Fire on the Wind

by Olivia Drake

  Behind them, the Englishman lay spread-eagled on the sand. Flies swarmed around his bulging eyes and bushy brown side whiskers. The uncongealed blood drenching his throat and neckcloth proved he’d been dead for mere minutes.

  Sweat iced Damien’s palms. The sun scorched his back. A family of monkeys squabbled in a nearby clump of trees. He inhaled Sarah’s faint feminine fragrance, felt the rigidity in her slim body as she recoiled against his chest. For all her sharp claws, she didn’t stand a chance against these two blood-crazed murderers.

  Hellfire and damnation. If they’d spotted her blue eyes and English features, they’d come after her. Fierce protectiveness assailed him. He’d kill the bastards.

  But the hunk of driftwood in his hand felt all too fragile.

  Maybe he could bluff his way out. He stepped in front of her. “What is the trouble here?’ he asked. “What has happened to this feringhi?”

  “Who are you to ask questions?” retorted the smaller sepoy. His Cyclops eye twitching, he raised his fist. “Be still, stranger, before Keppu plies his blade on you, too.”

  The little bugger’s scared, Damien thought. A frightened man might attack without the slightest provocation. He wasn’t about to turn his back on them.

  “Since when does Keppu take vengeance upon poor pilgrims?” Damien felt Sarah peering over his shoulder and prayed she’d keep silent. “I am Dharam. My wife and I are traveling with friends to worship at the shrines of Hardwar.”

  “Friends? Where are these people?”

  “That way.” Damien pointed the stick toward the mango grove. “They are resting from our long morning walk. Perhaps I should hail them.” He opened his mouth as if to call out.

  “No, no!” Cyclops waved hastily. “There is no need to summon anyone. We believe you.”

  “You, Lalji, would trust a Mohammedan,” growled the big man called Keppu. “This one”— he pointed his gory dagger at Damien—”has an English look about him.”

  Steeling his nerves, Damien scowled back. “English, bah! Praise be to Shiva that my father is not alive to hear you insult our honored name. I was born in the vale of Kashmir.”

  He clenched the driftwood and took a step forward. Behind him, he heard Sarah’s sharp intake of breath. Keppu made a rumble of rage and brandished his crimson dagger.

  “Hush, both of you,” Lalji chided. “Brothers need not spill each other’s blood.” Then he looked at Damien and a grin parted his lips, revealing teeth stained red from chewing betel nut. “So you, too, hate the feringhis.”

  Damien’s tension eased a fraction. Thank God, they must not have overheard the argument he’d had with Sarah. He might yet talk his way out of this unholy muddle. If only he could count on Sarah to keep her mouth shut.

  “I spit on the feringhis,” he said. “But what is the trouble here?” He strolled closer and stared down at the Englishman’s pasty features, the bloodied mess of his throat. Tasting bile, Damien forced a kindred expression toward the rebels. “Did this one threaten you?”

  “No, the gods brought him here to meet his rightful fate,” Lalji bragged. “We must all join together in the mutiny.”

  “Mutiny?”

  “Have you not heard?”

  “No. We pilgrims have traveled the back roads.”

  The sepoy thrust out his puny chest. Sweat and food droppings spotted his red coat. “Our people have arisen at last against the sahib-log. We will rid our land of every last foreign devil.”

  I’d like to rid India of you, Damien thought. Damn, how widespread had the revolt become? “Ah, we make a brave stand. But the feringhis have many weapons. They will slay us all.”

  Lalji spat on the sand. “Great gods! A big man like you cannot be a coward.”

  “Not a coward, but a cautious man.”

  “The time has come to throw caution aside. Our people are butchering the English snakes in every corner of India. Only one week ago, the mutiny began in Delhi and Meerut, and all the English there are dead already.”

  Sarah gasped. “You cannot mean—”

  “Silence,” Damien snapped, whipping toward her. At least she had remembered to use Hindi. “When will you learn a wife speaks only when spoken to? Now sit.”

  Sarah stood unyielding. Her nut-stained fingers gripped the clay pitcher. Only the shadow of her features showed through the olive-hued veil, but undoubtedly she was steaming with outrage.

  Damn, if her outspokenness made her forget the danger, she’d give away their identities. They both could die. His heartbeat stumbled over a strange, unfamiliar ache. Kit might grow up without ever knowing his father.

  Damien knew what she’d say to that: He’d be better off without you. Maybe she was right.

  The idea irritated the very devil out of him. He didn’t know why; long ago, he’d learned to please only himself rather than solicit the approval of others, least of all a prissy do-gooder.

  Beyond them, the river whispered over sand and rock. Wind soughed through the tall plumed grass. He felt the eyes of the sepoys burning into his back.

  Slowly she sank to her heels. Yet the sulky set of her shoulders hinted that her obedience was temporary.

  He released a breath. Swinging back toward the men, he said, “I am ashamed to have strangers witness Shivina’s disobedience.” He hated like hell giving her the name of a sweet-tempered woman.

  “No wonder you were chasing her with a stick,” observed Lalji. “Is that why your clothing is wet? Did the little woman push you into the river?” He slapped his thigh and sniggered as if he’d made a great joke.

  Damien gritted his teeth against a defensive retort. “I fell. We are newly-wed, and she thought to escape her duties.”

  Keppu crouched to wipe his bloody dagger, leaving brownish-red streaks on the sand. “You must be a poor master. Or an inept lover. My woman would never dare to run from me.”

  “Go ahead and flog her,” said Lalji, eyeing the driftwood. “We will watch you reclaim your honor.”

  His gleeful expression disgusted Damien. Sarah’s sullen posture tempted him. “I think not. She’ll obey from now on. Won’t you, Shivina?”

  Sarah nodded, the veil fluttering. He was struck by her aura of gentle docility, by her meek womanly appearance. Only he knew the creature that lay beneath that veneer of fine silk: an acid-tongued viper poised to strike.

  To distract the mutineers, Damien said, “From where do you two hail?”

  “My friend and I are on leave from our regiment at Kurnaul.” Lalji gestured at Keppu, who sat glowering. “We will rejoin our brothers and pursue our divine mission. This worthless snake is only the first of many English we will slay.” He kicked the corpse in the ribs.

  Damien controlled the urge to kick him back. “Did you know the foreigner?”

  “He is Hugh MacMurtry, an agent of the British Raj. For many years he has been stealing food from the mouths of our children and calling it taxes. But we will reclaim at least part of what he has stolen.”

  Hunkering down, the short sepoy resumed rifling the dead man’s pockets. He pulled out a gold watch and then a handful of silver rupees, which he dropped into a small leather sack.

  Dacoit, Damien thought contemptuously. You and Keppu will keep the money instead of returning it to the natives.

  The sepoy hurled something away. The forlorn scrap landed on a damp strip of sand at the edge of the water. Damien stepped closer and saw a daguerreotype, a cheap, grainy image of the wire-whiskered man standing stiffly beside a horse-faced woman and three homely children.

  Poor devil.

  He curled his fingers into his scarred palms and denied a spurt of maudlin emotion. The Raj had been too stubborn and bullish to respect the natives. Hugh MacMurtry likely was another dull English sod who had believed himself sahib over the natives, who had acted lord of his humble abode, who had spent Sunday afternoons snoring on the veranda instead of conversing with his wife and children.

  Just as Damien’s father had hibernated in a drunken
stupor...

  In a faint rustle of silk, Sarah glided past. Damien tensed. What in hell did she mean to do now?

  He was about to chastise her when she reached down. Quick as the flash of a shutter, she whisked the small plate inside her sari.

  Torn between fury and fear, he glanced at the sepoys. Lalji was counting the money and Keppu sat watching, as glum as a debutante with an empty dance card. Thank God they hadn’t noticed her folly.

  Of all the bloody stupid things to do. Trust Sarah Faulkner to jeopardize their safety for a worthless photograph.

  She knelt by the water’s edge and filled her jug. With her head bowed, she was the image of a modest wife. But he could well imagine her smug expression.

  Just wait until he got her alone. He had a good mind to take Lalji’s advice and apply his stick to her prim little bottom.

  A shadow slid over the sand, then another.

  “Our friends await their meal,” said Lalji, grinning up at the circling vultures. He seized the sack of money, sprang to his feet, and stepped back. “We must go so they may gorge on stinking white flesh.”

  Nausea twisted in Damien. He didn’t dare suggest burying the body, for the Hindus cremated the dead.

  “Put him in the river,” Sarah murmured.

  The three men turned toward her. She knelt beside her pitcher, her hands folded in her lap and her head tipped back to the great black birds.

  “Your wife has yet to learn to keep still,” said Keppu.

  Damn and blast, Damien thought. She really was determined to get both their throats cut.

  “Do not listen to her,” he said hastily. “She is only a witless woman who hungers for a beating.”

  “Put the sahib in the river,” she repeated in perfect Hindi, tilting her veiled face toward the two sepoys. “Else you will displease Ganga Ma.”

  A strong breeze rippled the silk against her body, outlining the shapeliness of her breasts and hips. Lust shone in Lalji’s single good eye, and he absently rubbed his crotch.

  “Eh?” he said. “What do you prattle about?”

  The urge to throttle the skinny sepoy swooped over Damien, an urge so strong it wiped out his anger at Sarah. His feelings of protectiveness and jealousy startled him. Hell, he was only on edge. Maybe she had a good idea, to lay MacMurtry to rest in the only humane way possible.

  “My wife is impertinent, but right. She fears to displease the goddess. You,” Damien added, jerking his head at Keppu, “come and help me.” He tossed down the driftwood and took hold of the dead man’s hands. The flesh was as cool and clammy as rubber.

  The huge sepoy remained hunkered on the sand. Shaggy eyebrows lowered, he snarled like an old tiger with a toothache. “I do not take orders from strangers.”

  Lalji spat on the ground. “We cannot pollute Mother Ganges with this unbeliever. Only the faithful may take their final rest in her sacred waters.”

  “She witnessed your deed,” Sarah said, her voice soft and humble. “No doubt she would like everyone to view what happens to English dogs.”

  “Bah! The crocodiles will eat him first.” To Damien, Lalji said, “I do not envy you putting up with a chattering female.”

  “The goddess will carry him safely away for all to see your brave achievement,” Sarah persisted. “Do you dare to anger her?”

  Lalji tugged at his earlobe. The prospect of displeasing the river goddess clearly disturbed him. He shrugged and turned to his comrade. “Keppu, help our brother.”

  “I do not heed the woman,” Keppu growled. He stepped closer. “There is a foreign lilt to her voice. Let her draw back her veil so we might view her face.”

  Damien half straightened. The dead man’s arms dragged at his hands like waterlogged Wellington boots. The chatter of monkeys filled the silence. Damn. Bloody double damn.

  “You insult me again,” he said hoarsely. “My wife’s accent comes from her girlhood, when she spoke the Kashmiri tongue. And I cannot let you gaze upon her face.” He cast about wildly for an excuse. “Beneath that veil, she’s pockmarked from smallpox.”

  Keppu scowled. “Why would you wed an ugly woman?”

  “For her large dowry. And she has the body of a goddess.” Damien paused, schooling his features into hardness. “But heed how you describe her. I do not allow strangers to insult my wife.”

  Sarah knelt, rigid and still. Lalji watched her, crafty interest lighting his flattened features. “Are we strangers, then? Or brothers?”

  “You are brothers,” she murmured. “Let you not quarrel, lest you forget the greater cause of the mutiny. You must not destroy yourselves like the jackal who feeds from his own wounded body.”

  “Your woman is nimble with words,” Lalji mused. Abruptly he addressed his comrade. “Save your suspicions for the English. Now get on with it, ere I toss you into the river, too.”

  The notion of the gaunt Lalji overpowering his massive companion was ludicrous. Yet with grumbling meekness, Keppu tucked the knife in his belt and lumbered over to take hold of MacMurtry’s feet.

  The fleshy Scotsman was even heavier than he looked. Dead weight, Damien reflected grimly. Muscles straining, he helped Keppu heft the man. They splashed into the river and heaved the body into the murky green waters. The current carried the bobbing corpse downstream and out of sight, thank God.

  Mud squished between Damien’s toes as he returned to shore. There he crouched a moment to wash his hands and arms in ritual cleansing. His sandals were probably ruined, another disaster he could blame on Miss Sarah-Outspoken-Faulkner. It had been a mistake to follow her to the river in the first place. It had been an even bigger mistake to let her suck him into another pointless argument, to lure him into chasing her.

  He wondered at her unexpected playfulness. Perhaps she’d spent too many hours under the burning sun. He wondered even more why he’d joined in her frolicking mood. And when she’d gazed at him with those cerulean-blue eyes, a momentary madness had descended upon him, the madness of need and passion, the longing to lose himself in her warmth and closeness...

  Ridiculous. As if a henpecking old maid could heat a man’s loins. He’d gone too long without coital release, that was all.

  He surged to his feet. “Come, Shivina,” he said, jerking his head at her. “I’m hungry.” As she gracefully rose, he pivoted to the sepoys. “May Shiva guide you on your way.”

  “Wait.” Lalji stepped into Damien’s path. The sepoy picked up a twig and began to clean the dried blood from beneath his long fingernails. “Keppu and I leave at dawn for Kurnaul. In the meantime, we have no food and no woman to cook for us.” The corners of his mouth slid downward into a hangdog expression.

  Then eat dung, Damien thought. Again he cursed the devil’s luck that had encumbered him with Sarah. He dared not arouse Lalji’s suspicion by refusing hospitality. “Come back to our camp,” he said grudgingly. “My wife will feed you.”

  Her arms sore from grinding millet for the evening meal, and her breast tight with restrained anger, Sarah sat in the midst of the women. A droplet of sweat rolled down her cheek. The thin veil over her face made the night seem even more stiflingly hot, and the scene before her took on the shimmery glow of a mirage. Keeping her eyes averted from Damien, who lounged beyond the low-lit campfire, she tried to concentrate on Jawahir.

  In a high wailing voice, the headman sang verse after verse of a melancholy song about the past and the future, lamenting that life is forever the same, that all people are bound to the wheel of karma and cannot improve their lot, for the soul is punished for sins committed in a previous incarnation.

  The flicker of the flames picked out the damp eyes and gloomy faces of his audience. Some swayed back and forth in an ecstasy of anguish.

  Even the children listened with rapt interest and rare quietness.

  Sarah pressed her fingers to the hard, dusty ground to keep from fidgeting. Under less volatile circumstances, she would have been intrigued by the ballad. But tonight her emotions were as taut as th
e strings on the headman’s sitar.

  Jawahir, she knew, was putting on a show to entertain their two guests and to keep the mutineers from asking too many questions. Pray God none of the villagers let the truth slip.

  Her gaze moved over the small group of men. Damien sat on his heels beside Keppu and Lalji. Beneath her anxiety smoldered a self-righteous rage. Trust Damien Coleridge to flatter those barbarians. The three of them might have been old chums. He should have gotten rid of them by using his infernal cleverness. He must be completely uncaring to expose her and his son to the terrible risk of discovery.

  Beside Sarah, Madakka cradled Kit. For tonight, the Hindu woman would treat the infant as if he were her own so that the sepoys wouldn’t wonder why Damien’s “wife” had already birthed a child.

  Even so, Lalji seemed to stare straight at Sarah. His strange milky eye gave him a sinister aspect, and a shiver crawled over her skin. Praise heaven the sepoys would be departing at dawn. She couldn’t look at them without seeing the ghastly corpse of poor Mr. MacMurtry.

  She touched the photograph tucked at her waist. At least she’d rescued the keepsake from those villains.

  Her stomach lurched. She had never expected the cause of native equality to take this appalling course. Too many sepoys had turned savage, spurning the notion of peacefully talking out their complaints in favor of killing every last English person.

  How wrong she had been to hide her identity as I. M. Vexed. Perhaps Damien had been right to call her a hypocrite. She ought to have had the courage to speak out openly. She ought to have rallied her friends and neighbors. She ought to have opened their eyes to the gross injustices and done everything possible to avert the bloodshed.

  Merciful God. Were it not for the mutiny, she would have been safely ensconced in Meerut, rather than living on the edge of peril. She would have been contemplating contentment with Reginald, rather than traveling with a callous knave like Damien.

  The music melted away and the night chorus took over—the cry of jackals, the buzz of insects. Slowly the villagers began rising to their feet. Lakshmi shooed the children to their mats while Jawahir directed the two sepoys to a choice sleeping place near the low-burning fire. A place where they would be circled by the surreptitiously vigilant men.