Soul of Fire (43 page)

“Eh?” the general said. “A jewel?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t know what it meant any more than you do just now, sir. And while I liked Miss Sofie, I did not love her, nor had I any intention of marrying her.” Little had he known how unlikely it was he would ever love any woman. “I . . . thought we wouldn’t suit.”

The general nodded. “Demmed rum business, that, making a man marry for political reasons. Mind you, I know it’s done and done quite often, but . . . demmed rum business.”

“Yes, sir,” William said, meekly. “When I declined, I was told that I would be sent to India, to . . . inquire here after the presence of that jewel.”

“Eh?” the general said again. “They told me they were reinforcing the military presence here.”

“They were, at that,” William said. “Though part of it was to give coverage to their sending me to India.”

“And did you find the jewel? And what does all this have to do with weres?”

William told him. He told him what the jewel was and why they had wanted Sofie with it, though William very much wanted to believe—and to judge from his short and forceful interpolation, so did the general—that the secret service would not sacrifice an innocent young woman. But they perhaps would use her in some other way to obtain the cleaning and recharging of the ruby. William explained it all, omitting only the fact that St. Maur was a dragon and the fact that he, himself, had just found his impulses very far from resistible when it came to handsome sepoys with chiseled features and boyish smiles.

I’m not the first one to do this, nor shall I be the last. Most people are not discovered. Who is going to believe the word of a native over mine? And why would the native bring the matter up?

He felt a cold, queasy sense that there were many reasons the native could bring it up, among them if William refused to repeat the experience. But he would not think about that the experience, the experiment, wouldn’t happen again. He knew his susceptibilities now. He would hold them at bay.

“And you say the tigers are after the jewel?” the general said.

“I’m afraid so, sir, yes. I keep trying to think of other ways to explain their being ready for a triumphant return of their rulers, but—”

“And this Miss Warington is a British subject,” General Paitel said, not really to William, more to himself as he thought the matter through. “Besides, we cannot allow the natives to get hold of such an artifact, not one they can use to challenge British power.” He resumed shaving, removing the last bits of white foam—and quite a bit of black hair—from his face very rapidly. Then he wiped his face and turned to William. “No, we can’t allow that tomfoolery. The Indians aren’t ready to rule themselves, if indeed they will ever be. If we let go, one cannot even imagine the conditions that will result. There will be wars of religion and of caste, and wars arising out of long-term personal grievances. Nepalese will fight the Bengalese and massacre them; Muhammadans and Hindus will be at each others’ throats. All the native rajs will wage war against one another. The resulting anarchy would cost the lives of millions. Every time I travel through Nepal, I tell you, I find them sharpening long knives, ready to fall upon the Bengalis, should we ever leave. It’s not to be thought of. For their own good, we must continue to govern them, and prevent their self-destruction.”

So General Paitel, who had spent most of his life in India, thought the natives were all children, who must be watched every minute, lest they fall upon one another in a frenzy and break all their toys. William shook his head. Fortunately, the general was intent on his own thoughts and didn’t notice, or he might well think that William was disputing his ideas.

And William didn’t want to dispute anyone’s ideas. First and foremost, he wanted to wash. He was very much afraid that he would never feel clean again. And he was terrified that the terrible craving would once more overtake him and drain him of both dignity and self-control.

A TERRIBLE WAKENING; THE REGRETS OF HINDSIGHT; A PANICKED DRAGON

“Lalita,” a stranger’s voice called. Lalita heard it, as if
from a distance. By degrees, she came back from the deep sleep that had enveloped her, and became aware of her face resting on a hard surface. She was sitting in a chair, and she had been profoundly asleep.

She heard herself moan before she could open her eyes, and then fought for full control of her body. Her eyes opened, and then—

She started to full wakefulness. Before her stood the Englishman who was a dragon, naked as the day he’d first seen light.

“Lalita,” he said, and she realized it was the second time he had called her. “Lalita, where is she? Where is Miss Warington?”

“Upstairs,” Lalita said, her voice sounding pasty. Her mouth tasted like ashes, and her tongue felt as though it was made of cork. “First bedroom to your right. Though it might be a good idea if you were . . . a little more formally attired.”

“No. She is not there. I looked already.” He sounded panicked. In fact, he sounded as though he was barely holding himself in check. He set his hand on the table—a strong brown hand, Lalita thought, very human, very British with its closely pared nails. “I tell you, she’s gone.”

A quick glance around told Lalita that her companions were gone, too. No Hanuman. No Maidan. Which meant . . . She didn’t know what it meant, except that Sofie was gone, and perhaps Hanuman and Maidan had gone with her. But where would they go without Lalita? A wild panic set in—a fear that they, like the tigers, meant to kill Sofie, and thus restore the ruby.

Of course, it had to be nonsense. But all the same, what could it mean? Besides the obvious fact that she’d been duped—that, as she’d suspected, there had been something behind her uncle’s insistence on her taking Hanuman with her. And that Maidan had come in at a very propitious time, just as she’d thought before.

“Hanuman!” she called. “Maidan.”

Around the corner from the sitting room there came, tumbling, two monkeys. She didn’t think they’d had the time to see St. Maur, or perhaps they didn’t care. They tumbled from what must have been the servants’ sitting area, and they changed as they entered the kitchen. They looked . . . disheveled and sleepy, just like Lalita herself felt, and . . . slightly off. As though they, too, felt the kind of hazy headache that plagued her.

She opened her mouth to ask them what they’d done with Sofie, but before she could, Hanuman said, “Miss Warington is gone, Princess. We’ve scoured all the countryside, as far as we could go, and she is gone.”

Before Lalita could answer, St. Maur rounded on Hanuman with intense, immediate concentration. “How? I entrusted her to you.”

Lalita could only send her companions a mute pleading look to remind them, lest high spirits should lead them to believe otherwise, that a dragon was not a creature they wanted to enrage. But to her surprise, Hanuman bowed very correctly and spoke with calculated calm, as though some instinct warned him that the best protection against an enraged Englishman was always impeccable manners. “As to that, sir, we talked to some naturals hereabouts—”

“Naturals?”

“Monkeys,” Maidan said. “In a state of nature. We call them that. We can talk to them, a little. It is often possible between a were form and a natural.”

“I wouldn’t know,” St. Maur said. “Not many natural dragons.”

“No, sir,” Hanuman said. “But we talked to them, and the young lady walked out of here, we were told, late last night. She took her bag with her, and she headed that way.” He pointed vaguely westward.

“And none of you stopped her? None of you cared? What kind of protectors are you?”

“There’s more,” Hanuman said. He had the red pouch tied around his middle, as he’d had it since Calcutta, when they’d gotten hold of the ruby. Now, for the first time, it seemed to Lalita that the pouch looked . . . deflated.

Hanuman untied it from his middle and flung it on the table. The cloth collapsed in on itself. “That’s why we were looking for her,” he said. “The ruby is gone, and she took it.” Glancing up at St. Maur—who was clutching his hair and looked as if he might be sick at any minute—he added, “I think she gave us syrup of poppies. I don’t know how she got it, but I know syrup of poppies. I know its symptoms. I traveled in China when I was young.”

“Syrup of poppies?” St. Maur said, as though the thing was totally unknown to him.

“The tea!” Lalita said, as her brain connected. “She insisted on making tea for all of us last night—I thought it very odd, because, you know, Miss Sofie is not like that. She’s not stuck up or anything, but she never . . .” She shook her head as her thoughts coalesced. “She rarely offered even to make tea for her friends, though she would, of course, if someone were sick or in dire need. I thought . . .” She moaned as she realized the full extent of her stupidity. “I honestly thought it was just that she was so brokenhearted over you, and trying to do things to keep herself occupied. I never thought—who would think it!—she would try to poison us or . . . or put us to sleep.”

“Heartbroken? Over me?” St. Maur asked, suddenly, his expression so surprised that he looked positively half-witted.

“Of course,” Lalita said, looking at him. “What did you think?”

“I . . .” He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I must find out where she’s gone. If she has the ruby, she will be in the greatest of dangers.”

Maidan, rummaging near the teapot, had found a small flask, which he held up. “Laudanum, it says,” he said. “To take for headaches and insomnia.”

“Laudanum!” St. Maur repeated, almost in the tone one would say a swear word. “Of course. This house is occupied by a British family, is it not? How did you get it?”

“They are absent from the area. On a visit to some distant friends, and took their people with them, except for those that live nearby. And those took a holiday with their families.” Hanuman shrugged. “A window of the master’s room was not quite closed enough.”

“And of course Sofie would know how to find the laudanum, hidden in the mistress’s room,” St. Maur said. He looked—not scared, not worried, more . . . awake. Dry-eyed and terrified. “Which way,” he said, turning to Hanuman, “did your
natural
cousins say Miss Warington went?”

“South-southeast,” Hanuman said. “Down that path there.” He pointed at the dusty road in front of the house. “Heads toward Meerut, I think.”

St. Maur leapt out the door. There was a moment of disturbance, little more. A cough, a wrenching twist of the body—then the dragon flapped his wings and gained altitude.

And Lalita turned to Hanuman and asked, “Did you lie to him?”

THE ADVANTAGES OF ASSIDUOUS PERSONAL HYGIENE; PERFIDY AND SUSPICION; A DISASTER IN THE MAKING