The Peshawar Lancers

by S. M. Stirling

  “This, ah, young lady went to a considerable amount of personal risk to save me and Narayan Singh. And did the Empire a considerable service in the bargain. I think it only right that she be . . . treated accordingly.”

  Sir Manfred made an impatient gesture. “Yes, yes, my dear Captain King. Of course.” To Yasmini: “Pardon me if I was a little abrupt.”

  Yasmini raised her eyes again, fastening them on King. Tears welled, dripping down the pale cheeks.

  “I say,” he said in alarm. “Are you all right?”

  “Da,” she whispered. “But nobody has ever asked before—except my mother, before she went mad.”

  King blinked, feeling a flush stealing up his cheeks. When you thought about it, that was extremely sad. He coughed and shrugged.

  “Well, I don’t claim to be a saint. Can’t be many decent chaps around where, ah, where you come from.”

  “Nyet. It is forbidden. I have seen such—Seen them—in my visions, here, and in the past. Seen you all. That is why I left the count. Most of the paths that branch from that choice lead to death, but I must take the chance.”

  Poor little bitch, he thought. Aloud, he went on: “Well, now we can go to the authorities.”

  Yasmini and Warburton looked at him with identical expressions of alarm.

  “No!”

  “Nyet!”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  Warburton sighed, moving slightly and wincing. “Not as young as I was . . . my dear young chap, you don’t believe that Allenby was the only traitor Count Ignatieff—and the Okhrana—had working for them? With a . . . source of information like this young lady and her . . . ah, relatives . . . they would have an unparalleled means of identifying our weak links, and exploiting them. How would we know that anyone we went to wasn’t on the other side? And would have us killed, quickly and quietly, to shut our mouths. Shot while resisting arrest has covered a multitude of sins over the years.”

  “Or captured,” Yasmini said. She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I have Seen”—the capital letter was clear in her voice—“what comes after that.”

  “Oh,” King said, feeling a little deflated. “Well, dammit—” He stopped, grinned. “There I am, sounding like Colonel Claiborne. But dammit, I am just a soldier.”

  “You weren’t with the Orakzai chiefs,” Warburton said. “Don’t think you can relax just because we’re back within the Imperial borders.”

  “I’ve come to the same conclusion,” King said with dry irony, thinking hard. “All right. I take it the Okhrana don’t risk you . . . Sisters . . . inside the Imperial frontiers very often?”

  Yasmini nodded. “I may be the only one since the founding of our Order,” she said. “The priests of Malik Nous—Tchernobog, the Black God, He whom you call Satan—control the breeding of us.” A shadow flickered over her face; she swallowed and went on: “Not half a dozen times have any of us left the Czar’s domains; it is very rare for us even to leave Bohkara, apart from one or two who dwell in Samarkand for consultation with the Czar and his closest advisors. So I may indeed be the first ever brought across your frontier—though my mother was brought near, in the time of your father, Captain King. Ours is the strongest line of the Sisters, and with less deformity and crippling. Count Ignatieff was the Master for that mission also.”

  When my father died, she means, King thought, nodding curtly.

  “Why send you, then?” Sir Manfred cut in.

  She nodded to him, a little uncertain. “Count Ignatieff . . . he is very powerful. Very highborn, as well. And for this mission, he had the dreams of several Sisters showing a chance of success. Blurred visions—they often are, when we must deal with each other and the, the consequences of each other’s own dreams. The—”

  She dropped into Russian. Surprised, King realized that he wasn’t catching more than every second or third word, and wasn’t certain that he was right about the meanings of the ones he did catch. Sir Manfred looked equally baffled.

  “Smudging the lines of the worlds?” he said after a moment. “Damn all technical jargon.”

  “In your English, there are no words, nor in Hindi.” Yasmini’s brows knitted in thought. “I can dream . . . I can See . . . how things might be. When another does also, and influences men’s actions . . . the possibilities become so many that—” She threw up her hands. “As well might I describe color to a man whose eyes had been gouged out at birth!”

  King winced inwardly. Modern Russian was full of similes like that; he’d had to make himself learn it, when a new language was usually a pleasure for him.

  She pointed at the beam of light coming through the archway. “Like the dust motes there. Each moves; each motion stirs the others. You see the pattern of what is, in this instant, and this of-all-possible-instants. I See more, in my dreams . . . forward, backward, and, oh, how shall I say . . . sideways.”

  “Well, then,” King said, concentrating on practicalities. “What success was promised?”

  “Your death,” Yasmini said bleakly. “That of your sister.”

  He thumped his forehead. “But why us?”

  “If you, Captain King, if you die, your Czar . . . your King-Emperor will die. His heir will die. There will be no union of your crowns with the country of the far west . . . France? Yes, France. In time to come, there will be much war, and your Empire will be divided and rendered weaker because of inward . . . internal? revolts. That the Czar greatly desires . . .”

  The two Imperials grew very quiet. King swallowed. I’ll bet he does, he thought. Aloud: “How? How does the King-Emperor’s life depend on us?”

  “I do not know how!” A slight flush warmed Yasmini’s cheeks; even then King noted how it made the statue perfection of her face come to life. “I do not see the future—the futures—like a book. In dreams I see glimpses, pieces. I must interpret. That is why we are educated, taught reading, drawing, science and history, unlike other cattle, so that we can understand what we See and explain it.”

  “That would certainly interest the Okhrana,” Sir Warburton mused. “A chance at seriously dividing the Empire. And it’s their style to the inch; subvert, get people mistrusting each other, disinform.” Then: “See here, miss; what about Dr. King? Captain King’s sister?”

  Yasmini was silent for a long moment. “That was also why I ran from the count,” she whispered. “That dream he and the priests kept secret from the Czar, from the Okhrana. If she dies—if the son of your ruler dies—then the world will die.” She raised a hand. “I have Seen it! A great thing of death from the heavens—fire, and then ice—”

  Shuddering, she buried her face in her hands. “Not for much time. Perhaps a century? Perhaps a little more. But it will come. Without her, it will strike home.”

  “Great Scott,” Warburton said quietly.

  “Merciful Krishna,” King answered him, his own voice hoarse. He gulped more tea. “Cassandra’s bloody Project.”

  “Another Fall,” Warburton agreed. “If the Project goes ahead with Cassandra working on it—somehow something she discovers, or does, or influences someone to do—it’ll stop this. Another Fall—”

  “Worse,” Yasmini said through her fingers. “I have Seen the Fall. This will be . . . if it happens, it will be much worse. Nothing of human life will survive. Only the rats.”

  “Bloody hell,” King said, vigor back in his voice. “Why would this Ignatieff bug—bounder want that? However mad or bad he is—”

  “Count Ignatieff is a man of much faith,” Yasmini said, raising her head and pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve. She smiled a shaky smile. “It is so good, not to be struck for weeping . . . Yes, he is a man of much faith, very pious.”

  At their look of incomprehension: “The death of all that lives . . . what could be more pleasing to the Peacock Angel, to Tchernobog, the Black God?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Well, here I am, dealing with an unlicensed doctor and hiding from evil conspirators in a safe
house. In a book, this would be romantic, instead of nerve-wracking, King thought, as Elias showed him through the door to Warburton’s room.

  The doctor Elias had procured was of a type who could be absolutely relied on to give care of a reasonable quality and to say nothing whatsoever about his patients to anybody. Conrad McAndrews was from the Viceroyalty of the Cape; about one-half Kapenaar, the other half a mixture of Zulu and Cape Malay, and all three showed in his accent, at once clipped, guttural, and singsong. He had worked as an apothecary’s apprentice in Durban, then stowed away on a ship—worked as a stoker when found out—bound for other parts of the Empire, where ancestry didn’t play such a part in determining a man’s destiny. Somehow he’d scrambled his way to an MD from the University of Columbo, which was not usually accounted among the best of the Empire’s medical schools. The adventures which had resulted in the revoking of his license had also given him an air of lantern-jawed silence which did not invite either conversation or confidences.

  “My fee will be fifty rupees per visit. In advance,” the doctor said.

  The Jew paid from a roll of Imperial Bank of India notes tucked into one sleeve of his striped robe. Then and only then did the doctor look at the man in the bed.

  “Hmmmp. Injuries?”

  “Bruises, cuts, a blow to the head,” King answered crisply. “There seems to be some fever.”

  The doctor shook his head, shone a light into Warburton’s eyes, investigated the contusions and cuts, took his temperature with a long glass thermometer. King helped the injured man move; Warburton bore the pain well, but there was no denying he wasn’t fit for action yet.

  “Whoever did this stitching on the cut running down from the right shoulder blade has a neat hand,” the doctor said dryly. “He seems to be recovering from the blood loss. There’s an infection, but not a bad one; I presume you used iodine? This ointment on that and the other cuts, twice a day. These pills, three times a day—on an empty stomach. There is also a concussion. Headaches? Nausea? Blurred vision?”

  Warburton nodded to each, and the doctor made a sound in his throat, with the same air as a mechanic who’d found a cracked ceramic heat exchanger in a gas engine.

  “No physical activity or excitement for a week. Bed rest; light diet; plenty of water or juices, broth would be excellent, no coffee, tea, or alcohol. Pay me now for the next visit.”

  He turned on his heel and walked out again. Yasmini threw back the scarf she’d been wearing over her hair and held across her face as if in modesty—something credible enough in Old Delhi. Elias seated himself on a cushion, perching like an ancient, highly intelligent, and benevolent vulture.

  “So. With his True Dreamer gone, is this Ignatieff a threat?”

  “Yes,” Warburton said, and Yasmini nodded emphatically. “He’s one of the Czar’s best political agents; and the very devil himself in person. Him we knew about officially, if not the, ah, Sisterhood of the True Dreamers. We suspect he’s been into the Empire dozens of times in the past two decades.”

  “Not a bad swordsman, either,” King said. “What will his next move be?”

  Yasmini looked troubled. “He did not consult me—only inquired of me what the results of this or that would be. I know he met often with men of the Raj—”

  She went on to describe them. Warburton sighed and lay back with a damp cloth over his eyes.

  “Damn this head; my thoughts feel fuzzy . . . yes, I’d say that list included two separate groups of secessionists, and a couple of subversive cults. The Muslim Brotherhood, the worst sort of Shia—we get along well with the Aga Khan’s people, but some of the other sects are long-running trials—and the Deceivers . . .”

  Elias sighed and produced a copy of the Imperial Court Gazette; it looked a little incongruous in his hands, since the usual reader was a social-climbing matron.

  “If he is trying to attack the King-Emperor . . .” he said, and began to read the main story.

  King walked over to read across the old Jew’s shoulder. That put him near Yasmini, and he was aware of a faint scent of jasmine and clean feminine flesh underneath Elias’s sandalwood-camphor-and-old-man. He dismissed it from his mind as the printed headlines sank in:

  “The Royal Family to Visit France-outre-mer. Well, that doesn’t mean much. If this bounder Ignatieff is trying to do Cass an injury—”

  Warburton groaned. At first King thought it was pain; then he realized the man was cursing himself.

  “We thought we were so clever. Ganesha spare us . . .” He sighed. “Your mother called in a favor with an old school chum of hers. Cassandra is at court—tutor to the Imperial princess, supposedly. To keep her safe.”

  “Oh, damn,” King said feelingly, and tore the paper out of Elias’s hands. He scanned down. “Dr. Rexin?”

  “An alias,” Warburton said.

  “Not much of one.”

  “She picked it herself,” the Political Service agent said defensively. “In any case, they won’t be leaving for two weeks according to what you read. Ample time to get us to Bombay, if that’s where they’re leaving from. Once at sea, they should be safe enough—”

  “They’re not going by sea,” King said. “They’re flying. In the Garuda, the Imperial air yacht, with two Air Service cruisers as escort—the Clive and the Raffles. Departing from Bombay, though.”

  “Oh, bloody damnation!” Warburton said. “Must be trying to impress the Egyptians—they’ve granted transit rights—but . . .”

  He sank back. “Notifying the court of the conspiracy must be the first priority, then. Damn this head. Twenty years ago, I’d have been on my feet already. And we can’t use any of the Political Service routes or safe houses or drop-offs, they might be compromised—”

  “Heh-yeh,” Elias said, a little smugly. “There are other ways to travel secretly and quietly than those. In India, there always have been. Many branches on the Middle Way.”

  At that, Warburton’s intelligence-agent ears pricked up; King could almost see the effort it took to restrain his curiosity.

  “Well, as soon as we’ve located Narayan, we can be on our way, then,” the young Lancer said.

  There was a frozen silence. He looked from face to face. “See here, he’s my daffadar—and my man. I have to at least be sure he’s all right. All we have to do is check the military lockup’s register, surely? It won’t hurt him to cool his heels in the guardhouse for a few weeks; that’ll give his wound time to heal. Then we can expose these ruddy bastards, and—”

  “This Allenby could not send him there,” Elias pointed out, ignoring Warburton’s shushing gesture. “A soldier would have a right of appeal to his commanding officer, or the colonel of his regiment, within—”

  “Yes, within seven days,” King said; the length of time the civil police could hold a soldier was something an officer had to know. And so—

  “Colonel Claiborne would have him out in double-quick time,” King said, nodding. “As soon as I heard his body wasn’t found there, I knew they must have taken him prisoner. After all, Allenby might be a traitor, but all the men he was calling in couldn’t all have been, surely. They were in uniform—regular police, dozens of them.”

  “You are so concerned?” Yasmini asked, looking at him oddly.

  “Well, of course,” King said, glancing at her.

  “Why?” she said, with obviously genuine curiosity.

  “He’s one of my command, he’s the son of my father’s rissaldar, he’s one of my family’s tenants, he’s saved my life half a dozen times, he’s my comrade-in-arms, we grew up together—take your pick,” King answered impatiently. “Any would do.”

  He turned back to Warburton: “The civil police, then?”

  The Political Service agent sighed, laid a hand on the cloth that covered his eyes, and spoke in a resigned tone.

  “Unlikely. He couldn’t be held incommunicado there, either. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “But Allenby could have told everyone he wa
s arresting him under the Defense of the Realm Act. Under that, he could be held without recourse for a week—and the regular police could be told to keep quiet about it, whatever they’d heard. A week, or longer if Allenby made up some cock-and-bull story about his cooperating with an investigation and needing protection. Suspected terrorists, assassins, foreign agents—and by the ten thousand faces of God, everyone in the Service will know that those are abroad in the land right now, so his claim might well look credible. Particularly since I’ve disappeared under extremely suspicious circumstances.”

  “Then—”

  “There has been no raid on my house,” Elias noted, stroking his white beard. “Your man would know that you sought help there? Yes? It was because of that that I moved you here, of course.”

  “Narayan Singh wouldn’t—” King caught himself. Wouldn’t talk was nonsense; everyone did, eventually, if the torture was skillfully and ruthlessly applied. “Narayan Singh wouldn’t talk quickly. And he’d have them running around chasing false leads for a while first.”

  Warburton nodded. “And we can hope that Allenby wouldn’t dare do anything too, ah, strenuous to an Imperial soldier. He was seen to arrest the man, after all. That will come to official attention eventually; men talk, even when they’ve been cautioned not to. He’ll have to produce him, or a body, eventually, or face charges.”

  “Unless he planned to kill him and dispose of the body and claim he escaped,” King said grimly. “And Allenby is under Ignatieff’s thumb. I don’t imagine the good count has many scruples.”

  “What does that word mean?” Yasmini asked, as King rose and paced like a caged leopard. “Something like a taboo? I have never quite understood it.” She recoiled a little at his glare, bewildered.

  “Captain King, I know what you’re considering,” Warburton snapped. “You have no right to endanger yourself. Think, man! The King-Emperor’s life may depend on you.”

  King stopped, grunting as if punched in the belly. Then, after a moment, he spoke slowly and quietly; only someone who knew him very well could have detected the emotion quivering under the calm voice.