Well, thank you, Angelo. Good to know both those particular misdirections were believed, at least at your level.
“What’s even more laughable is your calling the tune for the royals, making them think you and they were people to be listened to!” He laid a hand against his hairy chest. “Do you think they might have allowed me such access without you laying that foundation? Do you?”
Gervais was shaking his head.
“So look me in the eye, Gervais, and tell me again who fooled who!”
Gervais refused to meet his old companion’s gaze, looking instead at his hands. His face was red with suppressed anger and no little sadness.
“When?” he hissed, still looking at his hands.
“When what?”
“When did you decide to play the other side?” Gervais snarled, stepping close to the other man. Bertram admired how the older man used the distraction of his movement and harsh words to retrieve the cosh from his belt.
Angelo snorted. “I never stopped playing the odds just because you showed up, Gervais. It’s the only way to prosper in our line of work.”
“So you’re the one gave Aurangzeb copies of the papers from Grantville?”
“No, I gave those to Nur. Hard work, too. Translating English is not easy.”
“So she’s the one who placed you at Aurangzeb’s service?”
Angelo shrugged, perhaps belatedly realizing how much he’d admitted, and to whom.
“Thank you,” Gervais said.
“What?”
Gervais’ answer surprised both Angelo and Bertram: He swung the cosh overhand at the Venetian’s head. Angelo’s attempt to pull away resulted in the shot-filled sack striking where the neck met the shoulder.
Angelo groaned and stumbled backward.
Gervais followed, swinging again, but the traitor managed to interpose a hand between skull and descending blow. He yelped as the cosh broke what sounded like a few fingers.
Turning to flee, he tripped on another cushion, tangled in a hanging, and staggered a few steps before getting his feet under him.
Worried the man might try and leap from the balcony, Bertram kicked a cushion out of the way and followed.
Gervais raised the cosh again, but Angelo punched him in the face with the arm that wasn’t numbed from Gervais’ blow. Off-balance as he was, the Venetian’s punch didn’t do much more than slow the Frenchman.
Retreating still, Angelo snatched up a dagger from a table before heaving it over in front of his pursuers.
Undaunted, Bertram lowered his head and charged. His headlong rush caught the older man around the waist. He tried to throw Angelo from his feet but one boot slipped, either on the brass plate that had served as the tabletop or one of the carpets, he wasn’t sure.
Angelo stabbed down at Bertram with the dagger, hitting him above the kidneys, hard. Thinking himself already done for, and determined that Angelo wouldn’t hurt his friend, Bertram heaved and pushed for all he was worth. The pair staggered, swayed, and stumbled out onto the balcony.
Bertram shoved, managed to make enough space to grab the wrist holding the dagger and pin it to the stone balustrade.
Gervais was there again, sweeping the cosh sidearm just inches from Bertram’s sweating brow. It crashed into Angelo’s temple and knocked him sideways, senseless.
Right over the balcony railing.
Angelo’s wrist slid through Bertram’s sweaty hand. Bertram clamped down, trying to save the man from the fall, but only succeeded in grasping the dagger.
Angelo Gradinego, thief, doctor, swindler and spy, fell to a final, hard stop on the flagstones two stories below.
In the shocked silence that followed, Bertram looked down at the hand that had failed to save Angelo and realized the Venetian hadn’t had time to unsheathe the dagger he’d been stabbing with.
“God, but I thought I’d been killed,” he panted.
“You’ll be all right. Bruised, probably, but no worse.”
With a gasp that sounded—even to his own ears—suspiciously like a sob, Bertram nodded. “And you?”
“I’ll be all right,” Gervais said, turning from the balcony. He gave a very Gallic shrug and added, tears forming in his eyes, “It’s just that…I already miss him…Or rather, the memory. I didn’t really want him dead. Not really.”
Bertram let that sit a moment before offering, “Better this than trampled by elephants, which is how the emperor would have dealt with him.”
“Perhaps,” Gervais said. Clapping the younger man on the shoulder, he smiled wanly. “Let’s get someone to clean this up and make our report, then I want to get stinking drunk.”
Chapter 39
River crossing to the west of Kanpur
“What river is this again?” Bobby asked, trailing one hand in the water over the side of the barge. He didn’t seem to recall having asked the question not twenty minutes ago.
“The Ganges again, I think,” Ricky said absently, drawn from his examination of the far shore and the men and horses reuniting there by the repetition. He glanced at Bobby, worried. His oldest friend’s face was flushed and sweaty, despite the relatively cool air of the early morning. For two days now Bobby hadn’t quite been himself. Ricky didn’t think it was malaria, but then again he wasn’t any kind of doctor.
“Where the…” he said, looking for Jadu Das on the barge behind them. One good thing about river crossings was that Jadu Das made certain that his goods were loaded and unloaded according to his specifications and desires, and could usually be found easily enough. The merchant had been distant since Shaista Khan started his army on the trek west, often spending all day in Asaf Khan’s tent only to return quite late at night, so it was a relief to know the older man was near at hand. Ricky just hoped he knew some kind of remedy for whatever had Bobby feeling poorly. One of his friends had already died here, and he didn’t want to lose another.
It was two hours or so before they were
