My friend put her hand to her face. I noticed, with a shock, that she had a scratch on her hand.
“The little beast,” she growled.
I felt slow and fuddled for I had no idea what Rachel was talking about. She pointed dramatically at the bed. My eyes followed her trembling finger. There was a yellow envelope on the pillow. Again! This time it had been ripped open and the peacock’s feather, hair and seeds had fallen out on to the cover. The answer came to me in a flash. The monkey. It must have been!
But I thought it was after me. I did not expect it to attack my friend. Then I realized, for truly I was awfully slow today, that we were standing in my room.
“I think I hit it,” Rachel said.
“Start from the beginning,” I said, slumping on the bed. “Tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I came in here to find you. I saw that monkey dropping a letter on your bed. It ran at me and I lost my temper. You know the bowl thing.”
“Which one?”
“You know that horrible thing, made out of a rhinoceros foot.”
I nodded.
“I threw it at the monkey. Then it charged me, scratched me. Really wanted to hurt. I could’ve wrung its neck—but you came in and it fled. I’ve failed …” All the anger had drained out of Rachel and she sat down next to me on the bed, her breath coming in shuddering sobs.
“I suppose you would have done better,” she said, flatly.
“I’m proud of you.” I put my arm round her. “That thing is vicious.”
“You know what this means,” Rachel said, quietly.
I blinked. “What?”
“They are watching us.”
“At least we’re on the right track.”
“How can you put it so flippantly?” Rachel turned to me, her dark eyes inches from my own. “Don’t you see what this means? The Baker Brothers are one step ahead of us. It’s as though they’re playing with us.” She fell silent and believing she had finished, I was about to reassure her when she burst out again. “Kit, I know them. Don’t forget they kidnapped me.”
“How can I ever forget?”
The evil brothers had kidnapped Rachel and taken her prisoner to Egypt. She still had not told me all she had endured during that awful time.
“So, you could say we’re quite well acquainted.” She gave a grim smile. “I know how much the Bakers can hate.”
Hate. That word again, Champlon had talked about those brothers as haters, now Rachel. We were silent as we thought about this, for there is very little to say in the face of implacable hate. Then my aunt yoohooed from downstairs.
“Come on, girls. This isn’t the time for primping and preening,” she bellowed, her voice booming like a steamship foghorn. “Get your pretty faces down here at once.”
“Primping and preening indeed!” I said, insulted.
“You primp,” Rachel replied with a watery smile. “I’ll preen.”
Grinning, we threw on some clothes and raced down the stairs to where Aunt Hilda was waiting in the street outside the boarding house. Not all of us were going to Tibet, alas, for my poor papa was too unwell to proceed any further. Somehow Aunt Hilda had managed to wangle an invitation from the Viceroy himself, Lord Mayo. Father would recover his health surrounded by luxury. Frankly though, I did not envy him. Any house infested with Mrs. Spragg and Edwin could not be called peaceful. Gaston Champlon had been invited to join my father at the Viceregal Lodge. But that doughty explorer was not one to miss an adventure. Though still sickly, he was ready to depart, seated on the back of the finest donkey.
We made quite a convoy as we left Simla, six of us sahibs and memsahibs, along with a retinue of sixteen small but sturdy mountain donkeys, a cook, and porters from the Sherpa hill tribes. An army going into battle. Canvas tents, stoves, boots, ice picks, crampons, food—everything but a roof and walls.
As Tibet was notoriously bandit-infested, we also carried ten Martini-Henry rifles along with five large and clumsy, but quick-loading, howdah pistols. Champlon had bought a new revolver, which I had glimpsed in its leather case. He carried it around with him at all times, like a talisman that could keep him safe from sorcery as well as attackers. I sincerely hoped that we would not have to use our weapons, but the Sherpas seemed to think they were wonderful. I caught one young boy playing with a rifle, firing it off into the tree tops as if it were a toy!
I had my own particular donkey. She was a playful young animal, with a dark brown pelt and a white splash on her muzzle, shaped exactly like a five-pointed star. I named her Tara—which means Star in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. Whenever something annoyed her she would flatten her ears and kick the ground, but when I fed her apples or bits of sugar she would whinny and lovingly nuzzle my hand. Riding on Tara, I felt able to cope with anything, especially as I had secretly purloined one of the howdah pistols and wore it strapped in a holster under my coat.
This part of the journey was the best. Traveling with our convoy in pleasant hills, with some of the world’s highest peaks towering in the distance. I think it raised all our spirits and Champlon seemed quite restored. It took us about a week to get to the highest hill station, a pilgrim town called Badrinath. What a strange place; thronged with wailing ash-smeared men in dirty saffron robes, with matted hair flowing down their backs. They looked like the foulest tramps and the sight of them scared Rachel half to death. She was quite puzzled when I explained they were Hindu holy men, like monks or priests. After a day’s rest we traveled onwards to the border and the way became harder, both physically and mentally. The boys both suffered from altitude sickness. This condition, caused by the lack of oxygen in the mountain air, drains the life out of you, leaving you dizzy and nauseous. Strangely Rachel and I were unaffected, which proves yet again that women are the stronger sex! I’m proud to say I seemed to cope, as we climbed higher and higher. My breath coming in gasps, my ankles and thighs hard as iron bands, I felt I was pushing myself to the very limit. But the Sherpas assured us, with knowing smiles, that this was nothing to trials we would have to endure in Tibet.
Indeed many of them were not willing to risk crossing into the “roof of the world.” I do not know if they were scared of bandits, the mountain snows or even “bad spirits,” but more and more of them seemed to peel off from our party as we climbed higher and higher. When I tried to ask one Sherpa, a lad named Tensing, about the monk who Bashir Ali had recommended as a guide he turned very pale.
“He is a najlorpa,” he said.
“A what?”
“A sorcerer. He live three years in cave. Only human he see is hand with this on,” he gestured.
“Glove?” I guessed.
“Yes, glove. In silence every day glove put food through hole in door.”
“Gosh! That must be lonely.”
“It make you mad. Most people mad in head. Not Yongden.”
I was silent, thinking of those endless days in a dark, cold cave with only your own thoughts for company. After a few days you would know every nook and cranny, every ledge of rock inside the cave. What it must be to spend months, years thus. Perhaps, after a time, the world inside his head had come to seem more real to Yongden, than the world outside.
“He much, much powerful. Yongden does not live in world,” the Sherpa said, echoing my thoughts. “Please go away from him. He make play inside your head!”
What a strange land we were hoping to penetrate! As we jogged along, I recalled what I knew about Tibet. Most of that desolate country stands three miles up in the sky. It is a wind-swept plateau ringed by snowy peaks, larger than France, Germany, Spain and Italy put together. Perhaps the fact that for hundreds of years Tibet has been forbidden to foreigners makes it more mysterious and alluring. Look at any map and all you see is an enormous empty space, as if the whole country has been washed away by snow. It is more of a blank than the great Zambezi river, which my aunt’s rival, Dr. Livingstone, has recently explored.
I felt sure in
my bones that we would make it into Tibet. We would be the first Europeans in modern history to explore this savage land.
The sun was tinting the ice on the glaciers, painting them pink, as we trudged along a steep mountain track toward Mana, the last village on the Indian side of the border. I could see it spread out before us, rocky houses with shingle roofs, surrounded by neat fields and mountain firs. All around us was the sound of rushing water from the river that snaked the mountainside. A week’s trek past the village was Tibet. But before we entered that country we had to traverse a sheer wall of ice and outwit the ferocious Tibetan border guards.
My aunt called a halt to our progress and made a speech. “The mountains have ears,” she announced. “As you know, the Tibetans ban foreigners from their country. Our story is that we are pilgrims—I am an eccentric English convert to the Hindu religion. We have come to Mana to visit the holy site and from here our main convoy will proceed back down to the valley. Any spies suspicious of our movements will follow the main convoy and be put off our scent. Be careful, I warn you—our lives may depend on it.”
Surely we needn’t have worried, I thought, as we entered Mana, for we were soon surrounded by smiling villagers with wide faces and slanting eyes. The people here in this wild borderland are a mix of Tibetan and Indian hill tribes, nomads who tend their flocks and trade with Tibet. They seemed simple, friendly folk who greeted us as if we were kings and queens, visitors from another world. Little children ran alongside our donkeys, calling out happily. Women arrived with colorful woven blankets and scarves to barter for chocolate, tea and the cheap goods which we had supplied ourselves with. I felt a little guilty as one toothless old lady, in a blue headscarf, delightedly swapped a beautiful woolen blanket with me for a pen and a string of beads. Still, the blanket would keep me warm amid the snows.
Later, as we set up our tents, the headman arrived to tell us through our Sherpa interpreter that the villagers had prepared a feast in our honor. Snowflakes had begun to fall—even though it was late August—and were melting in tiny puddles on our faces. The skies had turned a leaden gray, but by the roaring fire our hands and faces were toasty. We feasted on goat stew with rice. Later, dancers performed to the plangent cries of a stringed instrument. People, animals, huts were transformed by the flickering firelight into an unreal world, a fairytale realm where spirits and demons roamed. To the throb of a tabla drum a singer howled at the skies as the fire burned down to glowing embers.
“My toes are freezing,” Waldo whispered to me, jerking me out of a reverie.
“Mine feel like icicles,” I hissed back
“Mine are like icebergs. Huge, solid blocks,” answered Waldo. Wasn’t that just like my friend? He always had to go one better than you.
“Do we have to sit through much more of this wailing?” he went on.
“Hush,” I chided. “They’ve been very kind. They could’ve slit our throats.”
“That would be a relief, my ears are starting to bleed.”
Another sound mixed in with the beat of the tabla and the howl of the singer. In the distance someone was shrieking and there was the sound of rushing feet.
“What’s going on?” My aunt demanded standing up.
The headman rose and the singing was suspended as a young man came careening to the very edge of the fire. His turban was askew and he was out of breath. The headman and the man had a muttered conversation for several minutes, incomprehensible to us, but clearly very agitated. Then our interpreter took over.
“He finds body,” he explained. “He is goatherd come back to village and step on body.”
“Where?” Aunt Hilda took charge.
“On path.”
We snaked after the distraught goatherd and the headman in cautious single file. He took us from the camp and up to the path that led away from the village toward the mountains of Tibet. The headman carried a flaming brand that lit up our feet and threw an intermittent light on the icy ring of peaks encircling us. The darkness, pressing in on all sides, was pregnant with the threat of prowling beasts and enemies that wished us ill.
We had been walking for about five minutes, when the goatherd came to an abrupt stop. Something was splayed out in the middle of the path. It was the body of a substantial man, his legs akimbo, his scarlet turban spooling out on to the path like a rivulet of blood. In the man’s shirt front was the hilt of a silver dagger. A clean, vicious stab that must have killed him instantly. It took but one glance at the man’s face to recognize him. It was Malharrao. The old Maharajah.
Rachel screamed and my aunt, stooping by the body, hissed: “Why?”
“The Baker Brothers must have tired of him. Malharrao was no longer useful, now they’ve left Baroda,” I guessed. Then with quivering finger I pointed out something that lay next to the body. A dirty yellow envelope. Spilling out of it was the tip of a shimmering peacock’s feather.
“Very clever,” Aunt Hilda said. “The Baker Brothers have combined a murder and a warning to us in a single stab.”
When she straightened up, she was seething with rage. The Bakers didn’t know my aunt if they thought such an act would scare her off. If anything it would only make her redouble her efforts to find Shambala and the treasure they both sought.
Chapter Eighteen
It was well past midnight before we retired to our tents. The funeral of Malharrao would be held at daybreak tomorrow, for it is the custom here to cremate the dead as soon as possible. I noticed, as I fell into a dull sleep on the ground besides Rachel, that the water in my bottle had turned to ice.
I woke with a start. My limbs were aching, the ground freezing under my back. I really must talk to Isaac about inventing some sort of sleeping sack. A beam of light flickered briefly through an opening in the tent and outside a twig cracked. Instantly alert, I crawled out of my tent to find Aunt Hilda and Champlon, fully dressed and about to mount their donkeys.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Back to your tent, Kit,” my aunt hissed.
“I want to come too!”
“Heavens. You know we must get ahead of the Baker Brothers,” she muttered. “Can someone muzzle this child!”
“Let ’er come,” Champlon said. “She weel wake everyone.”
“It was a big mistake to take this dratted child with us,” Aunt Hilda grumbled, but she consented to me accompanying them.
Luckily, I had gone to sleep in all my clothes to keep warm. I would not have put it beyond my aunt to have sneaked off while I was changing. Hurriedly lacing up my boots, I jumped on my Tara and trotted after them. I didn’t need to ask again where we were going. This must be a mission to find Yongden, the monk, who would guide us. The murder of Malharrao would only have sharpened their resolve to act fast. I could only hope that our disappearance wouldn’t lead the villagers to think we had anything to do with the dead body. In the morning, many of the Sherpas would pack and pretend to move back down to the valley. Meanwhile we would persuade Yongden to show us the secret mountain way to Tibet.
Later we would all meet again on the mountain trail—our pre-arranged rendezvous.
We had gone half a mile out of the village, up an increasingly rutted track when we had to abandon our mounts and take to our feet, for the way was simply too dangerous for donkeys. We tethered them and trudged heavy-footed up the mountain. The sky flowed over our heads, a rippling swatch of star-speckled black velvet. A pitted lump of moon lit our way. We had to proceed with great care. One blunder would have sent us hurtling down the precipice. Finally, we saw a series of caves in the rock face rising above us. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. The largest cave was scorched, grass and twigs flamed away. The opening leered at us, like an enormous black eye.
We were too late. Our enemies had been here before us.
Champlon instinctively put his hand to his holster to draw his pistol—but there was no one around, just a lone vulture which hovered above us, looking for food. Stooping a little, we entered the cave
. Rocky walls enclosed us. Yongden, the hermit, had few possessions. A wooden bowl, which lay smashed in the center of the room. A few large cushions for a bed, which had been savagely ripped. Feathers still fluttered in the air, like lost snowflakes. Religious scrolls showing a fat smiling Lord Buddha on the walls. On an altar, formed from a few pieces of wood, were copper bowls full of water and grain, lamps full of butter. These offerings to the gods were the only things which had been left untouched.
Of the hermit there was no sign.
“Blast it and ruination,” hollered my aunt, glaring at the mess. “They’ve got the bloomin’ monk.”
“We ’ave no chance of finding ’im in the mountains,” Champlon muttered. “We ’ave not the—”
“We can go on without the monk,” I interrupted.
“Keep quiet, Kit,” snapped Aunt Hilda. “Remember rule number one: children should be seen and not heard.”
With that, she turned her back on me and continued whispering to Champlon.
I wanted to hit back at my aunt with some biting retort, but a more sensible part of me realized that she was desperately worried. Why she had to take out her anxiety on me I didn’t know. I wandered around the cave, trying to look proudly unconcerned. I became aware of a shaft of light, a broad golden band, coming from the altar. How strange. One of the butter lamps had flickered into life. I let out an exclamation. Where a moment before there had been empty space there was a skinny brown man. Dressed in orange robes, he was sitting cross-legged in front of the altar. He had a smooth shaven head and a soft face. It was his eyes that arrested me; pools of oily blue-black, like the liquid swirling in the very depths of a well. They weren’t exactly friendly, or comforting, this person’s eyes.
“Aunt Hilda!” I said.
“Seen and not heard,” Aunt Hilda barked, without turning her back.
The man—the monk—was watching me, impassively.
“You’re not real,” I said to him.
The others turned around to see who I was talking to. Aunt Hilda screamed at the sight of the apparition.
The Maharajah's Monkey Page 13