Offer what? Good lord, how am I to put this without offending her or making her think I’m a madman and having that heathen warrior of hers throw me out on the street?
Well, deciding how to put his “offer” to her ought to keep his brain spinning for the rest of the afternoon, at least. And perhaps by the time he’d managed that, he would also be able to figure out how to make it clear—in the most polite of fashions—that teaching her magic wasn’t the only thing he had in mind in seeking her company.
Oh, what fools we mortals be! he thought, alighting at his own shop. What fools, indeed.
Nevertheless—he happened to have a new stock of incense just in, and a handsome statue of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Indian god reputed to be the remover of all obstacles. So—and only because the customers liked the hint of sandalwood in the air when they came to examine his wares—and only because there was a fine receptacle for such offerings at the foot of the statue—Lord Ganesh’s serpentine trunk breathed in the airs of sacrifice that afternoon, while Peter helped ladies with more money than taste select “exotica” for their parlors.
After all… sometimes even unfamiliar magic worked, East and West could meet in harmony, and there was never any harm in asking someone for a bit of a favor.
Chapter Six
MAYA paused for a moment beside the statue of elephant-headed Ganesh that stood beside the waterfall in her conservatory pool. The statue had been there from the time the pond and waterfall had been built, and blended into the rocks surrounding it so well that she hardly noticed the handsome little idol was there most of the time. There was a box of incense sticks and another of lucifer matches on a ledge nearby, out of reach of the damp—Gupta was particularly attached to Ganesh, and he often lit incense as an offering here. But this afternoon it was Maya who felt an unaccountable urge to make an offering.
Oh, well, God’s commandment is “Thou shall have no other gods BEFORE Me.” That doesn’t exclude getting a little help from a lesser power, now, does it? And since I don’t happen to have a statue of Saint Jude around to patronize my hopeless cause, I believe the Remover of Obstacles will do.
With a chuckle at her own mendacity, she lit a lucifer and set flame to the tips of several incense sticks, placing them in the holder beside Gupta’s previous offering. Just what obstacles she wanted removed from her path at the moment, she couldn’t have stated clearly—just that she would very much like to see more of that charming Peter Scott…
Just then, the parrot flew down to her shoulder, nibbled her ear, and murmured a clear, “I love you.” It was in Hindu, of course, but she was reminded of the custom of the young men of India to teach their parrots seductive phrases before giving the birds to the maidens they were courting. That, in fact, was probably why her mother Surya, always fond of a clever joke, had sometimes called him “Kama”—a word and a god that encompassed every aspect of love.
“You may love me, my sweet, but it’s cupboard love,” she told him fondly. Nevertheless, she found one of the little sunflower seeds he craved in the recesses of her skirt pocket, and gave it to him. He took it, and flew off with a chortle.
Dusting off her hands, she squared her shoulders, and sternly told herself to forget daydreaming about sailors for the rest of the day. She had work to do; this was her afternoon at the Fleet, and, as always, the place would be a bedlam.
With an eye to more than the weather, she took her umbrella, a stout article that served double duty as a weapon, with its sharpened ferrule and sturdy ribs, twice as strong as any other she’d ever seen. Then, umbrella in her right hand and medical bag in her left, she began the walk to the Fleet Charity Clinic—for there were very few cabs that could ever be persuaded to go where the clinic lay.
At least, not during the daytime. Neither she nor Amelia had to pass through the hell that was their neighborhood at night, for they had a guardian angel in the form of Tom Larkin. Like so many of the working class, he had little to spare in the form of ready money to cope with an emergency—and like so many, he rightfully distrusted the doctors and the care he’d get at a hospital. Too often, those who entered the charity wards became the subject of either careless mishandling, callous disregard, or reckless experimentation. Sometimes, even all three.
So after fourteen agonizing hours of labor, when his wife was spent and exhausted and still no closer to giving birth than when labor had begun, he’d had to seek other help. At the urging of the Fleet-trained midwife and frantic with fear, he’d brought his wife to the Fleet, in his own cab. He’d all but killed his poor horse, getting her there.
Well that he had. By sheerest good luck, both Maya and Amelia were on duty. They’d had no choice but to perform the dangerous Caesarian operation.
Though why the Caesarian should be considered so dangerous, when ovectomies to “calm hysteria” were considered no great hazard, was beyond Maya’s understanding. The death rate was nearly equal for either operation—well over half the patients died. Infection was the greatest killer, with blood loss running a close second.
But that was without Amelia’s carbolic spray, or Maya’s own—unique—talents.
Mother and child lived—and cab driver Tom Larkin had vowed that while he or his new son lived, breathed, and drove a cab, neither Amelia nor Maya would ever have to brave the dark to walk home at the end of a day at the Fleet. He turned up, every night at closing time, to see if either woman was there that day, taking them safely through every possible hazard and escorting them right to their own doorways.
Which was just as well, all things considered. Too many times, pre-Larkin, Maya had been forced to defend herself with her umbrella and Amelia with a string “miser’s purse” that contained, not money, but a lump of lead. It wasn’t so much the inhabitants of the neighborhood that were the problem, it was the “visitors,” men drunk and looking for a whore, any whore, and knowing that the women of these streets could be had for less than a shilling. They tended to assume that any woman out on the street after dark was a whore, and that the only difference between a woman who rebuffed their offer and one who took it was the small matter of price.
“Mis’rble day, eh, Miz Maya?” The salute came from the pavement at her feet as she strode past, and she grinned down at the filthy face looking up at her.
“It would be less miserable if you hadn’t a hangover, Bob,” she replied, stepping over his sprawling legs, then making a skip to the side to avoid a puddle of liquid best left unidentified.
He only laughed. He was a day laborer, when he could find work, and when he couldn’t, he drank up every cent he made or could borrow. He had no family, claimed he didn’t want one, and as Maya knew only too well, was dying of tuberculosis. There was no cure for him, and he knew it, and so did she. Not even her healing talents could save him; she could prolong his life, but he didn’t want her to. He had once, in a bout of drunken confession, told her that he hoped one day that his bottle of “blue ruin” would be out of a bad lot that would poison him and kill him quicker. That he wouldn’t take his own life but courted an “accident” on a daily basis was a contradiction she never tried to resolve. Instead, on the rare occasions she could coax him into the Fleet, she did what she could to ease his pain and his breathing—and no more. It was her duty to fight death—but not when her patient pursued it, and had good reason to welcome its all-enfolding wings.
She dodged peddlers and pickpockets, pimps and prostitutes, human refuse and the refuse humans left behind, and was mostly greeted with the same ironic cheer that Bob had used with her. She was respected here, and if not beloved, was certainly welcome. She, unlike other charity doctors, made no demands that her patients “act like good Christians” or be one of the “worthy poor”—whatever that was supposed to mean. She dispensed medicine, sound advice, compassion, and some well-earned tongue-lashings in equal measure, and the people who came to her for help understood and respected that.