The Peshawar Lancers

by S. M. Stirling

  “Words of kindness,” she said.

  A small hand crept into his; it was work-hardened, but tiny and fragile inside his sword-callused one. He closed his fingers gently on hers.

  I’ve never had a girl keep comparing me to her mother before, he thought. And I wouldn’t have thought it was so flattering.

  “You didn’t answer my question, though, miss,” he went on aloud.

  “Yasmini—you called me that before,” she said.

  “Ah—” He flushed slightly with embarrassment. “Sorry . . . hadn’t asked . . . irregular situation . . .”

  “You have my permission, Captain King,” she said solemnly.

  “Ah . . . thank you. Athelstane, then. And you still haven’t answered it.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “I am growing too old to be a Dreamer,” she said.

  “You’re barely a child!” he blurted. Then: “Well, you look like one. Sorry.”

  “We often do. I am four years and twenty—ten years now since I became a woman, and began to dream. That is more than most can bear. Every time I dream, control is less—I have passed the point where more skill and practice can match the growing power. If I dream much longer, I will be lost in the dreams . . . mad, not knowing if I am this Yasmini”—she touched herself between the brows—“or a thousand thousand thousand others from one instant to the next. And they may think themselves me. A chain of madwomen across time.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

  He was also a bit shocked; he’d have sworn she was hardly sixteen, eighteen at the most, rather than nearly his own age.

  “Nyet,” she said. “You do not. I fear that, yet I fear the loss of my dreams as much as you would the sight of your eyes, or the use of your legs, or the strength of your arm.”

  “How do you stop?” he asked. “Is it a drug you take, or . . . ?”

  She told him, bluntly; modern Russian, even the High Formal mode, had little reticence about such matters. He winced—in fact you had a choice between the brutally animalistic and the subtly cruel, in the language of Samarkand. The tongues men spoke shaped how they lived and thought, but the process worked the other way ’round as well.

  She shivered and rolled tighter into a ball. “Yet what is Yasmini if she cannot dream? Nothing but another broodmare in the pens.”

  And as a cripple to boot, he thought, trying to imagine living as a blind man begging on street corners.

  “We can find something better than that,” he said stoutly. “My word of honor on it as a King. Kuch dar nahin hai, remember?”

  “With you, I can believe that . . . sometimes,” she said, and dropped off to sleep again, curled up against his flank like a puppy.

  King glared down Narayan’s brief inquiring look; Ibrahim was giving him a glance of mingled respect and fear, since he would rather have cuddled a hooded cobra himself. The Lancer officer dug into one of the bundles, pulling out a copy of Bradshaw’s Indian Imperial Railways, by Newmans of Calcutta, and lost himself in thought.

  Yasmini’s hand remained firmly clamped on his.

  They came to a manor just inside the borders of Rajputana, as the moon rose enormous and smoky red with dust, and the white road wound before them like a ribbon of silver. The land had grown drier throughout the three days of oxcart travel, as rocky hills grew common and the deep rich clay of the northern river plains gave way to country where the bones of the earth showed. The zamindar—or thakundar, in the local dialect—was a Rajput himself; the gentry of this hotbed of feudalism had remained stoutly loyal during the Second Mutiny, and none of it had been gazetted—confiscated—in the great wave of sahib-log rural settlement that followed the Exodus.

  It was a great deal less tidy than estates in more modern parts of India. A big tile-roofed house-fort stood on a hillock at its center, surrounded by huge green pipil trees with hordes of sleepy monkeys in their branches, both protected for their sanctity. Below the hill was a small river with an arched stone bridge; about that were blocky stone houses thrown together, with smaller and humbler dwellings of mud-brick and thatch some distance away. The only modern touches were the abundance of window glass, the whirling wind pump and water tank near the mansion, and the odd piece of factory-made farm equipment lying against the wall of a house or shed.

  The fields round about—wheat, sorghum, cotton, sunflower—were harvested stubble, but today they bore other crops. The lord of the estate was holding a polo tournament, and the national game of the Imperial gentry had a fanatical following in Rajputana among all classes—all Rajputs thought of themselves as the sons of kings, after all. Tents and shelters sprouted far and wide, from mere bothies of sorghum stalks to vast colorful pavilions; canvas enclosures held rows of ponies and pampering, lavish grooms; there was even a brace of elephants, leg-tethered by chains to deep-pounded posts.

  The manor house was bright with lanterns and noisy with festivity—a feast for the teams and the noble visitors, another for their ladies. Their retainers and servants made a swarm in the little town below, and following them had come acrobats, men who swallowed fire and juggled flaming torches in bright arcs through the cool night air, trained horses prancing on their hind feet, performing bears holding wooden swords in their paws, troops of nautches—dancing girls—with fantastic jeweled hoops through one nostril and gaudy saris and gliding steps, storytellers, singers of the interminable Rajput ballads of mad gallantry and courtly love . . .

  Perfect disguise, King thought, as he handed Yasmini down. Four more oxcarts? Nobody’ll notice ’em, though we’d be a four-week wonder here if we arrived in normal times.

  The carts had stopped beside a small, half-ruined temple a quarter mile from the village; from the flowers and bowls of puja offerings on the steps, it was still in use but left tonight to the birds and bats and scampering monkeys. The scents were mostly sweet, underlain by dust and packed humanity, horses, and the hard dry smell of the working oxen that pulled the carts. The party made camp in its usual fashion; King helped with the horses, Narayan and the bar-Elias retainers set up the tents, and Ibrahim Khan sauntered off to “scout,” by which he meant that he was a Pathan and would never dirty his hands with manual labor of any kind, as long as someone else would do it for him. Trying to force him to it would simply turn him sullen and dangerous.

  That’s more dangerous, King thought.

  Yasmini looked wistfully at the crowds and lanterns a little distance away, the murmur of voices and laughter and song carrying over the shrill chirping of insects.

  “All those people together, and nobody fighting or killing or beating anyone,” she said. “So many laughing, and the shows and . . . that looked like . . . what’s the Angrezi word . . . fun?” she said. “I would like to, to have fun someday.”

  King stopped himself from a casual joke along the lines of: Haven’t had any before, then? He’d spoken with her a fair bit as they traveled, trading stories, and from what she said that was literally true. Or at least not except as something rare, snatched, furtive. Living in the Czar’s dominions was miserable enough anywhere, but to be brought up in the Peacock Angel’s city, in the very House of the Fallen . . .

  He shuddered inwardly. Yet she seems to be sane enough, he thought. Got a wicked sense of humor, too, and plenty of guts. Good company. Reminds me a bit of Cass, actually. When I think of some of the social excruciations I’ve been through with giggling debutantes . . . Three days in an oxcart with them would drive me bloody mad!

  “You should see the Holi festival at Rexin,” he said. “Now, that’s fun.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “For telling me about your family,” she said.

  King found himself flushing again and turned with gratitude as three riders made their way out to the camp. David bar-Elias and his oddly named Mongol retainer were two; the other was a tall thin Rajput noble, with grizzled whiskers trained to flare out a foot on either side of his face, an enormous turban of
red silk, and enough jewelry to start a shop, with still more on the hilt and scabbard of his tulwar. His horse was splendid, lifting long slender legs in a high trot, and he kept the saddle as if he’d been grown there, but the beast had been painted—spots and stars and stripes in gaudy hot crimsons and yellows and greens. The lord of Rexin winced inwardly, ever so slightly.

  Hell of a thing to do to a good horse, he thought, as the Rajput drew rein. Customary at festivals, but still . . .

  One sowar of the Peshawar Lancers had taken a horse home for a wedding and decked it out like that, and been unable to get the paint off in time when he came back from leave. Colonel Claiborne’s remarks when the luckless trooper showed up on parade had been memorable.

  The Rajput’s hard dark eyes met his for a second, then flicked away in the elaborate, deliberate disinterest of a man determined not to notice something.

  Soldier’s eyes, King thought. Probably high-ranking in his day, too.

  The Rajput rider turned to David bar-Elias:

  “Yes, I can provide the beasts,” he said, in good Army-style Hindi, based on the Delhi dialect but shot through with loan words from English and a dozen other languages.

  Well, I was right about that, King thought, stepping back into the shadows.

  The Rajput gave a wave of the riding crop. “With this bally crowd here eating me out of house and home for the polo match, half the neighborhood is trading and bartering animals on the side—oxen—horses—camels—nobody will notice the extras.”

  His gaze rested on King for a space, and on Warburton in his hastily donned burqua, and on Narayan Singh—who always wore civilian clothes as if they were the silver-gray dress tunic and knee boots of the Peshawar Lancers, and had even before he enlisted. They flicked over Yasmini with an arched brow; she was not in the tentlike garment herself—it was a little out of place in this part of Rajputana, where Muslims were few—but she was holding the tail of her head scarf over her face. That was perfectly acceptable behavior for a woman in the presence of a strange man; a trifle old-fashioned in Delhi, but nothing out of the ordinary here in the backwoods. The curl of blond hair peeping out at one side was not, however.

  “And as you said, old chap, it’s better that I not know too much. My regards to your pater, eh, what?”

  With that he turned his horse with an imperceptible movement of his thighs. It floated off, the trot breaking into an equally fluid gallop.

  I’d pay five mohurs for that horse, King thought for an instant, as he absently reached over and tucked away the betraying curl.

  From the way Ibrahim Khan was fingering his knife hilt as he came back into the firelight, he’d been thinking of stealing it. King frowned at him, meeting an innocent grin in return.

  He knows that I know that he knows, and so forth, King thought. Not a bad johnny, in his way, but wearing.

  “That man can ride, sahib,” Narayan Singh said. “And that horse is worth the riding, by the Guru!”

  “True, true,” Ibrahim said. “A dancer with the wind—although I’d like to see how those dancer’s legs stood up to the trails in the hill country before I bred from it.”

  David bar-Elias swung down from his saddle, looking a little worn—he’d traveled considerably faster than they. “Horses, trains, camels—they take you where you wish to go. Motorcars would be better, if they were cheaper and more reliable. Airships better still.”

  Sahib-log, Sikh, and Pathan looked at him in horrified incomprehension. He shrugged.

  “Well, we have what we need,” he said. “And no stinting. Our host will say nothing. Neither will the servants he sets to this matter.”

  King nodded, and spread his map again on the tail of a cart. “All right,” he said. “We’re here—northwest of Sikar. What we’re going to do is head straight west.”

  “Allah aid me, how will that get us to Bombay?” Ibrahim asked.

  “If you were less fond of the sound of your own voice, you would find out more quickly, child of misbelief,” Narayan Singh said with heavy patience.

  “Peace,” King said. That’s quite true, Narayan, but he’s not a trooper in the Lancers.

  “We have to cross this country here—the Thar,” he went on. At inquiring looks from Ibrahim and Yasmini, he explained: “Desert. Bad country at any time of year, although not as bad in the cold season, thank Krishna; no sandstorms, at least. No water to speak of, and it’s lawless—by our standards,” he added a slight ironic tone directed at the Pathan. “On camelback, and pushing it, we can reach the rail line here.” His finger stabbed at a point on the map. “Between Pokharan and Jasalmer, in about a week. Even a slow train will get us into Bombay in good time after that.”

  “But you said the trains were too dangerous,” Ibrahim pointed out. A moment later: “Huzoor.”

  “The passenger trains, and the stations,” King replied, with a grin. His free hand tapped the Bradshaw. “And here I have the schedules. We’ll stow away aboard a freight train as it crosses open country—there’s heavy traffic on the Multan-Bombay line; it taps the lands watered by the Smith Canal. I should have thought of that earlier. We can bribe the engineer or brakeman if we’re discovered.”

  Yasmini shrugged when he looked at her, and spread her hands. “Nothing. That might mean there is nothing, or that there is. I feel no great fear of that route—but everything along our path is dangerous.”

  “But what of my horse, if we must travel by camel?” Ibrahim cut in. As everyone else looked at him: “It is a good horse! And part of my miserable pay—the greater part. It is not fitting that the son of a great chief return to the hills without at least a good horse.”

  “Our host will care for the horses and return them to my father’s house in Delhi,” David bar-Elias answered.

  “And I will replace the horse if it is lost,” King said, slightly impatient.

  It was natural enough for the Pathan to think the horse lost as soon as it was out of his sight. In Ibrahim’s home range, you tethered a horse by tying left rear to right forefoot, and then anchored that to the ground by driving down a hooked iron stake, and then you guarded it all night anyway. In a country where kidnapping women was considered a good practical joke by everyone except their husbands, fathers, and brothers, mere horse-stealing was an art form.

  Grumbling, the Pathan subsided. A pony-trap came out from the mansion, with a man driving who had cavalry trooper written all over his weathered brown face. In the back was food in covered brass bowls. Festival food at that; tandoor-baked chicken, fragrant basmati rice, nargisi koftas—lamb meatballs shaped around hard-boiled eggs—and fiery sauces.

  Another benefit of coming during a social gathering, King thought, nose twitching and appetite stirring. A Rajput noble would live on sorghum porridge for a month if he had to, rather than appear a miser before his assembled peers.

  Ibrahim carefully sniffed to make sure none of the meat was pork, which Rajputs did eat, particularly in the form of wild boar, and then took his portion aside. So did several of David bar-Elias’s retainers; he himself avoided the meat save for lamb without the cream-based sauce, but ate with King’s party. Except for beef, Narayan Singh would cheerfully eat anything with anyone; Nanak Guru, the founder of the Sikh faith, had disliked caste and the ritual-purity rules about who could eat with whom. He and the others sat down around the food, rolling up their right sleeves and using balls of rice or chapatis to dip up the sauces and meats.

  King watched Yasmini a little, out of the corner of his eye. There was something fascinating about the catlike way she moved, the precision of the small hands and the delicate flicker of her rather pointed tongue as she licked her lips . . .

  Business, Athelstane, he thought to himself, rather flustered. Aloud: “Eat hearty. We’re on cold dry rations for the next week.”

  The Rajput squire’s men came back, this time with the first of the camels. King went to inspect them as they came in; the drier parts of Rajputana bred the finest and fastest camels in India, a
nd some said in the world. These raised his brows—long-legged beauties (as camels went), a foot taller than his head at the shoulder, and all young and fit. Considering that there was one and a remount for each of them, plus baggage beasts, a fairly considerable sum was involved. Whatever sort of connection Elias’s family had with the Rajput, it was solid. Any of the animals here could carry six hundred pounds, and do thirty miles a day or better for a week on no water and no better fodder than the thorn scrub of the jangladesh, the dry country.

  David bar-Elias went also, and he was a true expert, as King was with horses. Harnessing went quickly under his eye, and that of his caravaneers. The beasts bit, and kicked, and spat gobs of green mucus, and complained with guttural abandon as the unfamiliar handlers saddled and loaded; there was a fair bit of cursing and whacking of sensitive noses. Camels were never amiable, and saw no reason they should walk long distances under heavy burdens just because men wanted them to. When the process was well under way, the Jew went back to one of the ox wagons and pulled up the carpets that covered its bed. Then he pushed and pulled until sections of the planking came up in turn, revealing short burlap-wrapped shapes beneath in a shallow hidden compartment between the real and false floors of the cart.

  “I’m not here in an official capacity,” King said hastily—the rifles were hideously illegal, unless the owners had permits.

  “Properly licensed—just not licensed for use inside the Empire’s borders,” David said, smiling as he handed the weapons out.

  They were Martini-Metford carbines, somewhat out-of-date but still very usable; King had trained on them as a cadet, before the Metford magazine carbine became general issue. He stripped the jute sacking off his and let the familiar weight of wood and steel settle into his hands, smelling of iron and the faintly nutty scent of gun oil. He shook it gently, to make sure there was no rattle of loose parts, then worked the action—thumb through the lever below the stock; push down, and the block sank to lay the chamber bare, pull it back up and the action closed and cocked.