by Prue Batten
‘Quickly. I must rush.’
‘Ah Lady, do not be so hasty, it is a dangerous thing. I shall read your palm.’ He turned over the hand that he held and with long fingernails, began to trace her lines. ‘Hmm. A powerful heart line and look, you shall have great joy. Ah but here and here…’ his face closed down, eyes shutting to mere slits, the mouth concealing the bloody betel stains.
‘Yes?’ She wished to be gone, the fellow was surely a charlatan and with every moment of delay, she chafed to be ahead of Finnian.
‘Thy life is short, though full of love,
Thy hand it fits so like a glove in his.
He is strong and thou must know,
For thee and thine, he must go
To where to follow, none can return.
The hardest lesson thou must learn.’ And then the fellow was gone as if he was never there and his enigmatic words shivered through her mind. Fate? A prophecy? She had no time to ponder and pushed the rhyme to where she could not think about it as she once again resumed her shadow walk along the alleys.
Lantern upon lantern lit Curiosa’s, dancing off mirrors and silver plate, spotless porcelain and gold candelabra. Whatever hope Lalita had of creeping in was lost as she glimpsed the luminescence. Curiosa stood at the door surveying passers-by. One hand jiggled the pocket of his coat as he searched for something and the other held a cigar. Finally he found what he wanted and he struck at the doorframe with the match to ignite it. But it fell from his hand and he bent, swaying, Aine swaying, and tried to pick it off the ground. He lurched back against the door-frame, turning the match round with great difficulty to its other end and this time succeeded in jumpstarting a flame, but then began the laborious business of lining the match up to the cigar. He’s drunker than a lord. A grin followed the thought and Lalita’s heart gave a little skip. Aine be thanked. He staggered back inside and her resolve began to soar.
Walking around the shop he cursed audibly as he banged into things, reaching to snuff all bar the oil-lamp on his desk. His shadow moved and there was a muffled thud as he knocked against a gilt chair in the meagre light from the flambeaus either side of the entrance. Finally he stepped out and reached up to extinguish the lights, pulling the door behind.
But as he went to lock it, a beggar accosted him asking for alms. Curiosa pushed at the unfortunate, sending him on his way. Disdain manifested in the exaggerated flick of his coat and then the antiquarian turned and walked haphazardly into the alley maze, leaving a gaping hole of daring behind.
I swear he didn’t lock the door. Lalita’s heart galloped and she headed across the street, walking with brazen confidence because to scuttle would smack of intent. Outside Curiosa’s she grunted and bent toward her slipper, taking it off to shake a pebble out and finding it necessary to lean against the lintel of the shop. As she shook her footwear with one hand she allowed the other to run down the frame, feeling for the latch of cold iron, whereupon she moved her finger and slipped it into the space behind. Thank you, Mother of the World, half a smile stretched for half a second as her eyes lifted heavenward.
She glanced around. The coffeeshop was closed, all activity humming from distant alleys. The backs of a pair of clerks were disappearing toward the bazaar where she could hear tabla and horn and shouts of enjoyment. An elderly man shuffled past and gave her a look as if she were in the way as she struggled with her slipper but then he was gone and she was alone. She heard approaching steps and with speed, pushed the door ajar to slip inside, grabbing the handle on the other side and turning it so it latched without a sound.
She stood perfectly still surveying the room, her nerves stretched so tight she wondered if they might snap. She needed to pinpoint where to go, do it and leave before her body knocked something in her anxiety and caused a tumult. The journey from the door to the lamplit desk and back again reminded her of a journey through a massive forest where every step could entrap, bringing wights down upon her by the mere snapping of a twig. Between she and the desk there was no straight path, only a meandering track edged with stands of chairs and chaises and tables piled high with ridges and peaks of fragile glassware and porcelain.
To her left the casement clock ticked soothingly and in the dim light she could detect the smile on the moon-face, taking it as an omen of good fortune. She was positive Curiosa would have put the carpetbag on or under the desk after she left if he hadn’t locked it in his private rooms. But that was a risk she must take and she began to creep forward, edging between candelabra and épergne until she reached her most immediate destination, the desk with the lamp, light pooling in a perfect gilt circle. She surveyed the marquetry top but there was only sheaf upon sheaf of ledgers and an ormulu bowl filled with quills and reed pens. She knelt down and felt underneath in a subfusc that smelled of dusty carpet and aged timber and the cloying aroma of a bin full of cigar ends. Her hands moved over the thick slub of the Raji rug and then she felt it – a lump.
Her hands ran up worn plush until she came to a leather handle and a catch and her breath stuck in her throat. A quick puff and she unlatched the bag, feeling around inside. There was tissue, an ocean of it concealed in the dark depths, and it crackled loudly within the cavernous quiet of the shop, more and more tissue but no paperweights. None. The noble lady’s address then, quickly. Move on.
She slipped her fingers over first one page and then another of Curiosa’s paperwork, dragging each to the light, checking, seeing nothing but numbers. And then she saw it, a dark leather book, slimly bound with a tooled cover saying Curiosa and she knew it was an address book. Her hand reached out but the booklet began to slide down the angled surface of the desk. She moved to grab it but too late.
It hit the floor with a muffled thud.
Not so loud then, and she let her breath gush out.
Stepping back she forgot about the enameled bin filled with cigar ends and her heel hit it with a sound as strong as if she beat a giant temple drum. Her heart increased its frenzy, sweat prickling in her armpits as she listened, frozen in time and space. Nothing. I can’t believe it. She breathed quickly. I must get the address – at least that, I must have that. She picked up the book and turned to beat a hasty and most necessary retreat and as she did she cried out.
A vast shadowy bulk filled every avenue of escape and a hated voice whispered in her ear. ‘Ah, my angel niece, how good it is to see you again.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘Don’t touch me, you street hyena,’ Lalita snarled, rabid hate wishing all manner of deaths on the man in front of her.
Kurdeesh’s thick fingers tugged one last time at the bonds that pinioned her arms and then moved toward her face to pinch her cheek hard before he stood back. ‘Watch your tone, Lalita, and then spare a glance at your predicament. You’re trussed like a hen. And what a naughty chick you have been.’ He guffawed as he ran his fingers up her arm, letting them linger as he skimmed them over her breasts. Lalita shoved a shoulder at him but it only made him laugh. ‘Escaping from the Royal Seraglio – ah well, there is a death sentence! Stealing as well, my little bird. Surely there shall be pain then, much pain before death. What shall it be, do you think? The loss of a hand? But no, it will be death outright. Have you seen what they do to women like you? They might stone you, stone upon stone until you are a battered but very dead mess. Or they might bag you up and throw you off a tower into the Ahmad. But no!’ He snorted. ‘They might behead you. Ah, my love, such promise to be ended in such a way.’
Lalita spat, the mucous landing on hairy toes spread over the width of his sandals. The fool hadn’t searched her, neither pocket nor trousers and the dagger lay against her skin, taunting her. Aine, if she could get at it, she would slit his eyeballs. ‘What do you intend, Uncle? To inform on me? Then think on this. You murdered your brother and his wife. Don’t sneer at me, you pig! I can prove it. I stake my life that you have things of value stolen from Imran’s and Soraya’s house as you killed them. The Sultan knows this already, I told him w
hen he informed me of their deaths.’ A growl rose from her throat so that she barely recognized herself, satisfaction as she noticed her uncle’s pale face. ‘I will tell you this, snake. Do you know what the Sultan said? No? The death of an odalisque’s family is the death of the Sultan’s family. The last I heard, it was a fate of much magnitude. Drawn and quartered, I believe, and flayed, but I think the flaying happens before the butchering. And there’s such a lot of skin to flay, isn’t there?’
Kurdeesh advanced on her, his jowls trembling. ‘Shut your mouth, bitch. I could kill you now if I liked but Curiosa wants the wretched paperweight so I must tarry.’ His massive body towered over her and she smelled sweat breaking through the cover of sandalwood and she held tight to her courage. ‘After that Lalita, precious little flower, I will snip you off – like so.’ He made slitting movements over his throat, one way and then the other.
‘I’m not afraid of you, Kurdeesh. You want to indict me for the stealing? By all means contrive it but you risk your own fate by doing so and as for Curiosa, the paperweights he claims as his are stolen and he took them knowingly. It is not a huge leap of faith to think that his entire collection has been acquired in like fashion. It would be easy enough to ascertain.’ She forced her face not to collapse with the fear that edged along her nerves, drawing herself up. ‘I’ve nothing to live for. You took away everything that was dear to me. You will be doing me a kindness by ending my life forthwith. I care not.’ She moved to sit on a box, turning away so she would not, could not, see his face because if she could she would have ripped it to shreds. Out of the corner of her eye she had an image of her uncle’s large body swaying and then the sound of air moving close by. A punch clouted the side of her head near the temple and she fell forward, stars shooting across a galaxy and ears roaring before succumbing to a stultifying blackness.
Her uncle’s voice vacillated faintly from a far-off distance as her head throbbed, a pain settling deep in her temple and ear. ‘If you hadn’t been drunk, you would have been here to handle her yourself. She tried to escape. I hit her. So?
She lay still, keeping her eyes closed as the two disgruntled voices tracked back and forth. A warm dampness soaked under her cheek and she realized she had cut her head on falling, striking her forehead on some unforgiving obstruction. Outside in the yard, she heard Curiosa’s hens clucking and horses’ hooves clattering over cobbles with the voice of an underling speaking to the beasts. After dawn? How many hours have passed? Her brain curdled under the effort of thought and she decided it was easier to lie still and listen to the two men squabbling than to rationalise. She shifted her head slightly so she could watch them.
‘Find out where your wretched paperweight is, Curiosa, and be done. The longer that little whore is around, the shorter our lives shall be I am telling you. Better to slit her throat the minute you know.’
‘Kurdeesh,’ Curiosa held up a shaking hand. ‘I don’t wish to know what you plan. That’s your business. Mine is to have my property returned and that is all.’
‘But it suits you to have me finish her off, doesn’t it?’ Kurdeesh sucked noisily on a betel nut. ‘Otherwise the true provenance of your wares will emerge.’
‘Alright. But I want the paperweights first. Something tells me the items are more valuable than I thought. Maybe if I can get the two your niece has, I can sell them to that noblewoman although Aine knows she unsettles me to the edge of my being. You have no idea – the way she looked at me with those violet-ink eyes shrivelled my soul.’
Lalita glimpsed his fingers curling into a horn sign and then dragging out a set of amber worry beads from his pocket. The trembling fingers passed over each bead looking for solace and a rush of delight surged through her as she watched the beads shimmy.
‘If I can contrive the fortune I think the bits of glass might be worth then I shall leave Fahsi,’ he continued. ‘I’ve had enough. Time to be scarce.’
‘Souls, Curiosa? I am thinking you sold yours long since. For you the gelt was always worth more than a mere shriveling, eh? Surely.’ Kurdeesh laughed. ‘You are one of my kind. I counted my blessings the day I met you. Just think – if I had not killed Hobarto when I did, you would have had no paperweights at all.’ He sniffed. ‘But enough. The little chit must be dealt with.’
Heavy footsteps vibrated through the floor under her cheek and she shuddered as a hand grabbed her shoulder, shaking her. Murderer. Slum-dog. ‘Come, angel niece,’ the meaty fingers pinched her. ‘Wake up, little flower.’
A groan escaped reluctantly as her brains rattled, her cut face scraping across the floor as he pulled her into a sitting position.
‘Aine Kurdeesh, what have you done to her? Look at her face.’
Warm blood trickled freshly down her cheek and she longed to wipe it away, too proud to do so. Curiosa came toward her with a clean piece of linen. ‘Don’t touch me, infidel. Don’t,’ she hissed as he advanced. ‘I mean it or I shall scream.’
Curiosa looked despairingly at Kurdeesh and again there was that swishing sound of air moving before her head whipped sideways with the impact of an open-palmed slap. Kurdeesh’s voice growled. ‘The paperweights – the one Imran gave you and the one you stole. Where are they? Tell us and we shall go easy with you.’ He ran his fingers over her burning cheek. ‘You never know Lalita, we might even let you go.’
Lalita fought against the panic threatening to overtake her, memories of a lifetime of secret threats from her fat uncle. ‘And if I don’t?’
‘Oh,’ Kurdeesh thrust her onto a pile of jute bags and began to pull at his clothes. ‘I think you will.’
‘Kurdeesh,’ Curiosa’s voice screeched. ‘I shall not be a party to this. Do not. She is your niece. How can you? It’s immoral!’
Kurdeesh turned back to the antiquarian and spoke with words that choked Lalita. ‘And who would know, Curiosa, because you won’t tell. Morality or otherwise means little to me. I have always fancied the little sweetmeat so if you don’t want to watch, go away. You want to know where the paperweights are, I shall find out. Leave.’
‘Tell him girl, tell him please, and things will go easy with you.’ Curiosa begged as he turned away.
Lalita deigned not to answer but her heart stopped for one second as the curtain fell behind him and Kurdeesh untied his trousers. At that moment she would have been grateful even to be crawling up the Sultan’s bed and she wriggled backward with fearful desperation, her hands clawed in front of her and tied in bonds that were… Aine, they are broken.
Kurdeesh grunted blindly as he spread himself over her, unaware of her hand scrabbling at her waistband. As his weight began to lower, his hands pulling at her trousers, the curved dagger settled itself in her palm and she closed her eyes, stabbing upward with a frenzied hatred that filled every inch of her being. She pushed the blade harder, twisting and turning it, every movement an expunging of the pain she had felt at the deaths within her family. Opening her eyes, she met Kurdeesh’s staring back at her with surprise.
He collapsed, an avalanche of flesh crashing down on her.
‘Here, Lalita, my hand.’ Finnian’s voice drove through the horror.
‘Get me out. Help me.’ Hysteria began its inexorable climb as she reached for his hands to pull her from under the massive carcass.
She began to shake, a wave of nausea flooding through her as she began to retch and then to vomit. Finnian held her until she emptied but even so she began to fold, her knees caving. His arms caught her and she knew nothing more until fresh air slapped at her cheeks. Finnian held her upright in the back alley as chest-cleaving sobs began. ‘I k…’
‘Ssh,’ Finnian whispered close to her ears. ‘Say nothing, Lalita, now is not the time for sentiment. Cry if you must but later, for we must not be caught here. Can you stand on your own?’
She nodded, panic almost blinding her. The paperweight. The locket. She scrabbled in her pocket and at her neck and caught a glimpse of her fingers, stained and spattered with Kurdeesh’s
blood. ‘My hands, my clothes.’ She dragged frantic fingers back and forth through her garments, trying to scrub the blood away.
‘Hush,’ Finnian hugged her close and as she struggled to wipe the gore, her clothing changed – a heavy black sari and plain leather sandals, her hair wound tight, her hands clean and soft. He picked up the excess of a veil and draped it around her neck over the locket and she sequestred her shaking fingers amongst the folds of fabric.
‘We must go, Lalita. It may only be a matter of moments before they find Kurdeesh. Quickly, we must get down to the ghats.’ He spoke with urgency and she tried to focus her eyes more clearly as if looking at him would ground her. His dark grey costume was now a plain homespun black, the image of a man in heavy mourning. His hand slid along her shoulders, supporting her as she began to stumble alongside and a wave of fear crashed over her as the weight of his arm settled. She thrust at him, shoving him off. ‘No!’ She stood like a trapped wild cat, unable to think. ‘No, don’t touch…’
‘Lalita.’ Finnian’s voice was soft. ‘I won’t hurt you, I promise. I must get you to safety, that is all.’ He reached for her hand and she let him take her, her body trembling as if she suffered a putrid fever.
As they entered the massive square that seethed with the dawn populace, she was convinced everyone could see the shadow of blood, would know that she had murdered, that she was guilty. I am Lalita Khatoun, Arifa protect me, I am Lalita Khatoun. She tried to push the chant into the ugly places of her mind as Finnian hustled her, keeping to the shadows, edging toward the gate in the wall, holding her close as he pushed into a rope of folk heading to the ghats. She was desperate to blend, to hide, to be part of the crowd who would lave their bodies in the sacred waters of the Ahmad and pray to Lady Aine to deliver them and their families from the trials and tribulations of their earthly life.