The Game - Laurie R. King [142]
At a signal from their prince, one of the servants walked over to the cart. To my astonishment, he did not climb up to work the bolt from the safety of the roof, but simply reached out for it. His hands weren’t even nervous, the fool. I lifted my spear, and readied for the charge.
What came out instead was a tall man, clothed in black from boots to turban, unfolding himself from the cart’s dark interior to open ground, tugging his starched black puggaree down to shade his eyes from the sudden glare, showing no iota of surprise at seeing two of us who should have been gone.
Holmes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
What the bloody hell kind of a joke is this?” Geoffrey Nesbit demanded, allowing his spear-head to drop.
“Not a joke. This man is my prisoner. He was seen in front of any number of witnesses to slay his assistant, one week ago. He has been condemned to death. We are his executioners.”
Suddenly, breathing became difficult.
“If he committed murder, where’s the body?” Nesbit challenged him.
“I assume the villagers disposed of it.”
I found my voice. “It was merely a trick.”
“No trick. It was murder.”
I had had as much of this charade as I was willing to take. “All right, this is ridiculous—” I started, but Nesbit’s hand on my sleeve stopped me. I turned to hiss at him, “Geoffrey, this has gone far enough. The border is less than five miles off. Thank the man for his kind hospitality and let’s go.”
He didn’t answer, just looked over my shoulder until I shifted in my saddle to follow his gaze. The shikaris under the tree had been joined by the two guards, both of whom had their rifles at the ready, aimed at us.
“Yes,” came the maharaja’s voice. “You see the problem. I am fully within my rights to execute my prisoner in whichever way I like. A pig spear is, I grant you, less usual than shooting or hanging, but can be as fast as either. And if my two English guests choose to interfere, my two guards may—inadvertently, tragically—interpret my commands to mean the death of the meddlers. Particularly if they refuse to lay down the revolvers both carry. Alas, how sad.”
“You would never get away with shooting us,” Nesbit told him, outraged.
“No, probably not. But can you see the maharaja of Khanpur condemned and hanged? I think not. The greatest punishment would be for me to abdicate in favour of my son, and live out my days in Monte Carlo or Nairobi. But,” he said, his fanatic eyes lit from within, “the English would never forget Khanpur. Never.”
My God, he was dead serious. I looked to Holmes, completely at a loss, but Nesbit distracted me, putting his head near mine that we might not be overheard.
“We have little choice,” he said.
“You don’t honestly think he’d go through with it?”
“Jimmy, on his own, would probably come to his senses before it was too late. But those guards have the determination of men under orders. They’d bring us down before he could speak up.”
Nesbit was a captain in the Indian Army; one thing he knew was the habits of soldiers. “So what do you suggest?”
“We can do nothing here, where we’d be a pair of ducks on the lake, awaiting the gun. Out in the field, however, anything can happen.”
“Nesbit, you swore that man would set Holmes free if only we declare our citizenship. Let’s do that and be done with this farce.”
“I said, if we publicly declare his identity. What public have we here?” His green eyes drilled into mine; I tore my gaze away, looked at the two guards with their motionless rifles, looked at the maharaja with his triumphant smile, then at Holmes, standing with