‘Everything about this place confuses me,’ Richard confessed. ‘May I inquire your exact position, Mr Dyce?’
Dyce regarded him with pity, as if unable to understand anyone so crass as not to know the answer to that. ‘I am the Begum’s comptroller,’ he said. ‘Every court must have a comptroller. I have been comptroller in Agra for six years.’
‘But, I understood that Sombre killed every Englishman on sight.’
‘I, sir, happen to be Scottish,’ Dyce pointed out severely.
Yet, Richard knew, Sombre had massacred Scots as well as English at Patna. He wondered what Dyce thought about little Caty, his countrywoman.
‘I have a servant,’ Richard said. ‘I will send him to you to be clad.’
Dyce snorted.
‘He is a bad-tempered bastard,’ Peyraud confessed as he led Richard away. ‘But the Begum regards him as invaluable.’
‘You’ll not pretend he’s shared her bed?’
‘No. But she has no head for figures.’
‘Tell me about her,’ Richard asked.
‘What is there to tell. She’ll have told you how she was sold into slavery and bought by Renaud.’
Richard nodded. ‘She claims she came from a good family.’
‘Well, she must have done, in view of her character. Certainly a family used both to prosperity and power. But she also has a great deal of common sense, and even more patience. She did not resist Sombre in any way, accepted whatever he did to her. And he did a lot. He was a brutal man.’
‘So I’ve heard. Did you know her then?’
‘Towards the end. I fled here from Scindhia five years ago.’
Richard gave sigh of relief: the massacre at Patna was eight years in the past. Peyraud had had nothing to do with it. He had formed quite a liking for the Frenchman.
‘Why did you flee Scindhia?’
Peyraud grinned. ‘I killed a man.’
‘Touché. So you came here.’
‘Sombre gave me a regiment. He could tell a good man when he saw one. As can I. At that time we only saw the Begum on ceremonial occasions. He kept her well hidden most of the time. Then he died. There can be no doubt that she had long anticipated that event. She might not be able to add figures but she knew he was more than twice her age. While the whole city was still in a state of confusion, we French officers held a meeting to decide what was to be done. No doubt some of us, like Marcel, had dreams of taking over. Then Aljai suddenly appeared in our midst. She wanted our support. She intended to rule herself.’
‘How old was she?’
‘I don’t know for sure. It’s not a question one should ask Aljai. But I would estimate twenty-five.’
‘And you agreed to serve a twenty-five-year-old woman?’
‘I suspect most of us saw it as a temporary measure at first. You see, the Mughal had granted Sombre Sardhana as a viceroyalty. Legally, that viceroyalty should have passed to his eldest son. But he had no sons. Only Aljai, and a couple of daughters who were not Aljai’s. None of us knew for sure whether he had actually married Aljai, but she claimed he had. That meant any legality that remained was vested in her. By accepting her as Sombre’s successor, we saw our way to avoiding any risk that Delhi might wish to resume direct rule. Once we had re-established ourselves, of course, we thought she would be easy to manage.’
‘But it didn’t turn out that way.’
Peyraud gave another of his grins. ‘She seduced us all, and not only in her bed. By her intelligence, her powers of decision, and yes, by her ruthlessness. We were soldiers. We were perhaps too used to being led. She was prepared to lead.’
‘This was a year ago. Then what happened?’
‘You have seen what happened. Marcel had been second-in-command of the troops under Sombre, who always led us himself in the field. Sombre may have been a bloodthirsty blackguard, but he was a born soldier. When he died, Marcel naturally became our commander. We were happy to accept this. I think Marcel also saw himself as the future husband of the Begum, and thus the future Viceroy of Sardhana.
‘She did not see it that way at all. She always refused him the rank of general, allowed him only that of colonel. She had, still has, no intention of sharing her power with anyone. Besides, Marcel was an elderly fellow, and not brilliant in bed. She preferred younger men.’ Peyraud spoke with simple pride. ‘She preferred me. We were aware of Marcel’s disappointment, perhaps even his jealousy. But we never supposed he would attempt a coup. I must confess, I quite underestimated him. That is why I made the mistake of leaving on that raid into Scindhia. The men were becoming restless when nearly a year went by with no action, which meant no slaves and no loot. Sombre always carried out at least one campaign a year.
‘So off I went. And in my absence Marcel tried to take over. I was told what was happening by the colonel at the frontier, that is why I had to hurry back ahead of my men. I am very glad I had you at my shoulder. I doubt any other single man could have rendered such support.’
‘So now I have been seduced in turn,’ Richard mused.
‘Captain of the guard. We all begin as captain of the guard. You will remain in that post until she tires of you.’
‘And then what will happen?’
‘You will be given a regiment, and perhaps summoned to her bed once a month.’
‘Who will take my place?’
Peyraud’s grin was wider than ever. ‘Why, I will do so, mon ami. Am I not her favourite?’
But she has also only given you the rank of colonel, Richard thought. I wonder who she will choose as general.
*
Peyraud was certainly correct in his prognostication, of the immediate future at any rate. Richard found himself, as captain of the guard, virtually installed in Aljai’s bedchamber; she demanded his services twice a day.
This apart, his duties were not arduous. His guard consisted of twenty French soldiers and four sergeants; a squad of six was on duty at all times. This squad had been withdrawn by Marcel, who had suborned the original captain; Richard learned that he was the man who had begged for his life and been the last to be executed.
Now the soldiers willingly accepted Richard’s command, once they had seen him handle a pistol. He drilled them fiercely, as he had watched the sepoys being drilled in Bombay, but they did not appear to resent the extra work.
For the rest, he had an apartment of his own within the palace, where Hanif was installed and in full charge.
‘Well, Richard, sahib, we have done well,’ Hanif remarked. ‘Did you ever think you would be captain of a Begum’s guard?’
‘No,’ Richard confessed. ‘I never expected to find anything like this.’
Agra was like a chapter out of some fairy tale, the India he had always dreamed of and failed to find in overcrowded and Europeanised Bombay.
At his first opportunity to went to look at the Taj Mahal. He entered through the southern gateway, and gazed at the magnificent gardens. He walked towards the mosque and the jawab, or ‘answer’, made, like the exterior wall and the gateway, from red sandstone, and between them to look at the gleaming white marble of the dome above the mausoleum, and of the four minarets which surrounded it.
‘It took twenty-two years to build,’ Aljai told him. ‘And cost forty million rupees. Oh, to have so much power, so much wealth.’
‘Would you wish to be buried in such a tomb?’ he asked.
She gave a wistful smile. ‘I do not have forty million rupees, my Richard.’
In her reflective, sober moments, she was almost loveable. In fact it would have been very easy to love her. In many ways she seemed to be two people inhabiting the same body, taking turns at controlling the same mind. In her bedchamber she was all woman, her lovemaking total sensuality. Once she decided to be alone with Richard without his hands secured, she taught him to use those hands on and in every erogenous zone she possessed. Brought up in the strictly English tradition to believe that the sexual act had been evolved for procreation and the enjo
yment of man, but as nothing more than a necessary misfortune for women, he was astounded at the pleasure she obtained from it, and indeed, insisted upon.
Was it possible that any of those matrons in Bombay could unbend so far? Was it possible for Barbara Smythe?
But Barbara Smythe had been forgotten, although he could not but hope that one day, somehow, news of him would filter back to the Company, to let them understand that he had not merely crawled into the jungle to die, but had risen far above anything he might have dreamed of in Bombay.
For, in addition to her body, Aljai bestowed on him gifts of jewels, or golden ornaments of incalculable value; for the first time in his life he discovered himself to be rich.
Nor did she tire of him, as Peyraud had suggested she might. After a month, the Frenchman ceased to smile when they met.
Richard found this disturbing; he looked upon Jacques as his benefactor, and certainly as his only friend in Agra apart from Hanif. Aljai could hardly be considered a friend.
Peyraud’s discontent did not appear to bother her at all. Another of her characteristics was her total confidence that she could surmount any peril, any misfortune, and thus pay no heed to the opinions or feelings of anyone else.
She was enormously wealthy, her booty inherited from years of marauding by Renaud; beneath her bedchamber was a vault, in which were chests filled not only with gold and precious stones, but also with innumerable lakhs of rupees, a lakh being a hundred thousand coins. She was equally rich in the fertility of her kingdom, the wealth of her granaries. And her people were happy, for she exacted little from them.
Her soldiers were less so. If they had prospered under Sombre, they had spent much of their ill-gotten gains, and there were none to be had while they sat in barracks or cantonments in Sardhana. But the Begum had no desire to fight anybody; she wished only to be left in peace to enjoy her omnipotence. She recalled that when she had allowed Peyraud to take his company of her most faithful troops on an expedition into Scindhia, it had turned out badly. She would permit no more raids.
Richard sensed a growing crisis, but did not know what to do about it. If he was Aljai’s constant companion, he was also the most junior of her officers, and he was also painfully aware of his lack of experience in military matters, although he was careful to let neither Aljai nor the French suspect that. Rather, he let them continue to suppose he was a Company officer, perhaps with the genius of a reincarnated Clive.
In addition, he could not help but be aware that the popularity he had first enjoyed with his brother officers, thanks to his friendship with Peyraud, was rapidly dwindling as he daily seemed to become more necessary to the Begum. Soon he felt as isolated as ever he had been in Bombay; he was indeed afraid to contemplate what might happen should Aljai ever tire of him.
Most of all, however, he remained ever aware that inside the softly seductive woman there always lurked a tigress, which might snarl at any moment. And did.
*
Aljai was herself Muslim, but she practised complete religious toleration. Her subjects were in the main Hindu, and her French officers Roman Catholic; they had their own chapel as did the Hindus their temples. There was even a French priest in residence, an elderly fellow with a sly smile, imported by Renaud for the good of his soldiers; Father Martin and Hamilton Dyce were great friends, and spent their spare time playing backgammon.
Renaud, however, had also been a Christian, when he thought of it, and he had possessed several crosses and rosaries. One of these crucifixes was amongst Aljai’s favourite possessions. It was in gold, and the body of Christ was a mass of rubies and sapphires. It was impossible to guess what it might be worth.
Even more important, however, Aljai regarded it as a lucky charm. ‘It protects me,’ she would say.
And for all that the Koran strictly forbids idolatry in any form, she appeared genuinely to believe it.
One day it was missing. It was found very quickly, and two of the slave girls were hauled before their mistress. Not only had they stolen the cross, but they had also been overheard praying to it to harm the Begum. They had both been whipped a few days previously for fighting, a punishment Aljai meted out with relentless enjoyment; she invariably handled the cane herself.
Now they trembled as they knelt before her.
Aljai was smoking one of her pipes. ‘I would have you know what you have done,’ she said softly. ‘I would have you think of your crime, of your desire to harm me, your benefactress, who has always shown nothing but kindness towards you. I would have you consider these things, as you die. Take them outside.’
The girls wailed and shrieked their misery as the guards dragged them into the courtyard. Richard knew their lives could not be saved; they were as guilty of treason as someone attempting to poison a European monarch. He could only pray that as they had been Aljai’s intimates—one of them had been amongst the girls who had bathed him on his first day—she would grant them a merciful death.
Aljai followed them out. The soldiers in the courtyard stood to attention. Peyraud had been drilling them, and he was also present.
‘You and you and you,’ Aljai said, pointing from one to another. ‘Fetch spades and start digging. You, bring my rocking chair. And my pipe.’
The girls were on their knees, held by their arms, whimpering. They did not understand what was going to happen to them.
Neither did Richard. He watched the soldiers start to dig, as instructed by Aljai, in the earth of the courtyard. No word had been said so far about execution, and yet the soldiers were digging a grave!
He looked at Aljai. Her rocking chair had been brought and she was seated in it, sticking on her pipe, watching the work with evident satisfaction.
One of the girls looked at the rapidly growing hole in the earth. She threw up her head and uttered the most piercing scream Richard had ever heard. The second girl joined her, and both collapsed in sobbing tears.
‘Bring the rest of the girls out here,’ Aljai commanded. ‘I wish them to watch.’
‘Highness,’ Richard said. ‘What you propose is barbaric. It is unseemly. I beg of you…’
‘Fetch the other girls,’ Aljai said.
Richard hesitated, then told his havildar to bring the girls. Richard stood beside her chair. ‘Strangle them first,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Please.’
‘Where would be the punishment in that?’ Aljai demanded. ‘They would not feel anything.’
‘But…’ he checked as the other girls, some twenty of them, emerged from the palace and formed a group behind the two victims.
‘Watch well,’ Aljai told them, ‘So that none of you be similarly tempted to wish evil upon your benefactress.’
The girls shuddered, and drew closer together; somewhere in their midst was Caty.
The grave was finished; the soldiers stood to attention, waiting.
‘Put them in,’ Aljai said.
The guardsmen dragged the girls forward. They screamed and wailed and begged incoherently.
‘Wait!’ Richard said. ‘Cut their throats first.’
The guardsmen whipped out their knives.
‘I gave no such order,’ Aljai snapped.
‘But I have.’ Richard stared at her, while the guardsmen hesitated, the girls held on the edge of the grave.
‘You rise above yourself, Captain Bryant.’ Aljai’s voice was cold, her green eyes like polished emeralds. ‘You are under arrest.’
He returned her gaze, dropped his hand to the pistols at his belt, and heard the click of cocked muskets. He was covered by half a dozen men, commanded by Peyraud. Peyraud was smiling, for the first time in a month.
‘Move, and you are a dead man,’ Aljai said. Then her voice lowered. ‘Would that be a sensible end to a promising career?’
He hesitated, and cursed himself, as Peyraud came up to him and whipped the pistols and sword from his belt. Was he not a dead man, in any event, now?
‘Put them in,’ Aljai commanded.
The gi
rls were forced forward. The first tripped and fell into the pit, and the second girl fell on top of her. Their naked bodies lay there in a flurry of arms and legs. Instantly the men threw spadefuls of earth back in. The girls shrieked and tried to claw their way out of the grave, and were hurled back by the heavy showers of earth. Their shrieks were lost as the earth was piled over them. For a moment, only wrists and ankles, hands and feet showed, wriggling, twitching helplessly then they too were covered.
‘Pack it well down,’ the Begum said.
The soldiers filled the grave until there was a mound, then they set about stamping on it.
Was it possible still to hear shrieks from down there?
‘You are a devil from hell,’ Richard told her.
Aljai gazed at him calmly.
‘Shall I prepare him for execution, Highness?’ Peyraud asked eagerly.
Aljai continued to gaze at Richard for some seconds. Then she said, ‘Bind his arms. Bind them securely. Then deliver him to me.’
*
Surrounded as he was by French soldiers, and disarmed, there was nothing Richard could do.
Peyraud grinned at him. ‘Too far, too fast, Monsieur Bryant. Now your fall will be even faster.’
His arms secured, he was marched into Aljai’s bedchamber. At least he was fully clothed. But he did not suppose that was going to limit her activities.
She curled herself on her divan, and waved her hand.
‘Leave us.’
Peyraud hesitated. ‘Is it wise, Highness?’
‘Can he harm me, without his hands?’ she asked. ‘I will summon you, if need be.’
A last hesitation , then he was gone.
‘Do you seek suicide, my Richard?’ Aljai asked in a soft tone.
‘I sought to protest against an inhuman act. The girls were guilty. They needed to be executed. But to suffocate them in their own graves…they could be living yet.’
‘I doubt that. It is a quicker death than if I had had them placed in a coffin. You know naught of what you interfere with, Englishman. I hold my position here by virtue of only three things. One, I am the relict of Sombre, and he is still a name with which to conjure.
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