The Deceivers

by John Masters

  She held him, and he followed her feet across the room, behind the Jemadar’s back, to the door. The others did not look up. Hussein kept his eyes on the floor. The zither thrummed unsteadily.

  At the head of the stair he leaned dizzily forward over the pit. The girl grabbed him, pulled him back, and held him. ‘Careful now, my beautiful bull.’ She whispered in his ear, part drunken harlot, part loving country girl, part mother, and supported him down the stairs, going a step below him so that he would not fall.

  Through a narrow door they went into her room. She lit a lamp, and he saw bright cushions scattered on the floor. The walls were bare and the room was cold. The sun never shone in here. He opened his eyes wide and looked at her. She swam away from him among lust wraiths, and he did not know whether she knelt or lay or sat. This house bred fantasies, but not the known fantasies of wine and woman’s silkiness; these pierced and throbbed, because the pick-axe pointed north in the corner of the upstairs room and Gopal the weaver lay stiff under the stable eaves.

  Moving down to her, stumbling on the cushions, his feet sinking and not coming up, he became aghast and shook with fear. The pick-axe gave purpose and mastery to all who worshipped it, with infinite power. The power awed him. This cow-eyed girl had willing hips, but she was just pretending to be a harlot. She was unprotected by any armour of callousness. She did not know the powers that Kali gave. She would whimper under the lash of his strength, and call him ‘lord,’ and on her cries he would ride in power over the whole world.

  He went to her and strove with her. Suddenly she looked at him, and her eyes sprang wide open, as wide as his. The rumal was in his hands, it circled her neck. The muscles were taut in his wrists. Death and love surged up together in him, ready to flood over together, and together engulf her.

  A hand clasped his neck. Cold fingers chilled his ears. Hussein stood beside him. ‘Come away.’

  The girl breathed a long, shuddering sigh and closed her eyes, and he knew that she had fainted. He looked down, inexpressibly sad for her that Kali’s ultimate gift, the unknowable double ecstasy, had come so close to her and gone away. She had touched it with the tip of her senses, and now it sank away from both of them on falling, dimming waters. She lived and was not fulfilled.

  She lay senseless with spread knees on the cushions. Hussein’s voice trembled. ‘The others are all asleep. We must bury the weaver. Come.’

  Hussein’s fingers were cold. The vision of Kali faded, and William knew who he was and what he had nearly done. He knelt and drew the girl’s dress around her and whispered, half to her, half to Hussein, ‘I am sorry, I could not help myself.’

  Hussein said, ‘I know. That’s why I came. Come.’ He closed the door, and William followed him out to the stable.

  There, beside the quiet horses, in the dusky reflections of moonlight, they began to dig. William dug, and shook, and knew he had seen Kali’s naked, appalling beauty as the Deceivers saw it. Digging, he prayed to Christ, and felt Kali struggled against his prayers. There would be more trials. Kali would embrace him again. He needed strength, and here on the road it seemed that only she could give it. Her evil lay, concealed or open, in all strength, all power. Not all—perhaps there was another strength in Hussein’s little cross.

  In the drawing-room of the bungalow in Madhya Mary sat on one side of the fireplace and George Angelsmith on the other. George sat at ease, his legs crossed at the ankle. Mary knitted, often looking up to say something, and smiling. They had been sitting here together for a couple of hours. Earlier in the evening George had come in tired and fretful from dealing with arrears of work—principally a troublesome court case William had left unfinished. For the last hour the peevishness had not been present in his voice. He spoke now with the mysteriously full timbre of a man putting himself out to attract a woman.

  He smiled, crinkled up his eyes, and said with soft insolence, ‘No one would dream you were going to have a baby. It doesn’t show at all.’

  Mary said matter-of-factly, ‘No, not yet. I don’t think it will for some time.’ She looked down at herself, lifting her arms and smiling in self-satisfaction.

  George said, ‘Do you think—he will ever come back?’

  Mary bent her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘But you’re going to wait here?’

  ‘Until the baby is born.’

  ‘And then?’

  She looked up and met his eyes. ‘I don’t know. I have no plans.’

  George did not speak for a minute. He was thinking of Mr. Wilson’s future prospects. Mr. Wilson was on his way up in the service. Mr. Wilson’s son-in-law could not help going up too. It was the way of the world. Any son-in-law, that is, except poor William Savage.

  He said cautiously, ‘I wonder where he is. I feel somehow that he’s not dead. I picture him troubled in his mind.’ His voice was sad and far away, and his lids heavy as he looked at her. ‘Do you feel that? Do you remember, sometimes in Sagthali—before William—we’d think of the same thing at the same time, feel it without speaking about it to each other? Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  George said, ‘You know, everybody—I mean, the government—is very anxious to trace him.’ He frowned and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. ‘I can’t help feeling the poor fellow has taken up the life of a wandering fakir, something like that. He might be more at home, more at ease, somehow. I can’t make out why he asked you to keep quiet about his going, unless it was to give him time to get lost in a new life. We have checked his accounts, of course. It wasn’t that. Didn’t he give you any hint, any reason?’

  Mary said, ‘No,’ her eyes suddenly hard as blue diamonds. She bent forward to pick up a stitch.

  George said, ‘It was very—loyal—of you to let him go—get away—like that. I ought to do everything possible to find him, don’t you think? If I did, you know, I believe I could. I ought to. There’ll be a lot of credit for whoever does.’

  He spoke slowly, and the exact meaning of the words was one thing and the tiny tremble of his voice another.

  Mary looked up, her needles stilled. ‘Do everything possible? Yes, I suppose so,’ and she smiled a close smile.

  George got up, seeing her face and hearing the tone of her voice. He would have liked something more definite, but of course the poor girl could not be expected to come right out until a reasonable time had elapsed for William’s death or desertion to be presumed. He sat on the arm of her chair. ‘Come riding tomorrow. Not forbidden, is it?’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen any surgeon, and don’t intend to. But I’ll come riding. It’ll be fun. I’ve sat cooped up long enough in here.’

  George put his hand on her arm in a natural, beautifully executed gesture. She rose quickly, without haste. ‘Good night, Mr. Angelsmith.’ She went out of the room. George rose lazily to his feet and bowed. ‘Good night, Mary.’

  In the passage she bumped against Sher Dil, who was standing outside the drawing-room door. She closed the door carefully and whispered, ‘Sher Dil! What are you doing here? I told you an hour ago that you could go.’

  She could feel the hurt where something metal-hard on Sher Dil’s hip had grazed her. Looking down in the dim-lit passage, she saw the dagger’s point under his short coat.

  Sher Dil said stonily, ‘I thought I saw a light in the study. I often come round to see that no one is getting at Savage-sahib’s property.’

  Mary left him and walked slowly into her bedroom, her eyes full of tears.

  Chapter Nineteen

  In the morning, when the band set out again, William asked for the rôle of inveigler, and received it, and rode half a stage ahead of the rest. Hussein accompanied him on foot as his servant and groom. On the fourth day, long before the sun was high, the Jemadar rode up in a dust cloud and slowed to a walk beside him. Here the trail was a broad earth ribbon climbing northward in gradual inclines to another of Bandelkhand’s innumerable small escarpments.

&nb
sp; William greeted the Jemadar with the mixture of respect and affection which was the tone of their leadership. The Jemadar said, ‘When are you going to get us some merchandise? Two or three parties have come back past us, but you hadn’t sent any sign, so we let them go. What was wrong with them?’

  William said, ‘Bad omens, every time.’

  It was not true, and he flushed as he said it. The omens had been good—uncannily good, magically well timed. But his memories of the stable chained him. The blisters on his hands would hurt suddenly as travellers passed and the birds or beasts of good omen flashed across the path. There had been much digging that night after the feast, in the back of the stable, beside the patient horses. Now on the trail the girl of the harlots’ house walked at his left hand, her eyes widening as the final paroxysm of lust and death approached her. The woman at the pyre by Kahari walked on his right, begging for release.

  The Jemadar said, ‘Oh well, it can’t be helped then. But Piroo’s nagging me.’

  William grunted contemptuously, ‘Oh, him!’ He did not feel contemptuous; the little man with the bat ears was shrewd and sharp-eyed. The Jemadar continued, ‘Piroo’s jealous. He points out that we’ve had no luck—for nearly four days, isn’t it?—with you out in front as inveigler. He whispers that it’s your fault. He even hints——’

  ‘Does he want us to defy the omens?’ Hussein interrupted sourly from William’s stirrup. ‘What sort of a Deceiver is it who questions Kali’s orders?’

  The Jemadar shrugged. ‘Oh, he obeys them, all right. What Deceiver does not? By the Creation, does not our goddess show us her hand every minute of every day? But he’s jealous. Let’s trot. Everyone’s getting impatient, and we spent most of our cash in Manikwal.’

  ‘When are we converting the rest, the jewels?’ William asked innocently.

  The Jemadar looked up with sudden suspicion. ‘Why do you ask? You’d know——’

  ‘We weren’t present when your band formed for the season’s work, Jemadar-sahib,’ Hussein said with his deferential firmness. He loped easily, holding William’s stirrup, and did not grunt from shortness of breath as he spoke. ‘You know, too, that we have been off the road for some years.’

  ‘Of course, of course, I forgot, silly of me. Well, we’re disposing of the jewels at the end of the season, in March. The sale’s going to be in the usual place, Parsola. All the usual crowd will come, that is, any band based in the Kaimur and Mahadeo Territories or southern Bandelkhand.’ He laughed happily and slapped his thigh as he turned to William. ‘It’s a wonderful system we have now. And all new since you last used a rumal. Do you remember how we had to sell our jewels ourselves? And the difficulty of getting a fair price for stuff that was so obviously stolen? And the way stinking little rajahs would catch our people in the markets and sew them up in pigskin and have them trampled by elephants just because they were found in possession of some diamond that was unluckily recognized? Well, Chandra Sen changed all that. There’s a man for you! The best brain this brotherhood ever had, like yours promised to be the best pair of hands.’

  William started, then fidgeted about as though it was discomfort in the saddle that had made him jump. He said, ‘Chandra Sen? The patel of Padwa and Kahari?’

  The Jemadar chuckled. ‘Yes. I forgot your home’s there. He’s a very discreet gentleman.’

  William looked down and saw in Hussein’s eye that this about Chandra Sen was no news to him.

  The Jemadar shook his head reminiscently. ‘It’s quite different from the old days. Chandra Sen brings a crowd of jewel brokers down to our sale. They buy up everything, wholesale, at very fair prices. They’re happy, we’re happy, everybody’s happy—except the beetoos!’

  William thought first of Mary. He must get the information to her that Chandra Sen was a Deceiver. Otherwise she might confide something to him in her loneliness, and then … He had to put that aside; just now it was impossible to reach Mary. He wondered bitterly whether he would ever be able to arrest Chandra Sen, in face of the fuss that followed the temporary detainment of much less important people. Nothing would do but to catch the patel redhanded, preferably in the presence of Mr. Wilson.

  Hussein had known. What did that mean? Why hadn’t he mentioned it? He glanced fiercely under his brows at the running man, and Hussein looked coldly back up at him. Chandra Sen might have found out where William Savage, Collector of Madhya, had gone. He might have known all the time. Hussein might have told him. Hussein might have planned it all with him. Why?

  William twisted the reins in his fingers. A few days back Death was a man with his own face, met in the shadows of a stable. He had killed that Death, but still Death was everywhere. Perhaps Death had already reached the gang behind, and was a man, an emissary from Chandra Sen, talking earnestly with Piroo. He looked sideways at the Jemadar, and the palms of his hands tingled. His blisters had healed and no longer smarted.

  They reached the brow of the escarpment, and the Jemadar said sharply, excitement in his voice, ‘Stop! Pull in here. What’s that?’

  William turned his horse out of the middle of the road and glanced down, following the direction of the Jemadar’s upflung hand. A rolling plain, not wide but fertile and patched with dark green jungle and light green grass, spread out before them. A haze of dust hung over the centre of it. Staring under his hand, William thought he saw splashes of red in the dust.

  He said, ‘Women—taking the cattle home.’

  ‘Have you gone blind, Gopal? And since when have the women of Bandelkhand brought the cattle in from the fields at ten o’clock in the morning? They’re redcoats, sepoys’—he peered keenly down—‘with their women. Going the same way as us. I wonder…’ He sat musing unhurriedly in the saddle, like a man who debates with himself some little question of convenience, such as whether to stop now or later for a morning pipe.

  Away to the left and far down on the plain a lonely jack donkey set up an agonized braying. The Jemadar tensed and waited, his head turned to the right. Faintly the bray rebounded in hiccuping echoes from the face of the escarpment. The Jemadar lifted his eyes and clasped his hands. ‘O Kali, greatest Kali, we hear and obey. I had almost begun to think. Folly, folly! Faith is all.’

  He returned to them, the authority of a general in his face and voice. ‘How many would you say there are?’

  William hesitated. Without a glass he could see only the dust and a blur of little red dots and neutral-coloured spots. Hussein answered at once, catching up the question so that the Jemadar did not have time to notice William’s delay in answering. ‘Eight sepoys I can see. There are probably one or two more ahead as scouts. Five women, four or five small children. I can’t see whether one of the women is carrying a baby or a bundle.’

  ‘That’s what I make it. Hussein, you go ahead, catch them up. Beg their protection. Put out the signs if they change direction, move faster—you know. Gopal, get out to the east, four miles. There’s a trail along the ridges. Our buriers are moving by it with the bear, giving shows in the villages. Bring them in to this road at the ford below Padampur—that’s two days ahead—early in the morning. Lie up close. That’ll be the bhil, so prepare the grave. I’m going back now. I’ve got to warn the party on the other flank. Let’s see, there are eight over that side, and—oh, we’ll have plenty for the job. All clear? Kali is with us! Remember, the ford below Padampur, and we will come about midday.’

  He jerked his reins, waved his hand, and cantered back down the road, riding on the grassy verge where his horse raised no dust as it flew along under the boughs.

  William sat motionless, his horse drooping its head in the shade. Hussein said brusquely, ‘I knew about Chandra Sen. And he knows about me. He’s one of the few men in this part of India who does. That’s why I had to get out of your jail. He got the news that I’d been taken that day, all right. Haven’t you worked out that he left his village the same evening?’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Would you h
ave believed me, before the murder of the thakur’s party made you see how big the Deceivers are? Before you caught Chandra Sen? Even then you didn’t realize! I told you I had to lift the curtain slowly, or you’d be blinded. Besides, it was no good just knowing about Chandra Sen. You’d have had to get evidence. Don’t worry. He doesn’t know where I’ve gone or that you’re with me.’

  William sat silent. At last he said, ‘I still have to get evidence against him.’

  Hussein said, ‘You? You’re a strangler.’

  ‘Hold your tongue! Are we going to kill the sepoys?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Some of them might be armed.’

  ‘They might,’ Hussein said dryly. ‘They are sometimes allowed to take muskets on leave as protection against dacoits on the road. And once, I know, they were warned against Deceivers, but that was fifteen years ago and everyone’s forgotten. Several times some English official or other has got hold of information about us. Then he has chased us out of his district, and reported, I suppose. But they’ve never worked together, and it always blew over. They’ll never destroy us until one of them finds out everything, and forces the Lat Sahib to believe everything, and plans a campaign to cover all India. And that one who finds out must fear Kali, or he will not understand her. But he must not love her.’ His voice was sad. It roughened suddenly. ‘The sepoys are our merchandise. You are the beloved of Kali. And a strangler. Behave like one, or die.’

  Two days later William and the eight men of the bear troupe sat in a wood three hundred yards from the point where the trail came out of thin jungle and crossed the Padampur stream. The town and fortress of Padampur lay out of sight three miles to the north, across the stream and behind undulating hills.

  William’s horse stood under a tree and swished its tail. The bear sat up on its hunkers inside the wooden-slatted cage built for it on the frame of a bullock cart. The bullocks were lying down, securely tethered. The bear looked toward William, and slavered and beat its fore-paws together. It had taken a liking to him and William hated it and its obscene gestures of affection.