The Golden Leopard

by Lynn Kerstan

  He wanted to have this conversation with his killer some other time, when he was more than a mole in a black tunnel. But he’d been brought awake for a purpose. He honed his brain, flint against mush, to a semblance of awareness.

  “You knew of the stone circle because we met there,” he said to the assassin, standing loose haired and solemn at the foot of the bed. “I take it you knew of the tunnel that got me away from the house. You made the thunder yourself, damn you. What I can’t figure is how you predicted the fog. And why, after your sworn declaration to carry out my execution, you appear to have been keeping me alive.”

  “A puzzle,” Shivaji said from the table, where he was emptying a packet of something green into the mortar. “I will tell you what I can. But of the tunnel and the fog, I knew nothing save for my dream. I claim no gift for interpretation. The confluence of what I dreamed and what transpired surprises me as much as it does you.”

  “You seemed to believe it when you told me about it.”

  “Yes. It was . . . startling. So vivid that I understood it clearly, until I awoke. After that, I remembered only the images. As for the thunder, it was not I who shot you. Two bullets hit you in the back. I arrived shortly after.”

  “Talbot, then.” Duran dropped the words like two lead balls. In the great scheme of things, he no doubt deserved what he had got. Unpardonably arrogant, he had been so sure he’d outwitted Talbot. And he had kept assuming, against all evidence to the contrary, that his opponent was a gentleman, a principled man who would fight with swords if he declared swords. Who would not, after agreeing to an honorable duel, shoot a man in the back.

  Anyone else would have expected treachery. Come prepared for it. But Hugo Duran, longtime cynic, had wandered onto the killing field like a woolly lamb, betrayed by his own unsuspected idealism.

  “Sir Gerald was observed leaving the house and approaching the Tor,” Shivaji said, “but that did not appear significant until we learned of your departure. At that time I followed. When I arrived, he had reloaded his pistols and was moving toward you. My knife cut him down.”

  “Why not let him complete the job? Save you the trouble?”

  “He was not, it appeared, called for you.”

  “That, or he was a shockingly bad shot. So, I was down and you were there, blade in hand. Why didn’t you finish me yourself?”

  Shivaji shook the powder he’d ground into a cup, added what looked like oil, and followed it with a brownish liquid. “It seemed the killing of you had been taken from my hands,” he said quietly, “and the healing of you put there instead. To know one’s duty is not, perhaps, so simple as tradition and experience would have it. But I cannot say what I would have chosen to do, had not the Lady Jessica at that moment come into the stone circle. When she stood before me and demanded your life, I was unable to refuse her.”

  At the sound of her name, Duran’s heart had jumped. The room was so absent of her. So empty without her. But she had wanted him to live. Might she, then, one day forgive him? Well, too soon to start hoping for another miracle. “Did she trick you,” he asked, “like the princess tricked the Lord of Death in the story? The real story, not the self-justifying version you told her.”

  “Lady Jessica was not so devious as the princess. She brought a gun.”

  Duran started to laugh and instantly regretted it. The horse stampeded across his back, leaving him a puddle of sweat and pain.

  “I advise you to be cautious,” Shivaji said, blotting his face with a damp towel. “You have been so near to death that more than once I believed you to have stepped upon the moon. Indeed, perhaps you did. For you have died to your former life, I think, and rekindled a new one. Now you must take care to preserve it, and to live more virtuously than you did before.”

  “I could h-hardly live worse,” Duran managed to choke out. Shivaji was leaning over his back now, doing something that hurt even worse than laughing. “Did you burn that concoction under my nose so that I’d be awake while you tortured me?”

  “An interesting idea, but no. When asleep, you cannot control your movements, and you must keep perfectly still when I remove the bracelet. Tell me when you feel ready for me to attempt it.”

  Attempt? That sounded ominous. And just thinking of those poisoned needles gave him a case of the shivers. His arm, a little elevated by the sling, rested on a pillow at his side. He looked down at it, at the bracelet, and released the breath he’d been holding. “Whenever you like,” he said. “The nizam wants it back?”

  “It is marked as proof I have carried out your death sentence. I am ordered to return it, still wrapped around your wrist.”

  “You were supposed to lug my body all the way back to Alanabad?” He had a mental image of Admiral Lord Nelson preserved in a brandy barrel after Trafalgar.

  “Only your arm, Duran-Sahib.” Shivaji had returned to the bedside table and was removing something from his cabinet of drawers. “But if you have no objection, I shall use Sir Gerald’s instead. The Star of the Firmament will not know the difference, and it will spare me a good deal of trouble. Amputations on the living are usually bloody affairs.”

  All of a sudden, Shivaji had decided to play comedy. “You have Talbot’s arm?”

  “He was found in a bog, his right arm chewed off below the elbow. It appeared that an animal had got to him before he sank, but of course, he was dead well before that.” Shivaji brought a small table to the bedside and arranged several lamps where they would cast light over Duran’s wrist. “It was regrettable, but necessary.”

  “Let me get this straight. You excised Talbot’s arm. And you mean to use it to deceive the nizam. You intend to lie to him?”

  “Certainly not.” Shivaji cast him a look of reproach. “I shall employ one of those—how did you put it?—delightfully inscrutable pronouncements. But since I also bring him the leopard that will secure him on the throne, along with sufficient proof of Malik Rao’s treason to justify both his execution and the suppression of his cult, the nizam will not question me too closely.”

  Duran regarded him with astonishment. “I am devastated to hear it. The incorruptible has been corrupted.”

  “I fear so. You have been a bad influence, Duran-Sahib. It is fitting we shall not meet again. You understand that you must never return to India?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me there. But really, you should drop off the leopard in Alanabad and keep right on moving. That nizam doesn’t merit the devotion you waste on him.”

  “I serve him because it is my dharma. It does not fall to me to question his merit, any more than the Lady Jessica questions yours.”

  Point scored. “You think I am her dharma?”

  “Or her curse.” Shivaji crouched beside him, a small silver implement in his hand. He set another on the bed. “Now you must lift your arm and hold it steady. You are aware, I believe, of the consequences if the procedure does not go well.”

  Duran planted his elbow on the pillow and gingerly raised his forearm. “Comforting a patient is not your forte, is it?”

  “I beg your pardon.” Shivaji, bending forward, held the bracelet between thumb and forefinger and explored its underside with the metal probe. “I ought not criticize you when I cannot prevent my own hands from trembling.”

  Snatching his arm away, Duran sagged in the sling and gave in to the laughter he could no longer control. It hurt—God how it hurt—but it was like the pain of cauterizing a wound. And when he was done, and could breathe again, Shivaji plumped the pillow under his elbow and set to work again, this time in earnest.

  “It is salutary, Duran. You are not now so tense. Keep patient for a little time longer.”

  It was a long time longer. Duran felt as if he were sliding into another place, where the air was so thick he couldn’t move. But only because he chose not to move. For the first time since the shackles were clamped about his wrists and ankles in Alanabad, the apprehension of what might happen in the next moment, the sensation of everything spin
ning out of his control, was gone. He was far past worrying about the deadly needles and what would happen if they sprang into his flesh. Karma, Dharma, Angels in the Pool.

  But he would like to see Jessica again. He had something to tell her.

  A click. A nearly imperceptible sigh from Shivaji. A warm hand lowering his forearm to the pillow again. Duran opened his eyes and saw the bracelet, carved gold nubbed with ruby and emerald cabochons, gleaming in the lamplight. Shivaji slipped it into a velvet pouch and pulled the drawstring.

  So it was over. The life or death question, at any rate. Only after he’d spoken with Jessica would he know if there was any point to his survival. He glanced over at Shivaji, again busy with his powders and potions like a warlock bending over a cauldron. Hair of dog. Eye of newt.

  “You told me it was written,” Duran said. “My destiny. Mapped out. Unalterable. But it wasn’t, after all.”

  “Your destiny has been written.” Shivaji came to the bed with a cup in his hand. “Not because it is designed, but because it is known.”

  “Not by you.”

  “Not by me,” Shivaji agreed. “When I said your death at my hands was written, I had simply not read far enough. You will drink this now. It will ease your pain and help you to sleep for a time.”

  Duran already felt limp as overcooked cabbage, but he obediently swallowed the bitter drink. He had just passed the cup back to Shivaji when there came a knock at the door. Moments later, though, his hopes were dashed.

  It was only Arjuna, carrying a familiar box. At Shivaji’s direction, he placed it on the table beside the bed.

  “This is the replica of the leopard,” Shivaji said. “I give it you as your dowry. You will understand that it cannot be kept whole.”

  Astounded, Duran could only stare at him. Already the drug had thickened his tongue and dimmed his vision.

  In company with his son, Shivaji went to the door, where they both turned, put their hands together beneath their chins, and bowed. Arjuna left then, but Shivaji lingered for a moment.

  Serene as a temple carving, he gazed across the room at Duran. “Shanti,” he said. “Peace. In another lifetime, if it is so written, perhaps we shall meet as friends. May God shower blessings upon you and your lady.”

  And then he was gone, disappearing in the narcotic fog that clouded Duran’s eyes and all too quickly, his mind.

  Chapter 31

  At midmorning, after the breakfast Mrs. Bellwood had insisted she eat, Jessica resumed her vigil in the small ground-floor parlor where Duran had been carried eight days earlier.

  He would recover, Shivaji had assured her before departing with his men for the ship. Lined up on the bedside table were the medicines and ointments and bandages he had prepared, and she had memorized his instructions. A doctor would come in from time to time—Aubrey had insisted on that—but after a week at Shivaji’s side, and with the confidence he had engendered in her, she felt capable of tending her husband without supervision.

  It had been quite different in the beginning, when she was all but paralyzed with fear. He had come so near to dying. Every hour brought a new crisis, a fever, more bleeding, and through it all, Shivaji worked calmly to restore him while she stood by, holding a jar, cutting a thread, doing what little she could.

  The nights were the worst. Sometimes Duran would appear to waken. His eyes would open, and when she bent over him, he looked at her. But there was nothing there, no recognition, no awareness.

  “His strength is turned inward,” Shivaji had told her. “His body devotes itself to healing. He will return to us in time.”

  He hadn’t done, not while she’d been there. In retrospect, she felt certain that when Shivaji exiled her to her room last night for some uninterrupted sleep, he believed that Duran was close to waking. And so he had, in the small hours of the morning, and she had missed it. She was still angry about that. But relieved as well, because Shivaji had spoken with him, found him lucid, and judged him well enough to do without his own attentions.

  Now she was charged with his care, and the long sleep had done her good. It was time to dispel some of this gloom, she decided. Let in some light and air. When she drew the curtains she saw Aubrey’s two older children on the lawn directly outside, playing with the new puppies. Their mother, Harriet, an infant at her breast and another in her swollen belly, sat with Mariah on a blanket nearby.

  They might have been on their way to South America, Mariah and the gentleman who had loved her for so long, except that John Pageter, always pragmatic, had confided their intentions to Mrs. Bellwood. Thanks to her and the speed of Sothingdon’s messenger, they were plucked from the ship just in time.

  Mariah looked up, gave a tentative wave. She felt responsible for what Gerald had done to Duran, which made no sense whatever. Aubrey felt responsible as well, and that made perfect sense. While overlooking the sister who needed his protection, he’d been ruthlessly tending to Jessica’s business, dispatching her lover back to India and later banishing him from High Tor.

  She thought she might forgive him one day. His abashed confession had helped, as had his signature beside her father’s on a document that would release Lady Sothingdon’s legacy to her. She now had the family’s approval of her marriage. All she lacked was a husband willing to stay in it.

  She waved back at Mariah, added a smile for good measure, and turned to the bed.

  Duran’s eyes were open. She drew a little closer, evaluating him as Shivaji had taught her. The eyes followed her motion. They were clear and alert. He looked a bit piratical with a week’s growth of beard, but his skin had good color. His breathing was steady. A little raspy, but she’d been told to expect that. Her heart began to race. For the first time, she sensed that he was fully here in the room.

  “Hullo, princess,” he said, his voice husky and not very strong. “Have I been a great deal of trouble?”

  “When are you not?” She came to the pillows, felt his cool—blessedly cool—forehead, and examined the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and back. No stains. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a Christmas goose strung up for the plucking. How long am I to remain suspended by ropes and pulleys?”

  “Until you can be trusted to behave rationally. It is for your own good, as you are so fond of telling me.”

  “I detect that you are a trifle put out with me.”

  “Indeed I am.” Of a sudden, unexpected and unwelcome, all the tension and fear she’d contained inside herself these agonizing days and nights broke loose. A great wave of anger rushed over her. She was shaking with it. Unable to bear looking at him, she took herself to the other end of the room and began to pace it off. “Oh, I can understand a little why you thought it necessary to drug me. I was not to know of your escape, or to help you achieve it. But you didn’t escape, did you? You got away through the tunnel, but instead of taking ship like a sane man with an assassin on his heels, you went for a stroll on Devil’s Tor. In the fog. What in God’s name possessed you to do something so . . . so bacon-brained?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” he ventured after a moment.

  “No. It’s one of those questions that no matter how you answer it, you’ll be wrong. But I want an answer anyway.”

  “If you insist. But you won’t like it. Gerald insulted you. I called him out. We were going to fight a duel.”

  “Yes. Well, you see how that turned out. But I think the truth is somewhat other. He wasn’t going to give up, was he? In spite of what you told me, he had set himself to punish the family. You needn’t go on pretending otherwise, because John Pageter and I have spoken at length. You stayed to fight Gerald because that was the only way to get rid of him. You must have known he wouldn’t fight fair, and you didn’t even have a weapon. There was no gun from Miranda Holcombe. That was another lie.”

  “I’d have had a knife,” he reminded her a little plaintively, “but you wouldn’t let me take one.”

  “You cannot be trusted with sharp
objects.” She came to a halt by the window, aware that the wave of fury had begun to recede. She couldn’t have said why she blamed him for stepping up to protect her family, taking Aubrey’s place, her father’s place, all their places, standing alone for them. He had been heroic, in a ham-handed sort of way, and it made her so proud. And so afraid, so terribly afraid, that she was about to lose him now. She was, she supposed, doing everything possible to drive him away because she could not face him wanting to leave her. “What will you do now?” she asked, turning to the window, her hands clutching at her skirts.

  “Not much,” he said, “until you cut me down from here. Why, princess? What do you wish me to do?”

  She took a deep breath. She took another deep breath. She had imagined herself saying this, not sure she would be able to do it. Walk into the pain, she reminded herself. Nothing can be so bad as what has been, or what you fear.

  “Shivaji told me how the story really ended,” she said. “The part neither of you saw fit to mention. Princess Savitri kept on following the Lord of Death after he granted her the first boon, nagging him until he granted her another. And that time, she tricked him. She asked for a hundred children, and when he agreed, she pounced. ‘But I can have no children,’ she said, ‘none at all, if you take my husband. For I will never love another, or have another to my bed. So how will you keep your promise, Yamaraj?’ And he had no choice but to let her beloved Satyavan live after all, because above all things else, he must honor his given word.”

  With all the courage she possessed, Jessica went to the foot of the bed and looked into his eyes. “I, too, want children. But I can have none, none at all, without my husband. Because I can never love another, nor take another to my bed. Not since the first time with you, not any time after. Only you, Duran.” Tears were streaming down her face. Like the waterfall.