The Tiger's Lady (47 page)

They burst from the night without warning, in a storm of bare feet and shaking leaves. Shrill cries rang through the encampment, terminating in raw, choked grunts.

A dagger pierced the canvas tent wall, hissing downward and slashing the fabric in two.

From outside came a low, guttural curse. Fighting down her terror, Barrett jerked Pagan’s revolver from her lap.

The tent began to shake.

She fired into the darkness, toward the center of the din.

A grunt, and then the muffled thump of a heavy body. Perhaps more than one.

Suddenly the sounds seemed to ring out all around her. The whole tent pitched violently as unseen fingers tore at the jagged hole left by the knife. Grimly, Barrett fired again.

Instantly the scuffling ceased.

Barrett’s hands began to shake. She had just fired upon a man, perhaps even murdered him. And it was not over yet.

Her heart slamming at her ribs, she waited for the next attack.

This time it came at the tent flap.

Urgent fingers tore at the canvas fastening. She strained to make out a shape in the darkness, deciding she would have time for only one shot.

She closed her eyes, refusing to consider the possibility of failure, knowing she had to buy a little time.

For them. For Pagan, somewhere out in the jungle.

Without warning the tent flap was wrenched upward. Cool air swept through the dank heat.

Her fingers tightened. Not yet, she told herself, feeling sweat break out on her brow. Let him get close enough to ensure that the shot would not be wasted.

She trained her ears, knowing her eyes would be useless in the dark.

She heard a dull thump and remembered that some instinct had made her push a chair before the tent flap.

He was
inside,
then.

Her heart pounding, she calculated the distance between her attacker and the spot where she and Mita crouched in leaden shadows.

Five feet. Four seconds, or a bit less, if the man knew where he was going. And that was more than likely, since they had surely been spied upon all day.

Four seconds then. Her hand rose shakily.

Three. Two.
Beside Barrett, Mita’s breath caught in a low gasp.

One.
Her forefinger tensed. Barrett fought to control the sudden tremors that rocked her hand, knowing that in a heartbeat it would all be too late.

Do it,
she ordered.
Do it now before he does the same to you!

Her finger quivered. Across the room she made out a dim, silent shadow. A shadow that inched slowly toward her.

Barrett gulped down the sour taste of her fear and fired.

For an instant the darkness flashed silver-white. The acrid tang of gunpowder filled her lungs. For a millisecond a tall figure in a Sinhalese sarong stood outlined against the night, his back and face obscured as he doubled over in pain.

Dimly Barrett heart him growl a raw, guttural curse, just before his rough fingers circled her wrist and ripped the revolver from her grip.

Before she could draw another breath, her attacker’s heavy body plunged forward and pinned her breathless to the dirt floor. For long seconds Barrett lay stunned, fear churning through her. From a great distance she seemed to hear Mita scream, then Nihal’s answering shout.

“Memsab!
Are you harmed?” Mita’s raw voice cut through darkness.

“I—crushed, only. Can you—can you help move him?”

With a whisper of cloth, Mita bent close and together they shoved at the inert figure. In the darkness the job was difficult, but finally Barrett managed to work free and push to her elbow.

Suddenly the massive shape tensed, his entire weight shifted onto Barrett’s chest and thighs.

“Help me, Mita. Must—must get him to one side.”

Outside the tent the fighting seemed to thin. Once again the flap was jerked roughly aside, this time by Nihal. A hastily made reed torch cut through the darkness, revealing an inert bronze body.

“The Tiger
-sahib!”
Mita and the headman gasped simultaneously, before the flame hissed out.

Barrett felt a cold wave of horror wash over her.
What had she done?
“He isn’t—he cannot be—”

The phantom atop her twisted slightly and coughed. “Are you trying to finish the Vedda’s handiwork,
Angrezi?”

“Pagan!” Barrett was swept with a crazy sense of disbelief. “Sweet heaven, what—”

Suddenly he shuddered and went deadly still atop her.

Mita dropped beside her, her fingers on Pagan’s neck. Quickly she searched Pagan’s inert body, trying to find his wound. “Another lantern, Nihal!”

Crushed beneath Pagan’s weight, Barrett struggled to ease free, her thoughts a storm of confusion
.
“M-Mita?”

“I can find nothing, miss!”

Barrett was frozen in guilt and did not feel the first, faint tremor that skittered through Pagan’s body. And then the lump shuddered and issued a hoarse groan. One hard thigh shifted, digging into Barrett’s abdomen.

“He’s alive, Mita! Help me move him.” Almost immediately his powerful thigh moved, this time straddling her waist.

Barrett froze. She could have sworn she heard a chuckle. But of course that was impossible.
“Pagan!
What are you—”

“Soft, by Shiva.” He coughed harshly. “Soft in all—the right—places.”

This time there was no doubt of his words, nor of the low chuckle that followed. Hard muscle drove against her belly, the rigid blade of Pagan’s aroused manhood.

Barrett stiffened, fear giving way to fury. The arrogant fool! While she was busy excoriating herself in the belief that she’d killed him,
he
used the opportunity to exercise his depraved urges.

Barrett shoved blindly at his chest. “Get off me, you black-hearted sod!” An instant later she winced, wondering where
that
raw epithet had come from.

But Pagan’s body did not move by so much as an inch.

“Now,
you debauched, depraved beast!”

Nothing.

Barrett managed to ease her body from beneath his shoulders. His great weight seemed to bunch. He rose slightly.

“Help—” He broke off, seized with a spasm of coughing.

Instantly Barrett’s struggles ceased. In raw silence she waited, while his coughing shook them both.

With a hiss of tinder, the lantern flared once more, casting Pagan’s gaunt face into high relief. His lips, she saw, were tense, his eyes glazed with pain.

A shudder rocked him. Barrett feared he must have passed into unconsciousness.

And then his fingers moved, sliding into the warm hair at her temple.

“May heaven help … the poor man who tries … to f-fight you,
Angrezi.
” His grip tightened. “Truly, it’s a bloodthirsty wench you are…”

Abruptly his fingers went slack against her neck, his breath hissing out in a rush.

This time he did not move again.

“Carefully, Nihal!”

Her face tense with worry, Barrett watched Nihal and two bearers struggle to heave Pagan’s tall form onto his cot. Lanterns danced in the wind, casting long shadows through the tent, while outside a crowd of anxious faces fought to peer inside.

Every few seconds Mita stamped her foot and gestured them away, with absolutely no effect.

At least Barrett’s guilt had turned out to be short-lived. When the lamps were lit they had discovered a small dagger of hammered silver driven deep into Pagan’s shoulder. It was that which had felled him, not Barrett’s bullet, which had veered sharply and ripped a hole through the far wall of the tent. It seemed that Pagan had neglected to tell her that his revolver pulled markedly to the right.

The removal of the dagger was a fearful process, and Barrett was ashen-faced and nauseated by the time it was over. The bandaging and cleaning she left to Mita, whose experience in such matters was far greater than hers.

It was just as well that Pagan had lapsed into unconsciousness, she found herself thinking, for the whole process would have been an agony. Even as it was, he twisted and groaned hoarsely in his sleep, so that she and Mita could barely hold him.

“Finished.” Mita stood up slowly and surveyed her handiwork. “It is the best I can do. Now we must be praying to Shiva that they have not added some Vedda poison to the blade.”

Barrett froze, her eyes wide. “Surely they would not—”

“With certainty they would,
memsab,
as long as they could find the red-petaled flower with the purple seeds, or the roots of the night-blooming lily, which are equally lethal. But we must hope that the wanderers had neither time nor patience to go searching about for such things.”

Slowly Barrett turned, gazing down at the pale features of the man in the cot. His face was gaunt, creased with deep lines at mouth and forehead as he fought pain even in sleep. She shivered suddenly, feeling the breath of evil creep down her spine.

“What do we do now, Mita?” she asked softly.

“We wait,
memsab,”
the other woman answered. “And we pray to all our gods that they watch over the Tiger
-sahib
tonight.”

Something told Barrett that she had not prayed for a very long time, but a moment later, as Mita began to intone a low chant, Barrett found her fingers slipping together and her head dropping.

In the hours that followed Barrett and Mita took turns at Pagan’s side, feeding him broth, toweling the sweat from his body when fever racked him.

Fortunately the night’s defense had been successful and their attackers had not returned. Outside Nihal and the other men took turns at watch, anxiously awaiting the first moment that Pagan could be moved.

But his fevers only grew worse. Though the knife had not met vital tissue, it had plunged deep enough.

He required two days’ rest at the very least, Mita said firmly.

Nihal scowled and countered harshly in Tamil. Suddenly conscious of Barrett’s presence, Mita gestured outside. “Go, miss. Eat something. Nihal has seen to rice and fruit. After that I will eat.” Seeing Barrett’s reluctance, Mita shook her head firmly. “If you do not eat, you will be of no use, to me or to him. Now go.”

Without waiting for an answer, the servant turned back to Nihal and their argument resumed with vigor.

They were still arguing when Barrett slipped wearily from the tent a few minutes later.

“Mita?” Quietly Barrett swept aside the canvas flap and crept into the shadows.

“Here,
memsab.”

“Is he—changed?”

Barrett heard Mita’s low sigh. “No, it is as before. The fever drives him so that he cannot rest, and each movement is making the wound to reopen, I fear.
Aiyo,
I am most terribly worried, miss.”

In the half-shadows Pagan’s face was gaunt, darkened by stubble at his jaw. As Barrett slid to take Mita’s place beside the cot, he groaned and shifted restlessly, tossing one arm into the air over his head.

Gently Barrett caught his tensed fingers and lowered them back to his chest. Even when his fingers finally unclenched, she did not release him.

“I fear he dreams of the past,” Mita said softly. “Of his old estates in the northwest, before the Mutiny. He never speaks of those days, not to anyone. Especially he does not speak about Cawnpore.”