Sary and the Maharajah's Emeralds

by Sharon Shipley

  Frantically I scootched back, but my shoulder stuck. One arm, still outstretched, lay two inches from the thing’s long wavy snout.

  I willed myself into the tunnel, but I couldn’t avoid those dead, unblinking marbles, eyes without pity, close set beside that razor-thin, wavery snout studded with needle teeth. Then the curving jaws, holding more teeth than seemed possible, lazily split wide, showing a pale pink throat.

  Black slits in the glassy yellow marbles still stonily regarded me. Afraid to leave the unblinking scrutiny, I risked scanning a stonewall on the far side and making a decision which I would never have made if I’d thought about it. I thrust forward—or tried to. I had no heart to wait it out. I had no food or potable water, and I sensed the thing had the primitive patience of eons.

  The trouble was that it was two feet away and the wall wasn’t.

  If I can just…

  The thing still inspected me with its primal brain. I could feel the damp chuffing of clammy breath on my face now. Had it moved?

  Prehistoric gears tediously meshed, as if the thing was asleep with its eyes open.

  Then the other padded foot lifted.

  “Get away!” I screamed, slapping my one arm, snatching it back as long jaws snapped an inch away from my fingers.

  The creature lowered itself. Its snout sank below water. It made that odd burbling I’d heard before.

  I looked for a rock, at the broken reed I still held—anything. It was worse not seeing the thing. Its long head rose again. It had drifted sideways. Then it paddled toward me on footstool legs. Moving faster, it crushed the last straggle of reed. I smelt a fishy wave and felt a splash of thick saliva on my cheek.

  One-handed, I pushed hard at its snout and, with a last tear of what was my sari, scraping hips and legs, I skinned free, desperately pitching sideways at the same time; the beast swerved, snapping long scissor-like jaws, hissing, lashing a ridged, fleshy tail. Smack! Water flew.

  Scrambling now, all legs and arms, slip-sliding on bottom slime, tangling with stalks, I ripped through reeds, splashing to mucky shallows, barely staying ahead of the monster, which was moving swiftly once it made up its mind. The croc-thing flipped a bulbous body through the water shockingly fast for its weight and short legs, hurling waves of muck, smashing more reeds in its delayed zeal to get at me.

  The pond sloped up. I kept going, clawing—cane, crumbling cement, mud, broken reeds.

  My feet slipped out from under me, and I landed flat, skidding back on my belly through duck wort and flattened reeds, sliding right on past the thing.

  Its cold primitive eyes followed me. Sluggishly, it turned.

  The pond was no more than four feet deep, yet my head plunged under murky water like liquid fog, thick with floating matter. I popped up sputtering brackish filth, lifting an arm trailing scum, brushing more on my forehead as I wiped my eyes to see.

  The massive beast still ponderously spun, but it was behind me now. What a fool I was! To end up in the belly of the thing because of blind impulse…

  Slip-sliding back across the marl to the edge, I knew it could swim, glide, paddle, far faster than I. Water reached mid-calf now—almost there, when the croc-thing sank, leaving a knuckle-back and two bulbous eyes before submerging in a swirl of pea soup mud a foot away.

  My toes grabbed warm muck. I felt rooted, not sure which way to swerve. I was still too far from the bank. A frog plopped in. I shrieked and that unfroze me; stepping high, making an awkward bound, I landed on my side on a concrete rim. Breath gushed from my lungs. I looked back. Jaws gnashed inches from my foot.

  Sensing the croc’s breath whuffing on my toes, hearing the scritch of claws and the drag of a heavy belly close behind, I grasped green young reeds, gaining ground…

  Almost there…

  Out of time.

  Jaws snapped, closing about my ankle.

  I heard myself howl, “Nooooooo,” not caring who heard me, aware of the sharp piercing of my skin to the bone, jaws gaining my calf, the insistent tug back into the water. Pain began with the trickle of hot blood. My belly backslid over the same path of broken stems until the powerful beast dragged me under.

  Furiously, I clutched rotting stalks in an unequal tug of war, hearing other sleeping croc-creatures splash off banks, grunting, roaring, slapping tails. Mote-filled soup and rotting flesh floated past my eyes, entangling my arms and legs.

  Oh, God, oh, God! I’m under water. Can’t breathe! I am to die in this filthy water! Lord, let me drown first.

  My ankle was numb, but I still sensed the inexorable tug, my belly scraping the bottom. Holding my breath, I tried to twist round, to beat at the thing. My lungs were bursting to breathe. Those things drag victims under to enjoy later, my evil imp whimpered.

  I rejected that. Bracing against a rough bottom under the muck, I heaved backward, my lungs aching to suck in anything—water, air, it didn’t matter—ripping my leg from the croc’s jaws as they eased open to gain another foot of me. I felt shoulder bones pop and nails break as I pushed against a shallower bottom.

  Turning, I swam, splashed, floundered, clawed my way back—back through smashed reeds, following my blood trail, following claw tracks, dragging my useless swollen leg.

  I looked over my shoulder…the water was still.

  I’m at the concrete rim. Somehow, I made it! I’m free.

  I was blind-sided.

  Just as my eyes fixed on the haven of a low stone wall and my hand outstretched, another beast, even larger, homed in from where it lay slyly in wait to one side, flattened in the stalks—a grandfather—a true crocodile, older and wiser.

  Its jaws opened, snapping casually on my vulnerable arm, yanking me sideways too shocked to feel anything except pure rage.

  The hoary beast thrashed me like a rag doll. It was old, missing several teeth from rubbery mottled gums. My hand slipped between the gaps. I felt furrows as teeth on either side ripped down.

  Move! Move! They crawl on bellies! You do not!

  Desperately, I got to one knee, dragging my other leg. My hair caught beneath—pulling it free, I tried to hobble to the wall—I can run; I don’t have to slither on my belly.

  Now or never.

  Last chance.

  My original enemy fought a Johnny-come-lately battle. The old croc, ignoring it and fixing its eyes on me, paddled with dignity, as if it knew the end.

  Broken bamboo was all about me, dead and tough. My left hand grabbed a stalk in a death grip: I reached awkwardly back and brought it down hard on the old croc’s snout.

  It had no effect as the beast continued to stare with ancient eyes.

  One-handed, I grabbed the far side of the wall, unaware of brown legs wading, unknown voices shouting cries, and sticks beating the water. Or of beasts feinting and snarling, breaking free to once again come for me.

  Focused on the crocs, I didn’t feel hands gripping under my arms or hear shouts and curses—before I suddenly realized it was humans tugging at me.

  Stunned faces all around.

  Hands reaching.

  Excited gabble.

  A cacophony of bellows and roars…

  Arms pulling, scraping me across rocks.

  Afterward, blessedly, dirt and grass.

  I looked back, terrified.

  Murky water was turning a muddy red. Was it from my blood, or…? Then a spear arced from nowhere, sinking between the sections of the old croc’s plate-like armor. Confused, I finally saw the blurs of faces.

  One stood out.

  The cursed rajah looked on the spectacle with an unreadable expression—I detected a flicker of—what? Scorn, pity, disillusionment?

  Did you suppose you would really escape? my imp crowed. I saw the same look in the rajah’s eyes.

  I straightened from my crouch, swatting off help, swaying defiantly before the last face I wished to see, except for the maharajah’s. He was offensively immaculate, superbly dressed in white as always, this time in rough cotton, his jodhpurs offsettin
g nutmeg skin to perfection, his white teeth and crow black brows beneath a weird helmet I vaguely recognized.

  “You’ve interrupted practice,” he growled. Later I learned he had been on his favorite horse in the polo field adjacent to the crocodile pits.

  How dare he humiliate you a second time! my imp blustered.

  I straightened. I am sure my green eyes burned from a mask of mud. The rajah shook his head, taking me in, in all my muddy, bloody, scum-smeared, scratched, half-clothed glory, feet, knees, arms, and hands slimed with green, streaked with blood. Ignoring an unbearable itch from a tickle of red meandering through drying mud, I met him full on.

  “I see you’ve paid for your folly, whatever it was.” He raised a brow, poking a pool of blood sinking into the earth with his crop. “Your leg looks grave. However, I cannot tell through all that slime. Where have you been? And what were you attempting?”

  He started back from my intense glare, or possibly my filthy state, recalling his last encounter.

  “I wanted to escape from this godforsaken place!” I snarled.

  He turned and nodded gravely. “I want to hear a defense for your unfathomably stupid actions. Later, I want to hear names.”

  “No one! I found the way myself.” I bit my lip with the name Preeta on my tongue.

  “That will be remedied. Thank you for pointing it out—so spectacularly.” He waved at the broken grille.

  “If that is the only way, one can keep one’s women!”

  “Strangely,” he jeered, “you are the only one foolish enough to attempt it—or wishing to.” He studied me as if inspecting a rubbish bin.

  “Interesting,” he drawled in his King’s English, lifting a strand of hair with a riding crop. “I should hire you as circus performer. Crocodile-wrestling, bear-baiting, and death-defying acts. Is that not what you advertised? As a performer?”

  He looked as if he wished to erase the last words with an impatient gesture.

  Even in my muddled state, the word “performer” resonated with a queer itch I couldn’t scratch.

  Performer? Why does that mean something? Never mind now. I shivered, standing in India’s noonday blast furnace. I blearily noted a shriveled little man, dark brown, baked by the sun, in nothing but a loincloth and stout boots. He thrust a long, hooked pole, glowered terribly at me, and grunted at the detestable rajah.

  “You disturb my friend.” The rajah nodded at the man in the loincloth. “He is caretaker, you see. Half gharial yourself, aren’t you, Old Neelam?”

  Old Neelam, still glaring, grunted something derogatory.

  “We had to destroy his old friend. They go back.”

  I gathered self-possession out of thin air, along with tatters of muddy sari. Actually more mud than sari. I didn’t dare to check my wounds, fearing I might be unfixable.

  “Strange pet! What else can I expect? I was meant to be free of this loathsome place.”

  What did your kiss mean in that scullery? I wish you blasted off the earth. Leave me in my humiliation…please.

  Instead, with his riding crop, he lifted a string of mucky sari.

  I slapped his hand and crop away, swaying, painfully aware my wet hair, strung with unidentifiable filth, hung heavy in my face. My sari, clotted with rapidly drying mud, itched, and where it was not full of mud, it clung damply transparent. Why was this irritating man always finding me at my most loathsome and defenseless? Why must I always have hair strung with muck when in his presence?

  There was quite a crowd interested in my circus act. The rajah gestured to another man on the fringes.

  “Your wounds will be attended to,” he said stiffly. “I trust they will not leave scars.” And he waved, as if waving away my existence.

  One knee buckled. Shaking off Old Neelam, who somehow got in my face uttering what I presumed were insults, defending his innocent, defenseless pets, I reeled on my good leg, pushing past, more a stumble, eyeing the rajah’s pristine attire; a flicker of alarm crossed his handsome features as he backed, not wishing to turn and run, I imagined, and look weak.

  “Afraid I’ll muss you?” I croaked. “You didn’t mind a few days ago!”

  My head filled with fog—nothing to eat or drink for the last how many hours? I needed help. Why was I doing this?

  “Go to bloody bleeding Hades,” I mumbled instead, placing a hand covered with pond scum on his cheek, like a mother scrubbing a child’s face, before he could flinch. “Do your worst,” I gasped.

  Onlookers sucked a breath.

  The rajah waved them off, including Old Neelam, remaining stoic but obviously wishing mightily to wipe off the filth.

  “Oh, much worse,” he said in turn. “Much, much. It is a death warrant to even touch the maharajah without his permission, much less strike or attack him or any royal family member.”

  “So why am I still here?” I whispered, barely standing now. “You jailed me, made me do humiliating acts, threatened me. I have no”—I fought for words—“no fear left.”

  The dam broke. Words came tumbling unsorted. “I don’t understand where I am, why I am here!” My voice rose, cracking. “I am a cipher! There is nothing in here!” I beat my head, sensing my will melting as a mud wall in a rainstorm, awareness guttering like dead leaves. Tears drenched my face. I wanted to curl up somewhere in the sun.

  “You do realize you are rather—indecent?” He asked mildly, ignoring my outburst, or perhaps it was pity for the demented. “Have your injuries attended to—and I have my polo match.”

  He sketched a bow and nodded to a hovering man only just arrived.

  “You must go back, then, mustn’t you. You have my permission!” I emphasized “my” ever so slightly. “And wipe your face.”

  The rajah glared back. A grin fought through a deadly scowl. Removing his absurd helmet, he laughed aloud and wiped his cheek with the bandanna knotted about his neck. He put his hands on his hips and we were the only two there in a growing crowd.

  “I regret, but you do look a sight. You would make even Nirrti dance for joy.” There was a murmur of appreciation, nods and chuckles all around us

  At my blank stare, he explained, “The Goddess of Darkness and Destruction. One of our many Hindu deities. In this case, you.” He would not stop grinning. “We have three million gods…or three, depending on which Vedic scholar one examines.” He wiped his eyes, joining in the crowd’s laughter.

  I saw him look startled. Then he must have heard the thud as my strength of will and body finally gave its all.

  ****

  The rajah knelt, studying Sary on the dirt, careful not to allow pristine jodhpurs to touch the earth. Her face was too white, even for weak Northern Europeans—still she seemed unusually strong for her race.

  He took in the muddied sari, the knotted hair, the pale damaged leg and arm bloodied and mixed with pond scum. One puncture appeared deep. “Poor little foreigner,” he muttered.

  He looked at the physician, who shrugged.

  The look back was dark and filled with meaning.

  Perhaps she will not die. I should not have bantered so long, but she vexes me so. Indeed, a pity to die after such folly. How can one still look so beautiful?

  Waving away the physician, the rajah ignored his clean jodhpurs and picked Sary up in his arms.

  She hung limp, hair and sari dripping slime on the rajah’s polished boots.

  ****

  He nodded as the rajah entered the sickroom.

  “A moment.”

  The physician nodded again, bowing out.

  Watching until he left, the rajah bent over Sary.

  Something had been nagging him all through the practice match.

  He’d missed the seven-minute warning bell of the second-to-last chukker. The damn ball went out of play and he hadn’t even heard the umpire’s whistle. To say his team looked at him oddly was an understatement.

  He soured his mouth.

  Yet there was an oddity he had not taken time to explore. What he su
spicioned were those odd discolorations visible through Sary’s clean linen shift, made thin for the climate and her raging fever. Lifting it up carefully, taking care not to look at her body, as that would be a disrespectful and a somehow shameful act akin to his brother’s, he leaned close, recognizing the cicatrize of bullet scars, another old wound by her left lower rib cage—and one in the cup of her left shoulder.

  Sary stirred, perhaps aware of scrutiny even in her coma, drawing up her knees, hands under her chin. The back of her shift dropped away, revealing numerous thin white scars, so pale they seemed lacy tracks, like white tattoos.

  “A story there, I should not wonder,” he murmured. He stroked her ankle. Even a tiny burn scar. The gharial bites might leave puncture scars too.

  “What life have you led, my Sary?” he whispered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Panther, Panther, Burning Bright

  Raucous jungle chatter assaulted my ears. I squinted at the white hammer of sun beating the earth into heated clouds of dust. I drooped over ropes, barely conscious.

  I was still feverish. Most of my wounds had healed over, but not without scarring. A week after my escape attempt—why wait so long?—they took me from my sickroom and hoisted me on top a bloody elephant.

  Gauze, stained from unguents, still wrapped my arm and leg—why treat the condemned? I wondered dismally how I could have been so ill-advised. A rage burned inside. I watched bitterly through a fog of fever and kicked up dust as men in hunting gear, armed with expensive rifles, and a clutch of Indian women in European dress and manner rode ahead of me in far finer howdahs than mine.

  At a rise, I saw another elaborately painted elephant—the maharajah’s.

  The day turned darker and colder for me. Nothing good could come of this day. It became more so after the elephants turned off, crashing into the jungle, discerning a faint path. I was to be executed. Why else bring me trussed like a pig to market in the midst of nowhere? Why the partygoers?

  But I guessed. They probably supposed me to be a subject of British rule. Was I? Leaving no awkward diplomatic trace, I thought bitterly, my body soon dissolving into wet greenness…