by Wilbur Smith
“So be it,” he said. “Sam, please do not concern yourself. As you said yourself, the brass are impressed with the work we’ve been doing and I can stop making use of the pipe any time I wish.”
Sam sighed deeply, then waved at the chair opposite him.
“Sit down for a moment.”
Penrod did so and crossed his long legs, brushing some invisible speck of dust from his breeches.
“Ballantyne, you are a fine officer and your achievements and adventures over the last few years have been nothing less than astonishing.”
“Sam, are you proposing?”
“Shut up. But you have also suffered a great deal. I read about what happened to you in Atalan’s camp and though I may not be an imaginative man, I can imagine enough. Then you returned, only to be confronted with the selfish lies of an officer like Charles Wilson, then were left practically at the altar by the woman you love.”
For the first time in the conversation Penrod flinched, and Sam noticed.
“I know you enough to be sure that you were very much in love with that remarkable little girl. You show no sign of suffering—of course you don’t—but I know you must suffer.”
Penrod did not reply or look at him. Sam’s voice dropped as he continued to speak.
“But do not underestimate the power of opium. I saw a man die of it once. It was in India, oh, almost twenty years ago now. He was working in the stores, but he was a slippery fellow. Of course, one expects a few things to disappear, but his thievery became an embarrassment. I was ordered to lock him up until he decided to confess as to where he’d been selling the goods. It turned out later, he’d been selling them to the man who supplied him with the drug and he was so dependent by then, his opium-dealer was the last person in the world he’d give up to us.”
“Sam,” Penrod sighed. “I’ve already told you, I’m not—”
“Oh, just sit still and listen. At the end of the first day he was groaning and shivering. We knew he wanted the drug, of course, but keeping him locked up seemed like the best way to get the information we wanted. The next day the worst of it began. Vomiting and shitting himself, then within a couple of hours he was too weak to make it to the bucket. It was around then he began screaming. God knows how he had the strength to make such an awful sound, but he did. I asked my commander every hour, on the hour, for permission to send for the doctor, but the commander always answered: ‘Has he given us names yet?’ And each time I said he hadn’t, and each time the commander said: ‘No doctor, then.’”
Sam rubbed his chin. He seemed so lost in the memory that Penrod wondered if he even knew he was still speaking out loud.
“At dawn the following morning I had the cell swilled out and gave him fresh blankets. By Christ, the stench . . . It made a three-day-old battlefield smell like a rose garden. Two of my men threw buckets of warm water over him and his cell until most of the filth was gone, but still it came—liquid shit and bile, and the screaming . . . That was how we knew he was finally dead, when the screaming stopped. Something in his intestines must have ruptured. We wrapped his corpse in a blanket and buried it in an unmarked grave in a corner of the regimental graveyard. His body was so light. He was my height, and thin before he went in. These opium fiends always turn into living ghosts, but still. Almost nothing of him was left to bury. He was hollowed out. My commander simply said: ‘It will serve as a lesson to others,’ and carried on with his paperwork. I requested a transfer that afternoon. But I still hear his screaming some nights. I would rather face a thousand dervishes on my own than spend another hour listening to that man scream and shit himself to death.”
Penrod lifted his head. Sam Adams, the man whom he had carried from the battlefield, was comparing him to some opium-crazed servant. He felt a cold breeze of anger run through him.
“Is that all, sir?”
Sam gazed back at him. He had a look of profound sadness in his eyes, which made Penrod want to kick him.
“That’s the way it is, then, is it? Yes, Ballantyne. You may go.”
•••
A week later, Penrod recalled this conversation and was amused rather than angered by it. The contrast between himself and Agatha, and the screaming demon of Sam’s nightmares, could not be more marked. They were presently occupying a room set aside and maintained purely for them in a handsome house not far from the Esbekeeyah Gardens. The sun was softened and filtered by ornately carved latticework covering the unglazed windows, leaving them in a perpetual twilight. Both Agatha and Penrod wore loose robes of the softest, snow-white brushed cotton, delicately embroidered with patterns of leaves and flowers. The floor where they reclined was thickly furnished with colored rugs and soft silk pillows. Agatha was cooking another opium pill for him. He regarded her steadily as she worked. Her great blonde mane of hair was tumbled around her slim shoulders. He felt the twitch and pull of arousal. Savored it. He savored everything when he was smoking. With delicious pleasure he ran his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp. Had Agatha lost some of her curves? Perhaps. But her leanness suited her. He laughed softly. He and the opium were harrowing the sin out of her. She used to be such a fiery little thing, the central star of Cairo high society, but now she hardly bothered with the receptions, concerts, dinners at the club and the card parties that had once been so important to her. She only wanted to be here. He had pulled her claws, right enough.
When she had called at his house in her carriage to request his company—was that this morning or the day before?—he had told her he knew her father was coming shortly, adding, “Then this charming little liaison of ours must end.”
She had been forced to stifle a sob, putting her hand to her mouth and turning away from him. Her distress gave him a stab of satisfaction.
“What? Still hoping for marriage, Agatha? Or are you just afraid your father won’t be pleased with what you’ve been up to on your travels?”
Her sob had turned into a sort of choking laugh. “You used to like me, Penrod. I know you did. Then she came.”
Penrod turned away from her, his satisfaction spoiled. But she went on speaking.
“You liked it when I gossiped and said cruel things. It excited you. But she’d been through hell and was still such a sweet, trusting little soul, and I was enraged, more in love with you than ever, dropped and forgotten. Of course I did what I did. It’s in my nature.”
Outside the carriage Penrod heard the beginning of the call to prayer, taken up and spread across the city, the great god asking his people to show him their love.
“And I knew when she broke off the engagement you’d come back to me just to punish me for wanting you,” Lady Agatha continued. “And you have. You do. Perhaps I hoped—perhaps I still hope—that one day you will grow weary of torturing me, of torturing all that passion and cruelty out of me, and then maybe you might grow tired or bored enough to marry me.” She brushed away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. “But you haven’t forgiven me, and you aren’t tired of torturing me yet, are you?”
He stared at her, a slight sneer marring his handsome face. “No. Not yet, Lady Agatha.”
She shook her head. “Strange—the opium makes it almost bearable, a little bit of pleasure refined out of the pain of it. And it makes the torture more delicious for you, doesn’t it? Perhaps you will whore me out to your Arab friends, like they say you do in the club.”
Penrod had a sudden vision of his former fiancée standing on the steps as he’d left her that bright day outside the club. The last time Amber Benbrook had looked at him with her face glowing with love and trust.
“I would not insult my Arab friends with your touch, Lady Agatha.”
Again she gave that half laugh, half sob.
“Oh, very good, Penrod. You are a great swordsman; you always know where the blade will strike deepest, do most damage.” She bit her lip. “I used to be frightened of my father. He is the coldest, cruelest man alive. The most unforgiving, the most ruthless. I
suppose it makes some sense, then, that I fell in love with you.”
Penrod said nothing.
“And Father is here already, I think. His man—his creature—Wilson Carruthers has been here for weeks. I have seen him in the distance from time to time.” The carriage came to a gentle halt outside the house where the drug and its peace waited for them. She peered out of the shuttered window. “Thank God we are here.”
•••
Agatha did not speak of her father’s presence, or his imminent arrival in Cairo, again, so Penrod ceased to think of it. When he was smoking he was wrapped in a soft, dark-gray cloud of indifference and pleasure. When he stayed away from the drug and saw the emptiness of his life without Amber clearly, he only punished Agatha to distract himself from the pain. Penrod had lived a charmed life until he lost Amber. He had been born into a family of wealth and prestige, and from his earliest days had been blessed with looks, courage, intelligence and a physical prowess that made him a prodigy both at his school and in the army. The world had presented him with laurels again and again, and he had accepted them as his due. Women fell into his outstretched hand and he had enjoyed their favors without ever feeling the pangs of love. Until now. Now Amber had disappeared into Abyssinia, with that adventurer Courtney, and left him here. He did not understand the feelings that assailed him, so he reacted with the rage of a wounded, cornered beast—unless the pipe was ready to calm him.
Not until the door to their sanctuary splintered open did Penrod pull himself far enough out of his opium dream to realize something was wrong. Looking back on it there must have been sounds of the men arriving, arguments in the house, but dulled and soothed, Penrod heard nothing until that moment. Framed in the light coming from the corridor Penrod saw four men. Three looked like natives of Cairo and the last was dressed in European clothing, but the light was too dim to make out his features. They hesitated, trying to see who was in the room and where. The European gave sharp orders in basic Arabic. One of the men crossed the room toward Lady Agatha, where she lay dreaming across a mess of silk pillows. He kicked aside the opium lamp as he went, and it spluttered and went out. His sandaled foot cracked the slim stem of the pipe with a harsh snap. He reached down, grabbing Agatha under the arms and hauling her to her feet. She began to fight and call out, struggling hard through the haze of the drug, but the man wrapped his thick hands around her wrists and began to drag her out of the room. She fell to her knees and tried to pull against him, but he twisted and picked her up around her waist, handling her as if she were nothing more than a doll. The two other men had been ordered to prevent Penrod interfering. They approached cautiously, unsure if he was awake or asleep. He let them come, then reached out his right hand and closed his fingers into the half-basket hilt of his cavalry saber and drew it free of its scabbard as he leaped to his feet. The younger of the two men approaching him pulled a revolver from the folds of his galabiyya.
Idiot, Penrod thought. His mind felt as clear and cool as a mountain spring. He turned, raising his blade. “You’ve got far too close to me for that to help.”
He swayed his own weight forward a little and the blade flashed down in a perfect arc, severing the man’s wrist. For a second Penrod’s assailant was too shocked to do anything but stare at his own hand, still holding the revolver but no longer any part of him, lying among the royal blue cushions at his feet. Then he began to scream, staggering backward as the wound began to spurt an arterial flow of blood across the embroidered hangings on the walls.
The second man had his knife in his hand and was coming in fast, the committed attack of a real warrior. Penrod caught the glimmer of the blade and brought up his sword, catching the razor edge of his opponent’s dagger at the hilt, half an inch from his throat. Penrod saw the man smile slightly as he let the momentum of Penrod’s block carry him to his right. He ducked under Penrod’s sword arm as he threw his knife from his right hand to his left and aimed for Penrod’s exposed right side. This man was an expert.
Penrod brought the dagger down with his saber, again almost at the hilt, and launched a left hook with his closed fist against the man’s right jaw. His opponent’s head snapped back, but he tossed the knife back into his right hand and went low, aiming to come under and behind Penrod’s sword, reaching for Penrod’s femoral artery. He had found the killing blow, but in reaching for it, he had left his neck undefended for a split second and the swell of his Adam’s apple was in line with Penrod’s sword.
Penrod swung up fast and hard against the man’s throat, and the blade went through flesh with the same ease as it sang through the perfumed air. He felt the tiny snick and pause as the sword sliced upward through the vertebrae, while the dagger grazed his thigh. The knifeman’s head was separated from his body and Penrod felt the hot, salty blood hit his face and eyes as the body fell back into the cushions.
Penrod looked around him. The man who had pulled the revolver was unconscious, if not already dead, but otherwise the room was empty. Lady Agatha, the European and his remaining Arab henchman were all gone. His sword held pointing down and slightly in front of him, Penrod raced out onto the internal balcony that ran around the central courtyard and went down the stairs. The arched doorway to the street was blocked with women and men, confused, weeping, shouting. When they saw him, the women screamed and he remembered the warmth of the knifeman’s blood on his face. He threw himself into the crowd and pushed his way through the gate with the hilt of his sword. The street outside was deserted and quiet. Then he saw a carriage at the south end, just now turning into the boulevard and moving quickly. Could he reach it? He had a momentary, flashing image of himself dressed in his robe and barefoot, soaked head to foot in blood, running through the center of Cairo.
“I shouldn’t think that would be a very good idea, do you?” A voice, male and unmistakably aristocratic, drawled out of the shadows.
A match flared and Penrod winced at the sudden light. The man stepped into the small halo cast by the torches above the gates to the house. He was wearing evening dress but was bareheaded. His chestnut hair was slicked back away from his face and though both it and his mustache were lightly salted with gray, he was certainly under fifty. He was slim, but the cut of his coat showed strong muscles across his shoulders. A physique much like Penrod’s own, that of a horseman and polo player.
“The sight of Major Ballantyne soaked in gore, racing through Esbekeeyah, would quite put the ladies on the veranda of Shepheard’s off their champagne.”
“And you are?” Penrod said.
“Oh, I think you know who I am. And I know all about you.”
“You do?”
“Now, Major, mind your manners. When addressing a duke it is customary to do so as ‘Your Grace.’” He exhaled. The scent of a truly magnificent cigar bloomed in the darkness. Then his gaze flicked slightly to the left and he gave a microscopic nod. Penrod did not have time to parry the blow. Something hard, a club or cosh, hit him from behind and everything went black.
•••
Penrod woke in his own house. He swung himself out of bed and crossed to the shaving mirror that was part of the mahogany washstand in the corner of the room. The morning breeze stirred the thin cotton drapes around the window and he could hear the clatter of carriages outside and the cries of the water-sellers. One of his servants must have tried to wash him before putting him to bed, for the worst of the gore that had covered him was gone, but his face was still smeared with blood. His head was pounding, but when he felt with his fingertips the place he’d been struck, he found no open wound or any indication his skull had been cracked. It just felt as if it had. He was naked—presumably his stained robes were being washed or burned. His uniform, freshly pressed, was hanging on the door of his wardrobe, and his sword, in its scabbard, was slung from its usual brass hook on the whitewashed wall. He opened the door and called for a hot bath and, after it was fetched and filled, he sank himself into the waters with a sigh before beginning to scrub the rest of the kn
ifeman’s blood off his skin and out from under his fingernails. The servant stood by the door, towels over his arm, ready to provide him with whatever he required.
“Who brought me home?” Penrod asked in Arabic.
The servant looked straight ahead. “Two gentlemen: one a local, the other a European, sir.”
“Did the European wear evening dress? An Englishman in his forties?”
The servant shook his head. “No, effendi. The European was younger than that.”
Penrod remembered the “creature” Agatha had mentioned—surely the European in the doorway giving orders.
“And did they do or say anything to explain . . .” Penrod thought of how he must have appeared, unconscious and soaked in blood. “. . . my situation?”
“They said you had defeated a band of robbers, effendi, who had set upon them in the street, but you had been overcome by one of them in the very moment of your victory. We were told where to go and collect your uniform and sword.”
“Were you indeed?” Penrod murmured.
His headache was getting worse and his eyes felt sore and sand-blown. A slight opium cold. Well, if Agatha had been reclaimed by her father, perhaps now was the time to abandon the pipe and search out some other amusement.
“Anything else?”
“The European left a letter of thanks from his master for you.”
That would be interesting.
“Very well, I shall read it over breakfast.”
The servant looked startled. “You wish to have breakfast, sir?”
Had it been so long since he’d eaten regular meals? Certainly time to lay down the pipe, then.
“I do,” he said calmly, then put his hand out for the towel.
•••
The letter was interesting but brief. It informed Penrod that the disturbance at the opium house had been tidied up and Penrod was not to have any further communication with Lady Agatha. It was astonishing how condescending and insulting the duke managed to make those few lines. Penrod had never intended to see Agatha again, but now he questioned that decision. Why should she be allowed to return to the privileges of her father’s protection? It amused him to think of that suave gentleman’s frustration when he discovered that Agatha would climb out of the window of whatever residence he had taken if Penrod crooked his little finger. He gave a few orders and dressed, then took his charger to visit the parade ground where his troops were being trained. The day passed pleasantly enough and his headache faded. The effects of the opium cold he could conceal without much difficulty. The evening he passed in his own rooms with Sir Colin Campbell’s Narrative of the Indian Revolt, which he had been meaning to read for some time, and a bottle of excellent scotch. He made a number of marginal notes and slept soundly.