levski jerked his chin up. "Sit. And tell me your name."
"Georgi."
"And your father's name?"
"Nikolov."
"Whose?"
"Delchev."
Levski folded his hands in his lap. The pain had more or less subsided by now. "Well then, young Master Delchev, tell why you threw that rock at me."
A flash of eyes from under those lowered brows. "You're a traitor."
A disappointing answer, but it was what Levski had expected. "And why didn't you aim at my head?"
Delchev glared at the floor.
"Answer!"
"You used to be my hero!"
"Ah." Levski leaned back. "I thought that might be the case."
"Don't pretend to understand me."
Levski met the stare with equanimity. "Boy, I used to be you."
"You betrayed the movement! A federal republic, you said! Democracy clean and holy! And I'm twenty two years old."
Levski turned up his hands. "And now here I am, rather older."
"You're working for a prince! Half of Bulgarian lands still under the Turkish Yoke! You should have died. You should have ended your life while you were still a hero, instead of living to betray everything you believed in."
Delchev said what he thought would do the most damage. Throwing rocks again. But this time, Levski declined to be struck.
"Instead," he said, "I lived to become someone who frightens hotheads in his private carriage."
"I'm not frightened."
"You should be, boy. If I let you continue, you'll repeat my life. Running around, giving angry speeches and destroying things." Levski leaned forward. "Do you know how many of my friends died in the April Uprising? And how many of the rest destroyed themselves? Destroyers. That is what we were."
"That's what our people need!" Levski remembered a certain conversation with a pair of men during the war. Then, he had been the angry one. Now, Levski reined back his anger and considered how to attack Delchev's mistakes in thinking. Let me do a better job with him than Burnaby did with me.
"Prisoners must break their prison," he said, "yes. But once we are running our own country, we must stop breaking and start building." Levski swallowed a sudden, unexpected lump in his throat. "It took me thirty years to learn how to build something. Don't you waste so much of your life."
"Go to hell," said Delchev. "Where is our democracy? Where is our Balkan Federation? Where is our freedom and dignity?"
"In your head, where they've always been." Levski turned up his palm. "How would you like to try to make them real?"
"What?"
Levski sighed. "The Prime Minister doesn't generally visit the school when he fires the headmaster, does he? But an old haiduk might take an interest when his agents tell him about the correspondence flowing from that school to revolutionary councils scattered all over Ottoman Europe."
Levski waited while Delchev digested that.
"You read my letters."
"You didn't even put them in code," Levski said. "Although I wasn't sure they were yours until just now...oh, don't worry, boy. I'll have someone teach you cryptography."
Delchev looked around, as if preparing to flee this carriage.
"Tell your comrades I have an offer for them. Scholarships."
Delchev sneered. "At a prison?"
"I've been in several prisons." Levski reached out to part the curtain and look out the window. "But not enough schools, I think."
A guard looked in.
Levski signaled him. "Take us home."
Delchev, who had been watching the pistol lying unguarded on the seat next to Levski, looked up. "You're taking me where?"
"Well, you can't go back to school, can you? You threw a damn rock at the prime minister." Levski rubbed his hip. "But there's always space in my household guard. Tosho's been grumbling about the night shift since his daughter was born."
The boy wobbled as the carriage began moving. "You're offering me a job?"
"And in exchange, all I want is a means of contacting your revolutionary friends." Levski smiled. "I have plans for them."
6 September, 1908
Sofia, Sofia okrug, Kingdom of Bulgaria, Yugoslav Monarchy
Levski hobbled down the hall and flung open the door to the king's study.
Battenberg looked up, scowling, ready to have the intruder dragged out. When he saw Levski's face, he stood so fast he knocked his chair over.
"What's happened? It's Russia and England, isn't it? They've formed another entente, haven't they? They're going to take Constantinople."
That was the scenario they'd discussed most often. England, France, and Russia, united. Why wouldn't they tear the Ottoman Empire apart? What had actually happened, though...Levski had never expected this, but he was ready to seize the opportunity.
He jerked his chin up, too out of breath to speak.
"What does that mean?" demanded the prince. "No? Yes?"
"No invasion," Levski gasped. "Turkish. Revolution. But it's time." He swallowed. "Your Majesty."
Battenberg straightened. His face went blank. "Your Majesty," he mouthed.
They had prepared for this. Wait for the moment of weakness. Declare yourself King of Bulgaria. Triple-monarch of Yugoslavia.
Battenberg – King Alexander I – looked around, as if for help. "Your revolutionary net?"
"They have surely already begun, Your Majesty. They have standing orders."
"But, we're not ready," said the new king. "There's so much we haven't done."
Levski placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "One way or another, this will happen. It's just a matter of how much pain we can avoid."
12 October, 1914
Odrin province, State of Southern Thrace, Kingdom of Bulgaria, Yugoslav Monarchy
Wrapped in smoke and packed full of soldiers, the train thundered toward the border.
The seat vibrated, and Levski gritted his teeth against the pain.
"Sir?" asked Delchev. "Is it time for another tincture?"
"No. None of that poison," snapped Levski. He would not have another conversation about why he shouldn't be on this train. "But maybe the headache powder," he admitted. "Tea to drink it with."
Delchev summoned a steward and ordered chamomile tea. "We'll be there soon," he said as the man left.
A cryptic remark. It could have meant and we'll take you to the baths, or so you should finish your lunch. Levski understood the real message, however: and this is his last chance to meet with us.
The mysterious informant. Nobody Levski knew, and he knew practically everyone. Clever boy that he was, Delchev had used the mystery to get Levski onto this train.
Although he was fairly sure nobody could be eavesdropping on them, Levski maintained their cover story. "Yes, the famous baths of Emperor Hadrian. They had better be worth it." And, because Delchev would nag at him until he ate something, Levski reached out to pinch a sarma between two fingers. They used grape leaves to wrap them here, which he'd never liked.
Levski chewed steamed pork and rice and squinted out the window at the stubbly wheat fields, the vineyards, the orchards of six-year-old apple trees. Farm houses. How optimistic to build them here. How foolish, when war could return any day.
It had begun in 1908, with the formation of the Triple Entente of England, Russia, and France, and the revolution of the panicked Young Turks. Levski had spent thirty years preparing for an opportunity like that. When he told the revolutionary committees to rise up together, they had obeyed. From the Ionian coast almost to Constantinople, itself, the people threw off the yoke of the Sultan, and formed the Balkan Federation.
It lasted about a month. When their first elections were held, everyone in the new states had voted to join either Greece or the Yugoslav Monarchy. Everyone, that is, except the Muslims.
There had followed uprisings. Pogroms. Nothing officially sanctioned, of course, but not officially prevented either. Waves of refugees had streamed east, straight into the maw of the Southern Balkan War.
Levski watched the horizon ripple by, rubbing the skin over his left ear, thinking about what fertilized that wheat.
A knock on their door.
"There it is," Levski said. "The tea."
"I'm sorry, I don't have tea," said someone in Turkish.
Pain flared in Levski's hips and spine as he twisted around. Another assassination attempt! Socialists? Nationalists? He reached for his cane, but no. No, he saw, this was something worse. This was Delchev's informant.
The man at the door inclined his head slightly. Medals tinkled on his chest. "Good afternoon, Mr. Levski. Colonel Delchev."
His cheekbones were wide, his forehead broad. His expression was regretful and resolved, as if resigned to do something terrible, but necessary.
Delchev rose and gave his own bow, as if to a friend. An ally! "Colonel Mustafa Kemal, please come in. Have a seat."
Colonel Mustafa Kemal. Reformed revolutionary, statesman, hero of the Southern Balkan and Franco-Libyan Wars, military attaché to the Ottoman Embassy in Sofia.
"You look well, sir," he told Levski.
"Liar. I'm an old man with arthritis and ulcers," Levski pursed his lips. "And speaking your language pains me worse than either."
"Then I shall keep our conversation brief," said Mustafa Kemal. He did not switch to Bulgarian. Delchev reached out to close the door to their cabin, but surely people had seen. Surely people had been meant to see. As soon as the train pulled into the station, telegrams would fly to Sofia and Constantinople, and everyone would know about…what? What purpose is he making me serve?
Levski waved at Delchev. "You just give me the headache powder now. I'll take it straight."
Mustafa Kemal waited until the old man had finished sucking the headache powder out of the sachet and said, "I was born in Selanik, you know. Thessaloniki now. I am a Balkan man, too."
He caught Levski's expression. "Oh, don't sneer at me so. The Turks came late to this peninsula, I admit, but wasn't there a time, too, before the Bulgars? Before the Serbs and the Romanians? If the Indo-Aryanists are right, even the Greeks were once invaders here."
Levski noted the Colonel didn't mention the Albanians, who had presumably fallen from the moon. "I thought you said you were going to keep this meeting brief," he said.
The Turkish colonel nodded complacently. "My point is we are much alike. We want the same things. What is best for our people. Peace. Prosperity. The respect due to a great nation."
"Which nation?" Levski asked dryly.
"I came here to ask you for advice on how to do it. How did you defeat the Sultan and build a great country?"
Levski had prepared a sarcastic reply, which now turned to dust in his throat. Defeat the Sultan?
Kemal Mustafa saw his meaning had been taken. He closed his eyes and dipped his chin. Then, as if commenting on the weather, he said, "The Ottoman navy plans a sneak attack on a Russian base in the Black Sea."
Levski scrabbled for stability. He had not spoken to someone this good in a long time. "Oh, I see," was the best he could manage.
Delchev was even more wrong-footed. "A what?" he said, but he'd heard it as clearly as Levski. He could imagine the consequences as well. "But all of Europe will go up in flames!"
Levski wished he could disagree, but he'd spent the last three decades worrying about exactly this eventuality. A war between the Powers. A Great War.
Russia would launch a counter-attack. England and France would be pulled in. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy would join, and smash a path for themselves right down the Balkans to aid their ally Turkey.
Bulgaria would have two choices: either join the Quadruple Alliance and break with Serbia, or else join the Triple Entente and get cracked like a pistachio between Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
No. No, there were more than two outcomes here. If Levski telegraphed back to Sofia, told everyone what Mustafa Kemal had told him, spoiled the Turkish navy's element of surprise, kept the disputes between the Powers tied up in diplomatic scandal…
He would give Mustafa Kemal time to do whatever it was he intended to do in Constantinople.
The train slowed as it crossed the bridge over the Tundzha, and the rattling became worse.
"Finally," said Delchev. "It's time."
Levski's eyes narrowed. He looked from the boy to the Turk. "All right," he said. "What is this? What are you two using me for? What do you want from me?"
Mustafa Kemal folded his in his lap. "A week."
"A week. A week for what?" asked Levski, although he already knew. He glared at Delchev. "God damn it, boy, you'd make me the midwife to a Turkish revolution?"
"Yes," said Mustafa Kemal.
Levski rose from his seat. His chest swelled with deep, red hatred. "No," he said.
Delchev flushed. "Sir, please give this – give us the consideration we deserve."
"You deserve nothing! Traitor!"
"Keep your voice down! And don't be a – Would you rather have a weak enemy or a powerful friend?"
"Friends?" said Levski. "The Turks? What happened to you, boy?"
Delchev looked to Mustafa Kemal as if for help, but the colonel looked away, as if embarrassed by their argument.
Levski's limbs tensed. Long ago, he would have pulled out a pistol and aimed it as his enemy's forehead. Later, he would have been coldly polite and schemed where to stick in the knife. Now, Levski was too tired for anything but honesty.
"I've spent my life fighting you," he told Mustafa Kemal. "God damn me if I stop now."
A palpable hit. The man's face hardened. Muscles in his jaws tensed. He flicked a chill glance at Delchev. "Are you two testing me?"
"He's testing both of us," Delchev told Mustafa Kemal.
Levski had enjoyed seeing his contempt mirrored in his enemy's face. But to hear it in Delchev's voice? It shamed him how much that hurt.
"How dare you?" Levski snarled at his protégé. "You would turn us into the pawns of this horse-thief? You would sell our homeland back?" He choked. There were no words big enough to pull the rage out of him. Action! Action was needed!
Houses rushed past the window as lifted his cane, mouth opening, full of spit ready to fly.
He stopped.
Mustafa Kemal was looking up at him, eyebrow raised.
Fear fought with anger. How dare this young Turk treat me the way I treated Battenberg? And, when did I become as big a fool as the King?
Levski looked down at the trembling tendons on the backs of his hands. He lowered the cane. Where was his control?
He stood there, rattling along with the train, feeling hollow. He had bartered himself away. Given himself up to expediency. Compromised again and again until nothing was left.
Tears came to his eyes. What would my younger self think of me?
He blinked. What would I think of him?
That poor, foolish boy.
The cane thumped on the carpeted floor of the carriage. Levski turned his face away from the other two men. He looked out the window.
The train was slowing. Streets and houses rotated around the enormous wedding-cake pile of the new Saint George Cathedral. They were on the wrong side of the train to see the Selimiye Mosque, but if the cathedral's gleaming, golden domes had been gun-turrets, Levski knew where they'd be aimed.
"God forbid any of us get our way." He realized it as he said it. The only real progress happened when a hundred people bashed their plans against each other and against the world. What came wouldn't be something that anybody could have foreseen, but it worked. Mostly.
"Sir?" asked Delchev.
Levski snorted. "Peace," he said in the language of his enemy. "Wasn't that what you said? Prosperity. Respect. Democracy, clean and holy."
"You've fought for them your whole life, sir," said Delchev, as if Levski might have forgotten.
"I fought," he said. "I beat myself bloody against the world. I made plans, and the world rarely agreed with them." His smile was tight, and tasted of salt. "There are laws in history, gentlemen, and it is not ours to break them. All we can do is seize opportunities when we see them." He held up his hand, still a bit sticky from the sarma, and closed it.
Mustafa Kemal chuckled. "Spoken like a true bandit." In Turkish, the word was haydut.
How does a man change his mind?
A little bit every day.
Levski looked at Mustafa Kemal. The man had gotten up, perhaps to make sure Levski didn't fall and break a hip.
"I'll give you your week, Colonel," he grunted.
Mustafa Kemal gave another small bow. "Thank you. I will seize it."
They shook hands.
The colonel slid the door open. "May you find many more opportunities, sir. And…" He nodded to Delchev and switched to Bulgarian. "I beg you to give my very warmest regards to Dimitrina Kovacheva. And to her father."
He left.
Levski swung around to glare at Delchev. "General Kovachev's daughter?" he grated. "Is that how you bought this meeting?"
"Don't be crude, sir." Delchev stood, smoothing down his jacket. "They fell in love at the New Year's ball. It was very romantic. And you were the one who taught me the importance of political match-making." He held out his hand. "Where to now, sir? The baths, or the telegraph office?"
Levski winced as his friend pulled him out the carriage door. "The telegraph office of course, you smug-faced young rascal."
"Smug?" Delchev blew out his cheeks. "Relieved is more like it."
"Yes, because this stubborn old goat nearly ruined your revolutionary plans again, eh?"
"I'm relieved because I can still respect you, sir," said Delchev.
Levski frowned. "Well, that's good to hear. But don't you ever again – " Levski paused in the corridor to shake a finger at Delchev. People shoved past him.
"Watch where you're going!" said Delchev. "You damn villagers! Take a moment, sir. Hold onto me."
Together, they eased their way into the mild October sunlight.
"Thank you, sir," said Delchev. "I'm grateful."
Levski grunted, squinting, secretly pleased. "Oh, enough with your gratitude." He tapped his cane on the pavement. "Come on, boy, let's go change history."
Timeline
1872-1876
April uprising: Ottoman Empire crushes Bulgarian revolt – Montenegrin-Ottoman War – Serbian-Turkish War.
1877-1879
Russo-Turkish War – Principality of Romania declared – Treaty of San Stefano establishes the principalities of Bulgaria and Montenegro – Congress of Berlin transfers territory from Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria to the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the United Kingdom – Alexander Joseph of Battenberg elected prince of Bulgaria.
1882 -1894
Kingdom of Serbia proclaimed – Serbo-Bulgarian War – Ottoman East Rumelia unites with Principality of Bulgaria – Plot to depose Prince Alexander of Battenberg exposed – Queen Nataliya Obrenović divorces King Milan I of Serbia and marries Prince Alexander of Battenberg.
1896-1903
Second Russo-Turkish War – Treaty of Trabzon establishes the Principality of Van – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia declared.
1908-1913
Great Britain, France, and Russia form Triple Entente – Young Turk Revolution – Balkan Republic declared. – Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia form the Yugoslav Monarchy – Northern Balkan War: Yugoslav Monarchy, Greece, Romania, and Balkan Federation (Balkan League) repel Austro-Hungarian army – Balkan Federation dissolves – Southern Balkan War: Balkan League repels Ottoman army – Treaty of Naples recognizes new borders of Yugoslav Monarchy, Greece, and Romania – Ottoman Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form the Quadruple Alliance – Republic of Tripolitania declared – France invades Tripolitania, establishing the French Protectorate in Libya.
1914
Colonel Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk" begins the Turkish Revolution – Balkan League joins the Entente – Archduke Maximilian Eugen of Austria shot by border guards while attempting to smuggle weapons to Ottoman army. Austria-Hungary declares war on Balkan League, beginning World War I.
This story is dedicated to Emil. Life is full of strange and terrifying choices, but that's better than the alternative. Go do something out of character.