Isabella Rockwell's War (25 page)

“Storeroom’s
through there,” said the guard, unlocking it. “Come back this way
when you’ve finished and I’ll lock up behind you.”

Isabella took
her pails through the second gate not daring to look at any of the
occupants of the cells on her left. There were catcalls as she
passed and she thought she heard someone spit. The storeroom was
very cold with shelves piled high with cheese and sausage and beer.
She would bet it wasn’t the prisoners getting this food.

She put the
pails on the ground.

At the far end
of the narrow room was a hatch in the ceiling. She quickly ran to
it and pulled a stool over so she could stand on it, then she
pushed gently on the wood. To her delight it was well used, and
gave way immediately so that the icy air of outside poured down
around her from the pavement above. She replaced the hatch and got
down from the stool. She removed a large hairpin from her hair,
took a deep breath and walked quietly toward the cells.

A giant man
with slicked skin shining with dirt watched her with his good eye.
His other eye was hidden behind a bandage set askew around his
head, filthy and blood-soaked. Isabella could smell the infection
from where she stood.

“Please sir,
do you know of the foreigner Hassan Al Hassan?”

The man’s
voice was a rumble. “I do.”

‘Do you know
where he is held?” Her voice was a whisper and she tried not to
sound too desperate. At any minute this giant might sound the alarm
and bring the guard running. He didn’t. He just inclined his head,
a tiny bit, to the right. Isabella bent down and ripped a piece of
clean muslin from her petticoat.

“Use this,”
she said to the man, thrusting the fabric through the bars. “You
must keep your wound clean.”

In the cell
next door, Hassan Al Hassan was standing upright, waiting for
her.

“I heard your
voice. I thought I had imagined it,” he said with a gentle smile.
Isabella gripped the icy bars.

“Hassan Al
Hassan. I need your help. I care little now for what you tried to
do to the Memsahib Alix. I know it might not have been of your own
intent, but if I can free you from here, will you help me?” In the
flickering yellow shadows, Isabella saw Hassan’s face change. The
chin start to jut, the eyes narrow.

“What is it
you think I did to the Sahiba?”

Isabella was
taken aback.

“You
threatened her life, but it’s alright, I didn’t believe…”

Hassan hissed
at her, the red scratches on his face looking more livid in a
sudden surge of flame from the lamp.

“I am Pathan.
I do not threaten children. Is that really what those keeping her
safe are thinking?”

“Shhh.” The
man with the bandage urged them to be quiet.

Isabella
pulled herself close to the bars.

“I know you
don’t threaten children. I’ve known it wasn’t you all along! I know
the Russian Ambassador was behind it all, pulling your strings. It
was me who gave you those scratches wasn’t it? On the night you
came into the Blue Salon to poison the Princess Alix?” Something
was wrong, thought Isabella. He should be nodding and agreeing with
her. Instead he was looking at her with both horror and
contempt.

“You
still
do not know the danger the princess is in?”

Isabella felt
her heart clench.

“No,” she
shook her head, “what danger? She’s not in danger anymore. The
Ambassador is in prison,” she paused, “so she is safe. Isn’t
she?”

“No, she is
not.”

“So you
didn’t…”

“Never. I
would never harm a female, let alone a child. It is not
permitted.”

Isabella felt
as if she were sleepwalking.

“So who…”

“Give me that
hairpin,” he commanded. “We have no time, if it is not already too
late.” The lock was picked in a trice. The man in the cell next
door looked at them. Hassan Al Hassan stopped for a moment, and
then picked his cell lock as well. The man gestured with his head
toward the storeroom.

“I’ll wait
here until you’re clear.”

Hassan hoisted
Isabella through the hatch into the night and pulled himself up
behind her. He closed it quietly and then he and Isabella stole
across the square, two black figures barely visible in the fading
glow of the lamplights.

Isabella and
Al Hassan ran along the bottom of Parliament Square.

“Hassan Al
Hassan, I do not understand. I hoped you would help me to free my
friend from prison. He is only young and it is because of my
carelessness that he is held prisoner.” The noise of parties still
echoed from the windows. A line of carriages stood outside one
particularly grand entrance and, as the drivers all gossiped
together at the side entrance, Hassan unhitched a pair of horses
and led them quietly to the entrance of St James’s Park. “But now,
I find the princess is in danger too. I don’t know what to do.”

“I must attend
to the princess before we can help your young friend. It is
doubtful anything will happen to him until tomorrow, is it not?” He
said, hoisting Isabella onto one of the horses.

How long had
she dreamt of this night? The night she would finally return
home.

Now, not only
did it lie in tatters, she was being forced to choose which of her
friends needed her help the most. Al Hassan put his hand over hers,
and looked into her face.

“If we can
save the princess, your young friend stands a better chance of
rescue.”

Isabella leant
down and gripped his arm, her eyes filling with tears of
frustration.

“Do you
promise?”

He handed her
the reins.

“I promise.”
Then he leapt up onto the back of the other horse. “Follow me.”

“Where…?”

But she wasn’t
to get a chance to ask anything else, the horse shifted beneath her
and then leapt after Hassan’s horse, away across the park and there
was nothing for her to do, except ride like fury to keep up with
him.

Finally he
turned his horse off the road and onto the sandy gallops in Hyde
Park, which stretched all the way to Kensington Palace. Isabella
felt sick again. How could she have so misread the situation,
ignored her intuition. She’d known deep in her heart Al Hassan
would have had no part in harming Alix… and yet she’d convinced
herself she’d been wrong, and allowed him to be imprisoned. The
carrot of escape and riches had dangled in front of her and she’d
been powerless to resist it. It had distracted her from the job in
hand. Now, despite all her past efforts, for dearest Alix it might
be too late.

Isabella could
see the glow from the palace in the icy night sky before she saw
the palace itself. She felt unreal as she rode, flat to the neck of
her mount, behind Al Hassan into the stable yard.

“We must find
the princess,” Al Hassan whispered. “Where will she be?”

“Dancing, I
suppose.”

Al Hassan
looked grim. “I hope so.”

“Isabella
could hear the music in the distance, smell the food she’d forced
down so excitedly, just hours before. The last boat for home for
the next three months was leaving now; Midge was in prison, and
she’d lost every last one of her possessions. How was it possible
so much could change in such a short time?

“Why can’t you
tell me who threatens the princess?” she muttered in Pashtu, as
they crept along the servant’s corridor to the ballroom.

Al Hassan
frowned. “It is not safe. You must concentrate only on finding the
princess.”

Isabella held
her breath as she pushed herself into a tapestry hanging, not
moving as a guard passed on his way to relieve the others of their
duty outside the main door. Their time was running short. With his
eyes, Al Hassan gestured at the doorway to the ballroom. Two more
guards stood outside.

“You must find
her, I will create a diversion.”

Just as she
drew a shuddering, fearful breath, she felt a heavy hand on her
shoulder.

“Got you, you
thief!”

It was John
Conroy.

With him were
four guards who pounced on Al Hassan, and wrestled him into an arm
lock.

“How you got
back in here, either of you, I don’t know, but I am looking forward
to hearing all about it. What were you going to do? Steal something
else?”

“Mr Conroy,”
she was breathless with fright. “The princess, she’s in terrible
danger.

“So you keep
saying Isabella. If she’s in such danger why did you leave her
here, and run off with a priceless painting?”

Isabella shot
a beseeching look at Al Hassan. Why didn’t he say something?

“And you,” Mr
Conroy poked Al Hassan with his cane. “Why you’d come back here I
really don’t know. Natives must be stupider than I thought.”

Al Hassan’s
face was white. “Do you know where the princess is right now, Mr
Conroy?”

“Of course I
do. She’s gone upstairs to pack.”

“Would you
please check?” John Conroy looked furious, but one of the guards,
young with a shaving rash, spoke.

“I don’t mind
checking, sir.” John Conroy paused.

Isabella tried
one last time. “You don’t want to get into trouble if something has
happened to her, Mr Conroy, do you?”

The guard was
gone for six minutes; six silent minutes in which the seven people
eyed each other suspiciously, standing like statues listening to
the distant chatter of the party guests. Isabella felt as if she
was a violin string, pulled too tight and at risk of breaking. It
was all she could do to keep from pushing past everyone and hurling
herself up the stairs after the guard.

A moment later
the guard was back, skidding to a halt in front of them, flushed
with nerves.

“The princess
is not in her room, sir!”

“What of her
personal guard?”

“He was
unconscious, sir!”

At this point,
several things happened all at once. John Conroy’s face blanched,
and he started to yell for more guards. Al Hassan twisted free of
the guards restraining him, which gave Isabella a chance to run
across the black and white marble floor, down the crimson carpeted
corridors, armoured figures and beautiful paintings flashing past
her, all the way out to the ballroom.

Her eyes took
a moment to adjust to the flickering candlelight. Guests twirled
this way obscuring Isabella’s view as she circled around them, but
it was of no use. Alix wasn’t there. Not one of the shifting skirts
was hers, the particular tilt of her head as she danced, now so
familiar to Isabella, was no longer visible.

Alix had
gone.

Isabella stood
in the crowded ballroom.

She was too
late. The guards would be here to arrest her any minute. She and Al
Hassan would have been able to save Alix, but there was no way
they’d be allowed to now. John Conroy probably still thought she
was responsible for the danger Alix was in; in some way conspiring
with Al Hassan.

She stood for
a moment and then walked to the tall sparkling windows through
which the full moon could now be seen, the moon whose reflection
she’d thought to be watching on the Thames, as her ship pulled
away….

“I say…
Isabella?” There was a quack from behind her. It was Eloise. “I
thought you’d gone.”

“Have you seen
the Princess?” Isabella tried to keep her voice steady, despite the
blood rushing in her ears.

Eloise
giggled. Her cheeks were pink, and the yellow feather in her hair
was askew. Bending towards her, Isabella caught the faint smell of
champagne on her breath.

“I have. I saw
her leaving with Mrs Jolyon…” Isabella breathed out with relief. “I
wanted to go with them, but Mrs Jolyon told me to push off… jolly
rude, I thought. Got rid of the guard too. She said they were going
to pack and didn’t need any help doing it.” Eloise hiccupped. “She
never liked me. Even when Mama and I visited Countess March’s last
year Mrs Jolyon was horrible to me, and she didn’t even know
me!”

To Isabella,
as Eloise spoke, time had started to warp and slow, as if there was
something important which lay outside her understanding; and that
time wouldn’t start again until she had worked out what it was.

“I didn’t know
you’d visited Cawnpore. Mrs Jolyon didn’t ever mention it.”

Eloise
sniffed. “Well, no she wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Probably
doesn’t want to be reminded of it.”

It was all
Isabella could do to not shake it out of her. “Reminded of
what?”

“Don’t shout
at me, Isabella.” Eloise’s spoilt face looked cross. “Well, you
know, all that business about her son.”

Isabella
blinked.

“What,
Christopher?”

“Yes. Poor
little chap went missing when we were there.”

“Christopher
went missing?” Isabella repeated herself, confused.

“Don’t be
dense. Isn’t that what I just said? Mama said Mrs Jolyon brought it
on herself. She’d been too friendly with the locals. He was never
found, by all accounts. That’s why she didn’t want to talk to us on
the boat… hic… ooops.” Eloise held her fan over her mouth. “I
shouldn’t have said that.”

Isabella stood
in front of Eloise, but she couldn’t see Eloise’s face.

Instead,
images of Mrs Jolyon crowded around her: Mrs Jolyon determinedly
staying in the steerage areas of the boat; Mrs Jolyon’s face when
she’d seen the Moleseys at the ball; how easily she could have
placed the Star Burr under the saddle blanket; her absence the
night the wheel had come off…

And two nights
ago in the Blue Salon – had it been Mrs Jolyon who’d poisoned
Isabella, just to get her out of the way, moments after Isabella
had told her of finding the Star Burr.

“I’ll be in
trouble with Mama… hic…” finished up Eloise.

But she was
speaking to air.

Isabella had
gone.