Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles)

by P J Thorndyke

  “Come on,” said Vasquez. “We’re in the way here.”

  It was only during the long slog back to the northern temple that Lazarus realized Thompson was no longer with them. Had they left him behind? “Where’s your lieutenant?” he asked the three bluecoats who were still with them, but they just shrugged their shoulders.

  They arrived barely in time to inform the Cibolans at the temple to prepare for the wounded before they started pouring in, although with nobody to translate for them it probably made little difference. There was much weeping as the news gradually sunk in that the raid had been a failure. Mankanang and Xuthala watched with grim faces as Pahanatuuwa and his remaining warriors flooded into the cavern, bearing the wounded with them.

  Katarina followed Kokoharu’s example and went from pallet to pallet, her sleeves rolled up, applying medical aid. Lazarus was impressed.

  “Did you learn this in the Okhrana?” he asked as he helped her lift a patient from one blood-soaked stretcher to another.

  She shook her head. “My uncle. He was a soldier before he joined the Interior Ministry.”

  “I think I may have liked him. I too was a soldier, you know? Fought in the Ashanti Campaign before I took up employment with the secret service.”

  “Yes, I know. And I don’t think you would have liked my uncle. Nor he you.”

  Lazarus blinked away the hostility, gradually becoming used to it and tried to change the subject. “They certainly could do with more skilled medics like you and I. There’s too many wounded and Cibolan medicine leaves a lot to be desired. If only Captain Townsend and Lieutenant Thompson would show their faces; I’m sure they have some medical experience.”

  Katarina looked about suddenly. “They’re not here? I thought they went on ahead.”

  “No sign of them. I heard them arguing the other night. I hope that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Oh? Arguing about what?”

  “Townsend is dead-set on using some of this gold to save children from workhouses and orphanages or some such scheme. Thompson considers it all property of the Union and won’t let an ounce of it out of his sight.”

  “Well, it is the Union’s property, isn’t it? Or do you still harbor Confederate sympathies?”

  “Certainly not. But I would have thought that the golden cities truly belong to the people who built them. The Union has no more claim to them than Reynolds.”

  “Nevertheless, my mission is to ensure that the Union, or at least the partisan movement, get the gold. Do you think Townsend may have deserted us and taken a quantity of gold with her?”

  “It doesn’t sound like her, but you know the woman better than I. All I know is that Thompson would consider that a final betrayal. He may even have pursued her with the intent of stopping her.”

  They finished bandaging up their patient, although it was not certain that he would live through the night.

  “It might be callous for me to say so,” said Lazarus, “but I think it’s foolish to continue using our dwindling supply of bandages on patients who are not likely to survive.”

  Katarina nodded and left, heading to the corner of the temple where she slept. Lazarus remained and patched up a flesh wound for a young warrior before following her in. He found her checking her ammunition and filling a canteen with water from a clay urn.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  “Go away, Longman. I don’t need you tagging along.”

  “You don’t mean that you’re going after Townsend and Thompson!”

  “If both of them have deserted then I’m in a sticky spot. My superiors are relying on U.P.R. intel to ascertain that I completed my mission. They won’t take my word for it alone. I need to talk some sense into them.”

  “They don’t trust you?”

  “This is all off the books stuff. I could say anything I like and they have no way to check it. I need Townsend’s confirmation.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You’ll only get in the way. Or worse, betray me to the Cibolans. They’ll kill us both if they catch us trying to escape.”

  “You really think I’m useless, don’t you? I’ve worked my way out of dozens of sticky situations by force and by stealth. I’m coming and you can’t stop me.”

  “Very well.” She slotted the last cartridge into her revolver and spun the cylinder. “But if I have to, I’ll put you down myself, Longman.”

  Leaving the northern temple without being seen wasn’t hard. The chiefs and priests were too busy seeing to the needs of their people, and the people themselves were in too much confusion and misery to notice them slip away. The tunnels were empty and soon they were back in the chamber beneath the great kiva of the northern city.

  “Are you sure they went this way?” Lazarus asked as Katarina clambered up the ladder, her skirt swishing him in the face.

  “This is the closest exit,” she replied. “They couldn’t have escaped through the eastern city without being seen and I doubt Townsend went all the way to the western city. She had no reason to. She would have wanted to get out into the forests and hills as soon as possible. For somebody who built a tunneling machine, she really seems to hate being underground.”

  It was glorious to be out in the sunshine again after so many days beneath the earth, but the heat soon got to them. They clung to the cliff walls, above the cool forests, surmising that if Townsend was trying to leave the valley, she would head south east to where the valley walls dipped down to their shallowest point. They passed the ghostly houses of the western city, which were silent—like dead things with hollow eyes.

  The sun began to dip below the high walls, and they welcomed the cooling touch of dusk. They stopped to rest awhile, assuming that their quarry would be doing the same, for the trek through the hills was hard going for anybody. They dared not light a fire in case they might be seen and indeed, they could see the lights of some Confederate camp or supply depot deep down in the valley.

  “And so Yankee Imperialism is replaced by its Confederate cousin,” Lazarus mused. “And who taught them this way of conquest? Americans have learned the art of it from us, like a child prodigy. They dream of empire themselves now; they who wanted freedom from it more than anybody. The scent of money banishes ideology from people’s minds like a forgotten lover.”

  “You sound like the revolutionary thinkers in my own country,” said Katarina, after taking a swig from her canteen. “There are some who claim that imperialism is the ultimate and unavoidable end result of capitalism.”

  “You do not agree with them?”

  “They are dangerous traitors. Imperialism has brought light to the dark corners of the world. Roads, railways, science; the list is endless.”

  “I doubt the Cibolans share your appreciation of the developed world’s achievements. They seemed to be doing just fine before we came blundering into their world, heralding the inevitable stamping march of empire over all that they hold dear.”

  Katarina looked at him for a while, her face unreadable in the darkness. “You’re not quite what I expected of a British agent. What happened to you in South America? Our files are incomplete.”

  Lazarus took a deep breath. “I was sent there by my government. To Colombia. They had ideas to drain Lake Guatavita; the source of the Eldorado legend.”

  “So Eldorado really exists? Like Cibola?”

  “The parallels are striking. Both were legends told to the Spaniards, who searched in vain for them despite their having a kernel of truth. Lake Guatavita lies in the Cundinamarca region of Colombia, in what was once the territory of the Muisca people. They used to have a ceremony; whenever a new Zipa—that is to say a chief—was chosen, he was floated out into the center of the lake on a raft of rushes, loaded with gold. The gold would be tossed into the lake as an offering to the goddess who dwelt there. The priests would smear the Zipa’s body with some sticky substance like resin and coat him in gold dust until he was a gilded man. He would then dive into
the lake and the gold would wash from his body.

  “The Spaniards got the idea into their heads that if this had been going on for generations upon generations, then the bottom of Lake Guatavita must be silted in gold dust and littered with sunken treasures. They tried dredging the lake and came up with a few objects, but were ultimately disappointed.

  “A few years ago, a company was set up in London with the aim of draining the lake. It was funded by the government, and I was to head an advance party to explore the lake and its surroundings. The Muisca were wiped out by disease and violence soon after the Spanish conquered them, but the natives who dwell there now, although Catholic for the most part, still hold the lake in great reverence. I did not count on this and neither did my superiors.

  “I found a people who, despite suffering the worst oppressions for several hundred years—or perhaps because of them—were fiercely independent. They do not even consider themselves part of the United States of Colombia, despite living within forty miles of Bogota. I fell in love with their free spirit and in love with one individual in particular.

  “She was beautiful, and as strong and fiery as any of her people. As my love for her grew, so too did my disillusionment with my mission and my government’s plans. What right did we have, I asked myself, to lay claim to the sacred lake of these people? The Colombian government may have endorsed our plan for their cut of the profits, but even if Lake Guatavita had been filled to the brim with enough gold to buy the world twice over, it would not have been enough for me to help my own country rob these people.”

  “You disobeyed orders?”

  “Yes,” Lazarus replied with a grim smile. “Perhaps I cannot expect a Russian agent, loyal to the end, to understand, but it was during my months among the natives of Cundinamarca that I learned that some things trump fealty to one’s government. I warned the girl I loved of what was coming, and she told the rest of her people. When the British arrived they found a revolt on their hands. These people were not going to let them drain their lake without a fight. And so a fight is what they gave.”

  Katarina winced. “Natives against soldiers of the British Empire? They were wiped out?”

  “Damn near every last one of them. You’ve seen how Reynolds has torn holes through the Cibolans. The British don’t have that level of firepower, but the natives of Cundinamarca were fewer in number and less warlike. It took only a day to lay their villages to waste. The lake was soon red with their blood, and the fires of their burning homes were reflected in those dark waters.”

  “And the girl you loved…”

  “Dead like the rest of them. I vanished then, heading north through Panama and Mexico towards the C.S.A. I had decided to wash my hands of the British Empire and their thirst for conquest.”

  “And yet here you are. Here we are.”

  “Yes. Here we are.”

  “And Lake Guatavita? Was it drained?”

  “Yes. But the damned fools didn’t count on the mud drying in the sun and setting like concrete. Any gold there was stuck fast and irretrievable. They abandoned the project.”

  Katarina watched him silently. It was cold and many hours lay between them and dawn. She moved closer to him to get some of his heat, and he tried to pretend that he had not noticed. “Why did you go back into their service after that?” she asked him.

  “My contact, Morton, tracked me down in some sorry shithole in the American Southwest. I was drinking myself into an early grave far from home. He persuaded me to get back up on my horse, as they say here. He had a mission for me. Something local. Find Gerard Vasquez. I may have been foolish enough or drunk enough to accept the offer then, but if I saw Morton right now I don’t know that I wouldn’t blow his brains out. He’s managed to fool me into the old game of imperialism again.”

  “We all have our price,” said Katarina.

  “What was yours?”

  “That’s a long story.”

  “It’s a night for telling stories. Where in Russia are you from?”

  “Smolensk. My father was an impoverished nobleman. When he died my mother sent me to live with my uncle.”

  “The one in the Okhrana?”

  “There’s really no such thing, you know? That is a word the enemies of the Tsar thought up to cover all of the different clandestine agencies of the Internal Ministry. But yes, my uncle is a high-ranking member. He raised me. I’d rather not go into it all now, if that’s all the same with you.”

  “Alright. You must of course feel free to remain the woman of mystery for me.”

  “You’re one to talk. I don’t know a thing about you. I mean, I’ve read your file but I know nothing about your childhood.”

  “You never asked.”

  “There’s hardly been time in between getting shot at. Very well. Tell me about your parents.”

  “Don’t remember them. They died when I was very young. I was adopted by a learned man who raised me as his own.”

  “And so you were saved from the notorious workhouses of London. How Dickensian.”

  “Actually I was saved from something altogether different. And I’m not from London.”

  “Oh?”

  “That’s all I want to go into right now.”

  “Come on, where were you born?”

  “When you feel like telling me more about your uncle and your childhood, then I’ll tell you about how that kind gentleman found me on the streets of a foreign city and took me into his care.”

  “Very well. Perhaps if we live for a few more days.” She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know why, Longman, but I hate you more than I’ve hated any man I’ve ever known.”

  Lazarus felt the acceptance of this latest insult seemed a fair price to pay for the liberty of putting his arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulders and they said no more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In which blood is spilt between comrades

  They moved at first light. It promised to be a hot day and they were keen to find water before they ran out entirely. The river cut close to the foot of the cliffs, and they descended to drink and refill their canteens. A gunshot sounded nearby and they flung themselves flat, drawing their weapons. Katarina belly-crawled towards a boulder and pressed her back to it, peering into the trees up ahead.

  Lazarus rose, confident that the shot had not been aimed at them. His Starblazer held steady, he entered the shade of the trees. Katarina followed close.

  “Are you two going to just stand there?” came a voice from above them.

  They looked up and saw Lieutenant Thompson perched in the branches of a ponderosa, his blue uniform dusty and torn. One leg hung down on either side of a branch. The left was dark to the knee with blood.

  It was only then that Lazarus saw the mountain lion. Its beige fur camouflaged it against the dusty rocks and bronze pine needle carpet. But nothing camouflaged its snarl. Lazarus and Katarina took quick, involuntary steps backwards.

  “Shoot it, for Chrissake!” yelled Thompson.

  Lazarus aimed his revolver at the face of the beast and looked it dead in those honeyed eyes. His finger squeezed the trigger but the lion turned tail and loped off, the roar of the Starblazer spurring its retreat until it vanished into the trees.

  Lazarus didn’t know how long Thompson had been up in that tree. Perhaps all night, but he certainly seemed eager to get down from it. They helped him plant his feet back on solid ground, although he limped terribly.

  “Let me look at that leg,” said Katarina.

  “Damned cat caught me just before I got out of its reach,” said Thompson, wincing as he sat down. “It’s been circling my ass for hours, hoping for a slice of Louisiana Nigger.”

  “Can’t cats climb trees?” asked Lazarus.

  “You bet. He’s a nimble bastard, but the noise of my gun kept him from scrambling up here. Only got five cartridges left.”

  “We heard you spend one. Lucky for you we were passing by.”

  Thompson screwed his face u
p as Katarina tightened the torn strip of her dress that she was using as a bandage around his calf. “Yeah, what are you two doing snooping around here anyway? Didn’t those underground lunatics try and stop you leaving?”

  “They didn’t stop you, did they?” said Katarina. “You’re welcome by the way.”

  “We got wind that your captain left us,” said Lazarus. “And you after her. What’s it all about?”

  Thompson narrowed his eyes. “I don’t usually discuss partisan affairs with strangers. Especially not those working for the C.S.A.”

  “I don’t work for them anymore. I would have thought that the last few days would have proved that.”

  “Well, Townsend’s just gone crazy, I figure,” he replied. “She took off when we were holding the entrance to the northern temple. Desertion is what it is. I never thought it of her, but she’s been acting pretty strange in recent months. Obsessed with things that have nothing to do with our mission. She’s lost her mind and taken off with no regard for the troops she’s left behind. That’s just plain treachery in my book. I’d have hung her if I were her superior.”

  “But you aren’t,” said Lazarus. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I tell you what I’m going to do,” said Katarina. “I’m going to beat the living hell out of her for ditching me in this valley. Does she think I’m here for the mountain air? I have a mission and she’s near ruined it for me.”

  “Join the queue,” said Thompson as he staggered to his feet and began testing the strength in his leg. The bandage held but was already spotted with seeping blood.

  “You’ll need stitches,” said Katarina. “I’ll see what I can do back at base camp, but that should hold for now.”

  “She hasn’t got more than a couple of hours on us if she stopped to rest,” said Thompson. “If we hurry we’d catch up with her, it’s just my leg…”