The Serpent's Shadow (41 page)

Now Maya laughed aloud, partly out of relief, partly out of elation. “I've never tried it before you,” she admitted. “I knew it wouldn't hurt you, but I didn't know if it would help or not.”

Norrey only shook her head. “Reckon I owes yer a bleedin' lot,” she sighed. “Reckon I oughter gi' up th' ketchin' lay loik yer ast me.”

“Reckon you ought to,” Maya agreed, with just a touch of sternness. “I don't think it's too much to ask of you, considering. I don't ask you to give up anything else, or go into a sweatshop—just stop picking pockets and helping your friends cosh the swells for the swag.”

“A‘right. I will,” Norrey said, with sudden determination. “Not a sparkler, not a wipe, not if th' King hisself came an' dangled 'is in front‘a me. Ye got me word.”

She held out her hand, and Maya shook it, sealing the bargain.

Maya let Norrey out into the night, and the girl frisked away out of sight like a young antelope. Maya wondered what she'd tell her friends about her new-won health.

Probably not that it was tuberculosis. Probably that it was something I made go away with a pill.
This was a great secret, and one of immense value; Norrey would only let it go at a price, though given her good heart, for some the price would be very, very small.

Maya saw three more patients that evening before it grew too late to expect anything other than a terrible emergency. All three were women, and all the complaints were trifling in comparison with Norrey‘s, and dealt with by means of treatments any other doctor could give. That was just as well. Maya wasn't tired precisely, but she didn't think she'd be able to replicate anything like Norrey's cure for another day or so at least. A day? Well, probably more than a day.

Finally she locked up, turned out her lamp, and went to the conservatory for a little relaxation before she went to bed. As she had anticipated, Gupta had left a pitcher of iced lemonade there for her. The fountain sang in the corner, and as soon as she sat down in her chair, the
punkah
stirred up a delicious breeze. She could not imagine a more perfect evening—except that Peter was at the Exeter Club instead of being here.

She had—she freely admitted it now—been tempted to cast a little magic of attraction Peter's way. But she had resisted that temptation, and now she was glad. If she had given in, she would never know if what was happening between them was due to nature or the intervention of magic.

She allowed the memory of his face, out there on the boat, to linger in her thoughts; the far-seeing eyes that never hid what he was feeling from her anymore, the firm jaw, the way the sunlight touched his hair. When had she first realized what he meant to her? And
how
had she failed to notice it for so long?

Charan leaped into her lap, and offered her an apple gravely. She took it and thanked him; he should have been sleepy-eyed at this time of night, but he was unusually alert.

In fact, all of the pets were alert, even Mala, who was
always
asleep by now. Rhadi flew down to perch on the back of her chair, and Rajah paraded slowly back and forth in front of the fountain, his tail fanned. Sia and Singhe were nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't unusual. They were probably in the cellar, hunting mice.

Nisha was gone as well as the mongooses, but that only meant she was hunting early tonight. No one had to let her out in this weather; there was a platform just under the peaked roof of the conservatory that extended outside the glass. One pane had been left out and replaced with a hatch, which when open, gave Nisha and Mala a means to get outside to hunt. Just as Maya noticed that the eagle-owl was not in the conservatory, she heard a
thud
on the platform, and a moment later, the owl waddled ponderously into the light, then dropped down onto the dead tree and began to clean her talons meticulously.

Even in the dim light, Maya saw that the owl's talons were considerably bloodied; whatever she'd been hunting, it wasn't rats.

“Have you been eating the neighbor's cats?” she asked sternly.

Nisha looked down at her and gave a hoot that held so much derision it could not have been an accident, as if to say, “Surely you know that
I
wouldn't trouble myself with their scrawny moggies!”

Maya had to laugh at her tone. “I beg your pardon, dear. I
should
have known better.”

Owls didn't snort, couldn't snort, but the sound Nisha produced was as close to a snort as a beak could manage, and she went back to the important task of talon sanitation.

Rhadi took that moment to lean forward and say distinctly into her ear, “Good Peter!”

“Very good Peter,” she agreed. “Do you all like Peter?”

Rhadi chuckled, Charan made a contented little noise, and Rajah bowed his head. Neither Nisha nor Mala made any sounds, but both roused their feathers and fluffed up the tiny feathers around their beaks, a sign of supreme contentment. “Good Peter!” Rhadi repeated, then leaned closer and whispered something in Urdu which was highly improper—if delightful to contemplate, in one's very private thoughts—and made Maya blush hotly even though there was no one about to hear the parrot except the other animals.

“Where did you learn
that?”
she demanded.

Rhadi only laughed and flew up to his favorite perch beside Mala. The two birds, who in any other circumstances than this would have been predator and prey, actually preened each others' heads before settling in for the night.

Rajah dropped his fan, and hopped up onto the rocks beside the fountain pool, also ready at last to sleep. They all seemed more relaxed; perhaps they had only been waiting for Nisha to return and all of the “family” to be within the bounds of the house. Even Nisha looked decidedly relaxed.

“Well, if you are all going to sleep, I ought to as well,” she said aloud. Charan looked up at her, and jumped down out of her lap onto the floor, walking toward the door a few paces, then looking back at her over his shoulder.

“All right, I'm coming!” she laughed, and followed him.

Deep in the heart of her sanctuary, Shivani frowned, though not at her wounded dacoit, who lay insensible on a blanket at her feet.
He
could not help his condition, inconvenient as it was. Her servants were trained, highly skilled, indeed, the pick of the warriors that her temple had to offer. But they could not guard against deadly force on silent wings coming down out of a night sky. Especially when such a formidable foe was completely unexpected.

The dacoit was a pitiful sight, if Shivani were inclined to pity. He had lost one eye to a gouging claw, and his scalp was furrowed from eyebrow to crown with great talon gashes. It was a wonder that he was not dead; he
should
have been dead, and would have been, had the talon that took his eye gotten all the way to his brain. At the moment, he was only semi-conscious; Shivani had given him enough opium to drop a water buffalo to take away his pain. He moaned in delirium despite it, and might not survive the night. He had lost a great deal of blood, and she would not take him to an English hospital, nor would he wish her to. Her body servant had bandaged him as best she could, and that would have to do; he would rest here in the quiet of the warehouse on a clean pallet, and if the Goddess willed it, he would be gathered to her.

Meanwhile, she had lost his services and skills, which was a great inconvenience.

She had the name of Maya Witherspoon, she had the address at which the girl lived, and she had counted on being able to use the eyes and ears of her thugees and dacoits to spy out the details of her enemy's household. She had not counted on the vigilance of the girl's servants—one of whom was her sister's personal warrior of old—nor that the girl still had Surya's former “pets” with her.

Pets! What a trivial name for creatures with such preternatural intelligence! There was little doubt that the “pets” were nothing of the sort; how much Surya had altered them remained to be seen, but altered they certainly were—else some of them would be in decrepit old age, if not dead by now. One of them, the great eagle-owl, had made that attack on Shivani's man tonight, a move that no ordinary owl would even have contemplated, much less executed with such perfection.

Pets, indeed. Their presence rendered it unlikely that anyone could get near to the place, even over the rooftops, for there had been a falcon as well as an owl, and although it
might
be possible to avoid the falcon's attacks, it would not be possible to hide from its sharp eyes once it was in the sky.

She could not penetrate the girl's magical defenses herself either. She could not use ordinary means to spy on her. Under most circumstances, it would seem that there would be no way to see what the girl was up to. But it occurred to Shivani that there might be a third option, if the defenses were specifically keyed against Shivani herself, or against the magic of the homeland.

She left the dacoit in the hands of her body servant and retreated to her own quarters. There was still the mirror to try, and that was the third option; she had not troubled the servant of the glass for a few days now, and he should be cooperative after a rest in the darkness.

She smiled to herself. A “rest,” indeed. With the mirror swathed in silk and muffled in spells that kept the servant from leaving the little, dark pocket of reality that enclosed him, he became very, very eager to please her. It was pleasantly easy to control this servant, at least.

She lit incense, picked up the box that held the mirror and settled into a pile of cushions, then removed the mirror from its container and unwrapped it.

The black surface was utterly blank, which was pre-cisely as it should be, for the slave could no longer show himself until she summoned him. He had not yet found a way to break through her confining spells. There was a chance that one day he might, but that chance was remote, and grew more distant with every hour that passed. She sometimes wondered why she had never made a mirror-servant before this. They were so useful, and it grew easier to control them, not harder, with the passing of time.

“Mirror, mirror in my hand,” she said softly, gazing at her own reflection in the black glass. “Come in haste to my command.”

The wavering image of the mirror-slave appeared immediately, and his desperately coaxing tone left nothing to be desired in the way of obedience.
Oh, mistress, how may I please you?
he fawned.

He must have found this last bout of enforced inactivity very trying. No more did he vex her with wailing or protests, there was only instant obedience. He had broken at last, and it was high time, too.

“You know where my sister's child dwells; can you penetrate her defenses to show me her and her household?” she asked.

The image blanched; all color drained from it, and it became transparent with anxiety.
I beg of you, do not be angered with me,
the slave begged.
I cannot Indeed, I have tried, but I might as well seek to penetrate a wall of steel with a knife of paper. But
—He brightened, and color came creeping delicately back into his visage.
But I can show her to you as she is when she walks outside those protections.

“Show me!” Shivani demanded imperiously, eager for a sight of the girl she had sought for so very long.

The mirror clouded briefly, then brightened and cleared, revealing the interior of a very large room with many windows along one side. Shivani brought it closer to her eyes and studied the image moving therein.

There was a young woman, slender and not over-tall, dressed in English clothing of some white fabric, with her long, black hair bound up in some formal English style on her head. There was a great deal of Surya in the girl; the likeness showed in her eyes in particular, large and seeming-wise, dark with secrets. Her complexion was of a shade between those of her mother and her father, Shivani noted with disapproval; a mark of the tainted blood, dusky rather than dark.

She moved among low beds, each containing a single person covered with a clean, white sheet. The room was full of these beds, closely crowded together, sunlight streaming down upon them. This must be the hospital where Simon Parkening encountered her. She seemed most attentive to the occupants of those beds, also to Shivani's disapproval. Her expression was intent as she ministered to them; there was no sound, only a picture, but it was clear that she spoke to them with kind and gentle courtesy rather than issuing the orders that one of her exalted blood should have found natural.

There was little doubt that she had thrown her lot in completely with the English; it seemed that only her servants and her pets were left as reminders of her homeland, for in all else, she was Western to the core. This must be why Shivani could neither break nor subvert her magical protections. She had surely learned the magic of the West, which was completely alien to Shivani's own. This—was unexpected. And it could prove a major stumbling block.