The Game

by Laurie R. King

  “Ninety,” the maharaja interrupted. “Ready, Nesbit?”

  In answer, the blond man kneed his horse away from my side and loosed the reins. His horse, somewhat puzzled at the lack of any pigs in this pig-hunt, obediently pricked its ears, and I cursed.

  “Nesbit, you fool,” I hissed, but then, “One hundred!” and the man was off, straight as a loosed arrow, his posture sure, every inch of him an officer on the hunt, his game—

  I froze, ice beginning to flood my veins—and then caught myself: Don’t be ridiculous, Russell. Of course Nesbit knows that’s Holmes. He said as much when …

  But as I went over our exchange in my mind, I could not lay my hands on any scrap of conversation that proved Nesbit had connected the maharaja’s pet magician with the Holmes he had seen in gaol.

  I gave myself a smart mental slap. Don’t be a vaporous female, Russell! How could Nesbit not know? For heaven’s sake, the man wasn’t blind. And he wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled by the turban (the black turban that shaded Holmes’ face as he got down from the cart, the turban he hadn’t worn before in Nesbit’s sight …) or by the boots or the renewed dye on the prisoner’s skin. Nesbit was a professional. Certainly he’d known who the magician was the night we arrived. Hadn’t he? We didn’t speak Holmes’ name, of course, for fear of listening ears, but still.…

  But dear God, the man looked determined on that horse, galloping full-tilt towards the running figure, looking for all the world a man making the best of an unpleasant but necessary task. I gathered my reins to take off after them, but the maharaja’s voice stopped me.

  “Captain Russell, I am gratified by your eagerness, but you will please wait until one or the other of them is down.” With the reminder, I could feel the guards behind me, knew they had raised their guns in preparation. I loosed my grip on the spear I had unconsciously lifted, and stared across the terai at the fast-closing figures, burning with fear and with the painful irony of the entire situation: If the man on the white Arab had known who his magician was, known he had Sherlock Holmes in his collection, he would have been more eager to hide him than to hunt him.

  I nearly whooped when I saw Holmes leap into the trees, bare yards in front of the rider, who reined back hard before his mount pelted headlong into trunk and branch. The horse half-reared at the harsh hand on its reins, and Nesbit began to circle, looking for a more congenial way in. He might have followed on foot, but it looked as if he wished to preserve the advantage of height in the face of his prey’s longer spear. He trotted south thirty or forty yards, then turned back and cantered past the place where Holmes had disappeared.

  Thick, dark forest began in earnest two miles away, rising up to the endless snow-capped mountains that sheltered Kashmir and, beyond it, Tibet. Unfortunately, this stand before us was in no way connected with the greater forest—had it been, the prisoner would never have been allowed anywhere near it. Still, Holmes could use it as the pigs had, as shelter and weapon against the hunter. It’s the hidden tusks that kill, the maharaja himself had said.

  Abruptly, a herd of pigs launched itself out of the stand fifty feet or so from Nesbit. My horse jerked in response, eager to get on with the business of the day, but I kept him in line, murmuring for him to wait, that he’d get his turn to run in just a while. The sudden flushing of game loosed a chatter among the men behind me, but it quickly died away as realisation of the nature of the prey returned to them. None of them would risk speaking out against their master, I thought, but I noted their fear, and beneath it their disapproval, as something that might be used.

  Nesbit had reached the northern end of the trees and slowed to circle around. We could still see him, his light coat and the colour of the horse flitting behind the trees. The guards did not care for his vanishing from their sights. One of them said something in the local tongue, but the maharaja’s sharp reply evidently told them not to move. And indeed, while I was there, they did not need to; I knew better than they did that Captain Geoffrey Nesbit would not ride away and leave me.

  Now, however, Nesbit was not visible. Two minutes went by, three, and the same guard spoke again, to no reply. Four minutes, and the Arab stallion arched his neck in reaction to the hand of his rider, but before the prince could send his guard to see what was happening amongst the trees, Nesbit burst from the thickest section of growth, on foot and racing in our direction. He took perhaps ten steps out from the tree line, then flung his hands up in the air and collapsed forward onto the ground. Even without the maharaja’s binoculars, I could see the short, weighted spear sticking out from between his shoulder blades, see, too, the brilliant red stain that spread across the back of his coat. He lay still.

  Immediately, the maharaja shouted a string of commands that had his guards hastening into action, although they did not go anywhere near Nesbit. Rather, they were after his horse. They reappeared a few minutes later, the gelding trotting behind them; the maharaja relaxed, and mused aloud.

  “So. It appears that our magician throws the javelin as well as conjuring coins and mice. And he still has his own weapon. I suggest you watch yourself, Captain Russell.” His manner said the opposite, that he would like nothing better than to see me sprawled on top of Nesbit, leaving the field free for him. Still, he was not about to trust to the magician’s skills. He shouted at the other guard to go to the southern end of the copse, where his weapon would ensure that I remained in play until either I or the magician was out of the game.

  I gripped the shaft of my short spear and kicked my gelding forward towards the trees.

  My path took me twenty feet from where Nesbit lay. I glanced involuntarily at the spear haft that protruded from the back of his blood-soaked jacket, but I did not stop; there seemed little point. Instead, I continued south, towards the guard, sitting with his rifle across his saddle. From where he waited, he could watch both sides of what I now saw was an overgrown nullah or stream-bed, a long, rock-strewn dip in the earth that resulted in a trickle of water at its southern end. His horse lipped at some green shoots that followed the watercourse; I passed between guard and trees, ignoring both.

  Halfway up the eastern side, Holmes’ face peered out at me from between two trees. I said nothing, did nothing to let the guard know what I had seen, but Holmes grinned at me before slipping back into the undergrowth. As I rounded the northern end of the trees, he used the momentary distraction of my reappearance to make his move.

  His black figure darted out from the trees to where Geoffrey Nesbit lay. The guard immediately raised his rifle and fired a shot, which missed his target wildly but ricocheted alarmingly ten feet from my horse’s nose. I shouted in fury, hauling back on the reins to force my gelding into a rear, but only when the maharaja added his voice to the protest did the guard lower his gun and kick his own horse into a run instead.

  He was too late. Holmes had grabbed Nesbit’s ankles and dragged the limp body face-first at high speed across fifteen feet of ground and up the rocks into the shelter of the trees. Nesbit’s arms stretched out after him, muscles slack, head bouncing back and forth wincingly across the rough ground. A dozen steps and they were gone. The guard galloped up, pressing his bay close to the wall of green.

  “I say,” I shouted at him. “Unless you want a spear through you, I’d suggest you move back.”

  His English was quite good, and he moved away briskly. After a minute, seeing that there was nothing he could do now to keep the magician from retrieving the spear that had killed the English captain, he looked to his master for instructions, then rode back to his position at the southern end.

  I made a great show of peering this way and that into the growth before circling back north and turning down the far side of the copse. The guard shifted a few yards to the east so he could keep track of me, but came no farther, wanting to remain within sight of his maharaja. I rode to the spot where Holmes had shown himself to me, then dismounted, looping the reins over a dead branch and patting the damp chestnut neck. The horse bent to
lip at the grass; I hefted my spear up to shoulder level for effect, then stepped into the trees and the dappled half-light.

  In a clearing near the creek, I found Nesbit sitting hale and hearty, bathing the blood from a scraped cheek while Holmes unthreaded the doctored spear from the resurrected man’s coat. I saw that its blade had been thrust through a flat piece of wood then bent sideways to lock it down, after which the spear’s butt end had been threaded through a slit in the garment and bound up against the victim’s spine with a length of black turban fabric. The blood was explained by the carcase of a young pig that lay on the rocks, the spearing of which no doubt explained the sudden exodus of the rest of the herd.

  “A masterly bit of illusion, Holmes,” I said. He nodded his acknowledgement, gave my cropped scalp and blond moustache a pained glance, then concentrated again on the work in hand. “Now, if you can just conjure up one of our host’s aeroplanes, we’ll be well out of here.”

  “I couldn’t even manage to hang on to Nesbit’s horse,” he said apologetically.

  “You did well to lay hands on me,” Nesbit objected.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “Self-criticism is my husband’s way of patting himself on the back.”

  “Nonetheless,” Holmes went on, deigning to take note of my psychological insight, “we’re three riders with one horse, and a border at least six miles away.”

  “Have to do something about that, won’t we?” I said. The situation ought to have filled me with alarm, but instead I felt irrationally cheerful. “What’s our arsenal?”

  “One long spear, one short, another short one with a ruined head. You have your knife, Russell?” he asked with a glance at the borrowed riding boots.

  “Of course. Nesbit?”

  “No. Well, a pen-knife, that’s all.”

  “Still, there are plenty of rocks. You take my spear,” I told him. “You’re better with it than I am. Shall we go?”

  The puzzled Army captain put on his ruined coat and followed us through the green to the eastern border. My absence had brought the guard, who was stirring his horse into a trot. In a minute he would be behind the trees, invisible to the maharaja and the other guard. I scooped up a pocketful of round rocks and yanked down several branches of fresh new leaves. When the guard was fifty feet away, I stepped unconcernedly out from the trees, my arms full of greenery, and carried it over to drop at the chestnut’s feet. As he lowered his head to explore it, I took out Martin Russell’s cigarette case and picked one out, setting it between my lips.

  “Why do you stop?” the guard demanded. His rifle was in his hands, but pointing still at the ground between us.

  I flicked my lighter and got the tobacco going before telling him, “Go and see.” I slid the lighter back into my pocket, and as he turned to peer into the trees, I pulled out a pair of rocks and let fly.

  The damnable puggaree he wore gave little chance of knocking him cleanly out, but my rocks were heavy and fast, and at the third blow between his shoulders the startled bay shied and dumped him. I went after the horse as Holmes and Nesbit swarmed out to overcome the guard.

  I couldn’t have caught the animal if he’d run, if the guard had got off a shot and truly frightened him. As it was, he slowed to a halt forty feet away and watched me walking more or less in his direction, but at a safe angle away from him. I strolled, dreading the sudden appearance of the second guard, murmuring idly at the creature until the ears twitched forward. Gently, doing nothing to alarm his equine sensibilities, I drifted closer, tempting him with greenery, until I had my hand on his bridle.

  The moment my hands touched the reins, Holmes kicked the other horse into a run, Nesbit behind him on the wide haunches with the fallen guard’s rifle. I threw myself into the saddle, drove my heels hard into the horse’s sides, and flew on their heels across the grassland in the direction of the Khanpur border.

  But the guards were superbly trained, or the maharaja cautious. Less than twenty strides into our gallop, the first shot came. I felt as much as heard the bullet cut through the air, saw a puff of dirt rise up on the other side of Holmes and Nesbit, and looked back over my right shoulder to see the second guard as he rounded the southern tree line. The crack of the gun reached us, and Nesbit, ahead and to my left, twisted around, trying to bring his stolen rifle up as he clung to the bare horse with his legs. Unfortunately, I was directly between the two weapons.

  I wrenched the reins to the left so I was heading back towards the trees, desperate to clear Nesbit’s line of fire. After a quarter of a mile, I twitched them back to the right, and was in a line with the other horse when out of the corner of my eye I saw a white flash, beating its way flat-out around the northern end of the trees.

  Four horses, five riders, their trajectories coming together at a point where an arm of forest stretched out into the grassland of the terai. The maharaja’s Arab was ideally suited for this race, deft on its feet over the rough ground and filled with stamina, whereas stamina was just what the doubly-laden gelding in front of me was running short of. My stolen bay might, possibly, have outrun the smaller Arab, but the chestnut under Holmes and Nesbit was already showing the first signs of foundering. From the south, the guard’s sturdy bay would reach the point last of all, but it would all be over before then.

  Nesbit was the first to move in the sacrificial stakes. He and Holmes seemed to be shouting at each other, but before the magician could act, his tow-headed passenger flung himself off the horse, hitting the ground hard and rolling. He came up on one knee and turned his rifle at the guard, magnificently—if suicidally—oblivious of the bullets spitting dirt around him. One shot slapped at his leg the instant his rifle fired, jerking his aim to a miss. The guard continued roaring down on him from the south, the maharaja from the north, and I in the middle. Nesbit’s trouser leg reddened, and then he rose to a stand, took careful aim, and fired again. I saw the guard’s bay stagger; the man himself kicked free of the stirrups and rolled clear before the animal went down. Kneeling now, half concealed by the wounded beast, the guard aimed at the still-standing Nesbit.

  And then something odd happened. Before he could fire, the man seemed to flinch, then duck. He raised his hand as if to shade his face, and seemed to glow briefly in the bright mid-day sun. Then Nesbit’s gun went off, and the guard fell backwards.

  There was no time to consider the meaning of the man’s peculiar gesture; the maharaja was fast closing in on Nesbit, his long spear in deadly position, the Arab’s ears forward: only one thing to do. I hammered my heels down, pulling the thin knife from the top of my boot; the broken, bloodied spear on Nesbit’s wall in Delhi flashed through my mind. Nearly the end of my career.

  The prince saw me shift direction and responded instantaneously. His spear swung up to the place where I would be when my horse collided with the Arab, eight feet of steel-tipped bamboo against my own five inches of blade. There would be no throwing the knife underhanded and behind me—all I could do was try to avoid his blade, shoving it forward and crashing into the shaft or jumping at him the instant before it impaled me. I slipped my boots free from the stirrups and braced for the impact, cringing from the approaching razor.

  And then the world flared in a soundless explosion, blinding me for precious moments before moving on. Frantically I blinked, but in that instant the two horses came together, the maharaja’s spear sliding between my body and the bay’s mane as my knee smashed into the prince’s. Without thought, I clamped my right hand onto the bamboo shaft and stabbed out with my left; before the horses leapt apart, I heard the man gasp.

  The two horses veered away from each other the moment the pressure on their reins permitted, but I couldn’t understand what had happened. My dazzled vision confirmed that I had the spear in my right hand and a blood-smeared knife in my left, but where had the silent explosion come from, a flash like the sudden burst of a—a looking-glass! I’d suffered that blinding flash before.

  Bindra.

  The white stallion
was pounding off north nearly as fast as it had come, its rider’s left hand clapped over a bleeding right biceps. Holmes was circling back at a gallop, Nesbit was bending to examine his leg, and I brought the bay to a halt and stood in the stirrups to search every bump and shrub, but not until the boy repeated the mirror trick did I find him. Bindra saw me, and rose from his hiding place half a mile away, the ladies’ compact in his hand, grinning hugely.

  But that was not the end of the surprises. A few hundred yards beyond the boy, a light-skinned man in monastic robes stepped out of the beginnings of the forest, carrying in his hand some dark shape that could have been a short spear, but which I thought was a rifle. After a minute, he swung it up to rest across his shoulder, which I took as confirmation. And soon he was close enough to recognise: Kimball O’Hara.

  All our chicks come home to roost.

  Nesbit finished strapping his belt around his thigh and accepted Holmes’ arm to pull himself onto the gelding. But Bindra paid us no mind. Instead, he turned and flew across the ground towards the man with the rifle, leaping into O’Hara’s arms so that the monk staggered back. The sound of their laughter reached us through the still, hot air, and I kicked my mount into a canter until I was even with Nesbit.

  “Who the hell is that boy, anyway?” I demanded, but the handsome, somewhat battered face just grinned at me. “Did you arrange for him to be at the horse-seller’s? Is the brat one of yours?”

  “Oh no, not mine. I didn’t even know for certain that he existed, although I had my suspicions. No, I’d say the boy belongs to what one might term an earlier régime of Intelligence.”

  As we approached, O’Hara’s free hand rested on the boy’s shoulder; our close-mouthed donkey-boy grinning and chattering in a manner I’d not have imagined of him. We came closer, until I saw the same exact grin displayed on the man’s face; with a flash like that of the brat’s mirror, I knew what I was seeing, wondered only that I hadn’t seen it before.