Part 35 (1/2)

He fumbled across the fioor in the darkness, found his way around the bed to the little table in the corner, and lit the lamp.

AWAKENED by Dittoo's frightened shout, Mariana had reached for her boots. Then, her heart pounding, she had seized the lamp and dropped to her knees beside her bed. ”If someone has come to harm you,” she had whispered to the sleeping Saboor as she wrapped him in one of her shawls, ”they must kill me first. Oh, Saboor, if only I had a sword ...”

Now as she sat upright on the edge of her bed, her dressing gown skirts spread widely about her, she could see Ha.s.san by her open doorway, his back to her, his shoulders heaving.

An authoritative male voice spoke. ”You take charge of them. Say you caught them yourself. Yes, yes, of course, that is what a sentry is supposed to do. Now be gone, and good night.”

Here was Dittoo, holding the lamp aloft, and now, suddenly, there was Ha.s.san, smelling foul, his face and clothes streaked with grease and dirt. He looked at her without speaking, his whole soul asking for Saboor.

Behind him Yar Mohammad craned to see inside.

Mariana pushed her skirts aside and got down on her knees. While Dittoo held up the lamp she lifted the edge of the bedspread. There under the bed lay Saboor where she had hidden him, wrapped in a nest of her shawls, his head turning toward them, his eyes open.

”An-nah.”

”There, darling, it's all right now.”

As she took hold of the shawls and pulled him toward her, she felt someone strike her violently from behind. Her back arching involuntarily, she let go of the shawls and clutched at her spine.

”Why, why?” she stammered, her face crumpling in pain, searching the four surprised faces above her.

Panting with shock, she tried to crawl away as Yar Mohammad's urgent voice pierced the ringing in her ears. ”A snake must have bitten her. This is what happens when a viper strikes. They think someone has struck them from behind-look at her hands!”

A snake! She struggled to speak, to tell them she had looked under the bed, that she had even brought the lamp, but her voice had abandoned her.

Still on all fours, she watched Ha.s.san, his hands outstretched, s.n.a.t.c.h his son from the terrible nest of shawls. As her sight dimmed, she saw her four-poster bed upturned and Yar Mohammad pounce, a heavy blade fias.h.i.+ng in his hand.

Someone gripped her wrists. ”There. Two puncture wounds.”

Her bitten arm was on fire. She felt herself being dragged across the fioor. ”Lift her from the other side,” someone said. ”We must get her to Shafi Sahib.”

”No,” another voice said, ”she'll be unconscious soon. Yar Mohammad will fetch Shafi Sahib. Go, Yar Mohammad, take my horse.”

Shafi Sahib. Friend of the magical Shaikh, interpreter of dreams. Why would the great Shafi Sahib come to her? Who was sucking at her wrist, spitting and cursing? Who prayed aloud, while a baby wailed, hopelessly?

An alien creature had invaded her body, and was scorching her from the inside. Too weak to cry out, she could not tell them of her agony, or beg them not to touch her. She thrashed, gurgling, and there was rustling and silence and a voice began to recite in an undertone.

She sank into blackness.

THE s.h.i.+p rocked. She could not see rigging above her, but she could feel the rolling of the deck. She strained to see ahead, and there, through the fog, glimmered a brilliant light. The waves beneath her murmured something she could not understand. Longing to reach the light, she tried to stretch out her hands. The s.h.i.+p was taking her there, taking her there.

SHE could breathe. The burning, although fierce, had abated, and she could breathe, shallow breaths at first, then deeper, sweeter ones. As she drank in the air, the voice went on, soothing and healing her. There was no sound of a baby crying. The light shone through her eyelids.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a blur of faces. Then the light went out and the singsong murmuring ceased. ”Get another light,” said someone. ”I must be able to see her.”

Did she know that voice?

”Who must see me?” she murmured into the darkness. What was this dark place? What language were they all speaking?

Several voices spoke at once. ”Are you all right?” ”Have you recovered?” ”Can you breathe?”

”Yes.” Her voice sounded curiously distant. Something unpleasant had dribbled from the corner of her mouth. Her hair was drenched. The pain in her arm was nearly gone.

”Can you sit up?”

”Yes, but I do not wish to,” she said weakly.

Someone sighed. She heard the rustling sound of someone standing up. ”Since she is now all right,” said the familiar voice, ”I shall go back. Yar Mohammad will see me to my tent.”

WHEN she opened her eyes again, the lamp had been relit. The interior of the tent looked quite odd from where she lay on the fioor near her desk. Her dressing gown had bunched itself uncomfortably around her legs. Her chair stood a few feet away. Her bed now lay on its side, spilling bed linens over the striped fioor. Dittoo, holding Saboor, sat motionless in the corner. Ha.s.san crouched beside her, a hand to his head. Near the door, his eyes fixed on the sky outside, sat a heavyset stranger.

”I think,” she said, ”I would like to go to bed.”

As Dittoo scrambled to his feet and began to scoop up the bedclothes, Saboor trotted toward her. He sat down with a little b.u.mp by her side, then reached out, round-eyed, and patted her arm. She tried to smile.

At a rustling outside the tent, she raised herself onto one elbow. In the doorway, their feet upon the fallen blind, stood the Misses Eden, their two faces fixed in horror as if they had come suddenly upon some fearful accident or scene of torture.

For a moment, there was silence. But for the quivering of Miss Emily's skirts, Mariana would have believed the figures in the doorway to be a delirium-induced tableau.

”I hope I have not caused a disturbance,” Mariana said carefully. Ha.s.san pointed meaningfully at his mouth, then at hers. Mariana scrubbed her chin with a corner of her dressing gown, and found it had been smeared with something pink and slimy. She closed her eyes and subsided to the fioor, doomed, but too ill to care.

Miss Emily found her voice. ”We have been called here, Mariana,” she said, ignoring everyone else, ”by the servants, who heard some very unexpected sounds coming from your tent. Get up at once. You are coming with us.”

Hands raised Mariana. Illuminated by torches carried by Miss Emily's servants, she was half-carried past Ha.s.san, past Dittoo and Yar Mohammad.

”f.a.n.n.y,” she heard Miss Emily say, ”tell one of the servants to call the sentries.”

”WE shall not ask you to explain now,” said Miss Emily crisply, as she tucked Mariana into her bed, now hastily rea.s.sembled in her own large drawing room. ”There will be time for that when you are suf?ciently recovered. You shall sleep here until we march tomorrow.”

Through half-closed lids, Mariana could make out Miss Emily's little sofa, her bookstand, and several tables, each with an oil lamp. Someone had put a cold compress on her forehead. Miss f.a.n.n.y stood beside her sister, her lips tight.

”My sister and I,” Miss Emily declared, turning to Miss f.a.n.n.y who nodded without speaking, ”are determined to mention this to no one, at least for now. We request that you do the same, until something has been decided. In the meanwhile, you should rest.

”Whatever you have been up to,” she added darkly, ”is certain to have been most exhausting.”

Mariana fioated into sleep.

Do not be foolish, Yar Mohammad,” Shafi Sahib said from his seat on a borrowed mule, shortly after dawn. ”How can you not see the importance of your work?”

The groom strode silently at the animal's head, Shafi Sahib's reins in his hand. Around them on the march, the bra.s.s ankle bells of the camels c.h.i.n.ked and sang.

Perhaps he should have kept quiet and not bothered Shafi Sahib with his troubles, but his sense of failure had been too great. What had he done to earn the little ceramic vial that had been put into his hand? What had he found to offer those about him in this strange and powerful time?

”Of course your work is important,” the old man continued, letting go of the saddle with one hand to search for something among his garments. ”What would have happened if you had not been there to stay Yusuf Bhatti from slaying the madman on the road to Lah.o.r.e when these events first began? Without your intervention, the man would have died, I would not have received his message, and we would not have guessed at the ident.i.ty of the Guardian.”

Encouraged, Yar Mohammad looked up.

”It was you,” Shafi Sahib added, gripping the saddle one-handed, his beads held daringly in his free hand, ”who delivered our messages to the young guardian memsahib, you who provided the child's first morsels of food after his rescue. You fought for them on the road to Kasur and sat guard over Saboor's place of refuge when the child thief came to steal him. It was you who recognized the viper's bite, and summoned me to save the Guardian's life.”