The Temple Dancer (53 page)

The women faced each other, eyes smoldering in the flickering light.

And then they heard the moans.

Around the fire, the men had barely turned their heads from Maya's swaying shadow when they heard a clatter from Victorio's tent. "He's still at it,"
Geraldo joked. "He hasn't realized the nautch girl is gone."

More clatter, more noise, and Da Gama rose to his feet, shoving his pistolas into his belt. "Something's wrong in there."

But before he could do anything more, Victorio, wearing nothing but
his pantaloons, came stumbling through the entrance, clinging to the guy
ropes. "I have to take a piss," he grunted.

"You look like hell." Da Gama moved to help him, but the old man
waved him off.

"Too much wine. Too much woman." He managed a leering wink before grabbing the rope once more for balance. "I just need the bushes, that's
all." He lurched forward, half-stumbling, and then leaned against a tree.
Then a few more stumbling steps, until he crashed into a sentry. "Who the
hell are you?"

The guard helped him to his feet. "I am your guard, sir."

Victorio squinted at him; his eyes were so bleary he could barely see.
"Thank God," he said. "I thought you were Old Nick come to take me
straight to hell." He began to laugh, so hard he fell to his knees. Da Gama
rushed to help him. "Thought he was Old Nick," Victorio told him as if
confiding a secret. "Thought my time was up. Not that I'd mind. I could
die happy. My God, her calha squirmed on my fonte like a fish!" Da Gama
heaved him to his feet, and helped him stumble to the bushes. "By God I
showed her what a real man can do. She'd only had Hindis before, you know. They have little fontes, like this . . ." Victorio held up his pinky,
curled limply, and began to laugh.

The laugh became a cough, a cough so fierce it brought him to his knees,
gasping. Da Gama clapped him on the back, knowing it was useless. Victorio
could scarcely breathe. His eyes began to bulge. The coughing mixed with
heaving. Vomit gushed from his mouth and poured over his chest. A rank
puddle of the stuff formed at his knees. Da Gama tried to lift him, and got
sprayed for his trouble. Vittorio grabbed Da Gama's arms, eyes so wide they
seemed about to burst, face red, neck veins roped and pulsing. Victorio's fingers squeezed Da Gama's arms tighter as his face contorted.

"Oh, God!" Victorio screamed the word, and it trailed into a high
pitched squeal. His torso began to jerk, and he let go of Da Gama's arms to
grab his belly.

Da Gama heard the sound like a tearing, and then smelled the foulness.
Victorio tugged weakly at his pants but wasn't quick enough. His immense
pale belly churned in the dim firelight; Da Gama could see it seething, like
it was filled with eels. Victorio squeezed out more foulness. "Go get help!"
Da Gama cried to the sentry.

"Yes, sir!" The guard turned, and then turned back. "What help, sir?"

"Geraldo, Slipper. Anyone!"

As his belly churned once more, Victorio gave an agonized, rattling
moan. "Don't leave me, Da Gama!" he gasped. Then he moaned again. Da
Gama knelt beside him. "I've been a fool," he whispered, and then howled
in agony. "Da Gama, help me!"

Oddly, Slipper seemed unfazed. When he saw Vittorio, he clucked his
tongue, rolled up his sleeves, and peeled off the old man's filthy pants. "Fetch
water. A big basinful," he ordered the sentry. Victorio writhed naked on the
ground, filling the night with moans, but Slipper knelt and stroked his forehead with a pudgy hand, humming a kind of lullaby. "He's dying," he whispered to Geraldo and Da Gama, but they'd already realized this.

When the water came, he made the farangs lift Victorio, and then
sluiced him down, using his own hands to wash off the filth. Then, with
Slipper's encouragement, they half-carried, half-dragged Victorio to his tent. By the time they set him on the divan, he was nearly empty. He
heaved, and his belly spasmed, but he had nothing more to lose. "Dear
me," Slipper sighed. "I knew I should have brought some opium."

They tried to keep him covered, but between the spasms and his anguished flailing, it was impossible. The sight of that old body squeezed by
death's cold fingers made even Da Gama weep.

It took the old man a long hour to die.

They arranged the body on the divan. Geraldo, looking unusually serious,
closed Victorio's eyes, and drew a blanket over his gray face. They stood
in silence for a moment, and then Slipper snapped his fingers at a sentry.
"Go to my tent and fetch one of my green plates. Now, oaf!" The sentry
looked to Da Gama and Geraldo, but first one shrugged and then the other.
At last the sentry made an uncertain bow and hurried off.

"The nautch girl was too much for him," Geraldo said as if in eulogy.
"Poor fellow. Too much pleasure."

"Don't be absurd," Slipper answered. "It wasn't pleasure that caused
his death."

Da Gama and Geraldo shared a glance. Da Gama suddenly realized
how much the eunuch had changed since he'd first met him. He stood with
his feet apart, arms crossed, staring up at them with grand authority. It was
all Da Gama could do to keep from laughing.

The pewter dinner plates, the wine pitchers, and Victorio's empty
flagon were scattered haphazardly around the floor. Da Gama stooped down and righted a silver pitcher. He looked at the blanket covering Victorio. What happens to us now, he wondered.

At that moment the sentry burst in and handed Slipper a pale green plate.

Taking it, Slipper hurried around the tent, picking up spilled pieces of
mutton, laying them on the plate. Though he seemed completely sure of
himself, Da Gama had no idea what he was up to. Slipper shook a few
drops of wine from the nearly empty pitchers on the plate as well. "Look,"
he said, holding the plate close to a lamp.

A violet stain had formed on the surface. "Wine," Geraldo said. "The
wine has stained the glaze."

Slipper glared at him, and then tilted the plate so its contents slid to
the tent floor. Again he held the plate so they could see.

The pale green glaze was streaked-everywhere the food had been, the
plate was stained. "This is Chinese celadon. The sultan uses it for his meals.
Its property of darkening when touched by poison is well known. It even
breaks in two if the poison is very strong."

Da Gama took the plate. "Someone poisoned Victorio?" he said, working it out.

"Deoga, yes. Someone poisoned Master Victorio's food and wine."

"But who?"

Slipper smiled. "Who indeed? I shall consider this tomorrow. For now,
I'm off to bed. This episode has quite exhausted me." He made a great show
of yawning. "There's nothing more to be done at the moment. Let's try to
sleep." He bowed, but turned back just before he left. "Has anyone told the
women?" Both men shook their heads. "Well, don't." With that he left.

Geraldo stared after him. He looked at Victorio, then to the plate in Da
Gama's hands, and finally into Da Gama's eyes. "He suspects the women?"

"If they're suspects, then we must be, too," Da Gama said, pulling at
his ear.

"Why should we be suspects? Why should I be?" Geraldo replied.
"The eunuch had much to gain ... what about him?"

Later, of course, Da Gama realized his mistake. Geraldo slept in the men's
tent, where Slipper was already snoring. Da Gama should have done the same. But he hated tents, and the night air was cool and fresh, and after his
terrible day Da Gama wanted to be alone. A few yards from the campfire
he found his saddle and his pack, and he spread a blanket on the ground.
He stared at the immense bowl of stars above him, and his eyelids fluttered.

He was floating on his back in an ocean of milk. Clouds billowed in the
bright sky, but then he saw that they were not clouds, but thousands of
white cranes, darting through the air in perfect unison, like schools of fish.
From their midst a star appeared, bright as a blue pearl. It fell toward him
slowly, and opened to reveal an old woman not much larger than a child.
Who are you? Da Gama asked.

The old woman's eyes shown blue as a twilight sky. "What do you mean
to do with my daughter's headdress?"

Da Gama meant to say, What business is it of yours?... He meant to
say, She's not your daughter. But unexpected words came from his lips ... "I
mean for her to keep it. It is hers. "

The old woman smiled. What teeth she still had were white as pearls.
"You say well. Ask a favor."

Tell me your name.

"Gungama. Ask another favor. "

Give me hope.

"I give. Ask another favor. "

Give me respite from my loneliness.

"I give. Ask one more favor. "

Help me set things right. It has all gone wrong.

Gungama lowered her ancient lips and kissed Da Gama's cheek. "You
ask well. I give. I give. I give. But danger comes, Deoga. Wake up! Wake up
quickly!"

Da Gama's eyes sprung open. Around his makeshift bed he found a
ring of guards holding swords to his neck

Da Gama lifted his hands slowly to show that they were empty. Slipper
pushed into the ring of guards with Geraldo at his back. "Take him up and
bind him," the eunuch ordered. Two of the guards heaved Da Gama to his
feet. One tied his hands behind his back, while the other took his pistolas.
"Now put him in the tent."

"What are you doing, Senhor Eunuch?" Da Gama cried out. "I did not
hurt Victorio!" The guards shoved him to Slipper's tent.

"Be sure that I believe you, Deoga," Slipper piped.

Once through the entrance of the tent, the guards pushed him to the
floor. While one held a sword edge to his neck, the other bound his feet.
After they checked his bindings, both left.

Da Gama struggled for a while, but the ropes were too tight. He
seethed but could do nothing except wait. He heard noise outside the tent;
grunts and shouts, and then a woman's scream.

After a few moments, the tent flap opened yet again. The guards who
had bound him now led Lucinda in at sword point. Slipper followed.
"There's your poisoner," he said softly.