“Exactly,” said Percy, running to catch up. Then, in a disquieting display of gentlemanly etiquette, he offered Rue his arm.
Rue took it. Prim took Quesnel’s. Rue pretended not to feel a very slight twinge of envy that she would not get the benefit of Quesnel’s teasing. Although the Frenchman seemed more sombre than usual. Is he regretting our kiss? Rue was saddened by the idea. Or is it awe in the face of Miss Sekhmet? Rue couldn’t blame him for that.
The woman in question led them purposefully towards an open-topped steam carriage, arranged, she explained, because it was some distance to the nearest market. They climbed in and Prim lamented that she had chosen a walking dress instead of a carriage dress. The driver cranked up the engine, the stoker fed it anthracite, and they were off.
They drove north, away from the governmental structures and military areas, into the city proper. Immediately it became a great deal more what Rue had expected of India. Miss Sekhmet proved an excellent guide. She seemed genuinely to like the area and pointed out landmarks, from the Black Bay Baths to the Aetherographic Office of the Controller to the Scottish Cemetery. They loosely followed the path of the railway lines to their right and the elephant trolley skylines above.
Eventually, they rounded a corner onto Princess Street and their steam carriage was forced to stop by the sheer number of people assembled there. Miss Sekhmet explained that the famous Cloth Market was to their right. She instructed the driver to wait and they climbed down. Rue knew her eyes must be as big as saucers. Prim’s perfect rosebud mouth was slightly open in amazement. Percy looked to be taking copious mental notes. Even Quesnel was awed. Fortunately, it seemed local custom was not opposed to staring. Even among such a crowd, Rue’s group was a novelty and much as they stared others stared back.
The Cloth Market was a hubbub of colourful fabrics and chattering humanity. Mostly people walked but some pushed massive baskets on wheels, others guided donkeys or camels loaded with goods. The occasional horse and carriage bobbed through the throng as well as bicycles, mono-wheels, human-drawn carts, and other more peculiar means of transport. The sky rail above their heads rumbled back and forth in seemingly endless rounds of transportation from dock to industry and from military to government, loaded down with massive swaying vats of cloth, or lumber, or pottery, or furniture, or whatever else was important at the time. Unlike London’s transports, this sky rail seemed less of an ugly imposition on the landscape with its cheerful elephant visage. The wreaths of lanterns and flowers draped about its colossal head tilted at a jaunty angle.
Prim, enchanted, asked Miss Sekhmet about the elephant’s appearance.
“As far as I know, he has always been that shape. But the flowers and the others, that is for the celebration of Ganesha. Worshippers extol the elephant god this time of year. There is a particularly beautiful festival soon.”
“How interesting.” Prim sparkled at Miss Sekhmet, almost as if she were flirting, both her hands clutching the handle of her parasol in excitement. “And is the elephant a very revered god in local mythology?”
“Indeed he is. Most benign and helpful. One prays to him when one has a burden or an obstacle.”
“And this festival?”
It was hard to tell when only her eyes were visible, but Rue thought Miss Sekhmet was smiling. “Among other things, they carry the god to the beach where he is put into the sea.”
“Likes to bathe, does Ganesha?” wondered Percy.
Miss Sekhmet gave him a dirty look. “All elephants like water, Fire-hair.”
They began to try moving through the street, clumped together because the crowds were so thick. Off to one side, a group of stunning dark-eyed dancers twirled, arms waving noodle-like in the air, gyrating to music so odd Rue actually wondered if it ought to be called music at all. It had a whining, haunting, angular quality.
It appeared that all daily business was conducted in the middle of the road. Men moved around in gossiping turbaned groups. The higher ranking women, in colourful shrouds, were followed by groups of servants and showed a marked preference for large brightly coloured fringed parasols which Primrose called, “Most respectable”. Fruit and meats were exchanged, pottery and fabric haggled over. Rue even spotted a live snake.
“Everything is so bright and cheerful.” She spun in delight. “And everyone smiles so much!”
Sekhmet asked Prim, “Is she always this excitable?”
Primrose, looking extremely dignified, answered, “I’m afraid so.”
“How exhausting,” replied their guide.
“You’re telling us,” grumbled Percy.
“It’s one of her charms,” defended Quesnel.
But it was so bright and cheerful.
Rue was particularly fascinated by the consumption of a specific hot beverage, the earthenware mugs of which were then cast aside into the street to crumble to dust under the many feet walking by. Everyone seemed to be drinking it. Where was the vendor?
A Cederholm Condenser muscled its way through, obstructing Rue’s view and blasting hot steam from its carapace. The people around scampered away to avoid being burned. The smoke from its small antennae stacks was somehow dyed bright pink, which coloured the unwary with speckles of pigment, to no one’s surprise or avoidance. Prim shrieked, parasol up in defence of her yellow walking gown, although the smoke was nowhere near her.
Rue was seized with a mad desire to dance through it – it looked like fun.
Eventually, they made their way to the Cloth Market proper, which was, as advertised, mainly cloth with a few other vendors. Tethered at corners of the square were hot-air balloons, the primitive floating technology of yore still alive and well in parts of the empire. Rue’s mother had once told her a story of the Balloon Nomads of the Sahara, how they floated their patchwork giants above the desert. Anitra, remembered Rue suddenly. Hadn’t she said something about floating? Perhaps that was the connection. Here the balloons were also patchwork, and Rue wondered if these were distantly related tribes, or if it were merely the nature of ballooning that lent itself to patchwork.
Despite being early morning, it was not a sleepy gathering. The locals were enamoured of singing and yelling and laughter. Grey and black monkeys scampered through the crowd, hands in everyone’s baskets and business. Miss Sekhmet picked up a stick which she applied adeptly to any monkey, curious child, or beggar that approached Rue’s party with overly familiar intent. The monkeys, she explained, were considered reincarnated politicians, which made Rue laugh and the stick entirely understandable.
Quesnel had to restrain Primrose forcefully since she was intent on diving towards a display of colourful fabric. “Oh, but Queen Mums would so love that colour,” she kept saying. And then, “I’m delighted I wore my brightest dress today. Yellow seems in keeping with the spirit of the festivities, wouldn’t you say? Only look at that shawl.”
“Later, Prim,” Rue would reply, and then, “Yes, excellent choice. My peach feels quite drab. No, not the shawl! We are attempting to get the lie of the land, not shop.”
Inevitably, they found themselves in an area where the amalgam of goods saw Rue’s party spontaneously split apart despite her best efforts. Primrose spotted a sari shop full of such stunning embroidered cloth as to be utterly impossible to resist. Quesnel saw that the massive steam Ganesha had come to a stop overhead and went to look for a way to climb aboard and examine the machine up close. Finally, Percy noticed a combined chilli vendor and books stall and all was lost.
“So much for the group tour.” Rue found herself alone with Miss Sekhmet in the centre of a busy marketplace.
The guide seemed pleased with this. “A chance to speak privately.”
Rue gave an pointed head waggle at the craziness around them – anything but private.
Miss Sekhmet continued. “I must confess to an ulterior motive, Lady Akeldama. As you may have guessed they will not meet you here, not when one of their own has already been eliminated. We are at an impasse and I would li
ke to prevent conflict. Have you had an opportunity to contact the muhjah? Has she changed her mind concerning involvement?”
Rue nibbled her lip. “Last night, at the garden party, I did receive some unexpected instructions. It was a busy evening. I must look into another matter now. Your interests will have to wait.”
The guide looked disappointed. “They will not be pleased. They expected at least an amendment to the agreement.”
Rue raised a hand. “Wait a moment – what agreement? Look, are we discussing the missing tea or the missing taxes? I know I should be all secretive and talk in code and all that rot, but there are a lot of threads loose right now. My concern is the tea.”
“You disguise your negotiating with bluntness? Very shrewd, Lady Akeldama. Very shrewd indeed.” Even only seeing her eyes, Miss Sekhmet looked frustrated and exhausted. She signalled and a man came over, a carafe of steaming beverage strapped to his back, dispenser tubes down one arm with thumb-activated nozzle, and mugs dangling from his waist. So that’s how they did it. Miss Sekhmet purchased two cups of the hot drink and led Rue over to one side of the marketplace where they could sit atop a low wall in relative privacy.
The beverage proved to be a tea unlike any Rue had sampled before. Someone had actually thought it necessary to spice the sacred drink with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and a few other things that had absolutely no place in tea. It was sweetened as well. Rue grimaced but sipped it for the sake of politeness. She found if she imagined it were a liquid pudding instead of tea it went down easier.
Rue took a deep breath. She liked this odd woman. She wanted to be liked in return. “Your pardon but I believe we may be at cross-purposes. I mean no artifice at all, I swear it. You see, I had understood our earlier conversation to be on the subject of some very valuable tea.”
“Tea?”
“Yes, tea.”
The guide’s eyes crinkled in confusion. “But it was not.”
Rue nodded. “I am realising that now. So what have we been discussing? I’m afraid you must think me very thick, but I cannot seem to get a straight word out of anyone since I was jumped by a lioness in a tower teahouse.”
Miss Sekhmet seemed to sink into depression at that. She muttered, “Then the muhjah is not aware of the nature of our activities?”
Rue sighed, frustrated. “I am not privy to the workings of my dear mother’s brain, thank goodness. She knows more than most, but she told me nothing significant about my travels here to India before I left. Did you send her a message hoping for a response from me? Or perhaps you represent a local political body?”
Miss Sekhmet seemed only more inclined to obtuseness by Rue’s revelation of ignorance. “Why are the British always so against locals?”
“I don’t follow. Have I offended in some way?”
The woman merely sipped her funny tea, deep in some moral quandary. “I thought you might be supportive. Or at least scientifically interested. But if they are once again denied? What point is there in my urging them to try? Everything is in confusion.”
“You’re telling me,” said Rue with feeling.
“It’s too sunny and I have a headache,” Sekhmet complained.
“You do look knackered. Should you even be out playing our guide?” Rue resisted pressing Miss Sekhmet’s hand in sympathy. “If you could articulate what is happening? The nature of the trade? The specifics of your demands? I might be able to help, even without my mother. I do have my own particular set of talents.” She tried to be modest.
It was all lost on Miss Sekhmet, who was working herself up into an exhausted frenzy. “You know that your relationship is with the wrong ones, don’t you?”
Rue was exhausted by the continued mystery and was starting to get a headache too. Finally she took a stab. “Do you represent the dissidents? The ones who stole the taxes and the brigadier’s wife?”
“Is that what they are claiming has occurred?”
“Isn’t it?”
Miss Sekhmet’s beautiful eyes narrowed. “I assure you, Mrs Featherstonehaugh came of her own free will.”
Aha, at last we are getting somewhere. “Oh, did she indeed?” Dama’s agent is a traitor! So what about the tea? Did she take it with her?
Instead Rue said, “And the taxes, did they come of their own free will as well?”
Miss Sekhmet gave her an exasperated look. “Money attracts attention.”
“You have my attention. What are your demands?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. Not for me to say. I must tell them that you have not been contacted, challenged, or authorised. We will see what happens next. This is a grave setback.”
Rue smiled. “I have been authorised, just not as you might assume.”
“Yes?” she perked up at that.
“Oh no, if you can be cagy, so can I.” If they don’t have the tea, no point in telling them about it. Whoever they are.
They finished their repast, at an impasse. Betraying no little annoyance, Miss Sekhmet tossed her rough earthen cup to the packed dirt of the square where it shattered. Greatly daring, Rue followed her example. It was quite satisfying.
The marketplace was only getting more crowded and hot and stifling. Rue would not have thought this possible a mere ten minutes ago.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “we should round up my companions and you can guide us back to our craft? Then you can contact your friends for the next move in this little game?”
“Very well.” Miss Sekhmet looked unhappy about it, but there was no other course of action.
So it might have happened, except that a roving flower stall, heavily laden and pulled by a steam locomotive of antiquated design, rolled to a stop in front of them, neatly trapping them in their small corner of the square.
“Ho there!” said Rue, banging on the top of the engine with her parasol.
Miss Sekhmet leaned over to talk to the driver, a discussion that escalated rapidly into a virulent argument in the local dialect, punctuated by copious hand gestures.
Then the flower stall exploded.
Rue acted on instinct. Growing up with parents like hers, she’d become accustomed to spontaneous explosions – of beauty products, parasols, or tempers, depending on the parent. She threw herself back and over the low stone wall she’d so recently been sitting atop. She rolled and landed, surprisingly gracefully, on the other side, crouched down, parasol raised up over her head to shield herself from the rain of flowers, leaves, and stalks.
She peeked over the wall in time to see Miss Sekhmet, insensate, being loaded into the now empty flower stall. A team of suspicious-looking black-clad men scuttled about as nefariously as anything. They were arguing with one another. Rue stared, and then flinched when they pointed in her direction.
One moved towards her.
Rue stood, parasol at the ready. She would not crouch behind a stone wall like a coward.
The man was clearly reluctant to follow his orders, as frightened of Rue as she was of him. If he knew that she had metanatural abilities he clearly did not understand that they functioned only at night. Why else be wary of an Englishwoman alone and abroad?
Rue braced herself. He was but one man. She had a parasol.
He lurched in her direction as if he intended to leap over the wall. Rue prodded at him with the parasol tip as if she were a lion tamer. “Back, you ruffian! Back!”
Surprisingly, he backed away bewildered.
One of his fellows joined him. This appeared a source of courage, for they moved in, less frightened as a group.
There came a shout of anger and then a whizzing hiss sound. One of the men looked profoundly surprised for a split-second and then pitched forward, a dart sticking out of his neck. Rue did not risk a turn to see whose dart. She could very well guess. The second one shouted to his fellows before grabbing his fallen comrade and backing away from Rue.
Rue hopped over the wall – or, more precisely, clambered – and brandished her parasol at him threateningly.
The men loaded their fellow in on top of Miss Sekhmet, slammed the flower cart shut and, in a blast of pink steam, chugged off into the busy marketplace.
The steam cleared enough for Rue to see Quesnel standing, arm out, wrist following the departure of the stall, a look of such anger on his face as to strike fear into even Rue’s questionable soul.
He said something quite rude in French.
“We must follow them!” insisted Rue. “I was almost getting answers.” She pulled up her skirts, prepared, if necessary, to run the engine down on her own two feet.
Quesnel gave her a look that said he thought her unhinged. He was, perhaps, not wrong. For the flower cart had disappeared into the milling throng of a foreign city, with too many other steam engines and too much activity already hiding it.
Rue sighed. “Oh, very well.” She crouched down and looked about the area where the explosion had occurred. She did not quite crawl among the fallen flowers, but that was only because she had not entirely forgotten her upbringing. She used her parasol to poke among the heads of decapitated blossoms and fallen leaves. She wasn’t certain what exactly she was looking for but any clue was better than the nothing that currently befuddled her.
Quesnel came over and bent down. “What are we looking for?”
“Clues. Miss Sekhmet knew about the kidnapping and the dissidents. Someone didn’t want her to tell us what she knew. I should not have engaged in such a public conversation with her. She kept trying to involve my mother. I think there is something seriously political going on. And we do not have nearly enough information. Curse Dama, he could have said something.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know?” suggested Quesnel.
“That would be highly unlike him but possible, I suppose. Too focused on tea.”
Quesnel looked a little worried. “Are you in any further danger?”
“I don’t think so. Hard to tell. You know, she said Mrs Featherstonehaugh went with the dissidents voluntarily. Then she said it had something to do with an agreement.”
“The agreement that makes the Rakshasas the tax collectors?”
Prudence Page 21
