Soul of Fire (6 page)

It was said that a dragon had taken the most magical jewel in the world—Heart of Light—to parts unknown. The twin of the jewel—Soul of Fire—had been stolen by an envoy of Charlemagne and used to bind the magical power that existed in small amounts to the descendants of Charlemagne alone. It should have guaranteed the permanence in Europe of order and of the one true monarchy.

Unfortunately, noblemen were as prone to sins of the flesh as other men. Or perhaps more. The descendants of Charlemagne had spread their seed with abandon, so that eleven hundred years later everyone from high nobility to country squires like William’s own great-uncle to a few enterprising peasants had magic enough to challenge the holy rule of monarchs.

The result had been revolutions spreading across the world—from Britain’s loss of the colonies in the Americas, to the revolution in France, to anarchy and rebellion in every corner of the globe. Worse, the enterprising members of the lower classes had banded together to introduce things like trains and flying carpets and textile factories operated wholly by magic.

While this was, William supposed, good in itself, it enriched the lower classes above the noblemen and gentry so that even those who weren’t revolutionary were starting to get their claws on the nobility—through loans, through mixed marriages, all of it resulting in a great leveling and a complete dissolution of order.

This William understood, and he understood it very well. His father had told him early on that the worst possible thing that could happen to the world was to see chaos loosed upon it, and also had shown him through history that the only reason Europe had risen above the other lands was Charlemagne’s action. Only that had allowed noblemen to impose order and forward civilization.

William knew, therefore, that it was imperative that Her Majesty get the ruby and rebind the power to the proper people. He even understood that finding Soul of Fire, spent though it was, had become imperative, as it would, unfailingly, point to the now-vanished Heart of Light

And he understood, though for personal reasons he very much wished he didn’t, that it was necessary to come to India, the last place Soul of Fire had been. But William wanted out of India as soon as possible. Before he died here.

He’d been dreaming again. Dreaming of the hordes of weres descending on them from the nearby forest. Worse than that was the idea that the rebellion of 1857 and the massacres that had surrounded it would repeat themselves. The excuse given to send him to India seemed all too plausible an outcome to his stay. He knew it wasn’t rational. He knew it was superstitious fear. But in the dark of night, it seemed much too real.

He sat down heavily on the side of his narrow bed and frowned at the sweat-soaked sheets. From everywhere around the cantonment came the sound of military men waking and getting ready for the day. The smell of the cow dung used to warm his bathwater, and for cooking breakfast, stung his nose. He heard the stomping of feet and native voices calling. Somewhere, farther off, there was the sound of men’s feet falling in cadence, accompanied by what sounded like a marching song.

There were maybe, all told, one hundred and fifty Englishmen in Meerut—even including the ten officers, William among them, who had arrived here in the last two months. Surrounding them were thousands of sepoys and native officers. It seemed foolish, crazy, with the rebellion having happened less than fifty years ago, to keep such low numbers. But how else could they do it? The British could not hold India by numbers. It would empty their small island to send forth enough people to command this mass of humanity. So they must control the natives by bluff and courage. And that required as few officers as possible, to impress the natives with their daring.

And then, William thought, the fact was that the rebellion was well forgotten. He remembered it only because his grandfather had been killed in it, among the wretched garrison of Cawnpore, fortunately leaving his wife in England, alone with their child. She’d been scheduled to join him but had not embarked before news of his death reached her.

There were books and stories aplenty, all over England, about both the mutineers’ barbarism and the heroism of the defenders. Though very young, he remembered wondering how the writers could know what had happened in those many places where every Englishman had been killed.

Worse, no one remembered those stories
truely
anymore. And no one remembered them enough to take the lessons that needed to be taken from them.

Having read his grandfather’s letters to his grandmother—many of which had arrived well after his grandpapa’s death—William, the second son of the third son of a fairly prosperous esquire, had signed on to the secret service and agreed to a cover identity as a captain of the regulars, but he’d sworn he’d never go to India. Never.

And now here he was. Here because of the rubies and Her Majesty’s determination to secure them. And yet, he dreamed of riots. It wouldn’t worry him so much if his magical power, such as it was, didn’t run to scrying, to foreseeing.

He sighed deeply again, as his blood-soaked dreams visited his consciousness in vivid and glaring images. These gifts of his were so scientifically ill-defined and so often wrong—in everyone—that his dreams were not enough to alarm his superiors. They would say he was going all to nerves and pieces and that the dreams came from that, not foreseeing. His superiors had, in fact, got into the habit of dismissing him on anything relating to India.

He was aware, without paying it much attention, that his
bhisti
was carrying back and forth can after can of water. They were recycled kerosene cans and it took so long to heat the water for the bath in these that by the time the tub was suitably full most of the water was barely tepid.

In many ways, it seemed reprehensible to have commanded a daily bath, but sweating as he did every night—between his nightmares and the close-in humid air—he didn’t feel he had a choice. Whatever was said about vapors or humors, his grandfather had written to his grandmother, and William had grown up believing, if you washed yourself, you were far less likely to succumb to one of those fevers that were often ascribed to the climate of India.

While the
bhisti
went back and forth, William thought of the man who’d come to see him yesterday. Was that a corroboration of his dreams? Enough at least to call them prophetic and to mention them to his superiors.

Gyan Bhishma, one of the sepoys, had come to William with hints that there was something brewing, but he’d been reluctant to talk because there were other sepoys nearby. William remembered the word
tigers,
and presumed the man meant were-tigers.

As the water carrier entered the room, bowing to announce that Sahib’s bath was quite ready, William said, “Would you tell Gyan Bhishma, the sepoy, to come to me?”

The
bhisti
bowed again, and William hoped that meant he would tell the person considered appropriate, by whatever the protocol was, to run such an errand. He felt tired and impatient. Some part of him, the child who had read his grandfather’s letters and heard his grandfather’s acerbic comments on people who ignored native culture, despised the way he didn’t take in the local customs or the ranks of the servants. But William didn’t want to be here. Ever since he’d read the letters of his grandfather, for whom he was named, William had feared he would die in India.

He submerged himself in the tepid water and washed briskly, savoring the coolness of the room and the water. It was shortly after sunrise, but the sun would soon be a fiery ball in the sky and the air would be heating till it felt like an oven. And William wondered when the monsoon rains were supposed to come, and if they would be soon. He wanted the promised coolness he’d heard about. He felt as though if it were only to rain, everything would cool down, the tempers of the natives with it.

He had dressed and was shaving in front of a mirror when Gyan came in. He was what William’s grandfather would doubtless have described as a “likely lad” or some other similarly approving epithet. He was tall for a native, just shy of the six feet reached by William himself. He was close-shaved; his hair, longer than regulation, was combed and tied into a ponytail at the back; his uniform, impeccable and spotless; his eyes, clear; his features, regular and almost European in their cast, or at least made in such a mold that might have befit a statue of antiquity. He saluted William and took the other man’s wave to mean that he could stand at ease. Only, he must have been in the British army a long time, because his version of at-ease still retained a hint of military poise.

“Sahib wished to see me?” he said. His voice was pleasant and his accent near flawless.

William looked around the room and listened for sounds that indicated anyone might be close by. His
bhisti
had withdrawn after emptying the bathwater, and he would now, doubtless, be doing whatever he did during the long days, till it was time to set up things for William’s bedtime. And there didn’t seem to be anyone else close enough to listen in.

“Yesterday,” William said, casting his voice just above a whisper, “you told me something about tigers?” In the mirror, he saw the shadow overtake the man’s eyes. “I presume you meant were-tigers?”

The man looked away. “I was foolish, Sahib. Forget it,” he said, and stood just a little straighter, as if he were in a defensive position.

“No,” William said. “You said there was a Kingdom of the Tigers nearby?”

The man said something under his breath that might very well have been a curse, then sighed heavily. “Sahib, here in the Punjab, it is said there are more weres than men. We all know the empress”—he spat out the title Victoria had given herself as if it must be got out of his mouth as quickly as possible—“thinks there is a risk of new rebellion over the were laws.”

“So why did you need to speak with me yesterday?” William asked, feeling as though he were fencing with an invisible foe who shifted position every time he thought he had him pinned.

Bhishma took a moment. His eyes were half-closed—to veil his expression or to give him time to think, William could not guess. Finally, he sighed. “Sahib, if the empress had any idea how close the danger and how awful, why would she send only twenty-five officers, and more than half of those bringing women and children with them?”

William blinked, involuntarily. “That large a danger?” he asked softly, afraid the words would scare
him
as he pronounced them. “A. . . plot?”

Bhishma looked all around, as if to assure himself the room was quite deserted. He tiptoed into the
ghuslkhanah
and looked about. When he returned, he stepped close to William. “Sahib,” he said, leaning very close, his breath tickling William’s ear, “it is said that the local ruler of the Kingdom of the Tigers—”

“The—?”

“Kingdom of the Tigers.” Bhishma pointed vaguely west. “There are cities in the middle of the forest where it is said that the men who live in them by day all become tigers by night. Do you understand, Sahib?”

William nodded and Bhishma sighed, as though he were absolutely certain that William did not, in fact, understand. “They have their own maharajah. It is said he’s very old, as weres live longer than normal men, and don’t die easily. And it is said that he’s used dark magic to extend both his life and his power.”

“It is said,” William repeated, with a hint of impatience in his voice. He’d read his grandfather’s letters, true enough. And he’d learned from them, as well as from everyone else, that there were a lot more weres in India and China than anywhere in Europe. Because whatever Charlemagne had done all those years ago to concentrate magic only on his descendants had made it less likely a European would have the power—or the curse—of changing forms.

The other continents were supposed to be lousy with it, filled with men who were half-beasts. William had heard it often enough, starting with his grandpapa’s spidery writing.

But he’d been in India for three months and he’d not seen any more evidence of this than of any other legend.

“Sahib,” Bhishma said. “Remember that before the last riots, the sahibs didn’t listen, either.”

William started to respond, the words hot on his tongue. But he thought of the line on his grandfather’s last letter, written from the doomed barracks at Cawnpore and rescued from the ruins before the burning, sent to his grandmother by who knew what means.

He remembered the scrabbling handwriting and the many-times underscored warning.
My dear Harriet, I wish to God we’d listened to the natives.

Feeling cold all over, he turned to Bhishma. “What can I do?” he asked.

PROVIDENCE ON THE WING