by John Speed
"Love," Da Gama said, with the same resigned horror that one might say the word "treachery."
"As you say, Deoga. The burak took it in his head that Lucy fancied him."
"What, Lucy?" Da Gama's eyebrows shot up. "Well? Did she fancy him?"
Geraldo shrugged again. "With women, who can tell, sir? Maybe for a day or for an hour. Such is woman's love. In any case, I steered him right."
"How?"
"I made up some story. Told him Lucy hates him. That cooled things down."
"But you say she fancied him?" Da Gama seemed genuinely confused.
"She hates him now!" With a satisfied shake of his head, again Geraldo chuckled. "She had me bring him some pathetic message. It was quite grotesque. Naturally I embellished it a little. I suppose she thought he'd come racing back to her. Nothing like. Not when I was done: he hates her; she hates him, and all is well."
Da Gama considered Geraldo with a frown. "It seems you have been busy, sir."
Geraldo's eyes flashed. "He's a heathen-and she's pledged! What would you expect me to do? Encourage them?"
"Calm yourself, sir," Da Gama answered, raising his hands as if he'd been attacked.
Geraldo's facile smile returned. "I begin to see that you are sentimental, Deoga." His face grew stern. "This was business."
"Ahcha, " Da Gama said.
Once they had passed beneath the trees that lined the drive of Pathan's estate, and turned onto the Sunag road, Lucinda allowed herself to weep. She hid her face, and through her fingers watched the house and vineyards disappear into the distance.
Lucinda had stood by her mother's bed the moment she died. She had watched the long, slow sigh of her mother's last breath, and the stillness that came upon her; the fading of her face, already pale, as the color left her lips and cheeks; the way the delicate tissues of her nostrils and her tongue dried, like petals drying in the sun. Now as she watched Pathan's home fade behind her, she had that same feeling, as of a tearing; as of a bright, beating light ripped from her heart. Her throat ached from holding back her sobs.
Maya pretended not to see.
The sun rose higher, and in the cloudless sky bore down on them like a weight. The road grew dry, and then dusty. The palki bearers' shuffling gait raised a gritty cloud. The vineyards came to an end as they pushed up a hill. On the other side, the road was yellow and bare, and the ground rocky and untended, and there was no shade. Soon their eyes ached with longing for the cool greens of Konnur.
For lunch they stopped near a large broken rock, nearly as big as a house, and tucked the palki close to catch what little shade it offered. The air around the rock quivered with rising heat.
"We'll wait here for a while. Wait for the sun to fall a little," Da Gama said. No one ate much. The palki bearers squeezed next to the base of the rock. Geraldo found a shadowed niche and curled inside to nap.
Lucinda longed for the cool silk of the saris she wore in Belgaum. Dust clung to her hot skin. Maya had retreated to that quiet, imperturbable state that she found when she was traveling, and neither spoke, nor looked up. From time to time, she flipped the page of her palm-leaf Gita, while Lucinda looked on with envy. At last she lay on the cushions of the palki and tried to sleep.
After a half hour or so she saw Da Gama approach the palki. "This is yours," he said to Maya holding out a cloth sack. His voice was gruff, and his mouth tense, and he seemed more uncomfortable than Lucinda had ever seen. She pretended to move in her sleep to get a better look. The cloth sack that Da Gama now placed in Maya's lap was the one she had seen in Valpoi: the sack that held the wedding headdress.
When Maya began to open it, Da Gama laid his thick fingers on her hand. "Do you trust me?"
"Of course, Deoga."
"That sack-what's in the sack, I mean-that's what the eunuchs want. Not you."
"It's all I have left of my mother ... of my history. If they take it, they take me as well."
Da Gama's hand closed on Maya's, and Lucinda realized that he was in love. It was such an unexpected revelation, she nearly sat up. Da Gama seemed very old to Lucinda, and Maya so young, but she saw that his heart smoldered for her. And she saw that he was timid and uncertain-him, at his age! She wondered if Maya saw it as clearly as she did.
"I do not like the part I'm forced to play." His voice was hoarse. "I'm doing my best, but. . ."
"We all must play our roles, Deoga. It is what my book says ..."Maya nodded to her palm-leaf Gita-". . . the song of God himself: play the role God gives you, knowing it is He in every heart." Her face was not innocent, but full of understanding: the face of one who had endured, without yet turning bitter.
Da Gama could not bear the compassion in her serene, unwavering gaze, and looked away, and stammered something, and stormed off.
After a few moments, Lucinda rose. Twenty yards away, Da Gama, with his back toward the palki, swung his fists at the open air, and they could hear him cursing. "What was that about?" Lucinda yawned.
Maya nodded toward the sack. She was not so calm, Lucinda realized, as she seemed at first. "May I see?" Lucinda took the sack and began to open it.
"Don't ... not now." Maya's pretense of calm completely disappeared. "No, never mind what I say. Go ahead and look..."
Her expression puzzled Lucinda. At last she worked the knot loose, and lifted out partway the jeweled headdress she had seen in Valpoi.
"Stop ... that's enough." Maya looked at the headdress, and then turned her head. "I've never seen it in the sunlight. Please put it back."
"It looked much grander in the lamplight. In the sun it looks so. .
"It looks cheap and false," Maya said, finishing her thoughts. "Children live in make-believe. I will be a child no more. Put it back."
Lucinda did as Maya asked.
"All these years . . ." Maya murmured, "I believed a fantasy. What did my mother really give me? False diamonds, and a broken sword. If that's what the hijras want, let them have it. Let them have me, too. I no longer care." She looked at Da Gama, who still paced angrily far off. "But I thought that somewhere in this world there still was ... goodness." Her voice trailed off.
"You hoped for goodness, sister. So did I ..." Lucinda gave back the sack to Maya, and then touched her hand. "I think we were very foolish, you and I."
A couple of hours after the sun reached its zenith, Da Gama got everyone moving once more. The road led upward now, ever upward, and the sun screamed down, and there was no shade. The bearers were silent, and their breath came hard.
The sun cooked Da Gama's thoughts. They bubbled in his mind like a stew on a fire.
He had felt angry at himself for miles, after he gave Maya the imitation headdress. He hadn't expected to feel so wicked. For a while he thought about going back to her, putting the original in her lap, saying sweetly that it had been an error.
Slowly his rational mind reemerged. No harm had been done yet, after all. There was still time to alter the plan if need be, after all. She might never even see the difference, after all. And who knew what fortune would bring for her? Why should the eunuchs have her headdress. Why should Da Gama not keep it?
Keep it safe, he corrected himself.
Yes, of course. Keep it safe, his rational mind affirmed.
Then growing weary of this introspection, Da Gama started to consider what Geraldo had said. It didn't hang together somehow.
Da Gama considered speaking with Lucy, but not now, he decided, not with Maya there to listen. But by placing sweet young Lucy in the center of his thinking, instead of Geraldo, the earlier conversation took on a different cast. Why had Lucy sent a message to Pathan? Why had Geraldo felt that he needed to embellish it? Why had he been so concerned about the two of them?
From Da Gama's slow imagination, the answers began to emerge. He wheeled his horse around and drew up next to Geraldo.
"You lied to me," he growled.
"Sir! Whatever do you mean?"
Da Gama lowered his voice to harsh whisper. "I mea
n about Lucy, and the burak. "
Geraldo's face hardened. "It happened as I said."
"No. You left something out. She was fond of him. Admit it!"
"Fond?" Geraldo sneered. "Maybe, or maybe not. With a woman who can tell?"
"A man can tell."
Geraldo let the implication hang without a comment. "Well, if she was fond of him, what of it?"
"Then you had no business interfering. Her feelings are no business of yours! "
"Apparently you think they're your business." His dark, malevolent eyes denied Geraldo's sardonic smile. "She's my cousin, sir. I have a responsibility to my family, and I shall execute it as I see fit. Since you are my family's employee, I trust you know your place and you'll keep your opinions to yourself."
It doesn't pay to be his relative, Da Gama remembered saying of Geraldo in Goa. "I'm a cousin, too, you know. Distant maybe, but still family."
"You'll never be my family, sir. Besides, I had reasons for my actions, reasons that a man may claim despite the opinions of his employees."
"Like what?"
"What if I love her, eh?"
Da Gama's eyes widened.
"What if it cut my heart to see Lucinda throwing herself at some blacksouled heathen? A man might do a hundred things in such a case, and who would blame him? Other than you, I mean. You who know so much about affairs of love."
"You ..." Da Gama bit his tongue and chose his words carefully. "You are not suitable for her."
"Why? Because I am poor? I won't be poor forever."
"Because you are a liar, sir."
Geraldo broke into an unguarded laugh. "Unsuitable because I am a liar? By the Virgin, I always assumed dissembling was the very key to a happy marriage!" Once more Geraldo's eyes grew sharp, and his face now did not hide his anger. "Good lord, man-do you think Victorio will make a better match?"
"What can be done about that? He's her guardian!"
Geraldo's eyes hooded, and his face grew guarded. "We shall see what may be done. One thing's clear enough, however. You have no right to interfere. Say nothing! Especially to her!"
"Or what?" Da Gama bristled.
Without replying, Geraldo spurred his horse and galloped off.
Da Gama stared after him. He expected him to halt up ahead. Instead, Geraldo picked up speed, spurring his horse with a violent effort. "Wait for us!" Da Gama shouted after him, but maybe he didn't hear.
At last he disappeared, leaving Da Gama alone with his thoughts, remembering what else he'd said that night in Goa.
People die around him.
Hours later, in the late afternoon, the landscape changed. Instead of the long, endless rise they'd plodded up all day, here the road twisted over a series of craggy passes. The baked yellow grasslands grew suddenly green. Trees appeared again-how welcome was their shade! Gray-black rocks thrust from the soil, furred with tufts of grass.
The air grew cool and a breeze blew. They could smell the moisture in it like a perfume.
Da Gama halted everyone for a rest before the final leg. "There's a river near here," he told them. "We're close to Gokak Falls. Our camp's on the other side of those hills ... not far, but the roads here are hard. Hearing this, the palki bearers groaned.
As the bottom of the orange sun touched the horizon, they mounted a final craggy rise. "There," Da Gama said. At the foot of the hill, they saw the camp amid the shadows of the trees: three large tents, and around a fire, a half-dozen smaller ones.
"Old friends reunited!" Slipper came toward them, beaming. He wore elegant jamas, and rings on every finger, but, as usual, the end of his turban had come loose, though this one was silk, heavy with gold thread.
"Where's Victorio?" Da Gama asked.
But Slipper walked right past him, though he chattered all the while. "Oh, he's in his tent with Senhor Geraldo. They have much to talk about, it seems. Where are my sisters?" He bounded to the palki. "Here they are, as beautiful as ever!"
He brushed the palkiwallah aside, and held out his hand, bowing as he helped Lucinda out, and then Maya. "Dear me, you two look so serious!" he said. "You must have wine. We are all drinking wine! And tonight, a feast!" He held out his hand for Maya's bag, but she snatched it away. Slipper shrugged, but his small eyes gleamed.
Talking nonstop, he led them to the clearing, quiet and cool in the setting sun. When Slipper took a breath, they could hear from afar the sound of the river.
"See how grand our accommodations are!" Slipper spread his arms expansively, as if he himself had made the arrangements. The three large tents were laid out in the clearing like points on a wheel; in their midst carpets and cushions had been set near a campfire. A rough-looking cook nodded to them, and then returned to turning his spit; a goat sizzled, wet with juices.
Da Gama tethered his horse and started to take off its saddle. "Why are there no guards?"
"Oh, Deoga, you must learn to enjoy yourself. They're sleeping, most of them. One or two went to the falls. This is a picnic, not a battlefield!" Da Gama scowled at him, and Slipper shook his head. "Oh, don't be a grump and spoil everybody's fun! I shall show the women to their tent. You'll want to change before the feast!" Still chattering, though the women followed silently, he held the entrance flap of the large tent, and bowed them in.
Da Gama led his horse to where the animals were being kept. Someone had fetched a big tub of water, Da Gama noted with grudging relief, and the horses seemed well tended. But he wanted sentries. He had many reasons to feel uneasy, he told himself. Since the final hilltop, Da Gama had felt the tingling on his neck that told him he was being watched. There were eyes around them, unfriendly eyes. Da Gama remembered how Wall Khan had told him that the Three-Dot clan would follow the little caravan. Maybe he could feel their stares. Maybe it was all in his head.
Da Gama strode to the guards area and poked his head into the low tents. Finally he found a snoring guard, roused him. When he'd got the fellow standing, he told him to keep watch.
The guard sneered.
Da Gama acted before he thought. In an instant he had seized and twisted the man's wrist, pressing his full weight against it until the guard fell to the floor with a whimper, his cheek pressed against the earth. With his other hand Da Gama held a double-barreled pistola to the man's temple, and cocked both hammers. This all took a single heartbeat.
Holy mother, Da Gama murmured to himself. What am I doing. "Get up!" Da Gama said, releasing him. The guard rose slowly, his eyes widening as he realized how close he'd come to dying. "Next time obey me."
"Yes. Yes, sir," the poor fellow gulped. "Yes," he said again, even as he ran from the tent, buckling his sword.
What's wrong with me, Da Gama thought. He sat on the guard's bedroll, uncocked his pistola, and shoved it back in his belt. A man like me can't afford to lose his head, he thought. What is wrong with me?
There were so many things wrong:
Victorio and his double-dealing.
Victorio's lies.
Victorio's plan to marry Lucy.
Vittorio and Geraldo.
Vittorio.
Outside the tent Da Gama found a pot of water, and scooped some onto his head. As he dried his face with his dark kerchief, he saw the guard talking animatedly with Slipper. The eunuch nodded, listening intently, his eyes growing wide. At last he patted the guard's arm, as one might pat a child who has told a nightmare. Then, with a broad smile on a his fat face, Slipper came slowly, gently to Da Gama. "Senhor Deoga, your concern for our safety does you credit! How enthusiastic you are! Everyone says so."
"I expect obedience, Senhor Eunuch." He pointed with his chin to the sentry. "Nothing wrong with the occasional reminder. It builds discipline."
"Yes, yes. Exactly what I told the fellow. You must obey the farang, I told him, just like that. Deoga is paid to worry about our safety-the very words I said!"
Da Gama had never seen Slipper's oily grin so wide, nor so frightened. I must take care, he told himself. I really must not lose control.
He tried to change the subject. "Tonight we have a feast, eh, Senhor Eunuch?"
Slipper gratefully followed Da Gama's lead. He fell in step beside Da Gama and gestured broadly to the cooking fire, and then to the trees beyond the guards' tent where a few camp followers were peeling a pile of red onions. "It is a grand day for your master," Slipper said. "A betrothal, and a homecoming. So much beginning! So much effort coming to an end! Too bad the burak would not come, too. We could recall our rescue from the bandits. Ah well, never mind. There's still reason enough for us to celebrate and feast, don't you think?"
Da Gama nodded, but his mind had seized the word master and was now considering it with horror.
"Oh, Deoga, did you hear? We received a visitor! Yes, the captain of the eunuch guards of Bijapur came here this afternoon, not long before you all arrived!"
"The captain of the eunuch guards? Why isn't he with the Sultana?"
"Ah, you see, now I have news!" Slipper's delight was obvious. He grabbed the end of his rich turban, which had again come loose, and shoved it happily back in place. "The Flying Palace has come. The Sultana wanted a change of scene. She and the heir came down to Gokak Falls. They're only a few miles from here. Also others, some friends of yours, I think: Wall Khan is there, and my master, Whisper."
At this news Da Gama's breath came short, and his heart beat fast. "Why have they come?" he glowered. "What mischief is this?"
Slipper stepped back. "Deoga, you must calm yourself. You'll die young if you keep this up!"
Da Gama looked away. "You're right. Please forgive my bad manners." Then a thought struck him. "Didn't you and Geraldo have a falling out...."
A beatific light fell on Slipper's face. "The brothers don't bear grudges long. We have so few friends, we can't afford to lose any. Anyway, his interests and mine are the same. And did you hear? Victorio has made him a partner!"
"I had not heard," Da Gama answered.
"I know you feel concerned, particularly since the matter of the nautch girl is not yet settled. But this will pass ... maybe sooner than you think! Whisper sent me word that he has brought along the nautch girl's price, in hopes of meeting us on the road." Slipper looked at Da Gama coyly. "She still has all her ... her baggage?" he asked hopefully.