Priya nodded. “Well, at the very least, I suppose I’m glad those girls have their place to play again. It was nice to hear them laughing.”
Chapter 6
The Deadly Gift
1
Asha lay awake, listening. She didn’t need her poisoned ear to track the souls of the men coming toward her hut. She could hear their boots crunching through the undergrowth, crashing along like mad elephants through the dry bracken.
She reached over to cover Priya’s mouth just as the nun woke up. Asha whispered, “Stay very calm. Do whatever they say. Let me do the talking.”
Priya nodded as Asha took her hand away. Both women sat up. Asha slung her bag of tools and herbs over her shoulder and Priya gathered up the long, lean form of Jagdish, their young mongoose who wasn’t so young anymore. Asha tried to remember how long they had been together. Has it really been three years?
They had slept in yet another abandoned house, the decaying remains of something that had once been a home to someone but was now just a rotting arrangement of boards and pegs and dry grass. It had seemed as good a place as any to rest outside the bustling city of Jaipur. Now, as she sat listening to the soldiers approach, Asha wasn’t so sure it had been the right decision. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Footsteps circled the hut and shadows slid across the gaps in the walls. They moved toward the empty doorway, a gaping rectangle that offered her a view of a few trees and an unplowed field beyond. And then a man stepped into the doorway. He wore the blood-red armor of a Rajput soldier and carried a talwar saber sheathed at his side. His helmet fit close over his head, and his majestic black mustache swept out to each side in a manner that made him look as though he were smiling.
He was smiling.
Asha blinked.
The soldier asked, “Are you the herbalist Asha of Kathmandu?”
“I am,” she said.
“I have been sent by His Royal Highness, Maharana Pratap Singh, lord of all Rajasthan, to summon you to the royal palace on a most urgent and private matter.” The soldier bowed his head curtly.
Asha stood up and helped Priya to stand beside her. They both stepped outside the hut into the early morning light and found eight more men armed and armored outside in two lines of four. To buy a few spare moments to think, Asha said, “Pratap Singh? I’m sorry, but we’re from the distant east. We’re not familiar that name.”
The commanding soldier with the smiling mustache nodded. “Maharana Pratap is the grandson and heir of Maharana Sangram Singh, lord of Mewar. The wars with the Persians have brought us quite far from home. Through the vagaries of fortune and fate, our lord now finds himself master of all Rajasthan and the protector of our great nation against the foul Persians.”
Asha nodded politely, not caring at all about the vagaries of Rajput politics and hoping only to learn more about the man who had summoned her. How dangerous would it be to refuse? “And may I ask why Maharana Pratap wishes to see me?”
The soldier frowned for the first time, but not at her. He glanced away and cleared his throat. “It is a private matter.”
“A private matter to be addressed by a homeless herbalist from the east?” Asha glanced at the other men, but they all stared straight ahead at nothing, like dolls waiting for a command to return to life. She pitied them. “I suppose it must be serious.”
The commander nodded.
“A medical problem. One that the prince’s master physicians have already tried and failed to treat?”
He nodded again.
Asha reached into her bag for a fresh sliver of ginger. She chewed the soft root for a moment. “My friend must be welcome where I am welcome.”
“Of course, Mistress Asha.”
“And we must be free to come and go as we please.”
“As long as it pleases my lord, yes.”
Asha nodded. That’s probably the best offer we’re going to get. “All right then. I’ll come. Lead the way.”
The men formed ranks in front and behind the two ladies and they all set off down the narrow dirt path back to the main road with the commander in the van. Once out on the dusty highway again, Asha glanced back at the overgrown lane where their hut stood absolutely hidden from the main road, and she wondered how the men had found her.
Turning her attention back to the path ahead, Asha studied the outline of Jaipur, the city she had deliberately tried to avoid the night before by insisting that they sleep in the hut instead of finding shelter among the cottages crowding along the road. Farms and villages were one thing, but cities were quite another and it had taken her all night to prepare for the onslaught of noise.
People.
Too many people, too many busy people bustling around and over and under one another. Asha could hear them all, all their noisy souls clambering with ideas and schemes, with needs and desires, with hungers and passions. All those thousands of souls roared through the herbalist’s poisoned ear like a maelstrom, churning and gushing, noise beyond comprehension, beyond purpose. Just noise. Endless, pounding noise.
Asha rubbed her forehead, and then her eyes, and then began digging through her bag for something, anything, that might be strong enough for the headache throbbing through her skull.
The city rose up around them in fits and starts. A few larger houses here, a sprawling marketplace there, first one temple and then twenty more just beyond it. The height of the city steadily increased as well, the rooflines rising to block out the forests, and then the distant mountains, and then the sky itself. Soon Asha and her entourage were marching down a vast canyon of Rajput temples and estates and palaces and fortresses, some ancient and some new, some broken and partly repaired, others gleaming in perfection. Red stone and white stone, towers and domes. And the endless processions of windows in level upon level rising above them, repeating over and over in their intricate design until the design lost all meaning.
“What’s it like?” Priya asked.
“It’s big,” Asha said. “Bigger than I expected.”
“Oh.” Priya touched her arm. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right.” Asha found a ginko leaf to chew. “I’ll just try to keep this visit brief.”
For most of an hour they strode through the streets of Jaipur. The commander rarely had to speak to clear a path through the crowds. Most people took one glance at the red Rajput armor and silently moved aside. Still, Asha found the journey all too slow and miserable for the press of bodies and faces and voices all around them. Several times she thought to ask the commander how much farther, how much longer, but she kept her peace and chewed her leaves and waited.
Eventually she noticed that the city was growing smaller and quieter again. The rooflines receded and the crowds thinned, and Asha began to wonder whether their destination was inside the city at all when the commander paused to point out a small palace just ahead.
“The Jal Mahal.”
Asha saw where the road ended and a vast lake began. The water lay quite low below the level of the street and rising above the surface of the lake was a wide bridge of many arches and small towers reaching out across the water to a small island.
The palace, the Jal Mahal, sat on a low rise of earth so that it seemed almost to float on the water itself. As a building it was not at all remarkable, merely a large square two levels high with small domed towers in each corner and a great many dark windows staring out at the world. But as a creation of man and nature, as an act of artistry and subtlety, it was one of the most beautiful places Asha had ever seen. The walls shone with sunlight dancing off the little waves of the lake, and the lake reflected the towers and the bridge to create the illusion that the palace drifted serenely in empty space. It was a pocket of calm after the torrent of the city, a pocket world utterly audacious not in its size or grandeur, but in its elegance.
“Where’s my patient?” Asha asked.
2
The commander led the group across the long bridge over the water,
which shimmered silver and gold in the midmorning light. Tall pink flamingos stood in the shallows, gazing across the surface, while small brown ducks floated on the softly rippling waves in search of breakfast.
Asha followed her escorts through the main entrance of the palace and through several airy corridors to the inner square, which was filled with a garden of flowering fruit trees and long-limbed ferns that screened the ground from view. The garden was ringed by a short wall, and on the top of the short wall sat a tall man studying the brilliant verdure of the plants. At the sound of the soldiers’ approach the man stood up, straightened his red jacket, swept one hand carefully over his shining black mustache, and nodded curtly at the commander, who stepped aside.
The tall man said, “Mistress Asha?”
“Maharana Pratap.” Asha bowed her head. Priya copied the gesture without being prompted. Jagdish, the sleeping mongoose, did not acknowledge the prince at all. “I have come to offer my services to your house. Where am I needed?”
The prince nodded. “You’re very direct. Good. Come with me.” He led them around the edge of the walled garden. “I’m certain I can rely upon your discretion in this matter. No one is to know anything from you, either inside or outside the palace. Only one servant knows for certain that anything is amiss, though the others must all suspect something by now. I’ve only said that she is ill, nothing more.”
“You have my absolute discretion, Your Highness.” Asha followed him to a tall door flanked by a pair of armored men. The prince opened only the right door and led the women inside, and shut the door behind them.
Asha took in the room with a quick glance. Airy curtains rippled by the windows overlooking the lake. Silken pillows sat piled in the corners and around the bed. Lush Persian carpets covered the floor in red and brown and yellow patterns. Ming screens stood along one wall near the closet. In the center of the room was a shapeless bed, a mound of sheets and blankets and pillows that no doubt hid a square mattress of some sort, and atop the bedding lay a sleeping woman.
She was young and beautiful, and from Asha’s view by the door, the woman looked perfectly healthy. “Your wife?”
“Yes.” The prince nodded and led them closer.
Asha stopped at the edge of the sheets and gestured to the bed. “May I?”
“Yes, please.” The prince nodded.
Asha pulled her bag from her shoulder and crossed the tumbled blankets and pillows in her dusty shoes. She sat on the edge of the bed by the princess’s head and quickly inspected the woman’s eyes and mouth, gently probed her jaw and neck, and then listened to her breathing and heartbeat, which were slow and regular. “Can she speak?”
“Only with great effort, and great pain,” the prince said. “It all began several months ago, I believe. She used to be quite energetic. Athletic. Active. She rode her horses, visited the marketplaces, visited the shrines, and visited her friends outside the city. Always traveling, always very strong, very vital. Then she began slowing down. Sleeping longer. Leaving the palace less often. Excusing herself from dinners and affairs of state, claiming she was tired or ill. Then I began to notice the small pains when she moved, as though she had a stiff back or a bruised muscle. We tried making the bed softer, but it did not help. And now, she remains in bed, almost unable to move at all, and rarely speaking. Her maid helps her to eat her food, which must be ground into paste because she cannot chew it anymore. The maid also helps her with…other personal things. You understand.”
Asha pulled back the hair from the right side of her face. The prince gasped at the sight of the gold scales crusting over her ear, but she ignored him as she pressed her head to the princess’s chest to listen. For a moment the sound of the prince’s fear overwhelmed her senses, but Asha tuned him out and found the sound of the princess’s soul, a sound so soft and small it might have been lost like a grain of sand on the beach. It was a steady hum. Too steady. Asha heard no dreams, no fears, and no desires either fleshly or otherwise in the young woman at all. “She’s not in pain.”
“Oh good,” the prince exclaimed.
“No, that’s bad. She’s too weak, too disconnected to feel pain. Her body is shutting down, slowly and gradually. She’ll die very soon without treatment.”
“Can you help her?”
“Maybe. Were there other symptoms before? Fever, chills, dizziness, vomiting, skin rash?”
“No, none of that.”
“What sort of health is her mother in?”
“Her mother?” The prince frowned. “Strong as an ox, but only half as delightful.”
“Hm.” Asha brought a slender golden needle out of her bag. She stared at the three notches on the needle for a moment as she wiped the metal clean with a bit of cinnamon bark. Then she carefully placed the needle over the woman’s chest and slipped it under the skin to the first notch. And then the second. And then the third.
She pulled out the needle and wiped it clean again. “No reaction. She should have twitched at least a little.” Asha waved a series of salts and oils under the woman’s nose, also with no effect. Frowning, she reached down and struck the woman sharply just below the kneecap. “She’s completely unresponsive.”
“Well, of course. She’s been like this for some time,” the prince said.
“But she’s rigid. Here, feel her neck and shoulder, and arm. You can feel the stiffness in her muscles. That should be a sign that her mind is still sending commands to her body, even if they are the wrong commands. But no. This stiffness isn’t coming from her nerves.” Asha looked up at the prince. “It may be chemical. Something she was exposed to. A disease, a toxin, a poison. Even an exotic fruit, something she might be allergic to. Something that she has been exposed to in small doses over the past several months. Do you have any new animals in the palace? Maybe something new in the marketplace, or at one of her friends’ homes?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea about the market or her friends, but she has been confined to this room for the past six weeks and nothing strange has entered here in that time, I assure you. I’ve been quite careful to make certain that nothing could enter that might harm her. No visitors. No animals. The only people to enter this room have been myself, the maid, and four doctors.”
“What about an injury? A cut, a scratch. It could be something very small, just large enough to allow a splinter under the skin.”
“I don’t know. She never mentioned an injury.”
Asha nodded. “Fine. I’ll need to spend some time observing her here, and then later I’ll take a look around the house for anything suspicious. Have there been reports of anyone else with this condition?”
“No.”
“Well, you should have your people go through the markets and to your wife’s friends. They need to ask if anyone else is sick, or if anything strange has come into the area recently. Any food, cloth, or wood. Any sort of strange insects.”
“I will.” The prince started for the door.
“One last question. The four doctors who treated your wife. Were any of them foreigners? From the east?”
“No, they were all from the city here. Why?”
“It’s not important. I’ll send you a report when I know more.”
The prince nodded and left, shutting the door securely behind him.
Asha sighed.
Priya sat down carefully in the center of a wide carpet and took Jagdish off her shoulder. “Any thoughts?”
“No. For a moment it looked like some sort of severe arthritis, but no. I’ll examine her body now for any splinters or cuts. It may take a while.”
The nun nodded as she petted the mongoose in her lap.
3
Asha spent the rest of the morning examining the princess. She studied the woman’s skin in detail, but found no punctures with infected motes floating beneath the surface. She studied the woman’s joints and muscles, and then her ears and nostrils, and with the door locked she looked everywhere else. But she found no cause for the princess’
s strange condition.
At noon the maid entered to spoon-feed the princess a bit of colorless mash, which Asha laced with several herbs and spices. The maid cleaned her mistress’s hands and face with a damp cloth, and left.
Asha then spent the afternoon prowling through the palace, poking into jars and lamps, scratching at the cracks and holes in the mortar in the walls, sniffing the guards’ boots, and banging about in the kitchens in search of nests, hives, spores, and molds. She found several of each, but none that could harm a healthy young princess.
Guards, valets, and maids responded to her every question, her every request. Unlock this. Open that. When was this last cleaned? What is that? Where did this come from? Every question was answered and every answer led nowhere.
Her fruitless search brought her back to the walled garden in the inner courtyard. She sat on the wall and gazed blankly at the ferns and mangos and foxtail orchids. Her poisoned ear brought her the soft harmonies of the floral spirits. She heard the tinkling bells of the flowers, the muted gongs of the trees, and the windy whistling of the crickets. Nothing she hadn’t heard before.
But then she did hear something new. It was a high reedy note and Asha frowned as she tried to recognize what sort of soul made that sound when she realized one of the guards was staring at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing, madam. You just looked confused at the bird call.”
A bird call? It was a real sound, Asha realized. I’m starting to confuse what’s physical and what isn’t. “That’s right, I didn’t recognize the call. What sort of bird is it?”
The guard shrugged. “I’ve never seen it. But I hear it now and then. Just that one note, just like we heard a moment ago.”
Asha waited for the bird to call again, but it did not oblige. So she strained her right ear to track down the noise of the creature’s soul, but all she heard were the cranes far across the lake and a handful of fish deep in its waters.
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