The heat was tremendous, snatching greedily at my clothes, my skin. Khan's silken colors, pinned to my leather jacket, blazed and clung to the coat; it would burn through in moments, if I could not escape the fire and fling myself to cooling earth. I was grateful beyond reason that I wore leather—the helmet, the goggles, the gloves and jodhpurs, the boots that were my usual footwear—for without all of those things my desperate rescue attempt would be dashed before it even began.
Knowing the oil lay beneath me was perhaps half the battle; it could be accounted for, adapted to. Strangely, the fire offered some assistance: in places it had already burned away the fuel, leaving drier patches of stonework beneath my tires. But knowing was not enough, not with flames licking what skin was bared to it; not with the Indian's weight wobbling and trying to spin out of control as I rushed through the gates of hell to save an innocent man.
He had not moved, when I reached him, as if he realized that I came for him and that I could too easily lose him in the flames should he leave his post. The nerve of the man, to be able to stand within the fire...! I counted myself amongst the bold, but did not know that I could have been so stalwart at the heart of an inferno. And yet there he stood, waiting. I even thought that I saw his lips shape numbers, as if he had counted the seconds until my arrival, and then, expecting me, moved as fluidly and certainly as any Centurion might have: a long leg swung out and over the Indian's tail, and he was with me, face buried against my shoulder, arms knotted around my waist as we rode through the flames. With his added weight, the Indian was more stable, and in no time we shot free of the fiery lake.
Only then did the Indian betray us, finding a final unexpected splatter of oil that caught its front wheel and sent us flying. The earth was up and the sky down, cloud-scattered blue and stone-patterned pavement entangled in a flail of leather-clad legs and elbows. We landed together with a crash; the Indian, largely unharmed, skittered to a stop some yards away, its back wheel whirling madly in the air.
For the space of three gasps, my opponent and savior lay atop me, both of us wide-eyed and stunned at our survival. Then, with two swift movements, he stripped from me my helmet and goggles, and flung his away as well.
A shock of golden hair fell forward to brush my forehead—that was how close we were, as close as lovers, and in the aftermath of rescue, equally intense. His deep-set eyes were vividly, sharply blue and his features bordered on the attractive side of ungainly: a too-large nose and a thin, expressive mouth that suddenly twitched in a smile and rendered him inexpressibly compelling. He spoke with the cultured vowels of an educated Englishman. "My thanks, good woman. I hope that someday I might be able to return the favor."
He cast one look away from us, seeming to assess some situation there, then sprang upward as though the flame had given him new vigor. He offered me a hand; I took it and he pulled me to my feet, his gaze locked on mine. "You will, I think, know where to find me should such an occasion arise. Until then, goodbye."
He strode away—across the finish line!—and left me gaping at the edge of a pool of flame, my heart beating wildly in my chest and my feet commanding me to move, to follow him, as I had never been compelled to follow anyone in my life. I knew the signs of instant infatuation; these were not those, though they were not unlike that delightful sensation. I also knew the strength of attraction in the aftermath of fear, but that was not this either. I believed that, had I seen him on the street and locked eyes with him, I would have been equally impelled by a desire to be near the fire that burned within that man, to warm my hand at it, and, I knew with raw and startling simplicity, to die in it if he should so require.
"Madame Stone!" Reporters—reporters who ought not have been there, given the race's secrecy and illegality, but reporters who were none-the-less there, and whom, it now seemed, the English motorcyclist had seen and intended to avoid—reporters swarmed me, showing the press's usual idiotic lack of fear for dangers such as the still-burning fire beside us, and thrust cameras into my face. "Madame Stone," came their shouts, "Madame Stone, how does it feel to have saved TE Lawrence's life? Tell us, Madame Stone, did you know it was Lawrence when you went into the fire? Madame Stone, are you intimate with Lawrence—?"
Their questions faded into insignificance as I turned, stunned, to watch one of the most famous men of my lifetime hasten away from the notoriety he had never wanted to pursue. He looked back once, not at the reporters, but directly at me, and I felt again the overwhelming strength of his presence as he offered the briefest wink and smile, then disappeared so swiftly into the crowd that even his height and astonishing persona were swallowed by it. It was all I could do to not run after him myself, and had my attention not been drawn elsewhere in just that moment, I might well have done.
But a new roar silenced the reporters, the crowds, even my own racing thoughts, and like those around me, I sought it eagerly, and finally saw the beast we were all racing for.
My breath caught in admiration. Signor Panterello had approached its design with innovation and an eye for streamlining. Its front fender flared as it approached the body, creating an elegant flow to guide rushing air; in fact, everything about its shape was intended to let air spill past easily. The engine was encased, with intake valves and pipes to ensure it would not overheat, and the paint—if it was paint; somehow it seemed to be the metal itself—was two-toned, black with bold white lines that lent themselves to the idea of speed. A low, deeply angled windshield had been added, creating a space in which a smaller rider could huddle, reducing wind sheer even further. A black leather seat nestled at the machine's waist, and nestled in that seat was Josephine Baker, adorned in black and white herself, as if she had always meant to ride Panterello's motorcycle.
I could not help myself. After the race, after the fire, after encountering Lawrence of Arabia himself in such a way, discovering Josephine—who was meant to be hiding—jauntily displayed atop the extraordinary motorcycle was more than I could bear straight-faced. I burst into laughter, glanced at her confident pose again, and laughed until the tears came.
I could not recall meeting in two years two people whose very presence was as intense as the fire I had just come through, and yet now in two days I had met two such people. I wished dearly that Lawrence had not so swiftly absconded, for I might have liked to see the world shift and tilt on its axis, trying to accommodate the weight of those two meeting, but it was not to be. Instead, feeling as though my own world had taken on an unexpected shift and tilt, I was allowed through the crowd of reporters who now turned their attention to the new notorious star amongst them.
She was accompanied, I eventually saw, by a slight and swarthy man whose beard could be bettered by a teenage boy. He had a nervous look about him, and stroked one hand over the motorcycle's chassis as if reassuring it—or perhaps himself. Signor Panterello, I presumed; his evident tension ratcheted as I approached, then suddenly soothed away as Josephine flung a glad hand toward me and caroled, "Amelia! What a race! Amelia, we have to find a zeppelin before tomorrow so I can watch the entire thing from above. I've never seen anything like it, my darling! You were fearless! And the fire, Amelia! My God, how could you ever dare?" She drew me into her arms for a fierce and wonderful embrace. I was only distantly aware of the cameras clicking and clattering around us as she set me back again and turned, as if presenting a special and prized possession, to Signor Panterello.
"Monsieur, the winner of your race today, Amelia Stone. Amelia, Monsieur Antonio Panterello. Didn't I tell you that Amelia would win the day, Mister Panterello? Though I thought that fella there at the end—but Amelia had it in the bag all along! And he didn't even stop to say thanks, the yellow-bellied coward!"
Either Josephine did not know whom I had taken from the fire, or—I suspected—she preferred not to know, so that attention might be entirely upon herself. I had read Lawrence's biography and believed he might have been happiest left in Arabia to do great things without outside notice, so I did not try to dissuade her, only took Panterello's hand in a firm grip and was unsurprised that, though he looked like a wet fish, his handshake was solid and strong. "Signor. Yours is the most beautiful motorcycle I have ever seen."
Pleasure could not make him handsome, but it gave him some life. "Gratzie, madame. Your riding today was, how do they say, exemplary, and your speed in the flame's aftermath—Signor Lawrence owes you his life."
Curiosity piqued within me. "You knew it was he who rode?"
"Madame, motorcycle aficionados have come from all the world over to try their hand for my creation, and Signor Lawrence numbers himself amongst such lovers. I know many of the riders here personally, and more by sight. I had even expected you."
"Moi? Surely I am not well known—"
"La Stringfield de France, I believe they say, though it is known that you, like Signora Stringfield, travel everywhere."
"I had no idea you were famous, Amelia." Josephine, with a sparkling smile, tucked her arm in mine. "I've been talking with Mister Panterello while you raced. These accidents, Amelia—!"
"They are no accidents. Pools of kerosene do not simply appear before the Louvre—" Finally I looked to that grand museum, having not thought to worry that it might have seen damage. It had not; nor was it much in the way of a finishing line, for smoking oil still lingered in its foreground and masses of crowds littered the space racers were intended to come through. Now that I thought to listen, I could hear the remaining competitors as they approached, and wondered at their slowness, given the terrible length of time since Lawrence and I had first arrived.
A glance at the sky sent a shiver of surprise and confusion down my spine: it had, en vérité, been a scant five minutes since that wreck of a showdown had begun. And a wreck it had been: with a sudden jolt I remembered my Indian, to which I had given no thought since the moment my eyes had met Lawrence's. But it was nearby, righted by motorcycle lovers who inspected it and, when my gaze found their own, reassured me with nods and smiles. My shoulders sagged and I gathered my thoughts before speaking again. "Nor do ropes spring of their own volition at the ends of bridges," I continued. "Signor Panterello, there were desperate injuries yesterday, too. Who are your enemies? Why attack the race rather than you, assuming, as I must, that they want the prototype?"
Panterello's smile was thin. "Because without me, the machine is useless. They must assure they win the race and my services along with it. There is a reason, Signora Stone, that I have made this difficult to win. As for my enemies—"
Before he could say more, the Italian rider, with Bessie Stringfield hot on his tail, appeared on the stretch to roar across the finish line in third and fourth places. The Italian swung off his bike almost before it had stopped and began pushing his way through the crowd toward us. Face ashen with alarm at their arrival, Panterello seized my arm and whispered, "I beg of you, Signora Stone, only take me to safety and I shall explain all."