The Game - Laurie R. King [126]
He had been shouting happily all the way down the pass, and the moment he came into the sunlight he allowed the horse to slow. It came to a halt within half a dozen paces, so tired was it, but its rider seemed unaware of its distress, merely dropped to the ground to greet his fellow enthusiast.
“Had any good rides lately?” he asked, pumping my companion’s hand.
“Been saving it for the Cup,” Nesbit replied, slipping into the easy banter of old companions, revealing nothing of the strain he had to feel at suspecting this long-trusted comrade capable of acts ranging from kidnapping to treason.
“I’ll take it from you again this year, I can feel it. And this is—achha!”
His astonishment was so great, his English fled. He peered under the brim of my topee, his eyes telling him that he was looking at the young woman who had escaped his hospitality the week before, his brain insisting that this was someone else. The shadow from my topee obscured the upper half of my face; the wax I had stuck along my back teeth made my face squarer and more masculine; the thickened eyebrows, steel-rimmed spectacles I wore (hastily manufactured in Hijarkot), and a moustache said: man. Blessedly, the marks from the pig-hunt had faded, and the bruised fingernails on my left hand, ripped on my downhill climb from the gate, had been done since he’d seen me last.
“Martin Russell,” Nesbit offered, into the silence.
I thrust out my hand, its palm roughened overnight with sand, and greeted the maharaja with an officer’s drawl pitched lower than my usual voice. “Even if I didn’t know she’d been here, Your Highness, I’d have guessed from your reaction that you’ve met my sister.”
The vigorous shake of my hand loosed the prince’s voice. “The resemblance is truly extraordinary.”
“Yes, Sebastian and Viola, I know. They say Shakespeare got it wrong, that identical twins have to be, well, identical. But as you can see, it sometimes happens that a brother and a sister come pretty close to being cut from the same mold. We’re even both short-sighted and left-handed. However, I assure you that I’m half an inch taller, have a better sense of humour, a superior seat in the saddle, and can beat her at darts any day of the week. I’m also not nearly half the trouble she can be. I don’t suppose she’s still here? Her husband’s having the devil of a time finding her; he’s peppering me with telegrams, sending me chasing all over the country.”
The dark face was busy re-evaluating the person in front of him, trying to shape me into this new form. I left an amiable look on my face, and prayed that my moustache would stay in place.
“No,” he said at last. “She left here a week ago precisely. Vanished during the night, taking a few articles and leaving a note to ask that we forward the rest of her things to an hotel in Delhi. Which I believe we did.”
“Oh, you did, all right. That’s what set a burr under the old man’s tail, Mary’s bags showing up without her. Not that it’s the first time she’s pulled a disappearing act. Last time it was Mexico; she spent the better part of a month with the wife of Pancho Villa, or girlfriend or sister, some damned thing. ‘She only does it to annoy, because she knows it teases.’ Nesbit invited me here more to escape the telegrams than because I thought she’d be here. You have any luck with your panther?”
“Panther? Oh, yes. We got him, although we had to use a gun to do it, unfortunately. He came for me out of some rocks, and I was ready for him but he had one taste of the spear and decided he didn’t like it much. He turned tail, swiped a chunk out of one of the beaters, then took to a tree and wouldn’t come down. We’d have set fire to it to bring him out, but the field was too dry, it would have burnt the village with it.” During the telling, his attention had shifted from me to Nesbit, the one who might appreciate the tale. I was glad to see the shift, because it indicated a degree of acceptance that, unlikely as it seemed, Martin Russell might be who he appeared.
I didn’t ask after the wounded beater. Mary would; Martin wouldn