Miss Melinda Khan

Twelve months ago this was a Patron reward, and now it is outside the paywall. Subscribe if you want more or to support anything else I'm doing.  In peak cross-marketing style, this is 350 words about a minor character from my novel The Inexplicable Affair Of The Mesmerising Russian Nobleman available from all good online bookstores, and also the big river.

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Miss Melinda Khan is a descendant of an ancient line of princes, warlords, generals and soldiers. She has a proud and noble heritage. For now she finds herself having to serve another, a magician of all things, and a westerner to boot.

Her ancestors include sorcerers and charlatans, assassins and horsethieves. For every act that lit up the history books, a hundred more were done in the darkness. Lies, blackmail, conspiracy, poison. All tools that her family have made sure she is familiar with.

None of the harsh training, the days on the steppe, the nights on the mountains, the time-without-counting in the depths of a hidden monastery on the upper slopes of Mount Meru, none of that prepared her for this. Her employer had apologised profusely for asking her to perform such a menial task. His other associates Lascar Jack, Sally the Floozy, Ahmed the Unstoppable and even Jacques Bontemps were engaged elsewhere. And as for Robby the Strangler, there was no finer man if you wanted someone suffocated, but for all other jobs he was worse than useless.

She reached back to her brief childhood and put all the force of a tantrum in her voice. “This is entirely unacceptable,” she said pulling herself up to her full height and glaring under the brim of her hat. “His Excellency’s linen is stained.”

They pretend to not understand, but she could comprehend their dialect. “Yes it is blood. His Excellency is a keen hunter.” That was not technically a lie. They continued to make excuses.

One moment her hand was empty, the next the knife was quivering in the table. The laundry went silent other than one woman in the back who dropped a pail of water. “Return his linen to His Excellency’s ship tomorrow morning. It shall be spotless.” She vanished the blade back into her garments.

On her way out her gaze flashed over the idlers in the tea shop on the opposite side of the dusty lane. Somewhere there was a watcher who would understand the message and act on it. This was the real goal of the expedition; so far as Miss Khan cared the linen could go hang.

A job well done. Nevertheless she did not let the cold smile in her breast touch her face.