I heard the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly from behind and looked round in surprise. At that very instant a blow of prodigious force came crashing down on my head. I caught a glimpse of the face, distorted in incredible fury, of the bearded man I had seen not long before as I slumped to the ground and lost consciousness for a second. I say 'for a second' because when I raised my head, which felt as if it were filled with lead, off the ground, the bearded man was only a few steps away. He threw Mikhail Georgievich aside, grabbed Her Highness by the arm and started dragging her back past me. Mademoiselle froze on the spot in bewilderment and I felt as if I had turned to stone. I raised one hand to my forehead, wiped away something wet and looked at it - it was blood. I didn't know what he had hit me with, brass knuckles or a lead cudgel, but the trees and bushes all around were swaying like ocean waves in a storm. The bearded man gave a brigandish whistle and a black carriage harnessed to a pair of black horses emerged from round the corner that we had just turned. The driver, wearing a broad oilskin cloak, pulled back on the reins with a cry of 'Whoah!' and two other men, also dressed in black, jumped out of the carriage as it was still moving and came running towards us. 'This is a kidnapping, that's what it is,' a very calm, quiet voice stated somewhere inside me. Excerpted from The Coronation by Boris Akunin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
