Sword of Empire

by Christopher Nicole

  The current was very strong, and swept her downriver. She began to tire, but there was nothing for it but to keep going. She kept on swimming, and then saw the bulk of the bridge looming above her. She was nearly there. A few minutes later her feet touched mud, and she dragged herself into the shallows, to lie exhausted, the water flowing past her shoulders, listening to the voices, tensing herself to react if anyone had heard her.

  But apparently no-one had. She was so tired she almost fell asleep, but was awakened by an outburst of noise from the far side of the river; someone had found Nanja’s body.

  The men left the bridge to go and see what was happening, and Laura crawled up the bank, every muscle twitching with fatigue, into the darkness. She was on the northern outskirts of the city, about half a mile downriver from the Residency. She was dripping wet and half naked, and felt quite incapable of moving another step. But there was no time for rest. The noise from across the river grew louder, punctuated by gunshots, and she could see torches flaring as people searched for the assassin.

  She picked her way through the bushes that lined the bank, her face twisting as pebbles and thorns struck at her bare feet, keeping her gaze fixed on the palisade surrounding the Residency, in which more lights had appeared as the sentries listened to the racket from the city.

  It took her nearly an hour to get right up to the palisade, and she could see the shako of a Sepoy patrolling up and down. She unwound her sari and put it on, wet and muddy and torn as it was, then found a pebble and threw it at the wood. It made quite a loud noise, and the sentry was immediately alerted.

  ‘Who goes there?’ he demanded in Hindustani, thrusting his musket through the palisade.

  ‘The Dowager Rani of Sittapore,’ Laura told him. ‘I have come to see the Resident.’

  The man hesitated, then called for his sergeant, to whom Laura repeated the request.

  ‘You must come to the gate,’ the havildar said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Go round so.’

  He pointed to the east, and Laura wearily made her way along the palisade, again tormented by the stony ground on her bare feet, until she reached a small postern gate. Here not only the sergeant but a white officer waited for her.

  ‘Am I expected?’ she asked.

  ‘His Excellency is awake,’ the officer said.

  She was allowed in, then escorted across some kind of a parade ground to the main building. Here there were more sentries, and more English officers, and she was inspected by the light of flaring torches. She hugged her sari closer to herself, knowing that she must resemble something the cat had dragged in.

  ‘You had best come with me,’ said a man in civilian clothes. She was allowed into the Residency itself, taken up a flight of stairs, and shown into an office, where a somewhat short but strongly-built man, fair-haired and moustached, waited. He stared at her in amazement, while she regarded him with delight.

  ‘James Outram!’ she cried.

  ‘Laura Dean!’ he said, amazed.

  *

  She had known Outram more than twenty years previously, when he had first come to Bombay as a subaltern in the 19th Foot. Of course she had only been a young girl then, but they had met on several occasions in the couple of-years before she had married Sitraj, although his duties had taken him away from the city fin- considerable periods.

  Outram came round his desk to take her hands. ‘How very good to see you. But...’ he peered at her face, ‘you’re hurt.’

  Laura put up her hand, and it came away wet with blood. ‘I was scratched. James...I am in the most dire trouble. But so are you all.’

  ‘We will have to talk about that. But I think, first of all, you should be given a hot bath and something proper to wear.’ He smiled. ‘Otherwise you will be setting my people by the ears.’

  ‘Let me speak first, James, I beg of you.’

  He hesitated, then nodded, and gestured her to a settee against the wall.

  ‘I am very wet.’

  ‘I can see that. But you cannot stand. You look done in.’ Indeed Laura’s legs were all but giving way, and Outram had to escort her to the seat.

  ‘Brandy, Phillips,’ he told the secretary. ‘And perhaps you could find out if Mrs Fisher is awake.’

  The drinks were brought; Laura thought she had never tasted anything quite so delicious in her life. While she sipped, and felt the warmth tracing its way down to her stomach, she told Outram about Batraj’s plans.

  He listened, frowning. ‘I am bound to say, Laura, that I find what you have to say difficult to accept. Abbas Ali Khan signed the treaty only yesterday.’

  ‘He is now Batraj’s son-in-law, James.’

  ‘Hm. Well, if you are right and I am wrong — and I hope and pray it may be the other way around — they have missed their opportunity. As soon as I learned that that scoundrel Batraj was in Hyderabad, I informed Sir Charles Napier at Nowshera, and asked for instructions as to whether I should apprehend him. Sir Charles has replied to say that I am to do nothing until he gets here with his army, which will be within the next seventy-two hours.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Laura said.

  ‘It is a matter of how much time we have. Can you tell me the reason for that hubbub over there?’

  Laura drew a long breath. ‘Today was the wedding of my son and daughter, my son to a creature of Batraj’s, my daughter to Abbas Ali Khan.’

  ‘I knew of these marriages, but not that your children were involved. That noise does not sound like a celebration...’

  ‘It is not. To get here, I had to kill a woman. My son’s mother-in-law.’

  Outram frowned at her. ‘You killed her?’

  Laura sighed. ‘I did not intend to. She wished to prevent my departure, and we fought. I...I suppose I hit her too hard.’

  ‘My God!’

  Laura gave a twisted smile. ‘So once again, you will have to put me under arrest.’

  ‘There’s no chance of that. Do you not realise that you are a considerable heroine, since Afghanistan?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Oh, indeed. Florentia Sale has been singing your praises to all the world. Now I shall have to do the same. Do you know, I was actually with Keane’s force, but I was not with the people who entered Kabul, and in fact when I did get there I spent only a day or two before being sent off again. Anyway, by then, I gather, you were seeing quite a lot of Guy Bartlett.’

  ‘I only wish to God either you or Guy had been enabled to remain, and avoid such a tragedy.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘I am dreadfully sorry to have brought this crisis upon you.’

  ‘If you are right in your fears, I suspect it was going to happen anyway. Would you believe that a month ago I was about to embark for England?’

  ‘You? Leaving India?’

  ‘Well, it was not entirely my own choice. But my poor wife...did you know I was married?’

  ‘I have been rather out of touch with events in Bombay recently.’

  ‘Quite. Well, I married a few years ago, but my wife could not stand the climate here and had to be invalided home. I was to join her this year. But almost the moment I was to step on the ship Napier sent for me and asked me to postpone my departure in order to take up the post here, as the Baluchi chieftains were being difficult. As you know, I talked them into signing a peace treaty yesterday, and had supposed the matter done with. I am still hoping that is the case. On the other hand, the presence of your...is he your husband?’

  Laura gazed at him. ‘In Hindu law, yes. But it would not have mattered if he were not; I have been his slave for fifteen years.’

  He gave a faint flush. ‘Yes. I spoke with Guy quite recently.’

  ‘Oh! How is he?’

  ‘Very well. Divorced, as you may know. And very much in love with you. Did you know that he is in Nowshera, on Napier’s staff?’

  Laura’s heart gave a great bound. ‘Guy?’

  ‘The very man.’

  She bit her lip,
and it was her turn to flush. ‘Do you suppose...’

  ‘Oh, I shall certainly deliver you to him, if that is what you wish, Laura. But...you mentioned your children.’

  Laura sighed. ‘I am afraid they are lost to me.’

  ‘Even the Rajah?’

  ‘I fear so.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Ah, Jenny.’ He stood up as a woman entered the room. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. You’ve met the Dowager Rani?’

  Jenny Fisher was the younger of the two women from the market; she had clearly dressed in a great hurry. ‘Yes, I have. My dear...’ she held out her hands. ‘You look most terribly done up.’

  ‘She is,’ Outram told her. Will you attend to her for me?’

  *

  Laura was escorted to Jenny Fisher’s bungalow. Her husband, Daniel Fisher, the financial officer of the Residency, goggled at the blood and mudstained woman with the flowing golden hair, and at the glittering emeralds which still hung round her neck and gleamed on her fingers, then he excused himself. Laura’s wet and filthy clothes were taken away and she was ensconced in a hot bath, while Jenny and one of her Indian maids applied creams to her torn cheek.

  ‘I am terribly afraid there is going to be a scar,’ Jenny said. ‘It is a deep gouge. Whoever did it?’

  ‘An old enemy,’ Laura told her. lust before I killed her.’

  Jenny’s mouth formed a huge O, but she made no comment. ‘I expect it will fade, in time,’ was all she said.

  *

  Laura was put to bed, and slept heavily. She was utterly worn-out, and although she knew that full understanding of what she had done would come in the morning, nothing would keep her awake now.

  When she opened her eyes the sun was streaming through the window, and Jenny Fisher was in the room with a tray of toast and coffee.

  ‘I’ve had a look round to see if I can find something for you to wear,’ Jenny said. ‘But I’m afraid there is no one in the Residency quite your size. So I’ve had your sari and other things washed and dried, and my girl is mending them now.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘They’ll never be the same again, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is there news from the city?’

  ‘It’s all quiet. Dan says they’re sleeping it off.’

  ‘And any word from Sir Charles Napier?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘But we are sure he is on his way.’

  *

  At midday there came from the city the mournful beating of drums and clashing of cymbals, punctuated by the firing of muskets: Nanja was being buried.

  The sentries had been doubled on the walls, and the entire garrison was standing by, while the Resident himself toured the perimeter and checked the defences.

  ‘Our principal problem is a shortage of ammunition,’ he told Laura, whom he entertained to luncheon. ‘I was appalled when I arrived here and discovered it, and immediately put in a requisition for more, but it has not yet arrived.’

  ‘And I have brought this trouble on you,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘You have probably done us a great favour. If you are right in assuming that the marriage of the Princess Mary to Abbas Ali Khan was to be the signal for an uprising, then the funeral of the woman Nanja has clearly put that back at least twenty-four hours. And Napier will be with us in forty-eight hours, I have no doubt at all.’

  He was reassuring, but clearly not everyone in the Residency shared his optimism. In her sari and with her height and golden hair, Laura would have drawn attention in any event, but the news of why and how she had come to be there had spread. From the stares she noticed, she understood that most of’ the English population were fervently wishing she would go away again.

  ‘They are all terrified,’ Jenny Fisher told her.

  ‘And aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I am. But General Napier is coming, is he not?’

  *

  They all had such sublime faith in the old general, but Laura could only remember Kabul. The British had had an old general there too, and more than twice as many troops as Napier apparently commanded, against the same number of the enemy.

  But Outram himself remained utterly confident, and no-one could doubt that his Sepoys worshipped him. Not for nothing had he been given the sobriquet, by Napier himself, the Bayard of India.

  Yet obviously even he was anxious about the situation, and that afternoon mounted to the roof of the Residency with his glass to study the plains to the North. He could see nothing at all.

  *

  That evening, just before dusk, a group of men was seen approaching under a white flag.

  ‘Prince Batraj and the Rajah Sivitraj of Sittapore wish to speak with Major Outram,’ reported the orderly.

  Outram glanced at Laura.

  ‘I should like to speak with my son,’ she said.

  ‘And so you shall Highness. Accompany me to the gate, but stay out of sight until I call you.’

  News of Batraj’s approach had quickly spread, and all the inhabitants of the Residency, even the children, had turned out, whispering to each other as they watched Laura accompany Outram across the parade ground as the gate was thrown open.

  The six Indians paused about fifty feet short of the gate. Outram stepped through.

  ‘Greetings, Your Excellency,’ Batraj said. ‘You will know why I am here.’

  ‘I am surprised you are here, Prince,’ Outram said. ‘Have you forgotten there is a warrant out for your arrest on a charge of murder?’

  ‘I am under the protection of my friends, the Baluchis,’ Batraj said. ‘As well as a flag of truce.’

  ‘You would do well to remind your friends that they, and those they protect, are under the protection of the Company,’ Outram said. ‘As agreed in the treaty we signed but two days ago.’

  ‘You would protect us, with a hundred men?’ Sivitraj demanded contemptuously.

  ‘The Rajah is young, and hot-headed,’ Batraj said hastily. ‘He is also very distraught. He was married only yesterday.’

  ‘So I understand,’ Outram said. ‘My congratulations, Your Highness.’

  ‘But last night his mother-in-law was murdered,’ Batraj said. ‘Could any man be more unfortunate?’

  ‘You have my sympathy, Your Highness.’

  ‘The murderess was the Rajah’s own mother,’ Batraj said. ‘She has now taken refuge in your Residency.’

  ‘You have proof of this, Your Highness?’

  ‘Do you deny that the Dowager Rani is in your house, Your Excellency?’

  ‘She is here, certainly. I asked if you have proof that she committed the murder.’

  ‘Who else could it have been? ‘The Dowager Rani is the only person who was at the wedding who has now fled. She is also my wife. On both of these grounds I have come, with Rajah Sivitraj, to demand her return to us.’

  ‘For execution?’

  ‘For trial, certainly.’

  Outram looked at Sivitraj. ‘You wish to execute your own mother?’

  ‘My stepfather has said that my mother must be tried,’ Sivitraj said. ‘She has committed a crime. The sentence will not be death.’

  ‘I see. Some kind of perpetual imprisonment? Well, Prince, I have to inform you that the Dowager Rani claims to have killed the woman Nanja in self-defence, and that I believe her. I shall, of course, conduct a full inquiry into the affair, and if a crime has been committed it will be tried in a Company court. As will yours, sir. Since we are discussing cases of alleged murder, will you not now surrender to my jurisdiction?’

  Batraj stiffened. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

  ‘No, sir. But I do take you for the villain you are.’

  Batraj glared at him. ‘You will regret those words, Your Excellency.’ He waved his arm. ‘I have thousands of men at my beck and call.’

  ‘I should have thought your Afghan adventure would have taught you not to risk unleashing thousands of enemies, Your Highness,’ Outram said quietly. ‘I assume you and your — ah —pr
otectors are aware of the proximity of Sir Charles Napier?’

  ‘Bah,’ Batraj declared. ‘An old man, like Elphinstone. His coup at Emaum Ghur was pure chance. Now he is exhausted. This is well known.’

  ‘I hope for your sake you are correct,’ Outram said. ‘Rajah Sivitraj, would you care to speak with your mother?’

  Sivitraj hesitated, and Outram beckoned Laura forward.

  ‘I killed Nanja in self-defence,’ Laura told him. ‘I beg your forgiveness, Sivitraj, I also beg you to dissuade that evil man from doing anything which might lead to fighting between the Baluchis and the British. That way lies disaster, and it will end forever any chance you may have of regaining the throne of Sittapore.’

  ‘You are a murderess,’ Sivitraj said implacably.

  Laura sighed, and turned away.

  ‘And you are my wife,’ Batraj called. ‘When you are returned to me, as you will be, I will make you suffer for this crime.’

  ‘If I were you, Prince Batraj,’ Outram said. ‘I should leave Hyderabad while you can. The arm of the Company is long, and it is stretching out behind you at this very minute.’ He stepped back inside. ‘Close the gate, Captain.’

  ‘Perhaps you should have handed me over.’ Laura said miserably. ‘That would have delayed an assault even longer.’

  ‘While they tortured you to death? Perhaps I should have told them Napier was on the way. But that is a double-edged sword; it might force them to attack immediately. And if Napier for any reason is not coming...’

  ‘Then you and all your people are lost, because of me.’

  ‘Never because of you, Laura. And we shall take a few of them with us.’

  *

  The garrison was stood to, the non-combatants sent to the cellars.

  ‘You’ll not forget I have tended wounded men before,’ Laura reminded Outram.

  ‘I would willingly assist,’ Jenny Fisher said.

  ‘Dr White will call upon you, should he need you,’ Outram promised.

  They ate their dinner, and waited. The night was very quiet; hardly a sound came from the city. The women and children were all in one cellar, where they lay on charpoys most uncomfortably; some of the children wailed constantly and no-one slept.