Abounding Might

by Melissa McShane

  “Even so, Lady Daphne, Madhyapatnam is large—there is no point in searching for one man in a sea of men.” Schofeld laughed. “You needn’t fear for Fletcher’s safety. The man is wilier than a greased cat. He never met a problem he couldn’t scheme his way out of.”

  Daphne bristled. “That is uncharitable.”

  “I have known him for twenty years. It is nothing but the truth.” Schofeld’s brow furrowed. “Lady Daphne, he has not imposed himself on you?”

  “I do not know what you mean. We are friends, certainly.”

  “Then he has imposed on your good nature.” To her shock, Schofeld took both her hands in his in a rather paternal gesture. “I assure you, Lady Daphne, whatever lies he has told you—”

  Daphne pulled her hands away. “Do not speak to me in such a way,” she said. “Captain Fletcher is an honorable man who has never lied to me, and certainly would never mislead me. I do not know what animosity is between you that you would believe so, but I hardly expect someone like you to understand that, since you are the kind of man who thinks nothing of taunting others for his own amusement.”

  Schofeld’s mouth fell open. “Lady Daphne,” he said, sounding stunned, “what did I say to deserve that?”

  “You do not remember? You thought it funny to mock my size and my eagerness to serve, to pretend to admiration when your private words said otherwise, and you expect me not to hate you for it? Did your humor at my expense make you the darling of your comrades, or was it simply for your personal pleasure?”

  “The—but that was three years ago, Lady Daphne! And I meant no harm by it. I admired you—”

  “That was a terrible way to show your admiration. I cannot believe you expect me not to be offended simply because you meant no harm. I have no respect for anyone who takes pleasure in others’ pain.”

  Schofeld pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed closed against the onslaught. “I had no idea,” he said. “I—yes, I can see how you might have been offended, but I never mocked you to your face. How can you believe I am the sort of man who enjoys hurting others? I have never behaved other than with perfect politeness to you.”

  “You cannot possibly believe I should forgive you simply because you kept your cruelties concealed from me? It was dishonorable behavior, Major, and as I knew of it regardless, you can hardly claim I was not injured.”

  “You are correct,” Schofeld said, drawing himself to attention. “Lady Daphne, I behaved abominably. I should never have spoken ill of you, even in private, and you are right to be angry. Please, accept my apologies.”

  He seemed sincere, but Daphne, warming to her subject, was disinclined to back down. “And am I to ignore your treatment of Captain Fletcher? I have seen the deliberate pain you inflict on him.” She took a step forward and enjoyed seeing Schofeld back away from her as from a dangerous animal. “There is nothing you can say about your antagonistic relationship with him that can possibly justify that.”

  Schofeld’s formal air of entreaty gave way to confusion. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Of course you do. You deliberately inflict your emotions on him to overwhelm his talent. I have seen it. How do you justify that? Some admiration for the captain hidden so deep even you are not aware of it?”

  “Lady Daphne,” Schofeld said, shaking his head, “you are overwrought. Fletcher has lied to you to gain your trust and make me look like a monster. I have never done anything more to him than tease him, and he deserves it, I promise you he does.”

  “I fail to see how you are entitled to determine what punishments others deserve. I have seen the effects with my own eyes, Major. Captain Fletcher becomes ill after your so-called teasing. It shuts down his talent entirely. Lie to yourself if you must, but do not attempt to lie to me.”

  “Ill?”

  Too late Daphne realized what a weapon she had just handed Schofeld. “I have nothing more to say to you,” she said. “I must search for the captain. If you wish to be of help, you can aid me. Otherwise, let me alone.”

  “Lady Daphne, wait.” Schofeld’s hand hovered over her arm, but he did not quite dare to touch her. Wise of him, Daphne thought, considering she might just bite his hand off if he did. “I cannot—I apologize for causing you pain. Please believe I intended no harm.”

  “I may be able to forgive you someday,” Daphne said, “and…” He looked unexpectedly miserable, and despite herself she felt a pang of remorse. “I believe that you did not intend to insult me. But Captain Fletcher is my friend, and—”

  “Fletcher and I have known each other since before our talents manifested,” Schofeld said. “I can offer you my apologies for the wrong I have done you, but I will not justify myself to you. I assure you that you are mistaken, because contrary to what you believe, I have never caused deliberate harm to Fletcher.” His words were bold, but there was uncertainty in his eyes.

  “That is something you will have to discuss with the captain,” Daphne said. “And now I truly must go.”

  “Let me prove my sincerity by helping you search,” Schofeld said. “Where did Fletcher go missing?”

  “To the south. We might quarter the city, but if he is trapped somewhere—”

  “You have reason to believe he might be trapped?”

  “If he has not returned, I assume it is because he cannot.”

  “Then searching for him visually is pointless. Pray, do not rip up at me again, Lady Daphne, I say only what seems obvious to me.”

  Daphne sighed. “No, you are correct. But I cannot stand by and do nothing.”

  “It is a pity there is no way to Bound to a person the way an Extraordinary Speaker Speaks to a distant mind.” Schofeld pinched the bridge of his nose again. “It is not as if people do not have a unique essence.”

  “Yes, and I can certainly identify him,” Daphne began, then fell silent as Schofeld’s words set her to thinking. Was there a difference between a person’s essence and a location’s?

  “We can attempt the search if you wish. I simply do not want to waste our time, if there were something more productive we might do.”

  “There is,” Daphne said. The essence of a place, cluttered by the essence of a person… to Bound to such a place, one must exclude those human essences and encompass the pure uncluttered clarity of the location’s essence… “Suppose I Bound, not to a location, but to a person?”

  “That is impossible. The essence of a person is the wrong kind of essence.”

  “So far as anyone knows. Who has ever tried it to find out for certain?”

  Schofeld shrugged. “Then try the experiment. You will likely just fail, and go nowhere.”

  “You will not dissuade me?”

  “I was not aware Lady Daphne St. Clair could be so easily discouraged, once she set her mind to a thing.” Schofeld smiled, his eyes twinkling, and Daphne, caught off-guard, smiled back, a real smile. Perhaps Schofeld had some redeeming qualities, after all.

  “Then I will try.”

  She considered going to the drawing room for privacy, but the idea had taken hold of her to such a degree she did not want to postpone the attempt. Bounding to a person rather than a place… Why had no one ever thought to do that before? Excitement took the place of her anxiety and fear for Fletcher. She was certain it was possible, and she would be the first to prove it. What a difference this would make to the War Office!

  She closed her eyes and relaxed her breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, shutting out her awareness of Schofeld standing nearby. The momentary conviction that Schofeld would not mock her for failure startled her, then she shut that away too and focused on Bounding.

  Essence. For an Extraordinary Bounder, it defined a place, comprising its shape and texture, the way the sound echoed off its walls, the smells that lingered just outside human perception. Places filled with too many things, or too much movement, had no essence, or, more specifically, had an essence too fractured for a Bounder to connect to. Places containing pe
ople ought to fit that definition, but for the fact that humans all had an essence of their own that an Extraordinary Bounder could easily exclude from the essence of the place. It was those latter essences Daphne sought now—specifically, one essence.

  She knew him so well now that her memory of what made him himself sprang instantly to mind: his quick smile, his ready laugh, those dark eyes that saw her so clearly it was as if he knew her essence as well. She drew on those memories, then turned them outward, searching for the man in a sea of other men.

  She felt herself try to Bound almost immediately, but only to the drawing room, where she had last seen Fletcher. Instead she held herself poised, caught between the present and the future, a sensation like being pulled gently in all directions, and made herself search. Focused as she was, she became aware of others first: Schofeld, immediately to hand, then Bess and Sir Rodney, still close by. Other essences presented themselves, all feeling as if they were as near as her own hand, even the ones like her parents that she knew were thousands of miles away.

  Then she found him, quivering in her other senses like a butterfly trapped in jelly. Before she could lose either her sense of him or her precarious Bounding position, she Bounded to him.

  Agony shot through her, white-hot burning pain that consumed her. She screamed, and tried to Bound away. Something held her, and for a moment she was two people and could not remember which of them was her. The burning pain intensified, so hot it felt cold at the same time. Screaming again, she wrenched herself free of the fierce grip, struck something hard, and everything went black and still.

  In which Daphne is an improper young lady

  he came to herself on a hard, cold surface that smelled of dust and dry wood, fragrant like old cedar. Her head hurt as if someone had pounded it with a hammer. She tried to raise her hand to feel her skull, to learn whether it was as shattered as it felt, but her arm ached numbly to the point she could not move it. Distantly, she heard herself moan, but could not feel her throat vibrating with the sound.

  Footsteps sounded somewhere nearby, and someone knelt beside her. “Try not to make noise,” Fletcher said. “We cannot let them know you are here.”

  A dozen questions sprang to Daphne’s mind, but no sound came out when she opened her mouth. “Can you sit?” Fletcher said. “You are clearly in too much pain to Bound.” He put his hands under her shoulders and eased her upright. A spike of pain shot through her skull, but when she was sitting, the aching eased considerably. She opened her eyes and blinked away tears. Fletcher’s blurry face hovered about a foot from hers, his expression tense. He let her go, and she wobbled, but managed to stay sitting up.

  The only light came from tiny round windows high in the walls like a dozen lidless eyes. The dimly lit room smelled disused and was completely devoid of furniture. The hard, cold floor was made of wooden tiles, interlocked like a puzzle box. A riot of colored mosaics in abstract patterns covering the walls gave the impression of a rose garden left to its own devices for a decade. Fletcher had stood when he released her and walked, somewhat stiffly as if his body ached, to a square doorway to one side of the room. He disappeared through it without saying anything else. Daphne tried to rise, but that black numbness has taken hold of her legs as well, and they refused to obey her.

  Shortly, Fletcher returned to kneel in front of her, a slow, tentative movement. “How are you here?” he asked in a low voice. “You cannot possibly know this place to Bound to it.”

  Daphne worked her mouth and swallowed to moisten her throat. “I Bounded,” she creaked, cleared her throat and tried again. “Bounded to you. To your essence.” Memory was returning. She had Bounded, yes, and it had hurt more than any pain she had ever known, which was certainly unlike Bounding—

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, that was stupid. I have been luckier than any Bounder ever deserves to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I located your essence and tried to Bound to it. But when one Bounds, one travels to within the essence of a place… and I believe my body tried to merge with yours.”

  “It certainly hurt enough for that to be possible. What possessed you to do anything so reckless?”

  His sudden anger startled her. “I… you were missing, we could not find you, it was all I could think of—”

  “And your death would have helped locate me?”

  Guilty shame flooded through her. She had been so caught up in the potential glory of her discovery she had not thought it through. She might have killed Fletcher as well. “I did not know it could kill me. Major Schofeld thought it would simply fail.”

  “Schofeld encouraged this? I thought you had better sense than to pay any heed to that fool.” Fletcher stood, unfolding one slow joint at a time, and turned his back on her. “And now we are both trapped here.”

  “I can Bound us—I just need to recover—”

  “They will return for me at any moment.” Fletcher swore explosively and did not apologize. “I was in a position to escape until you… arrived. Now it is hopeless.”

  Her heart ached as much as her body. “Then you should go—I will recover soon, and Bound away—you need not wait on me.”

  Fletcher laughed, a short, bitter sound. “I am certainly not going to leave you, helpless as you are, simply to gain my freedom. They will search this place when I do not appear immediately. No, you will hide in here, and when you are recovered, you will Bound back to the Residence and send troops. And pray Amitabh doesn’t have me killed outright before that.”

  “But… where?”

  “We’re locked in the zenana of the old palace. Amitabh has been hiding here the whole time. All that nonsense about him being outside Madhyapatnam was… well, nonsense. It is so much worse than we believed.”

  “How so, Captain?”

  “Amitabh is not trying to restore his birthright. He is here as an agent of Napoleon, intent on bringing Madhyapatnam under French control. Napoleon wishes his empire to exceed that of Alexander the Great, you know, and conquering India would both accomplish that and weaken Great Britain’s power. Amitabh cares nothing for Madhyapatnam, just as the women said; he is using it as a pretext for doing his master’s bidding.”

  Daphne’s mouth fell open. “But… how can he convince the people of Madhyapatnam to agree to it? This will bring nothing but bloodshed!”

  “The palace is full of French soldiers, waiting for their moment. And there are those in Madhyapatnam who believe they will be rewarded in the new regime if they are loyal now. Perhaps some of them genuinely believe Amitabh deserves to rule, but I believe most of them are as opportunistic as he.” He let out a pained sigh. “I have done Wright’s memory a grave disservice. I thought at first, when I saw him standing with Amitabh, that he had been suborned. Miss Hanley’s message about the Shaper was a complete surprise.”

  “It was a surprise to all of us, Captain. We could not have known.”

  “I knew he was behaving strangely. I should have pressed him harder.”

  “I do not see how we could have guessed at the reason for his strange behavior.” She had so longed for his reassurance that his anger was another spike of agony through her heart. She wiped away a tear, furtively, ducking her head so he would not see her weep. “Have they… hurt you?”

  He laughed that awful, bitter laugh again. “No need. Amitabh is a Discerner—an Extraordinary Discerner. He has been… interrogating me. I have been resisting. At some point, he will decide I am more trouble than I am worth, and then I will partake of Lieutenant Wright’s fate.”

  “Then you must escape, Captain! I will be well enough on my own.”

  “Don’t be more of a fool than you already have been. I can withstand long enough for the troops to storm this place.”

  “But I—”

  “That is an order, Lady Daphne!” Fletcher shouted, the words echoing off the walls, then closed his mouth hard as if he could take the explosion back.

  Daphne found the strength to rise and face h
im. “Do not shout at me, Captain,” she said as coldly as she could manage. “I have done what no other Bounder ever dreamed of doing, and yes, it was a mistake that might have killed us both, but I could not bear to leave you captive, or hurt, or… I did not know what to believe, when you did not return, except that you have never failed to come when I needed you, and if something terrible had happened, I could not simply sit still and not know!”

  They faced each other, the few feet between them filled with bitter acrimony. More tears slid down Daphne’s cheeks and she refused to wipe them away, feeling obscurely that the action might give them power over her.

  Fletcher lowered his head and let out a deep, despairing breath. “I apologize,” he said quietly. “I should not have spoken so to you. I am angry with myself for falling into Amitabh’s clutches and by extension involving you. Of all the people I know, you are the last I would want to share my confinement with.”

  It was the worst blow of all. Reflexively, she tried to Bound away from him, but her body still hurt too much to do so. “I realize I am useless,” she said miserably, “but I did not believe you would be so cruel as to remind me of it.”

  Fletcher’s head snapped up. “Lady Daphne, no,” he said, crossing the distance between them in two long strides. He raised his hands as if he wanted to shake her but let them fall without touching her. “If Amitabh were to learn what he could force me to do, simply by threatening you… I would not be able to bear it if he chose to torture me through you.” He raised his hand again and brushed her cheek, the lightest of touches, but it made him tremble and close his eyes briefly. “I deserve your anger,” he said. “Please, forgive my hasty words. My fear for you… I spoke carelessly, and I regret it more than I can say.”

  Daphne blinked up at him, at his anguished face, and her anger evaporated. Her heart swelled within her, misery and love threatening to overwhelm her if she did not find the right words to tell him she would forgive him anything. Or… perhaps she did not need words. She reached out and took his hand, letting her heart speak for her.