The Serpent's Shadow

rakshasha. I believe the tale. The temple to which she took herself was not of good repute.'

'That would,' Maya murmured, half to herself, 'explain the krait.'

Gupta nodded. The cobra was holy; given the number of prayers that went up daily in praise of Sahib Witherspoon and in gratitude for what he did among the sick, it would have been unlikely for the sorceress to dare to attempt to use the cobra as her unholy weapon. The krait, however, was another story entirely.

And if she had anything to do with the serpent demons, the rakshasha, any serpent she sent might not even be an ordinary snake. Maya looked into Gupta's eyes, and saw not only fear there, but trust and confidence. It was that which made her shake off the paralysis of her own sudden fears.

'You will no longer go to the bazaar, old friend,' she said decisively. 'You may be recognized; certainly you will be followed.'

Gupta nodded, reluctantly. 'My son—' he began.

She interrupted. 'Nor will you send any of this household. I fear anyone from the homeland will be followed, to see where he goes. If my magics are succeeding, they will have no other way to find us but by looking for those from home. The longer we can elude them the better.' She pondered her options. 'The boy Jack, the eldest son of the woman who sews and mends for us to pay for her sick baby's care? He runs errands; he is quick to learn, and clever. You will show him what it is you need at the market, and send him for it. We can afford to pay him for such a service.'

Gupta's face darkened. 'But he will be cheated,' he protested, unwilling to allow a mere English boy to venture into the treacherous waters of commerce with a fellow countryman of India.

Maya laughed, perhaps with a touch of hysteria, but Gupta's thriftiness was so ingrained that even in the shadow of terrible danger, he worried about being cheated! The absurdity of it countered some of her own fear. 'I think not,' she said, shaking her head. 'I have seen this boy bargain like the sharpest old woman; it is more likely that he will leave the merchants feeling they have been bested! No, you tell him what is a fair price for a thing, and he will get that price, or better.'

Gupta relaxed. 'Then there is no need for any of this household to leave, except for the children to go to school.'

'The children wear English clothing at school; they look no different than any other children,' Maya pointed out. 'There are the Vellechio boys, the Italians, who are darker than they. I do not think that the thugee will haunt every day school in the city on the chance that they might see a child of the homeland. So long as we hide among the English, it will be harder for them to find us.'

'Except that you, who tend the sick at the Fleet—' again Gupta's face darkened.

'I will walk veiled by day, or take the omnibus as near as I may, and Tom brings me home by night,'

she said firmly. 'There are none among the sick that I tend that would betray me, even should the thugee have the English to ask them.'

Gupta sighed. 'That is true. And there are many among your sick who will protect you, walking where I may not—and a thousand eyes and ears, should you ask for them.'

She laughed at his exaggeration. 'Not a thousand, Gupta, but enough. Especially among the children.'

'And who looks at a child? Yet a child sees everything.' Now Gupta smiled, at last. 'I did well to confess to you, mem sahib. You, too, are a warrior, with a warrior's heart. You find weapons to your hand when you need them.'

'And I will not scruple to use any and all of them,' she replied firmly. 'You may be sure that I will begin tonight, and go on tomorrow, sending the warning out amongst my 'eyes and ears.' '

Gupta bowed his head to her, an act of respect that touched her profoundly. 'Then I will leave you to your work, mem sahib,' he said, rising. 'Shall I have my son bring food to you here, or in your office?'

'My office, please,' she replied, though she made no move to rise as he left. She looked around at her circle of pets; all of them watched her closely. They acted as if they had been listening to the entire conversation, and anxiously awaited her reaction.

Pets. I'm not so sure now, that 'pets' are all they are, she thought, noting the look of their eyes, the expressive postures of their bodies. The owl, Nisha, sat side by side with the falcon, their bodies so close that their wings touched. They seldom perched that closely together, but tonight it appeared, to her at least, as if they were telling her that they, too, were warriors in her service, and would stand sentry by night and day. The mongooses sat alertly on either side of her feet, and when she glanced down at them, they looked up. Their faces were easier to read; she had seen that look on them before. The hunt was up, and they would not let another enemy slip past them, having unaccountably failed once before. The neck hackles of Rajah the peacock bristled aggressively; she had seen him kill serpents in India, and his own talons could be formidable; she had the sense that he was not the decorative creature he had feigned to be.