Abounding Might

by Melissa McShane

  She heard a door open and shut elsewhere in the Residence, more a vibration than a sound. Someone else was wakeful at this hour, though likely not plagued with a dead man’s memory. She set down her brush and climbed into bed. Morning would come early, and with it a new direction. Could they find Gopika? She would likely be in the bazaar. More to the point, would she know the information they sought?

  In the darkness of the nearly invisible moon, sounds became louder: the chirruping and buzzing of night insects, the mournful cries of hunting birds, the creak of the netting as it twisted gently on the hook from which it was suspended. Daphne closed her eyes and tried to picture her home back in England, the bedroom that had been hers since she left the nursery, but images closer to hand intruded: Government House’s Bounding chamber, the post-house where she had eaten a meal seated on the floor. She drifted off to sleep with memories of the bazaar filling her mind.

  It seemed only moments later that she woke again to someone shaking her. “Daphne, you must wake,” Bess whispered. “Something is happening outside—please, wake!” She was in her wrapper, as if something had interrupted her dressing. The grey light of dawn suffused the air, as cool as it would be hot in only a few hours.

  Groggy and aching as if she had again spent the day Bounding passengers hither and yon, Daphne sat up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What is it?”

  “I can see nothing, only hear—listen, Daphne!”

  She came fully to consciousness and became aware of a low roar like the tide, ebbing and rising somewhere nearby. A moment later she recognized it for what it was: a large crowd of people, all talking at once, but at such a distance that she could not make out words. They were not shouting. Not yet, her inner voice insisted.

  Daphne looked out the window, but could see nothing. “They must be at the front door,” she said.

  “They sound angry,” Bess said. “What happened last night?”

  Daphne hurried to dress in her Bounder uniform. “It was beautiful—but it was awful,” she said, and quickly recounted for Bess the events of the previous night. Bess gasped when Daphne came to the murder, but did not interrupt. Finally, Daphne said, “Captain Fletcher said it was possible they would blame us for the murder. It sounds as if he was correct.”

  Bess donned her blue muslin gown, which was somewhat wrinkled, and said, “We should go down. I refuse to cower in here like a frightened child. You did nothing wrong, and we will convince them of that.”

  “I hope you are right.” The noise grew as they dressed, and privately Daphne feared even Captain Fletcher’s powers of persuasion would not be enough. But Bess was correct: cowering was the wrong reaction.

  They met Ensign Phillips on the stairs. He was haphazardly dressed, without his coat, and looked harried. “Ladies, you should remain upstairs,” he said, in a tone of voice that suggested he knew his advice would be ignored.

  “You know we cannot,” Daphne said. “Do you know what has happened?”

  “They accuse us of having murdered their holy man. I have sent word to the barracks, but Fletcher insists he be permitted to handle this matter. He and Sir Rodney are arguing about it now.”

  “Why should the soldiers not come? It is their duty to protect the Residence,” Bess said.

  “Because these are grieving, frightened people who are simply mistaken as to where to lay blame,” Daphne said, though she could hear the mob better now and did not quite believe her own words. “If Captain Fletcher can convince them of the truth, no one need be hurt.”

  “Grieving people can nevertheless be dangerous,” Bess said. “How far are we willing to permit them to go before we are entitled to defend ourselves?”

  Daphne had no ready answer for that. “Let us speak to the captain and Sir Rodney, and perhaps they will have a better solution.”

  “I believe not, Lady Daphne,” Phillips said. “They were arguing hotly before I left to investigate the rear exit. We may have to leave in a hurry.”

  Another tidal roar, this one much nearer to hand, echoed down the cool central hallway of the Residence. “—have to make an example!” Sir Rodney roared. “If we do not put up a firm resistance, we show them that we are weak and easily toppled. I won’t stand by and watch this place go up in flames!”

  “It will not come to that,” Fletcher said. His voice was calmer than Sir Rodney’s, but with an edge to it that told Daphne he was by no means relaxed. “I will speak to them—”

  “It’s a damned mob, Fletcher! There’s no reasoning with that!”

  “They are guilty of nothing more than a desire to see justice done.”

  “To this point, yes, but they are working themselves up to violence!”

  “All the more reason for me to speak to them now, before that happens.”

  Sir Rodney’s face was as red as his hair. “You have until the soldiers arrive from the barracks,” he said. “And if they kill you, let the judgment not fall on my head.”

  “Agreed,” Fletcher said, and strode off toward the front door. Daphne followed him, trailed by Bess. “Lady Daphne, this is not the place for you,” he said without looking at her.

  “But if you—I should stand ready to Bound you away—”

  “I will not have you put yourself in danger of being stoned. You will do no one any good if you are wounded before you can escape—or am I wrong, and a Bounder’s talent is not impaired by extreme pain?”

  Daphne ground her back teeth. “You are not wrong.”

  “Thank you for your willingness, but this is a thing I must do alone.” Fletcher paused before the carved front door, laying his hand palm-first against the wood as if in prayer, then pulled the door open and had it shut behind him before Daphne could glimpse more than the courtyard, sun-dappled in the dawn’s first light.

  “I cannot hear him,” Bess said. “The door is too thick.”

  “I hear them,” Daphne said. “Oh, Bess.”

  They stood, hands clasped, listening to the angry ebb and flow of the sea of words. “I have told the soldiers to move out,” Daphne heard Phillips say, some distance behind them. “They will be here in minutes.”

  “Captain Fletcher’s a fool,” Wright said.

  “He can also sell snow to the Esquimaux,” Ainsworth said. “He’ll do it.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to wager on that?” Wright said.

  “On all our lives? Don’t be daft, man,” said Sir Rodney.

  The crowd’s roar grew louder, and now Daphne could hear Fletcher shouting. “It’s not working,” she said.

  Bess gripped Daphne’s hand more tightly. “Step back,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Just—give me space.” Her eyes behind their smoky spectacles were closed, and her chest heaved with slow, deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. “There is something I can do.”

  “What—”

  Bess’s eyes flew open. In a deep voice, she intoned a few syllables of Hindoostani, each sounding like a death knell. The roar outside turned to panicked screaming, high-pitched and terrified. The door flung open, and Fletcher scrambled inside and slammed it shut. His breath came in quick, short gasps, and his startled eyes were wide. “What did you do?” he whispered.

  Outside, the screams were fading into the distance. Bess closed her eyes once more, trying to calm her breathing, which had become as rapid and frantic as Fletcher’s. “It is… a last resort,” she said. “We are taught to Speak to a crowd… all at once… in a way that terrifies. For breaking up small mobs before they riot.” She opened her eyes and smiled, a shaky expression. “I apologize, Captain, for including you in its effect. It is not a precision attack.”

  “I had no success with them,” Fletcher said. “You may have saved their lives. I cannot resent you for it.”

  “I believe I should sit now,” Bess said, fumbling her way toward the drawing room. Daphne took her by the elbow to steady her. “I have never done that before. It was far more effective than I expe
cted it to be. I wish I could have been of use like that in the bazaar, but that was far too large a crowd.”

  Daphne helped her friend find a seat, then sat next to her. “Did they truly disperse, Captain?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. I was too busy obeying the command to pay attention to them. But if it was as effective on them as it was on me—”

  “What command?”

  “ ‘Go home,’ in Hindoostani. I thought you did not speak the language, Miss Hanley.”

  “A few phrases only, for use in that circumstance.” Bess’s hands were shaking, and Daphne clasped them to still them. “Do not fear for me, Daphne, it is simply the aftereffects—it rings through me as if I were a bell.”

  “We cannot know if they will return,” Sir Rodney said. “I am going to station men around the perimeter of the Residence.”

  “That is a wise decision, Sir Rodney,” Fletcher said. “And we will seek out Gopika and hope she can tell us what we need to know.”

  “Gopika? What did you learn last night?” Ainsworth asked. “And what was that mob about?”

  Fletcher exchanged glances with Daphne. She was eager to reach the bazaar, but it seemed explanations were in order first. “Breakfast,” Fletcher said, “and we will tell you a story.”

  “One without a happy ending,” Daphne said.

  In which women’s knowledge proves valuable

  aphne and Bess stood next to the sweet-seller’s stall, eating morsels and dropping the bright green leaves on the ground. “Nothing,” Daphne said. “Gopika seems to have disappeared.”

  “At least we have not been accosted, or threatened,” Bess said. “I can imagine how these people might grieve over such a death as that. Grief can make one irrational.”

  “I am afraid for Gopika. Suppose the murderer draws the same conclusion we did and tries to kill her?”

  “How could he? It is not as if he knows of her existence.”

  “He might. I am beginning to be afraid of what our enemy is capable of.”

  Bess sucked her fingertips clean, then wiped them on her handkerchief. “He is still just a man, albeit one with resources. I have told Captain Fletcher and Lieutenant Wright where we are—is Captain Ainsworth still nearby? I find it difficult to pick our officers out of the crowd when they do not wear their coats.”

  “He is conversing with an old man just across the way. I imagine he is inquiring about the possibility of food rather than the location of Gopika.”

  “At least he is consistent in his passions. I worry about Lieutenant Wright. Does he not seem different since his head injury? Perhaps we should request an Extraordinary Shaper for him, after all.”

  “He is quieter, and he has stopped flirting—but I believe he has simply become more serious now that we face a serious challenge. I like him better now.” He still moved oddly, less freely, and Daphne had nearly resolved to suggest he see a doctor, or an Extraordinary Shaper, but she did not like to interfere in the life of someone who was barely more than an acquaintance. Wright no doubt knew his own business.

  “I hope his seriousness is not because of pain.” Bess adjusted her spectacles and squinted against the indirect light filtering through the heavy cloud cover. The day was hot and muggy, the air oppressive on Daphne’s skin. She had changed into a gown at Fletcher’s suggestion that they not draw undue attention to themselves, though she felt she was alien enough that the difference between a gown and a Bounder uniform would not make an impression on the Hindoos.

  Daphne licked the last hints of sweet stickiness from her fingers and, like Bess, wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. Her mother would no doubt be horrified at her lack of good manners. Her father, on the other hand, would laugh and ask her to show him how to eat the still-unnamed morsels. Then he would tease her mother into trying some, and in the end her mother would be sucking her own fingers clean. Lord and Lady Claresby were not typical examples of the nobility—only observe their treatment of their only daughter, who had been indulged in her every whim and had managed not to grow up spoiled. A pang of homesickness struck her, and she blinked tears away.

  “Memsahib?” A thin brown hand plucked at her sleeve. “Memsahib?”

  “Oh!” Daphne exclaimed. The girl was small but fine-featured, and Daphne guessed she was nine or ten years old despite her size. “I do not—” Fletcher had warned her to be careful of the beggars to whom she gave coin, that generosity could start a mob centered on her purse. “Here, here is something, but—”

  The girl shook her head and pushed the coin away. “Memsahib, follow,” she said, carefully enunciating the word in a way that suggested she did not know its meaning. She tugged on Daphne’s sleeve again.

  “Daphne, what does she want?” Bess squinted at the girl’s face.

  “She wants us to follow her—oh, Captain Ainsworth, what should we do?”

  The girl backed away as Ainsworth hove into view. “Is she disturbing you, Lady Daphne?”

  “No, she simply—no, wait!” The girl backed away farther, and Daphne took a few steps in her direction. “She wants me to follow her.”

  “She’s leading you into a trap,” Ainsworth said. “No doubt her brothers are waiting to offer you insult, or worse.” He directed a stream of Hindoostani at the girl, who shook her head violently and replied.

  “What did she say?” Daphne asked.

  “That you and the memsahib are to follow her, and she will not tell me why. Lady Daphne, ignore her. It is a trap.”

  “What if she knows something? Ask her if she knows Gopika.”

  Ainsworth scowled, but repeated the question. The girl’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “You see?” Daphne said. “Captain, Bess and I must go.”

  “Then I will accompany you, if you insist on this mad venture.”

  The girl had stopped backing away and was waiting, not very patiently, it seemed to Daphne. She glared at Ainsworth and said something, then repeated, “Follow.”

  “She says she will go nowhere if I am present,” Ainsworth said. “My lady, this is incredibly dangerous.”

  “I can Bound away if necessary,” Daphne said, which was an oversimplification, but not one she was prepared to argue with the captain. “Bess will relay our journey to Captain Fletcher, so you may all follow us if necessary. But I feel this is the right path. Please, Captain, wait here.”

  Ainsworth scowled again. “If you are wrong, my life won’t be worth a brass shilling,” he said. Daphne had already turned away from him and held her hand out toward the girl, who nodded and scampered away into the crowd.

  Daphne kept a tight hold on Bess as they scrambled to keep up with the girl. Once or twice they lost sight of her, but only for a few seconds before she returned, beckoning as if they were chickens she was herding. Not that Daphne knew whether chickens were herded. Possibly she was thinking of sheep.

  They were completely lost now, in terms of knowing where they were in relation to the Residence or the sweet-seller’s stall or any other landmark Daphne knew. The noise of the bazaar was deafening as the day rolled on toward noon, buyers and sellers arguing at top volume as if by sheer noise they might win out over each other. Daphne smelled roasted meat, spicy and delicious, and her stomach rumbled a complaint. Perhaps she had been too hasty to judge Ainsworth’s appetite.

  The girl took them by routes Daphne was sure no European ever saw, past stalls and blankets watched over by hard-eyed men and women, offering items for sale far nicer than those displayed along the main “streets” of the bazaar. If they had been on their own, she would have stopped to admire them… though had they been on their own, they would likely have had to worry about their safety rather than having time to admire. Daphne eyed the stall owners and prayed she had not been flippant with Ainsworth about how easily she could Bound away from an assailant. She could be held, true, but only by someone heavier than she who could prevent her from lifting him, and her reflexes were quick enough that such a thing never happened. Not even a Mover could hold
a Bounder against her will. Even so, she remained alert to her surroundings even as she kept a close eye on their little guide.

  The girl approached, not a stall, but a tent, its dark mouth agape and shielded against the sun. Daphne and Bess slowed. The girl turned and beckoned to them, then ducked inside the tent. “Now I am uncertain,” Bess said. “Anything could be inside.”

  “Can you not tell if there are people? Minds? How did you know to Speak to the mob this morning?”

  “It does not work that way. I cannot explain it to you, a non-Speaker.” Bess bit her lip. “We might simply return.”

  “And never learn what message the girl brought?” Daphne squared her shoulders, then stepped forward and crouched to enter the tent.

  She could feel Bess close behind her but saw nothing ahead. The tent smelled of a sweet incense, cloying to the nostrils, that gave Daphne the beginnings of a head-ache. She closed her eyes and listened. Her own breathing was ragged, edged with excitement, but there were at least two other people in the tent, both calmer than she. Bess fumbled about for her hand and squeezed it.

  “Memsahibs, sit,” said the girl, again with that intonation that spoke to a memorized phrase. Daphne felt about for a chair, but found only a soft rug, gritty with dirt. She sat cross-legged on it and opened her eyes. Now she saw three indistinct figures, one much smaller than the others—the girl. A tiny gleaming ember burned like a star off to one side, and the movement of air told Daphne it was the source of the sweet odor.

  The other two were little more than bright eyes in the dimness. Daphne thought they might be veiled, their mouths covered and only their eyes exposed. She folded her hands in her lap to still them and said, “We thank you—why have you brought us here? We do not speak your language.”

  “I speak yours. Not well,” said a woman’s voice from the shadows. Another voice, higher-pitched and creaky with age, said something in Hindoostani. “You the one Gopika Saw. The bright one. Bright hair, bright… spirit.”

  “You know Gopika? Where is she?”