The Strangler Vine, page 22
Within minutes the Rao was surrounded by shikaris and sardars. I could not really hear what they said, and I have a vision of Blake fending them off in that quiet, stubborn way that I imagined they would find infuriating. Someone came and spirited off the mahout. We stood waiting for mounts. I was extremely thirsty and my wound hurt but had not reopened. The sardar’s body was thrown across a horse. Rao and his entourage were borne off on elephants. Against the dirt and tufts of thick green grass the tiger looked impossibly bright and powerful, even in death. Its head was huge. It had whiskers and a kind of moustache and several of its teeth were broken. A small rosette of red had spread across the hide where my shot had pierced its hide and rammed into its heart. The shikaris stretched the body out and eventually a couple of sapling trunks were brought and its legs were tied to them and it was carried away. I wondered idly what had become of Mir Aziz and Sameer and the Resident’s party. I later learnt they had long since been taken back to the safety of the tents. At last the Rao’s soldiers conducted us back past the beaters. Blake rode close to me, and when we reached our tents, there was Mir Aziz on my other side. Neither spoke, but I had the feeling they believed they were protecting me. The thought mildly exasperated me. The soldiers gathered up our tents – they looked small and poor indeed next to the Rao’s city of tents – and we rode up to the riverside palace, where I was given a large, airy room. Noisy native servants kept arriving with boxes and food, and demanding things I couldn’t understand. My head hurt. People wished to talk to me. Blake closed the door on them. I was, I recall, extremely tired.
When I woke there seemed to be an army of barbers and bearers carrying a tub and pitchers of hot water, and khitmatgurs with coffee and platters full of breads, fruits and dahls. Sameer stood at the foot of the bed, unsure whether to send them away or order them in. I was starving. I took a bath and then ate until I could fit in no more. When I was done, Blake arrived, dressed in a pure white kurti and churidars. Mir Aziz and Sameer had, he said, been offered various grand dishes, but had insisted upon cooking their own meal.
‘I sent back the jewels and the silks. There were some very large rubies,’ he said.
‘I should have liked a ruby,’ I said. ‘Just one. How is the mahout?’
‘It seems he might live. Lost a lot of blood, and he’ll never be pretty, but he might come through. The shikari who tried to save the Resident will not. The Major General, who has temporarily taken on the late Resident’s duties, has offered us hospitality in the Residency. He is loud in his praises of your brave deeds and would be only too pleased if we join him, not least, I suspect, so he can put a first-hand description in his despatch to Calcutta. I’m told he said it was “a very palpable hit for the Company”.’
‘But not so good for the Resident.’
‘No. I declined his offer. He’s more of a … well, I declined his offer.’
I laughed.
‘It was well done, Avery,’ he said. ‘And the Company will make something out of it: the Lieutenant who saved the native prince from tiger attack and assassination.’
‘It was certainly strange. The machan collapsing, and the tiger and the elephant, and the sardar,’ I said.
‘The elephant had been cut before and the machan was supposed to come down. If the Rao had survived the attack, a machan populated by Europeans collapsing would certainly have provoked an incident with the Company. The Rao has determined enemies. The sardar must have expected to lose his life, but he tried to kill the Rao anyway. The tiger was an unforeseen addition. Still, your two shots have got us a private interview with him. When I returned the gifts, I asked for an audience. It has been agreed. I’m indebted to you.’
It occurred to me that Blake had traded my chance to pay off my debts and marry Helen for a few words with a native prince.
‘You couldn’t have kept them,’ he said. ‘But you should know that for a chance to speak to the Rao alone, I would have given them up even if you could have kept them.’
‘Why should you imagine that my desire to find Mountstuart is any less than yours?’ I said. I was irritated now. ‘He has been my idol. I do not know what he is to you. Moreover, Colonel Buchanan made it quite clear that my future depends upon our success or failure.’
‘Did he? And what else did he say to you?’
‘He said that if we failed he’d send me to a hole in the Mofussil and keep me there until I went mad or died of the cholera.’
‘And if we find him?’
I looked away. ‘I can go home.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘I no longer know. I hated Calcutta so much, all I could think of was home. But what I chiefly missed was the place and my sister, Louisa. If I were to return now, the rest of my family would regard me as a failure. Certainly my father would. We do not see eye to eye. There is little for me there.’
‘What about your sister?’
‘She is the best person I know.’
‘Not married?’
‘He will never let her marry. She is to be the crutch of his old age.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I think those two shots may have placed you beyond Buchanan’s reach.’
I fidgeted. ‘So,’ I said brightly, ‘we have given up a raja’s treasure for a few minutes in which to make him even more annoyed with us than he was before.’
‘That’s the ticket, Avery. We’ll make a Special Inquiry Agent of you yet.’
The room was high and bright. Small windows, set in a painted frieze of brightly rendered birds and flowers high in the walls, ushered in the light. Below the painted frieze there were glazed bookcases stuffed with leather-bound volumes along one wall. I could not quite make out the titles, but I was sure some were in English. On a stand in one corner of the room an enormous green and red parrot delicately ate a nut, and on the floor beneath it was a gold-enamelled huqqa. In another sat a punkah-wallah, and in another a musician on a cushion plucked single notes from a sitar. On various intricately patterned occasional tables were a globe, a telescope, a sextant, a chess set. There were also four extremely large, bearded and heavily armed guards, whose hands never left the jewelled scabbards of their tulwars.
In the elaborate garden outside, in which the white tiger paced up and down a shaded cage, our clothes and persons had been minutely searched by more burly guards.
The Rao stood behind a long mahogony desk, poring over a pile of papers with two elderly, bearded companions. The desk was covered with a number of tiny perfect objects: small boxes inlaid with enamel, inkwells encrusted with tiny rubies, a magnifying-glass. He wore a simple pleated robe of white muslin, and over it a pink silk coat embroidered in gold, and over that he was once again garlanded with row upon row of pearls. There was another spray of precious stones attached to his turban.
We waited, barefoot of course. Eventually the Rao tilted his head and looked at us. He dismissed his companions, who shot us curious glances as they bowed low and backed out of the room. The musician departed too. The Rao looked over our heads and began to speak, a great flood of Hindoostanee poured from his lips. After a minute or two, he stopped. Blake bowed low. I did the same. Blake replied in kind. After two or three sentences the Rao waved his hand impatiently.
‘Yes, yes, Mr Jeremiah Blake,’ he said, ‘let us dispense with the florid addresses. I expect it from my own subjects, but it sounds absurd coming from an Englishman of the Company, and besides, it bores me.’
I am ashamed to say that I goggled in a rather impolite fashion.
‘Yes, Lieutenant William Avery, my English is very good, is it not?’ said the Rao. He seemed rather pleased at my surprise. ‘I do not choose to use it often these days, but I have not lost it. Now, let me say again, I thank you for saving my life. It was most impressive marksmanship. A difficult shot, I believe. It will be the talk of my court for a thousand years. I am indebted to you. Your Hindoostanee is quite dreadful, by the way. Now come, come.’
He beckoned me over. From a gold box he drew out a black bag tied at the top by a drawstring. From it he poured out a handful of precious stones, which clicked satisfyingly against each other in his hand. He held them out to show me.
‘Sir, Your Majesty, Maharaja, you know I cannot accept them,’ I stuttered.
He sniffed. ‘Yes. The Company has rules about such things. I wish you to know that I am grateful, and am sensible of your courage and skill, and I wish to be magnanimous. But Mr Blake has asked for an interview. I will be honest and say I wish you had chosen something else. The letter you brought was, you must know, insulting, for all that your own words dripped with honey. Your story of an attack outside my walls I cannot but regard as a provocation. But you have saved me from beast and assassin and I am grateful. Nevertheless, I shudder to think of the uses to which the Company will put this story. Now, please to be quick.’
He stopped, but then took another breath as if he could not quite restrain himself.
‘But let me say before you advance your suit, I have no interest in how the Company regards the running of my kingdom. I have adhered to all the arrangements laid out in the accord between my family and the Company. I say again, as I have said many times, that I do not give, nor ever have given, succour to Thugs and bandits, as Major Sleeman persists in insinuating. I regard them as a menace to my people. Rather, I believe that my prerogatives are daily being undermined by the Company, my word mistrusted and the Company’s manner increasingly peremptory.
‘Where does it say that Company troops may come riding into Doora to pick up whomsoever they like on some flimsy charge? Where was it ever agreed that a Resident’s authority might include delivering lectures on Christian morals to a native prince? The late Resident – I fear I cannot altogether mourn his departure, though I would not have wished such an ending upon him for all the world – had the impudence to tell me to put away my zenana and dress more like a European. I regarded this as both rude and well beyond any remit ever given to a Resident, and mentioned nowhere in the annals of the relations between the Company and the princely states. I wish to point out that my family and I enjoyed excellent relations with the former Resident, who was a precious support to my mother in the years of her regency, while the Company was trying to make a little Christian of me in Calcutta. In our view, he was removed with summary and insulting abruptness. It is not I who have changed, but the Company. If my views are still not clear, let me say without any obfuscation that I believe there are those in the Company who look for reasons to take my lands – but because I do not poison my first ministers, or murder my cousins, the Company cannot justify sending its armies here, and thus looks for other ways of relieving me of my throne. Now, you may take that back to Calcutta.’
I gasped and would have protested, but Blake placed his hand on my shoulder.
‘Maharaj, I – we – are not here to harangue you about Thuggee, nor to deliver a homily from the Company. And please, I beg you to believe me when I assure you that I am of the opinion the attack upon us had nothing to do with Doora.’
I pressed my lips together and set my jaw. I was by no means sure that this was true.
‘We come only in search of Xavier Mountstuart. I know he rejoiced in calling you friend. I do not know why I was furnished with such letters from Calcutta – or rather I have an idea and I believe the reason was to damage us in your eyes so you would be unwilling to help us, though I do not entirely understand why.’
The Rao sat down on a carved wooden chair and placed his hands on the arms. Two of the guards came to stand on either side behind it. He looked slighter and more delicate than ever, but his expression was still haughty.
‘I have an obligation to you. But I do not choose to talk of my friend Mountstuart Sahib to “all and sundry”, as the saying goes.’
‘Maharaj, may I remind you that I may have come to you with the Company’s letter, but without the Company’s uniform. I come because I wish to discover what has become of the malik-al-shuara, whom I too once called friend.’
‘Then I must disappoint you, Mr Blake, for as you say, no one has seen Mountstuart Sahib in Doora this many a long year. Why are you so sure he has been here?’
‘We had been told he planned to come to you after visiting Jubbulpore, which we visited only to search for him. We ask simply if there is anything you can tell us about what might have become of him.’
‘But you have no evidence of his coming to Doora?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well then, for my part I would say your question is answered. I am sorry you have come so far for so little. Let us at least part in good faith. Let me give you both something to thank you for my deliverance. You, Mr Blake, as well as Mr Avery, for I have not thanked you for preventing me from firing my gun. How did you guess it was blocked? An amazing piece of clairvoyance. Your Hindoostanee, by the way, is really not bad at all.’
‘You are too kind, Maharaj. It was not clairvoyance, but reasoning. Your’ – he chose his word carefully – ‘opponents wished to leave nothing to chance.’
The Rao said, ‘My opponents planned well indeed. My household is penetrated, and who can I trust? Not the Company. If I were to die before little Arjuna is anointed, the Company would sweep us into the Bengal presidency for lack of an heir.’
Now I burst out. ‘Sir, that is completely untrue and an abominable impugning of our and the Company’s honour! Our deeds should show our intentions! We sought only to help!’
The room seemed to become uncomfortably quiet, the guards quietest of all, as if awaiting a word from their master. Even the parrot looked up. I had perhaps overstepped the mark.
‘Maharaj, you know we saved your life,’ Blake said. ‘I think you amuse yourself with us.’
The Rao said, ‘Chote Sahib bahut accha nishaana-baaz hai – awr chahra bhi khubsurat hai – lekin mujhe lagta hai voh kuch be-waquf hai?’
‘Larke Ko maaf kar dena Maharaj. Voh abhi jawan awr jald-baaz hai – awr sirf thora sa be waquf,’ Blake said.
The Rao raised his eyebrows. I caught the word ‘boy’, larke; and the word ‘stupid’, be-waquf.
‘And so, Maharaj, since, as you say, we have incurred your thanks and obligation, let me speak one more word on that subject for which we came?’
The Rao sighed as if his patience was being sorely tried, but nodded.
‘Let me tell you that Mountstuart was a good friend to me – as good as he was able to be. I owe him much, and I think I knew him well. Well enough to recognize the third ring on your right hand.’
The Rao looked bored. I looked at his hands, but he had wrapped left over right.
‘It is a gold signet ring with the insignia of a white rose. It belonged to his father’s family, who are from Ayr in Scotland. It was given to him by his mother, who hoped he would be a poet. I know he was here, and I do not believe he would have given it to anyone whom he did not trust. For myself, I would say that only someone he trusted would know its provenance. And though it would be presumptuous of me, Xavier Mountstuart would have told you that your first minister’s and your cousin’s treason are the talk of the bazaar. Though you, of course, know that already.’
The Rao lifted up his hands and admired the gold signet ring that was indeed on his right hand. He began to laugh. ‘Mr Jeremiah Blake, who are you?’
‘I learnt my Hindoostanee and Sanskrit from Xavier Mountstuart. I had a talent for languages. Once he had schooled me, I accompanied him on certain expeditions.’
‘Where?’
‘Sind, Punjab, Coorg, several visits to Burmah before the war. Many places.’
‘I see. So, you were the boy.’
‘I was the boy.’
‘My country! In thy days of glory past/ A beauteous halo circled round thy brow,’ said the Rao.
And Blake said, ‘And worshipped as a deity thou wast/ Where is thy glory, where the reverence now? It’s not often that a Rajput king quotes an atheist firebrand, Maharaj.’
‘Or that a Company civilian does either. Henry Derozio introduced me to Xavier. Calcutta was a freer place in those days. I cannot imagine such associations now.’
‘Mountstuart introduced me to Henry Derozio. He gave me a copy of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, and later The Age of Reason. Might I ask, Maharaj, how you met Derozio?’
‘It is, of course, quite irregular for a commoner to interrogate a prince in such a manner,’ the Rao said languidly, ‘but you have stimulated my curiosity and so I will answer. At Drummond’s Academy in Calcutta. The Company took me into its keeping when my father died. I was eight. My mother fought to keep the regency and to save my throne. In Calcutta they gave me two tutors, German Lutheran missionaries, who failed to instill Christian beliefs in me, I fear, but gave me the Enlightenment instead: mathematics, botany, astronomy, music and poetry. And they sent me to classes at David Drummonds’ Academy. They thought that since he was a dour Scot he must be a Presbyterian, but in fact, of course, he was a notorious free-thinker!’ The Rao laughed and brought his hands up to his face as if to hide his wide smile. His recollections had transported him to another time.
‘What a place it was! And Henry Derozio was its most brilliant boy – several years younger than me, but already his mind was so alive! Poor Henry. Of course, his free-thinking and his republican ideas and his Rights of Man went too far for me. But we shared a deep sense of our country’s former greatness, and desired to see it raise its head again in pride. And we found fellowship in that neither of us fitted. He was neither native nor European, and far too radical for either Hindoo or English. I was a prince, admiring European learning, but tied to my Hindoo heritage – never enough of one or the other. In Calcutta I was too Hindoo. When I returned to Doora I was too European. You know, I brought in laws against suttee and infanticide before the Company did; I had children vaccinated against smallpox. I have made Doora a centre of music such as it has not been since the days of my ancestor Rabindrath, the great friend of the Emperor Akbar. Calcutta gives me no credit for this, and accuses me of intransigence, yet my sardars mutter that I desecrate tradition. And now I find I am fighting for my throne and must seem more Hindoo than the most Hindoo in order to hold on to it.
