The Game - Laurie R. King [129]
After dinner we were again entertained by nautch girls, and although they were the same dancers who had entertained us the other night, their performance tonight was a rather different thing from that wholesome version. When the dozen figures came into the durbar hall, whirling and clashing and gyrating seductively, I could not help glancing to see what Geoffrey Nesbit made of it. He seemed much taken aback, so much so that he looked over at me and then quickly away, his face going blank, if slightly pink about neck and ears. Clearly, this was not a form of entertainment commonly offered on his past visits.
I kept my place, grateful that I was not on the outside and thus a target of one of the sinuous women, and it was with huge relief that I saw them leave: It would have been exceedingly awkward had the evening degenerated into a whole-scale orgy then and there. When the group rose to adjourn in the direction of billiards or cards or the smaller-scale orgy that no doubt was scheduled for elsewhere, I made my excuses and headed for the doors.
Unfortunately, Nesbit was not with me. The maharaja had claimed him early, kept him by his side, and looked to be intent on keeping him now. I met his eyes across the room as I left, an exchange that said without words that he had no idea when he might join me. I sat for a while in the fresh air of the garden, making a display of smoking a cigarette through, then went upstairs to my quarters to wait for Nesbit. As I passed, I offered a cigarette to the chuprassi positioned outside our rooms, who took it with gratitude. Inside, I changed my formal wear for something dark and tough and suited to climbing cliffs. Then I waited.
I waited a very long time.
When Nesbit came, there was no missing it. Scuffles, loud grumbles, and a stifled burst of laughter preceded him down the corridor; his door slammed back, and a minute later a crash came, followed by more hilarity. I pulled pyjama bottoms and a smoking jacket over my clothes and went into the hall-way. Three servants were backing out of Nesbit’s door, looking amused until they spotted me and went obsequious again.
“Is the old man all right?” I asked the one assigned to squat at our door.
“Oah yes, he has merely taken much drink.”
“Thanks for getting him here in one piece,” I said, and absently distributed cigarettes to all four, then let myself into Nesbit’s room, closing the door behind me.
The man’s drunkenness was not an act, not entirely. I thought at first it was, expected him to put it aside and go rational, but he was too far gone for that. Not that the rational portion was entirely overwhelmed. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, shoeless and wearing neither tie nor coat, when I came in. He raised his wavering head.
“Ah, Russell. My ol’ fren’ Martin Russell. Have to ask you to help me into the johnny, that’s a good man.” He raised his arm, asking for my support, and I went to his side to haul him upright. My shoulder kept him from falling, and we made the cloakroom without mishap. “Tha’s fine, you jus’ leave me here for a minute.”
From the bedroom I listened to the sounds of gagging and retching. When the splash of the flush toilet had run its course, I took him a glass of water and helped him back to the bed. He dropped heavily down, his hands clutching his skull to keep the world from whirling.
“Sorry,” he said, slurring the sounds. “Sorry. He wouldn’t let me stop, and there’s only so much whisky you can spill on the floor. God, this is bad.” I saw his face change, and hurriedly shoved the shaving-bowl into his hands. A second glass of water was sipped more slowly, and stayed down. “Never seen him like this. Madman,” Nesbit muttered.
I took the description as hyperbole, and waited impatiently for him to tell me what we were going to do next. All plans of making a reconnaissance of the Old Fort had clearly shot out the window;