Heart and Soul (10 page)

He bowed hastily, an overlong lock of hair falling in front of his eyes. “It’s only, Lady Jade, though I know it’s my name, and…and my father’s name…in my own family I’ve never been called Zhang, and it would be a great honor if you consented to call me by the name my family gives me.”

Uncomfortable with calling the young man the name of the minister she’d always hated, Jade said, “I will do as you ask. What is that name?”

He bowed, quickly, then threw his head back, flicking his hair away from his eyes. “Grasshopper, my lady, because of my nature.”

She did not ask if it was his nature to be jumpy, or if perhaps he suffered from seasickness and turned green. It was of no consequence. Instead she spoke, in a polite tone. “Steer me toward the women’s quarters, then, Grasshopper, that I may change my clothes and think on what to do next. I must find where your father has gone. And what his plan is.”

LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

“I do not hold it against you, Third Lady,” Jade said,
having called her sister-in-law to her quarters. “That you were right in the warning given me and which I chose to neglect. I do thank you for your accurate information, and regret only that I chose to give Zhang the benefit of doubt.”

Third Lady bowed, politely. It was now three days since the battle with the carpetship. Three days in which Jade had spent collecting reports on Zhang and which direction he had flown—toward home, everyone thought—and of what might be on his mind. His papers, turned over by a zealous Grasshopper, had not enlightened her any further. They contained marks of treason, but those were not, after all, a novelty by that time. There were letters from a Captain Corridon, in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which Jade read with fascination. Her near-native command of English allowed her to detect in the captain’s words a curious mix of disdain and hopefulness. Disdain toward Zhang, either because Zhang was Chinese—she very much doubted even Zhang had been brave enough to tell the Englishman he was a were-dragon—or because he was simply what the Englishman would think of as a flying-boat pirate. The hopefulness was harder to explain, but Jade assumed that Zhang must have given the British some token of his earnest intent to follow through in this plot. And as such, Captian Corridon sounded eager and almost childlike in his hope that Zhang could get hold of the jewels
so long desired by our queen.

Mention of the queen’s failing health led Jade to think the aged sovereign was dying. Judging from her own father’s final illness she knew how much those in power held on to that life and power, and how they often tried to reach, one final time, for something that would give them back youth or vigor. If the English queen was truly dying, she would reach her moribund hands out for the jewels and hope more than ever for them to restore her vigor, not to mention her original intention of holding power in her family.

Jade had also found other things—or rather, Grasshopper had found them, and had brought them to her, in earnest of his loyalty and devotion—such as a magical farseer, of foreign design; exquisitely figured cloth and a pair of black knee-length boots that seemed to Jade to be the sort of riding boots to which her mother’s novels often alluded. There were other things, too—powersticks with countless charges, a well-balanced sword, a crystal imbued with magical power to be called at will.

Altogether that was worth considerably less than the papers, even from the point of view of proving Zhang’s innocence or guilt. After all, these things could have been obtained in a carpetship raid, and it might mean nothing. She suspected, though, that Zhang had kept the truly incriminating papers, as well as anything that might give her an idea of where he’d gone and why. At least, she didn’t find any of it in the papers she had.

“The question,” she explained to Third Lady, “is whether or not he got both jewels. If he got them…” She hesitated.

Third Lady narrowed her eyes at her, not in menace, but seemingly in deep thought. When Third Lady did this, it was easy to imagine her in fox form, calculating and mischievous. “If he got them, my lady,” she said, slowly, “then we must find him with all possible haste, for you must know that none of us will be safe until he is found and stopped from whatever foolhardy course he means to undertake.”

Jade nodded back. “That goes without saying. But I feel there is a great difference, if he has acquired one jewel, or else if he…” She shrugged. “If he has both jewels, we can probably agree he is even now approaching the English. It’s been three days, surely time enough for him to have found the English outpost at which this Captain Corridon resides, and to have disposed of the jewels. In which case…” She frowned. “I might have to discover a way to recapture the jewels before the English take them to their queen. And I confess that the idea of how to do such a thing simply will not form in my mind. Not when I must go against the most powerful nation in the world with my ragtag band of Dragon Boats. On the other hand, if he has not captured both jewels, then where the other jewel is would depend on where the carpetship pilot died and whether, in the confusion of cleaning the deck of dead, they bothered to search his clothes. I have read that on these carpetships, when faced with a lot of bodies of which to dispose, they will simply fly low over the ocean and give the dead burial at sea. So the jewel that, together with its twin, could bring about the destruction of the world or the elevation of a throne might very well now be at the bottom of the ocean.”

“What if…” Third Lady started, then seemed to check herself upon a word, as though afraid of saying whatever must be on her mind.

“What if…?” Jade prompted.

“What if the foreign magician survived?”

Jade frowned. “Unlikely,” she said. “Not only had he bled too much, but he was devoting the very last of his strength to keeping the carpetship flying. That type of magic, set as it was to go on after one is incapacitated, does not come cheap. It eats alive the person who sets it off.”

“But if he is alive?” Third Lady asked, with seeming stubbornness, then added, quickly, “It seems to me we must be aware of that possibility and plan for it, even if it is unlikely. It is much easier to plan on such things in advance.”

“Undoubtedly. Well…if that magician is alive, then I would say Zhang will home in on him, somehow, perhaps through information given by the Englishmen. And we, too, would do well to find him, fast. For if he is alive and still has this jewel, our best chance of capturing it is to get to him before Zhang can.”

Third Lady nodded. “So that is what we’ll do.”

Jade laughed. She couldn’t help it. When her sister-in-law spoke like this, it was easy to imagine it was all a matter of making up their minds and then doing it. The truth was, of course, somewhat more complicated. “The problem,” she explained, sobering up immediately, “is that I don’t know which of the three things is true. I imagine my father had spies. At least I hope he did, since I suspect the Dragon Boats are riddled with spies anyway, and each of them, as my nurse would have said, pulling the smoldering coal over to roast his own meat. But whether my father had spies or not is immaterial now. For the last few months, he’s been too ill and too weak to pay much attention to such things. And he certainly never told Wen—or even me—of any such people. I do not know how to find out where Zhang has gone, or what he has done there. I don’t know if he’s been in touch with the English yet. I could, I suppose, find some English newspapers, but any that could be found in this area of the world would be at least two days old. And then, too, this is the sort of thing the queen will not publish abroad.” She opened her hands at her sides, turning the palms toward Third Lady, in a show of absolute helplessness. “The truth is, I do not know where to turn to find out what happened to Zhang. I cannot know how to proceed till I know what has already happened.”

Third Lady looked shy and mischievous both, like a kitten reaching for a table scrap. “Have you thought…have you thought to ask, my lady?”

“Ask whom? Wen? Surely you know that he—”

“No.” Third Lady shook her head. “My Lord is too lost in his dreaming. No. What I meant, my lady, is—have you considered asking tortoiseshell and bone? And if not, may I suggest you do? I can take you to the place where it can be done.”

ANGELS

Nigel was dreaming. Or at least he thought he was,
unless he was dead. In his present state, he couldn’t say which it was for certain.

There had been what seemed to him an endless eternity of heat and cold, of light and oddly resounding voices and the sort of jarring movement that made his whole body ache and seem to vibrate through his teeth like someone dragging a knife across his bones. And then there had been dreams—confused dreams. The Dragon Boats, and the carpetship, and his need to keep the carpetship flying.

And now there was a moment of calm and a moment of lucidity, and he became aware that he was resting on sheets which seemed damnably crumpled under him, on a pillow which appeared to be soaked through with his sweat. His hands were clutched on another sheet, which lay atop his body, making his skin insufferably hot. And he smelled…ill.

The smell of fever—or at least of his own sweat when feverish—was well known to Nigel, who had been born sickly and premature and had spent most of his young life confined to bed, suffering from one stupid complaint or another and strictly forbidden from joining the other boys at play—or his brother, Carew, at riding and hunting and other sport.

With a clutch of sudden fear, he realized that while he unmistakably had a body and remained a corporeal being—else, how could he feel the sheet atop him?—it was possible he might still be a very young man, somewhere in his parents’ estate. Oh, not too young, but old enough to know of the world and to have dreamed of being allowed to go to Cambridge, of being betrothed to a beautiful Anglo-Indian woman, of being sent to Africa on a mission from the Queen of…of everything he’d dreamed of. It would be like himself, at that time, to have delusions of importance and strength, to picture himself as the man chosen by the sovereign to save the world. Or to imagine Carew as a villain from whose dastardly deeds Nigel would need to save everyone. His parents’ favorite son had always revealed a far crueler side to Nigel, and Nigel, doubtless, wished the world to realize it.