Arriving back at Bankipur, Ram paid off the three Marathas—the fourth had stayed back at Puri with Baja, who said he must await expected friends—and went to his bungalow, where he found Gopal Das had returned safely. Then he went to the fort to report.
As he saluted Ritter, the latter smirked strangely. "Ach, so you are back. Well, what have you accomplished?"
"It's all here." Ram gave him the report and the amended charts, "There should be much business for the company in Orissa."
"Good, the governor will be pleased. He is away upcountry, but returns soon. I expect you to sup tonight. That is an order."
Ram bowed and left. How like Ritter to make an invitation an order! But it was good to be back; there'd be Morgan and McNeil— and Annie, Von Bruck had, of course, long since returned to Coblom in La Paix, which was doubtless en voyage to Ostend by now.
When he reached Ritter's bungalow, its owner was on the veranda. "While you were away, L'Esperance came and went," he greeted. "The company is now fully chartered, which means more factories and more troops and promotion for me. If not, I resign and return home to buy a good estate."
"You've already made enough for that?" Ram was amazed.
"I have traded well. Come." They entered the dim interior. Before Ram's eyes were adjusted, Ritter said formally: "Herr Leutnant, I wish to present you to my wife."
"Wife?"
"La, Lieutenant, 'tis good to see you back."
Annie!
"Ach, a suq)rise, eh?" Ritter guffawed.
Ram was incredulous. Annie married to this "pink German"?
A slender hand was extended toward him and suddenly he had a wild desire to laugh. Damme, she'd lost no time! He kissed her fingers dutifully. "An honor, ma'am, 'pon my soul!"
"The table waits," Ritter interposed. "Madame." He seated Annie, gestured Ram to a chair on one side and slumped himself at the far end. "Wine! Wife, our young friend must toast you."
"I am sure he wishes me well," she faltered in broken German. "Kurt, you must tell him of the great estate we will buy."
"Yes. My wife is well dowered and will be mistress of a great schloss on the Danube, while I attend to my affairs in Vienna."
"Mr. Anstruther, is Vienna as lovely as Kurt tells?"
"Very fine, ma'am." Ram could foresee Ritter spending her dowry while she faded away in some crumbling Danubian castle.
"Vienna is not for you," her lord said sharply. "Home and children will be your lot." Her angry flush showed that she understood.
During the meal Ritter, drinking heavily, continued to bully her until she was on the verge of tears, and when it was finished and Ram began making his adieus, Ritter told him curtly to wait.
"Bed. Schnell!" the Austrian bade his bride. Briefly she faced him rebelliously, but then, whimpering, she hurried away.
"Her father will invest her dowry for me in two more voyages. Then I shall go home and buy a patent of nobility," Ritter gloated. "Ach, young fool, so you thought you had first place, eh? Why do you think I let you go on the survey? Because I knew the poor cow couldn't live without a man! Well, she'll serve until I find better game." He lurched over to a desk. "Your report—badly written. Do it again—now. I'll return when it's finished." He left.
Ram glared after him. Swine! But Annie had made her choice and, after all, he'd never wanted to marry her. Yet he felt sorry for her, more sorry for the nights she'd not come visiting him.
He stared at the report. It was legible, even if its German was not quite grammatical. He began rewriting. After a while he heard a cry. He wrote on, hand unsteady. Now he heard loud sobs. Ritter returned, grinning, and only half dressed.
"Frau Ritter sends her compliments and regrets she cannot appear again tonight. The report?"
"Here." Ram thrust it at him. "Your permission, but I've not slept in my own bed for three months."
"I'll be back in mine in three minutes," Ritter mocked.
Ram headed for Morgan's bungalow. He needed drink to wash Pig Ritter away. Too, it would be good to see Fred again.
Morgan's greeting was effusive. "I heard you were back. What did ye do and see? I've done naught myself save drill your damned sepoys till they're steady as the King's own troops."
"I've just come from supping with charming Ritter," Ram said.
"So ye know. Lud, 'twas a surprise! She was so gracious to me, telling how she couldn't abide foreigners. Next thing, she'd wed him. I'd rather a sister of mine was dead than wearing that soor's name."
"And Bea, is she married too?"
Fred handed him a drink. "No, but there's some who'd be honored to take her—and I'm one. It's between me and McNeil. Bah, that Scotch lout's already deep in trading and I not even started. Hume favors him, they both coming from the north." He drank. "Here's to ye, and I'll be cursedly glad to hand your sepoys back to ye." He yawned pointedly. "Lud, I'm weary."
Rebuffed, Ram went home. Was Fred expecting another visitor— Bea? Lonely, he fell asleep, thinking of the temple girl.
Bea seemed glad he was back, but they never met alone. Always Fred, McNeil or one of the writers was present, and she often infuriated him by the blatant way she flirted with them. If Fred was gay, he wondered if she had been—well—kind to him. If McNeil was less dour than usual, he feared he had received her favors. As for Annie, on the rare occasions she appeared, Ritter always bullied her so brutally that every man ached for his blood.
Hume returned from upcountry and was delighted with Ram's report. As for the six-pound guns, he admitted he'd sent the order by L'Esperance. "Not official, mind, but 'twixt the captain and me. And you'll get a profit yersel' for making the sale. What now's the name of the rajah who wants 'em?"
Ram was confounded, not having thought of names. "Bajaji Maharaj—from Paklah," he invented. Paklah was one of the Orissa states and he'd merely promoted Baja to a princedom.
"And the merchant who ordered 'em for him?" Hume persisted.
Ram gave the name of one of the Puri merchants he had met.
"Good. No harm if petty rajahs blow each other to bits. If the Marathas now were rising again, as they did under Sivaji, I'd not consider it, for they could overrun all India and us too."
Ram changed the subject quickly. "How much will the guns cost?"
"About half a lakh. For two six-pounders, a thousand ball and twenty barrels of fine French powder."
Fifty thousand rupees! Could Baja raise so much? "When will they come?"
"About a year." Hume became brisk. "I trust we'll be seeing ye at the mansion often. Poor Bea's most lonely now Annie's wedded. . . . Uh, I trust the last mail brought ye good news of home?"
"Fair, though Gammer says horses don't sell well."
"Tush, ye won't be needing horse sales soon. A few more profitable cargoes and ye'll pick a fine wife and live in ease the rest of your life. Leave it to me."
That night Bea came to Ram's bungalow. "It's long since I was alone with ye," she pouted. "Always we must pose as strangers."
"I thought you'd be accepting McNeil or Fred Morgan."
"Them? One's a Lowland nobody and the other's the third son of a poor Welsh attorney. I have to be polite to 'em, but don't ye remember the past? That should prove where my heart lies."
Later, as they lay in the darkness, she turned the talk to Dales-view. Cynical now, he made it appear far larger than it was, and laughed inwardly when she insisted that he would never be content to wed some pallid homebred chick, with no conception of his life in India. Dawn was close when she left.
Even now, after the sunset gun, it was still stifling as Ram reached
his bungalow. Ordering Bolal Sen to bring wine, he shrugged out of
his sweat-soaked coat. "Sahib, the girl is here. She awaits your pleasure." "Girl?" He had long suspected that the ser'ants knew of Bea's
frequent visits, but wondered why she had dared come so early this
evening. "Go. I need you no more tonight."
After a thoughtful drink, he went i
nto his bedroom. A figure lay huddled in one corner,
"Bea." Why did she lie there? Was she ill? But as he crossed to her, he knew she wasn't Bea. He lifted her up.
The thasseel
"How did you get here?" He repeated the question in Hindustani.
Great lustrous eyes watched him piteously and he felt her body quivering. Only then did he see she was bound hand and foot.
"Ecod, what's this?" He hurried into the main room and tore an ornamental dagger from the wall. When he returned with it, she shuddered and closed her eyes, "I won't hurt you." He cut through the tough native ropes. When she was free, she collapsed before him supplicatingly, her small hands touching his boots.
"Here." He sat in a chair and raised her until she knelt before him. "Now, what is your name. Speak."
"Chanda, lord." Terror was in her voice, yet its music thrilled him. Gradually he coaxed out her story: One evening, as she walked alone in the temple grounds, a man appeared. As was her duty, she offered herself. But another man arrived and together they gagged her, covered her with a shawl and carried her off. Such sacrilege made her faint. When she came to, she was aboard a dhow at sea. For many days she remained bound in the cabin. There was a one-eyed Maratha devil who said she was now the slave of a Feringi god. Tonight he had brought her here.
Baja had done this for him! Why? It was flattering and puzzling. And what to do with her? She couldn't remain here.
Chanda—the Moon! By the lamplight her features did have the luminosity of the moon. His slave! His heart pounded. "If I set you free, where would you go?"
She shuddered. "By leaving the temple I am defiled, lord. Where could I go, save to seek death?"
He bent to comfort her, but she shrank away. "You are mine!" he flared, hurt. "I could starve you, beat you, kill you! But I do not do such things." Seeing her eye the dagger, he flung it through an open window. "You will stay here until I decide. I may put you among my compound servants." Once more he tried to soothe her, but she cringed as if his hand was a coiled cobra.
"Pale, without blood!" she moaned. "Krishna help me!"
He smiled then. Of course! She must never before have seen a European. "My blood's as red as yours—as hot. And you yourself are paler than most Hindus."
"I am from Rajputana," she said proudly. "We of my race descend from warriors of Iskander, who came conquering long ago."
"Then you're white too!" he laughed excitedly. "Alexander was from a land not far from my own." Macedonia, he felt, wasn't too distant from England. Hadn't he been near it when he was in Serbia?
She showed less revulsion. "Aie, lord, I did not know."
"The one-eyed one who brought you here, where is he?" But she shook her head. Well, Baja couldn't be far. He must take her away; there were strict orders against keeping native women in the fort area. But first? He bit his lips. No, the poor wench was half dead with fear, perhaps starved.
"You are hungry?" There was food in the dining room.
She nodded timidly. But when he brought it, she put it away, which angered him until he realized Hindu women did not eat with men. "Eat," he ordered. "I'll remain near, so don't tr)' to run away."
"I shall remain, lord." She was staring at the food avidly.
He went out to pace the veranda. God, she was lovely! His palms grew moist. Should he take her now, force her? No, that would be like Ritter. He must first soothe her. Perhaps there'd be a house in the bazaars. But would she stay there? He swore fretfully.
When he returned within, the food had gone and she was sitting on the floor again. Seating himself, he bade her come closer. "How came you to the Temple of Juggernaut, a thousand coss from Rajputana?"
Eight years before, when she was six, she told him meekly, her parents had brought her on a pilgrimage to the festival. Her father, great-bearded and laughing, was a zemindar —landowner—with many servants; her mother gentle and beautiful. She remembered how, afterward, on the long journey homeward they were joined by armed men who engaged to protect them through dangerous areas. But as they passed through a lonely defile, the guards' leader shouted: "Bhaee, pan lao!" and flung a cloth around her father's neck. The others did the same to her mother and the servants. In an instant all were dead, as she would have been but for the leader.
"They were thugs, lord. Human tigers who kill for loot." The leader kept her for a while, she went on, then sold her to a priest, who brought her to the temple. "There I was happy. There were many other girls. We were taught the holy Vedas, to read and write and dance the sacred tales. Two years ago a Brahman initiated me into the arts of love. Since then men have admired me." She gave a sob. "Now I am defiled and cannot return to the temple."
That she, still a child, was a prostitute might have shocked him but for Carla, who had loved him. He must make Chanda love him too. He would be very gentle with her.
He stroked her hair and, though she tensed, she no longer cringed. "You are beautiful, your hair is as black as a cloud," he ventured. "Thy lips are like the fruit of the talachucha."
"Aie, lord!" she breathed. A small hand moved timidly to rest on his own. "Arre, who would desire an outcast? I, who was of the Kshatriya—defiled!"
"O Essence of Beauty, the lord may become the slave," he murmured. "What matters if you are of Hind and I a Feringi? Are we not male and female? Do we not think, feel?"
She hesitated, then: "What is my lord? Of Sudra caste?"
"No, I am a warrior, an officer in my Emperor's service."
Doubt drained from her and suddenly she was a woman-child, fascinating, desirable. But when he touched a soft breast, she gave a little moan. "Noko, noko, rajl Touch me not! I am a miserable outcast, unworthy of thy condescension."
"God damn you for a tantalizing whore!" he blazed in good round English. Then in Hindustani: "In the name of the gods, let us be as man and woman have been since time's dawn!"
Her smile was swift, provocative. "Lord, am I not thy slave?"
The others had surrendered to him in a delirium of passion. But this child, priest taught, was far more skilled than they. Yet, amazingly, the lovemaking must follow a rote. There were movements, incitations of which he was ignorant. In his urgency he would have brushed them aside, but she knew no other way. And at the culmination, he realized Annie and Bea had nothing of this art. Half bred, they strove to be what they imagined European women were. But all the love mysteries of Hind were know to this thassee.
The monsoon had broken and the rain seemed like an impenetrable sheet as he belted on his sword. I can't turn her out in this! he worried. To hell with the order. Chanda! . . . How lovely a name, how lovely a creature! I'll find a house for her later, with servants of her own. Slave or not, I'll treat her well.
Where's Baja? Ecod, I'll have his hide if he's fooling me about those guns. Fifty thousand's a deal of rupees, and I'll be responsible. Still, he brought the girl; likely he'll have the cash.
Opening his large umbrella, he splashed through the mud to the fort, feeling curiously out of spirits. Soon Ritter arrived, looking sour and bleary.
"Gott, what a land! If only that cursed dowry would increase threefold, I'd go back on the next ship and buy my title. Baron Kurt von Ritter!" He rolled the words over his tongue. Then remembering his dignity: "Herr Leutnant, you will inspect the men's quarters and the magazine." He lumbered out again, his umbrella tentlike over his bulk.
Ram swore aloud. The quarters had been inspected only yesterday, and no ammunition had been withdrawn for weeks.
His teeth were chattering. What now? Cholera? Oh, God, no! Bowels were all right. . . But this shaking!
A dull ache behind the eyes, his body alternately chilled and burning, he dragged through his unfruitful tasks. But by noon he had to send Ritter a chit that he was ill, and lurched to his quarters.
Bolal Sen relieved him of his soaked outer clothes. "He of the one-eye awaits you, sahib."
"Bring him." He sat weakly. Damme, to have to talk now!
Baja appeared, gri
nning. "Arre, have I found merit in your sight?" Then his face sobered. "Aie, fever! Summon your doctor. I return when you are recovered." He clapped his hands importantly. When Gopal Das reappeared he ordered him to carry their lord to his bed and, if he valued his life, to serve him night and day. Then he vanished.
Ram was in a delirum for three days. Faces loomed and went: Wiktorin, Bolal Sen, Gopal Das. Once, during the night, he fancied that Chanda moved wraithlike near him; later that she raised his head and made him drink something that was ineffably cool.
He became rational, though weak. The surgeon came in, looking
complacent, "Ach, youngling, I brought you through," he beamed. "You would have died but for my treatments."
"I didn't feel near dying," Ram protested.
The other shook his head. "These diseases are usually fatal; but we were cabin mates on the ship. I made special efforts. Gott sei danke, they were rewarded. I drew over two pints of blood from you. Most satisfactory." He left, rubbing his hands.
Ram slept. When he awakened, Baja was beside his bed. "Wah, bhaee, you are recovering." The single eye beamed. "Your doctor is a fool. He might have killed you with his letting of blood."
"I thought so too." Ram grinned feebly. "What ailed me?"
"Something from the bad air. It comes often during the rains. Bhaee, I have money to deposit on the guns. I have need of them."
Tliey talked guns. Baja was surprised but not unduly shocked that they would cost half a lakh, though he said it would take time to accumulate so much. Meanwhile, would the factory's wheelwrights make carriages and caissons? Ram thought it was possible.
"In two weeks I return with the gold," the Maratha said, rising.
"Stay. I must thank you for the girl. She is lovely."
"Your brother is glad she gives you pleasure."
"Please me more by finding a house in the bazaars. I cannot keep her here—it is forbidden."
"Feringis are fools," Baja chuckled. "We keep our women in zenanas —wives and concubines alike. But you allow only your wives to live with you. A house shall be found."
Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. Page 17