The Game

by Laurie R. King

  The maharaja seemed to be speaking to his two guards, although at this distance, I could not even make out the gestures, just that they had stopped and were facing each other. Then the smaller man flung his right arm out at the monkey-cage, and one of the guards seemed to move slightly back, the sun briefly glinting off the barrel of the rifle he carried. I saw his free hand, too, raise up in a weak gesture, and then the maharaja stepped forward, snatched the long gun, and brought it down, butt first, in the guard’s face. The red puggaree staggered back; the maharaja brought the rifle to his shoulder and pivoted ninety degrees towards the cage. The barrel spat flame, and the sound of a shot rolled across the landscape, startling the lake birds into sudden flight. A dark shape dropped from its high perch, and the other monkeys went crazy. A second shot flashed and sounded; with the third, terror sent the creatures cowering into the corners, silent at last. The maharaja flung the gun back at its owner and continued on down the hill.

  “Christ Jesus,” Nesbit murmured into the shocked air. The three men disappeared behind some trees, and Nesbit set off for the stables at a run.

  The stable-hands were furiously tightening girths and polishing saddles, their faces pale and taut, when their lord and master swept into the yard with the two armed guards on his heels, one with blood streaming from his smashed nose, the other gripping his gun with white knuckles. The maharaja marched straight over to the white stallion; the syce ran for the mounting block, but he was too slow, and received a kick from the spurred boots for his delay.

  Up in the saddle, kerbing the stallion with hard hands, our host glared down at us, his face terrible in scorn and rage. “My ancestors ruled this land when yours were squatting in grass huts picking for lice,” he shouted. “My father and grandfather made treaties with the British Crown, and we have remained loyal to those treaties. And now your government thinks it can summon me—me, the king of Khanpur—to stand before them like a schoolboy answering for his petty crimes. They threaten me—threaten! With what? Next they will be sending men to spy upon me. I swear, before that happens I will disembowel their stinking sudra of a Viceroy and leave him for the vultures.”

  I was more than prepared to dive for cover, but my companion was made of the stuff that had built an Empire. Nesbit stood his ground as the horse jittered and turned under its enraged rider, and even took a step forward into range of those spurred boots, looking up at his friend.

  “Jimmy,” he said, and, “Your Highness. What has happened? I don’t understand. Tell me what has happened.”

  “A letter! From London, telling me—not asking, telling!—that I am to report to Delhi immediately to answer questions concerning some damnable woman. What woman, I ask? Who am I to care if my neighbour has lost one of his daughters?”

  It suddenly became a lot clearer: The complaint of the neighbouring nawab had percolated upwards, and hit the sensitive place of England’s new régime. I cursed under my breath, and knew Nesbit would curse too. The timing could not have been worse for a display of the Socialists’ determination to treat all its citizens near and far with an equal hand.

  “Jimmy, it’s the new government, you know?” Nesbit said in soothing tones. “New boys, they mean well, but they haven’t a clue as to how things are done, and are stumbling around stepping on toes right and left. Look, I’ll go back to Delhi immediately and straighten it out. Honestly, think no more about it. I’ll talk to the CinC—he knows me, he knows you’ve been a loyal friend to Britain, he’ll hear me out.”

  The prince hauled himself back from the edge, but his now-stifled rage sharpened into a look of calculation, even cruelty, and he interrupted Nesbit’s ongoing explanation of the delicacies inherent in a change of governments.

  “This is an insult to my very blood. You have been my friend, Nesbit, but you are first and foremost one of them. And your friend here.” The look he gave me was enough to curl my toes. “I invite his sister to share at my table and my sport, and the woman gets it into her head that she must leave, and walks away from my hospitality without even an as-you-please. I long thought the English had some sense of honour, or at least manners. I find now you have neither. You people imagine that you rule here in Khanpur. I tell you, Nesbit: You do not.” He spat out the three words like bullets. “I rule Khanpur; I and I alone. I invited you here; I am prepared to disinvite you. But before you go, you will take today with you, and—by God!—it will give your English government something to think about. Mount and come, both of you.”

  He whirled the stallion on its haunches and kicked it into a gallop, its hooves sliding dangerously over the stones of the yard. Nesbit and I climbed more reluctantly into our saddles and followed at a more sedate gait; as we left the yard, the two armed guards were shouting at the syces to bring up their two bays.

  “What do you suppose he has in mind?” I asked Nesbit as we trotted along the dusty road. “Panthers? His pet African lions?”

  “I suppose we should be glad he didn’t just have his men tie us up between two elephants.”

  He looked glum, but the thought of that sort of punishment made the breakfast go queasy in my stomach. “You don’t think …”

  “That he’s going to do us in? No, I don’t think he’s that mad. Besides which, he seems to have in mind more of a demonstration. Or a contest—yes, that may be it.”

  “Whatever it is, for God’s sake let him win.”

  “I’ll do my best. But I shouldn’t think that doing so openly would be a good idea. Having a rival deliberately throw a game could well be the match that lit the charge.”

  I could see that, and I reflected, not for the first time, that those who had decreed that British boys grow up playing demanding games had a lot to answer for.

  “Perhaps it’s time just to tell him who we are.”

  Nesbit screwed up his face and shook his head, more in doubt than in disagreement. “We may have to. But I’d rather keep that as a last resort. That, too, might be the spark that drove him to violence, to think that a friend was now spying on him—you heard what he said about spies. The other princes would probably feel much the same—a lot of uncomfortable questions would be asked if they thought they might be the object of surreptitious surveillance. No, none of them would like it one bit.”

  We rode for an hour, into the open land where we had ridden after pig on the first day. My exhaustion retreated with the exercise, the clean air clearing my head, the horse’s eager energy proving contagious. I had no wish to pit myself against some deadly animal while armed with nothing but a sharp stick, but if the maharaja was determined to do so in order to prove Khanpur’s superiority over the effete Brits, so be it. I had a gun that would give pause to anything smaller than an elephant, and a horse under me that could outrun most predators.

  All in all, although I was not pleased with how the day was turning out, it could have been worse. The maharaja might, as Nesbit said, have thrown us into the cell next to Holmes’, or had us executed outright. Or he could have come up with some kind of competition that would have proved instantly disastrous for Martin Russell, such as wrestling or employing the more primitive skills of the nautch girls. With any luck, he would merely rub our noses in our inferiority and throw us out of the kingdom, leaving us no worse off than we had been yesterday night. Yes, there remained the problem of retrieving Holmes, but as Holmes himself had said, he need only stand up and publicly declare himself an eccentric English magician, and the maharaja would have no choice but to allow him to leave.

  With any luck.

  Again the shikaris waited beneath their tree, spears in their hands, but this time with apprehension in their straight spines and the sideways glances they cast at the man on the white horse. The dry grassland rustled beneath a light morning breeze; the fields of sugar cane and barley glowed green and lush in the bright light; the stand of trees from which the herd of pigs had been driven stood on the rise, unchanged. The single new element in the drama was a solid-sided farm cart, roofed and with a door
in the back, bolted securely shut. The thought passed through my mind that the bullock drawing it was a remarkably phlegmatic animal, considering that it stood dozing less than a dozen feet from whatever wild beast the cart contained, but I did not really think about it further. I was too busy feeling relieved that, whatever our prey was to be, it could be no taller than a man, and light enough to be pulled by a single bullock.

  At a signal from their prince, one of the servants walked over to the cart. To my astonishment, he did not climb up to work the bolt from the safety of the roof, but simply reached out for it. His hands weren’t even nervous, the fool. I lifted my spear, and readied for the charge.

  What came out instead was a tall man, clothed in black from boots to turban, unfolding himself from the cart’s dark interior to open ground, tugging his starched black puggaree down to shade his eyes from the sudden glare, showing no iota of surprise at seeing two of us who should have been gone.

  Holmes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  What the bloody hell kind of a joke is this?” Geoffrey Nesbit demanded, allowing his spear-head to drop.

  “Not a joke. This man is my prisoner. He was seen in front of any number of witnesses to slay his assistant, one week ago. He has been condemned to death. We are his executioners.”

  Suddenly, breathing became difficult.

  “If he committed murder, where’s the body?” Nesbit challenged him.

  “I assume the villagers disposed of it.”

  I found my voice. “It was merely a trick.”

  “No trick. It was murder.”

  I had had as much of this charade as I was willing to take. “All right, this is ridiculous—” I started, but Nesbit’s hand on my sleeve stopped me. I turned to hiss at him, “Geoffrey, this has gone far enough. The border is less than five miles off. Thank the man for his kind hospitality and let’s go.”

  He didn’t answer, just looked over my shoulder until I shifted in my saddle to follow his gaze. The shikaris under the tree had been joined by the two guards, both of whom had their rifles at the ready, aimed at us.

  “Yes,” came the maharaja’s voice. “You see the problem. I am fully within my rights to execute my prisoner in whichever way I like. A pig spear is, I grant you, less usual than shooting or hanging, but can be as fast as either. And if my two English guests choose to interfere, my two guards may—inadvertently, tragically—interpret my commands to mean the death of the meddlers. Particularly if they refuse to lay down the revolvers both carry. Alas, how sad.”

  “You would never get away with shooting us,” Nesbit told him, outraged.

  “No, probably not. But can you see the maharaja of Khanpur condemned and hanged? I think not. The greatest punishment would be for me to abdicate in favour of my son, and live out my days in Monte Carlo or Nairobi. But,” he said, his fanatic eyes lit from within, “the English would never forget Khanpur. Never.”

  My God, he was dead serious. I looked to Holmes, completely at a loss, but Nesbit distracted me, putting his head near mine that we might not be overheard.

  “We have little choice,” he said.

  “You don’t honestly think he’d go through with it?”

  “Jimmy, on his own, would probably come to his senses before it was too late. But those guards have the determination of men under orders. They’d bring us down before he could speak up.”

  Nesbit was a captain in the Indian Army; one thing he knew was the habits of soldiers. “So what do you suggest?”

  “We can do nothing here, where we’d be a pair of ducks on the lake, awaiting the gun. Out in the field, however, anything can happen.”

  “Nesbit, you swore that man would set Holmes free if only we declare our citizenship. Let’s do that and be done with this farce.”

  “I said, if we publicly declare his identity. What public have we here?” His green eyes drilled into mine; I tore my gaze away, looked at the two guards with their motionless rifles, looked at the maharaja with his triumphant smile, then at Holmes, standing with his hands tied together, saying nothing. His attitude brought home to me how very far from England we were. One grows accustomed to being the citizen of no mean country; to find oneself in the hands of a person to whom that signifies nothing is humbling. And frightening.

  “He’s mad.”

  “I fear so.”

  “And your only suggestion is that we take to the field and improvise?” We both heard my unvoiced scorn: This is the best an Army captain can come up with? This is the flower of British Intelligence, heir to Kimball O’Hara and Colonel Creighton?

  On the other hand, I was the student and partner of Sherlock Holmes, sister-in-law to the renowned Mycroft, and I had nothing in my repertoire, either.

  “We could hope to get close enough to Jimmy to take him hostage—they’d not shoot if one of us had a spear to his throat. Barring that, we can attempt to manoeuvre ourselves beyond the range of the rifles and into the cover of those trees, then make a run for it.”

  “We’d never make it, not without our guns.”

  “I don’t know that we have an abundance of choices,” he said grimly. And thinking it over, I had to agree. He saw it in my face, and turned to the prince.

  “That’s not exactly fair play, Jimmy. You’ve got the guns, we’ve got sticks, and even when we’ve finished with this blighter you can have your men shoot us down.”

  “I will not. Indeed, why would I? Once you have executed this condemned murderer for me, why need I bother further with the British?”

  Nesbit looked at me for confirmation, and I wavered in an agony of indecision. The maharaja was beyond a doubt insane, but it appeared to be a more or less linear madness, with the goal of shaking the Englishman to his boots and re-establishing the autonomy and honour of Khanpur’s rulers. Monomania, rather than outright psychosis. If we did manage to thwart his plans and make our escape, God only knew what outlet his wrath would take. But once outside the borders, the Army encampment was a matter of hours away, and the wholesale rescue of the maharaja’s remaining “guests” would be their concern.

  It was to be a game, then, with deadly results if we did not play it according to its inventor’s rules. Three of us, three of them, with two rifles on the opposing side. With deep foreboding, but not seeing much choice, I pulled the fancy revolver from my pocket and handed it to the shikari sent to us for the purpose; Nesbit gave over his gun as well. We were given pig spears in exchange, of a different design than the one I’d used before. This one was more than a foot shorter, with a smaller blade and weighted at the butt. Nesbit took his as if there was nothing unusual in the shape, but the maharaja’s was the long style. A servant carried another long spear with him when he cut Holmes’ bonds; to my surprise, he handed the weapon to Holmes.

  Holmes hefted it, silently eying the man on the white horse, who showed him his teeth and said in Hindi, “Yes, you wish to use it, magician, I can see. And you will have your chance—if you succeed in killing these other two first. This is a fair game, you see? Your spear is long, theirs short. They have horses, you have your feet, along with whatever magic you can find here on this hillside. You claim to read minds, so here is your opportunity. One man at a time; I give you to the count of one hundred before the green-eyed man comes after you. If you live, next will come the man with the eyeglasses, and after that, me. Nesbit, here is your chance at first blood in the first-ever Khanpur Cup.” And he laughed.

  Nesbit and I looked at each other, but I had no idea how we might get out of this impossible dilemma, and clearly neither did Nesbit. I automatically turned to consult with Holmes, and found him making off rapidly in the direction of the first trees, his jaunty cocked turban waving sharply with every step—he was wearing the boots he’d brought with him, I noticed, not the soft shoes; the maharaja must have decided that decent footwear was more sporting. Which meant that Holmes had a small knife available to him as well as the long spear, along with a set of pick-locks—although I couldn’t see what
difference either would make.

  I straightened my back and shrugged mentally, more as a means of ridding my mind of dread than an expression of confusion. Something would come up, I told myself. Holmes would see to it. He always did.

  The dark trotting figure surprised a flock of birds into flight, their sudden rise giving him not a moment’s pause. He skirted a stand of waist-high shrubs, dipped into a hollow, then followed the line of the hill, closer now but still terribly far from the trees where the pigs had sheltered that first day, a mixed stand of about an acre. The maharaja’s lips moved as he counted the seconds off under his breath, then said aloud, “Fifty.” As if he’d heard, Holmes speeded to a lope. Nesbit’s hands tightened on the reins, causing his horse to champ and fret. I glanced over at the two armed guards; they had lowered their rifles to rest across their saddles, but they were watching closely.

  How good were they with those guns? I speculated. If Holmes made the trees, if Nesbit met him there, perhaps …

  I nudged my horse over until I was knee-to-knee with the Survey man. “Look, Nesbit, chivalry be damned, and uncomfortable questions can be dealt with. The maharaja won’t kill me once he sees I’m a woman. You two make for the border and I’ll strip to my under-shirt, take off the moustache, simply tell him I’m Mary Russell and not her brother. He’ll be angry, but he’s a Kshatriya—he might slap a woman, but anything more than that would go against his warrior’s ethic. If he doesn’t have me dumped immediately over the border, you can have the Viceroy send a delegation to fetch me. The only thing we lose that way is my pride, and a few days.” His set jaw told me what he thought of that idea. “For God’s sake, man,” I urged, “use your head! If I go, the guards—”