Fever Quest: A Clean Historical Mystery set in England and India (The Isabella Rockwell Trilogy Book 2) (4 page)

Isabella looked blank.

“Oh, you mean this?” She spread Abhaya’s pouch on the
counter top and shooed the monkey away as he tried to force his little hands
into its pockets.

“Albert.” The man pronounced it in the French way and
scooped the monkey onto his shoulder. “That is enough. Yes” – the man looked
closer – “it is very clever. Did you make this yourself?”

Isabella smiled and shook her head. “No. It was my
friend’s, but she died so now I have it.”

“So, what remedies do you need?”

“I’ve run out of rock rose, hornbeam and oil of cloves.”

“Ah yes.” The man reached into a drawer The next minutes
were spent in pleasant discussion about the merits of one herb over another,
but Isabella was aware that the girls had almost finished their tea and their
movements were becoming restless.

“There.” The man placed a group of packages with her other
purchases.

A shadow passed through the doorway behind her and entered
the café area. The shopkeeper’s eyes followed it.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, handing her back her
change.

Isabella made her way over to where the girls sat at the
back of the shop, but she tripped on an unseen step and the oil of cloves
slipped to the ground and shattered. The smell of cloves was overpowering.

“Oh Isabella.” Rose’s voice was rough and exasperated, but
it was cut off by a great clamour from the men drinking at a shadowy table in
the far corner. One stood up so quickly that he’d knocked the table over. He
was a giant of a man with a patch over one eye and ragged clothes. He spoke in
English.

“How dare you. You know I would never do that.”

One of his companions righted the table and put his hand
on the man’s arm, pulling him back down onto the velvet cushions. The
shopkeeper walked over to them.

“I want no trouble here,” Isabella heard him say to the
men in a low voice. “If there is, you will not be allowed to meet here again.”

“Isabella!” Eloise’s tone was whiny. “What are we going to
do now?”

“I’ll go and get some more,” replied Isabella. But her
attention was still on the shopkeeper as he stood with the men, and she took a
few steps towards them. Didn’t she know them? The one with the patch and the
other man, with the blue hood pulled down over his turban and his thick black
beard. He saw her drawing closer and his deep-set eyes registered shock rather
than surprise.

“Isabella-bai.” The man smiled and got to his feet.

Her heart beat faster and she felt a blush of surprise and
pleasure suffuse her face.

“Hassan Al Hassan?”

“Yes. It is I, beneath this beard.”

Isabella laughed. “I can’t believe it. How lovely to see
you.”

There was movement at her shoulder as Rose and Livia
appeared. The other two men got to their feet, and with a rattle replaced the
coffee cups they’d been holding on the table in front of them.

“These are my companions, Joseph Mann and Arturo Coelho.”

Arturo tipped his wide-brimmed hat at the girls, but
Joseph Mann just looked at them through his one visible eye.

“What are you doing here?” asked Isabella, stunned. “I
thought you’d gone back to India a month ago.”

Al Hassan smiled. He looked tired, his dark face thin and
strained under his white turban. “I was supposed to, but I had business here,
so I stopped on the way.” He darted a glance at the little Spaniard. “It’s just
taken longer than I thought.”

Arturo waved the hand holding his plumed hat at the table.

“Won’t you senoritas join us?”

Eloise tittered next to Isabella.

“You are very kind, but I think we had better not. We are
in the process of making an important medicine. If we don’t get it done now, we
might never be allowed back here and miss our chance.”

Al Hassan nodded.

“Up to your old tricks, eh?” His golden eagle’s eyes
smiled at Isabella and she smiled back, a real smile that reached her eyes and
didn’t just stop at her mouth. How very nice it was to see him. It was only now
she realised how much she had missed both him and Alix.

“Al Hassan saved my life,” she said to Livia.

Al Hassan salaamed to Livia, whose eyes suddenly seemed
too big for her face.

“We took care of each other.”

The tall man with the patch was eyeing Isabella closely.

“You are the child from the prison. You gave me your
petticoat and some herbs.”

Isabella squinted through the gloom.

“Of course! I thought I recognised you, but I couldn’t
remember where from. You were in the next-door cell to Al Hassan.”

Joseph Mann nodded. “Your medicine took away the
infection. Sadly” – he gestured to his face – “I lost the eye.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“It’s all right. I am glad to still be alive, so thank
you,” he rumbled from deep in his chest. “So you make more medicine for the
ladies?”

“Yes, although I’m not doing it very well. I just broke a
bottle.”

Al Hassan laughed. “Don’t be modest. Zachariah told me how
you brought Lily back from the dead.”

Despite the compliment she was embarrassed.

“She wasn’t dead. I was just lucky to get the ingredients
I needed to make her better.”

“Yes, but it’s the knowing what is needed that is the hardest
thing. Anyone can mix a few herbs together.” Al Hassan’s face was serious and
his eyes were distant, as if he were thinking of something far away.

Livia leaned over Isabella and took her elbow.

“If you will excuse us, we really must go. We will be in dreadful
trouble if my mother finds out we’ve been here.”

“Goodbye, Al Hassan. It is wonderful to see you, even for
such a short time. Will you visit our ship? Midge would love to see you.”
Isabella’s eyes searched out Al Hassan’s, but he looked away and would not meet
her gaze.

“Maybe.”

“Come.” Livia brushed down her skirts and returned to
their table. But Isabella turned back to Al Hassan.

“What is the matter, my brother?” she asked in Pashto.
Behind him Joseph and Arturo had settled themselves back on their bench.

“Isabella-bai.” His face was a mask of urgency and there
were white patches on the stretched skin around his mouth.

“Al Hassan, what is it? You look dreadful.”

“I am not as well as I should be, dearest, and as such I
have great need of a favour from you.”

“Of course. Anything.” She was very worried. She’d never
seen him like this before. He took out a small package, wrapped in brown paper,
the size and width of a pillbox.

“This package must get to Mother Muckerjee at Lucknow as soon as is physically possible. Ask anyone at the market there, they will show
you where to find her.”

“But … but …” Isabella’s heart dropped, a lonely
cold pebble into a deep well. The right words twisted themselves in her mouth
so they couldn’t be said. “I was going to go north … I’d hoped … My
father …” She bit her lip, horrified to find herself close to tears.

Al Hassan took both her hands in his rough black-haired
ones. His eyes were fixed on her and yet they looked inward to a point within
himself that he’d kept protected for a long time.

“I understand, dear heart. I would not ask you if I were
not as unwell as I now find myself. I have an illness of Belait,” he explained,
using the Pashto word for England, “a cold and devouring thing I cannot seem to
get rid of. I could never make the ride between Masulipatam and Lucknow, even by bullock cart. It’s a three-week journey. Yet this package contains my
life’s work and it must get to Mother Muckerjee immediately.”

Isabella looked down at the ground and a large, hot tear
dropped from the end of her nose.

“Must I beg you?” Al Hassan’s voice was gentle.

Albert, the monkey, must have been let off his chain, for
he poked his head around the stone archway from the shop and looked at her.

She took a deep breath.

“You do not have to beg. Of course I will take it for you.
I will take it straight there. Pay no attention to me.”

Al Hassan hugged her fiercely.

“Oh Isabella-bai! A million thanks. There are few I can
trust, but you are one. God is good indeed to send you here at such a time.”

Isabella took the packet and tucked it into the pocket of
her petticoat.

“What is it?”

“It might be best if I didn’t tell you, dearest. Isn’t it
enough to know it’s important?”

Isabella was embarrassed.

“Well, yes. Of course. Sorry. I was just being nosey.”

Al Hassan hugged her again.

“You are forgiven. Thank you.” He looked over her
shoulder. “And now go. Your friends are restless.”

But Isabella caught his sleeve. “When will I see you
again?”

Al Hassan smiled. “I will find you, if God allows me to
live.”

He coughed hard into a handkerchief and it came away
stained with blood.

“Al Hassan!” The exclamation was out of her mouth before
she could stop herself.

He held up his hand.

“I will be well when I am home. My bones ache for it.” He
looked at her sternly. “Now go.”

“I can’t believe you let him go.”

Midge’s face was appalled as he stood opposite her in the
oppressive heat of her cabin that same broiling afternoon. Her dress had
wilted, the white curtains hung lifeless at the window and a plant she’d been
nursing since leaving England drooped in its pot on her dresser.

“I know, Midge. But it was awkward with Lady Denier
waiting for us, and Al Hassan had his friends there too. If we’d been any
longer Livia would never have been allowed out again.”

“Who cares about Livia?” Midge snapped. “That’s all I ever
hear. Livia this and Livia that. You’ve got her on the brain.”

Isabella blushed. He was right. He was jealous, but that
didn’t make what he said untrue.

“What did he say to you? Did he ask about me?” Midge’s
face was pink and cross.

The white, close heat from outside made sweat trickle down
Isabella’s sides and through her porthole she could see clouds massing like
grey pillows over blue-and-red roofs.

“Yes, he wanted to know all about you,” she lied. “And he
gave me a package to deliver when I’ve got a chance.”

Midge looked unimpressed. “Is that all? What kind of
package?”

Isabella shrugged, trying to look casual. She didn’t know
whether to tell Midge of Al Hassan’s request or not. Al Hassan was a hero in Midge’s
eyes and no less in her own, but then Midge didn’t have a father to find.

“I don’t know what it is.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Isabella shook her head, and walked to her wardrobe,
opening its door to a scent of lavender. “There wasn’t time.” She didn’t meet
Midge’s eye.

“I don’t believe you.” Midge’s face was cold. “What are
you fibbing about, Miss India?”

Isabella flinched. Miss India had been Zachariah’s
nickname for her. She wished she could hide her head in the blue silks and lace
in front of her.

“I’m not fibbing.” She turned back to Midge. She took the
tiny package out of her pocket and held it in her hand. “I’m not fibbing about
anything, but Lucknow is in the north east.”

“Yeah, so?”

“My father is in the north west.”

“Well, you can go to Lucknow first and then find your
father.”

Isabella felt a shaft of anger cut straight through her.
She knew she shouldn’t have told Midge about the package.

“How many times do I have to tell you about distance in India? It takes a month to travel between Lucknow and Rawalpindi, where I’m from. I don’t
have a month to spare.”

Midge was aghast.

“Is that why you’re acting shifty? You’re not going to
deliver it?”

Isabella buried herself in the cupboard.

“I’ve got to find my father. There is no time to lose.
Prince Ernest thinks he might be sick, nearly dead …” Her words trailed
off. She couldn’t bear the thought of him banging like a moth up against the
glass of a lantern.

All too clearly she could remember how she’d felt when
she’d last seen him riding out of the camp. The sense of unease that was so
unfamiliar. Three weeks after he’d gone, however, she’d woken with a start, as
if someone had called her name. She’d gone to her window. As if from nowhere a
wind had blown through from the north, making her jump with its suddenness. It
blew through the trees and blew through the stables, waking the horses. It blew
through the porches, making shutters bang, and then, just as quickly as it had
arisen, it left, and all had become still once again.

A sudden crash came from the living room. Her father’s
portrait had fallen from its hangings, the frame broken, lying on the floor.
Tucking it carefully under one arm she padded from room to room, securing the
shutters. Then she closed the front door, and placed a statue of their family
god against it. A tricky wind like that needed watching; it meant sorrow for
someone.

Three days later, she’d been with her horse and seeing the
dark shadow of Abhaya’s head over the stable door, she’d felt a deep dread.
Abhaya never came to the stables.

“What is it, Mama-ji?” she asked, hardly wanting to look
at Abhaya’s face.

Abhaya took Isabella’s hands in her own work-worn ones,
and sat her on a hay bale. Isabella felt her blood turn to ice.

“Your papa, dearest.”

Isabella shivered despite the heat of the day.

“He was supposed to make a rendezvous … but he didn’t
arrive. Nor did his bearer, Josha Bilram.” Abhaya took a deep breath and held
her close. “They found your father’s saddlebag. The leather had been torn, as
if there’d been a huge struggle. Its contents were scattered. His horse was
found dead nearby.”

“His horse is dead?” These, oddly, were the first words
from Isabella’s mouth. Not able to wrap her mind around the death of her
father, all she could think of was his horse. The one he’d hand-reared from a
foal, and ridden to victory at the regiment gymkhanas, year after year. Now her
father would whistle at the paddock gate and Flash wouldn’t come. “It must have
been a very great fight for him to fall from his horse.”

Abhaya nodded her head slowly, never taking her eyes from
Isabella’s.

“Yes, it must.”

“Is there no sign of his body?”

“No.” She rubbed Isabella’s hands. “Your hands are cold.”

Isabella blinked.

“I feel cold.”

“Come, let us go inside.”

As Isabella had left the stables, she’d wondered at how it
was possible to enter a place as one person and, in such a short space of time,
leave it as someone else.

The evening after Abhaya’s news she had lain staring at
the ceiling of her room. The mosquito net made everything look hazy and
indistinct. She was dry-eyed and fearful. If she went to sleep she would have
to wake again to a reality she didn’t think she could bear. Or was she asleep
already? Isabella couldn’t tell. She knew Abhaya had plundered her store of
healing herbs for something to help with her shock, but the medicine hadn’t
worked. All she could see was her father’s body, blasted by the heat, flies at
his nose and mouth, like the corpse she’d come across unexpectedly one day,
half hidden in the blond grasses by the road into town.

Now, with her cheeks crushed against the soft fabrics in
her cabin wardrobe, Isabella closed her eyes tightly so the image was banished,
but it never seemed to stay away. The picture would always return. Maybe once
she found her father it would disappear for good.

She knew how selfish she must sound to Midge, but she was
so tired of trailing all over the world, looking out for people who had nothing
to do with her. She’d saved the heir to the throne of England! Wasn’t that enough?

Inwardly she cursed ever having met Al Hassan. Cursed him
for having put her in this position.

The bed squeaked as Midge stood up and came to stand next
to her in front of the open wardrobe.

“Iz? You’d be doing this for Al Hassan.” His face was
innocent and open and he spoke from his heart.

“No, Midge. This time, I’m going to do something for me. I
will
take the package to the mysterious Mother Muckerjee, but after I’ve
found Papa. I owe it to my father. Dead or alive.”

But Midge’s face was cold and he practically spat the
words out at her.

“And what about what
we
owe Al Hassan, or have you
forgotten about that too? I mean it, Iz. You’re making a huge mistake. I’m
gonna show you how wrong you are – just you watch.”

The pictures on the wall rattled as he slammed the door.

Isabella let him go. He’d calm down. He was just worried.
He was so far from home, it was understandable, but he didn’t know what it was
like to have a parent he couldn’t find.

She sat on the white cotton coverlet and undid the
package. The brown paper was rough under her fingers, the corners of it frayed,
as if it had been carried tightly tucked away over a great distance. Isabella
undid the knotted string and carefully opened the paper. Two smaller packages
were inside and she opened one to find a pile of grey dust, a bit like the iron
filings Isabella remembered from the schoolroom when she’d learnt about
magnets. This dust was more like sand in its consistency and it was a lighter
grey. There must have been five tablespoons’ worth and the curious thing about
it was that, as she moved the paper back and forth, the granules clumped
together. She put a fingertip in it, and it broke up into particles again.
Isabella peered down at it and then held the paper up to the light coming from
outside. When she moved the paper from side to side she could see light
reflected off the granules, little sparkles waving back and forth. She turned
to the other packet, undoing it with shaking fingers, but all it held were nine
grey seeds the size and shape of almonds. Isabella sniffed them, but all she
could smell was dry paper.

How very strange.

She took out Abhaya’s old formulary, her notebook filled
with drawings and markings about plants, but there was nothing that resembled
what she looked at now. Though she’d known that before she started.

She knew that book off by heart.

Isabella rolled up both the packets into one and put it in
her pocket. It would be best if she kept it with her for the time being. It
didn’t matter that she didn’t know what it was. All Al Hassan had asked was
that she deliver it. Nothing more. She had to find her father, either dead or
alive. She was too close now to give up. Then she’d deliver the packet. Al
Hassan himself would understand.

She checked her appearance in the mirror and
hurried downstairs.

Livia was sitting with Rose in the library. Her eyes
were red and swollen, but Livia waved at Isabella and beckoned her to come and
sit down with them.

“You were allowed out?” Isabella asked gently.

Livia nodded and hiccupped.

“Yes, I was crying so much I think Mama thought coming
down here would be the only thing that would stop me.”

Isabella looked at Rose, whose eyes narrowed in a way that
suggested Isabella not say anything. So Isabella didn’t and just took Livia’s
hand. But Livia’s eyes filled with the tears she’d been trying so hard to
suppress and they ran down her pale cheeks. Livia’s cheeks were sunken and her
hair was flat. Was Livia’s fear was eating her from the inside?

“What can I do to help, dearest? Please tell me.” Rose’s
voice was gentler than Isabella had ever heard it. But Livia had no voice with
which to answer.

Isabella looked around. It was the quiet time between
dinner and the evening’s entertainment and they had the room to themselves.

“Nothing is worth this, surely? Shall I try and speak to
your mother, or could I ask Mrs Rodriguez to help? I can’t believe your mother
really wants you to marry an old man.”

Rose’s face was set in hard lines, her little green eyes
grim, her lips thin.

“She does. She’s only allowed me to go with Livia because
I begged. Otherwise she’d have been sent on to Pune all alone.”

“Is that where the duke lives?” Rose nodded. “Where are
your family, Rose? Are they in India already?”

Rose shook her head. “They paid for my passage. Told me to
find a husband or come home after Livia’s wedding.”

Isabella didn’t know what to say. What was the matter with
these families, that the happiness of their daughters was so unimportant?

As if in reply to her question, Rose said: “I have four
older brothers. They’d hoped to make it five. I was a huge disappointment – not
even pretty.” Her face twisted in what was almost a smile. “What happens to me
is of little matter to my parents. Just so long as I don’t disgrace them.”

“I’d rather be in your shoes,” gulped out Livia.

Rose patted her hand.

“I know.”

“Isabella?”

Mrs Rodriguez was wearing a brown satin dress with black
beading at the neck; she had a black velvet choker on, above which her face
looked worried. The girls all stood up.

“I think you’d better come with me.”

Her face was so serious Isabella didn’t speak and just
followed her out of the library the rustle of petticoats telling her the girls
were behind her.

At the door of her first-class cabin stood three members
of the ship’s crew, including the captain.

“Ah good, you found her,” the captain addressed Mrs
Rodriguez.

“What has happened?” said Isabella, finally finding her
tongue.

The captain threw open the door to her cabin. Everything
inside had been turned upside down. Lanterns were broken, wardrobe doors
hanging from their hinges and her clothes strewn all around. Her father’s bag
had been upended and its contents spread across the bed. Her mother’s picture
stared up at her from the floor and Abhaya’s herbs, like a cascade of dead
leaves on an autumn day, lay all over the floor, hopelessly muddled. It would
take Isabella hours to sort through them.

“Who could have done this?” Behind her, Livia’s voice was
shocked. There was the sound of laughter from the corridor outside the cabin
and Midge’s voice could be heard.