Fever Quest: A Clean Historical Mystery set in England and India (The Isabella Rockwell Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

The punka-wallah lifted one wrinkled eyelid as she passed,
the squeak of the wooden banister alerting him to her movements. His bedroll
looked unused.

“Can I see it, before you go?”

“See what?”

“Don’t take me for a fool.”

His face was stern, his eyes flinty. Isabella’s mouth
drooped. She took out the little package and handed it to him. He opened it
slowly. Far away a jackal barked and one of the guards mumbled in his sleep.
The man held the packet up to a guttering candle balanced on the banister of
the porch.

“Do you know what you have here?” he asked.

Isabella shook her head.

“No. Do you?”

He looked over his shoulder, back into the house, then
shook his head and handed her back the package.

“Quickly now, be on your way. Make sure you keep to the
road. Stay out of dark places.” His bony hand took her arm and held it
fiercely, then let her go.

Isabella ran all the way down the rutted path to the
stables and took an old grey mare rather than one of the smart carriage horses.
She didn’t want to stand out too much. Not that it really mattered. No one
would be coming after her; of that she was sure. The Deniers would be relieved
she’d gone. Mrs Rodriguez might miss her, and maybe the girls would, but only
for a day or two.

She tightened the girth and the mare gave her a sharp nip.

“Well, you should have breathed in,” she whispered,
leading her out onto the hard ground outside the stable.

The house lay some distance from the stables, crouched
like a black tiger against the night sky. A tiny breeze blew up and something
moved along a line of ghost gums. Isabella jumped onto the mare’s back and
kicked her hard, but instead of leaping forward at a gallop, she reared, almost
falling backwards. Isabella slid in an ungainly mess onto the ground. The mare
cantered off, her tail held high, followed by a torrent of Isabella’s swear words.
Isabella got up and rubbed her coccyx. Stupid horse. Look at her! Now she’d
changed her mind and was coming back, her grey outline just visible and her
hooves making plopping sounds on the sandy road.

“I think you lost something.” Livia’s voice was low as she
handed Isabella the reins.

“Er … thank you. What are you doing here?”

“Coming with you. If you’ll have me. Actually, even if you
won’t.”

Isabella was astonished. “How do you know where I’m
going?”

“I don’t, but I can’t stay with my parents any more. I
have to leave.”

She was wearing a sari and sandals, but the most shocking
thing was that her hair, the shining mass of gold, had gone. Now it was short,
only reaching her ears, and it was a glossy black under the grey sari she’d
pulled up over her head.

“So do I.” There was a soft voice and the smell of mint
and lemon as Rose walked soundlessly towards them.

“What have you done, Livia? Your beautiful hair!”
Isabella’s jaw was agape. She thought she might be dreaming. Was that really
Rose in front of her, too, dressed in a bed sheet, twisted to look like a sari,
the sash of her dressing gown making do as a belt?

“Are you both mad? Get back inside before someone sees
you!”

“No, we won’t. You can stamp your foot as much as you
like, but we’re going with you.”

“You can’t come with me. Your parents would have soldiers
on the road after you both in no time and I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

“You’re going to find Midge, aren’t you?” Rose looked at
her.

Isabella sighed. “Yes, I am.”

“How will you find him?”

“I know where he is.”

Isabella’s heart was leaden as she gazed at the two
expectant faces and she felt the familiar heavy weight of responsibility.

“Do you have any idea how much attention you will attract
travelling like that?” She gestured down at Rose’s clothes. “And what about
money? What are you going to live on? Air? It’s a hard life on the road. More
so than either of you can imagine.” Isabella’s voice was a hiss and in the
distance she could see the grey line of dawn.

“That’s why I changed my hair,” said Livia, for once
subdued. It was clear she had never thought for one moment that Isabella
wouldn’t want them to go with her.

Isabella turned on her.

“So you’d blend in with your blue eyes and English voice?
Rose I can understand, but you? All you have to do is wait for the rich duke to
fall down dead, and the world will be yours. Or are you playing a joke on me?
Something to laugh at over cocktails at the Pune country club.” All of
Isabella’s insecurities rushed to the surface.

A tear rolled down Livia’s cheek, but she held her head
high.

“Do you think I’d have done this to my hair for a joke?”

Isabella looked at her. “I don’t know.”

In the silence between them, a cock crowed.

Isabella flung the reins over her horse’s head and swung
herself into the saddle. Livia was now looking at the ground, but Rose looked
straight back at Isabella and something about her face, maybe the tilt of her
chin, the little strand of brown hair on her forehead, reminded Isabella of
Alix.

Of how miserable Alix had been, lost and alone in her
magnificent palace; the stories Alix had told her of not being allowed to feel
the wind in her hair; or how she had to listen to endless ladies’ chatter
inside when the sun was out and there was not a cloud in the sky; of falling
asleep into her dinner and being beaten for it. None of it any different to the
upbringing of the girls in front of Isabella now.

She wiped the sweat off her nose with the back of her
hand.

“Don’t take a nice horse. It will just attract attention.”

The girls remained still for a moment, but then Livia’s
head snapped up and she ran to the stable, stumbling in the unfamiliar sandals.
Rose looked at Isabella, and then turned and followed Livia.

Isabella kicked her mare onwards. Let them keep up if they
could.

High above them two eagles circled, black specks
against a blue so bright it hurt to look at it. They called to each other,
their empty cries mirrored how Isabella felt inside. Livia looked at Isabella
with exhaustion. Her hair was heavy with the red dust of the road and lay
matted against her forehead. Her lips were chapped with sores from sunburn and
bites covered her arms and legs, which she scratched at constantly. “I’m not
putting those on.”

They were sitting in the shade of a giant betel tree and
in her arms Isabella held out a selection of men’s clothes she’d brought in the
first village they’d come to. None of them very clean.

“You’ll be safer travelling as a man. We all will be.”

Rose, after a moment, nodded and took a cream tunic and
dhoti and a pair of brown sandals. Isabella tossed the rest to Livia, who
glared at her.

“I know you’re making this difficult for us on purpose.
Why can’t you just let me be?”

Isabella felt sorry for her and smiled, remembering how
hard the climate was for new soldiers, fresh off the boat.

“Livia, even in an old bit of sacking you look like a
princess and will draw attention to us. The trick to travelling safely is to
blend in.”

“Well, I’m never going to blend in like you do.” She gave
a wry smile. “If I hadn’t known you before, I would never have taken you for
English. It’s very well done, really.”

Isabella smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I don’t mind dressing as a boy. In fact, I can’t wait,”
said Rose, already undoing her sash.

Livia shot her a scathing look. “Why?”

Rose’s face was incredulous.

“Imagine the freedom! You can run, jump, sit anyway you
like. Wipe your mouth on your sleeve and never, ever have to worry about what
you look like. I might never take mine off.”

“Here.” Isabella took out some soap she’d brought with
her, and the smell of sandalwood reached her nose. “Let’s wash the clothes
first in the river. They won’t take long to dry. We can bathe, too.”

“In the river?” Livia looked as if this might be the end
of her.

Isabella took her arm.

“Come on, you’re exhausted. Have a bathe and then some
food. You’ll feel better.”

It was late morning and they had been on the road east of
the first village for several hours. The air was so hot, everything around them
was hazy. The sun was too high for them to keep moving. Isabella’s skin was
used to it, but the skin of the other two was taking a beating.

The river ran through a rocky outcrop well set back from
the road and Isabella knew she’d have to start proceedings, so she stripped to
her underwear and leapt into the brown, slow-moving current, one eye open for
crocodiles. Rose wasted no time in joining her, and finally Livia peeled off
her sweat-soaked sari and a little groan of pleasure escaped her lips as she
lowered herself into the water.

“Mmm, that really does feel good, doesn’t it?” she said
after a moment.

Isabella held her breath and dived under the water,
enjoying the peace. She’d always loved the river, preferring it by far to the
baths Abhaya used to insist she have.

She came up out of the water, her hair plastered to her
scalp, enjoying the cool smoothness running over her face, then she soaped her
hair and the clothes, and laid the clothes out on a rock to dry. An hour later
the girls were clean and dressed in the damp but clean clothes. Isabella handed
out more of the rice and fruit she’d brought with her from the governor’s
house.

“You both look better,” she said.

“So do you,” said Livia with a smile. “Certainly cleaner.”

Isabella looked at Rose, but Rose didn’t smile and her
eyes contained the same urgent light they’d had at the beginning of the ride.
By contrast, life on the road suited Livia. After only two days the sun and
wind had softened the angles of her face. Her shoulders were relaxed and not
hunched around her ears, and she’d eaten most of the food Isabella had given
her. Seeing this, Isabella’s familiar creeping sense of guilt came back,
nestling in her stomach like a clutch of baby vipers. She’d never thought for a
moment the girls would make it this far.

What was she going to do with them?

“I know we’ve been avoiding the subject, but what will you
do if your parents catch up with us?”

Livia smiled. She rolled up her old sari and shoved it
under her head and looked away.

“How much further do you think we have to ride? I’m so
saddle-sore.”

Isabella squinted at the horizon. “A day maybe? No more.”
She looked at Livia, who shifted her gaze back to Isabella. “You still haven’t
answered my question.”

“That’s because I don’t know the answer,” Livia replied,
looking down and moving the tip of her finger back and forth in the dirt. “I
had a tutor when I was younger. He was from the east – I’m not sure where
exactly, maybe Arabia rather than India. Anyway, I was only just fourteen and
he was twenty. I thought he was wonderful and I think he liked me too.” The hot
air hung still, as if waiting for Livia’s next sentence. Her voice was soft.
“Often he would talk to me of his home and of the stories and history of his
country. He opened my eyes to a world so very different to the one I was
expected to live in.”

Isabella could feel Rose nodding next to her. Livia’s face
was tight.

“I am cleverer than all four of my brothers put together,
and yet my only job in life is to marry and bear children.” She bit her lip.

“That’s all any of us can expect,” said Rose.

“Well, I decided it wasn’t enough.”

“But you could have had your pick of suitors.”

Livia turned on Rose.

“What kind of life would it be if the only thing you had
to decide was which necklace or which dress you wanted to wear that evening?”

“There are many women who dream of that kind of life,”
said Rose.

“Well, I’m not one of them. It may be right for Eloise,
but not for me.” She paused. “When my parents talked of making the trip to India to marry the duke, I knew it was just a matter of biding my time before I could make
my escape. You” – she nudged Isabella’s knee – “were heaven sent.”

Isabella smiled. “What about your family? Won’t you miss
them?”

Livia shook her dark head and gave a wry laugh. “Would
you?”

Isabella thought of the overbearing Lady Denier and her
husband, a man as insubstantial as his reflection would be in a pool of water.
She shook her head.

“It sounds as if you’ve been thinking about this for a
long time.”

Livia’s face was bleak. “It seems like for ever.”

There was silence, then the chattering of a squirrel.
Isabella passed Livia some water and as Livia drank it, colour came back to her
face.

“I wish there was a place for all the runaways of the
world to hide.”

Rose smiled. “So do I.”

“Well, let’s just keep going,” said Isabella. “India is actually a very good place to disappear, if you’re really serious about it.”

Livia’s eyes were so dark they looked black.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my
life.”

No more was spoken about the future and Isabella was
grateful. Once or twice she caught Rose looking at her, but Rose’s face had
been in the shadows of the fire and Isabella hadn’t been able to make out her
expression. She wished she could read her as well as she could read Livia.
There seemed to be a deep echo of emptiness in Rose, which Isabella was at a
loss to explain; Rose made her think of the lioness near the camp who’d been
driven away from her pride.

“Why have they sent her away, Mama-ji?” she’d asked
Abhaya. She must have been eight or nine, and had been heartbroken to watch the
lioness call out for the others, all the time trying to rejoin the group.

“Perhaps she is sick or old. Or maybe she is just not
behaving as she should. The pride must come first.”

That’s what Rose reminded her of, the lioness who
didn’t know how to behave, yet was always looking for a way in.

A day later, at dusk, they threaded their way through
an outcrop of red stone at the top of a hill. Isabella gasped as the city of Golconda spread itself out beneath them like an ants’ nest of orange clay open to the sky.
Around the whole city was a high wall of crimson stone along which torches had
been lit at intervals. Temple roofs glittered gold in the last rays of sunlight
and the marble palace at the top of a hill, glowed pink.

“I’m not sure how warm a welcome we’re going to get,”
Isabella muttered. For although the overall impression was of might and
majesty, it was also of menace. Most of the city’s alleyways lay in shadow as
the sun set over its western side, and the only gate, ornate and spiked, didn’t
have the usual collection of pedlars and stallholders next to it. In fact, the
road was quiet; too quiet, in Isabella’s opinion, for an important city. She’d
seen more people watching turtle races on race-day at Rawalpindi than she could
see on the parched road in front of her.

“Where are the mines, then?” asked Rose, squinting into
the distance.

Isabella shook her head. “I don’t know. But I know there
is a British cantonment here somewhere.”

“What’s that?” asked Livia, warily.

“British soldiers stationed here.”

“So Stone is in charge of them?” Isabella nodded, urging
her horse onward down the hill. “Why are the British here, isn’t there is a
maharajah living in that palace already?”

Isabella shrugged. “Make sure they get the diamonds
they’re after? Or at least a cut of the money the Maharajah is making from his
trading. I remember my father telling me of people who’d lost and won fortunes
on the mines at Golconda. I even saw some Golconda diamonds once. Prince
Ernest’s wife had some.”

She didn’t add that for a moment she’d considered stealing
the diamonds instead of the painting Midge had nearly hanged for, so great was
her fascination with their sparkling beauty. How she’d found it difficult to
tear her eyes away from them. Even at a ball at the Palace of St James, where every woman was laden with some jewel or other, the Golconda diamonds had stood
out. Their cut and shape and their heavy blue brilliance had made Isabella
dizzy.

“I quite fancy a few Golconda diamonds myself,” said Livia
with a smile, reining her horse back and rubbing sweat from her nose, leaving a
big red smudge.

“Are they just lying around on the ground?” asked Rose,
her face lighting up at the thought of easy riches.

Isabella laughed. “I don’t think so. I think these
diamonds probably come at a price. Though I do agree it would be quite an
adventure to try and find some.”

“And the solution to quite a few of our problems,” mused
Livia.

“How do you mean?” asked Rose.

“Well, a couple of nice-size diamonds would set us up for
life, wouldn’t they, Isabella?” Isabella nodded. Livia’s eyes were dreamy, but
her mouth was set in a hard line. “They would buy us a comfortable little house
and some land with a few servants. Then we could do what we wanted. We’d be
dependent on no one.” Her voice petered out in the light wind blowing from the
east; the horses pricked up their ears at the scent of water.

“You don’t want to go back to England,” said Rose as a
statement rather than a question. “Even in disguise.”

Livia looked at her, her face unreadable. “Do you?”

Rose shook her head. “Not if you don’t.”

“Good.” Livia smiled her sudden smile. “We’re in
agreement.”

“I didn’t know we hadn’t been,” said Rose.

“No, but it’s good to know where one stands.”

“Now you’re sounding like your mother.”

Livia leaned forward and bashed Rose on the shoulder,
whilst Isabella urged her horse downwards, slipping on the scree of the
hillside.

An hour later they came to the main gate of the city, the
great Bala Hissar, a pointed stone arch over the road. It was dark now and
torches flared along the wall, and threw the bottom of into deep shadow.
Flaming braziers stood either side of the gate and ten soldiers of the
Maharajah’s guard leant casually, chatting quietly. Isabella wasn’t deceived by
their apparent nonchalance. She could see the size of their scimitars.

Isabella dismounted.

“It’s a late hour for visitors,” said a huge guard with a
scar on his face.

Isabella swallowed and salaamed as politely as she could.

“Are we too late to enter or should we come back tomorrow
morning, sir?”

“It depends what your business is,” the guard rumbled
back.

“I have a package for Colonel Stone. My name is Isabella
Rockwell.”

“Why the ferenghi name?”

Isabella smiled. “My parents were from Belait.”

The guard looked at her, but before he could speak another
man detached himself from a group on the other side of the gate and came
closer. He was taller and thinner than the others and his clothes were well cut
and of unusually colourful cloth. He had a fine pencil moustache and on his
turban lay a large tear-shaped pearl. Isabella felt the girls’ eyes drawn to it
as much as her own were.