My Sweet Folly

by Laura Kinsale

  “Can she sit?” he demanded of their warden.

  Wordlessly, the man flipped down a seat that hung on leather straps from the bulkhead. Robert eased Folie into it. She clung to his arms, half-awake.

  He stayed next to her, supporting her against him. The jailer stood beside the desk while they waited for the superintendent to appear. He made no pretense of hiding his interest in the open book that lay on the desk.

  “Raikes, William and Fanny,” he said, casting Robert an evil look. “Forgery! Fourteen years transportation. Good riddance, eh?”

  Robert watched the man’s face contort in vile mirth. Long ago, he had watched Srí Ramanu face a man like this, an Englishman determined on power and mischief.

  Robert’s entire spirit rose in resistance against the jailer. His jaw throbbed where he had been kicked. He saw the same fury locked into Sir Howard’s red face; the intent to meet power with opposition.

  But it was wrong.

  His blood pulsed with the urge to fight. And like a bright, cool light, he saw that it was an impossible combat; he was nothing but another faceless enemy to be crushed under the twisted, tormented souls of the men who governed this place. He could not win.

  Robert had learned things from Srí Ramanu. He had not used them. He had not even remembered how. It was as if they had all been locked up inside him. Waiting.

  Folie was trembling, unable to contain the shivers that racked her. She could see nothing but shadows, as if everything were enveloped in a foggy dusk. But she could hear Robert’s voice: she clung to it like a child clinging to any hope of safety. She was sitting up now, leaning heavily against his side, fighting the waves of darkness and nausea that tried to drown her.

  There was a heavy wooden thumping, and then a door closing. A chair scraped. Folie smelled tobacco and perspiration. No one spoke for a moment. She heard papers shuffled.

  “You are the superintendent here, sir?”

  Somehow hearing Sir Howard’s brisk voice, amid the phantoms and dizzy pain, shocked and confused her more deeply than anything yet. Folie held herself up a little straighter.

  ‘‘Speak when you are spoken to,” a man’s voice growled.

  “There has been a grave mistake,” Sir Howard said vehemently. “We have been conveyed here under false and illegal pretenses!”

  “Oh?” There was a trace of surly amusement in the reply, “I suppose you say you are not Nicholas Hurst?”

  “Certainly I am not! I am Sir Howard Dingley. This is iniquitous. We have been kidnapped!”

  “Ohhh! Kidnapped!” The superintendent chuckled.

  “I demand immediate release from this place!” Sir Howard said furiously. Folie heard chains crash.

  “Now wouldn’t that be a fine thing! I’ll just release any fellow who claims he don’t belong here!”

  “I warn you! I warn you, sir—there will be hell to pay when the Home Secretary hears of this.”

  “Rubbish,” the superintendent barked, all the humor gone from his voice. “Hold your insolence, my fine rascal, or you’ll find yourself bound up for a flogging.”

  “Insolence! Damn your eyes for insolence! Listen to me, you commoner, if you can’t tell a gentleman by his bearing then go ask your betters who I am!”

  Folie heard another scraping thump. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

  “Thirty strokes with the cat in the afternoon exercise,” the superintendent snapped. “Take him to solitary to think about it.”

  “The devil you will flog me! I’ll not suffer it! Take your hands off—By God, you’ll pay—”

  The sounds of a struggle and the crack that silenced him made Folie press back against the wall in terror. The door slammed shut.

  “I expect you are the Prince and Princess of Wales,” the superintendent snarled.

  “No, sir. I doubt you are in any mood for more nonsense this morning,” Robert replied, in a voice as gentle as he had used with Folie. “You do not feel well.”

  The man gave a surprised grunt. “You are an attentive fellow.”

  “Your aura is disturbed while your liver troubles you,” Robert said. “You took too much of the Madeira last night, as your sister said.”

  “Now what is this chicanery? How the devil do you know what my sister said?”

  “It’s a gift I have,” Robert said mildly.

  “Oh, aye! Irish, are you?”

  Robert chuckled, though Folie could not imagine he could summon any amusement at the situation. “No, sir. I learned of it in India, from a holy man.”

  “My ‘aura,’ eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Paper rustled. Folie blinked, seeing more light and color, but the images were blurred and doubled.

  “William Raikes, Fanny Raikes. Forgery. Maybe you learned that from your holy rogue?’’

  “No, sir.” Robert’s voice was sober, faintly reproachful. But he said no more than that, did not deny that they were criminals.

  The superintendent made a coughing growl. “I’ll put you on the upper deck. Together—since the woman is injured. She’ll have a cot there, and some privacy.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Folie had never heard so much tame humility in Robert Cambourne’s voice.

  “I’ll send the surgeon to her,” the superintendent said.

  “You need not, sir,” Robert said. “I rely on my own ways of healing.”

  “Well.” The man raised his voice, loud and sharp enough to make Folie wince. “Jones! Get in here! Take ‘em to the second cabin.”

  “Sir?” Clearly the jailer was shocked.

  “You heard me.”

  With Robert’s help, she stood, precariously balanced, with no equilibrium of her own in the spinning universe. Double figures moved dizzily about her, rattling metal. Step by step, she shuffled in the direction she was led. From behind her, she heard the superintendent call, “Jones! Did you tell him I live with my sister?”

  “No, sir,” Jones said, in a puzzled tone. “I didn’t know it to tell him, sir.”

  “How do you feel?” Robert asked, examining the porthole and the door, running his fingers over them, finding nothing loose.

  She was sitting very still on the cot in the tiny cabin. Robert wanted to ask her why she had sent a note to Dingley to meet her at Vauxhall, but he did not.

  “I can see,” she said. “But everything is blurred.”

  “I have hope that that will improve,” he said. “I think it will.”

  “What happened to me?” she asked tremulously. “Why are we here?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  Whatever her reason for writing to Dingley, Robert could reckon no way the note had come to him but by a deliberate misrouting. Perhaps it had been stolen—or perhaps, Robert speculated, Dingley was not the harmless neighbor he had supposed.

  But the man was here, caught in the same net with Robert and Folie.

  “Robert,” she said, “how did you know that man had a sister?’’ She was looking at him, a vague gaze, squinting a little.

  In spite of everything, he was unable to suppress a smile at her mole-like expression. “Now and then things come to me.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Not very often. And never when they are of any use,” he said. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “You learned that from Mr. Srí Ramanu?”

  “He was the one who noticed it, before I ever did myself.” Robert sat down next to her on the cot. “He claims we can all do that sort of thing, but it takes years of reflection and study to produce it at will. And there are all sorts of false guuruus who appear to have siddhis powers— but it’s trickery.” He lifted up her hand, turned it over, and laid a key in her palm.

  She looked down, feeling the shape. “What is this?’’ she exclaimed.

  “The key to Dingley’s cell,” he said softly.

  “Robert!”

  “Hush.” He took it from her hand. “Another hidden talent S
rí Ramanu discovered in me,” he said wryly. “I am a natural pickpocket. I can also make things materialize, and work a good number of other artifices common among the jaduwallahs who conjure on the streets. He taught me the false ways, so that I might not mistake them for true siddhis.”

  Her lips pursed. He thought for a moment that it was disapproval. Then she whispered, “Good heavens, then why didn’t you get the key to our cell?”

  “Too dangerous. They’ll notice this is missing directly. I have a safer way in mind for us, I hope.” He drew a breath. “I hope. We’ll keep this, at any rate. Perhaps it will save Dingley his thirty lashes while they wonder what became of it.” Robert scowled. “Though I’m not sure he doesn’t deserve a flogging.”

  “Why did you never tell me you could do these things?” she asked in wonder.

  “Ah, yes. Announce at the dinner table that I could make a good living as a cutpurse if I liked?” Robert gave her sidelong look. “I didn’t suppose it would persuade you to like me any better.”

  “If you can find a way for us to escape this place, I shall like you exceedingly!”

  FIFTEEN

  It was late, long after dark, when the supervisor came to their cell. He came alone, and let himself in quietly.

  “Raikes,” he muttered, glancing over his shielded candle to where Folie was sleeping. He turned away from her, looming over Robert, his heavy belly protruding from beneath his coat.

  Robert stood up from the deck. He was not chained in this cell, only wore the light manacles on his wrists, but there was no place to sleep except the cot.

  “Yes, sir,” Robert said in a low voice.

  “Look at my aura now,” the supervisor whispered. “Can you see it?”

  “Put out the candle,” Robert said. “It glares in my eyes.”

  The man hesitated. “Nay.” He turned back toward the door. “This is foolishness.” He thrust the key into the lock.

  Robert let him go. In the faint light from the porthole, after his eyes had adjusted again, he could see Folie watching him.

  The supervisor came again before dawn, looking as if he had not slept at all, his curled wig askew. Folie felt much the same, although the dizziness and blurred vision had disappeared. She had leisure now to be utterly miserable, hungry and weak, her clothing foul. What jewelry she had been wearing was gone. She thought briefly of Melinda, of how she must be beside herself with terror, but the thought was so upsetting that Folie put it quickly out of her mind.

  The supervising officer of the hulk let himself into their cell with a furtive air that was hardly consistent with his position. “All right, Raikes!” he whispered, holding up a lamp. “I’ll close the lantern door for just long enough.”

  Robert did not rise from the floor. “You need not,” he said quietly. “Just hold it there.”

  “I don’t have much time for this,” the man said.

  “No,” Robert murmured, “you’ve more to do than a reasonable man could. And you are bone weary, I know that.”

  “Aye, that’s God’s truth.”

  In the shadowy light of the lantern, Robert smiled. “Last night, the night before—no sleep, bad dreams. Remember?”

  “I had no dreams. I never dream.”

  “You were dreaming, but you thought you were awake.” There was an intangible sweetness in Robert’s voice, a strange compassion. “Sometimes this place seems like a nightmare that you can’t escape.”

  The man stared at him. His face twitched, as if he was trying to remember something. “How do you know these things?”

  “I can see them,” Robert said simply.

  “But am I sick?” the superintendent asked apprehensively. “My liver—my aura—can you see that?”

  Robert looked at him for a long moment. “Your body is ill because your mind is betrayed. You are persecuted from above and below; your superiors and your inferiors.”

  “Yes!” the man said, and then, “Nonsense, nonsense. Gibble-gabble.” But he did not turn to leave.

  “I can’t tell you merely what you wish to hear. You know something is wrong. You hope I’ll say there is not.”

  The superintendent began to look frightened. “Something is wrong, then.”

  “Your physical body is failing. Because your mind is deceived. If you let this deception command you, I think you will certainly die here.”

  “What? What is this? How am I deceived?”

  “You must see it for yourself.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Go, then,” Robert said, with a sudden shift from tenderness to a sharper tone. He gave an impatient wave. “I can do nothing for you.”

  “No...no!” The superintendent said. “I will think. I will try. Help me.”

  Robert stood up, the chains clinking. “I want to help you,” he said, more kindly. “It’s disturbing to me to see you in this painful state.”

  “I’m in misery. I’m in misery.”

  “When did it begin? Can you remember?”

  The man shook his head. “No. It seems I’ve been in pain forever.”

  “That is an illusion. When this sort of pain comes, it seems to have no beginning and no end. The Hindus call it avidya—ignorance and mirage. But that is what you must overcome, that illusion, and begin to understand how you are deceived.” He gave the superintendent another long and searching gaze. “It began...I think it began not long ago. A week? A fortnight?”

  The officer chewed his lips. “I am not sure. I think...” He nodded. “A week, perhaps. It seems so much longer.”

  “I know,” Robert said softly. “I know. Someone came to you.”

  The superintendent blinked. He started to shake his head, and then paused.

  “Yes,” Robert said. “Someone came.”

  With a faint nod, the man leaned heavily back against the wall.

  Robert held out his hand, palm downward, his fingers outstretched. He closed his fist and turned it upright. “Here is what he brought.”

  A golden guinea lay in his hand. Both Folie and the superintendent drew breath in sharply.

  “This is what will kill you,” Robert said. “This is how you are deceived.”

  “What do you mean?” the man exclaimed, staring at the coin. Even Folie could not conceive of how Robert had produced it.

  “You know what I mean,” Robert said. “You, better than any. The money will murder you.”

  “Nonsense!” the superintendent cried. “This is trickery.”

  “Here, then.” Robert held out the coin. “Take it.”

  The man thrust out his hand. He grabbed the guinea, as if in defiance. Robert looked down at the man’s closed hand with a smile that seemed demonic.

  “Hold it tight,” he said pleasantly. “Hold it as long as you can!”

  The superintendent shook his head. He stared at his fist. Then he began to breathe faster.

  “Hold it hard,” Robert said. “Don’t let go.”

  The man whimpered. His hand trembled. While Folie watched, he hissed air through his teeth.

  “It is your money. Don’t let it get away,” Robert said.

  The superintendent gave a choked cry and flung the coin from him. It hit the floor, flashing gold in the lantern light. He examined his palm, holding it up to his face, blowing on it as if he had burned his skin.

  “Now do you understand?” Robert asked.

  “I’m dying,” he whispered in a horrified voice. “I’m dying—because I took their money to imprison you.”

  “I want to help you,” Robert said softly. “Let me help you save yourself.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Tell me the names of the ones who did this to you.”

  The superintendent swallowed. “I don’t know their names! I swear I do not!”

  “Who brought you the money? Who did this to you?”

  “He gave no name. I never ask.”

  “Of course you do not. But they mean to snare you. This time it’s an entrapment. The
men above you—they have never understood you or esteemed you. They mean to catch you out in corruption, with your hands red, and the gallows for you.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “By God!” he whispered. “By God!”

  Robert said no more. Folie waited, hardly daring to breathe. The river lapped gently against the hull, the only sound in the depth of the night.

  “I want you gone from here!” the superintendent exclaimed in a low voice. “Tonight.”

  Robert shook his head. “I don’t know how it’s to be done.”

  “Ha. I’ll do it. Good God, those blackguarding bastards! Catch me out, will they? As if they ain’t the prettiest bribe-mongers on earth themselves!”

  “It is always so, is it not?” Robert said.

  “By God, I swear that it is. You wait quietly now. Be ready—I’ll return directly.”

  Robert rested back against the door of the cell, his head turned to hear through the barred window. He said nothing to Folie. But she could not seem to look away from him. In the first faint light, his unshaven face was menacing, his eyes half-shut in a still concentration, as if he listened to the heartbeat of the ship itself.

  She might have been seeing him for the first time. Through the light-headed ache in her head, he seemed extraordinary.

  “I think you are a bit more than a natural pickpocket!” she whispered.

  He shook his head slightly, without opening his eyes. Folie understood that she was not to disturb him. She eased her head back, allowing herself to sink into the bewildered weakness that spun in her brain. Robert was there, awake. She felt a mysterious faith in him, a trust that seemed perfectly familiar, as if it had been in her all along, hidden beneath the confusion and doubt.

  He had confounded himself. Though he had seen Srí Ramanu lead many a skeptic on a merry dance, Robert had never supposed that he could do the same. But he had found easy game in the superintendent, he thought. Some people were primed and ready to believe, even though they would deny it vigorously to themselves and others. Robert had made a fortunate hit in his first attempt.