The Palace Tiger

by Barbara Cleverly

  She bowed her head and went on her way. Her behaviour had been correct and in accordance with her low status. She had crept in to look at the corpse, had scattered rice and marigolds over it and had even thrown in a token glass bangle or two. The room where the body was displayed was hot and uncomfortably full of women weeping and ululating. Musicians beat out a sombre hymn for the dead, drugged heads nodding in time with the insistent, repeated tune. All the palace women had passed through except for his wife. The widow should even now be cutting off her hair, putting on black clothes and preparing to retreat into an obscure room in a distant part of the palace where she would eat meatless dishes from tin thali for the rest of her life – if anyone remembered to feed her. But where was the Angrez?

  Going to parties in the Old Palace with the rest of the unclean. Sharing the bed of the latest ferenghi to arrive. A spasm of hatred made her slim shoulders quiver. She would never be able to understand the tastes of these foreigners who were made so welcome at the palace. This tall dark one with the gaze like a lance and the body of a Rajput, the police-sahib whose arrival she had observed through a slatted window, had rejected the attentions of Padmini. Well-named Padmini – the Lotus, the girl she had herself trained in the arts of pleasure. Zalim had been angry but Lal Bai had defended the girl. If the foreigner preferred the company of a drunken white whore to that of the most talented girl in the kingdom he was not worth their attention. They could discount him.

  And the she-camel who had spent the night in his room – what was she to make of her? While the body of her husband grew cold and stiff. Shameless whore! Unholy! Lal Bai resolved to speak to Udai Singh about this behaviour as soon as she saw him again. And, after the mourning was over, she was sure she would see him again.

  She was the mother of his one remaining son, after all – a girl of fifteen when Bahadur was born. Not a wife but worthy of consideration. And still worthy of his attention. Lal Bai was well aware that she remained youthful and as beautiful as any Padmini. Surely now he would see that he was wasting his time – his precious remaining time – with that gawky girl who was neither truly Hindu nor truly Angrez. The girl had no breasts, no swelling hips, and Lal Bai had laughed discreetly when a palace guard had said that the only thing Third Her Highness liked to feel between her thighs was a polo pony.

  Lal Bai pattered on, enjoying the cool of the northern verandah. She had come far from her apartment on the eastern side of the zenana but there was something she was eager to see before she returned to perform puja. She had dismissed her attendant, Chichi Bai, to prepare the incense and offerings for her morning ceremony. She would make puja on this day with gratitude to her family goddess. Mahakali was due her praise. Lal Bai’s prayers had been answered and now there were no more obstacles to the fulfilment of the prophecy. Soon after the birth of Bahadur, she had paid many rupees to the fortune teller and she had every day repeated every precious word he had said to her. ‘The ruler will be succeeded by his third son. But that third son will be the last ruler.’

  The second part of the prophecy sounded alarming but Lal Bai had put it out of her mind. So long as the first part came to pass – that was all that mattered. She had kept it to herself, fearful of arousing jealousy, but for years she had watched the ruler’s wives for signs of a late miraculous pregnancy, fearing that one of them might produce a third legitimate heir. She had bribed the maharanees’ maids to bring her news each month that all was well and, with time and nature, the threat had died out. But then Udai had married a third wife. A young wife with many child-bearing years before her.

  Lal Bai had been distraught. Left alone in her quarters in the zenana while her lord spent his time with his new bride, she had passed her hours in strenuous prayer and it seemed the goddess had listened to her pleading and granted her request. Month followed month and no announcement of a forthcoming royal birth was made.

  And now the first two sons were gone and her lord was growing weaker each day. Surely soon he would announce his successor? Why was he delaying? It was fitting that Bahadur should become maharaja. He had been reared with that intention. Always his father’s favourite, he had been quick to learn the tasks his father had set him. He had learned languages and manners from foreign tutors, he had accompanied the maharaja on his tours of the villages learning the workings of law and taxation as well as farming and irrigation. He had learned the traditional warrior skills of a Rajput prince. It had been obvious to everyone – perhaps too obvious – that Udai favoured Bahadur and Lal Bai had had to work hard behind the scenes in the zenana, paying out many rupees to informers to ensure her son’s safety. And more than rupees. She had given away many of her much-loved rubies to buy his safety but the sacrifices, the scheming, the plotting against his enemies had brought success.

  Now she was to have her reward. With Bahadur on the gaddi, even though it would be six more years before he would rule alone, she would be secure. The maharaja’s mother commanded respect, whoever she was. Her son was twelve years old, after all. He had reached the age of the warrior. Time for Lal Bai to ease her vigilance. Time for Bahadur to repay his debt.

  She rounded a corner with anticipation and stopped to stare, shielding her face from sight with a fold of her silken scarf. She was aware that her expression of envious longing would not be misinterpreted by any onlooker. Her slight body quivered with the intensity of her desire as she gazed. At her feet lay a swathe of gardens laid out in patterns as complex as the richest embroidery, a representation in flower and shrub of the four rivers of Paradise, but Lal Bai’s paradise was further off and of this world. She was looking beyond the garden, to the shore of the lake where, sheltered by the dark green canopy of a grove of neem trees, the white marble columns of an elegant small pavilion rose up, seemingly from the water itself. Balconied windows with fretted white screens overhung the lake. Lal Bai pictured herself there, breathing in the cool air rising off the water, watching the animals that crept down to drink at sunset, summoning with a clap of her hands her evening meal served on a gold thal.

  Bahadur would give her the pavilion.

  Lal Bai’s single exposed dark eye narrowed with determination. Yes, the Maharaja Bahadur would give his mother the pavilion.

  When it had been cleansed of the presence of the widow, Shubhada.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Now – I’m your maiden aunt, venturing on a motor car ride for the first time. Just bear that in mind, will you?’ said Joe, preparing to climb into the forward passenger seat.

  Stuart affected astonishment. ‘Naw! Don’t tell me you’re a flying virgin?’

  ‘Not quite that. I’ve been up a few times,’ said Joe with a grin. ‘But I should warn you that I had kedgeree for breakfast. And – I don’t need to remind you – you’re downwind of me!’

  After the heart-stopping moment when the light craft tore itself away from the earth they sailed easily upwards. Joe cleared the dust stirred up by their take-off out of his nose and mouth, getting used to the noise of the engine, and began to settle into the flight. Soon he felt bold enough to lean over and take a look at the country below him. They flew straight and level for a while, building Joe’s confidence, then circled lazily over the unnaturally silent town surrounding the palace. The only activity Joe could see was taking place on the riverbank and he guessed this to be the burning ghat where the funeral pyre was being prepared.

  From this height he suddenly saw that there were two Ranipurs. The ancient city and a modern one. Around the Old and New Palaces clustered a labyrinth of crooked streets which terminated in a large market place. High walls surrounding the old buildings were a clear demarcation between the old and the new. The new city was spread with lavish disregard for space over the plain beyond the river. Built on a grid system with wide avenues, it sprawled towards the desert, its uniform dull red sandstone building blocks relieved by patches of green turf and parks boasting artificial lakes, now, at the height of summer, very depleted. What could be the function of the
se apparently deserted buildings? Joe saw no signs of life in or around what he took to be public buildings – a school, a hospital perhaps. To the north a road set out boldly towards the desert but stopped after two miles, heaps of building material abandoned on either side of the road.

  Their circles grew wider and Joe noted that there were no camel trains, no traffic of any kind making its way across the desert. Everyone was apparently obeying the mourning custom of staying within the city limits but, of course, Ali, with his inside knowledge, would have left early the previous day and had had time to fetch up in Surigargh already.

  It was a shock to Joe to see clearly from this height how slender and fragile was the fringe of green crop land surrounding the city. From up here it seemed that the desert was laying siege to Ranipur, and even allowing for the fact that this was the dry season and the yearly monsoon rains could not be expected for another month or two, the desert, he would have said, had won. It spread, rippling below them into the far distance, the khaki wastes criss-crossed by silvery animal-trodden tracks. The Aravalli hills to the west stood, a barrier to the encroaching miles of fluid sand, but even they were under pressure. Great seas of sand had flooded through every gap in the hills, blown through by the winds wherever they found no obstacle.

  The rivers and streams which must have poured from the hills into the kingdom in the wet season were no more than dry trackways marked along their length by the occasional well and punctuated by small settlements of round straw-topped herdsmen’s huts.

  After half an hour of straight flight, Joe began to notice camel trains making their way south towards Ranipur and calculated that they must be approaching their objective. A few minutes more and he had his first glimpse of Surigargh. The four white minarets of a well caught his eye, the polished lime announcing the presence of water from a great distance. Other evidences of precious water came into view, the dull gleam of a reservoir hidden beneath a magnificent stone structure ornamented with arches and domes, flights of steps leading down on four sides to the water far below.

  To his surprise this was no collection of mud huts. It had all the appearance of a fortified town. Stuart poked him in the back and jabbed a finger down to starboard. Joe noted the stone wall snaking its way up a ridge to a small fort with gun emplacements. As they flew over the town Joe guessed that there must be over a thousand houses, and huddled in the centre were one or two large buildings whose purpose puzzled him. From overhead they looked as substantial and as ugly as the fortress at Verdun. One or two were built around a single square, the largest and most central had four squares. Again Stuart indicated that this was of interest and yelled something unintelligible in his ear.

  They circled round and prepared for landing. The landing strip Stuart had chosen was a stretch of unfinished tarmacked road which set out hopefully from the town and then finished abruptly, swallowed up into the sand about ten miles off. As they touched down, the plane taxied to a juddering halt and was instantly surrounded by a crowd of young boys, laughing, shouting and jostling to get close. Stuart leaped out, scanning the crowd, and shouted something in Hindi. They retreated a few inches and one stepped forward. He seemed to be known to Stuart and, with much nodding of heads and a quick exchange of cash from hand to hand, it appeared that a protection squad was in operation to keep an eye on the plane. Joe guessed it was not the first time they had done this.

  Joe climbed with all the dignity he could muster from the plane and joined Stuart on the short stroll up the dusty road into the town.

  ‘Well, you can’t sneak in unnoticed in a plane,’ said Stuart. ‘The whole town knows we’ve arrived.’

  People called out greetings from all sides, bands of small boys followed, chirruping, at their heels. They had to move carefully to avoid the equally inquisitive cows which wandered along the street, protected by their sanctity and free to nibble, unchallenged, at whatever took their fancy: succulent green vegetables at a market stall or the pith helmet of a visiting ferenghi. Troops of dark grey bristling pigs rooted in the dry monsoon ditches on either side of the road, recycling the town’s refuse, Joe supposed. Children lined up on platforms jutting out over the ditches, small brown bodies glistening as their older sisters sparingly poured water over them from copper jugs. Old men squatted in the shade of trees drinking tea and gaming, shrewd eyes following the two strangers as they walked on and up into the centre of the town.

  In a tree-lined square Joe and Stuart found themselves ambushed by a crowd of young boys anxious to direct their attention to one of their fellows who was preparing with the sole aid of a battered attaché case to put on a magic show for the strangers.

  To Joe’s surprise, Stuart stopped and indicated that he was prepared to watch the show. ‘We artistes,’ he grinned, ‘have to stick together. They’re good, these kids. I’ve never managed to work out how they do what they do. Take a look.’

  They watched in delighted astonishment as the ten-yearold prestidigitator performed trick after trick with a running commentary in a mixture of Hindi and English. Small brown hands flashed mesmerizingly, performing impossible feats with the simple props of a few polished stones, copper cups, two red-painted metal balls and a greasy pack of cards. At each magical disappearance of an object they had thought was clearly in their view the child would cry out in triumph, ‘Where’s it? Gone to Delhi!’

  The culmination of his act came with the vanishing of the two red balls from an upturned cup and the subsequent mysterious reappearance of the balls from Joe’s crotch, tinkling into the cup the conjuror held up between his legs. Joe put on a show of horror followed by relief to find, on mimed investigation, that his own balls had not gone to Delhi. The audience were delighted and even more delighted when an over-large tip had them all shooting off to the nearest sweetmeat stall.

  Still smiling with pleasure, Joe waited until they had run off before turning to Stuart. ‘Look, Stuart, I have to tell you, the last person I’m expecting to see here is Ali,’ he admitted. ‘I’m glad I came but in fact I’m not quite sure what brought us here . . . Curiosity, I suppose . . . It felt right to fill in a bit of background on the maharaja . . . The whole problem seems to stem from the succession and this is where it all started.’

  Stuart grinned. ‘Your instinct’s probably right. This whole nasty business is driven by one question – who succeeds? Did you see the large haveli I pointed out to you? That’s where Udai was born and where his cousin, the town headman, still lives. His name’s Shardul Singh. We’ll go and say hello.’

  ‘Haveli, did you say?’

  ‘Yes. Never heard of the havelis before?’ Stuart smiled smugly. ‘You’re in for a treat! They are rather special. Look, here’s a small one coming up on the right.’

  The buildings which had appeared block-like and drab from the air were enchanting when seen at street level. Joe stopped and stared in wonder at his first sight of one of the decorated merchants’ houses that lined the main street of the town. They presented strong walls punctuated only by rows of small fretted windows and, Joe guessed, were aired and cooled by the internal courtyards he had spotted from the plane. But it was the wall decorations which stunned. As though to counteract the bleak surroundings, the painters had covered the walls with brilliantly coloured frescoes. Joe laughed to see caparisoned elephants in procession, rearing battle-ready horses, hunting scenes, prowling tigers, flowers and birds, even files of red-coated British soldiers and a childlike impression of a train.

  Stuart pointed out the most interesting scenes as they walked up the crowded main street, the houses and the standard of painting growing ever more impressive. Joe paused in front of a spectacular display of artistry in a limited palette of red, brown and green, admiring the intricate floral arches outlining two Rajput warriors mounted on gaily decorated steeds. On either side of the main image were smaller pictures of Rajput women. One played with a yoyo, another held a musical instrument, a third, skirts aswirl, ran with bow and arrow and a determined expression, and a
fourth, veiled this one, peered from behind her ghungat, fixing the observer with one bright dark eye, ankles and wrists heavy with jewels.

  ‘Here – what do you make of this?’ Joe asked, his attention caught by a linear pattern of red handprints running along the bottom of the wall. ‘It doesn’t seem to chime with the rest of the decoration?’

  ‘Thapas,’ said Stuart. ‘No, a false note if ever there was one.’ He shuffled his foot uncomfortably on the sandy road. ‘It’s symbolic of the practice of sati. All the widows of the head of the house used to go to the pyre with their dead lord. And his concubines as well. Most went willingly – it was a matter of pride and honour and an outward show of the love they bore for him. But I suppose you know all this? On their way to the fire they dip their right hand into red ochre and leave a print on the wall of the house.’

  Joe looked in distress at the line of prints, some no more than child-sized, and stammered, ‘But there must be . . .?’

  ‘Never tried to count them. They go all the way around.’

  Joe looked more closely. The line of prints was fading progressively as it stretched away but the last two or three seemed to him suspiciously fresh. He shared his suspicions with Stuart.

  ‘It goes on,’ said Stuart wearily. ‘The British outlawed it a hundred years ago but you can’t be everywhere. The last of these prints was put there three years ago, I’m told. But come on, let’s go in, shall we? This is the headman’s house. The house where Udai was born. They’ll be expecting us.’