Fever Quest: A Clean Historical Mystery set in England and India (The Isabella Rockwell Trilogy Book 2) (16 page)

“No!” He lifted his head to the slit in the wall and
looked through, then he looked back at her and slumped down.

“You look like him.” His voice was quiet.

Livia sat down next to her and took her hands, which were
suddenly cold, and rubbed them in her own warm ones.

“What do you want to do?” Livia’s voice was gentle.

Isabella could only see the ground, the black-and-white
tiles under Livia’s sandal. It was as if someone had taken her world and shaken
it, like those snow-scene paperweights Alix had liked. Now everything had
fallen back to earth but had landed in the wrong place. Isabella bit her lip
hard so she drew blood, and the metallic taste brought her back to the present.

Rose was still at the window.

“Stone’s coming.”

Isabella forced herself to her feet and held her gun back
out of the tiny window. Stone had paused to inspect the ground. He spoke to a
soldier and they turned and strode up towards the mosque. Isabella tried to
hold her rifle steady, but her nerve had gone and the barrel of the gun wobbled
and then discharged. The shot ricocheted harmlessly off a rock. She reloaded as
fast as she could, but the men outside had all crouched down out of sight.

“You’ve done it now,” hissed Midge.

The four children sat up against the wall beneath the
window. Rough chunks of broken masonry sat around them and the first pink rays
of sunrise lit their faces. A bullet whizzed through the narrow window above
them. A single tear made its way down her face. Livia squeezed her shoulder and
then got up into a crouch and risked a look out of the next window along. Her
face was sombre when she sat back down.

“It’s your father shooting at us, Isabella.”

Isabella nodded, her head heavy.

“He doesn’t know who’s in here.” She looked at the wall
opposite her, at the little gaps between the stones, then she dragged her gaze
back to the others.

“Shall we make a run for it?” asked Rose, eyes bright
beneath her head scarf.

There was a light tread and Rat leapt forward, hackles raised
high, his growl deep in his chest.

“I’d call that dog off if I were you, Rockwell.” Stone’s
skeletal outline emerged from the shadow of the doorway. “And if you shoot me,
my soldiers will kill all of you.”

“You’re going to do that anyway, aren’t you?” said
Isabella, her gun steady now and pointing directly at his heart.

Stone looked at her with his pale gaze.

“No. Why would I do that, especially when I’ve brought you
such a wonderful surprise.”

“I know who you’ve brought.”

Stone frowned with apparent incomprehension. “Why are you
not outside greeting him, then? After all, it’s been such a long time.”

Isabella looked at him down the barrel of her gun.

“What’s the catch?”

Stone was surprised.

“Catch? Why should there be a catch?”

“We’re not idiots.” Livia’s voice was harsh and
disdainful.

There was a long quiet moment during which Isabella wished
she could see the faces of her friends, but she didn’t dare move the muzzle of
her gun.

“Get out of here, before I shoot you.” Her voice was empty
and hollow, the voice of a person with nothing left to lose. She cocked the gun
without taking her eyes off Stone. His lips pulled back in a snarl.

“Your father is available for trade, of course. Let me
have Midge and I will tell your father you are in here.”

Midge’s body tensed next to her.

“I will not.” Isabella raised the gun to her eye again.
“Now, get out.”

Stone turned on his heel.

“You have no idea how much you are going to regret this,
Rockwell.”

“The only thing I would regret is not shooting you,” said
Isabella, firing a warning shot over his head which disappeared harmlessly out
through the great door arch.

One of the soldiers lifted his gun, but Stone pushed it
down.

“No. Not yet. Our time will come.” He lifted his
lips, which showed his teeth all at the same time. Then he was gone.

The sun was going down. The children had finished
their food and their water. The horses nosed the ground, fed up. Midge tied
them together in one corner. Livia had got their sleeping rolls out and laid
them up against the windows facing Stone’s camp. The soldiers had lit a fire at
the foot of the small hill and the smoke drifted up to the mosque bringing the
smell of cooking meat and warming bread, enough to make their stomachs cramp
with hunger.

“We need a way out.” Isabella had barely moved since Stone
had left, gazing into the middle distance. “But I can’t think of one. I
shouldn’t have brought us in here without making sure we had a way out.”

“I just can’t believe he rode so far so fast.” Livia had
her head on her arms, which rested on her knees.

“He’s a nutter,” muttered Midge. “I’m not surprised at
all.”

“But your father,” whispered Livia for, as the darkness
fell, it seemed the mosque closed in around them, listening. “Where has he come
from? How did Stone find him?”

Isabella shook her head slowly, though she’d thought of
nothing else all day.

“Stone must have known where he was. Or maybe my father
reappeared when we were on the boat from Masulipatam?”

“But how could he have known your father was missing?”
Livia was still puzzled.

“It was in the papers in England,” said Midge in a low
voice.

“So Stone found your father somewhere on his journey
between Golconda and here.”

Isabella nodded, as if in a dream. “Somehow.”

“But, Isabella, I just don’t understand why he’s with
Stone. Everything you’ve told me about him makes him sound like a kind and
honourable man. Why would a man like your father be with a man like Stone?”
said Rose.

Isabella rested her chin on her knees. Darkness was
creeping from the corners of the mosque. They’d miss their fire tonight. Rat
slumped against her and licked his paws.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it, either. Stone is a
colonel and my father is only a captain, but my father isn’t in uniform.” She
frowned to herself. “He’s dressed as a Pashtu guide. But I don’t know why.”
There was a pause. “I do know one thing, though.”

“What’s that?” said Midge.

“He doesn’t know who is in here. Stone must have told him
we’re bandits or something. He wouldn’t be shooting at us otherwise. And if he
knew I was here … Well …” She stopped, lost for a moment in a fantasy
of her father killing everyone outside and riding in to save the day.

“Couldn’t we pass him a note? Or could I creep out and
tell him?” asked Rose.

Isabella was still, her heart heavy, and her head ached
with the effort of finding a solution.

“That’s exactly what Stone will expect us to do,” she
muttered.

“Because there isn’t any alternative.” Livia’s voice was a
harsh. “Come on. We have to think of something. What about a diversion? Rose
and I can ride out in one direction as fast as we can, and whilst they’re
following us, you and Midge can head for Lucknow. You wouldn’t need too much of
a start, just an hour maybe?”

Isabella narrowed her eyes and looked at the horses.

“If Rose dressed in Midge’s clothes, might they think
she’s him?” asked Livia.

Isabella looked at them both. Rose may have been a shade
taller, but not by much, and their shape was the same. Midge may have been a
little heavier.

The last of the light had left the sky abruptly. Livia
continued talking.

“Either way, Stone will have to follow someone and he
won’t leave Vritra or your father – much too valuable. They’ll all go. We’ll
just have to hope they follow Rose and me.”

Livia’s face was urgent and the shadowed planes of her
cheekbones showed in the dim moonlight coming through the holes in the roof.
Shrubs rustled in the night wind.

“Where would you ride to?”

“Back the way we came. Any direction that is furthest from
Lucknow.”

“You know he’ll kill you if he catches you.”

Rose stood up and stretched.

“We’d better not get caught then.”

Isabella’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude. What had
happened to the pampered, precious girls she’d met only six weeks ago? Girls
who a year ago used to think of boys and fashion and little else. Now they were
prepared to risk their own lives for her and Midge – people their footmen would
have dispersed with a flick of the whip had they crossed their path in London.

How strange life was.

“When do you want to go?” Isabella looked at Livia, who
smiled a smile with no emotion behind it. The smile of a soldier with a job to
do.

“At dawn. So it’s light enough for them to get a good look
at us.”

Isabella nodded.

“I’ll take first watch, then. You and Rose sleep.”

Rose and Livia slept until halfway through the night, and
then Isabella wrapped herself in Abhaya’s sari and tried to snatch an hour’s
rest whilst they took over the watch. Her mind was awake and active, though,
filled with thoughts of what the girls would need, but really it was worry that
played with her thoughts and gripped her stomach with such intensity. How could
she let Rose and Livia go like that?

What choice do you have, baba? You must let people be
the heroes of their own stories. It’s not just about you.

It was such a relief to hear Abhaya’s voice that Isabella
relaxed and finally slept, only to wake with a heavy aching heart a few moments
later.

She knew before she’d opened her eyes, before Livia’s
tear-stained face confirmed her very worst fear. The fear of which she hadn’t
dare think, let alone speak, had become a reality.

Midge had gone.

His bedroll was tumbled and empty and Rat, who would
surely have raised the alarm, lay snoring on his side, the crumbs of an old
chapatti lodged in his whiskers. Midge must have saved it to give to Rat to
keep him quiet. Isabella staggered to the window. The soldiers’ fire still
smoked, but their horses were gone. All except one. Isabella squinted. A man
sat by the fire, which he was poking with a stick. It burst into flames and the
orange light illuminated her father’s face.

Like a sleepwalker, she stepped out of the mosque, dimly
aware that Livia tried to follow her, but that Rose held her back. The slope of
the little hill seemed to go on for ever, but finally she stood in front of her
him. He looked up at her.

“Papa?” He blinked. “Papa. It’s me, Isabella.”

Her father got to his feet and raised his hands in a
graceful salaam.

“I’m sorry. I do not speak the language of Belait,” he
answered in Pashtu.

Isabella looked at him.

“What are you talking about?” She took a step towards him,
but he took a step back.

“I’m sorry, Sahiba. As I said, I do not speak your
language.”

Was he playing a joke on her?

“Very well,” Isabella answered in Pashto. “I will speak
yours.”

She took another step towards him, tears welling in her
eyes, desperate to throw herself on him and tell him of all the terrible things
that had happened since she’d last seen him, so he could make it all better.
But again she hesitated. She could see how upset he was by her tears, but it
was as if an invisible wall were around him. He was her father, and yet not.

“Why do you cry?” he said in a gentle voice.

“You do not recognise me?” Isabella’s tears were flowing
fast and the words were gulped out. Far away a cockerel crowed and the first
rays of the sun lifted clear of the horizon.

His open face was kind.

“Should I?”

It was then she saw the scar, an ugly, gaping thing that
forced its way from the top of his scalp, past his temple and finished beneath
his jaw line.

“What happened to your head?”

His hand lifted to the scar and he smiled ruefully.

“Russians.”

“You were fighting Russians?”

He nodded.

“Of course I was fighting Russians. I am Pathan. That’s
what we do.”

Breathe, breathe.

“You are far from home for a Pathan.”

Her father looked at her, though he didn’t seem to see
her.

“Yes, I am, but I am acting as a guide for the
foreigners.”

“You work for Colonel Stone?”

Her father nodded and held up the barrel of his gun to see
if it was clean. The fire was beginning to smoke and he kicked some ash over
it.

“They rode out some hours ago. Colonel Stone asked me to
stay. The boy demanded it, actually.”

Of course he did.

“How long ago, do you think?” Her chest was tight, and she
had to force her breath in and out.

“Two hours, maybe?”

“Where did you meet Colonel Stone?”

John Rockwell slotted his rifle back together.

“I work for him. I’ve worked for him for years, on and
off.”

This must be part of his illness, vivid hallucinations on
top of his memory loss.

“You’ve seen this before, baba.”

Abhaya’s voice, clear as a bell.

“Have I?”

“Yes.”

Isabella turned, but no one was there. Rose and Livia,
still like statues in the doorway of the temple, watching her. The horses
fidgeting, ready to leave, picking up on the atmosphere. Rat’s eyes never
leaving her own.

She squatted down next to John Rockwell. He coughed, a
nasty tight wheeze, which made his eyes water and the air re-enter his lungs in
a compressed rush. It made her want to breathe more deeply herself. His breath
didn’t sound stable, and reminded her of a thread of cobweb stretched between
two leaves.

“Have you been ill for long?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I’m not ill any more. I
was, but Colonel Stone cured me.” He got up and rustled around in his saddle
bags and took out a pouch of tobacco which he held out to her. “When I smoke
this, my chest feels much better. It makes me a little light-headed, but that
is a small price to pay.”

Isabella looked at it and then inhaled its mustiness, dry
and sweet.

She looked over at Rose. Rose whose face was white and
set, her chin at an angle.

“Saddle up.”

“All of us?”

Isabella nodded. Rose’s eyes had been filling with tears
of desperation, but she dashed them away and had the horses ready in minutes.

“You don’t want to leave him here?” asked Livia, as she
led her horse to a log so she could mount.

John Rockwell was humming to himself, a lullaby from long
ago, but Isabella had turned away, unable to look at him any more, let alone
listen to him hum a song Abhaya used to sing. Isabella shook her head.

“I think it’s better if we all stay together from now on.
I don’t want anyone else to go missing.” Her throat closed as her voice caught
on the last word. Livia reached over and squeezed her arm.

“It’s going to be all right.” Her voice was full of
confidence.

Isabella walked over to John Rockwell.

“Do you know the way to Golconda?”

John Rockwell looked up.

“Of course. I am Pathan.”

“Can you take us there?”

John Rockwell’s eyebrows were raised.

“Have you money to pay me? A man has to eat.”

“I do.”

Her father smiled.

“Very well, then. You have yourself a deal.”

Isabella reached down and took her father’s hand. He
smiled at her as she pulled him to his feet.

“It’s nice riding around here. We should take our time.”

She smiled, and wondered if the splinters of her heart
would ever find a way back together again.

“Maybe another time. We have need of haste right now.”

“You want to find the boy? I will tell you now, Stone
won’t let him go. He’s a hard man. Now, will you pay me before we go?”

He held Livia’s and Rose’s horses until they were
mounted, then swung himself into the saddle. Isabella leaned up and put a pile
of notes into his hand, then she mounted her own horse and urged him down the
hill and out on the road south. Rat jogged at a steady pace behind her. When
she felt she was far enough ahead of the others her tears rose and overflowed,
and she felt as if she’d left the last of her childhood shed, like a snakeskin,
on the side of the hill.

The girls rode as they had never ridden before. They
didn’t stop for food or for sleep, as Isabella knew her quarry wouldn’t either.
They ate dried meat in their saddles and drank from canteens bought as they
passed by sellers on the road. That night they dozed in the saddle and when
they came to a prosperous little town and their horses couldn’t walk any further,
they bought four more. One in particular caught her eye. He cost her a fortune,
but he was as fine an animal as she’d ever seen, with clean legs and a deep
chest.

“Is he stolen?” she asked, making a circuit of the huge
black horse, looking for signs of ownership.

The horse-dealer looked like an anteater.

“Bah! He is not,” he said, long nose quivering. “He was
bred by my brother-in-law.”

“I’ll bet his parents were stolen, then. I’ve only seen
horses like this in maharajahs’ stables,” said John Rockwell.

The horse-dealer wouldn’t meet his eye.

“Do you want him or not?”

“How much?”

The man then named a price that would put the horse out of
reach of the average Indian, but Isabella peeled off a pile of money and thrust
it into his hand. By return he pushed a bottle of dark-brown liquid into hers.

“For strength.”

“For me or for him?” She nodded at the horse, who was
making faces at Rat as he sniffed the horse’s feet. He was entirely black and
his ears were back with bad temper. “What’s his name?”

She lifted her saddle onto his back.

“Cobra.”

Isabella smiled as the horse tried to bite her.

“Of course.”

She tucked the bottle away and mounted. The sky away from
the town was dark and she estimated it was eight o’clock at night. Livia and
Rose were so tired they were asleep already in their saddles.

“Isabella-bai, you know there is only one passable road
between Lucknow and Bombay, but at Bombay it will split.” Said John Rockwell.

Isabella looked at him. “So we must reach Bombay before Stone does or we won’t know which way he has gone.” Stone would be forced to
use the road they’d taken from the boat, the one that ran through Hyderabad. It was a busy road, full of traffic, and Isabella wondered how he was going to
keep Midge hidden from interested eyes.

It was apparent, a mile out of the town, that
Cobra, even given his high price, had been a very good deal. The horse was fast
but comfortable and his breathing stayed steady despite the breakneck pace. To
Isabella he felt as though he could go on for ever, as his big stride ate up
the miles between them and Stone. When Rat got tired, she lifted him into the
saddle and Cobra bore them both on into the night.

Even though they didn’t catch up with Colonel Stone,
Isabella didn’t give up hope. Not even when the towers of Bombay came into view
the next day and she’d picked up no sign of him did she allow her spirits to
flag. She’d come this far and backing out wasn’t an option.

It was after a dust storm when they rode into the little
village that had sprung up around the large junction in the road. There weren’t
any signposts but the carts coming from the road that led south were laden with
soft fruits and sugar cane, whereas the ones coming from the road west carried
timber and brick and British soldiers, heading for the hill stations in the
north. Isabella felt a pull of sadness as she heard the soldiers exuberant
laughter and familiar banter. She wondered how Eloise was getting on with her
captain? Maybe they were already married and living peacefully at Simla, which
was so English that the only Indians allowed there were servants. There the air
would be cool and scented with pine, and the British ladies would be picnicking
and playing cards. Livia may have deplored that kind of life, but at this
precise moment, with grit grinding into the skin of her sweat-soaked back and
hunger hollowing her stomach, Isabella thought it must be the most wonderful
place on earth.

“I think we must rest here. Livia and Rose will be able to
go no further and then they will fall and hurt themselves.” John Rockwell spoke
in an undertone.

Isabella nodded.

“Wait here for a moment.”

Red dust coated the roofs of the shops, and signs showing
where one could get a haircut or a bath and a change of clothes swung in the
breeze left over from the storm. Store holders were putting their wares back
outside, tutting at the mess the storm had caused. One stall had a pile of ripe
oranges arranged in a pyramid. A man stood next to it, polishing an orange with
a white cloth. Isabella tied her filthy hair up and wound an old grey
handkerchief around it.

“Papa-ji, may I buy four of those?”

She dismounted and he cut one oranges into segments for
her, the juice running off his knife into the dust beneath their feet. Isabella
sucked the juice down and didn’t stop to talk until the flesh of both oranges
had gone. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her tunic and paid him.

“Tell me, sir, have you seen any soldiers on this road,
but heading south?”

The man laughed, showing a gold tooth.

“There are soldiers everywhere, child. Be more specific.”

A flock of crows rose and settled again on the ground
behind his stall.

“This would have been a group of maybe seven. Four
soldiers and their colonel and a child. They might not have been dressed as
soldiers, but the colonel, the man I am interested in, has red hair and white
skin. He might have been riding an albino horse, an Arab.”

The man nodded thoughtfully.

“The man I do not remember, but the horse, yes … I
think I do. One blue eye?”

Isabella’s heart leapt.

“Yes, that’s it! Do you remember when you saw them?”

The man spat on an orange and polished it.

“Yes. Last night. Before the storm.”

Isabella’s face fell.

“Two nights?” Tears of exhaustion closed her throat and
she struggled to get the words out. “I thought they were only a few hours ahead
of me.”

“But they are travelling on the post carts.”

Isabella shook her head in disbelief.

“There’s no room for them all on a post cart.”

“No, it was only one man and a boy. The rest of them
stayed here. Even the horse.”

Isabella’s heart fell. There was nothing she could do to
catch the post cart which was little more than a few planks on two wheels. The
carts had a change of horses every four hours and their drivers were known to
chew ghat, a drug that made them crazed but could keep them awake for days at a
time.