Fever Quest: A Clean Historical Mystery set in England and India (The Isabella Rockwell Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

Cobra sidestepped and pulled on Isabella’s arm
holding the reins. She squinted into the afternoon haze. Yes, she’d been right.
Golconda was just visible, crouched like a red lion amongst its hills. It was
probably half a day’s ride from here. She looked at her father. He’d finished
his water canteen; they all had. She collected the empty flasks together and
took them to a small stream running parallel to the road. Then she dribbled
some more of the brown medicine into her father’s canteen. Far off the road was
a giant tree with heavy rubbery leaves which created a dense shade so dark it
would be hard to see anything move beneath it from the road.

“That’s where you should stay.” Isabella gestured with her
head to Livia and Rose.

“How long for?”

“Until the three of us are back.”

“Three?”

“I’m taking him.” She inclined her head towards John
Rockwell.

“But why him and not me?” Rose looked more desperate than
Isabella had ever seen her.

“Because.”

Rose’s lip trembled.

“Wait for us for twenty-four hours. If we are not back by
then, go to Lucknow.” She peeled off a huge pile of money and gave it to Livia.
“This will be enough for you to hire a carriage and driver if you need to.”

“All right then. Where shall we meet you?” Rose’s voice
was false.

“Meet me when?” Isabella was busy with her bag.

“When you’ve got Midge. In Lucknow.”

Isabella thought she might as well humour her.

“There’s a fountain, outside the Maharajah’s palace gates.
I’ll meet you there.”

Rose’s chin wobbled and Livia wouldn’t look up from the
ground.

“When?”

Isabella tied her bag closed.

“I don’t know. A few days, a few weeks? At dusk, anyway,
shall we say?”

“Very well.” Rose pulled herself into her saddle. “We’ll
see you then.”

“I wish you didn’t always look so sad, dear heart,” said
her father, unconsciously using the Pashto term of endearment.

She tried to smile.

“I’m sorry. Things have been a little difficult lately.”

John Rockwell nodded.

“Yes. Life is not always easy, but then it has its
moments. Try not to worry too much. All will be well.” He gazed into the distance,
then looked back at her and salaamed.

Livia held Isabella once fiercely and then mounted her
horse.

“At dusk, then.”

Isabella nodded.

“At dusk.”

Isabella and her father arrived at the gate of Golconda just before sunset.

Since they’d left Bombay she’d been mixing up chalk and
herbs, which she would then paint onto the silken coat of Stone’s mare, whom
she had renamed Cloud. By the time they’d been riding for two days, Cloud was a
dirty flea-bitten grey with a scanty tail. Once in a while, Cobra would sniff
at the mixture of herbs and paste Isabella had used to disguise her coat, but
his ardour remained undimmed. Only the carriage of her head gave away her
breeding. Isabella, walking between the two horses, leaned on Cloud’s bit so
she would keep her neck lower.

“What is your business?” came the familiar rumble from one
of the guards.

“I have a horse to sell.”

She coughed elaborately into a handkerchief she’d already
stained with a few drops of red cochineal. The guard stepped backwards.

“There’s enough illness here already. Stay back.”

Isabella took a step towards him.

“But I have heard the Colonel Sahib has a good eye for a
horse.”

“So he does.”

The soldier eyed her and then Cobra.

“It is the black one you’re selling, I take it.”

Isabella made a grovelling action.

“But of course. I would not sell him this …” she
said, waving her arm vaguely at Cloud who chose that moment to get her tongue
stuck above her bit. She waggled it at Cobra.

The guard rolled his eyes.

“No. One would hope not that one. Well, bring them in, but
don’t come too close to me or anyone else.”

Isabella snuffled in what she hoped was a boyish way.

“No, of course not.”

“And who is that?”

“This is my bearer. He is a Pathan. He will be no trouble.
I’d prefer to keep him with me. He is very good with the horses and I’ve not
been well.” On cue, Cobra laid his head against John Rockwell’s stomach.

The guard walked ahead of her, but instead of going up the
steep slope to the palace he took a much lower road which led around the bottom
wall of the city. On the left side against the hill were rows of stalls. On the
right was a view over the city wall to the surrounding plain, purple in the
retreating light. Here at least, thought Isabella, there was the flicker of
Indian life as she knew it. The stalls stood close together, but here and there
fires had been lit and she could smell naan cooking and the sweet smell of
fresh hay as it was thrown into the mangers. The guard took her to a stall on
the end of a row with a slanted roof.

“Here. You stay here. You can show the horse tomorrow.
Someone will come and fetch you. In the meantime, don’t stray. If you are found
anywhere you shouldn’t be, you’ll be shot.” The guard narrowed his eyes and
took a step towards her. “Do I know you?”

Isabella gripped the handkerchief in her hand and shook
her head, keeping her eyes on the ground.

“No. I have never visited Golconda before.” He looked at
her again. “I am very grateful you’ve allowed me to this time,” she added.

The guard snorted.

“Only because I think the Colonel Sahib will like this
horse.”

He turned on his heel and left. Isabella let out her
breath. The sky was dark now but torches flamed along the wall throwing shadows
into the stalls and bathing the horses in an orange glow. She slid down in the
straw next to Rat. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. She needed to sleep, but
of course sleep wouldn’t come and if it did it would surely be punctuated by
dreams of her father and Midge, lost and alone with Isabella unable to reach
them.

“So.” John Rockwell had settled down on the other side of
Rat, pulling on his ear. “What next for you?” He sounded as he had used to when
he’d talked to people he didn’t like at parties and it broke her heart. “For I
must let you continue alone. I cannot serve Colonel Stone and you also.”

“No, of course you can’t. You’ve done your job in getting
us here. Thank you.”

There was a pause and she took a long drink from her
canteen. He did the same. Then he turned on his side and went to sleep. She
watched his beloved face and then she lifted his canteen. The remainder of the
water slopped on the ground. She slumped and put her head on her knees. A few
moments later, unable to face sleep, she groomed Cobra until his coat resembled
polished ebony and his tail was a river of black silk.

It was a relief to see the first low glow of dawn and hear
the strangled cockerel two stalls down from her own. Her gaze rested on Cobra’s
shining quarters as she nibbled a dry chapatti. Her eyes were sore and all of
her bones ached. The chapatti tasted like sand, so she gave the rest of it to
Rat and stood stiffly, drained of energy, her head pounding. If she had been a
proper soldier she’d be prepared for this battle, but she felt weak and sick.
The likelihood of rescuing Midge and keeping her own life was slim; she knew
that. But all the time on the road towards Golconda she’d been able to put this
thought out of her mind. Now she was here, the doubts weighed her down, making
her movements slow, as if she swam through treacle.

John Rockwell stirred, stretched and stood up. He looked
down at her without smiling, as if he’d never met her.

“I think it’s time we went to meet Colonel Stone. Bring
the horse.”

Isabella blinked.

“What?” But it was too late. Her father held a
knife, a wicked jagged thing, and it was pointed at her. He motioned for her to
leave the stall and she picked her way over the cobbles towards the palace,
Cobra’s head bowed low behind her, as if he knew he went to his death.

The huge room was still robed in darkness, the high
windows blacked out with heavy purple silks so the only shred of dawn light
came through the open doorway. Isabella paused at the threshold with Cobra, but
the guard had gestured to her to bring the horse inside. She hesitated. Was he
mad?

“I can’t take a horse in here,” she hissed to him.
“It would make the room unclean. There might be Brahmin in there.”

The guard threw her a pitying look.

“This is Golconda, not Lucknow.” Feeling her father’s
knife in her back she took a tentative step into the room. She squinted and the
room’s occupants swam into view.

It must have been a long night.

Indian nobles and British soldiers lay on low couches
around the ballroom. Some of them slept and some were still swigging wine from
glass bottles and chatting to each other, waves of drunken laughter breaking
out as they hung onto each other’s shoulders. Serving plates of silver lay
everywhere and fruit had rolled under the furniture and into corners. The floor
was sticky with wine and ash from incense burners. A dancing girl swayed in the
middle of the room, her eyes half closed, even though her musicians slept. Her
lilac skirt was torn.

On the far side of the circle of couches Isabella could
see Colonel Stone. He was dressed as a native in a turquoise silk dhoti, tunic
and turban, and he’d smeared something onto the skin of his face to make it
look darker, except it didn’t reach his neck, which looked as white and exposed
as a swan’s. He was sitting on a crimson banquette next to a richly dressed
young Indian man and their heads were close together as they crouched over a
low brass table. A large blue bowl was in front of them, and they plunged their
hands into it over and over again, laughing at each other, their teeth white in
the gloom.

Her father nudged her from behind.

“Go on. Go in.”

Cobra, feeling her hesitation, threw his head back,
drawing the attention of those nearby. A tall thin Indian man with a dissolute
face detached himself from his friends and came over to her.

“Is this horse for the colonel?”

His eyes were bloodshot as they looked Cobra over.
Isabella nodded, and the man took the reins and led the horse further into the
marble-vaulted room.

Stone looked up, his eyes taking a moment to focus.

“Ah, Davendra, this horse is the one the guard spoke of?”

“I believe so, Sahib. His owner is here.” Davendra
gestured at Isabella, who kept her head hunched between her shoulders and edged
sideways to put Cobra between herself and Stone.

“Colonel Stone,” came another voice. Unsteady footsteps
came towards her. “He is a nice animal, but surely now you can afford even
better.”

A figure came around behind Cobra’s haunches. He was not
more than sixteen or seventeen, though he was dressed in rich red and orange
silks with a turban of white holding a curved golden dagger. He looked like a
child who’d been at the dressing-up box. His eyes passed over Isabella as if
she didn’t exist and Cobra, sensing her tension, was quiet though he watched
her from the corner of his eye.

“Ah, yes, your majesty. That is true, but I won’t be able
to leave Golconda for some time yet and this horse is here now. He will do for
the time being.” Stone’s voice was silken with self-satisfaction and slightly
slurred. “I do need something to ride between the palace and the mine that
isn’t one of your donkeys. Especially now we are so busy.”

The young prince had been bending to check one of Cobra’s
legs but Isabella saw his eyes narrow, just for a moment, then the expression
was gone.

He straightened up.

“Of course, the man who restored the fortunes of Golconda must have a worthy mount.” He slapped Cobra on the neck and disappeared back to
where he had been sitting next to Stone.

Isabella moved towards Cobra and peered over his neck, her
face obscured by his mane. The prince sat in a flurry of silk and a servant
hurried to fan him with ostrich feathers, but the prince waved him away.
Instead he leaned forward and lifted the blue bowl and poured its contents all
over the tabletop. At first Isabella thought they were marbles, but their
surfaces gleamed with a deep blue light caught from the bowl and their
irregular shape meant they didn’t roll around the polished golden surface, but
sat, drawing the light to them, until everyone’s attention was on the table.

Diamonds. Dirty and uncut, but surely, indisputably –
diamonds.

Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.

Stone lifted a handful of the stones and pressed them to
his cheek, closing his eyes as if he were dancing with a beautiful woman.

“Yes, I think I deserve a new horse, don’t you?”

With that he opened his eyes, picked up a banana skin from
the table in front of him and threw it. There was a slapping sound as the skin
fell against a crouched figure wedged up against the pale marble wall behind
him. At first Isabella thought it was a monkey – a chimpanzee or an orang-utan,
maybe – covered in the flesh of overripe fruit and tethered to Stone’s couch
with a chain of gold. Blood trailed in a crimson stripe from the manacle on its
ankle. But as she watched, a guard spat at the creature and it wiped the gobbet
of spittle from its hair with a hand.

A human hand.

And the hair it wiped clean showed a glimmer of gold
through the dirt and mud that caked it from head to foot so only the whites of
its eyes were visible. Eyes that fastened on her own and which saw immediately
through the layers of her disguise and blinked with recognition.

A searingly cold anger grabbed Isabella by the throat and
in a moment the whole cavernous room came into sharp focus, as if balanced on
the head of a pin.

She could see everything all at once. The man behind the
pillar trying to balance goblets on his tray; the sleeping musician shifting
his position from one hip to another; the young Maharajah watching Stone put
the diamonds back on the table one by one to check they were all there.

The silk drapes billowed at the high windows.

Her knife felt heavy and hot in her hand. Barely aware of
what she was doing, she walked forward until she stood right in front of Stone.
He didn’t even look up.

“Guards? There’s someone blocking my view.”

Isabella leaned down and sliced through the leather tie
that attached the gold chain to Stone’s couch.

“What do you think you are doing, horseman?”

Stone’s voice was amused, still thick with drink. Isabella
looked down at the table, the blue bowl full of diamonds sparkling like
dewdrops. Before anyone could stop her she leaned down, picked up the bowl and
in one swift movement threw the diamonds in a shimmering arc into the air where
they hung in the vibrant yellow of dawn before crashing to the polished floor.
But Isabella had turned before they hit the ground, and before the nobles,
Stone and the guards all shot to their feet and regained their senses, she’d
leapt onto Cobra and urged him forward towards the crouched figure who stood as
she approached and held his arms up for her to reach down and swing him onto
the saddle behind her. Then Cobra wheeled on the spot and made a brave leap for
the door, his feet ringing on the marble.

“Stop them!”

Stone’s scream followed them out of the archway, into the
glare of the sun, and Isabella was blinded. Cobra reared up seeing John
Rockwell running towards him with spear raised. Isabella remembered seeing a
flash of sun and the blue sky, and feeling Midge slip off Cobra behind her.