“Ah—” For a moment, Jenner was quite speechless, and it was Amelia who spoke up a bit sharply.
“Just where would this be, my lord?” she asked.
“The Almsley estate for now; Heartwood House. Between here and Oxford—just past Hatfield,” Almsley replied, looking not at all surprised that it was Amelia who had posed the question. “Newport Pagnell, to be precise. A journey, but not a very long one, as rail journeys go; it wouldn’t be a bad thing, I think, to get Master Jenner out of physical reach of Simon Parkening for a bit. In fact, when the time comes, if you would be willing to accompany him there as a sort of private physician and see him settled, I’d be obliged to you.”
“Would you be wanting me to personally deal with some of the more outré matters that might involve you, my lord?” Jenner said at last, looking distinctly uneasy again. “Because—well, I’d really rather not. I’m not certain I’ve got the stomach for it.”
“Nor do I blame you!” Almsley responded, as a trick of the light and the way he held his head made his hair shine, creating a kind of halo about it for a moment. “Jenner, I can’t promise you that you wouldn’t ever be called in to help me with such things, because that would be a lie. I’m not much good at foretelling the future, don’t you know. I’d as soon tell you that sort of thing didn’t happen, I really would, but it’s a kind of nasty little war that Scott and I are engaged in, and war is no respecter of persons or promises.”
Jenner nodded solemnly.
“So I shan’t make a promise that I might have to break,” Almsley continued, “But I can promise that if such a need should arise, I wouldn’t spring it on you as a surprise, and you’d have at least one chance to tell me to take myself and my interests somewhere a great deal hotter than here!”
Jenner actually laughed weakly at that, much to Maya’s relief. “In that case, Lord Peter, I would be honored to serve you,” he said, holding out his hand, which Almsley shook firmly.
Maya let out the breath she had been holding in; two problems off her hands at once—three, if you counted Lord Peter’s promise of support for the clinic. The whole atmosphere seemed to lighten, even though nothing had outwardly changed. Then Paul Jenner sagged a little, and Amelia moved into the circle of light cast by the shaded lamp.
“Lord Peter, Mr. Scott, if you are finished, P—my patient needs his rest,” she said firmly. And neither Maya nor the other two missed how she’d almost called Jenner by his Christian name, nor how her fingers had reached for his, and his for hers, for just a moment.
“I quite agree,” Lord Peter said, standing. “I’m sure we’ve fatigued him no end, and he could probably do with something to help him rest. We’ll take our leave, Jenner—but I’ll be checking on your progress, and the moment you’re fit to take a rail journey, we’ll get that organized and you can take up your position.”
“Thank you again, Lord Peter,” the injured man replied feelingly, before Amelia shooed them all out of the alcove. She busied herself with “her patient” as Maya beckoned them aside into the clinic’s tiny office.
“Protections?” she whispered, in order not to wake sleeping patients or excite the curiosity of the night staff.
The two Peters nodded, oddly in unison, as if they were twins. “That was next,” Peter Scott said. “Maya, could you help us with this? There isn’t a great deal of water around here for us to draw on—would you be willing to supply us with the energy?”
She made a face; the Fleet was hardly a “cleansed” place, but she nodded anyway.
“It will be easier than you think,” Scott said by way of encouragement, as Lord Peter straightened his back and braced his feet a little apart, closing his eyes as he did so, and tilting his head back a trifle. “You’ve been working here for some time, and you’ll have actually done some cleansing without realizing it.”
Maya closed her own eyes for a moment to orient herself, and “saw” that Peter Scott was right; in the immediate area of the Fleet Clinic the general “feeling” of the earth was nothing like as polluted as it was outside the walls. Encouraged, she plunged her spirit deep into the earth beneath the Fleet and pulled up strength from the enormous source she found there. Then, as if she poured what she found into a waiting vessel, she passed that energy to her two companions, who received it and transmuted it instantly.
It didn’t take very long; the Peters worked with a unity she could only marvel at and envy, and in the time between one breath and the next, there was a shell of power standing between the Fleet and the rest of the world, a shining barrier of protection that swirled with opalescent color and light. When they no longer needed her, Maya relinquished her hold on the Earth Magic she’d called, and opened her eyes on the real world.
Almsley opened his eyes, grinned, then settled his collar and cuffs quite as if he did this sort of thing every day, as Peter Scott ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that betrayed his nerves.
“That was a good day’s work, I think,” Almsley said cheerfully. “Now, is there any chance of a cab out here at this time of night, or must I see if my abilities to defend myself against footpads are up to the task?”
He looked so absurdly eager, as if he actually hoped for a chance to try his self-defense skills against the thieves and drunks outside, that Maya had to stifle a laugh behind her hands.
“Sorry to disappoint you, my lord,” she replied, with mock regret that made his eyes gleam at her friendly insolence. “But I’ll have to deny you that pleasure. I do believe I hear my friend’s hansom pulling up outside.”
“Ah, well, in that case I shall kidnap my twin and bid you adieu, then send him back for you and the other young lady. Come along, Scott,” he added imperiously. “We have a report to make to the Old Man.” What Old Man? she wondered, but didn’t have a chance to ask. Peter only had a moment to press her hand and whisper, “May I come by tomorrow?” and accept her nod before Almsley whisked him off into the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
SHIVANI sat comfortably in lotus position on her tiny cushioned “throne,” as the Englishman she had recently annexed to her service stood before her. He shifted his weight from foot to foot uneasily, but made no move to seat himself before her, and thus put her head above his. He was so careful of his position, this sahib, and yet did he but know it, he might as well be in chains before her; he had forged them himself, of greed, desire, and ambition. This “Simon Parkening” could be very useful to her. She had learned much more about him since he had last brought her the list of names and addresses she had commanded. These had been culled from among the employees in the firms where he worked, and were all denoted men who had served in the Raj and thus were her enemies, and the enemies of her land. Those who would not be immediately missed had been marked out. Her thugee would seek them some dark night, and more enemies of India would fall, quietly, unregarded. She had learned he could be even more useful to her. It transpired that his uncle was the head of a great hospital in London. This place could be the source of information on more enemies. Many retired soldiers and civil servants from the Colonies and Protectorates passed through the portals of his uncle’s hospital for treatment of various tropical ailments they had contracted over the course of their careers. He was in a position to find out addresses and other details; he was also in a position to spirit some of them away and into Shivani’s possession, were he inclined to cooperate.
Soon or late, he would cooperate.
“I trust that the Goddess has made all smooth for you with your uncle, as I promised?” she asked—knowing that of course She had. Or rather, Shivani had. The mere altering of a memory or two in the unguarded mind of a fat, foolish sahib was nothing, and never mind that he was supposedly an all-wise doctor. A spell, a word of power, a whisper on the wind, the clue of a strand of hair, and the Serpent slid into the old man’s mind and swallowed a few memories of an unpleasant altercation over a vanished patient.