My Sweet Folly (35 page)

Robert’s entire spirit rose in resistance against the jailer. His jaw throbbed where he had been kicked. He saw the same fury locked into Sir Howard’s red face; the intent to meet power with opposition.

But it was wrong.

His blood pulsed with the urge to fight. And like a bright, cool light, he saw that it was an impossible combat; he was nothing but another faceless enemy to be crushed under the twisted, tormented souls of the men who governed this place. He could not win.

Robert had learned things from Srí Ramanu. He had not used them. He had not even remembered how. It was as if they had all been locked up inside him. Waiting.

Folie was trembling, unable to contain the shivers that racked her. She could see nothing but shadows, as if everything were enveloped in a foggy dusk. But she could hear Robert’s voice: she clung to it like a child clinging to any hope of safety. She was sitting up now, leaning heavily against his side, fighting the waves of darkness and nausea that tried to drown her.

There was a heavy wooden thumping, and then a door closing. A chair scraped. Folie smelled tobacco and perspiration. No one spoke for a moment. She heard papers shuffled.

“You are the superintendent here, sir?”

Somehow hearing Sir Howard’s brisk voice, amid the phantoms and dizzy pain, shocked and confused her more deeply than anything yet. Folie held herself up a little straighter.

‘‘Speak when you are spoken to,” a man’s voice growled.

“There has been a grave mistake,” Sir Howard said vehemently. “We have been conveyed here under false and illegal pretenses!”

“Oh?” There was a trace of surly amusement in the reply, “I suppose you say you are not Nicholas Hurst?”

“Certainly I am not! I am Sir Howard Dingley. This is iniquitous. We have been kidnapped!”

“Ohhh! Kidnapped!” The superintendent chuckled.

“I demand immediate release from this place!” Sir Howard said furiously. Folie heard chains crash.

“Now wouldn’t that be a fine thing! I’ll just release any fellow who claims he don’t belong here!”

“I warn you! I warn you, sir—there will be hell to pay when the Home Secretary hears of this.”

“Rubbish,” the superintendent barked, all the humor gone from his voice. “Hold your insolence, my fine rascal, or you’ll find yourself bound up for a flogging.”

“Insolence! Damn your eyes for insolence! Listen to me, you commoner, if you can’t tell a gentleman by his bearing then go ask your betters who I am!”

Folie heard another scraping thump. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

“Thirty strokes with the cat in the afternoon exercise,” the superintendent snapped.
 
“Take him to solitary to think about it.”

“The devil you will flog me! I’ll not suffer it! Take your hands off—By
God,
you’ll pay—”

The sounds of a struggle and the crack that silenced him made Folie press back against the wall in terror. The door slammed shut.

“I expect you are the Prince and Princess of Wales,” the superintendent snarled.

“No, sir. I doubt you are in any mood for more nonsense this morning,” Robert replied, in a voice as gentle as he had used with Folie. “You do not feel well.”

The man gave a surprised grunt. “You are an attentive fellow.”

“Your aura is disturbed while your liver troubles you,” Robert said. “You took too much of the Madeira last night, as your sister said.”

“Now what is this chicanery? How the devil do you know what my sister said?”

“It’s a gift I have,” Robert said mildly.

“Oh, aye! Irish, are you?”

Robert chuckled, though Folie could not imagine he could summon any amusement at the situation. “No, sir. I learned of it in India, from a holy man.”

“My ‘aura,’ eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

Paper rustled. Folie blinked, seeing more light and color, but the images were blurred and doubled.

“William Raikes, Fanny Raikes. Forgery. Maybe you learned that from your holy rogue?’’

“No, sir.” Robert’s voice was sober, faintly reproachful. But he said no more than that, did not deny that they were criminals.

The superintendent made a coughing growl. “I’ll put you on the upper deck. Together—since the woman is injured. She’ll have a cot there, and some privacy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Folie had never heard so much tame humility in Robert Cambourne’s voice.

“I’ll send the surgeon to her,” the superintendent said.

“You need not, sir,” Robert said. “I rely on my own ways of healing.”

“Well.” The man raised his voice, loud and sharp enough to make Folie wince. “Jones! Get in here! Take ‘em to the second cabin.”

“Sir?” Clearly the jailer was shocked.

“You heard me.”

With Robert’s help, she stood, precariously balanced, with no equilibrium of her own in the spinning universe. Double figures moved dizzily about her, rattling metal. Step by step, she shuffled in the direction she was led. From behind her, she heard the superintendent call, “Jones! Did you tell him I live with my sister?”

“No, sir,” Jones said, in a puzzled tone. “I didn’t know it to tell him, sir.”

“How do you feel?” Robert asked, examining the porthole and the door, running his fingers over them, finding nothing loose.

She was sitting very still on the cot in the tiny cabin. Robert wanted to ask her why she had sent a note to Dingley to meet her at Vauxhall, but he did not.

“I can see,” she said. “But everything is blurred.”

“I have hope that that will improve,” he said. “I think it will.”

“What happened to me?” she asked tremulously. “Why are we here?”

“You don’t remember?”
 

“No.”

Whatever her reason for writing to Dingley, Robert could reckon no way the note had come to him but by a deliberate misrouting. Perhaps it had been stolen—or perhaps, Robert speculated, Dingley was not the harmless neighbor he had supposed.

But the man was here, caught in the same net with Robert and Folie.

“Robert,” she said, “how did you know that man had a sister?’’ She was looking at him, a vague gaze, squinting a little.

In spite of everything, he was unable to suppress a smile at her mole-like expression. “Now and then things come to me.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Not very often. And never when they are of any use,” he said. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

“You learned that from Mr. Srí Ramanu?”

“He was the one who noticed it, before I ever did myself.” Robert sat down next to her on the cot. “He claims we can all do that sort of thing, but it takes years of reflection and study to produce it at will. And there are all sorts of false
guuruus
who appear to have
siddhis
powers— but it’s trickery.” He lifted up her hand, turned it over, and laid a key in her palm.

She looked down, feeling the shape. “What is this?’’ she exclaimed.

“The key to Dingley’s cell,” he said softly.
 

“Robert!”

“Hush.” He took it from her hand. “Another hidden talent Srí Ramanu discovered in me,” he said wryly. “I am a natural pickpocket. I can also make things materialize, and work a good number of other artifices common among the
jaduwallahs
who conjure on the streets. He taught me the false ways, so that I might not mistake them for true
siddhis.”

Her lips pursed. He thought for a moment that it was disapproval. Then she whispered, “Good heavens, then why didn’t you get the key to
our
cell?”

“Too dangerous. They’ll notice this is missing directly. I have a safer way in mind for us, I hope.” He drew a breath. “I hope. We’ll keep this, at any rate. Perhaps it will save Dingley his thirty lashes while they wonder what became of it.” Robert scowled. “Though I’m not sure he doesn’t deserve a flogging.”

“Why did you never tell me you could do these things?” she asked in wonder.

“Ah, yes. Announce at the dinner table that I could make a good living as a cutpurse if I liked?” Robert gave her sidelong look. “I didn’t suppose it would persuade you to like me any better.”

“If you can find a way for us to escape this place, I shall like you exceedingly!”

FIFTEEN

It was late, long after dark, when the supervisor came to their cell. He came alone, and let himself in quietly.

“Raikes,” he muttered, glancing over his shielded candle to where Folie was sleeping. He turned away from her, looming over Robert, his heavy belly protruding from beneath his coat.

Robert stood up from the deck. He was not chained in this cell, only wore the light manacles on his wrists, but there was no place to sleep except the cot.

“Yes, sir,” Robert said in a low voice.

“Look at my aura now,” the supervisor whispered. “Can you see it?”

“Put out the candle,” Robert said. “It glares in my eyes.”

The man hesitated. “Nay.” He turned back toward the door. “This is foolishness.” He thrust the key into the lock.

Robert let him go. In the faint light from the porthole, after his eyes had adjusted again, he could see Folie watching him.