The Game

by Laurie R. King

  “Don’t worry about it, Mother,” he reassured her. “Jimmy’s just a little touchy about having lost the Kadir Cup last year, some kind of technicality. Don’t much understand it myself; I s’pose I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  After a while, Sunny went down to dabble in the water, and I stretched out on the silken carpet with my legs in the sun and my topee over my face, half listening to the conversations around me. The gramophone played, a few guests danced laughingly on the manicured grass, and I was nearly asleep when I heard my name, said loudly as if not for the first time. I pulled the topee from my face and sat up, looking into the dark unreadable eyes of the maharaja.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Your Highness,” I said. “What was that?”

  “The beaters have located the wounded pig,” he said. “I don’t like to leave it. Would you care to come?”

  I was speechless. Six men at his disposal, two of whom were old hands, and he was asking me, a woman, and dangerously inexperienced at that.

  One of the old hands had the same thought. “I’ve finished here, Jimmy,” Captain Greaves interposed. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Thank you, Simon, but Miss Russell and I shall have no problem.”

  “From what Goodheart said, it’s a big ’un, I’m happy to—”

  “No.” It was said in a flat voice, no anger, but it laid another uncomfortable silence over the gathering, which I hastened to break.

  “Certainly, I’m glad to be of help. Shall we go now?”

  The servants had brought fresh horses with them. The maharaja had another Arab, a white gelding otherwise identical to the stallion, while I was given an ill-tempered little mare whose ears went back when I approached and who tried to shy against the reins the syce held. I checked her girths with care, since this was the kind of beast who holds her breath to keep the saddle from being secured, but I found them snugly secured. I glanced at the man holding her for me, and saw the humour in his eyes: Yes, she’d tried the trick on him.

  “Thank you,” I told him, and mounted briskly.

  Once I was in the saddle, the worst of the mare’s temper subsided, and she responded to my directions without much hesitation. We followed the road back to the tree, where the shikaris still waited, and took the spears they offered us. My host conferred with them, in a language that was not Hindi, then led me into the fields, in the opposite direction from that in which we had gone the first time.

  I had hoped to use the opportunity to question the prince, but quickly realised that this was not going to be possible, not until we had dispatched the wounded pig. The maharaja was completely focussed on the task at hand, and once we had caught the beaters up, his undergraduate style dropped away completely. He studied the splintered spear-shaft one of them had retrieved and listened intently to their information, his eyes searching the landscape as if he might see the pig through the thick brush. North of us stretched scrubland, but to the south, a thick stand of trees rose up, following some kind of a stream-bed. At last he grunted, and turned to me.

  “They’ve tracked him as far as that split tree, you see? There’s a nullah down there—a stream-bed—and heavy brush. He’s already ripped open the leg of one bearer; they’re not too keen on going in after him. And if he gets as far as those trees, he’s lost.”

  “I hope the man’s all right?”

  The maharaja looked at me as if I’d spoken in a half-understood language that he had to translate internally, then replied, “Yes, he’s sure to be. But you do understand that once we get in there, your mare won’t have any clear ground where she can escape? You have to have your stick ready at every moment.”

  “But if I can’t see the boar, how do I know where to point the spear?” I asked, reasonably, I thought.

  “Your horse will know. And you’ll feel him.”

  Oh, this is just grand, Russell, I berated myself. You’re about to have one of your host’s animals ripped apart underneath you, because you couldn’t pass the opportunity to prove yourself. Clever.

  We rode into the two-acre thicket from two angles, me at four o’clock and the maharaja at seven, pressing towards the top, where at least twenty beaters stood, banging on rocks and trees, staring nervously at the ground between us and them. I suddenly noticed that the men were armed only with long sticks, not spears, and of course none of them were mounted. I hoped for their sakes they were fleet-footed, and could climb trees like monkeys.

  A partridge exploded from the tree in front of me, nearly stopping my heart and making me laugh nervously. I was perspiring heavily, as was the mare. Contrary to the maharaja’s claim, she didn’t seem to think there was anything in here at all, and the only thing I felt was growing nerves.

  Then, between one step and another, her ears swung forward. I made a faint whistle between my teeth to catch my companion’s attention, and nodded at the direction the mare was watching, more or less straight ahead. Jimmy studied the land, then gestured for me to circle more to the right, that we might trap the animal between us. I urged the mare to the side and began to circle in on the offending scrap of shrubbery.

  Fifty feet, forty, and at thirty-five I began to understand what he had said about feeling the animal. It was as if the boar gave off waves of heat, or just fury; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the bush burst into flames. My mount began to twitch, picking her way delicately, and the beaters a hundred yards away kept up their drumming on the ground.

  This time I saw the blood first, a splash of shocking red against the dusty vegetation as a black shape the size of a small water buffalo shot out of his hiding-place like a launched shell, the broken-off spear protruding from his left haunch, bouncing with every move as he aimed his rage at the gelding’s white gut. The maharaja was ready for him, but the horse was not, and it shifted a fraction, taking the readied spear a degree or two off aim. The pig hit the spear hard, but instead of sinking into his vitals, the sharp head sliced across the shoulder blade and then stuck.

  I had an unclear idea of pig physiology, but by the looks of it, a spear in that position was not going to prove immediately fatal. Nor did it seem all that securely planted, I noticed in alarm. As if to illustrate the matter, the pig began to push, grunting in fury, while the man on the horse tried to change the angle to one that might bite in more deeply. The pig pushed hard and the horse gave way, until they were circling around and around in the bush, held apart by a slim length of wood.

  I put my heels into the mare’s side, trying to get close enough to use my spear without getting in the way of the partners, but I couldn’t, not while mounted. Without thinking, I kicked my feet from the stirrups and dropped to the ground.

  The prince caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye and shouted something, and there was a sudden increase of noise from the beaters, but I could see that there would be an opening after the white hindquarters next passed, and I readied myself to dash forward.

  But I didn’t know pigs. I didn’t realise that the animal would see me as well, didn’t foresee that the distraction of two enemies would make him back away, yanking the spear from its resting place. Didn’t realise that once the beast was free, it would come for me. But that is precisely what it did: a quick reverse scurry and the maharaja’s spear was swinging free while the blood-drenched creature got its legs under it and ran again—this time at me. Instinct alone lowered the point of my spear—anything to keep that furious bristling face away from my soft skin, to keep those wicked tusks at a distance, to postpone the inevitable for a moment.

  The spear took him straight in the chest, and it was like slamming into a train. I flew backwards, clinging to the spear with every ounce of self-protection in my being, scarcely aware of sitting down hard onto the rocky ground. The universe narrowed down to this tiny space, my entire being focussed on the fact of my straining muscles pushing one way and the huge, stinking, primeval Fury shoving the other, two opposing forces separated only by a thin and sharply arching bamboo stalk, its fibres audibly c
reaking with strain. The boar was so close I could count its long, feminine eyelashes, so near I memorised the smear of dried blood on its lower right tusk and the scars on its snout, knew the shape of the pebbles crunching beneath its hooves. The creature’s breath was hot and intimate on my face, and we stared into each other’s eyes while its legs thrust towards me, its tusks yearning for my vitals with an urge so all-consuming that it overpowered any awareness of the steel blade driving ever more deeply into its chest. It grunted and strained, then suddenly my vision went pink as the breath blowing across my face went bloody, and through the red mist on my spectacles I saw the boar give a last convulsive push. The spear snapped, his legs buckled, and he came to rest with his upper tusk pressing against the leather of my outstretched boots, his back legs still twitching with effort. And then he died.

  At some time in the past minute—hour?—the maharaja had come down from his horse, and was standing at my shoulder with his spear at the ready. But he had held off using it, and now he allowed its point to rest on the ground.

  “Again, congratulations, Miss Russell,” he said.

  I stared up at my host, trying to make sense of his words. I lay sprawled at the prince’s feet, filthy, scraped, and sore, my hair in my face and my topee nowhere to be seen. After a moment I shifted my gaze to the impaled animal against my boots, and the world abruptly rushed back in, tumbling about me in all its size and complexity. I felt like whooping with exhilaration.

  By God, pig sticking was indeed a game of games.

  The maharaja helped me to my feet and said in a mild voice, “It’s not generally recommended that an amateur attempt spearing a pig on foot.”

  “Yes, I can see why,” I told him. “But your horse wouldn’t stand still.”

  “The pig would have bled to death soon enough. But I have to say, I’m glad to have been witness to that manoeuvre.”

  The beaters came up then, exclaiming and, it seemed to me, abjectly apologetic, even terrified, although I was not sure if it was over the danger to me, or to their master. I was not even certain why they were apologising. Did we imagine they ought to have battered the vicious creature to death with their blunt sticks? One of them gave me a pristine linen cloth with which to clean my bloody face and spectacles; another brought the mare, holding her firmly; a third knelt that I might use his knee to step up. I needed the help, despite the mare’s lack of stature, and on the way back to the road I was glad, too, that I was not riding the hard-mouthed gelding. I felt weak as an infant.

  Pig sticking, it seemed, was over for the day, although the cheetahs were being readied for coursing, and three large enclosed bullock-drawn carts rattled and jerked with the motion of whatever the cats’ prey was to be. I apologised, and told my host I preferred to return to The Forts, thank you. Taking my leave, and with a pair of mounted servants at my back, I rode—slowly, slowly—back to the castle and crept upstairs to submit my bruises and bashes to the ministrations of my hot-water geyser.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was greatly tempted to remain chin-deep in hot water until midnight, but after an hour I forced myself to leave the comforting porcelain nest. As I dried myself with the thick towel, I discovered a number of sensitive patches, and moved over to look at my exterior in the glass. Oh, my.

  A long gouge across my collar-bone recalled where a branch had snapped into me, and the butt of the spear had left an angry swelling the area of a man’s hand where it had braced against the hollow of my left shoulder. There was a smaller welt on the outside of my right arm that I couldn’t remember incurring, and several interesting bruises (as well as a general tenderness) where my backside had met the hard earth. I pulled on long sleeves, and with difficulty got my hair into place.

  The day’s hand-lettered itinerary said that tea would be served, again on the terrace. With longing glances at the soft bed, I left my rooms: The rest of the party would be away until dinner, and I badly wanted another conversation with my host’s distant cousin before his return.

  To my disappointment, Gay Kaur was not there. Nor was Sunny, although her mother was, stolid and flowered and looking restored to herself as she lectured an older Indian gentleman about the Spirit World and her Teacher (one could hear the capital letters). Giving her wide berth, I settled with my cup near a conversational cluster made up of four men and two women whom I had seen previously but not actually met. I nodded a greeting, but did not interrupt.

  Their topic was politics. One of the men was a Moslem, who had things to say about Jinnah’s suitability as a Prime Minister, but inevitably Gandhi and his Congress Party dominated the talk. It became increasingly heated, so much so that I thought it was about to become out of control until one of the women rose to her feet. She was a small woman, but she dominated the gathering with ease.

  “I shall ask that you two be tossed into the fountain if you can’t keep your heads,” she said. “I propose a change of topic. You’re Miss Russell, aren’t you?” she asked, turning to me. “I’m Faith Hopkins. This is my friend, Lyn Fford, and these argumentative gentlemen are Harry Koehler, Trevor Wilson, Vikram Reddy, and Taran Singh.”

  Hands were shaken, and my chair incorporated more fully into their group. No less than four of the names had rung bells in my mind: those of the two women, Wilson’s, and Koehler’s, although of these, only the face of Koehler the American seemed familiar as well.

  I started with Trevor Wilson, fairly sure of myself there. “The writer, aren’t you?” He was a novelist, best-selling in the years immediately after the War. Even I had read one of his books, and I read very little fiction.

  “I used to be.”

  “But it couldn’t be that long since you’ve published, could it?”

  “Nineteen months and counting. I’m the maharaja’s secretary. It doesn’t leave me much time for my own work.”

  Wilson sounded grim, and I began to say something vaguely encouraging, realised that pretty much any statement I produced would sound patronising, and turned instead to the man whose face tweaked my memory. “Mr Koehler, isn’t it? I believe we’ve met somewhere, although I can’t at the moment remember when it was.”

  He turned rather pale and gazed into his tea cup as if it might suddenly hold a shot of something harder. “Oh no, no, I don’t think so. I’d have remembered meeting you.”

  I searched his features for clues, but couldn’t retrieve anything more than the vague sense of having seen him in person, across some busy and crowded room. A train station, perhaps? It would come to me, I thought, then went back to the first woman. “I don’t believe we’ve met before,” I told her, “but your name is familiar.”

  She laughed. “Not surprising. Lyn and I were all over the headlines a year or so back.”

  “The newspapers, yes. Something about the Archbishop of Canterbury, wasn’t it?”

  “He eventually became involved, yes.”

  The other woman, Lyn, took pity on me. “Faith and I tried to marry. We registered with our parish church, banns were posted, and it wasn’t until we showed up on the day that the priest figured out that Lyn wasn’t a man.”

  “If you’d been wearing the morning suit I got you, we’d have managed it,” Faith said with a rueful shake of the head, which launched them on a story in two voices, a narrative of ecclesiastical derring-do and upper-class humour. It sounded like an oft-told tale, but none the less amusing for its worn edges, and I remembered some of the details as she went along. The two were artists, of a sort—one a sculptor of huge ugly bronze masses, the other the creator of bizarre canvases thick with objets trouvés. I thought they had moved to Paris, after which they had not been heard of again.

  By common consent, our conversation skirted the topic of politics. Reddy, it turned out, was a playwright who had produced two critically acclaimed plays, the second of which had spent some months on Broadway in New York, before being hired to come here and produce something for the maharaja. He had been here for two years, with nothing to show for it but
a lot of paper and a fading presence on Broadway. I didn’t find out who Taran Singh was, aside from being an opponent of Jinnah’s Moslem League, before the sporting contingent arrived, fresh from their horses and smelling of sweat and gunpowder.

  I excused myself to go and change for dinner, but I did not go directly to my rooms. Rather, I walked, deep in thought, through the dusk-washed gardens. The mild exercise helped loose my muscles, and the distraction loosed my mind as well, because as I bent to smell a flower I abruptly remembered where I’d seen the face of Harry Koehler.

  It was a trial. I’d been there by coincidence, meeting Holmes for dinner (he in a frivolous mood, with a gardenia in his lapel—Ah! The memory had been freed by aroma), and as we left the court-room where he’d been watching a trial, we’d got caught up in the press of people leaving the next room. At their centre had been Koehler, testifying for the defence in a case involving the sex-lives of aristocrats and the embezzlement of a great deal of money. Holmes had pointed him out to me, with the dry comment that the man was one of the best-paid witnesses in London.

  So what was he doing in Khanpur?

  I stirred myself from my thoughts and was picking my way through the dark garden towards the lighted walls of the palace when the darkness nearby suddenly moved. “Who is there?” I asked sharply.

  In response, a flame snapped into being, settling at the end of a cigarette being held by Gay Kaur. “Oh, Miss Kaur, you startled me.”

  “Sorry, I was just enjoying the garden. Care for a smoke?”

  “Thanks, no, never got the habit.” I felt for the edge of the bench her flame had illuminated, and eased down beside her.

  “I hear you made a great success at the pigs,” she said.

  “Purely by accident. And I’m black-and-blue all over.”

  “Yes, it’s a fairly ferocious sort of entertainment.”