1637: The Peacock Throne, стр. 35
Jahanara smiled. “He does tend to wax poetic about his own exploits. Paramjit is a staunch ally, however. I would not see her offended.”
Smidha waggled her head. “That she may be, but Amar Singh’s mother, Raijada, is another matter entirely.”
“Oh?” Jahanara asked. “Is she spying for one of my brothers?”
“Nothing so useful as that! No, she’s simply a bitter old prune of a woman with a penchant for rumor-mongering. She was at the center of the web of rumors you and Nadira worked so hard to quell.”
“She was?” Jahanara’s tone made a statement of the question. Then the anger hit, filling her mouth with bitter copper. “She was,” she repeated. Jahanara let the rage expand to fill her heart, then expand some more, and finally, let it expand beyond the confines of her body in hopes that, as it lost density, it would also lose power over her thoughts.
Smidha was watching her as one hunting cat watches another, not fearful—never that—simply…watchful.
Jahanara took a long, deep breath, then let it out slowly, sending the remainder of her anger and bitterness out into the world with the exhalation. She had room in neither heart nor head for such feelings, not if she was to win.
Chapter 12
Allahabad
Mission camp on the Great Trunk Road
“This is the biggest lump we’ve bought so far. I hope it’s pure,” Ricky said, the crickets just starting to sing their night song beyond the tent flap.
“How much more do you need?” Jadu asked without looking up from his ledgers.
“Not really sure how long it keeps…” Ricky said, looking uncertainly at the fist-sized lump of opium lying on waxed paper before him. They’d bought it at what Jadu assured them was a fair price in Allahabad just before departing this morning. Ricky had laid it out for repacking with the smaller amounts they’d obtained from previous stops.
“Kept away from damp and extremes of temperature, salt water, or immersion, it will last at least a year,” Jadu said, quill never stopping in its glide across the pages before him.
“Extremes of temperature like you get in Allahabad during the dry season?” Ricky asked, glancing out of the tent at the last, lingering light of the sunset. The days were getting steadily warmer and there wasn’t an air conditioner for thousands of miles.
“And we just have to keep it out of water as we cross the rivers bounding this doab and enter into Bengal, where the rivers abound?”
“So long as it’s not left for hours in direct sun, it should retain its effectiveness. And the watertight chests I provided should be effective in keeping it from inundation.”
“All right…Then I think I’d like to have twice what we got. Twenty chests or so ought to do it. I was told we wouldn’t need anywhere near that much to make what we need, because of the process they plan to use, but I don’t want to be the guy who came back without the goods, you know?”
Jadu nodded agreement. “Almost always, it is better to have mo—” The quill stopped. “Ricky, where is Bobby?”
“Lying down and trying not to shit himself.”
“Arm yourself, Ricky.”
“Wha—” Ricky stopped as a scraping sound reached his ears. It took a moment for Ricky to identify the noise: swords being drawn from scabbards were not among those sounds a youth spent in small-town West Virginia made readily identifiable.
“The night creatures have ceased making any noise,” Jadu said, eyes wide.
Ricky snapped up the eight-seventy and chambered a shell with the obligatory, and comforting, shick-shack sound.
As the metallic noise faded, Ricky heard the thunder of hooves, a sound he had grown more accustomed to identifying since coming to India.
Jadu shouted something and ran into the semidarkness of the camp.
Unsure what the man had said, Ricky ran out of the tent and came to a stop to get a quick idea of what was happening.
Lights were approaching from the east, the closest just about ten yards from the first of the perimeter of the camp, if he remembered correctly. From the number of torches they carried, a dozen or more horsemen were attacking from that direction, climbing diagonally across the gentle slope toward Jadu’s tent at the center of the camp.
The merchant’s shouts were answered from all along the perimeter of the camp, followed quickly by pillars of flame as campfires were doused with oil. The merchant himself rushed toward where most of the guards were entangled in a melee with the riders, shouting further orders.
Ricky looked away from the sudden flare of lights. Seeking a patch of darkness, he looked toward the river. As luck would have it, he spied figures running among the caravan’s supplies and trade goods stacked not fifty yards from his position.
A choking cry sounded from among the people there, followed by the fall of one shadowed figure.
Blinking, he realized the remaining figures were picking up the various goods and throwing them over the shoulders of their comrades. Somehow the second party of raiders had managed to get between the tents and the river.
They must have swum… The thought came slow.
“Jadu!” he shouted.
No answer from the merchant, but Bobby appeared next to him, his own shotgun at port arms, like they were taught.
“You see that?” Ricky asked.
“Yup.” Bobby suddenly hunched over his gun, emitting a rumble.
“Stay here till you’re feeling better,” Ricky said as his friend straightened.
“I’m…good enough,” Bobby muttered, looking green even in the red light of the fires.
“Let’s go, then,” Ricky said, comforted by his friend’s insistence on joining the party.
They started trotting toward the…bandits or river pirates? Was there a specific term for them? Shaking off such thoughts, Ricky tried to get a count of the raiders. It was hard to judge in the limited light, but Ricky counted between a dozen and twenty figures. Most were moving back and forth to the water’s edge with the caravan’s goods in their arms.
Ricky thought about firing a warning shot, but the first man to see them coming dropped his package, pulled