The Serpent's Shadow em-2 Read online

  She's not a whore—or not just a whore. She's a pickpocket, I think, Maya decided, sizing up her patient. She'd been expecting someone on the wrong side of the law to turn up sooner or later, but to have it be a female was beyond her hopes or expectations. This was going to present an excellent opportunity for a number of possibilities.

  Maya remained standing. "The trouble is not your cough, I think," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and regarding the girl, who looked ready to bolt at any moment. "A good ruse to get past Gupta, but I believe you've come for another reason entirely."

  The thief's eyes widened with surprise, then she shook her head. "Oi 'eard—ye know ways."

  "Ways?" Maya thought she knew what the girl meant, but intended to find out for certain.

  "Ways—not t' 'ave babies." The girl shuffled her feet and looked at the tips of her worn, cracked boots, then looked up at Maya defiantly. "Oi 'card from someun' at th' Odeon."

  Maya nodded. "I do. Some are more certain than others. Some will cost you money, not for me, but for what you need to prevent a baby. So, that's what you want, then? Can you read?"

  Again the girl nodded, almost defiantly. "Oi kin read, but wot's that got t' do wi' it?"

  "Because I'm going to give you one of each of these." Maya went to the cupboard, and being careful to block what she was doing from the girl, opened a concealed panel and took out a pair of small, printed booklets from a stack of several like them. Possession of these booklets, which had been judged "obscene and pornographic" by men who should have been ashamed of themselves for making such a judgment, could have gotten her in a world of trouble. Distributing them, even more so.

  Even though any man can walk into his club with a copy of The Lustful Turk or Fanny Hill under his arm and no one would so much as blink an eye, she thought resentfully. And he can show his Japanese pillow book or illustrated Kama Sutra to select friends over brandy and cigars and be congratulated on his acquisition and refined tastes. But Anna Besant's The Law of Population and Dr. Allison's Book for Married Women are obscene, and cannot be permitted.

  Of course, as a lady, she wasn't supposed to know about those erotic books the men so enjoyed at their liberty at all, much less the titles of them. She certainly wasn't supposed to know about the two "bibles" of contraception. Nor are their wives and sisters, and oh, the storm in the parlor if they ever learned how many copies are locked up in dressing-table drawers!

  "Here," she said, handing the girl the pamphlets; the patient looked at it dubiously, since the title of the first one, concerning itself with population, didn't seem to have anything to do with "not having babies."

  "This will refresh your memory after you've left the office," Maya promised her. "There is so much information in these little books that no one could remember it all after one hearing. Now, this is basically what's in those pages."

  She spent the next half hour giving the girl a detailed lecture on all of the varieties of conception prevention outlined in the famous "obscene" pamphlets, plus a couple more she herself knew about from India. At first, the girl seemed taken aback by her brutal frankness and uncompromising language, but she soon got over her shock. A time or two she shook her head as though objecting to what Maya told her—something Maya wasn't particularly surprised at, since some of the means she had described were probably out of the girl's hands or beyond her pocketbook. Unlikely that she would get the cooperation of her partner, for instance.

  But when she finished, just as the clock struck ten, the girl looked satisfied, but still wary. "Wot's the proice?" she asked bluntly.

  "There're two parts to the bargain. The first is to share what you've learned," Maya replied, just as bluntly. "Share it with the other girls working the streets, whether they're your friends or just the girlfriends of your man's friends. Share it with any other woman that will listen to you, washerwomen, seamstresses, factory girls—anyone. That, or tell them they can learn the same things here or at the Fleet Street Clinic, either from me, or from a lady named Amelia Drew."

  "A' roight," the girl said. "Wot's the rest?"

  "Pass the word that this place isn't to be robbed." Maya smiled thinly at the girl's start of surprise. "Don't think for a moment that I didn't know that was part of the reason you came here. Tell your friends that it's no use. My father was in the Army; I have a pistol. He taught me how to shoot it as soon as I could hold it. I've killed a tiger and dozens of cobras. It would be no challenge to shoot a thief. What's more, I'll make a point to shoot out the legs of any intruder, then call the police to deal with them."

  The girl's eyes kept widening. This was clearly not what she had expected.

  "If I don't happen to be here, I have two men-servants with me here who used to be Gurkhas, and they have no compunction about slitting English throats." A lie on both counts, but one Indian looked like another to most Englishmen, and the Gurkhas had a fearsome reputation that reached even the illiterate and impoverished. Maya took a step nearer, towering over the girl. "In fact, I think they might enjoy it. Now, is that a fair bargain for what you've gotten tonight?"

  She stuck out her hand. The girl looked at it dubiously, swallowed hard, then rubbed her own grubby palm over the equally grubby fabric of her dress and shook it solemnly. "Yes'm," she said slowly. "Cor, but yer a 'ard 'un!"

  "I had to be; I still have to be," Maya replied, preferring that the girl use her own imagination to figure how Maya got to be so "hard."

  "Reckon there's a chance Oi'll get some kicks an' curses from me man an' his mates, but fair's fair," the girl continued, then shivered. "There's stories about them Tndoo 'eathen, an' once they settle, 'spect they'll see it moi way. How'd ye know Oi was on the ket-chin' lay?"

  "Silk kerchief," Maya said, and got a wince in return. "One more thing. This isn't a charity clinic, and I don't have to answer to anyone in a dog collar for what I do. I don't ask if people are deserving before I treat them."

  The girl flashed her a conspiratorial look. " 'Appen some'un shows up on the step some noight?" she suggested coyly.

  "Any woman, but only men who are sick, not drunk," Maya said adamantly. "If they're wounded, I'll see them only if it's something that won't involve the police. If I lose my licenses, I can't help anyone. It's my clinic, and I can make the rules here."

  The girl took the words philosophically. " 'Appen we're nearer the Fleet, anyroad, an' they ain't too curious there," she replied, and stood up, the pamphlets vanishing somewhere inside her shawls. Maya noticed that her cough had vanished, too. It had probably been part of her habitual disguise, intended to garner sympathy while at the same time discouraging too close contact. "Thenkee," she said, as Maya opened the outer door for her. "Oi'll keep my side uv this." Maya saw her out, then closed and locked the front door for the night, leaning her back against it as she exhaled a sigh. Well! From Amelia to a cutpurse, I've had quite an assortment tonight.

  There might still be calls tonight, but those would be emergencies; at this point she was probably free for the evening. With an effort, she pushed her hands against the door and levered herself up. The garden would be the best place to settle her mind before she went on her nightly round before bed.

  Charan might have been waiting for her to appear, and Sia and Singhe as well; they all ran to her, Charan springing up onto her shoulder and the mongooses winding around her ankles until she settled into her favorite chair. Sia and Singhe coiled around her feet, pinning her to the spot, while Charan dropped down off her shoulder into her lap, chittering up into her face.

  "You don't say?" she responded indulgently, as if she were having a conversation with the little monkey. "Well, I'm glad you approve of my handling of the situation."

  Charan shoved his head under her hand to be scratched. Obedient to his wishes, she obliged him. He was the most fastidious monkey she had ever seen; most of his tribe were filthy little wretches, but Charan was cleanly to a fault, bathing every day in the pool, and depositing his droppings in the same box of sand th
at the mongooses used. She had never seen so much as a single flea on any of them, which was nothing short of astonishing.

  What were you to Mother? she wondered, not for the first time. You were more than mere pets, that much I know, but what? Charan looked up at her as if hearing her thoughts, and chittered softly.

  She gathered him closely, like a child, and he nestled into her arms. Surya had had so many secrets, but surely she could have divulged this one.

  Maya stared into the shadows, compulsively searching for a slim, slithering one, a shadow that slipped from shade to shade. Blood of your blood, Mother. Why couldn't you have trusted me? I might have been able to protect Father, if only you had trusted me. . . .

  Two hot tears ran down her cheeks, and dropped into Charan's fur.

  But perhaps not. Maybe everyone was right, that her father had been so distraught by her mother's death that he had been careless.

  Maybe he wanted to die. That was something she hadn't wanted to consider, but it was an inescapable thought. And an uncomfortable one—not just that he had wanted to die, but that he had not loved her, his own daughter, enough to live.

  Bitter, bitter—too bitter to contemplate for long. And not like the brave, stubborn man she had known all her life.

  And I—I am just as stubborn as both of them put together. He left the family to me, as she left her pets, and I swear I will protect them both.

  And with that determined thought, she set her chin, disentangled herself from mongooses and monkey, and went on her nightly rounds to bolster those protections that, she hoped, would keep them all safe.

  THE Thames flowed sluggishly between the tides, making scarcely a sound against the jetties. Errant reflections from lanterns on the prows of scavenger boats out searching for treasure among the floating garbage showed that one quasilegal form of trade was active on the river tonight, and the curses of mud larks along the bank as they slipped and slid in noisome detritus left by the tide at least gave some sign of life near at hand. Peter Scott shivered and pulled his collar closer around his neck, then bound his muffler just a bit more snugly. Oily water lapped at the piers beneath the Thames-side dock beneath his boots, and a hint of damp in the air promised fog before morning. Peter Scott felt it in his knee, and looked forward to getting home to his cozy flat, his sea-coal fire, and the hot supper his landlady and housekeeper would have waiting for him.

  Before he could do that, however, he still had to check the inventory of goods just arrived at the warehouse against the bill of lading. He could have left it to a clerk, but he hadn't gotten this far in his infant importation business by leaving critical things to a clerk, who had no personal stake in making certain everything was right and tight.

  It was Egypt that was all the rage for decorations now, where it had been India when he'd first made his transition from ship's captain to tradesman. Egyptian gewgaws, thanks to old Petrie and Harold Carter; that was where the trade was, though Peter didn't import the real thing—real grave goods, or statues, or carvings, much less mummies.

  No magician would, not if he wanted to stay sane. God help me, I can't even imagine what one of those blasted mummy-unwrapping parties must be like. Hate and resentment thick as a pea souper, and only the ancient gods know what curses are lurking in those wrappings along with the dust and the amulets. It's a wonder every guest at one of those cursed affairs doesn't get run over by a lorry, after.

  But there were artists over there in Cairo and farther up the Nile that made a handsome living faking artifacts. Peter didn't sell what he bought as the genuine article; he sold it as better than genuine. His shop held some gorgeous work, he'd give those old fakers that much, and it sold and it sold, even if it didn't quite command the price of the real thing. Striking stuff. He was happy enough with it to have a few of the finer pieces displayed in the odd corners of his own flat.

  His advertisements in the Times every Sunday brought in the scores of middle-class ladies anxious to ape their betters by having a bit of old Egypt in the parlor. "The masterpieces of artists who count the Pharaohs in their ancestry"—"Perfect in every detail, just as the mighty Ramses would have cherished"— "Each piece requiring months of painstaking labor, made of the finest materials, perfect in every detail"— it was the business of the salesman to sell the sizzle, not the steak, and Peter thought himself a dab hand at making the sizzle as good as the cut it came from.

  Besides, these fellows probably do have the blood of the Pharaohs somewhere in their past, the pieces are exactly what the grave goods looked like when they were new, and if it didn't take my men months to produce 'em, at least they put their hearts into it. He had a grudging liking for the counterfeiters, and a genuine respect for the perfection of their copies.

  Peter had gotten the help of a couple of good Egyptologists to help him track down some of the best of the counterfeiters, and hired the ones whose hearts were breaking because they had to deface or discolor their handiwork to make it look genuine. They were happy, he was happy, and what was more, the people who were buying his stuff were happier, on the whole, than those who bought what they thought was genuine.

  Because the poor idiots buying what they think is the real thing can't ever be sure it is genuine, not when they're paying cheap prices for it. For that matter, they can't be sure when they've paid a small fortune for it. He had even, once or twice, had an ermine-wrapped social lion come slipping in on the sly, having gotten the chills from some of the real stuff, and not wanting it about the house. Borderline sensitive, they were, and he was all sympathy with 'em, poor things. They had to have something to stay current with fashion, but couldn't bear the presence of anything tomb-touched.

  And I have the solution right there in my display room. They would choose one piece or several, and he would give them what they needed to make it look genuine. He'd make a couple of inconsequential chips in places, write up as nice a forged article of "genuine provenance" as ever you saw, charge the client the same price as for one of his fakes, and promise not to breathe a word to anyone about it. What harm was there in that? The lady's status-climbing spouse would be happy he had something to show to the lads in the curio cabinet, and she wouldn't be getting so many nightmares she'd be taking to the laudanum every night.

  He was toying with the notion of having his men try their hands at making articles of modern use in the ancient fashion. Umbrella stands, perhaps? Writing-desk accessories? Articles for a lady's dressing table? That might be exactly the right direction to go in; a lady would never use an artifact on her dressing table when she never knew what it originally contained, but she could surround herself with alabaster hair receivers, faience cologne bottles, carved unguent jars and powder boxes from his works, happy in the knowledge that she was the first and only user, with no long-dead Egyptian princess coming to stare back at her with long, slanted eyes in her vanity mirror.

  As he lifted vases and ushabtis from their packing crates, he marveled, as he always did, at the craftsmanship. These men took real pride in their work, and it showed. The alabaster of a replica oil lamp glowed in the light from his lantern, so thin was the stone of the lotus blossoms on their curving stems. And the tender expression on a goddess meant to protect one corner of a sarcophagus brought an answering smile to his lips; a sad smile, for he knew what the original had looked like, and who it had been for—and that all four of the sheltering goddesses had borne the lovely face of the dead Pharaoh's grief-stricken wife.

  Oh, poor little Anksenamun, no more than a girl, and not only weighed down with grief but in fear for your own life. Wonder whatever became of you? Did you just fade away in mourning? Did you fly to safety somewhere? Or did you die at the hands of ambition and greed? Well, you died, sooner or later, a thousand years and more ago. May your gods keep you and your Tut together forever.

  Beautiful. And all of it free from the taint of the tomb, of the faint miasma of the rage of an impotent former owner. He often wondered how anyone could bear to have genuine artifacts
anywhere near where they lived and slept.

  I certainly couldn't. I'd wake up with terrors three times a night.

  The scent of Egypt and warmth came up from the excelsior along with the artworks: dust and heat; incense mingled with dung; a hint of lotus. By the time he finished with his inventory, for once finding nothing missing, broken, used as a container to smuggle opium or hashish, or otherwise amiss, he was tired and the ache in his knee gnawed at the edges of his temper. He was glad enough to replace the last figure in its bed of excelsior and close the lid on the packing case. A cozy coal fire was sounding better by the moment.

  Roast beef and 'taters, and good mushy peas. That's what will get me warmed inside and out. Bit of trifle, or pudding, or maybe treacle tart.

  "Night, Cap'n," the night watchman saluted from his stool beside the door, as Peter left the warehouse. Peter hadn't been "Captain" Scott for a good six years and more, but the grizzled and weather-beaten night watchman had been one of his old hands, and habits died hard.