The Sandalwood Princess (13 page)

“I suppose most men wouldn’t trust a woman with a razor,” Amanda said.

Bella’s grin broadened. “I wish you could have heard him. And seen him. For a minute there, he almost had me quaking in my slippers. I never in all my life seen anyone get so high and mighty. Looking down his nose at me, he was—and there I was standing practically on top of him, as there ain’t room enough in that cabin for a cat to wash its whiskers. And he got this little twitch in his jaw and his nose pinched up, and his voice just—just
dripped
out, like pieces of ice. ‘No one
shaves me,’
he says. And I fair near dropped a curtsey and said, ‘No, Your Highness, no they don’t, I’m sure.’” She giggled. “Oh, he is a one, that one.”

“I expect it was being so seasick,” said Amanda, baffled by the strange flutter within her.
Mal de mer.
Would it never end?
“No doubt he was out of sorts.”

“He was in a temper fit is what. He don’t like being sick, I can tell you. Hates it worse than you do. Still, who can blame him, such a nasty little place it is, and him with them long legs.” She shook out the trousers and gazed at them in shrewd appraisal. “And who’d think, skinny as he is,” she said, “any man could have such a small bottom?”

Amanda’s face grew unpleasantly hot. She glanced at Mrs. Gales, but that lady remained serenely asleep. The widow slept as steadily as she plied her needles and hooks. A cannon blast might wake her, but nothing less, once she’d composed herself to slumber.

“He asked after you,” Bella said, after a moment. “He seemed very worried. Maybe that’s why he got so grouchy. Poor man, it don’t seem fair, do it? He’s fine and handsome as a prince in one of your fairy tales. Why, he might have been a gentleman, miss,
and
then—”

“Bella.”

The maid looked up enquiringly at the unaccustomed sharp tone. “Yes, miss?”

“My head is aching like the very devil. Do you think you can mend
silently
for a little while?”

***

By the end of the week, though the sea continued choppy, the deck was sufficiently safe for perambulation. Late in the day, Philip made his way above.

Bella had said her mistress was fully recovered, but the mistress did not appear. He waited an hour at their customary place then spent another two hours prowling the vessel from stem to stern. Perhaps she’d come earlier, and the exertion had tired her after the strain of illness. Perhaps she’d taken to her bed once more.

He would
not
think about beds. Not her bed. Nor was it wise to consider his own narrow mattress. That had seemed a deal too much like a coffin, and the airless cell in which it lay seemed to reek of illness and decay. So Bella must have noticed as well, for she’d arrived today with bucket, mop, and cloth, and the hapless cabin boy in tow. With Jessup alert and vigilant, Philip had happily fled, leaving the maid and her slave to scrub the living daylights out of every square inch of offending surface.

Not that her efforts could possibly make the space tolerable to Philip. Falling asleep would continue to be an ordeal. To linger there at all when it wasn’t necessary was needless torture.

***

Ah, thank you, Papa.

“There now, Miss Amanda, it’s all right.”

Amanda’s eyes flew open, and she jerked upright... to utter darkness. Panic seized her, and she tried to shake off the hand grasping her wrist.

“It’s all right, miss. You had a bad dream,” Bella said soothingly.

That was all. A dream. A very long one. She must remember it. Padji ought to know. But she wouldn’t forget, not this one. Not one detail.

Amanda sank back upon the pillows, and patiently accepted Bella’s fussing and fluffing and tucking. “Thank you,” she said softly. I’m sorry I woke you. Do go back to sleep. I’m all right now.”

In a few minutes, Bella was lightly snoring. Her mistress, however, remained painfully awake.

Amanda turned restlessly.

Seven bells. Eleven-thirty.

Eight bells. Midnight.

Squelching a sigh of exasperation, Amanda slid from the bed. She fumbled about, found her clothing, and managed to dress without waking her companions. Then she crept from the room, closing the door gently behind her.

Above, a full moon lit the deck with soft, eerie light. There were sailors about but they were busy with their tasks, their voices muted. Amanda automatically headed for her usual place at the rail. Then she hesitated. It was one thing to wander about unattended in broad day, with Mrs. Gales at the stern keeping discreet watch. It was quite another to stroll about alone after midnight.

Amanda was about to turn back when the cool breeze carried a familiar scent to her nostrils: Tobacco smoke. She saw a tall, slim figure move from the shadows of the mizzenmast to the rail. His hair gleamed silver in the moonlight. He leaned upon the rail, half-turned from her. She could just make out the tiny red glow of his cigar when he drew upon it.

She told herself she ought to leave before Mr. Brentick became aware of her presence. She was amazed he hadn’t noticed already. His senses always seemed so acute. Yet she smelled the smoke and a great, empty place seemed to open within her, and she knew only that she didn’t want to be alone.

She’d taken but two steps when his posture tensed and his head swivelled in her direction. Too late to retreat.

Heart thumping, Amanda continued, though the space between them seemed to have grown to an immense stretch of cold and hostile plain.

His greeting was warm, however, when she neared. “Miss Cavencourt,” he said softly, surprised. “For a moment I thought you were a ghost.”

“You d better pretend I am,” she said, abashed by his wondering stare. “Or that I’m sleepwalking. I’m supposed to be slumbering like a good little girl, but I couldn’t, and I thought I’d go mad trying to keep quiet about it.”

“With all due respect, miss, you
are
mad, you know. We have settled that question long since.”

He looked down at the cheroot he held, and frowned. As he raised his hand to toss it into the water, she cried, “Oh, don’t throw it away on my account. I don’t mind at all. In fact, I rather like it,” she added. “It reminds me of Calcutta.”

His eyebrows went up. “You miss the stench?”

She smiled and, unthinking, leaned upon the rail, and inhaled. Her entire being seemed to relax. “Not that, exactly, but the smoke. The rooms filled with incense, and the stories. My friend, the Rani Simhi, would smoke her hookah and relate myths and legends,” she explained, looking away from him and towards the moon-dappled ocean. “I felt like a little girl, transported to a mysterious place where fairy tales were real.”

“After what we’ve endured recently, I shouldn’t mind being transported to mysterious places. Will you take me?” he asked. “Will you tell me a story?”

She bit her lip. “I really ought to return. I shouldn’t be out at this hour.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” he agreed, “and I shouldn’t ask you.” He paused a moment, his eyes very intent upon her face. “But I am monstrous selfish. I wish you would stay... long enough to tell me one of your stories.”

She thought he must hear her heart thumping so stupidly, even above the moan of timbers and the splash of waves against the vessel. But he only looked at her in that strange, fixed way. Part of her wanted to run, for it reminded her of the steady gaze of a jungle cat, or a bird of prey. Yet another part of her—mesmerised or stunned, she knew not which—could not bear to go away. She thought she could look into his beautiful face, its chiseled planes silver and shadow in the moonlight, for all her lifetimes. “Earthly beauty is a glimpse of the Eternal,” the rani had said. “Earthly love is a glimpse of transcendent love.”

Eternity and transcendence, indeed. Smiling at her folly, Amanda returned her focus to the glistening blue-black water, and let her mind sink into the smoky, warm, scented rooms where the stories lived.

“When he was a young man, as I’ve before mentioned, Krishna was a devil with the ladies,” she began. “When he was a boy, he was full of mischief. One day, he stole some butter.”

Philip took the story with him when he returned to his cabin, just as he took with him her voice and scent, and the dreamy, faraway glow of her eyes. The story made him smile yet, for he saw the several characters in her mobile face, and heard their voices in hers. He’d laughed helplessly when she revealed Krishna’s triumph, and her face had expressed the child-god’s ineffable ennui as he learned of the miracle he’d performed. Miss Cavencourt had touched something more, though, and Philip found it uncanny she’d chosen precisely that tale.

In punishment for stealing the butter, Krishna’s mama had tied him to a heavy mortar used for grinding and crushing food. When at length he grew bored with his situation, Krishna had dragged the mortar between two huge trees and heedlessly uprooted them.

In the roots of the trees were two princes an evil sorcerer had entombed. They’d been buried alive, but the child-god had inadvertently returned them to life.

Did it haunt them after, Philip wondered, as he sank back upon his pillow and closed his eyes. Or had Krishna freed their spirits as well? He wished he might have asked her. He wished he might ask her now. But if she had been with him now, he wouldn’t care to talk, would he?

Numskull. If only he’d got himself a tart in Capetown. At this rate, he’d be a dithering imbecile by the time the ship entered the English Channel.

“
I dreamt of
the robbery,” Amanda said. She sat this morning upon her customary cask in the blistering galley. Perspiration trickled down her neck, though she’d arrived scarcely five minutes before.

“A troubling dream,” Padji said as his large hands dexterously kneaded dough. “I heard you cry out three times, and my heart ached for your trouble.”

“You heard me?” she repeated incredulously. “From the other end of the ship?”

“I lay by your door, O beloved, as I do each night. So I slept by the door of the great Lioness. Such is my duty.”

“By my door? But you couldn’t have been… You must have been dreaming as well, because—”

“I moved from the place when you rose,” Padji said, “lest you stumble over my lowly person.”

“Where did you go then?”

“Above. The hour was late. The mistress must move where she chooses, fearlessly, in confidence her servant is near to protect her. I was near, O daughter of the sun and of the moon.”

“Indeed. You are... most conscientious, Padji.”

He shrugged.
“It is my dharma.
I am of no significance. Tell me of this dream that so troubles you.”

“I know it was only a dream,” she said uncomfortably, “yet I remembered what the rani told me.”

“The eye observes mere appearance, which the mind gives name to. His heart sees into the darkness and discerns truth. In dreams, the heart speaks to the eye and mind. So she tells us in her endless wisdom.”

“So she tells us.” Amanda sighed. “In any case, a great deal of it seemed obvious, but part of it—well, I didn’t know what to think.”

“Tell me the whole of it.”

“It was the robbery,” she said in Hindustani. “Just as it happened, except at the last. The thief had knocked me down and run off with the Laughing Princess. But this time, I jumped up and chased him. Miles, it seemed, down one long passage, then a turning, then another passage. The night was utterly still and black.”

“You saw no moon?” Padji asked.

“No moon, no stars. It was like a maze in a great void. Then I came to the final turning, and felt the breeze, which carried the scent of the sea. I stopped suddenly and looked down, and saw the sea beneath me, churning and sparkling, coal-black. I screamed.”

“That was your first cry,” Padji said, nodding.

“A voice answered me,” Amanda went on, “The moon, enormous, white and full, broke past the clouds and shone down upon him. He wore a jewelled turban, and the rich garb of a prince, but his face remained in darkness. His voice was the robber’s voice.”

Padji gave her one brief glance before he returned to his kneading. “He called to you?”

“He said, ‘Come to me. My boat will bear you safety.’ But I was afraid of him,” Amanda said, looking down at her hands. “I turned to run away, but the passage had vanished, and I stood on a narrow ledge, the sea before me and the sea behind me. Then the ledge itself vanished, and I fell a great way. That, I expect, was the second time I cried out in my sleep. He caught me, and his cloak enfolded me.” She paused, her cheeks burning. “I had rather not describe the details.”

“He took you as a lover,” Padji said without looking up from his work.

“Certainly not!” Amanda’s cheeks flamed anew. “I would never dream such a thing.”

He shrugged, and she recommenced. “I struggled,
needless to say,”
she added, glaring at him, “and he laughed. When the laughter died, he’d vanished. I was chilled. I picked up his cloak to put around me, and found the Laughing Princess at my feet. I tried to pick it up, but it was too heavy. I was weary and hungry and cold, and all alone on this great, black sea, so I wept, and called to the moon—to Anumati— to help me. Then the breeze blew. It came warm this time, filled with the scent of agarwood. The air grew thick with smoke. I raised my hand,” Amanda said, lifting her arm as she had in the dream. “A dark form swept down from the heavens. It was a falcon. It circled my head three times, then alit upon my wrist. ‘I will serve you,’ he said.”