The Game - Laurie R. King [144]
I straightened my back and shrugged mentally, more as a means of ridding my mind of dread than an expression of confusion. Something would come up, I told myself. Holmes would see to it. He always did.
The dark trotting figure surprised a flock of birds into flight, their sudden rise giving him not a moment’s pause. He skirted a stand of waist-high shrubs, dipped into a hollow, then followed the line of the hill, closer now but still terribly far from the trees where the pigs had sheltered that first day, a mixed stand of about an acre. The maharaja’s lips moved as he counted the seconds off under his breath, then said aloud, “Fifty.” As if he’d heard, Holmes speeded to a lope. Nesbit’s hands tightened on the reins, causing his horse to champ and fret. I glanced over at the two armed guards; they had lowered their rifles to rest across their saddles, but they were watching closely.
How good were they with those guns? I speculated. If Holmes made the trees, if Nesbit met him there, perhaps . . .
I nudged my horse over until I was knee-to-knee with the Survey man. “Look, Nesbit, chivalry be damned, and uncomfortable questions can be dealt with. The maharaja won’t kill me once he sees I’m a woman. You two make for the border and I’ll strip to my under-shirt, take off the moustache, simply tell him I’m Mary Russell and not her brother. He’ll be angry, but he’s a Kshatriya—he might slap a woman, but anything more than that would go against his warrior’s ethic. If he doesn’t have me dumped immediately over the border, you can have the Viceroy send a delegation to fetch me. The only thing we lose that way is my pride, and a few days.” His set jaw told me what he thought of that idea. “For God’s sake, man,” I urged, “use your head! If I go, the guards—”
“Ninety,” the maharaja interrupted. “Ready, Nesbit?”
In answer, the blond man kneed his horse away from my side and loosed the reins. His horse, somewhat puzzled at the lack of any pigs in this pig-hunt, obediently pricked its ears, and I cursed.
“Nesbit, you fool,” I hissed, but then, “One hundred!” and the man was off, straight as a loosed arrow, his posture sure, every inch of him an officer on the hunt, his game—
I froze, ice beginning to flood my veins—and then caught myself: Don’t be ridiculous, Russell. Of course Nesbit knows that’s Holmes. He said as much when . . .
But as I went over our exchange in my mind, I could not lay my hands on any scrap of conversation that proved Nesbit had connected the maharaja’s pet magician with the Holmes he had seen in gaol.
I gave myself a smart mental slap. Don’t be a vaporous female, Russell! How could Nesbit not know? For heaven’s sake, the man wasn’t blind. And he wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled by the turban (the black turban that shaded Holmes’ face as he got down from the cart, the turban he hadn’t worn before in Nesbit’s sight . . .) or by the boots or the renewed dye on the prisoner’s skin. Nesbit was a professional. Certainly he’d known who the magician was the night we arrived. Hadn’t he? We didn’t speak Holmes’ name, of course, for fear of listening ears, but still. . . .
But dear God, the man looked determined on that horse, galloping full-tilt towards the running figure, looking for all the world a man making the best of an unpleasant but necessary task. I gathered my reins to take off after them, but the maharaja’s voice stopped me.
“Captain Russell, I am gratified by your eagerness, but you will please wait until one or the other of them is down.” With the reminder, I could feel the guards behind me, knew they had raised their guns in preparation. I loosed my grip on the spear I had unconsciously lifted, and stared across the terai at the fast-closing figures, burning with fear and with the painful irony of the entire situation: If the man on the white Arab had known who his magician was, known he had Sherlock Holmes in his collection, he would have been more eager to hide him than to hunt him.
I nearly whooped when I saw Holmes leap