Today's Embrace (48 page)

“The Great One, the Umlimo, says the spirit gods have sent the locusts to punish our weakness. The oracle speaks in many different voices. All the voices coming from her mouth tell us to become strong!” said one induna.

The others hummed. Dumaka looked around at his fellow indunas. He laid aside his leather kilt. He raised his knee and brought his foot down in the dust. “Jee!”

He raised the other knee and brought his foot down. “Jee!”

The humming grew louder and louder. His sleek, muscled body sparkled with sweat. He was joined by the other indunas, who followed
him in a circle, swaying and chanting, and the sunlight glinted on the assegai he held.

Evy awoke with a headache and chills. Mrs. Croft came into the hut and looked down at her worriedly. “Cold? On a hot day like this? I don't like that one nasty bit.” She placed a palm against Evy's forehead, and her scowl deepened. “You're burning up. I'll call Dr. Jakob.”

“No, don't call him. Today's the trip into Bulawayo.”

“Posh, the trip's all but an hour. He can be a trifle late to talk to the Company men.”

Evy sat up, pushing the coverlet aside. “No, I'm going with him. If you tell him I'm not well, he won't want me to go—” She stopped and bit her lip.

“Aha, so you're about to resort to tricks again to get your way.”

Evy tightened her lips and reached for the brush on the table. “No, I am not. I've learned my lesson, I think. It's nothing. Don't worry. Just a bit of fevered chill is all … How is Alice feeling after the locust horror?”

“Fit and dandy, to be sure. That girl surprises me. Dotes on those three honeys of hers. I didn't think she would be the motherly sort. Now she's worried about Derwent.” Mrs. Croft cast Evy a side glance as she straightened the coverlet on the bed. “It's been a month now. I'm beginning to wonder what's happened too.”

Evy looked at her over the tea mug. Yes, Rogan should have been back by now. What was keeping him? Did he not love her at all any longer?

No, she did not believe that. Their last night together a month ago had convinced her.

“Maybe Arcilla will know something from Peter. I'm going to go see her today. You're coming too, aren't you?”

“No, I promised Alice to help with a dress she's trying to make for
Molly. Gracious, but Alice is all thumbs when it comes to a needle and thread.”

Evy tiredly leaned back in the chair. She shivered. She sipped the tea and rubbed her forehead. She did feel quite awful. Maybe she ought to stay here. She rubbed her swollen abdomen. If only Rogan were here to hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her still … Tiredly she brushed her hair.

Mrs. Croft turned and looked at her with unexpected consternation.

“Evy, you've been taking your daily quinine, haven't you?”

Evy grimaced and scratched the mosquito bite on her arm. “I tried, but it wouldn't stay down, so I got tired of it. It's questionable whether that quinine really works. Do you notice how anyone who's been taking it for any length of time looks sallow skinned? Arcilla won't take quinine, either.”

“It's that wicked river that's the problem,” Mrs. Croft insisted, casting a wary glance out the window in its direction. “Mosquitoes.”

“No one knows for certain what causes malaria.”

“Well, Dr. Jakob's a knowing man. I'm thinking he knows what he's talking about. And he's certain it's mosquitoes.”

“Instead of quinine, ask Dr. Jakob to give me a headache powder, will you, Mrs. Croft?”

Evy forced herself to bathe in the round tub and then dress comfortably to accompany Jakob to Bulawayo. When they arrived at Government House, she was aware of how quiet everything appeared. The once busy common room was nearly deserted.

“For an important meeting with the company administrator and chief native commissioner, it's terribly quiet around here,” she told Jakob.

He looked confused. “I'm certain I have my day in order. I'll just ask this young man over here at the desk.”

“While you do that, I shall go up and find Arcilla,” she told him and walked across the matting to the steps.

Arcilla looked pleased to see her and ushered her into the room with urgent appeal. She appeared frightened as she paced. As usual, she was
dressed in a lovely burgundy satin skirt and ivory blouse with a pleated front and puffed sleeves. There were diamonds at her neck and dangling from her wrist.

“If this were London, you'd be robbed,” Evy joked. “Really, Arcilla dear, is it necessary to dress as though you're going to a ball?”

Arcilla was lacking her usual flighty mood. She continued to pace while Evy enjoyed holding Baby Charles in her arms and thinking of Rogan and their own little one from God growing in her womb. If a boy, she would call him Rogan, of course, and a girl?
Katie
. Would Rogan approve?

When Arcilla did not laugh as she usually did when Evy made such harmless jokes about her going to a ball, Evy paid closer attention to the strain on her sister-in-law's face.

“What is it, Arcilla? Trouble with Peter?”

She turned toward her quickly and came and sat down, glancing over her shoulder toward the door.

What was she afraid of? The police were doing everything they could to find the person guilty of Anthony's death.

“You know something you're not telling me,” Evy said in a low voice, searching Arcilla's wide eyes.

“I know more than it's safe to know. That's what Peter says.”

“Peter said that to you?” If he had said that and Arcilla wasn't exaggerating, then something was very wrong indeed.

“What could Peter possibly have meant?”

Arcilla held out her arms. “Here, let me take Charles and put him to nap first. Marjit didn't come today. Detlev has ridden out to look at their farmland again. They may return to farming, so she says.”

Arcilla took the baby to the back room and was busy attending him while Evy stood and walked about the room, frowning. Rogan had not yet returned. No one seemed to know what had happened to him, Derwent, and Parnell after they'd ridden from Fort Victoria to the Zimbabwe Ruins. Two weeks had turned into a month. Strange, because Sir Julien was not in Bulawayo, nor was Captain Retford, or Harry
Whipple. And now Arcilla had mentioned the soldier Detlev, who supposedly was away looking over his farmland that he and his wife had abandoned to the brush and wild animals. Evy now wondered if he'd actually gone there or somewhere else.

As she thought through the circumstances of the last week, her fears grew. First, Rogan and those with him had not returned. Now, today, she'd come with Dr. Jakob only to learn that Sir Julien wasn't here. And Dr. Jameson was gone too …

Arcilla returned, quietly drawing the door to the baby's room partially closed.

“We can talk now,” she whispered and stood wringing her hands. This nervous manner was so unlike the normally amusing Arcilla.

She studied Evy with a frown between her golden brows. “How are you feeling?”

“You've asked me that twice already. Why do you keep asking? You'll soon have me thinking I'm ill.” Evy smiled ruefully. “Do I look that awful?”

“No, no … but you looked flushed, yet you shiver. Oh, preserve us! You're not coming down with malaria, are you?”

“Naturally not, why should I?”

“I should hope and pray not because it's a hideously nasty sort of illness. One of Peter's aides has it and nearly died of fever.”

“You're making me feel so much better, Arcilla.”

“Sorry …” Arcilla plucked at her diamonds and walked to the window, looked out, then walked back to the chair, sat down, then stood again. “I'm afraid, is all,” she stated suddenly.

“About my getting malaria?”

Arcilla shook her head no. “You have Dr. Jakob. At least
he's
still in Bulawayo.”

Evy walked up to her and narrowed her eyes. “All right. Out with it. I want to know everything you're not telling me.”

She nodded and turned. “I'll make tea first—”

Evy caught her arm. “Forget the tea. No more delays. Sit down. And I'll sit right here—now, what is it, Arcilla, that's troubling you?”

Arcilla opened her mouth, closed it, then began again. She rushed, “Dr. Jameson rode out of Bulawayo late last night. I watched through the window. Peter admitted Jameson took four hundred of the Company police-soldiers and many, many of the pioneers, and two hundred coloreds and loyal Africans. They all had rifles, and the supply wagons were loaded with enough food to last them for two months. The other wagons had Maxim guns and boxes of ammunition. They're going to Johannesburg to aid the Uitlanders in an uprising against Kruger's Boer Government.”

Evy caught her breath. So it had happened! “But Rogan went straight to Pall Mall in London when you wired him the secret. That was months ago. Do you mean to tell me the British government hasn't done anything to stop this?”

“They sent—Anthony.”

“Yes,” Evy said with a wave of her hand, “but my father—” She stopped short, and her eyes searched Arcilla's. The look she read on Arcilla's face alerted her at once. Evy slowly stood, staring down at her.

“You're not saying Anthony was murdered because he'd come to stop the raid into the Transvaal?” she gasped.

Arcilla reached over, grabbed Evy's hand, and pulled her back down to the chair.

“It was part of it, yes, but not all. Peter knows. So does Rogan.”

“Rogan? Rogan's told me nothing about it.”

“He was afraid to upset you …”

“How do you know Rogan thinks this?”

“He talked with Peter and Captain Retford before he left for Great Zimbabwe.”

And she had known almost nothing about this!

Evy listened as Arcilla told her all that had happened, beginning with Anthony's arrival, Julien's disagreement with him over a certain
incriminating letter from a George Trotter of Cape Mining Fields, and how within hours of Anthony's death his bungalow had been searched. Evy was speechless when Arcilla whispered of the scrap of paper she'd salvaged from Julien's flame.

“Where is Sir Julien now?”

“He left quietly early this morning. Darinda went along; so did Captain Retford. Even Harry Whipple is riding with Julien. There are only a few of us here,” Arcilla said nervously. “Peter and a handful of Company police.”

“But where did Julien go, to Johannesburg as well?”

“You mean you don't know?” Arcilla cried. “They're going to the Matopos to search for the Black Diamond. Rogan, Captain Retford, and even Derwent are waiting there to join Julien and his troop. They're going to look for that cursed Black Diamond. Oh! I wish I'd never heard of that thing.”

Evy stared at her. So that was why Rogan had not returned. He had told her two weeks at Zimbabwe, then home to Bulawayo, when all along he'd known he would join up with Sir Julien at the base of the Matopos Hills to search for Lobengula's burial cave. So—he, too, knew how to keep a secret from her!

“Dr. Jameson doesn't know what Julien is going to do,” Arcilla went on. “He was against the Matopos expedition. Peter says Julien deliberately waited to start his expedition until after Jameson left for Johannesburg.”

“Are you telling me all the Company police and soldiers have left Bulawayo?” Evy whispered, trying to keep her heart from pounding.

“Not all. Peter has a few men.”

A few
.

“What insanity is this?” Evy stood quickly. “After Anthony's been murdered, and that Major Willet brutally attacked near the Matopos—they all rode out and—and left us?”

“Ohhh—” Arcilla placed her palms alongside her temples and bowed her head.

Quickly Evy altered her manner. “Oh, well. Everything will be all right, or they wouldn't have left.”

“Peter says not to worry.”

“Yes, of course not. And he's perfectly right to tell us that.”

“Yes, quite.”

Evy sank slowly to the chair and folded her hands tightly. “And of course Rogan knows that Dr. Jameson rode out with all the armed men?”

Arcilla looked up. “No. Peter says he doubts if Julien would mention that.”

“No, he wouldn't,” Evy said in a cold voice, “because he knows Rogan and Derwent would most likely turn around and come back.”

The door opened, and Evy and Arcilla stood at the same time and looked across the room.

Peter entered, looking strained and preoccupied. He shut the door and stood there for a moment, as though he did not even see them. He was staring at the floor, deep in thought.

“Peter? Is … everything all right?” Arcilla asked.

He seemed to pay heed that they were there for the first time. “Dr. Jakob is down in the common room, Evy. There's no one to hold the Company meeting today as planned, so he's ready to return to the mission.”