by Eric Flint
If Dara was slow to respond, it served him well. In the silence that followed, Amar seemed to think better of his outburst, bowing his head as if expecting an angry tongue-lashing from the emperor.
“Friend Amar Singh Rathore, I do not seek to impugn the honor of fine men that have given such good service for so long. I merely observe that you and yours now have some small competition at this particular drill…” Dara said, conciliatory message spoiled by a tic that pulled at one corner of his mouth, lending a mocking edge to his smile.
Desperate to prevent Amar from noticing Dara’s expression, Bertram sprang to his feet. He gasped loudly and made sure to knock over a nearby tray of fresh fruit laid out for the courtiers. As intended, all eyes went to him as the tray thumped to the carpets and fruit rolled every which way, a complete pineapple rolling to a stop only after Amar Singh put his foot down on it.
Bertram bent double, massaging his thigh as if relieving a terrible cramp there while slaves set about picking up the mess.
A moment later, pretending sudden awareness of everyone’s attention, he stopped rubbing his thigh and cast a sheepish look at Dara.
“So sorry, Sultan Al’Azam! The heat made me cramp terribly.”
Bertram hid his relief as Dara’s tic subsided and his smile returned to its more natural, if forced, appearance. The emperor waved a languid hand to silence further apologies and nodded through the Rajput prince’s disdainful comments on how ill suited the Europeans were to the climate.
The moment passed, Dara and Amar Singh turning to watch the men drilling.
Relaxing ever so slightly as he sat, Bertram became aware of Salim watching him. Once he was sure it was safe, he met the other man’s eye behind the backs of the emperor and one of his most powerful umara.
Salim nodded silent thanks.
Bertram returned the nod, though Salim hadn’t been thanked for the many times he had saved the emperor from more of the same over the last few months. Rodney and Gervais insisted Dara’s condition was improving, but the many stresses of ruling slowed the emperor’s progress and lent every setback that much more weight.
Gervais and Rodney could not attend Dara all the time lest the mere presence of the up-time-trained doctors provide irrefutable evidence of his condition to the watching court.
And they were watching.
All the time.
It was a miracle they hadn’t already had some incident spiral out of control and into public view.
He covered a smile with a bite of mango, reflecting that the miracles had two names: Jahanara Begum and, to a lesser extent, Monique Vieuxpont.
The princess carefully guarded all aspects of Dara’s public life, paring down appearances to the bare minimum necessary to avoid comment and stage-managing those appearances that were absolutely necessary as closely as possible. That management required men she could trust. Bertram was proud to be counted among that very select group, especially as it was Monique’s vouchsafe for his skills that moved Jahanara to approach him in the first place.
She’d made the recommendation just days after he and Monique had stolen some time alone at Mission House.
Thoughts of Monique led his mind down garden paths, air heavy with floral scents, dark curls in his hands, lips parting under his, breath and stolen caresses mingling in memory to heat his flesh even in the shade.
With effort, he turned his mind from pleasant memory and forced himself to focus on the future. As was often the case of late, he began worrying what would become of them all when the Mission concluded their business—successfully, God willing—and it was time to leave.
Their current efforts, while effective, left him feeling very much like the Mission had, in assuming such lofty responsibilities, taken a tiger by the tail.
The up-timers had become fixtures of Dara’s royal court, with Rodney and Priscilla becoming indispensable to Dara—and his family’s—health, while John Ennis had become a military advisor of sorts, working closely with Salim and the Atishbaz gunsmith, Talawat, to develop the drills being practiced below. And it wasn’t just the up-timers of the Mission who were deeply involved in courtly politics: Gervais, in addition to his role as the most in-demand of court physicians, had become Dara’s diwan in all but name. That role gave him a greater range of reasons to have access to the emperor, allowing his native talent at what up-timers called “the long con” to work upon the court at large.
Monique had been instrumental in that, as well, presenting Jahanara with several options when the princess had been at her wit’s end with how to prevent Dara’s condition becoming common knowledge. Today’s little folly being an example of one of those options in action.
His attention wandered again at the thought of her. He was continuously surprised that anyone so intelligent, so beautiful, and as talented as Monique would show any degree of romantic interest in him. He’d been selected by the family as a potential spy as much because of his bland appearance as any other specific talent for the job, after all.
God help us if Monique and her father get bored with the court and decide to leave with their loot! The thought made him smile, then shiver despite the heat.
They could do it, too. Have done, in the past. Monique would only have to lead me down the primrose path a little, allay my suspicions…
Bertram bit his lip, hating himself for thinking such things about Monique…and her father. He consoled himself that a certain amount of professional paranoia was healthy in his line of work and proceeded, trying to think coldly, logically:
To what end would they betray their companions?
The easy answer—wealth—did not signify. They had that in abundance, and stood to gain even more with time and the exercise of the firman Dara granted the Mission. Indeed, their places at court had them daily in the presence of more portable wealth than most kings could marshal in a year.
Another answer—power—did not satisfy, either. They were just as intoxicated by the sheer challenge of this great enterprise, of helping direct the intrigues and intelligences of an empire richer and more vast than any European state, as Bertram himself was. They could never exercise such power in another court, except perhaps that of the USE, and that subject to the new laws concerning sharing of power brought to them by the up-timers.
No, they were not engaged in some enormous swindle.
But then, the target of a swindle rarely believed himself the victim until he’d been thoroughly fleeced and left naked in the cold…
His mind circled the thought, an indecisive vulture in need of assurances that the thing contemplated for dinner would not bite back.
Mission House
Rodney slammed the door behind him, rattling the doorframe and making the flame of the lamp beside her dance.
Priscilla started, looked up to see his face tight with anger. Her husband was normally very conscious of how his great size and strength could do unintended damage when he lost his temper, so any such display was unusual, to say the least.
“What is it?” she asked, putting down the needle and thread next to the piece of pork shank she’d been practicing on and stood up. Figuring the battles to come would produce plenty of wounds that required suturing, she’d been passing the time until Rodney came home from the late shift overseeing Dara’s care by suturing cuts in the shank.
“Smell this,” he said, tossing a length of silk at her as he stomped to the table.
Not particularly interested in rewarding his bad mood and concerned lest she contaminate it with something from the uncooked pork, Pris didn’t try to catch the length of fabric. It fell to the ground as she went to the wash basin and started soaping her hands.
Behind her, she heard Rodney give one of his great gusting sighs and stoop to pick whatever it was from the ground. She finished cleaning her hands while he calmed down.
“So, care to tell me what’s up?”
“Sorry about that, honey. I’m pissed.”
She turned to face him, toweling her hands dry, and leaned agai
nst the table. “You don’t say.”
He chuckled. “All right, I deserved that…” He held the length of silk out to her again. “Please, smell this and tell me I don’t have anything to worry about.”
She took the silk and examined it. “Is this a bed hanging?”
He nodded. “From the emperor’s own sleeping chamber,” he said, gesturing again for her to take a sniff.
Wondering what, exactly, he hoped she would smell, she sniffed cautiously. Stale tobacco…and something else… Pris felt her nose wrinkle as she tried to sort it out. Stale smoke and…vinegar?
That was it: the not-quite-vinegar tang of opium smoke underlying the sweeter scent of the tobacco blend favored by the highest echelons of the court.
“He’s hitting the pipe again?” she asked.
Rodney’s shoulders slumped. “Damn. I hoped I was just imagining it.”
“Did you ask Dara about it?”
“I did. He lied to me, said he hadn’t been smoking since we weaned him off it at Amritsar. I was close enough to see his pupils were as big as dinner plates, though.”
“Oh, man. I’m sorry, Rodney.”
He waved one big, thick-knuckled hand. “No, I am. Shouldn’t have brought it home. Sorry.”
She caught his hand, kissed the back of it as she stepped close to him. “I understand why you did. Who else knows?”
“No one, yet. I was going to get some advice from Gervais about it, but he’s already in bed. John and Ilsa’s lights are out, too.”
“It’ll wait. There’s only so much we can do just this minute.”
“It’s got me real worried.”
“I get it.”
“I know you do. I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I know, Rodney. This qualifies as a really bad day, especially…” She kissed his hand again, the action preventing her finishing the thought. That was all right. She didn’t have to. Not with him.
Rodney didn’t tell everyone the origin of his concerns about addiction, but she knew. Knew about Jimmy Saunders, his college teammate and best friend. Knew about Jimmy’s back injury and subsequent spiral into addiction. He’d gone to the coaching staff with his concerns at the beginning of Jimmy’s spiral and been told it wasn’t something they could do anything about. How the eventual overdose hadn’t been a surprise, but wounded him still. Knew how Rodney had found Jimmy in the bathroom, needle in his arm, cold to the touch. Knew his death and the coaching staff’s refusal to take even partial responsibility for it were the reason Rodney had quit football and come back to Grantville. Just as she knew that, however aware he was of the dangers of painkillers, his experiences as an EMT in the aftermath of the Battle of the Crapper made him acutely aware that the suffering that would follow every battle would leave them utterly unable to relieve their pain with what little medication Grantville had brought back across time.
They held each other for a long while, found their own painkiller in each other when the embrace turned passionate, as it always did.
Chapter 17
Mission camp west of Patna
Ricky looked askance at the waters of the river…or rivers, maybe? He wasn’t sure, exactly. Strand after strand of sand emerged from the slow-moving water, with occasional higher spots of forest-covered land to obscure whether a particular stretch of brown water was its own river or merely a branch of the Ganges. There was a lot of traffic on the river, most of it transporting covered loads that the boatman made sure to keep a safe distance from the shore and any other boats that came along.
There hadn’t been a repeat of the attack on their camp, but they’d seen the results of what Jadu had called a pirate attack. The hacked up and looted bodies had been a sobering sight, and more than enough confirmation that the rivers were no safer than the roads in these days of confusion and uncertainty.
“I’d go swimming if the air didn’t keep a fella as wet as a dip in the river,” Bobby said, mopping his brow. “If there’s one thing I miss, it’s air-conditioning…”
Ricky gave him a worried glance, saw Bobby’s brow already beaded with fresh sweat. Water he could ill-afford to lose. Bobby had recovered from whatever had been making him puke and crap with such regularity you could set your watch by it, but only recently. His recovery had been slow, and left him thinner than at any time since they’d met in middle school.
“Relax, man, I’m not going to fall off my horse or anything!” Bobby said, catching his concerned glance. He grinned. “Not today, anyway.”
“Just not looking forward to crossing that…” He broke off as Jadu rode up.
The up-timers greeted their merchant-guide with smiles, with Ricky taking his reins as the older man dismounted and spent a moment stretching. Jadu had been in the saddle all day, scouting ahead into Patna.
Bobby handed the older man a skin, which he upended and drank from. “My friends, we have much to discuss—” He drank again. “Some of Asaf Khan’s men have been seen around the city.”
Bobby and Ricky shared a look. “Some?”
“Several hundred. An advance guard, I think.”
“Why’s that?”
“I am told they arrived on boats, and have since been seen to negotiate with every horse dealer in the city.”
“Not the imperial officer?”
“No.”
“That’s unusual, no?”
“Indeed it is, Bobby. At least, it’s an unusual measure for a loyal general to take.”
“Would the imperial officers be able to supply the numbers he needs?”
Jadu looked thoughtful. “Probably not. But Asaf Khan’s arrangements have him paying for mounts out of his own purse. If he were to go through the imperial officers for even a portion of the expense, it would save him considerable coin.”
“But he’s not relying on them at all?”
“No.” Jadu gave his beard a thoughtful tug. “It does not make much sense. He could use the imperial offices to ease the burden on his coffers and then renege on payment if he decides or has already decided to support one of Dara’s brothers.”
“Unless he doesn’t want Dara informed that he’s returning?”
Jadu nodded. “That’s the only way it makes sense, but even then only if he was sure they would remain silent about the fact he was returning at all. And that’s far more difficult.
“The local zamindars could be expected to cooperate with him, given even a flimsy excuse. Dara confirmed him as governor of Bengal as one of his first acts as emperor, so they should be predisposed to follow his orders.” He shook his head uneasily. “But if I, on the basis of one day’s easy inquiry, can discover what his men were about, then more than enough people know he’s returning to make it no secret at all.”
Ricky pulled his lip. “I think I follow: he isn’t keeping it secret by doing what he’s doing, so why not just take the horses as well and damn the consequences?”
“You have it right,” Jadu said. “Perhaps I am too tired, but I cannot think why he would do things this way…” Frustrated, he took the reins back from Ricky and started for his tent and attendants. “I need to eat.”
“Was there any opium on the market?” Ricky asked as they set out after the merchant.
“There was. I purchased what could be had at a reasonable price”—he gestured at his saddlebags—“but we’re leaving the better poppy-producing lands behind if we go much farther east…at least until the foothills on the other side of the Punjab.”
“Do you think we will need to?”
“What, go farther east?”
“Yes.”
A shake of his turbaned head. “I do not think so. We have acquired several times what your Doctor Nichols reported would be required.”
“If you got another fist-sized ball,” Ricky said, glancing at Jadu, who nodded confirmation, “then we’ve got enough.”
“We don’t know for sure what the purity is, though,” Bobby said, thoughtful.
Ricky caught the smell of something cooking, stomach
rumbling in response. Jadu’s cook was good, and it smelled like he’d been standing by for the moment his master reappeared on the horizon.
“It will have to be refined once we get it back home. That’s why Doc Nichols told us to buy as much as we could in the first place. He figured we’d get some stuff that was bunk, anyway.”
“Home.” Bobby looked wistful, and a little sad.
“Listen to us, talking about purity and shit,” Ricky said, trying to divert Bobby from the bout of homesickness he saw creeping in. Everyone on the Mission suffered bouts of it every so often, but Bobby’d had enough trouble to make Ricky want to spare him.
Bobby grinned, took up the thread: “Couple of backcountry hillbillies becoming international drug dealers.”
“Just need some outfits that scream Scarface and we’re golden.”
Bobby snorted, shook his head. “Speak for yourself. I am going for the business executive look. You know, someone who doesn’t get his hands dirty with such things.”
“So you’ll be wearing one of those outrageous starched silk collars we saw the English wearing at court?”
“Hell, no!”
“Well, what’s the current fashion among European men of affairs, if not starched lace collars?”
“Shit. Guess I’ll just have to have a silk tracksuit made up, get some of the gold we’ve earned made into thick necklaces, and touch my balls a lot during a conversation.”
“You watch too many mob movies, Bobby.” Ricky ducked under the tent awning, Bobby on his heels.
“Watched.”
“Didn’t need that particular reminder, thanks.”
“Fogettabouttit,” Bobby said by way of apology, sniffing and touching his crotch before throwing himself to the cushions.
Ricky joined him a little more slowly, still thinking over Asaf Khan’s strange actions.
Jadu emerged from the sleeping area of the tent wearing a fresh over-robe. As if on cue, his body servant and cook entered the tent from the cook fires outside, one carrying a covered platter and the other covered bowls. They laid out the meal and departed.
