“I am sure what your husband has offered will be acceptable,” Lord Athelstan said soothingly. “You know as well as I do that they are bound to bargain, to argue and to try to extract a little more up to the very last moment.”
Princess Anna sighed.
“I try to cheer myself up by thinking that, but you can imagine what it has been like these last months.”
“Has your treatment been very harsh?” Lord Athelstan asked.
“No,” she answered. “Shamyl is a just man, but your Lordship will appreciate that he cannot always control his household and women are always more spiteful than men.”
Lord Athelstan guessed that she must have suffered at the hands of Shamyl’s wives.
“At first it was terrible,” Princess Anna went on in a low voice. “There were twenty-three of us all in one small room and not all
