My Brother

And opened, to a room filled with uniformed figures, shrilling and gesturing to each other with insectoid precision and rapidity of movement. They were gathered around a bed, and I heard the sforzando command of a single voice demanding silence for the sleeper there.

I blinked once more. When my eyes opened again the group of figures had suddenly shrunk to two. They were wearing the uniform of the Calcutta police, standing solemn guard by the bed where Ameera lay. She was silent, her face open and i

“Any better now?” It was Chandra, sitting quietly by my side.

I shivered and took a deep breath. “I’m all right. How’s Ameera? I guess I fell asleep for a while. Boy.” I shivered. “Weird dreams.”

“You have a right to them. Ameera told me what the two of you went through in Cuttack . Her condition?” He shrugged. “As well as can be expected. There is mental injury as well as physical. The woman — Xantippe? — said she was helping you. Ameera trusted her, they came back here, Ameera sent the servants away. Then—” he shrugged. “You know what she did next.”

I shuddered from head to foot and looked more closely at Ameera. “At least she is sleeping. When I first arrived she was hysterical.”

“It is more shock than sleep. When you passed out—”

“Me?” I stared at him.

“You do not remember it? You let me in, came up here, and fell over into that chair. That was four hours ago.” He stared at me as I turned away from him. “Now then, what do you think you are up to?”

He grabbed me by the arm as I began to stagger off towards the door. I shook off his grip.

“Got to get to Riyadh .” My voice was a thick-tongued mumble. “Next plane.”

“Not yet.” Chandra had taken my arm again, and this time his grip was firmer, holding hard enough to hurt. “You want to pursue Ameera’s tormentors? Very good; I commend the intention. But before you think of doing that, you must know of some other matters. You realize that they are murderers?”

“They killed Rustum Belur, and I think they killed a woman called Valnora Warren.”

“It comes closer to home than that. When Ameera told the servants here to leave, one of them refused to go. Xantippe asked to speak with him privately, downstairs.” Chandra lowered his voice to a whisper, glancing at Ameera. “When the police arrived they searched the whole house as part of their routine work. Mr. Chatterji was found in the pantry. Dead. He had been stabbed, many times.”

He followed my look. “She does not know. There will be a time for such news. Not yet. It was enough effort, after the treatment of her injuries and after the police were finished here, to ease her into sleep. We talked about many things. We have surprisingly much in common, and Ameera has an excellent mind. But she could not rest, for all our talk, until we came to music. It worked where words could not.”

“That was you? Playing the ragas?”

Chandra smiled, and there was a flash of the old, superconfident prodigy. “For my sins. The instrument was not in great condition, and the technique is rusty — but she did not complain. I know the music of Bihar , the folk tunes and the festival dances of her native area. I think that I played well. Perhaps there is still more to life than jute.”

“But your fingers — I saw them last week. They were not in shape to play.”

“Indeed?” This time the smile was different, a sad glint of oriental resignation. “Now you mention it, I think I noticed.”

He held up his left hand. The soft fingertips were bloodied and torn from the pressure of the vina’s seven thin strings.

“It was in a good cause. My suffering was nothing compared to hers. And now she is asleep, peacefully, without drugs.”

He looked at his watch, and I realized that it was late afternoon. He had spent the whole day here. “Chandra, what about your work? I’ve already taken more of your time than a friend should ask.”

“Assume that I do this for Ameera — not for a feringhee with no sense. Do you still talk of ru

“How did I know what to do in Calcutta ?” Despite the logic of his argument, my resolve was strengthening. “Chandra, there are other factors involved here. Earlier today, you were playing the Bhairava raga for Ameera. Correct?”

“True enough. What of it?”

“I recognized that piece.”

“So? It is famous enough.”

I shook my head. “To you. But I don’t know Hindu music at all. Yet I recognized it. Don’t you see what that means? I’m getting some of Leo’s memories. I was told this would happen, and it has started.”

He pouted and shrugged his chubby shoulders. “That is excellent. But if you stay here longer, you will receive more memories. Why not wait until you know exactly where to go, and what you are doing? There will be risks in Riyadh , but here you will be safe.”

“That’s not the whole story.” I was stammering, and cursed myself for my lack of control. “I’m getting Leo’s memories, and they will help — that’s the good news. But I’m also getting flashes of sensory distortion. When I was first waking up here everything seemed out of proportion and the time scale went crazy. If I’m going to follow Scouse and Xantippe to Riyadh , I’ll have to do it soon. The doctors warned me to watch for those symptoms. A few days from now I’ll be in no condition to chase Zan, Scouse, the Belur Package or anything else.”

I paused. My ma

“I must go now,” I said at last. “Time is short. If I can find a charter jet at Dum-Dum Airport and leave tonight, there’s a chance that I can be in Riyadh before Zan or Scouse.”

Chandra was behaving oddly, too. At my last sentence his face had twisted into a scowl, and now he was shaking his head violently.

“Before you think of going within a thousand miles of that — that woman, you must know one other thing. She expects you to follow. Can you not see the danger? She plans to trap you in Riyadh . Look at this, and then tell me if you wish to be in that city when she is there.”

He had gone over to the window sill and picked up a sheet of paper. “Here.” He held it forward. “A message, Lionel — for you alone.”

I stared down at the thick, creamy notepaper. A white rose from the front garden had been pi

Chandra was watching me closely. “There is no doubt who the message is intended for, and I assume that there is no need for me to translate it. Do you know why she did this?”

“Durch Blut und Eisen, te inveniam — through blood and iron, I’ll seek you out.” I muttered the words, while the full red lips seemed to glow at me from the paper. I struggled to control my voice. “It’s Zan, following Scouse’s orders. I’m sure he wants to make sure I don’t follow them. Psychological pressure. He wants me too frightened to go on to Riyadh .”

And he’s doing pretty damned well, I felt like adding.

Chandra nodded over to the bed, where Ameera was still sleeping soundly. “So why didn’t Xantippe kill Ameera, as well as Chatterji? Then you could not have followed.”

“She couldn’t be sure I didn’t know it anyway.” I thought of Ameera, and a chill certainty gri