Chintalpore, that evening
With an escort of two sowars and Private Johnson, Locke rode hard for the palace, through the heat of the afternoon, and arrived as the sun was beginning its descent beyond the hills west of Chintalpore. He had ridden through the city, and it was not its customary bustle. The nervousness among merchants and beggars alike was everywhere evident, for fifteen hundred mutineers descending on them was not a fair prospect. The palace was even more nervous. The water level in the lake that now served as a moat around three sides was higher than when they had left — testimony to Selden’s address in attending to the defences — and the droog had piles of teak logs at intervals along its slope, secured by ropes which would be cut in the face of the advancing sepoys. A steady procession of elephants was still bringing logs as Locke and Johnson slowed their mounts to a trot for the climb to the palace gates. Once inside they found the rajah in his menagerie, alone, seemingly reconciled to the cataclysm about to befall his house. When he saw them it was with heightened despair, for their bloodstained clothes and grimy faces spoke of defeat. But they did not look like men who had fled slaughter, the enemy pressing hard on their heels. ‘Mr Locke,’ exclaimed the rajah, shaking his head in confusion, ‘I had imagined—’
The raj kumari appeared, as close to running as a princess might. Locke saw little point in waiting on ceremony. ‘Your Highness, the mutiny is put down. The ringleaders are restrained, and the rest have been disarmed and are confined to the cantonment. A company of Rajpoots remained loyal. Their help was capital: without it all might have been lost. Captain Hervey remains with them. Are your cavalry returning, sir?’
The rajah was speechless. His disbelief showed clearly as he turned to Selden, also come running, redfaced and sweating. ‘Do we yet know if they return, Mr Selden?’
‘We do, Your Highness,’ he replied, gasping for breath. ‘They will be here by dawn tomorrow.’ And then he turned anxiously to Locke: ‘Hervey — is he unhurt then?’
‘Yes, we suffered little but a scratch — the entire force.’
The rajah looked even more incredulous (and Selden scarcely less so). ‘Please tell us of it, Mr Locke,’ he said, motioning him to a bower-seat close by and beckoning his khansamah to bring refreshment.
Locke recounted the story with such vivid grasp of detail that neither Selden, the raj kumari nor the rajah made a sound during its telling. He spoke of himself only when it was necessary for narrative completeness, he praised the jemadar and the dafadar, and many sowars by name, gave honour to the Rajpoots, especially their subedar, and even included Private Johnson in the paean. But throughout his account shone Hervey’s resolution, his resourcefulness and courage. ‘When dawn came,’ he continued, scarcely able to believe it himself, ‘Captain Hervey rode with a dozen sowars deep into the mutineers’ lines and demanded they surrender and throw themselves on Your Highness’s mercy. He had concluded they had muskets but no ammunition — but, even so, they had bayonets enough to make pincushions of us all. He told them that discipline was the soul of an army and that they had lost their souls when they had set themselves against Your Highness’s authority. He told them they could never hope for paradise if they didn’t redeem themselves now as soldiers.’
‘And they took him at his word?’ asked Selden doubtfully.
‘He also said that if they did not surrender at once he would kill every one of them.’
‘A skilful reinforcement of his appeal to their nobility,’ smiled the veterinarian.
‘Yes: he led them onto the maidan in formed companies and made them pile arms before attending their wounded and building pyres for the dead. They even gave up their leaders and those who had killed the European officers.’
The rajah expressed himself humbled by this account of the bravery of his loyal sowars and Rajpoots — and, even more, of those who were not his subjects but his guests. He turned to the raj kumari. ‘What say you of this, my daughter?’ he asked softly.
‘I say that we are ever in the debt of Captain Hervey,’ she replied, though without enthusiasm. Indeed, almost with a hint of discouragement.
The rajah turned to Locke again. ‘And was there any indication of the cause that made my sipahis rise against my officers?’
‘There was, sir,’ replied Locke firmly.
The rajah waited silently for enlightenment.
Locke looked about to see exactly who his audience now comprised.
‘Come, Mr Locke,’ urged the rajah, ‘you may speak as you find. All here are my loyal servants.’
Locke was uncertain on that point. Nevertheless he would conclude his report. ‘It appears that the sepoys’ batta has been withheld these past twelve months.’
The rajah looked puzzled.
Selden was yet more sceptical. ‘But batta is an allowance, paid only when a sepoy must fend for himself — when there are no quarters or rations. And even then the money is held by the havildar-majors, who pay the merchants direct. The sepoy scarcely ever sees it.’
The rajah protested that the cantonments at Jhansikote were newly built, and that his sepoys should not have wanted for food or shelter.
‘Just so, sir,’ agreed Selden.
‘But it appears, as well,’ continued Locke (he had not thought any practice so elaborate could exist outside his own service), ‘that the sepoys have been placed under stoppages for quartering and rations. This they would not have objected to had they been paid batta.’
The rajah looked more sad than angry. ‘How might my own soldiers believe I would ill-serve them in this way? Who is responsible for this, Mr Selden?’
‘I could not immediately conclude, Your Highness,’ replied Selden, appearing still to be astonished by the revelation. ‘There might be several, but it is probable that all are now dead. I shall begin at once — with your leave — to investigate the matter.’
The rajah said he would be obliged. ‘Is there anything more, Mr Locke? I am eager to know what we may do to restore the peace that we hitherto enjoyed.’
‘Sir, Captain Hervey pledged that every sepoy would receive a pardon if he had committed no direct violence against an officer. He has told them they must swear to serve for one year without pay in order to regain their honour. And all, indeed, were swearing thus before the sadhu as I left. But he believes that if you were to go there in person and release them from that part of their oath binding them to serve without pay then they would be doubly beholden to you.’
The rajah had no inclination to dispute Hervey’s command of the circumstances. Indeed, he was impressed by his contriving this magnanimity. Yet he had his doubts. ‘Why did the Rajpoots not mutiny likewise? Were they not deprived of their batta too?’
‘I do not wholly understand this, Your Highness,’ began Locke hesitantly, ‘but the Rajpoots seem to believe they are in the service of the Maharana of Mewar, albeit seconded to yourself.’
The rajah sighed and raised his eyebrows sadly. ‘My brother-in-law. Yes, one company of Rajpoots comprised part of the dowry of my late and most honoured wife. It seems that, even in death, she has been my deliverance.’
‘I am perplexed, however,’ said Selden, ‘that the rissalahs seem to have been insusceptible to the cause of the mutiny.’
‘It would appear, Your Highness,’ replied Locke, ‘that in their case no quartering or other charges were ever levied.’
‘And what might therefore be the feeling of my sowars — and Rajpoots — when I tell the sepoys at Jhansikote that I will take them back into service? Might they not be resentful that they serve loyally on no better terms than those who have broken their trust?’
‘Captain Hervey supposed that you would ask that question, sir,’ replied Locke, unbuttoning a pocket.
‘And what was his answer?’ asked the rajah.
He reached inside the pocket and pulled out a folded note. ‘He refers you to this, sir.’
The rajah took the paper and read.
Sir,
St Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 20 — the labourers in the vineyard. And increase of pay for lancers and Rajpoots.
M.H.
Capt.
The merest suggestion of a smile came to his lips. ‘What an eminently practical faith has Captain Hervey. Excuse me, gentlemen, if you will; I have things on which to reflect. Mr Locke, I cannot begin to express my gratitude. Mr Selden, would you please make whatever arrangements are necessary.’
Hervey returned to Chintalpore late next day. The rissalahs had arrived that morning and he had been pleased — and confident — to leave command of Jhansikote, and more especially its prisoners, in the hands of Captain Steuben; and, too, of Subedar Mhisailkar, who had ridden hard (as perhaps only a Maratha could) to join them as soon as the native doctors had been able to staunch the wounds about his head and body. Hervey did not doubt that the ringleaders would, and should, face execution, but he had insisted that it should not be carried out summarily — contrary to Locke’s urging of robust naval discipline. Instead he wished for trial by some duly appointed tribunal. He knew not by what articles and regulations these men served, but he supposed there must be some procedure akin to the court martial even in Chintal. Locke had argued that there was but one decision to be made — the firing squad or the hangman’s rope. And Hervey had not been without sympathy for that sentiment, especially after seeing how the European officers and their families had been butchered. But he sensed that a display of ceremony, of gravity, in the exercising of military discipline would have a greater, more enduring, effect than would the mere exercise of superior force. The latter might easily be countered by greater force at some time in the future, whereas the former might speak to something deeper in the sepoys’ character.
The rajah, not unnaturally, wished that Hervey be at once fêted, but seeing his pulled-down condition allowed him instead to retire to his apartments. There he bathed and lay a long time thinking of what he must severally write in the letters now long overdue. It had been two days only since the affair with the raj kumari in the forest, but it seemed an age. He must write to Henrietta to lay before her his absolute devotion. Until this were done his heart was still unfaithful. But first it was his duty to make a further report to the Duke of Wellington, for now the situation was materially changed. The rajah had seen the nizam’s hand at Jhansikote, and the pretext of the batta did nothing now, in Hervey’s view, to hide it. He knew sufficient of the state of affairs in Haidarabad, albeit entirely from third parties, to warn the duke that his expectation of a cooperating alliance might not be as favourable as he had hoped.
He had also to write to Fort George to reacquaint them with the parlous condition of the rajah’s domain. Its contiguity with both the nizam’s and the Company’s must render Chintal of especial significance — as, indeed, the collector had indicated. He would now urge Philip Lucie to suggest to the Madras council that sympathetic overtures be made to the rajah, to offer him the Company’s protection. And then he might with honour quit Chintal and continue on the duke’s mission. Concerning the jagirs, he expected Selden to act without further delay.
But the letter to Henrietta — how should that be? What weight ought he to place on what passed in the forest? Was its remembrance to him grievous, its burden intolerable? Was his guilt encompassed sufficiently by those words from the General Confession? Or might he have to seek specific absolution, as his Prayer Book required? In truth, it was almost as nothing now. The sudden return to the simple essentials of his profession — the sabre in the hand — somehow ordered things clearly and set them into proper perspective. For the past six months and more he had scarcely been a soldier. He had skulked in the shadows, as it were, jeopardizing his soldier’s honour. And honour was not divisible: a lady might not partially lose her honour, nor a soldier likewise. If he lived in the shadows then he would do things which did not bear light shining on them.
There was a knock at the door and, before he could answer, the raj kumari entered. He sprang to his feet and expressed himself certain that it was not proper she should be there.
‘Captain Hervey, do you have so little regard for me — or yourself — that you would send me away without hearing what I came to say?’
‘Forgive me, madam; I merely thought it best that…’ His voice trailed off, allowing her to take the initiative once more.
‘Captain Hervey, in India there are many demons which do battle with Shiva. They take possession of the mind and the body. Do not suppose that in the forest you or I were master or mistress of ourselves. We had intruded on the hamadryads, observed their most secret rituals of courtship, and in doing so had become possessed by their spirits.’
Here indeed was a convenient religion — one that might account no-one responsible for his actions. Hervey was unsure of his response. Besides, the notion that it had not been the raj kumari who had writhed beside him in the forest, but instead a spirit of that forest, was hardly flattering to his manhood. He saw Henrietta in that dark beauty — strangely and unaccountably, for the raj kumari’s looks were not in any detail those of his distant love. Rather was it, perhaps, the way she held her head, lowered and to one side, so that her eyes had to lift slightly to meet his: Henrietta’s way when she teased, and tempted, him most — that challenge in her look and voice which made him weigh every word before he dare speak it, for she would give no quarter. Might he, therefore, take some comfort in the raj kumari’s philosophy — that it was Henrietta to whom he had been drawn, and by whom he had been so fired?
Such an explanation could hardly serve. He bade her — cautiously — to take a seat.
‘Captain Hervey, we are all in your debt,’ she began, adjusting the throw of her saree as she sat. ‘My father will express it better than I am able, but I wished also to thank you.’
He bowed self-consciously.
‘But I confess that I am bewildered by your action. You are not bound by anything — least of all my father’s hospitality — that should make you hazard your life in such a way. Why — and so far from your own people — might you do this? Is it that you love battle so much? That you glory in its dangers?’
‘Not the latter, madam, I assure you. I have never, I believe, shirked battle, but I have never taken pleasure in it. Satisfaction, but never pleasure.’
‘Then what has driven you to do these things here?’
Her suspicion was as artfully concealed as she was able.
How might he begin to explain his actions, with so great a gulf as their sex and their faith between them? ‘Madam, there is nothing more repellent to a soldier than that others who share his calling turn their arms against those who have hitherto trusted them. There is never any justification for mutiny. Discipline is the soul of an army, and when it is gone there is no army — only a brute mob. No soldier can then keep his honour who merely stands by.’
She paused before pressing him to own to a further interest, though he did not guess that she supposed him to be working to some scheme. ‘Captain Hervey, you will now entreat my father to accept the protection of the British, will you not?’
Her percipience did her great credit, and Hervey’s admiration was the more. There was no question but that he must answer rightly. ‘I shall. I would consider it more than prudent in any circumstances, but since the nizam’s intentions are at best uncertain, and likewise the army’s loyalty, I believe it to be the only possible course.’
The raj kumari looked closely at him, narrowing her eyes in a manner that conjured a startling menace. ‘And do you suppose that Chintal would ever then be free of interference by the British?’
With what passion did she serve her father’s interests! In that instant, Hervey was disavowed of any notion but that the raj kumari was quite unlike any woman he had known.
The rajah’s utter dejection seemed, at one moment the following day, as if it might wholly pull him down. Selden was even fearful of some derangement, and all its unthinkable consequences. But the rajah would see no physician, native or otherwise. And then, towards the evening, he had seemed to emerge from his despondency, ordering that the state processional, held four times each year, and which occasion the following day no official of the court had dared to enquire of, should continue. He told Selden it would be a sign to his subjects that they might have confidence in the permanence of Chintal, and of the rajah himself. He would process with all his elephants, as was the custom, to the great oxbow of the Godavari, where the ashes of the dead had been ceremonially scattered for generations, and there he would have his sepoys drawn up. He would remind them of their destiny and then absolve them from the penalty which Hervey had imposed. Throughout evening and most of the night, therefore, the palace was all activity, with constant curses and laments: Aré bap-ré, bap-ré!
As Hervey walked towards the menagerie in the cool of the late evening, old Seejavi’s mahout greeted him solemnly in his fractured Urdu, and Hervey returned his salutations with a smile. ‘How go things in the hathi-khana?’ he asked, knowing full well the mahout would be flattered that Wellesley-sahib’s captain wished to hear of things in the elephant stables.
‘By the favour of the Presence, all is well. Tonight is old Seejavi’s festival, and tomorrow he will go with the rajah to the river, if he wills — but with no man on his back.’
‘And is he very old, mahout sahib?’
The wizened little man swelled with pride at both the thought of Seejavi’s age and the captain’s honouring him so. ‘He is the oldest elephant in all of India — compeller of worlds, mover of mountains. He has been with the rajah since the Great Fear. Men say he carried Cornwallis-sahib. Gopi Nath has just repainted his head, and three chirags burn on his skull-top; will not the Presence come and see him?’
Of course he would come. And soon they were in the hathi-khana, the most peaceful quarters of the palace that night — although elsewhere, a dozen mahouts and many more gholams sweated to prepare the howdahs and trappings for the morning.
‘See his tusks, mounted with gold: the rajah had that done when Seejavi charged through the Maratha hordes at the time of the Fear and enabled him to escape to the British. It was twenty years ago today, and the rajah always gives silver to the hathi-khana and decorates Seejavi, the amir-i-filan — the prince of elephants — lest he turn on us and kill his mahout. Seven mahouts he has killed in my memory, sahib. See the garland of roses the rajah sent him this morning: he will only wear them if his temper is good.’
Hervey contemplated Seejavi for many minutes. The old elephant stood swaying from side to side as if cogitating some equal mystery, the oil lamps atop his head flickering and dancing with frosty blue flames.
‘Seejavi will soon begin to speak, sahib.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, sahib. We never know what he will say, but he tells of battles and sieges, of suttees and sacrifices, and of men he has killed.’
‘Mahout sahib—’
‘Prince-born, it is true, I tell you. He will speak to Shisha Nag, his favourite he-elephant. He will tell him secrets — how he threw the vile Sindhia’s spy from his back and trampled him. And how, when he served the peshwa awhile, and they fought the nizam’s army, they captured the guns worked by some French. And how they made prize of the French camp, among them a French woman whom the rao claimed as his share. He carried her off in a howdah on Seejavi’s back that night, though she wept bitterly. The rao put his arm around her and she bit him till he bled, so that he swore again, but vowed she was a fit wife for a reiving Maratha. Seejavi took them across the Nerbudda, in full spate from the mango showers. And two sons she bore the rao! And Shisha Nag will listen respectfully — enviously, for the rajah does not use his elephants for war any longer.’
Shisha Nag stood a few paces behind Seejavi, swaying to and fro also, as if waiting for them to leave so that he might hear the amir-i-filan’s stories. Hervey smiled to himself: why should such a beast as this, old and wise, not be able to speak of these things?
‘Yes, Prince-born,’ sighed the mahout, ‘Shisha Nag has much to learn from him. And tomorrow Seejavi shall have nine full-size cakes for hazree, spread with best molasses. Tomorrow will be a grand tamasha — the very finest of parties, sahib.’
At eight next morning, the rajah emerged from his quarters into the great courtyard. There, in sunlight so bright that even the gold thread in his purple kurta glinted, he mounted a white Turkoman and, at the head of the palace troop, began the descent of the droog to where the procession had assembled on the maidan — a procession which, if lacking some of the order and symmetry of a parade on the Horse Guards, in its sheer colour and vitality surpassed anything Hervey had seen, or could ever have imagined.
He watched from the walls of the palace. The rajah had said nothing to him since the heartfelt greeting on his return from Jhansikote, nor had he sent any word, and although this might have occasioned some injury, Hervey confided that it was but a most conscious effort at self-reliance on the rajah’s part. Again, he found himself filled with admiration for the rajah’s attachment to duty, difficult for him — painful, even — though he knew it must be.
The palace troop — the lancers of the guard — wore purple also, thirty proud sowars on bays whose coats shone with the effort of many hours’ brushing. Two half-rissalahs — four hundred lancers in all — were drawn up as advance and rear detachments, and six huge war-elephants, their tusks capped by gold sheaths, richly caparisoned in silk shabraques — purple for the rajah’s, red for the others — stood with infinite patience. Ornate mounting steps awaited the dignitaries who would travel in the cupolaed howdahs. Awnings, extending like those which shaded the bazaar merchants as they sat in front of their shops, gave just sufficient relief from the sun’s coming strength to the bare-legged mahouts. All the officials of the court were gathered in their most extravagant finery, and all made namaste as the rajah appeared. A fanfare of huge trumpets echoed the occasion beyond the palace walls, and the elephants, though their fighting days were long past, raised their trunks in salute. Out of a palanquin draped in silks and studded with semi-precious stones stepped the raj kumari. Hervey’s telescope moved at once to her, for her purple saree set off everything about her which might make a man admire a woman. She bowed to her father, took his hand as he led her to the mounting steps, and most gracefully did they both ascend to the howdah. The rajah stood acknowledging the acclamation of the courtyard, and then signalled to Captain Steuben atop the magnificently accoutred Shisha Nag for the assemblage to move off (Steuben was the only European whom Hervey could see in the procession, for not even Selden was there). He watched them leave the maidan and went then to the stables, for although he had business enough to occupy him with a pen all day, the urge to follow the procession was too great. He wanted to see this singular cavalcade at its fullest extent, and the Godavari durbar where its design would be fulfilled.
Johnson, in the way that only he seemed able, had anticipated him, and Jessye and one of the rajah’s country-breds stood saddled in their stalls. In five more minutes they were leaving the palace by a side gate, and heading for the low-lying hills which overlooked the river and the road to the oxbow, so that they might observe discreetly, respectfully.
The great basin of the upper Godavari was nothing like as green as at other times, except the forested slopes of the northern side, an abutment of the Eastern Ghats, whose dark canopy extended as far as the eye could see. On the flood plain itself there were comparatively few trees, and at this time of year the black cotton soil and rocky outcrops were bare of signs of cultivation. During the rains the tableland would become grass country once more, a vast grazing ground and fodder store for the thousands of placid beasts which served the people of Chintalpore. Between the city and the oxbow the river was a wide, sedate stream — as it was, indeed, for much of its length. The only obstruction between here and the sea 150 miles to the east was caused by shallowing across two or three sections of rocky bed where the river traversed the strike of the adjoining hills, barring the way to navigation when the water was low. On the eastern borders of Chintal, where the domains of the nizam, the Company and the Rajah of Nagpore successively adjoined those of Chintal, there were points of great beauty. Here the Godavari became enclosed between the Bison range (so called because of occasional visits by that stocky game) and the hills of Rumpa. The steeply shelving cliffs and crowded forests of bamboo, teak, tamarind and fig might have been those that overlooked the Lorelei, except that no castle or other work of human hand was to be seen.
In an hour or so they were nearing the oxbow, almost a full mile behind the cavalcade, on the higher ground to the south. But such was the brightness of the sun, and the clearness of the air, that the procession could easily be observed in all its detail without even a telescope. The saffron lance pennants first drew the eye to the escort, whose sowars still sat tall in the saddle. Then to the bullock carts and the camels which carried the means for the rajah’s feast, and then to the gaggle of ryots who followed, as always, hopeful of some benediction of the rajah, or better still some material benevolence — and some blessing by Shiva or Kali or the spirits of the Godavari. In truth, they came because they had always come, for if they did not, then perhaps there might be no monsoon, no harvest. Such was the way with Hindoo gods.
But it was the state elephants that truly commanded Hervey’s attention. At this distance their massiveness, their substance, their belittling of every living thing, was at its plainest. The howdahs added half their height again, and their golds, silvers, crimsons and vermilions stood in sharpest contrast with the baked colours of the land. No greater distinction between the highest prince and the meanest hind could there be than before him now, the rajah elevated beyond all reach in his jewelled and canopied throne, and the ryot behind, covered in the dust of his lord’s retinue, legs bowed, back bent — closer to the earth than to the belly of the noble creature which carried his rajah and gave a face to God. At that moment Hervey knew in his vitals the eternal draw of this land.
Carefully he worked himself nearer to the oxbow, not wanting to be seen, for it seemed (for all its panoply) so private an occasion. He might have got closer still, but at a furlong from the rear of the great press of ryots, behind the ranks of sepoys, he halted shouldersdown in a nullah and took out his telescope.
‘What d’ye see, Captain ’Ervey sir?’
He swept left to right along the whole line of the durbar — perhaps a quarter of a mile of tight-pressed souls, all silent. ‘There’s a sadhu haranguing them. I can’t hear what he says but I think they’re swearing the oath.’ He allowed himself a faint smile of satisfaction: Locke’s way had so nearly prevailed. He had come close to accepting Locke’s counsel indeed, for the instant that muskets, powder and ball were placed in the hands of the sepoys they would be given the means of insurrection they had formerly lacked. But Chintal, of all places, could not be held subservient by mere force of arms. There must be a voluntary compliance in its subjects, both civil and military. The rajah knew it too. And that was why the rajah now had to meet the test four-square, knowing that if Hervey and he had judged things wrong his sowars might save his person, and that of the raj kumari, but his dominion would be lost.
Rousing cheers broke from the ranks of the resworn sepoys. The rajah descended from his state elephant, mounted the white Turkoman and rode along their front rank acknowledging the loyal greetings — testing their fidelity, even — by his very closeness. He rode back to the centre of the line, stood high in the stirrups and made his little speech of obligation and satisfaction. When he absolved them of the year’s service without pay there was another full-throated roar of devotion, and he walked his charger directly towards them, the ranks opening to let him pass, the sepoys making low namaste. And as the great tamasha began — with its spit-roasts and rice, its breads and its spices — the rajah rode from the parade with a stature that even Hervey, through his telescope, could see was enhanced. An escort of but a half-dozen lancers rode with him, south and east towards the low-lying hills where earlier Hervey and Johnson had taken their ease as the durbar assembled.
He lowered the telescope… and then raised it quickly again. It was the sudden surge near the state elephants. Like the wind across a field of corn. Shisha Nag was it not? Throwing up his head, lashing with his trunk, raising a great dust. Hervey could not make out what disturbed him. All he could see was Seejavi standing close by, swaying gently, this way and then that. He rubbed his eye clear of moisture and put the telescope to it again. And he saw the body of a man being carried, as if it were a half-filled palliasse, from where Shisha Nag had raised such a dust. He wondered which unfortunate mahout or sepoy had fallen victim to the young male’s bile — or even to old Seejavi’s wiles.
* * *
A little trail of dust marked the rajah’s progress. Hervey did not even have to broach the crest of the obliging nullah to keep station with him. Where the ground first began to rise, a mile or so from the oxbow, the dust settled and he edged a little up the nullah’s banks to see where the rajah and his escort were halted. He could see them quite clearly, almost two full furlongs away, by an ancient pagoda in a secluded mango grove. The rajah waited as the lancers beat about the ground (for leopard were not unknown in these parts) and then, as his escort retired to the other side of the little hill which hid the pagoda from sight of the river, he dismounted and entered the sacred building. Hervey could see it all quite clearly from his hollow in the ground. He was about to lower his telescope, for he had no wish to spy on the rajah during his devotions, when he noticed, a hundred yards beyond the grove, under a banyan tree, a bullock cart. And then, after a short while, the rajah emerging from the pagoda and walking towards it. A figure emerged from the shade of the tree and made namaste — a shrivelled little man in a sunhat. Hervey turned his telescope back to the cart: two of the thinnest-looking oxen, cream-coloured, yoked side by side, stood patiently. How many oxen, carts and shrivelled little men there were in all of India he could not begin to imagine, but he knew he had seen these ones before.
That afternoon
Three pariah kites glided high above the palace with not a beat of any wing in the five minutes Hervey observed their ascent. They described a lazy but precise circle over the royal gardens, as if disdaining the city beyond, and without any apparent interest in prey on the ground. Perhaps the birds knew that now, in the heat of the day, though still no greater in this month than that of an English summer, few warm-blooded creatures left the shade. At length he walked to the stables, hoping to find Selden there.
‘Hervey, come and take a look at this mare. Have you seen a foaling before?’
‘Not since Jessye herself,’ he replied.
‘Well, you might this evening. She’s waxed up, but she’s not sweating yet, so she’ll drop it after dark is my bet, as most do.’
The mare, a light-chestnut Arab, was standing calmly on a deep bed of straw, her syce keeping watch anxiously inside the foaling box. ‘Very well then, Bittu,’ said Selden to him in his native Telugu as he left. ‘Send for me at once when her breathing becomes laboured.’ And then, turning to Hervey: ‘Come — tea and words, I think.’
Hervey agreed.
In the cool seclusion of Selden’s apartments Hervey spoke his thoughts freely. He must leave Chintal as soon as possible — within the week, he hoped. The Jhansikote business was something he ought not by rights to have intervened in. ‘Have you yet located the papers for the jagirs?’
Selden frowned. ‘Hervey, it is a trickier business than you suppose. I don’t have right of access to such documents. I must choose my time.’
Every day he remained here, Hervey protested, he prejudiced his chances of being received by the nizam — which was the duke’s foremost commission.
‘Yes, I understand full well,’ sighed Selden; ‘and I am conscious — acutely conscious — of your having gone to Jhansikote on my promise.’
Hervey would have said some words of mitigation (for he suspected he could never have stood aside, having accepted the rajah’s hospitality), except that to do so might have lessened Selden’s resolve to find the documents. ‘Then you will try to bring matters to a conclusion before the end of the week?’
Selden nodded.
Hervey poured himself some tea and sat by the window.
‘By the by,’ said Selden, sitting in a chair draped with a tigerskin, ‘you have heard of the elephant going must at the durbar this morning.’
Hervey, gazing out intently at the pariah kites still circling, could truthfully say he had not, for he had seen it at a distance, and no-one had spoken of it since his return.
‘Extraordinary business: it tore a man from its howdah. The fellow’s back would have broken as it hit the ground, but the great beast trampled him for good measure. He was brought here post-haste in a doolie — dead as mutton.’
‘Was it anyone of note?’ asked Hervey, though not, in truth, greatly exercised, for he was becoming accustomed to death in India.
Selden raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice. ‘Captain Steuben.’
‘Good heavens!’ gasped Hervey, turning back towards the salutri. ‘Good heavens! The poor fellow. How perfectly dreadful… what ill fortune—’
‘But not, I’m sure, accidental ill fortune.’ It was now Selden’s turn to look away, leaving Hervey to ponder the suggestion.
‘Why do you say… on what evidence do you believe…’
Selden turned back to him, but he merely raised both eyebrows.
‘Come, man: you must have some evidence!’
‘I cannot suppose anyone to be innocent of the affair of the batta who had the opportunity to be otherwise.’
Hervey poured himself more of the cinnamon tea. He could not, he said, gainsay Selden’s logic. ‘And yet I cannot somehow believe—’
A sudden commotion below the window halted his speculation. They leaned out, to see several dozen of the palace staff babbling excitedly and calling on the salutri. ‘Come,’ said Selden, making for the door. ‘Something’s amiss.’
They followed the little crowd to the other side of the gardens, to one of the summer wells. Another babble; this time of outdoor servants as they pulled out the body of a man, gagged, and bound with ropes. They parted to let the salutri through. He needed only a glimpse of the smooth cheeks, the long straight hair and the doll-like upturned nose to recognize him.
‘Kunal Verma,’ he sighed, shaking his head.
‘Who?’ said Hervey.
‘Kunal Verma — the rajah’s dewan, keeper of his treasury. And of land deeds.’