The Peshawar Lancers

by S. M. Stirling

  “Undoubtedly stolen, but doubtless their owner is dead. Meet me by the bridge at dawn tomorrow, and bring them with you. One is yours, Narayan; one to Ibrahim here; bring two remounts also—we buy no more tickets for the trains. The stations are too easy to watch.”

  “Han,” Ibrahim said, grinning widely.

  He’d had a good night’s sport, and was the richer by several valuable weapons, a purse of rupees, and a good horse. Perhaps he’d stay by King’s side for a little longer—there was much to be said for his service.

  “What shall I tell my father, sahib?” the Sikh asked.

  “All that you know, and that he’s to meet me at the bridge also—there are matters of watch and ward to be set. I’ll discuss the details with him then. We will know our homes and kindred safe, with Ranjit Singh guarding them.”

  “Han, sahib,” Narayan Singh said; his eyes glowed, at the honor done his father and the prospects before himself as well.

  King went on: “And I’d better see that Vrinda isn’t frightened, and doesn’t speak out of school,” he finished, giving them both a nod and heading back toward the shed.

  “He certainly doesn’t lack for stones, the gora-log,” Ibrahim said, slitting the dead men’s belts and sashes and bootheels to find any last-resort money.

  Ah. No money, but some lengths of silver wire, and a set of lockpicks. That wasn’t one of his skills, but they were good tools. He rolled them back into their cloth, tied the thong around them, and tucked them into an inner pocket in the cloth lining of his potsheen.

  Narayan nodded at the Pathan’s remark; he’d given up any hope of the hillman ever showing proper respect. “Brave to recklessness, is Captain King sahib,” he said. “It would be well if he married soon; they are not a long-lived breed, the Kings. Help me with the bodies.”

  Ibrahim looked at him in surprise. “Why, will you give burial to enemies, then? Are there no hungry pi-dogs in this village, or children to play kickball with the heads?”

  The Sikh snorted once more. “Child of misbelief, there are places in this world where dead men arouse questions, even if a hacked corpse or two is of no moment up in the Tirah hills. Come, we have work to do before dawn. I know you can use a chora. Now we shall see how well you dig.”

  Chapter Nine

  The embassy of Dai-Nippon—Greater Japan—was one of the notable sights of Delhi. One of the few embassies of any size, Dai-Nippon not only used its own ancestral architecture, but did so with ostentatious pride; the Russian compound was fairly spacious, but it presented a blank whitewashed stone wall to the outside. Ignatieff nodded with approval as he craned his neck to the soaring height of the stepped pagoda tower—let the arrogant Anglichani see that not all the world bowed its neck to Imperial fashion. Of course, Dai-Nippon was the only state which rivaled the Angrezi Raj in numbers and wealth and power, too. He swallowed envy, a taste as sour as vomit, and studied the grounds carefully.

  Half an acre of garden, rocks, and miniature trees and pools separated the low street wall from the great dragon-guarded entrance to the inner complex. The guard was being changed as he watched; two platoons marched and countermarched to shouted orders. They had long pigtails, and wore uniforms of black silk trousers and jacket with a red sun on the breast, and steel coolie-hat helmets polished to a high gloss. Butterfly longswords hung at their waists, for show, but the bayoneted firearms on their shoulders were excellent copies of the Anglichani magazine rifles, Metfords.

  The officers who exchanged low bows as the ceremony concluded were in black as well—military kimonos, in their case, with long katana and short wakizashi thrust through their sashes; the front half of their scalps were shaven and the rear hair pulled up in a roll, marking them out as of Dai-Nippon’s ruling caste. The infantrymen taking the guard stood at an easy parade rest, as motionless as statues. The samurai officer knelt on a low platform, even more still as he sat with his left hand resting on the long hilt of his sword—Ignatieff saw a fly crawl across his face and one eyelid, and the blink that followed was slow and wholly controlled.

  He nodded approval, always pleased at seeing flesh driven to do more than its nature intended. The flesh came from the traitor Christ, but Malik Nous gave them the will to turn the flesh to His service. Ignatieff thought of that for a moment, smiling as the Black God might smile at souls new-risen in Hell.

  The man beside him looked at his face, blinked, stepped back a pace despite being the straw boss of the labor gang. The Ohkrana agent cursed himself silently, schooled his expression to meekness. He imagined how the foreman would look on the altar, would scream as he saw the tools prepared and the braziers heated. The taste . . .

  The foreman cleared his throat and waved his gang forward as the street cleared for a moment. The ox wagon creaked into motion; it was like a hundred thousand others in Delhi’s streets; wooden frame and spoked wooden wheels rimmed in rubber, steel bearings. The cargo was anonymous bales covered in jute sacking, held down with sisal rope; the beasts that pulled it were hornless and floppy of dewlap. Ignatieff walked alongside, one more laborer among many in ragged shirt and dhoti and turban shuffling bare-legged over the hot dusty pavement. The sentry at the final gate slung his rifle and examined the bill of lading that the driver handed down, sitting with the tails of the oxen twisted around his toes.

  “All correct, sir,” he said over his shoulder to the officer, in accented Nipponese. “Pass, then,” he went on to the driver, in bad Hindi.

  Under the tremendous black-and-red-lacquered multiroofed tower of the pagoda the other buildings of Dai-Nippon’s embassy were low-slung and scattered amid gardens, pools, and graveled paths, tile roofs rising in swooping curves over walls mostly of paper; within lights were beginning to gleam. The wagon went directly to the rear of the compound, where storage sheds of plain brick formed the rear wall. Inside the godown all was dim and noisy, piles of bales and boxes making corridors and rising nearly to the teak rafters; a Chinese overseer with a long cane whacked Ignatieff across the shoulders with it by way of encouragement. He grunted to himself, remembering the man’s face, and worked at the same slow but steady pace as his fellows.

  After twenty minutes a servant came and gestured to Ignatieff from between two stacks of boxes. Ignatieff followed, shoulders bent—every movement of his body signaling a life of beaten-down submission. It was not quite perfect; he was too tall, and too well fed. It was still good enough that nobody spared him a second glance, as he passed down the corridor between rows of clerks sitting cross-legged before low desks and flicking at abacuses. A staircase gave onto a landing; the sliding paper-paneled door revealed another office. This one had a spare elegance of decoration—several bonsai trees on lacquered stands, a wall hanging that showed a single willow branch, and the window looking out over a rock garden.

  Two men waited, motionless while he slid the paper door panel shut behind him. One was an elderly bureaucrat in a long, embroidered robe, wearing a round cap with a jade button over his brows; his skin was the color of old ivory, and the wispy hair of his beard and mustache snow-white. He folded his hands in the full sleeves of his robe and bowed his head slightly to the newcomer. The man beside him was younger—Ignatieff’s own age or a little less. He was also shorter, stockier, his skin a little browner, with a face like a hawk’s and cold black eyes; his plain dark kimono rustled slightly as he matched the minimal bow; doubtless the two swords on the wall stand behind were his.

  The ambassador formally in charge of Dai-Nippon’s legation here in Delhi was an Edo aristocrat of ancient lineage and exquisite manners, famous for his calligraphy and the troop of Noh actors he maintained. These two were the men who did the real work.

  “Honored Li Tsu-Ma,” Ignatieff said. “Colonel Nakamura.”

  “Hai,” Nakamura said.

  Which could mean yes, or so or what have you to say? or half a dozen other things. The Russian noted that neither used the formulas of hospitality, or offered him tea. It is better to be feared than loved
, he reminded himself; and if they didn’t fear—and need—him, then he wouldn’t be here.

  “I am grieved,” he said, in Mandarin, “to hear of the Son of Heaven’s reverses near the Fragrant Isles.”

  “An unfortunate incident, no doubt due to overzealous underlings on both sides,” the Chinese said smoothly. “Even now my yamen engages the Raj’s foreign ministry in talks on the matter, seeking a mutually satisfactory resolution.”

  “Horse shit,” Nakamura said, in his own language—he knew Ignatieff was fluent in both of Dai-Nippon’s official tongues. “We tried probing their defenses and they kicked us in the balls. That new torpedo of theirs is fearsome. The defeated admiral has already made the final apology to the Emperor.”

  Ignatieff allowed himself an inner smile at the glance Li shot his colleague. As a Chinese and good Confucian, he probably despised Nakamura twice over, for being a barbarian “eastern dwarf ” and again for being a warrior—his people had a saying that you didn’t use the best iron for nails, or the best men for soldiers. The Mikado was still dependent on the Home Islands for fighters and engineers, but he spent more time in Peking than Edo these days. Li probably also thought the custom of seppuku about on a par with Russian massacre-sacrifices and cannibal feasts.

  Of course, a lot of Japanese had settled in China as well, landlords and merchants, industrialists and technicians. Not unlike the Anglichani and India, save that the Nipponese homeland survived, too.

  Li’s voice was smooth as he went on: “Doubtless the will of Heaven was otherwise.”

  “Our ignorance and overconfidence were otherwise,” Nakamura said. “We’re not ready for a final showdown with the Raj . . . yet. Which is why we agreed to this meeting, Ignatieff. Your ruler’s Intelligence service has been demon-powerful before. We’re willing to use it again.”

  Ignatieff reached up and took off his turban. Unwinding it, he produced a sheaf of papers and slid them across the low table. They lay neatly spread across the writhing dragons beneath the lacquer. Nakamura seized them eagerly, his blunt callused fingers flipping the thin, half-transparent leaves of rice paper. After a moment he gave a grunt of satisfaction.

  “If these are genuine, we should be able to duplicate their oxygen fuel system quickly enough,” he said. “Or the engineers will account for it. Back before the Fortunate Event, we were weak because the Hairy Stinkers had better machines. That isn’t going to happen again, by the kami!”

  Li nodded; there was no disagreement there. The Fall had been gruesome enough in East Asia, but both the main groups of Dai-Nippon still called it fortunate. The Japanese were brutally pragmatic; the disaster had catapulted them from impoverished obscurity to second place among the world’s powers, which made any number of dead peasants a trifle. And China’s scholar-gentry had an unbelievably long memory for slights and humiliations. The British of the Old Empire had burned the Summer Palace and made the Son of Heaven flee in terror, and put up signs in the public gardens of the Treaty Ports that had read No dogs or Chinese allowed. It was unforgotten.

  “The plans are genuine,” the Russian said. “We have our . . . sources.”

  What Yasmini and her sisters could do wasn’t exactly clairvoyance. They could generally tell you the consequences of an action to a high degree of likelihood—what would come of trying to bribe or blackmail an Anglichani official, for instance. Sometimes the unlikely happened and things fell out otherwise, but those were the exceptions. It was like gambling with loaded dice, for the most part.

  “And now,” Ignatieff said. “We’ve found some aspects of your Intelligence service more than useful . . .”

  “Well,” Sita said dubiously. “If you insist, Aunt Jane . . . I rather thought the regular studies were enough . . .”

  “I’m sure you and Miss Rexin will get along famously,” the sister of the King-Emperor said. “After all, you did want to go to Oxford, didn’t you? Before you . . . well . . .”

  She glanced aside. Cassandra King sat in a posture that would have been prim if it hadn’t been graceful as well, with her hands folded in her lap. A plucked brow rose a fraction of an inch, showing that she’d heard the implied matters not discussed before outsiders and filed it.

  She reminds me of Aedelia, Sita’s aunt thought; they’d been at Cheltenham together, back longer than she liked to remember, when the world was a simpler place. Or when we simply knew less about it, perhaps.

  “And if you think I or your father will see you in without passing your Finals, you may think again,” she went on to her niece.

  “Oh, I know that, Aunt Jane,” Sita said.

  “Very good. Then I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

  This girl is trouble, Cassandra King thought, as she smiled and made a polite salaam after the King-Emperor’s sister left—it seemed a little incongruous to think of her as a princess, while the word fit Sita like a glove. She hadn’t done much teaching—mostly graduate students—but she could recognize the vibrations. Not spoiled exactly, but—

  Willful, she thought. Willful, headstrong, brilliant. “What field were you thinking of going into, Kunwari?” she said aloud. Presumably the sciences, or Mother and the King-Emperor’s sister—so strange to think of them being friends!—would have thought up some other cover for her besides cramming-tutor.

  “Oh, do call me Sita,” the princess said, with a charming smile. “Formality is such a bore. Physics, I thought, eventually—Dr. Ghose’s work is so exciting!” A frown. “I cried when I heard about him—what a despicable thing for those wicked goondahs to do, to attack a man of his . . . his brilliance!”

  “Yes,” Cassandra said, choking down memory. “It was.”

  She’d wept in private, and would not again. Instead she looked around. She’d never seen more than the semipublic parts of the palace before, at her coming-out as a debutante and more recently at official receptions—the King-Emperor was officially head of the Royal Society, of course, and patron of more academic organizations than you could count with an Analytical Engine, so scholars from Oxford came down to Delhi fairly regularly, visits to the Imperial University aside.

  The private quarters were grand, but in a lighter and more graceful style than the overpowering magnificence of the public rooms. Generations more recent, as well—not being national treasures, there was no need to preserve the décor as if it were a museum. This upper-story day room was typical, all light tile and stone and wood, with glass clearer than air between tall alabaster pillars and making up half the domed ceiling above. The furniture was similarly light, in pale pastel colors save for the bright fabrics of pillows, and the equally bright sweet-scented jasmine and honeysuckle and bougainvillea twining about the columns and foaming from planters.

  One could get used to this, Cassandra thought wryly; although at heart she preferred the homey comfort of Rexin Manor, or the plain privacy of her rooms at the university.

  But for sheer reassurance, the Gurkha sentries discreetly posed at the entrances and outside on the flat rooftop garden would be hard to match. Their uniforms were splendid—rifle green trimmed with silver and faced scarlet, all their metalwork and leather polished to mirror brightness—but the flat brown Mongol faces were intent and their eyes never ceased moving; the rifles over their shoulders were entirely functional.

  Athelstane had told her that Gurkhas were a cheerful breed as a rule, given to chattering and laughter. These might have been statues except for those ever-moving eyes and the coiled readiness to move she sensed about them. A number of the servants who moved about had suspicious bulges under the left armpits of their jackets, too; hard-faced, broad-shouldered men of the martial castes.

  If there’s anyplace in the Empire that I’m safe from assassins, it’s here, she thought. Reassuring, and frustrating as well. How am I supposed to get any work done, though? Oh, she could use paper and pencil and slide rule well enough here, but she needed her books and references, her colleagues, the Engine. Scholars worked together as a community fo
r a reason.

  “Physics then,” she said briskly; not her own specialty, but she knew the basics and a bit more. “I presume you’ve been through the D Levels?”

  “Two months ago,” the princess said, reclining on a settee and nibbling a candied almond. “Tea? Juice?”

  “Thank you, Kunw—, ah, Sita,” Cassandra said.

  Truth be told, I’m a little flustered, she thought, accepting a glass of chilled pomegranate juice from a servant. She’d been born to the upper-middling-gentry class, untitled squires of solid but modest wealth; there were nobles at Oxford—Earl Cherwell, for instance—but such things mattered less in scholarly circles. Here she’d probably be tripping over duchesses and rahnis and maharajas’ sisters at every turn.

  Well, at least Cassandra King has done something besides pick her ancestors wisely, she told herself. Not that the Kings are anything to be ashamed of. Families like ours are the backbone of the Empire. Kuch dar nahin hai, and get on with it.

  “Tell me then,” she said. “What did you think of Dr. Ghose’s hypothesis concerning the unexpected results of the Jawaheer-Morley experiment?”

  “The one that they tried in 2011, to determine the absolute velocity of the earth by splitting two beams of light?” the princess said, her face lighting with interest.

  Twenty minutes later a fine film of sweat had broken out on the Imperial brow, and Cassandra nodded thoughtfully.

  Not bad at all. Well up to undergraduate admissions level, and her mathematics are adequate.

  She doubted the young woman would ever be anything of special note in the field; physicists tended to make their mark early, as opposed to astronomers like herself. Still, if this little charade continued for any length of time, at least she wouldn’t be totally wasting her days. She didn’t suppose that the Imperial princess would actually be headed for the scholar’s life, but it was just as well to give some of the Empire’s reigning family a real knowledge of what was going on in the sciences. Their education usually tended to the military side of things, or engineering at best.