Claire Read online

“No! It is absurd; why, they will be home in a few days!”

  “What if there is fighting, and Varian is shot?” said Claire instantly, her eyes wide as she turned back to her sister; her voice grew suddenly intense. “Claudia— I have nightmares that he will do something idiotic, simply because he— because I have done this to him! I cannot stay!” She came to her feet in a graceful sweep of muslin and lace.

  “Shot?” repeated Claudia, staring up at her sister with a stricken look on her face at the thought of a large, placid gentleman strolling out onto a battlefield and falling instantly beneath the first volley.

  “There is likely to be shooting, you know, if there is a battle,” said Claire, her eyes clouded over with feeling, with a slight, desperate motion with her hand. “I’m sorry, Claudia; the last few nights I have dreamt about nothing but him lying somewhere in a ditch bleeding to death!” She shook her head; her voice fell to a whisper. “I can’t stay here; I’m going.”

  “Bleeding to death?” gasped out a very white-faced Claudia. “Claire— of course we shall go! I— Only don’t give me more reasons or I shan’t be able to sleep at all!”

  They sailed two days later on a rickety old coastal sloop that took Claudia and Claire— and Consuela, Elena, and a silent and unhappy Rajat— out around the North Foreland to Portsmouth. The weather was pleasant, and the journey was not strenuous, although it took them the better part of four-and-twenty hours to arrive. But at least they were enroute and doing something, instead of sitting at home, waiting and wondering. They docked in Portsmouth at four in the morning, and Rajat, with a grim, wordless bow, went ashore to procure passage to Lisbon for the five of them.

  Rajat was, in the end, the one who had given Claire the strongest objections, for she knew very well that she could not go without a manservant, and he very nearly refused her. But Drew had given Rajat two or three heartfelt sentences just before his departure a week ago, to the effect that he was entrusting his most precious treasure to Rajat in his absence. The look in his master’s eyes had said more than had his words, and Rajat, because he would have followed Varian Drew to the ends of the earth had he asked it of him, nodded and said that he would protect the lady with his own life.

  Now Rajat felt that he had betrayed his master. Contrary to Drew’s admonishment to keep her safe in London, Rajat had allowed her to embark upon this very perilous journey. When he saw that Claire meant to go with or without him, he finally gave in and agreed to accompany them, but it was with deep reluctance that he went ashore Portsmouth to purchase passage for them.

  Here on the docks he did not need English, although he had studied hard in the past few months. He spoke a few words of French, and then further along the quay a sentence or two of Portuguese; he bargained in sailor’s Greek, and, at last, he gave a polite thank you in Urdu. It was done, and passage was bought on a large merchant vessel called the Blue Swan.

  It was not particularly spacious below decks, but there would be a private cabin for the ladies, and a smaller adjoining one for the Portuguese women. Rajat would sleep outside their door; he did not trust sailors, and especially he did not trust sailors with four women. By dawn he had loaded on their light luggage; Drew’s lady was obviously well-aware of the needs for a journey such as this. She and her sister had packed only a small carpetbag each and had sat up last night sewing English gold guineas and sterling silver pounds into the hems of their chemises.

  In fact Rajat began to relax a little after they got underway, for the women were not seasick, nor did any of them complain of the accommodations. Drew’s lady, whom the old woman Consuela called belliza, showed him the small knife that she carried in a special sheath sewn inside the pocket of her cloak, and he recalled then the story of the dozen Moroccans, and that she had nicked one of them behind his ear when he came too close to her.

  The women kept to their rooms without exception. The ship was empty; it was of American registry, and its destination was somewhere along the coast of Africa. They all knew that it was a slaver, and there were always rough crews on board such ships. Rajat brought them their meals and tactfully saw to their comfort.

  Claire had sighed when she had seen the ship, for Rajat, for all his worldly wisdom, came from a part of the world that knew nothing of African slaves and American slavers. He had done the best he could to find them passage to Lisbon quickly, and she had no intention of complaining. But on the first night when she heard a small noise out in the companionway, she opened the door slightly to peep outside, which was probably a very foolish thing indeed. Then she saw Rajat, his legs crossed, his arms folded over his chest, sitting in his white turban before the door.

  “Rajat!” she whispered.

  He looked up in surprise. “Something is wrong, Doña Belliza?”

  He had taken up Consuela’s name for her without the least embarrassment, and she knew very well that he spoke Portuguese fluently enough to know what it meant. “Have you no cabin? Where do you sleep?”

  “Here, yes,” he said, nodding. “I sleep here.”

  “You can’t sleep like that!” she said in a low voice. “Come inside, I shall give you a blanket!”

  “No, Doña. I sleep here; men pass by and see that you are guarded. I sleep here,” he said firmly, inclining his turbaned head politely.

  She stared down at him for a moment longer, and then nodded. “Thank you; you are very kind,” she said.

  “Very welcome orders,” he nodded politely, and although she did not understand what he meant, someone was coming down the companionway, and she closed and bolted the door hastily and did not think about it again.

  The ship encountered rough weather off Land’s End, and then because of the threat of French patrol ships, they gave the northwestern tip of France a wide berth. Even though the ship was of American registry and empty, no one particularly cared to be hailed or boarded by the French, and the captain was well-aware of the identity of the gentlewomen on board. Consequently he sailed due west from Land’s End for the better part of a day before turning south.

  On their second day at sea, they caught the edge of a summer squall in the afternoon, and the old ship creaked and groaned as it labored through the swells. The Portuguese women eyed each other nervously as they sat with their mistresses in their cabin, and Claudia was obviously ill-at-ease. Only Claire was cheerful; she would have gladly endured a North Sea winter gale to sail to Lisbon, and when Rajat knocked on the door and brought in a tray of tea for the ladies, she thanked him with a happy Urdu phrase which he had taught her, which caused his bright eyes to widen in surprise beneath his white turban.

  “Rajat, entertain us, shall you?” she asked impulsively.

  “Excuse, please?” he asked, puzzled.

  She repeated her request in Portuguese, to which Consuela added a short word, and Rajat sat down, cross-legged in the center of the floor, and withdrew five smooth black balls from his pocket. “Yes,” he nodded, and handed Lady Banning three of the balls.

  She took them and examined them closely; they were smooth, with small runes on them that made no sense to her at all.

  “This is a game, Rajat?”

  “Yes, game,” he nodded. “We shall see what is to be decided.”

  “How do I play?”

  He made a motion with his hand and allowed one of his balls to roll out onto the floor; it settled instantly. She nodded, and smiled, and as he took up his ball, she rolled hers. “Very good,” he said, his white turban bobbing up and down. “Another, please?”

  “Don’t you play first?”

  “No. This is for you,” said Rajat.

  Claire shrugged and rolled out a second ball that stopped very close to the first one, and when Rajat motioned with his hand, she looked up at Claudia for a moment, and then rolled her last ball.

  Rajat bent down and regarded the three. “Very good,” he nodded, just as he had heard her say many times in those hours on the terrace in London as the three servants had struggled to master English. He ca
refully rolled his balls, so that the five were grouped together in a small circle, and then he placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Have I won?” Claire inquired, a little hesitantly.

  “Perhaps you shall win,” Rajat nodded in a moment, opening his eyes. He pointed to two of the balls. “Here is good fortune, here is bad; they are close together and always at odds, which is the common course.” He pointed at another pair. “Here is death, and here is life. You leave little space between them, Doña Belliza. But you throw out here the sign of much abundance.” He pointed to the fifth ball and then bowed to her. “It is strong.”

  “Rajat,” Claire asked, her eyes widening suddenly, “what sort of game is this?”

  “This is the game of decision,” he replied carefully. “It is wise to play when one goes toward questions. There are many changes.”

  “Do you mean that you— you can tell the future with those balls?”

  He smiled. “Only signs of the future,” he said, bowing. “There are many signs; one should read them all, Doña Belliza, if one wishes to be prepared.”

  “What exactly does it say?” Claire asked, intent.

  “It tells of good fortune and bad, of contentment and longing, of life and death, of little and plenty, of sorrow and joy; they fall together, and we look to see where they fall,” Rajat nodded.

  “And is there sorrow or joy, there, in what I have thrown?” she asked.

  “Both, of course,” he said, and swept the balls off the floor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The wise man knows that to go forward is to return, that the journey towards happiness must pass through sorrow, just as to live is to die,” he said.

  “Rajat,” Claire said, with a touch of exasperation, “you aren’t making any sense at all.”

  “Yes,” said Claudia, quietly. “He is.”

  The turban bowed politely to Lady Merrill. “Doña’s sister wishes to play the game, yes?”

  Claudia took the three balls slowly. “He does not tell you the future, Claire; there is no magic here,” she said, and threw out the first one.

  “No,” said Rajat. “No magic. Knowledge of forces, please.”

  Claudia threw out the second, and then the third, and stared at Rajat’s face while he threw out his own two balls, and then gazed down at the pattern. “Is this Hindu, Rajat?”

  He smiled faintly. “It is many things, lady. I have a mother— the mother of my mother— ”

  “Your grandmother,” said Claire quietly.

  “Thank you,” Rajat bowed. “I have a grandmother from Hong Kong, a father— a grandfather from Oman. It is where I have Portuguese; it is why I am Pariah. Untouchable, because of the blood of my ancestors. But many things of worth come to me from them, as well.”

  “I see,” said Claudia. She looked at Rajat with new eyes. “Your grandmother was Buddhist?”

  “No, she follows Tao. It is very ancient religion. I am Hindu, because it is wise to be so in Madras. Each man chooses his own way.”

  “What is a Buddhist?” asked Claire of her sister.

  “Buddhism is an Eastern religion,” said Claudia. “I read something of ancient China last year in a box of books that I bought for a guinea at Cambridge. It is very old.”

  “Yes,” nodded Rajat, with a smile of pleasure on his face that this English lady should have any knowledge at all of Eastern ways. “Here are your forces, Lady— ”

  “You must call me Claudia,” she said quickly.

  “Lady Claudia,” he bowed. “You have here much delay, the symbol of waiting, and conflict. You show— ” he stopped, and said a word in Portuguese.

  “Deliberation,” said Claudia instantly.

  “Yes. You show deliberation in your actions. All is not yet accomplished.” He frowned slightly and swept the balls up again. “This is a dangerous journey that we undertake. I have many questions.”

  “We have been in danger before, Rajat,” said Claudia quietly.

  “Yes; and you are with us,” nodded Claire.

  He smiled and bowed, and said again, “Very welcome orders,” and nodded, and they spoke for a while of India until it was time for dinner.

  The women retired early, and perhaps that made Claire sleep lightly. Sometime early in the morning, she came awake, listening, completely alert as she stared up into the darkness of the low-ceilinged little cabin. The ship creaked faintly, and there was a certain calm stillness that make her frown in consideration. They were no longer under sail.

  “Claudia!”

  A sleepy, unintelligible murmur issued from the other side of the small cabin.

  “Wake up, Claudia! We’ve stopped!” She threw off the blanket and climbed out of bed; they slept in their chemises with their traveling clothes lying handily at the end of their small beds, for just such instances as this. “Get up and dress; I’m going to wake Consuela and Elena.”

  Claudia’s eyes came open at that, and she sat up quickly. “What is it?”

  “I haven’t an idea!” Claire whispered.

  “Why aren’t we moving?”

  “I tell you, Claudia, I don’t know! Open the door and ask Rajat!” She buttoned up her traveling dress all the way to the neck, threw her cloak around her shoulders, and went quickly into the smaller adjoining cabin to wake her servants. Consuela had heard her voice, and she was already dressed and shaking Elena’s shoulder.

  “Claire!” came Claudia’s shocked whisper from the door. “Rajat is gone!”

  She gasped. “Gone?” Claire wheeled around and came quickly over to her sister. “He’s not! He wouldn’t leave us— ” She pulled the door open a little further and saw the companionway empty. It was then that she heard the footsteps above them and voices drifting down the companionway. Loud voices. And they were not speaking that oddly accented English of the Americans.

  In fact, they were not speaking English at all.

  “Claudia,” she said soundlessly, swallowing quickly, and closing the door and shooting the bolt, “there is something very wrong. Pack up quickly. We shan’t make any noise at all.”

  “What is it?”

  “There are men on board— ” Claire stared at her sister in the darkness, her hand tightly on the bolt as she leaned against the cabin door. “French. We— I believe we have been boarded.”

  “Dear god,” said Claudia, returning her sister’s open gaze in a suspended second of disbelief. She turned quickly and gathered up her few things and pushed them into a carpetbag as Consuela and Elena, wide-eyed and frightened, came inside and huddled in the corner. Consuela whispered a question in her low, musical voice; Claudia said only, “Os franceses,” and instantly the cabin fell quiet.

  In the dark stillness they could hear the shouting, a few running footsteps, then many more; abruptly the screaming began, sounds of swords and of great confusion, and then, shock enough to make them jump, a hurried, quiet knocking on the door. Against the wood Claire whispered, “Who’s there?” her hand still on the bolt.

  “Rajat!”

  She opened it quickly, as quietly as possible, and the dark figure, his white turban like a beacon, slipped inside. Immediately Claire closed and bolted the door behind him. He spoke a short sentence to Consuela, who nodded, opened her bag, and pulled out her only other dress, a large black, enveloping gown of a servant woman, and gave it to him quickly. As Claire and Claudia looked on in astonishment, Rajat pulled the gown over his own brown trousers and shirt and buttoned it up to the neck. It hung rather loosely around him.

  “Here,” said Claudia suddenly. She pulled a chemise from her carpetbag, and handed it to him. He took it, and stared at it for a moment, and then nodded, and stuffed the material down the front of the large gown, giving himself a rather broad bosom.

  “Rajat,” whispered Claire, “that’s all very well, but your turban— “ She shook her head, gazing at him.

  “Ah!” He pulled it off, glancing nervously at the door as boots suddenly s
ounded loudly outside in the companionway, and someone beat against the door.

  “Ouvrés la porte!”

  They stared at each other; the white turban, still in Rajat’s hand, had come off to reveal short, black curls that matched the beginnings of stubble on his smooth, dark chin; he was perhaps Claudia’s age, certainly no older.

  “Here, give it to me!” said Claire, extending her hand for his turban. She called out in a loud voice, “Excusez! Qui est vous?”

  She unwrapped the white cloth with shaking fingers and wound it hurriedly from his chin over his head, covering most of his face, and the better part of his curly hair. There was sudden lewd laughter in the companionway; a quick discussion, and a voice shouted back, “C’est un amant! Ouvrés la porte!”

  Her hands halted suddenly as she met Rajat’s black eyes, and then saw the white face of Claudia behind him. “Quickly, Consuela,” she whispered, turning slightly as she tied the ends of his turban under his chin, “give me your scarf! The large black one!” And in a louder voice she said, “Une moment, s’il vous plaît!” and there was more laughter, and a few ribald comments, as she took Consuela’s scarf and tied it around Rajat as though he were a servant woman, and stood back to view her handiwork. “We’ll just hope,” she said, with a deep breath, “for the best. Stand beside Consuela, Rajat, and don’t speak.”

  Casting down his eyes, he nodded and moved past her. With a final glance at Claudia, she drew her small dagger out of her cloak and carefully slid back the bolt. The door was flung inward before she could do more than stand aside, and a saber-brandishing Frenchman stood in the open doorway and viewed the cabin.

  “Ah,” came his smiling French voice. “Females? French women? On an American trader?”

  “No,” said Claire, still in French. “We are Portuguese from Lisbon. We have been visiting our sister in Cherbourg; she is wife of Colonel Senza, who is under General Junot.”

  “Junot?” repeated the Frenchman, a trifle less suggestively. He was dressed as a sailor in loose trousers and a sleeveless cambric shirt that exposed muscular, bronzed arms, with a large silken sash, the sash of a ship’s captain, tied around his lithe waist. His long black hair was tied back with a scarf, his swarthy face almost as dark as his jet black brows and his curling mustache. Behind him were three or four more Frenchmen, all evidently under his orders.