by Eric Flint
A prideful little smile began to play about her lips.
“What the hell?” John blurted.
Smile dying, Jahanara turned to face him.
Jaw working, the up-timer leveled a stare at Jahanara that was so hostile that Atisheh moved to interpose yourself between her princess and the man.
The princess held up a restraining hand. “I should have known better than to ask for forgiveness before revealing the nature of my transgression against you. I can only repeat that no one beyond the tiniest circle of people knew what I was about. I could not risk Aurangzeb discovering my deception and refusing to make the direct assault we need him to make so we might employ these weapons to maximum effect. A prolonged siege is not enough to secure victory for us, even should the other part of my plan succeed. No, we need to show his followers that Aurangzeb is not and never will be chosen by God to rule the empire.” She paused, uncertain whether or not she was getting through to John.
Bertram and Gervais must have been concerned as well, because they took up positions on either side of their friend. John cast a reproachful look at both men, shaking his head in disbelief.
“All those people… How could you, Bert? How could you agree to killing all those people?”
Bertram’s face crumpled. “John, I didn’t know they were going to kill anyone.”
“No one was killed in the explosion,” Smidha said forcefully.
“I saw the bodies,” John snarled.
“The bodies were the corpses of people who had expired quite naturally in the city the week before,” Smidha explained, scandalized at the tone John was taking with Jahanara.
“Bertram wasn’t aware of that portion of the plan,” Jahanara amplified. “I, and I alone made the decision that he could not know if he was to be with you when the explosion happened, not if he was to keep you safe and behave sufficiently surprised to deceive any spies that watched you in the days that followed.”
“Jesus, lady. Here I was thinking I was starting to think like one of you. Damn, but I was wrong! Just who the hell is this spy you’re so worried about, anyway?”
Gervais touched John’s shoulder. When the younger man looked at him he said quietly, “Gradinego, for one. It shames me to admit it but he’s been serving up information on the Mission and the royals to whomever will pay him.”
John made a face. “But Gradinego hasn’t been in on any of the councils? So how is he getting any information—”
Gervais cut him off. “Roshanara and a few others: servants, guards, slaves, even a courtier or two. Luckily we found them early enough to cut or control some of the leaks.”
Jahanara took up the thread. “But the court, as you no doubt have learned, has no greater pleasure than gossip and rumor. If all sources of information were to have dried up, Aurangzeb and certainly Nur would have been suspicious of everything they observed. So I gave them their pleasures. Fed them. Fattened them. Now comes the time of slaughter.”
She drew a deep breath. “I do not ask forgiveness for what I have done, but for the necessary hurts I inflicted in order to accomplish it.”
Jahangir’s palace
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this, Gervais,” Bertram said as they walked across the jasmine-scented garden leading to the massive edifice of Jahangir’s palace. Previously Shah Shuja’s lodgings while in residence at Red Fort, the capacious palace had been divvied up among those umara of the court who served the Sultan Al’Azam or his immediate family but didn’t have entourages of their own to speak of.
Aurangzeb’s former palace, on the other side of the fort, had similarly been given over to the families of the more prominent and powerful umara.
“Don’t even think of leaving me out,” Gervais said. “I want to know what he knows, and when he learned it, besides. I can’t think anyone else will be able to get him to talk.”
“And if he gets out of hand?” Bertram asked.
“Then I’ll put him down with less remorse than I would a mad dog. Just don’t get in my way,” he said.
Wary of the angry intensity of Gervais’ response, Bertram let the subject drop. They walked in silence for a little while, Bertram considering how best to do the job Jahanara had, through Monique, ordered them to undertake.
Gervais suddenly sighed, stopped, and turned to face his future son-in-law. “I apologize, Bertram. I am angry. Have been since you and Monique uncovered this betrayal.”
Bertram put a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “No need to apologize. He’s the one should be begging forgiveness.”
“And will be, when I get my hands on him,” Gervais said.
“Will he fight?” Bertram asked.
“I doubt it. Usually that only makes things worse.” He shrugged. “But then this isn’t just stealing from your crew—which can be a deadly-enough affair. This is an entirely different level of betrayal.”
“Should I have sent a runner for Atisheh or one of the others?”
Gervais shook his head. “The fewer, the quieter, the better, I should think. Besides, while I may talk a good game about mayhem, I’m fairly certain Atisheh would actually enjoy cutting his guts out and using them for garters.”
Bertram chuckled and squeezed his friend’s shoulder.
They resumed their march, intentionally avoiding talk of what would happen to the traitor once they handed him over to Dara’s people.
The guards at the palace entrance allowed them entry without a second glance.
“How do you want to handle it, then?” Bertram asked as they mounted the stairs.
“I think I’ll try and convince him we’re going to give him a chance to run. Play it like I needed convincing he was spying on us and might be convinced to let him go.”
“Just let me know when you want me to step in. If he does not want to come with us, I don’t have anything less lethal than my knife. You?”
“Just this,” Gervais said, pulling what looked like an elongated leather pouch from his sword belt. The fat end of the cosh looked heavy, and bulged as if loaded with stones. He smacked it into his off hand and said, “Lead shot. Good for stunning guards and the like, should work well enough on an unarmored man. I suppose we can use a sash or something to tie him up.”
Bertram pulled a pair of up-timer handcuffs from inside his robes. “I’ve got these, a parting gift from Don Nasi,” he said, intentionally leaving out the caveat his kinsman had offered when presenting them: In case one of the Vieuxponts does something to risk the mission.
Gervais looked sidelong at him. “Interesting. I had wondered how you got them.”
“You don’t pretend you didn’t know I had them?”
A crooked smile. “A good swindler knows what tools are at his disposal at all times.”
“At your disposal? They were in my baggage!”
“What’s yours is ours and what’s mine is mine,” Gervais said, grinning.
Bertram chuckled and put the cuffs away, then added, “Just so you know, I’ll likely fumble around a bit putting them on.”
“Come to that, I’ll enjoy beating him into submission.”
Bertram began to chuckle, then thought better of it. If the traitor decided to flee, there was no telling to what lengths he might go to get away.
By unspoken agreement the pair stopped talking as they entered the hall fronting the chamber they sought. In seconds they were at the door and Bertram was producing the key Monique had supplied. Gervais tickled the lock with quiet finesse and, pausing only to fix a smile on his face, entered.
“Angelo! I need you to see something!” Gervais shouted, striding into the room as the door banged against the wall.
Bertram closed the door behind himself and stepped a little behind and to Gervais’ right. Content to let the older man take the lead, he looked around for avenues of escape or weapons.
The chamber was poorly lit, a lone oil lamp beyond a red silk hanging casting a dim, red-hued light on floor cushions. There was a scattering of low
brass tables covered in the various paraphernalia of everyday life, and a water pipe with enough stems for four people to partake at once.
A light breeze from the open windows flanking the balcony opposite the entrance made the hangings sway and shift. It also carried the residual odor of recently smoked opium from the pipe’s grill.
There was a clatter and grunt from behind the partition, followed by a sleepy, “Who—er, Gervais, why are you here?”
“I thought we might talk for a bit. For old times’ sake,” he said, angling toward the center of the room.
“Old times—What are you on about, Gervais?” Gradinego asked.
“Good times, Angelo. Good times,” Gervais answered.
Angelo walked barefoot from behind the hangings wearing a thin set of trousers drawn at the waist with a silk cord and nothing more. The Venetian ran one hand through salt-and-pepper hair and had a sleepy—or perhaps drug-fogged—expression. He smiled when he saw Gervais but it slipped a bit when Angelo saw his old friend was not alone.
“You say that like the good times won’t come again, my friend,” Gradinego said, gesturing for his guests to take seats as he came to a stop beside the hookah.
“Did I?” Gervais asked, ignoring, like Bertram, the implied invitation to sit.
Angelo shrugged hairy shoulders. “Perhaps tired ears misinterpret.”
Bertram watched as Angelo’s gaze flicked between Gervais, Bertram, the door, and the balcony.
“Perhaps that’s because I worry,” Gervais said.
“Worry about what?”
“There’s word that you sold us out, Angelo.”
“Sold you—” Angelo began, voice rising.
“Don’t act so indignant. Just tell me the truth and I can see what I can do for you.” He gestured at Bertram. “That’s why it’s just me and Bertram here, so we can get you out of here if that’s what you want to do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Angelo said the words calmly, but Bertram, watching him closely, saw the weight shift onto the balls of his feet.
“Please don’t, Angelo.”
“Don’t what?”
“Try and play me.”
Angelo spread his hands. “I am not playing.”
“No, I suppose not.” Gervais sighed. “You stopped playing games when you decided to sell us out.”
Angelo hung his head, but Bertram could see the tension in his shoulders and neck. Not surrendering, then, just acting.
“How could you, Angelo? My daughter. She deserves better.”
“Deserves?” Angelo snorted. “You and your precious up-timers were going to get us all killed. I did what I had to do to save us!”
“Save us from what?” Gervais asked.
“From falling for the swindle.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Angelo’s hands balled into fists. “Jesus Christ in heaven! What happened to you? These people you so blindly follow, they manufacture a few works of literature, some ‘records’ of supposed future events, and you believe them?”
Gervais grunted like a gut-punched man. Such was his skill at acting, Bertram wasn’t sure if the sound was a legitimate result of anger and pain. The thought was sobering. Gervais claimed Gradinego was nearly as skilled a player as he.
Angelo wasn’t done: “No, not just any fool, but a true believer, so hopeful of salvation they’ll believe anything. When their powder factory went up in smoke, still you believed. When Dara ran off the best part of his army and the one man who might just have had a chance defending his throne, still you believed!”
Well, thank you, Angelo. Good to know both those particular misdirections were believed, at least at your level.
“What’s even more laughable is your calling the tune for the royals, making them think you and they were people to be listened to!” He laid a hand against his hairy chest. “Do you think they might have allowed me such access without you laying that foundation? Do you?”
Gervais was shaking his head.
“So look me in the eye, Gervais, and tell me again who fooled who!”
Gervais refused to meet his old companion’s gaze, looking instead at his hands. His face was red with suppressed anger and no little sadness.
“When?” he hissed, still looking at his hands.
“When what?”
“When did you decide to play the other side?” Gervais snarled, stepping close to the other man. Bertram admired how the older man used the distraction of his movement and harsh words to retrieve the cosh from his belt.
Angelo snorted. “I never stopped playing the odds just because you showed up, Gervais. It’s the only way to prosper in our line of work.”
“So you’re the one gave Aurangzeb copies of the papers from Grantville?”
“No, I gave those to Nur. Hard work, too. Translating English is not easy.”
“So she’s the one who placed you at Aurangzeb’s service?”
Angelo shrugged, perhaps belatedly realizing how much he’d admitted, and to whom.
“Thank you,” Gervais said.
“What?”
Gervais’ answer surprised both Angelo and Bertram: He swung the cosh overhand at the Venetian’s head. Angelo’s attempt to pull away resulted in the shot-filled sack striking where the neck met the shoulder.
Angelo groaned and stumbled backward.
Gervais followed, swinging again, but the traitor managed to interpose a hand between skull and descending blow. He yelped as the cosh broke what sounded like a few fingers.
Turning to flee, he tripped on another cushion, tangled in a hanging, and staggered a few steps before getting his feet under him.
Worried the man might try and leap from the balcony, Bertram kicked a cushion out of the way and followed.
Gervais raised the cosh again, but Angelo punched him in the face with the arm that wasn’t numbed from Gervais’ blow. Off-balance as he was, the Venetian’s punch didn’t do much more than slow the Frenchman.
Retreating still, Angelo snatched up a dagger from a table before heaving it over in front of his pursuers.
Undaunted, Bertram lowered his head and charged. His headlong rush caught the older man around the waist. He tried to throw Angelo from his feet but one boot slipped, either on the brass plate that had served as the tabletop or one of the carpets, he wasn’t sure.
Angelo stabbed down at Bertram with the dagger, hitting him above the kidneys, hard. Thinking himself already done for, and determined that Angelo wouldn’t hurt his friend, Bertram heaved and pushed for all he was worth. The pair staggered, swayed, and stumbled out onto the balcony.
Bertram shoved, managed to make enough space to grab the wrist holding the dagger and pin it to the stone balustrade.
Gervais was there again, sweeping the cosh sidearm just inches from Bertram’s sweating brow. It crashed into Angelo’s temple and knocked him sideways, senseless.
Right over the balcony railing.
Angelo’s wrist slid through Bertram’s sweaty hand. Bertram clamped down, trying to save the man from the fall, but only succeeded in grasping the dagger.
Angelo Gradinego, thief, doctor, swindler and spy, fell to a final, hard stop on the flagstones two stories below.
In the shocked silence that followed, Bertram looked down at the hand that had failed to save Angelo and realized the Venetian hadn’t had time to unsheathe the dagger he’d been stabbing with.
“God, but I thought I’d been killed,” he panted.
“You’ll be all right. Bruised, probably, but no worse.”
With a gasp that sounded—even to his own ears—suspiciously like a sob, Bertram nodded. “And you?”
“I’ll be all right,” Gervais said, turning from the balcony. He gave a very Gallic shrug and added, tears forming in his eyes, “It’s just that…I already miss him…Or rather, the memory. I didn’t really want him dead. Not really.”
Bertram let that sit a moment before offering, “Better this than
trampled by elephants, which is how the emperor would have dealt with him.”
“Perhaps,” Gervais said. Clapping the younger man on the shoulder, he smiled wanly. “Let’s get someone to clean this up and make our report, then I want to get stinking drunk.”
Chapter 39
River crossing to the west of Kanpur
“What river is this again?” Bobby asked, trailing one hand in the water over the side of the barge. He didn’t seem to recall having asked the question not twenty minutes ago.
“The Ganges again, I think,” Ricky said absently, drawn from his examination of the far shore and the men and horses reuniting there by the repetition. He glanced at Bobby, worried. His oldest friend’s face was flushed and sweaty, despite the relatively cool air of the early morning. For two days now Bobby hadn’t quite been himself. Ricky didn’t think it was malaria, but then again he wasn’t any kind of doctor.
“Where the…” he said, looking for Jadu Das on the barge behind them. One good thing about river crossings was that Jadu Das made certain that his goods were loaded and unloaded according to his specifications and desires, and could usually be found easily enough. The merchant had been distant since Shaista Khan started his army on the trek west, often spending all day in Asaf Khan’s tent only to return quite late at night, so it was a relief to know the older man was near at hand. Ricky just hoped he knew some kind of remedy for whatever had Bobby feeling poorly. One of his friends had already died here, and he didn’t want to lose another.
It was two hours or so before they were fully disembarked from the barge. Bobby just sat the entire time, sheathed in sweat, eyes glassy and responses slow and uncertain. At least Bobby didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping food and drink down, and eagerly accepted water from Ricky’s canteen.
Ricky left him to search for Jadu Das, but settled for Vikram when he saw the servant supervising the off-loading of goods from the barge he’d thought Jadu was on.
