The Peshawar Lancers

by S. M. Stirling

  “Damnation.” Charles sighed.

  He rose, paced, reached for a cigarette and then stopped, looking up—smoking was, of course, strictly prohibited here. At last he returned and sank back to his cushion.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. The regional assistant commissioner of the Imperial Police for the Delhi area is a friend of mine—classmates at Sandhurst. But I make no promises. Is that understood?”

  Cassandra met his eyes and nodded, forcing herself not to slump with relief. The packet of papers that Warburton had given her still rested safely in her quarters in the palace, but that was a counsel of desperation. What they contained was so wild that she wasn’t sure whether it would sway Charles, or convince him that the baronet had gone completely doolalli.

  “Mmmmm,” Henri de Vascogne said. “I . . . ah . . . do not quite understand . . .”

  “Why my brother sent me, rather than coming himself?” Sita inquired, with the slightest hint of a slyly mischievous grin.

  “Yes,” Henri said.

  Cassandra King smiled to herself; watching Henri and Sita circle around each other was more amusing than anything else she’d seen at court—rather like two asteroids with the ability to modify their own orbits.

  The motorcar traveled silently through the streets of South Delhi, with only the hum of its rubber tires on the granite paving blocks to mark its passage. At the broad circular intersections blue-jacketed policemen did double takes at the lion-and-unicorn flags fluttering from little staffs above the headlamps and set to holding up their wands and blowing whistles. Nobody could doubt that someone very close to the Lion Throne was going by behind the darkened glass.

  “Well, it’s obvious,” Sita went on. “Father couldn’t do anything like this. It would cause a political uproar and questions in Parliament. Charles couldn’t—that would be almost as bad. They have to be careful and law-abiding and responsible and consult some politician every time they wipe their noses. But if Charles sent some aide-de-camp or courtier, that wouldn’t carry the same blood prestige.”

  “Ah, the baraka,” Henri said, nodding.

  “Odd—we use the same word,” Sita said, and continued: “That’s how the politicians keep the throne in line; we have the power in theory, but the unwritten rules mean we can’t use it very often. It’s sort of like a tug-of-war.”

  Cassandra smiled again. You could see the Maghrebi-Frenchman’s mind working: Not just pretty and charming and reckless. This petite jolie femme has also a head on her shoulders.

  “But yourself?” he said.

  “Well, I’m the daughter of the Lion Throne,” Sita explained. “I can be as irresponsible as I want to be. But the bureaucrats have to be nearly as frightened of me as they would of my brother. After all, it’s known we’re close. Who knows what sort of career-wrecking words I could whisper in his ear?”

  None of the bodyguards who piled out of the second motorcar were in uniform—most of them were dressed like any gentleman in town and out for a morning stroll. That didn’t leave anyone in much doubt as to what they were; sahib-log, Sikh or Malay or castes more obscure, they all had a certain rough-hewn similarity. Sita sat like a carved image in a temple until one guard opened a door, her form glittering where the sun struck metal thread and jewels. Then she extended a slender arm and let another hand her out. De Vascogne fell in a pace to the rear and to the right; Cassandra took up a similar position on the left, and they swept forward behind the young princess’s regal presence and the shell of hard-faced men whose eyes never stopped moving.

  The building was smooth red sandstone, its boxy outline and rows of windows broken by columns of pale granite with gilded lotus-leaf capitals, their bases resting on cast-bronze bulls. Within they passed by the salaaming custodian, up a flight of stairs, and into a maze of corridors flanked by the little cubicle-offices of the bureaucrats.

  “Familiar,” Henri whispered aside to Cassandra. She glanced a question at him.

  “Clerks in France-outre-mer don’t sit on cushions, and they clack abacus beads instead of these clanking mechanical adding machines, and there are far more telephones and typewriters here, and it smells of tea instead of strong coffee. But for the rest—”

  His slight gesture indicated the piles of folders and papers, and the thump of rubber stamps hitting ink pads and documents, the scritch of steel pen-nibs on paper, and the general air of self-important busyness glimpsed everywhere.

  That shattered as the princess and her entourage plunged into the midst of the civil servants, like gaudy-feathered birds of prey into an aviary of drab sparrows. Men striding along with files beneath their arms and weighty frowns sprang aside, bending in the salaam; some of them dropped their burdens, and one broke its binding of red tape and showered the corridor with a snowfall of pages. Secretaries squeaked in dismay, jaws dropped, once a teacup dropped from nerveless fingers to shatter and spill on the tiles.

  “Never let them know you’re coming, either,” Sita whispered.

  Henri nodded. Cassandra surprised him by nodding herself. At his glance, she said:

  “This is on a much larger scale than Oxford, but I assure you, we have our little interdepartmental feuds there, too.”

  Richard Allenby had a corner office on the third floor with two large windows, which was a mark of status. So was the polished appearance of the secretary in the anteroom without, as glossy as the marble tiles of the floor and as expensive as the trail of incense rising from a fretwork censer standing before a four-foot statue of a dancing Shiva. She rose silently from behind her low desk and salaamed, letting them into the office proper.

  Someone had phoned ahead to Allenby, and he was ready with a deep salaam of his own, kissing the princess’s hand and Cassandra’s before shaking with Henri. Cassandra endured the courtesy with cold control; her face was set, but the Political Service agent gave a very slight start when he rose and met her eyes.

  “Kunwari,” he said. “My lord.” Then he paused, baffled for a moment.

  “Dr. Cassandra King,” she said, taking a small vicious stab of pleasure at his start.

  “Dr. King. I confess you catch me at a disadvantage, Kunwari, but if I could call for a chair, or offer—”

  “No tea, thank you. And this cushion will do very nicely. It isn’t a formal occasion, after all, Mr. Allenby,” Sita said—apparently with malice aforethought.

  Excellent, Cassandra thought. If he’s like any senior civil servant I’ve ever known, a knighthood is the summit of his life’s ambitions. And alienating a member of the dynasty was an excellent way to make sure you were never on the Honors List, no matter how often the ministry suggested you.

  “I’m here on behalf of my tutor—my friend—Dr. King,” the princess continued. “This ridiculous matter of her brother.”

  “And I as a friend of Sir Manfred,” Henri said.

  By now he looked as easy sitting cross-legged on a cushion as he did in a chair.

  “Ridiculous is hardly expressive enough,” Cassandra snapped.

  Allenby looked at her. Something’s wrong, she thought. The man ought to be frightened. Not of her, but of her connections—with a daughter of the Lion Throne beside her and a foreign dignitary sent to negotiate a dynastic marriage, you might as well be holding up a sign reading: HURRAH, I’M IMPORTANT! Instead . . .

  Yes, he is frightened. But not of us . . . no, he’s frightened of us, but more frightened of someone or something else. More frightened than of Sita, who can wreck his career and his hopes.

  “Kunwari,” he said smoothly. “I’m sure you realize that I couldn’t discuss a matter under investigation with you—your pardon, but it would be most irregular. Not to mention before this lady, who, after all, is liable to be partial, and this gentleman, who is not even an Imperial subject.”

  Cassandra had learned a good deal about her charge in a month as a tutor. She cleared her throat warningly. Throwing something at the man wasn’t going to help at all, appealing though t
he thought was.

  Not nearly as appealing as kicking him off a cliff, she thought. Or perhaps nailing his head to a table with a railroad spike. Or perhaps nailing his head to a table, setting it on fire and then kicking him off a cliff. But one must be self-controlled. Sita was perfectly capable of that—when she remembered.

  “Sir Manfred did not feel that my origins were any bar to cooperation,” Henri pointed out, pulling out a silver case. “Cheroot? No?” He lit his own and snapped the case shut.

  “Sir Manfred has disappeared, in most suspicious circumstances,” Allenby said. “I have reason to believe that Captain King—no offense intended, Dr. King—may have been involved.”

  “Poppycock,” Sita said flatly.

  “As I said, Kunwari, and with all respect—”

  “You’re not showing any respect at all, Mr. Allenby,” Sita said—with the same flat tone in her voice. “Considering the importance of the Vicomte de Vascogne’s mission to the Empire. You are aware of his mission? You are aware of how my father, and Prime Minister Lord Somersby, would react to any lower-level civil service interference in it.”

  “But I don’t have the slightest intention of interfering—”

  “That’s not how it will sound after I’m through,” Sita went on. Her smile was slow and cruel. “Gratuitous insults to France-outre-mer’s envoy would be considered interference of the most malignant kind. And consider who here has better access to the highest quarters,” she went on.

  A slight sheen of sweat had broken out on Allenby’s face. It was common knowledge that both the King-Emperor and the heir, not to mention Lord Somersby, doted on Princess Sita.

  “I must conduct the affairs of this office as I see best, Kunwari.”

  “You will not make any official statements indicating that suspicion rests on Captain King,” Sita said. “Nor will you pass such statements along the informal routes—rest assured I would know. You will issue no warrants for Captain King’s arrest, either to the Political Service or the regular police under the Interior Ministry or to the military police or Intelligence agencies. And you will keep me, and through me the vicomte and Dr. King, fully informed if there are any indications of Captain King’s whereabouts, or Sir Manfred’s. If you disobey me in any particular in this matter, I will see you broken and dismissed. Possibly imprisoned. Do—you—understand?”

  “Kunwari—”

  “Shall we make a telephone call?” Sita said, nodding to the instrument on his desk. “I have the pass-code for the palace. No? Do—you—understand?”

  “Yes, Kunwari,” the man ground out.

  Cassandra frowned. There was a slight tremor in his hands, and the beads of sweat along the edge of his turban were noticeable. He looks like a man whose nerve has been shattered, she realized. She’d seen that before; an experienced climber who suddenly started screaming and didn’t stop until they had him on level ground again. But Sita hasn’t put him under that much pressure! There was something going on, something more than the bewildering events of the past week.

  Sita gave a single nod and extended her hand to one side, fingers elegantly drooping. Henri rose smoothly and put his hand beneath it, with her fingers just touching the back; she came to her feet with slow, elegant grace and transferred her hand to his arm. Cassandra fell in behind; as they left, so did the bodyguards. They weren’t quite marching in step, but somehow they gave the impression of hobnails pounding along in unison.

  And everyone will have noticed, she thought with satisfaction. She didn’t have the slightest idea what sort of crooked game Allenby was playing, but from this moment on he’d have to do it under the interested gaze of dozens of his colleagues.

  “That was a frightened man, is it not so?” Henri said thoughtfully. “A very frightened man.”

  “I can have that effect,” Sita said with a trace of smugness.

  “No, chérie—Highness,” Henri said, correcting himself absently. Cassandra fought her brows to stillness. “Not the fear of a man who thinks his position endangered. If it were only that, he would have also been somewhat angry—angry at the interference in his, what is it which you say for the work territory, his balliwick. That man was showing the fear of a man afraid for his life.”

  There was a single bodyguard in the rear of the motorcar with them; he had remained there while the party went inside. He leaned forward slightly as they returned.

  “Detective-Captain Malusre,” Henri said.

  “Sahib, memsahib, Kunwari,” he said. “Could you please recall for me exactly what passed within?”

  They did, and the Marathi detective frowned. “Vascogne sahib is correct. That was not the response one might have awaited.” He thought for a long moment. “Blackmail.”

  The others looked at him. “The indications are that someone is blackmailing Allenby sahib. With some information strong enough to make him risk the Imperial princess’s anger. That would require a very heavy hold.”

  “And it would explain a good deal,” Henri said thoughtfully.

  “The same people who tried to kill Athelstane, and me, and did kill Dr. Ghose!” Cassandra burst out.

  “That would be logical, memsahib,” Malusre said. “Unfortunately, we have no proof. Nor an indication of who.”

  Cassandra thought of the folder of documents Warburton had left with her. A chill went down her spine, like blizzard snow melting on her scarf above the tree line and trickling inside her clothes. A chill, and a name: Vladimir Obromovich Ignatieff.

  “I have to talk to Charles . . . to His Highness,” she said. At the inquiring looks of the others: “No, there’s nothing I can say right now. But Detective-Captain Malusre should report to him as well.”

  The man nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

  Sita reached out and touched him briefly on the forehead. “Thank you, Detective-Captain, for not just going back to Kashmir,” she said. “That would have been the easiest and safest thing to do.”

  He grinned. “Kunwari, my curiosity would have tormented me all my days—and curiosity was the reason I became a detective, rather than a lawyer, as my mother so much desired.”

  “You won’t be the loser for it,” Sita declared. Her eyes sparkled. “My first conspiracy!”

  Cassandra’s brows tried to climb again as she caught the smile the princess exchanged with the envoy of France-outre-mer. Then concern of another sort washed the thought from her mind.

  Athelstane, she thought. My brother, where are you? Are you even alive?

  Athelstane King used a piece of warm fresh flatbread to scoop up the last of the kefir—milk curd with honey—and finished a mango, feeling more like a human being after a night’s rest, a bath, and a shave. He felt slightly guilty about it; Narayan Singh was probably sitting in some roach-infested police cell, or the military jail in the Red Fort. On the other hand, punishing himself would do Narayan no good at all. The thing to do was to get him out as soon as possible.

  Capital kefir, and that damned beard never stopped itching, he thought. Then, with a touch of mordant irony: At that, I think I’m feeling considerably better than our representative from the Political Service here.

  Sir Manfred Warburton sat across from him; or lay, propped up as he was in soft pillows. A mummy swath of bandages covered his head, and from the way he moved the stitches in the wound on his back were paining him considerably. They were in a house that Elias’s son and grandsons and several close-mouthed retainers had brought them to, after a trip through night-dark Delhi streets that King knew he couldn’t have retraced himself. Wherever it was, they sat in a room with pointed arches of whitewashed stone, looking out over a small brown-tiled courtyard where a fountain tinkled. The house was obviously old—possibly older than the Old Empire—and well furnished in a good plain style not at all what he would have expected from someone of Elias’s wealth. Sunlight streamed in, throwing dust motes into slow gold-lit motion.

  Sir Manfred was concentrating on work, despite a hectic flush to his cheeks: />
  “That’s usually the way,” he said harshly, “when you put the squeeze on a man. If he once gives you something, you’ve got him for good and all, regardless of the initial hook. God knows how long Allenby has been working for them—I thought he was simply incompetent. But you never know who’s a mole; that’s one reason why the Political Service is so decentralized. That minimizes the damage.”

  King hid a grimace. Filthy work, he thought. I’d prefer honest soldiering any day.

  Yasmini nodded; she ate delicately, like a cat, and there was a catlike air to the way she cleaned herself with the damp towels handed round afterward. King looked at the red lips and shuddered again. She’d come over to his side, sure enough; but what she must have done before . . .

  Almost enough to make me forget she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Nothing at all like his usual taste in women, of course. That ran to ones who looked like they’d stepped off one of the Vishvanatha temple friezes at Khajuraho, all curves.

  Not exactly attractive, really—more like fascinating and exotic. I wonder what . . . get your mind back on business, you fool!

  “I was not the Sister who gave the information on Allenby,” she said. Her Imperial English had grown better, as if she was rusty and practice was bringing back old memory. “Count Ignatieff handled the matter before I was allowed from the training school. He only hinted at it, that I overheard.”

  Warburton looked at her, and his pale eyes fairly burned; not with ordinary lust, King thought, but with the fanaticism of an expert seeing the ultimate possible tool of his profession. Yasmini seemed to recognize it, and lowered her eyes in submission.

  “At last,” the baronet breathed. “Proof. That alone—and now we’ll have the—”

  “Sir Manfred,” King said, coming to a decision.

  “Captain King?” the injured man said. He might be in pain, but there was nothing wrong with his ear for a nuance.