Soul of Fire (22 page)

“Why must we go to the monkey temple?” Lalita
asked.

Hanuman only smiled at her, flashing his bright, sharp teeth, in what would be a threat had he still been in monkey form. Lalita and Hanuman had landed outside Benares proper. They had remained in human form the whole day. Having hidden the flying rug and locked it with spells that would only allow the two of them to take it, they were now walking into Benares proper. The roads were thronged with pilgrims in various modes of transportation, from human-drawn chairs to bullock carts, to poor wretches on foot carrying their meager possessions tied in bundles on their backs.

“I do not think it would be a good place for us,” Lalita said, squirming. “They must sense the jewel and its power.” She spoke in an undertone, rapidly. “And if they do they’ll come after us. They know we’re monkey shifters, and if they follow our trail here, they will look in the monkey temple.”

“Ah, yes, Princess, they will.” He gave her a long, lazy smile. “But then, it is where we must go, to get information on other shifters in the area and where they might have gone. And it is in here we must go to find those of our kind who are in touch with the tiger-weres, or who might have heard rumors of their passing through. That is our only chance to find out if the tigers have come through here, and what they plan to do with the jewel.” He nodded, then as an afterthought added, “And with your friend, too.”

“But if we find the tigers, they will find us, too. They will track us by witch-sniffing or following the jewel.”

He shook his head. “Remember, I’ve taken care to use a spell to veil the jewel, and our magic as well. It won’t last more than a day or two. Such spells never do. But it should be enough to see us safely on our way and out of this very crowded city.” He frowned as they walked past a poor man on foot who carried what appeared to be his only possession—a spectacularly polished brass bowl. Or perhaps it was an offering of some kind for one of the temples, Lalita thought, but stared at it as she heard Hanuman add, “The thing that I find strange is that the dragons haven’t used this spell to hide their trail.”

“It’s not so strange,” Lalita said. “I didn’t know such a spell even existed.”

“Ah, but, Princess,” Hanuman’s voice assumed a patronizing tone, “you were not trained for the sort of work that I was . . . and that any emissary from the dragon king perforce must be. More, since their rightful throne is occupied by an usurper and the true heirs have lived in secrecy and hiding.” He shook his head, then said, in a distant, considering tone, “No, Princess. I do not like the way it smells.”

“What do you mean, the way it smells?” she asked, in as low a voice as she could and still be understood as they passed a fakir, who held a hand high up above his head. From the withered and contorted condition of that limb, he’d been holding it in that position for a long time. It was the demanding discipline of these sages to mortify the flesh, often by holding themselves in positions or on surfaces that caused parts of their bodies to wither and die. Lalita knew this was a holy practice, but all the same, she looked away from the contorted man—before whom passersby were laying coins—and drew her head scarf a little closer as she said, “What do you fear?”

“Why, a trap, of course,” he said. “Which makes it all the more imperative that we go to Durga’s temple.”

Lalita sighed, resigning herself, as they walked into the city streets proper. She didn’t think she’d ever seen so many people together—or at least not so many people from so many different regions, who spoke so many different dialects. The babble of accents and the clash of many different appearances and of clothing as varied as silk and rags pressed close on every side and she felt as though she’d entered a madhouse.

Not even my uncle’s court when we all celebrate some great festival and change shapes back and forth is this mad.
And even as she thought it she wondered if it were true. She could barely remember the ceremonies in the monkey palace before she’d gone to London. She’d been in London too long, she decided. People didn’t press you close in London. At least they didn’t if you were the maid or companion of a well-dressed and well-educated young girl. She felt as though she were seeing India through the prism of her London years, and almost wept. It was as though she had lost something essential that should always have been part of her.

Hanuman, she noticed, cut through the crowds seemingly without noticing, and not giving the slightest impression of being bothered by being pressed close, or even by having beggars rudely tap a bowl against his arm, demanding alms. He looked back at her with a quizzical smile, and she wondered if she should tell him that she was bothered by all this. No, she decided. It would be foolishness. Admitting it would only make him smile ironically at her and possibly treat her either as a child or a pampered noblewoman. Instead, she hastened to catch up with him as he walked past many temples filled with pilgrims.

None was more magnificent or more crowded than the Golden Temple, right in the heart of Benares, with its gold-plated spires. It was a beautiful building, climbing above the crowds and seeming to transcend them. It was dedicated to Shiva, in his role as lord of the universe. A priest at the entrance made sure that only Hindus of the upper castes could enter and adjured them not to offend the monkeys in any way. Through the doorway, one could see that there were all kinds of people inside, wearing all sorts of clothing—from the coarse homespuns of the Hymalayan foothills to the white costumes of the Bengalis. Rich elbowed together with the poor.

Within it was a pool where anyone who drank from it would be transported to paradise. At least Lalita remembered her uncle telling her so, when she was very young. She wondered if that was true, and what paradise would mean for such as them.

They traced the sinuous street until suddenly a temple with elaborate columns and filled with monkeys playing on its broad stairs came into view. Lalita had only heard of the temple of Durga, goddess of slaughter. She had never seen it.

From Hanuman’s sure-footed approach, she assumed that he’d been here before. She wondered once more about this strange companion foisted on her by her uncle, and how far he’d traveled and from whence he’d come to guide her on her quest. And why.

The temple was as full of people as any other in the city, and Lalita and Hanuman waited patiently while the woman just in front of them purchased popcorn from a vendor. Then Hanuman bought some. Lalita had no idea why he was buying popcorn. After all, at their last stop they’d eaten fresh fish hastily roasted over a campfire. But Hanuman seemed intent on acquiring popcorn, and Lalita waited while he hailed the merchant and the proper bargain was struck.

Carrying a clay plate of popcorn, they walked into the temple, and Lalita couldn’t help saying, “Hungry, Hanuman?”

Hanuman shook his head. “No. This is for you to feed the monkeys of the temple.” As he spoke, he handed the plate to her.

“Me? But why?”

“You will see,” he said, as they reached the edges of what appeared to be a crowd of unruly monkeys chattering and screaming in the courtyard. “Here, come a little deeper.”

Monkeys clawed at her legs and pulled at her robes as Lalita walked farther into the furry mass. She was sure that a few of these were shifter monkeys. Her uncle had told her that often those who were tired of the court and civilized society would retreat to the temple of Durga to be monkeys among monkeys and thus undisturbed in their own nature. She didn’t know whether the thought that the owners of the tiny paws scrabbling at her clothes might be as sentient and informed as she was comforted or appalled her. It seemed to do both—all of it mingled with a sense that these creatures were probably teeming with lice, which were crawling onto her flesh and hair even as she stood there.

Which wouldn’t be exactly surprising, as monkeys were climbing on her head, and pulling at her headdress, and generally trying to reach the popcorn she was holding. Covering it with her hand, because she wasn’t sure that Hanuman meant to give it to the monkeys, she remembered the words of the priest at the entrance, who had abjured them not to strike, scare or insult any of the monkeys, and she turned in bewilderment to Hanuman, wondering why they were subjecting themselves to this.

Only, Hanuman wasn’t there. Where he’d been there was only a pile of clothes on the floor. Reflexively, seeing a monkey reach for the clothes, she put her foot upon them, as her companion’s plan became clear.

He’d wanted them to advance far enough that they were covered in monkeys—more or less literally. A place where he could shift shape into a monkey and not be noticed. She wondered how long he expected her to stand here. She didn’t doubt that he expected her to keep holding the popcorn inviolate—because if she distributed her largesse, then the monkeys would lose interest in her and the returning Hanuman would not have cover for his nude human state before he got into his clothes.

Wedging her foot more firmly atop his clothing even as she felt grasping hands trying to pry them away, she thought that it would serve him right if she just let all the popcorn go, and let the monkeys take his clothes, too. The arrogant fool could have told her what he intended to do.

But as she was thinking this, she realized that a monkey came swinging through the air, seemingly running on the heads of the other monkeys. He hit the plate bodily, with a sort of flip, and the popcorn was flung upward, to rain down on him and his fellow monkeys, causing a brief flurry of activity.

Lalita gave a scream of frustration. Now she must go outside the temple again, she thought, and there buy yet another plate of popcorn. She turned and bent to grab Hanuman’s clothes to carry with her, and realized that they were being gently but perseveringly tugged from under her foot by Hanuman himself—a human and naked Hanuman, smiling at her confusion.

He dressed more quickly than she could even imagine dressing and grabbed her arm, pulling her from the crowd of monkeys. On the steps to the temple, Lalita stopped to adjust her headdress, which had been pulled about and twisted during the brief battle for the popcorn, but Hanuman only tugged at her wrist. “Come, Princess,” he said. “We have no time to lose.”

She still simmered with surly resentment at his trick, leaving her to fight off the unruly monkeys and to keep his clothes from being stolen—all without so much as the courtesy of informing her of what his plan might be. “You seem to have forgotten, Hanuman, which of us is of royal blood and which one was sent as her helper and protector.”

His features fell. She’d seen him happy and mobile and interested and horribly self-satisfied, but she’d never before seen his features fall like that, in utter dismay. He seemed to be struggling for words, then he said, “Yes. I’m sure it was very bad of me, but we have no time to lose.”

“Good. Then you may wish to undertake the expedition on your own,” she said. “I am not used to being a lackey who will act on unspoken orders. That is not my caste nor my station in life, and I—”

“Princess,” he snapped, making the word sound like a whip cracked midair. “I will apologize most humbly and for as long as you wish me to at our earliest convenience, but now we truly must go, and fast. Come.”

“Not until you tell me where we are going. That was a vile trick in there, and—”

“Yes, I’m the worst of villains, the last of the lackeys, and I’ll put myself to death in a manner pleasing to His Majesty’s niece as soon as my mission permits, but now, Princess, please, I beg of you, we must
go
!”

“Not until you tell me why,” she said, crossing her arms, pleasantly aware of the fact that there were several people staring in their direction. Let them see Hanuman discomfited. He deserved it for treating her so badly.

But Hanuman only shook his head. “I can’t tell you. Not right now.”

“Well, then neither shall I go with you.”

He exhaled with a sound like an explosion, then stole close to her, till his mouth was almost at her ear, and she expected him at any second to turn into a monkey, scrabbling at her head, scratching with tiny, clawed paws. “Princess, your friend does not know me! And we must go because I heard in there that the dragons are here, in town, and that the tigers are hot on their track.”

Lalita stopped resisting him. She allowed him to pull her down the steps and into the town proper. “We must find them,” he said, as soon as they were far enough away from the people of the town. “Those monkeys in there—quite a few of them are of our own kind,” he explained. “And they said that the tigers were by, sniffing around and asking for us. But the monkeys found your friend and her escort of dragons easily enough. Or at least the dragons. We’ll have to assume your friend is with them. They said that the dragons came through with their smell wholly unmasked, so it was easy enough for the tigers to track. But they’re not sure where we are or what we’re doing. I think they half suspect we took the ruby back to your uncle, the king. As maybe we should have done.”

But Lalita was not in the mood to listen to his expounding on how, by duty, they should have taken the ruby back to her uncle. In fact, she was not really in the mood to listen to him expound on anything. For some reason, the fact that his stratagem in the temple had succeeded and that he’d been quite right when saying that they should go as soon as possible only served to make him more annoying.

“Use witch-sniffing,” she told him, “to locate the dragons. We’ll snatch Sofie to safety as quickly as we may, and then—”