A Waltz with Traitors

Front cover images: Historical Steam Train in Snow © Jaroslaw Blaminsky, Trevillion Images; Beautiful Woman with Fur Hat © Media Trading Ltd., istockphoto.com

Back cover images: Morse Code & Telegraph © Montes-Bradley, istockphoto.com

Maps copyright © 2023 by Briana Shawcroft

Frontispiece: Nadia & Filip copyright © 2023 by Melanie Bateman

Cover design by Julie Olson

Cover design copyright © 2023 by Covenant Communications, Inc.

Published by Covenant Communications, Inc.

American Fork, Utah

Copyright © 2023 by A. L. Sowards

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format or in any medium without the written permission of the publisher, Covenant Communications, Inc., PO Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Covenant Communications, Inc., or any other entity.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real, or are used fictitiously.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: A. L. Sowards

Title: A Waltz with Traitors / A. L. Sowards

Description: American Fork, UT : Covenant Communications, Inc. [2023]

Identifiers: Library of Congress Control Number 2022941840 | ISBN: 978-1-52442-114-4

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022941840

Praise for A. L. Sowards

“A Waltz With Traitors by A. L. Sowards is different from anything I have read so far. I loved meeting these characters and seeing this time in history from a different perspective! I had not heard of the Czechoslovak Legion before reading this book, and seeing a bit of their outlook on the events of the war and their journey to independence in this setting was both enlightening and fascinating! I loved Filip and Nadia from the moment they met, but I quickly fell in love with so many of these characters, and from the opening pages, I knew I had found something special! This book is an emotional and heart-warming tale that is immensely entertaining and well researched concerning this powerful and revolutionary time in history.”

—Readers’ Favorite five-star review

“Once again, A. L. Sowards knocks it out of the park with a wonderful story filled with suspense, amazing research, and unforgettable characters in a fascinating setting. A Waltz With Traitors is un-put-down-able.”

—Jennifer Moore, best-selling author of The Blue Orchid Society series

“This historical fiction was beyond thrilling and captivating. . . . Seeing these brave individuals not only survive but thrive was beyond satisfying. This isn’t a tale for the faint-hearted, but it is one that should definitely be read. An inspiring read.”

—Charissa Stastny, author of Love Notes and Of Sky and Stone

“A well-researched and moving story about a little-known chapter of World War I. The story primarily revolves around Nadia, a Russian aristocrat running for her life, and Filip, a Czech soldier who defected to join the Czechoslovakian Legion. Filip offers Nadia a sham marriage so she can join their company. Over the months, they grow to love one another and make the marriage real. But life in a war zone is perilous, and they are pulled apart. Terrible things happen (mostly off page), and those things are never gratuitous. A beautiful and resilient love story in one of the darkest times.”

—Samantha Hastings, historical author of Secret of the Sonnets

“A.L. Sowards has become a masterful author of historical fiction. Her talent shines in her new novel, A Waltz with Traitors. She weaves together little-known facts regarding World War I and what happened with those fighting for independence and hoping to create their own country of Czechoslovakia. Strong characters, such as Filip Sadlák and Nadia Linskaya, touch your heart as they struggle to find love during war. If you want to get lost in a wonderful story, I highly recommend this book.”

—Kathi Oram Peterson, author of Shifting Sands

“A.L. Sowards has written a masterpiece in A Waltz With Traitors. This well-researched book carries the reader into an overwhelming world of war and chaos after the Russian tsar falls. Soward does a brilliant job of keeping the story moving while relating the history of the Czechoslavakian Legion. Amid this tumult, the reader is anchored to the two main characters—Nadia and Filip. The pain and trauma they nobly survive leaves the reader caring deeply about their finding peace and a better life.”

—Laura Ruppe, author of Nora and the Sacred Stones

“Throughout the book, we are met with beautiful reminders and themes of love, hope, family, friendship, and a longing for a better future. I loved meeting Filip and his friends and getting to know Nadia as well! The tone and atmospheric writing used in the story are absolutely breathtaking, and I loved it for this story! It fit the themes and era so well and kept me reading late into the night!”

—Goodreads review

For Joseph

Thank you for all the times you’ve made dinner or distracted the kids

while I have tried to get just one more chapter written or edited.

A note about content

The following novel contains depictions of warfare, war injuries, disease, miscarriage, kidnapping, off-page sexual assault, executions, and implied intimacy between married couples.

A note about spelling

Many of the locations included in this story have more than one possible spelling. Spelling chosen for use in this novel is based on the most common usage at the time of the story and is not meant to form a political statement about current usage and spelling.

Glossary and Historical Background

Ataman: A term for a Cossack leader.

Bolsheviks: The majority wing of the Russian Communist Party, led by Vladimir Lenin, committed to the extremes of Communist ideology, including the creation of a Soviet state by violent revolution.

Bourgeoisie: In Marxist philosophy, the social class that owns the means of production, including land and business owners motivated by property rights and capitalism. Seen as oppressors of the lower class or proletariat.

Cheka: The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution and Sabotage, a secret police organization established in 1917 to combat opponents of the Communist Revolution. The Cheka had power to arrest, torture, and execute counterrevolutionaries and class enemies without trial.

Czechoslovak Legion: A military unit formed of Czechs and Slovaks aligned with the Allied Powers of World War One, including Britain, France, Russia, and the United States. Though Czechs and Slovaks were subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the war’s beginning, the legion sought the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia out of Austro-Hungarian territory. As Austro-Hungarian subjects fighting alongside the empire’s enemies, they were considered traitors by their former rulers. Most members were Czechs and Slovaks who had been captured by or who had defected to the Allied side during the war, though émigrés were also included in the ranks.

Dokha: A fur overcoat, often made from Samoyed dog skin.

Družina: A military unit created in 1914 from Czech and Slovak émigrés and war prisoners in Russia. They were incorporated into the Russian Imperial Army and specialized in reconnaissance work against Austro-Hungarian and German forces.

Kopeck: Subunit of the Russian ruble, similar to a cent in U.S. currency.

Mensheviks: A minority wing of the Russian Communist Party. They were in favor of a gradual development of a Soviet society through democratic legislation rather than through violent revolution.

Naida: A type of slow-burning log fire used by Siberian prospectors.

Proletariat: In Marxist philosophy, the social class whose only asset is its ability to labor and is thus regularly oppressed by the bourgeoisie.

Reds: A term for Communists, especially during the Russian Civil War.

Revkom: Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. A group that held power in Irkutsk for a time in early 1920.

Ruble: Basic Russian monetary unit. After the fall of Imperial Russia, rubles were printed by the various successor states.

Sokol: A network of clubs and societies built around sports and cultural activities. The movement began with Czechs but spread to other Slavic peoples.

Soviet: A government council in a communist country. At the beginning of this novel, most Soviets were local and decentralized. Centralization increased rapidly during the years this novel covers, as the Bolsheviks consolidated and expanded their power.

Steppe: A geographic area dominated by grasslands and few trees other than those near bodies of water. Similar to a prairie or savannah.

Taiga: A term used to describe the boreal forest covering much of Siberia. Dominated by pine, larch, and spruce.

Teplushka: A train boxcar that offered the most basic passenger service. The Czechoslovak Legion turned them into portable barracks.

Ushanka: A fur cap with flaps for the ears that can be tied up or used to shield more of the wearer’s face from the cold.

Whites: A term for those opposing the Reds during the Russian Civil War. The group included monarchists, militarists, and other groups fighting against the Communists.

Zemlanky: An earthen dugout used as a barrack or as housing for prisoners.

Prologue

All we wanted was to go home.

Most of us hadn’t seen our fatherland since war had broken out in 1914 and we were conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. As Czechs and Slovaks, we felt more brotherhood for our Russian opponents than for our imperial officers, so we hadn’t always fought well. Some of us had been stuck in POW camps in Russia for months, some for years. We longed to go back to our families, our homeland, and peace.

We couldn’t go west because a war was in the way. History called it the Eastern Front, but it was far to the west of places we came to know, towns like Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Vladivostok. We never intended to take over the Trans-Siberian railway, prolong a civil war, spark the most infamous tsaricide in history, or end up in charge of the Russian Imperial Treasury.

We just wanted to go home. The rest was forced on us.

But one thing wasn’t an accident. After three hundred years of Hapsburg subjugation, we wanted a country of our own. And this is the story of how we got it, fighting for it half a world away along six thousand miles of snow-covered rail line.

Chapter One

The Ukraine, March 1918

Nadia Ilyinichna Linskaya held her horse steady and strained to hear the Russian officer conversing with her from the overcrowded train carriage. The thrumming of the engine made it difficult to hear, so she leaned as far forward as her sidesaddle would allow.

“Yes, I was in the Eleventh Cavalry Division, but with the Dragoons.”

“Did you, by chance, know Captain Nikolai Linsky of the Hussars?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, miss, I can’t help you.”

The train whistle shrieked, and Konstantin flinched beneath her. Nadia gathered the reins and riding crop in her right hand and patted her horse’s neck with her left. “I see. Good day.” She hadn’t meant her words to be so curt, but a combination of smoke, steam, and disappointment choked her throat.

The train crept forward, and Nadia turned Konstantin away, back to her aunt’s manor. She’d been foolish. A maid had said an officer with the Eleventh Cavalry was passing through, and Nadia had ridden out to search for him. But what had she expected? Even if the man had known her brother, he wasn’t likely to still be carrying around Nikolai’s things, not eighteen months after his death. Any last epistles or personal effects would have already arrived, or they were lost forever.

She glanced back a final time. The officer had disappeared. Other soldiers filled the windows, rode on the roof, and clung to the buffers. All hurrying home now that the Russian Army had collapsed and made peace with the Germans. None of them wanted to be left out of the land redistribution. But if they were from Tambov Oblast, they were too late. The peasants there had chased Nadia’s family off the previous autumn and had long ago divided the stolen land for themselves.

Russia was falling to pieces. The tsar and his family had disappeared, the army was in mutiny, and the provisional government had lost power to a pack of insane men who called themselves Bolsheviks. Nadia’s father mourned the lawlessness spreading throughout the former empire. His fears and his prior service to the tsar meant their family rarely left her aunt’s estate, where they’d taken refuge after the peasants had chased them from Lavanda Selo. But hope for some piece of Nikolai—a friend’s memory or more information about how he died—had been enough to lure Nadia out.

It had all seemed so perfect. A report of an officer from Nikolai’s division on what would have been Nikolai’s twenty-fourth birthday. Papa leaving the manor for the first time in a month, so he hadn’t been around to stop her from riding out. And she’d actually found a man who matched the maid’s description of the scarred cheek and spiky mustache, even after he’d boarded the train. It had felt like a miracle, but it hadn’t mattered, because the dragoon officer hadn’t known her brother.

She’d left to find news of Nikolai, but escaping the manor had been something she’d longed to do anyway. She’d spent too much time hiding away, too much time worrying instead of living. “And you’ve got to feel just as cooped up as I do,” she said to Konstantin. “Since we’re out, we may as well make the most of it.”

She gripped the saddle’s double pommels with her legs and urged Konstantin on, away from the train track and across a wide Ukrainian field. A gallop across the countryside wouldn’t completely assuage her disappointment, but it might help.

The wind pulled at her clothing, and the scent of snow melting into farmland tickled her nose as they rode faster and faster. For a moment, she imagined both her dead brothers beside her, astride their own horses, laughing and urging her to keep up. And after they rode, they’d return to Lavanda Selo for tea and freshly baked black bread smothered in butter and currant jam.

“Fly, Konstantin!”

The horse did his best to obey. Perhaps he understood that all too soon they would return to the stifling confines of her aunt’s estate. For now, his smooth stride seemed to outrun all Nadia’s grief and disappointment, and she felt as carefree as she had in the prewar days, before events had irrevocably altered her life, her family, and her class. Konstantin galloped across one field, then another. Nadia had never explored this part of the countryside, but they were heading in the correct direction, and Konstantin knew the way back.

A whistle of an undulating pitch rang in her ear. What was that? Artillery? The whine ended in an explosion of fire, dirt, and feather grass. Konstantin reared in alarm and swerved into a ditch. Then, despite her best efforts to hold on, Nadia was flying.

And falling.

She woke with a roaring headache and a view of five half-shaved men standing over her. Half-shaved wasn’t entirely accurate. One had only a bit of shaving lather on his chin, two had it spread across their entire cheeks and jaws, and the remainder had taken but a swipe or so at their cheeks before they’d been interrupted. All wore uniforms with an unfamiliar badge on their left arms. Nadia squinted so their collar patches would come into better focus. They weren’t officers.

“Are you all right, miss?” The words were Russian, polite enough but not polished.

The warm boots and charcoal-gray riding habit she wore failed to stop the winter chill from seeping through her skin, but the weather was the least of her worries. She needed to find Konstantin.

Then there was the problem of the men. They didn’t look menacing, but Nadia wasn’t so ignorant as to not recognize the extreme vulnerability of her position. She was all alone, far from manor or village, surrounded by five soldiers.

“Miss, can we help you?” The man who spoke had curly brown hair and a face hidden by shaving lather. “Some of the artillery lads were testing one of their pieces. I’m sure they didn’t mean to frighten your horse.”

She ought to have paid better attention. She hadn’t meant to ride into the path of a field gun. Smoke circled skyward to the west—the explosion hadn’t been close enough to harm her, but the fall had left pain gripping her head and each of her limbs. The hatless man with the curly hair waited for her answer, and her governess’s oft-repeated advice about dealing with the unrefined elements of society came to Nadia’s mind: be polite, but display no warmth. Showing fear would make them bolder, so she would have to look brave. From her position in the dirt and snow, she did her best to straighten her shoulders. Movement accelerated the pace of the thumping in her head. “I need my horse.”

The man nodded. “I’ll find it.”

“Plan to ride it again?” Another man asked. He’d almost finished shaving the stubble along his jaw but not the blond mustache, and a bit of shaving lather still dotted his chin.

“Naturally.”

He held a hand out, and she accepted his help back to her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut as her vision swirled. Perhaps staying on the ground would have been wiser.

The blond man grasped her elbow to help her balance. “Perhaps you should sit again. That was a hard fall. I daresay you knocked your head soundly enough to earn a rest.”

“I’m quite all right.” Nadia absolutely would not lounge about with a group of enlisted men. “But I do need my horse.” Would they steal Konstantin? It wouldn’t be the first horse her family had lost to theft, but it would be a long walk back.

“Filip will find it. He’s our best scout.”

“I thank you for your assistance, Mr. . . .”

He tugged at the brim of his cap. “Dalek Pokorný. At your service, miss.”

The others spoke their names as well, far too quickly for her to remember them all, but any questions about their nationality disappeared. “You’re Czechs?” According to Papa, the Czechoslovak Legion was the best fighting unit in the Ukraine. Everyone else was demoralized or torn between old loyalties to the tsar and new loyalties to myriad other factions. The Czechs, on the other hand, were united in their goal to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian Empire they’d once been part of.