The Temple Dancer

by John Speed

The bright sun peeked through, and she heard Pathan's footsteps. "Please, madam," he said. "Close your eyes and do not move until I say."

  Lucinda squeezed her eyes. Her head pounded. She felt the weight of the lifeless body shift, and started as though she'd been kicked. "Please stay still, madam," Pathan grunted as he dragged the body away.

  "Your eyes still closed, madam, please," Pathan said. She heard him come beside her, heard the gravel shift next to her ear and knew he'd picked up the bandit's head. Unable to restrain herself, she watched as Pathan waded into the stream carrying it by its filthy hair, and heaved it into the water.

  Then Pathan drooped down, his hands to his knees. He vomited into the stream, once, twice, and shook his head slowly. He took his sword and rinsed it in rushing water, and heaved once more. Then he scooped some water from the stream and rinsed his mouth. At last he stood again, took a deep breath, and stripped off his shirt, which he swirled in the water. Then he wrung it out, and came back to Lucinda.

  Though he set his face Lucinda could tell he was horrified by her appearance. "Madam, madam," he whispered, "please, I mean you no harm." He stooped near her and began to dab her face with his wet shirt. At each touch she startled, and each time he whispered, "shhhh," as though she were a frightened animal.

  When he began to wash her forehead, she winced and pulled back. "I'm sorry, madam," he whispered. With exquisite care he touched the hurt places with his fingertips. "This is not so bad, madam," he told her, his face serious. "Is this your only injury?"

  It was as though she could not speak. She glanced toward her twisted ankle. Pathan nodded. "Shhhh, shhhh," he said again.

  The first thing he did was to move her torn skirts to cover her. Still terrified and furious, but also suddenly grateful, Lucinda could not find words, and so said nothing. "Now I must look, madam," Pathan said, softening his voice. "I mean you no harm. I assure you I have seen the ankles of many women." Even so, she shivered when he touched her.

  "Shhh, shhhh," he said once more. He probed the leg and ankle with his fingertips. "Forgive my rudeness, madam, but I must remove your shoe." With a little effort he tugged the silk slipper from her foot. "Now also the stocking," he said, scarcely breathing.

  Lucinda whimpered when he slid the torn gauze stocking from her leg, not with pain, but from the memory. "Your ankle is only twisted, I think, and it will heal. This is not so bad, madam, not for one who had such adventures. The angels of Allah were with you."

  He looked at her earnestly. "Madam, did I come to you in time?"

  Remembering, remembering it all, she closed her eyes. "You were the angel, Captain. God sent you."

  Pathan covered his face with his hands, and when he looked back at her, tears stained his cheek. "Ishwar-Allah," he said-what God wills.

  "There are others, Captain."

  "Eh?"

  "The bandits. They said they were meeting others."

  "Yes," Pathan said. "We saw others ride away. We must get to safety."

  "Is any place safe?"

  Pathan turned as though her words had startled him. He took her hand. "With me, madam." His palms, which she thought would be rough, were smooth and soft.

  "We must be going," Pathan said. He left her for a moment and scouted around the clearing, but came back disappointed. "There are no horses here. They must have come by foot."

  "I don't think I can walk, Captain."

  "I shall carry you, madam." He scooped her into his arms and stood, grunting only a little. "You are light as air."

  Lucinda put an arm around Pathan's neck and smiled at his lie.

  When she looked up from the falling elephant, Maya saw Geraldo's mount rearing and whistling in terror. Geraldo clung to the beast's arching back as it bucked and skittered toward the packhorses.

  But then her mind went blank, and her vision exploded in a thousand stars. Only when she fell backward did the pain come. Above her she looked into the quivering face of Slipper. "Bitch! Bitch!" he screamed. His fat cheeks flared scarlet, and he shook his hand as if the blow he'd given her had broken his fingers. "You nearly killed me!" He continued to shriek, but in a language she did not know.

  She had fallen on her bag. She felt the corners of her wooden boxes poke against her skin, and also the stones of the road that cut into her back. She was too tired to stand, and feared that if she did Slipper would strike her again. Her arm hurt.

  With an almost languid slowness, she turned her face from the eunuch. From this position she could again see Geraldo and the ponies as they stumbled down a narrow embankment road. Whether he drove the pack ponies before him, or was being dragged behind them, she could not tell. His hands flailed the air, for he had lost the reins.

  More shots rang out, mingling with the ringing in her hurt ear, and Slipper's incoherent shrieks. The bitter smoke of Chinese powder drifted over the rain-wet rocks.

  "Get up! You whore, get up!" Slipper shrieked, lifting his hand to strike her again. "We're going to die, you bitch!"

  She blocked his blow and scrambled to her feet. "Where is Deoga?" she cried. She could barely hear her own voice for her ear ringing.

  But Slipper's face had suddenly gone ashen, and his eyes wide. She turned and saw what he saw: another bandit, driving his pony for them at full speed, holding his wide sword like a scythe for their necks. She threw herself against the eunuch, pitching Slipper on to the road just as the blade whistled above their heads.

  The bandit galloped forward, heading straight for one of Pathan's horsemen. The guard held his sword as steady as a lance, but his bedouin crabbed and cantered. He wanted to attack but his horse wanted to flee, and so they churned uselessly; and all the while the bandit and his pony drove forward like a shot arrow.

  The guard's bedouin reared just as the bandit galloped past, and the bandit's wide sword sliced through the horse's belly. A spray of blood erupted from the gash. The guard slid from his saddle as the bedouin collapsed beneath him. The bandit wheeled round for a new attack.

  Before the guard had looked up, the bandit's wide sword hacked halfway through his neck.

  A shot rang out, echoing from the cliff walls. Maya swung her head around, but could not find the source. She pushed herself from Slipper. The eunuch covered his head with the tails of his shirt, clutched his ears, and sobbed.

  The bandit struggled to tug his sword from the guard's neck. The bedouin shuddered and died. Blood still pumped from the wound in its belly, a scarlet stream that inched along the wet stones toward Maya and Slipper.

  Another shot rang out, pinging as it ricocheted from the nearby rocks. The bandit managed to yank his sword free. His eyes had found Maya's. She saw that his eyes were empty, that a coldness flew from them like knives that sought her heart. Later she remembered the dirt on his stubbled cheeks, the sinews that pulsed in his neck. At that moment she saw only his eyes black as death. Once they found her, the bandit's eyes never left hers. She could not understand why he looked at her with such fury.

  Another shot. Both the bandit and Maya glanced toward the sound. It was Da Gama, riding toward them. He held his reins high in his left hand, in his right hand a gun. He dropped the smoking pistola like an empty husk and let it fall to the road without a glance, then reached behind into his saddlebag for another.

  Again he shot. The bandit's pony collapsed-Da Gama's round had shredded through its hindquarters. The bandit flailed to avoid getting pinned beneath it. The wild-eyed pony dragged its lifeless rear legs, whistling and screaming. Its cries drowned out even Slipper's mindless wails.

  As though the pony's shrieking infuriated him, the bandit turned and slammed his sword into its neck. The pony squirmed and twisted and died. Steam rose from the blood on the bandit's sword as he turned to face Da Gama.

  Maya saw that Da Gama had again dropped his smoking pistola and readied a new one. The bandit's eyes had once more locked on her. She drew back as he marched relentlessly toward her with his wide blade held high. His cold rat eyes bored into Maya's. De
spite herself, Maya could not look away.

  Then the bandit's face disappeared. For an instant in its place she saw a red pulp, like a sponge dipped in paint, and then the bandit's head exploded. He spun and fell like a broken doll. His stained sword clattered inches from her feet in the puddle of bedouin's blood. She never heard the shot, although she could hear its echo still ringing through the canyon.

  Once more Da Gama dropped his empty pistol to the road and took out a fresh one. Maya hardly recognized him now; his friendly, bemused look had disappeared; instead she now saw a face grown fierce, bared teeth clinched tight. Da Gama dismounted cavalry style, swinging his leg over his horse and sliding to the ground while he kept his pistola level. His head spun at every tiny sound.

  Da Gama glanced at her and nodded. Keeping watchful, he sidestepped to the body of the guard, and bent down to check the pulse. Only when he was sure the horseman was dead did he make his way to Maya and the weeping Slipper. There was no need to check the bandit.

  "How badly is he hurt?" he asked. But he kept his pistola high and did not look at either of them, only snatching glances as he scanned the rocks. At their feet, Slipper had fallen into breathless whimpering, but he still clutched his shirt ends over his head. His pink belly quivered as he sobbed.

  "I don't think he's hurt at all," Maya answered.

  "Scared, then," Da Gama said. He shot a quick glance at Maya. "And you?"

  "I twisted my arm."

  "That all?" She nodded, and he seemed to understand though his eyes were elsewhere. His left hand fished in a pocket and produced a kerchief. "You've blood on your face. I don't think it's yours."

  Maya wiped her face as Da Gama moved to the road's edge and looked down.

  "Shit," he said.

  Maya peered down-the plummet took her breath. A long way down she saw the twisted body of the mahout, and below him the carcass of the elephant, its gray belly split open like a fruit. "Alive?" she whispered.

  "It doesn't matter," Da Gama replied. There was no sign of Lucy, nor of Pathan. Maya stepped back from the edge, horrified, grateful to still be alive. Da Gama's face looked broken by the sight. "Can you help me with the eunuch?" he asked her.

  Together they tugged Slipper's plump arms and staggered down the road. Da Gama led them to a place where the road widened, and an overhang of rock formed a kind of shelter. The last of Pathan's guards lay there, stretched beneath a saddle blanket, breathing hard. An arrow protruded from his eye.

  "Is he dead?" Slipper whimpered.

  "Nearly," Da Gama said. Da Gama once more turned to the road, with pistola held high. "You stay here. I'll just get my horse," he said.

  "Let me come with you," Maya said, and after a moment's decision, Da Gama nodded.

  "Did you see anything of Geraldo?" he asked as they walked. Maya told him how he and the packhorses had galloped down an embankment road. The information was just one more item that Da Gama would have to sort out later.

  They found Da Gama's mare pacing nervously around the bodies of dead men and horses. He gentled it and led it from the blood-soaked rocks. "Let's get back to the eunuch," he said.

  "What about Lucinda and Captain Pathan?" Maya said. When she said the names, they hung in the air, like names of the newly dead.

  "I don't know," Da Gama said.

  "Are we in danger still?"

  "I don't know. I don't know what's going on. My plans have all gone wrong. I made a big mistake coming here." As they walked back, Da Gama stooped from time to time to pick up a pistola he earlier had dropped.

  When they neared the overhang, Slipper shuffled to them on his tiny feet. "He moaned at me!" he wailed. "How can he moan with an arrow in his eye?"

  "Yes, yes," Da Gama answered angrily. He tethered his horse and sat near the injured man, smoothing his hand over the horseman's forehead. "There's nothing we can do for him."

  "If he hasn't the sense to die, then kill him!" Slipper whispered.

  "No. We don't do such things." Slipper sniffed and huddled a little way off. Da Gama reached into his pack and handed a pistola to Maya. "Ever work one of these?" She shook her head. "Pull this back until it locks," he said, pointing to the flint-hammer. "Then point it and pull here." He wrapped her small fingers around the pistola's oiled grip, and glancing at her face as if to check her resolve, not her understanding. "I've got to reload."

  "Do you think we're still in danger, Da Gama?" Maya asked.

  His silence told her everything.

  He hauled the saddlebag from his horse's back and sat near a flat rock. He took out five or six loaded pistolas from the bag and laid them in a line; next to them the fired pistols that he had not dropped. "Listen to me," he said as he worked. "You have to be steady to hit the target, especially from a distance." He opened a small leather bag of shot, and a flask of Chinese powder. "If you really mean to kill someone, let him get close to you."

  Maya took this in without a word. "I didn't expect this," Da Gama muttered as he reloaded. He might have been talking to himself. "This, after we paid them off! You can't trust even thieves these days." His hands moved quickly, angrily. A stiff brush down the barrels of the fired guns. One or two had misfired; these he poked at but heaved away.

  Only when she saw the fury with which he hurled those useless pistolas against the mountain wall did Maya realize the depth of his fears, and of her danger. Da Gama took up the other pistolas and began to load them: powder down the barrel, followed by a twist of cotton torn from a dusty wad. He had begun to sweat. He tamped the powder, taking a hurried glance over the road. Then the shot. This was more elaborate: Da Gama placed a round between his teeth and bit down on it, then wiped it dry on his shirt. He pressed the now misshapen round into the iron barrel, grunting with the effort it took to push it with the tamping stick. His hand slipped and he gashed a knuckle. He topped off the firing pan with a final dose of powder, and placed the loaded pistola in the line on the flat rock. Then he started on the next. When he finished there were nine, and also the one in Maya's hand.

  After the horror of the bandits' deaths, Da Gama's work, so unexpectedly precise, comforted Maya. Slipper had crept into some nearby bushes, where he squatted and grunted with his efforts. She tried not to watch.

  Da Gama's mare pranced nervously. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the sky grew dark. A huge drop of rain splattered at Maya's feet, and another, and another. Da Gama gathered up his pistolas and shoved a couple into his belt and the rest into his saddlebag. "Cover the hammer with your hand," he said to Maya.

  Rain pelted from the sky in big, stinging drops. "Oh, Allah!" Slipper cried as he ran up to the others, tugging on his silk trousers. "What more can go wrong?"

  Then they heard the hoofbeats.

  Lucinda's dress hung in tatters. Clinging to his bare shoulders, Lucinda felt Pathan's fierce breath and the effort of his running. Lucinda wished that she were lighter. She could hear the sound of hoofbeats growing louder.

  "We're not far from the others now," Pathan told her. They came to a turn in the road. "Here," he panted, his voice little more than a gasp.

  But when they made the turn, Pathan slowed and nearly dropped Lucinda. Before them was a body, facedown, a deep gash across its back. The relentless sound of hoofbeats approached. Pathan stepped over it. "Do not look, madam," Pathan said, recovering his wits.

  Lucinda did close her eyes, but only for a moment, and only after she had looked, and then only out of sorrow. She could no longer hide from what faced them. There were more bodies on the road. "Dear God," Lucinda whispered as they passed.

  At last Pathan slowed, and stopped. They had come to a narrow landing. A neem tree, growing horizontal from the cliffs above them, gave a little shelter. "If any of our people survived, they have fled, madam. I'm sure that some got away. We can pray so. But for now we are on our own, I fear." He nodded to some rocks near the grove. "Let me help you down, madam."

  "I can walk if you will give me your arm to lean on," Lucinda answered. With
Pathan's help, she limped to a nearby rock and falteringly sat down. "What will you do now?"

  Pathan looked away, his face hard. "I don't know, madam." Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  He took off his turban and quickly wound the long cloth tightly around his left hand. Then he unsheathed his sword. "The poet says life is a caravan, madam, and we sleep, he says, in many different tents. Tonight maybe we shall sleep in a new tent, madam." He looked very small in the mountain shadows, his bare torso muscular and taut, but too slender for what was to come. His hair fell to his shoulders.

  The hoofbeats echoed around the cavern walls around the bend in the road.

  "Madam, maybe ..." Pathan looked at her hard, refusing to be distracted by the sound of the oncoming horses. "Meeting you has been a great pleasure and a great lesson. If you wish it ... when I have fought to my last breath for you, I mean, and only if all hope is gone ... if you wish it ... I could see that no more hurt would come to you.... Do you understand me?"

  Lucinda stared at his anguished face, and slowly the meaning of his words came clear. "Do not say such foolish things, Captain."

  "We have passed the time for foolishness."

  "Somehow you will triumph. I know it." He gave her one of his rare smiles. She saw more clearly than ever that smiling was hard for him. "Have no fear, dear captain, as I have none."

  But now the hoofbeats were too loud for any more talk.

  When she was little, Lucinda had seen a demon painted on the wall of an old temple: wild-eyed, misshapen, red-skinned, horrible. Blood dripped from his fanged jaws. She only saw it once, just a glance, but the image had been planted. It haunted her dreams. Over time the nightmare demon became more human, and more frightening. Some nights she'd wake to find Helene shaking her out of her screaming, for in her dreams the demon was advancing, more human now and more terrifying than ever.

  It was that face Lucinda now saw. The bandit had cinched a leather braid around the stump of his wrist to slow its bleeding. He must have pulled it tight with his teeth, for blood stained his face and streaked his shirt. Even his hair was sticky with blood. His eyes burned with pain and hate. He had wrapped his reins around the bleeding arm; in his good hand he held as a club a heavy branch of dead wood. Ropes of foam hung from his pony's muzzle.