The Sandalwood Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

cage. She stomped on his foot, pushed, kicked, and elbowed, all the while clutching the sandalwood figure as though it were her firstborn. That was all she wanted. Why wouldn’t he take the rest and let her go? But he was pulling at her hands now.
    Again she jammed madly with her elbow. This time he abruptly released her, and her own force unbalanced her. She fell against him, felt him dropping with her. They crashed to the ground . . . and she found herself pinned beneath him.
    “Foolish woman,” he said, panting. While the weight of his hard body held her down, he began prying her fingers loose from the figure.
    “No!” she shrieked, as he wrenched the statue from her grasp. “You bastard! No!”
    There was a heartbeat’s pause, and Amanda realised she’d cried out in English.
    “A thousand pardons, memsahib,” he said.
    Then he leapt to his feet... and vanished into the night with the Laughing Princess.
    White hot, it churned round her, blinding her: Rage. Amanda dragged herself up onto her knees and screamed, “You filthy bastard! You bloody, thieving swine!” Silence answered. She pounded her fists into the dirt in impotent fury.
    Something else pounded, somewhere beyond the vast, surrounding wall of rage. Footsteps? She raised her head, just as a figure staggered into the narrow entryway.
    “Oh, missy, what has that pig done to you? Fiend. A hell-fiend. We will find him. We will tear him in pieces and rip out his heart while it yet beats. We will—”
    “Padji?” she croaked, disbelieving.
    He fell to his knees beside her. “Aye, it is Padji, the worthless slave who has failed you.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, repeatedly, while he muttered inarticulate lamentations.
    Amanda pulled her hand away. “You’re alive,” she said. “I thought he’d murdered you.”
    “A blow only. Haifa breath’s less force and I should not have sunk under it. A moment less in blackness and I should have caught him and killed him, and thrown his polluted head at your feet. Ah, we have been tricked, and it is my folly. Aiyeeeeeee,” he wailed. “I am a dead man.”
    “Do be quiet,” Amanda snapped. “There’s no point staying here moaning about it. We’ve got to get home.”
    The servants were all abed, and Roderick and Eustacia were still out when Amanda and Padji reached the house. This was exceedingly fortunate, for Roderick would have made an international incident out of the attack—after, that is, his wife had finished dropping in and out of fourteen fits of hysterics.
    Mrs. Gales, Amanda’s companion, possessed a less turbulent disposition. A tall, ample-figured woman in her mid-forties, the auburn-haired widow had small use for emotional displays. India was a treacherous, incomprehensible place, and the natives were, in general, demented. If one made a fuss about every objectionable episode that occurred, one would live in a constant state of fuss. This, to Mrs. Gales’s mind, constituted a prodigious waste of time and energy.
    Though distressed by her employer’s shocking experience, the widow perceived no reason to compound the unpleasantness with swoons or hysteria. Instead, she calmly advised Amanda to wash and change. Mrs. Gales meanwhile saw to Padii’s facial injuries in her usual efficient manner, ordered him to sit quietly in a corner, then set about making tea.
    With the removal of grime and the resumption of proper English attire, Amanda discovered she didn’t look nearly as ghastly as she felt. Her modest yellow muslin frock concealed her few outer bruises. Her mouth was sore, her jaw ached, and her ribs felt as though she’d been run through a gristmill. Nonetheless, her looking glass showed nothing obviously amiss.
    As she entered the parlour, she found Padji in a considerably more colourful state. His face was bruised and cut where the paving stones had scraped it, and a large lump had sprung up on the back of his head. The villain had aimed beautifully, he grimly