The Nizam's Daughters

by Mallinson, Allan

  Silence once more descended on the company as the white flag from the centre of the line signalled another drive. They advanced with scarcely a sound for almost two hundred yards, through grass so high in places that the beaters were entirely lost from sight. Ahead was a particularly dense patch of jhow – uncut tamarisk grown to about twenty feet, with prolific sideshoots difficult to ride through. Hervey knew there would be pig here; and it would be his line, too. His blood coursed twice as fast, energizing muscle and heightening the senses.

  Out burst another sounder – smaller, faster. On the rajah’s line, though, but giving Hervey a run as second. The rajah fixed on the boar at once; Hervey slapped Badshah’s quarters with the bamboo shaft of his spear and dug his spurs into his flanks. The gelding sprang forward like a leopard, flattening in a few strides to a gallop. ‘Keep behind and to the side and at a right angle to the boar’s line!’ He could hear Selden still. He made up ground with the rajah in under a minute, and when he was almost in line he hooked back just enough to keep in place, settling to a hand-gallop.

  He looked right. There was the raj kumari, pilot at her side. Her little Arab pony – the one he had sabred the Sukri pig from – raced head low through the long grass, and the raj kumari’s hair flew like streamers, her legs long in the stirrups but quite still, even at that taxing pace. Hervey looked ahead and to his left: the rajah was almost on the boar. Then it jinked right so quickly that he overshot it. It ran obliquely across Hervey’s front, thirty yards ahead. It couldn’t have been making for cover, for there was none in sight. He pressed Badshah to charge for what he was certain must be a kill. The gelding’s stride lengthened once more and in another hundred yards he had closed with it. Hervey stood in the stirrups and raised his spear to job well forward. The boar jinked left so sharply in front of his line that Badshah jumped to clear it. Hervey was astonished as he gathered back the reins, for the horse could have had no sight of the pig so close in and must have jumped by some instinct. Nor was it the end, for although they had overshot, the gelding had of his own made a flying change to the nearside leg and was already turning onto the pig’s new line. Hervey glanced right, left and behind. The raj kumari had likewise overshot. Behind him the rajah was circling and about to come onto the old line. The boar himself was well clear of their front and heading away on the left, putting the rajah’s jemadar now on his line. That officer lost no time spurring for his quarry and claiming it – ‘On! On! On!’ Hervey galloped after him, determined to be close enough to spear the boar when – as he expected – it jinked back right. Badshah needed no telling to keep the line, and he gave him all the rein he wanted. It was only the third time he had ridden him but he trusted him as much as Jessye. They covered the best part of a mile at a furious pace, the pig running straight and showing no sign of tiring, until Hervey was only thirty yards behind.

  Then suddenly the jemadar was gone – disappeared. A second later and Hervey almost went too. Badshah lost his footing, the near-fore slipping and throwing all Hervey’s weight to the left – when the horse needed all he could on the right. They were going in – into a chasm as black as Hades. A fraction of a second and every bone must be broken. And then somehow Hervey was on Badshah’s neck the other side. How in heaven’s name . . . he had cat-leapt, on three legs, at a gallop, with weight bearing on the wrong foot! ‘What a horse! What a horse!’ was all Hervey could say as they scrambled to recover. He turned at once, springing from the saddle when he reached the chasm’s edge. He looked down – into a well thirty feet across. And in the water, a full twelve feet below, his eye lighted on the astonishing sight of the jemadar, his horse and the boar, each desperately treading water.

  He raced down the steps still carrying his spear, relieved to find just enough space on the ledge to haul out the jemadar, whose shoulder was badly broken. The horse was frantic. Whereas Jessye might have swum placidly round and round, confident of her rider’s purpose, the jemadar’s desert-bred Arab was wild-eyed and squealing with fear. The boar, enraged or equally fearful of the water (though Selden had told him what prodigiously good swimmers pigs were), was squealing and grunting in equal measure. Hervey picked up his spear and edged to the other side where the animal tried to scramble out. He stabbed between its shoulders with all the force he could manage, the spear going in deep and the water at once turning red. The boar struggled furiously, but this time Hervey hadn’t the secure seat in which to brace himself until it collapsed. He lost his footing and fell headlong into the water. The boar turned on him. All he could do was use his feet to fend off the maddened creature. So ferociously did it attack that one of its tushes cut through the leather of his boots, deepening the red of the pool. But Hervey managed at least to grasp back the spear, and found just enough of a footing on the well’s edge to get a full purchase on the shaft, forcing the brute underwater. It seemed an age but eventually the boar ceased struggling, and his side of the well was at last calm.

  Now he could edge round the side to grasp the Arab’s reins, for mercifully the bridle was in place. The saddle had slipped full under her, adding to her distress, and he knew he would need to support her soon, for she could not tread water for ever. The girth strap would be the best point to secure her, but he judged it best to free her of the encumbering saddle, and this he managed eventually to do – though not without kicks and more than one ducking. At once she became less frantic, but she was exhausted.

  Hervey was still in the water when the others began arriving. First down the steps was Captain Steuben, who lapsed into a string of Rhenish expletives. Next came Locke and Selden, followed by the rajah and the raj kumari until there were more of the party below ground than above. Two shikaris carried the jemadar up the steps, his right arm hanging limply like a rag doll’s, but he made no sound other than alternate gratitude and apology.

  There was now just enough room for Locke and Steuben to pull Hervey out. ‘Does the bottom shelve?’ asked Locke. ‘Can she get a footing?’

  ‘I think not,’ replied Hervey, still holding the pony’s reins as she continued to tread water. ‘She’s been all around the edge and found nothing firm. We’ll have to haul her out. Fasten as many girth straps together as possible to make a sling: she’ll soon tire and go under if we can’t at least support her. And we must find some rope and a means to lift her.’

  Selden looked at a loss; Steuben likewise. The rajah, the raj kumari, the other officers, the shikaris – all seemed to find it beyond them. But Locke saw it at once. ‘Just like lifting a gun from the lower deck – pulleys and braces. Come!’ he cried to the idle hands as he ran up the steps. ‘We need twenty men, a dozen yards of timber, all the girths and thirty feet of rope. And an axle!’

  Hervey smiled ruefully at the rajah. ‘If we are without an engineer, Your Highness, a marine is not a bad standby! I doubt we shall be too long here.’

  It was near to dark as they rode back to Chintalpore. Hervey had managed to get the girth sling under the pony (not without difficulty, for even free from the slipped saddle her legs were extravagant) and they had thus been able, with reins and other leathers, to keep her afloat for the three hours it took for Locke to construct the derrick, with its axle pulley, attach the sling fashioned from the howdah trappings, and to marshal the thirty beaters to heave on the rope to hoist her out at last. And then they had done the same with the boar, for not only did they not wish to see the well – ancient and abandoned though it was – poisoned, but the beaters were to be rewarded by its meat, as the day’s rupees were customarily supplemented.

  Locke and Hervey were heroes once more, Hervey the greater for his having fought off the boar, suffering a wound in the process. He protested it was nothing, but it was as well that the veterinary chest provided Selden’s sworn-by iodine. Exhausting as the encounter and exertions in the water had been, however, and aching though his leg was, instead of being pulled down by the affair he was quickened by it. Indeed, the raj kumari’s attention excited him. It was attention not born of i
nclination to minister, as might be supposed of female instinct, but by the chase, the lusty killing of the boar – Hervey’s mastering of things. Selden, Locke and even the rajah rode apart from them.

  When they reached the palace, as the sun was almost gone in the hills beyond Chintalpore, Hervey’s exhilaration could increase no more. He spent but a moment with Badshah’s syce before seeking out the raj kumari in her mare’s stall, but she seemed anxious, glancing about her, and she dismissed him, awkwardly, saying she must hurry to her quarters. He made to follow, but the syces were watching. Instead he turned for his own.

  As he threw open the door of his chamber, the girl looked up – a slender, trembling thing, her doe-eyes wide with fear, as if she had been a crouching fawn, and he a ravening leopard. His wild eyes told her he would spring, as the leopard springs when he finds the fawn. She dropped the bowl of fruit she had been so carefully arranging, and fell in a dead faint.

  XI

  FORESTS ANCIENT AS THE HILLS

  The following morning

  ‘Good morning, Captain Hervey; I gave instructions that you were not to be disturbed.’ The rajah motioned to his bearer to bring tea. ‘But I must know how is your wound.’

  Hervey made to rise from his divan but the rajah would not have it. ‘No, Captain Hervey, there is not the least reason for you to rise. I now bow to you as a man of most exceptional courage and resourcefulness. But I wish to know how is your wound.’

  ‘In truth, sir, I can barely feel it,’ replied Hervey. ‘Mr Selden has as much facility with a man’s limbs as he does with a horse’s. And I asked him for something that might make me sleep.’ By now he was standing, despite the rajah’s protestations, and agreeably surprised that there was scarcely any stiffness in his leg.

  The rajah sat by the window as the bearer poured tea. ‘You will be pleased to hear that the little thing who so charmingly fainted on seeing you last night is fully recovered,’ he smiled.

  Hervey reddened.

  ‘Your sanguinary appearance must have been more than she was able to bear.’

  He nodded, much relieved with the explanation.

  ‘Captain Hervey, I would speak with you concerning several matters that occupy me,’ pressed the rajah, changing course pointedly. ‘I know that you had intended taking to camp with my rissalahs, but you may just as well meet with them tomorrow, for they will do no more than carouse on their first night under canvas. Will you dine with me?’

  Hervey said it would be his privilege, but that he feared his opinion would be inadequate in any matter.

  ‘Captain Hervey, your counsel will be more valuable than any other that might be had.’

  ‘I am obliged, sir,’ he replied, making a small bow, intrigued by the response.

  The rajah returned the bow and took his leave. ‘I regret that our sport yesterday was brought to so sudden an end,’ he added, turning at the door. ‘I shall arrange more at once, but for today I must be about other business. I have asked the raj kumari to see to it that all you have need of is provided.’

  Hervey dressed and made his way to the maidan at the foot of the droog, where all but a quarter-guard of two dozen sowars were parading to join the rest of the rajah’s lancers for the last evolutions before the hot weather. From a quiet corner he studied them carefully, trying to assess how they compared with a King’s regiment. There was first the obvious difference in complexion, although there were times in Spain when his own dragoons were so sun-baked that they might easily have passed for natives of Bengal, if not quite of Madras or Bombay. There was the lance, not yet in a British trooper’s hand. The uniform, too, had not the appearance of one of the King’s army. It bore, indeed, a passing resemblance to an Austrian heavy’s – green kurta, white breeches with long jacked boots. Yet it was neither the dark skin, the lance, nor even the uniform that revealed these men to be other than British cavalry. Rather was it their bearing, for in a British regiment Hervey had always observed a certain animation, even when sitting at attention. With these sowars it was different. They held their heads higher, their eyes set on something distant – an altogether unfathomable look which he had not seen even in the Madrasi sepoys. Perhaps it was the German method in which their regulation seemed bound. He watched the rissaldar and Captain Steuben exchange salutes as the native officer handed over the parade. It was as ceremonious as if they had been at the Horse Guards, but there was a certain something . . . a stiffness. In any case, it was not how it would have been in the Sixth, where discipline and ceremony never wholly suppressed the spirit. Nor, for that matter, with the Madrasis: Cornet Templer held himself not nearly so aloof as this German. But for all that, he was much taken by the good order in which the rajah’s lancers paraded. Whether they could use the lance as well as they could carry it – beyond the exercise yard – he could not yet judge.

  A trumpeter sounded ‘Walk-march’ and the rissalahs left the maidan in fours, the quarter-guard remaining at attention throughout, only their lance pennants making any movement. The jemadar in command of the guard, his charger’s saffron throat plume as brilliant as the displays in the rajah’s aviary, lowered his sabre to salute the standard as it passed, carried proudly by a veteran nishanbardar, and dust swirled knee-high in spite of the best efforts of the bhistis to damp it down. As he turned back for the palace he saw the raj kumari watching from the shade of a huge parasol carried by a bearded giant of a sepoy. ‘Good morning, Your Highness,’ he said, taking off his straw hat and bowing, keen to put the ardour of the previous day at some distance by a display of formality. ‘Have you been watching long?’

  ‘Yes, Captain Hervey – I have been admiring the horses especially. I think your Mr Selden has much to be satisfied with. He has transformed my father’s stables. And I understand that he has worked the same wonders with your leg.’

  Hervey smiled. ‘I think it was in no danger, madam; but yes – he is very sure with his potions and stitches.’

  The silk breeches had given way to a chaste saffron saree, recasting the raj kumari as a figure of nobility rather than of sensuality – but a figure of no less appeal. ‘Will you walk with me a while?’ she asked. ‘I would speak with you of certain things.’

  Despite his intent on formality, there was little he would rather have done.

  They strolled together in the water gardens. A host of Java sparrows, red-vented bulbuls, flycatchers and wagtails – and several others of which the raj kumari did not know the name – were drinking and preening in the fountains before the growing heat of the morning sent them to seek the shade. She turned to him suddenly. ‘Why did Mr Selden leave your regiment, Captain Hervey?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, more than a little alarmed, hoping the expression of surprise might also give him time to find a satisfactory answer.

  She dropped her gaze, helpfully.

  After what seemed an age he found the words. ‘You know that the climate here is more to his liking. He was sorely troubled by fevers.’

  The raj kumari looked at him directly and raised her eyebrows. ‘So it is not true that he was . . . obliged to leave, following . . . shall we say, an indiscretion with a fellow officer?’

  Hervey blanched. His dismay at the hint of the vice – and from the lips of the raj kumari – was partially eclipsed by his admiration for her remarkable facility with the language. But as stated, the detail of the concupiscence was untrue.

  The raj kumari was not inclined to afford him time to consider. ‘Captain Hervey, do not be abashed: such things are not regarded as of any great moment here.’

  Hervey knew that his continued silence would only serve to condemn, yet he could not bring himself to confirm any part of her supposition. ‘Forgive me, madam,’ he tried, ‘but it is a practice which we abhor. Such accusations are not to be made lightly.’

  ‘Then we may suppose, Captain Hervey, that your coming to Chintal was not occasioned by vice?’

  Hervey boiled, and would have let his rage show had he not had to weigh the conseq
uences for his charge from the duke. ‘Madam, such a thought gives me great offence – more than I can say. I beg that you speak no more of it!’

  The raj kumari looked, for an instant, genuinely contrite, but soon regained her self-possession. ‘Very well, Captain Hervey,’ she smiled; ‘I shall not.’

  He bowed.

  She was as good as her word, but he could not know how pleased she was that his reply had permitted her to strike the notion from her mind at last. ‘Captain Hervey, do you recall your disappointment with the diversion at your first night here in the palace?’