by John Masters
He raised his head quickly. ‘What’s that?’
Piroo sniffed. ‘A fire! Quick, someone, run and put it out, over there!’
Flames, almost without colour in the sunlight, leaped up where a musket blast had set fire to tinder-dry grass. Blue smoke rose denser and denser, carrying with it black shreds of burned grass.
‘No!’ William’s voice was imperative. ‘Take everything of value off the cavalrymen, leave the bodies. Bring the sepoys and the women and children out of the bushes. Scatter them about in the grass. Leave them all to the fire. The flames will mar them, half hiding, half revealing. Leave their muskets by the sepoys, their swords and shields by the cavalry. Hurry!’
Already his men were dragging up the hastily hidden victims of the massacre at the ford.
He went on steadily, talking to Piroo. ‘It is well known that the cavalrymen of these petty rajahs are robbers each and everyone—the rajahs too. Here is the story of a robbery, and a brave defence. The new rajah will be quiet, or he will have to explain to the English Company what happened to ten of their sepoys.’
He was the leader. There was no dispute among his men or within himself. His heart was hard, and he could watch without emotion as the foolish women and the stupid soldiers were thrown into the flames. The woman at Kahari should be here, in this pyre, with her dreams. The acrid smoke smarted in his eyes. He was the leader. He had to be. Only so could he cover the thin sheets of paper and record for ever the beautiful honeycomb detail of the Deceivers’ world. It would be the work not of months but of years, years on the wonderful road where a man could find power and fulfilment. At the end, after he was dead perhaps, that outside world of Governors and Governors-General could read, and admire, and be staggered with their own pettiness.
He said, ‘Bury our dead in the pit we dug for the others. Thanksgiving tomorrow morning. We’ll move now. East first, until we’re out of Padampur.’
Hussein trotted up, the two dead children under his arms flopping like bundles of cloth. He threw them down. William’s eyes hurt as the flames roared up, and Hussein backed away, shading his face and holding his hands across his mouth.
Chapter Twenty
A dry wind of March blew steadily out of the south and scorched his face. Since November he had led his band in a great circle: north to the Jumna and beyond, east through Rohilkand, Tirhut, and the foothills of the Oudh Terai; south through the villages that skirt the city of Allahabad; thence south by west. Sagthali lay six stages ahead on this road, but the band would turn off tomorrow or the next day.
Yesterday Mr. Wilson had passed, riding in the same direction among many police and servants, his head sunk on his chest. William noted the pistols in the saddle holsters and the armed men behind him, and wondered again that the Deceivers never attacked Europeans. His band had on occasion murdered travellers better armed than that. But the English never carried cash or valuables on them, and the ensuing commotion would be dangerous. Kali knew best.
He had thought then, and many times since the affair at Padampur, whether he should get a message to Mr. Wilson—and to Madhya perhaps—telling him of the Deceivers’ rendezvous at Parsola, and asking him to bring up cavalry. He had not done it before, and he did not do it now, when Mr. Wilson’s passing gave him an opportunity. For one thing, he did not think he would be believed; then the rumours would go out, the Deceivers would hear, the rendezvous would be altered, the sale cancelled. Further, though it would be a big step forward to catch all the Deceivers who came to the Parsola sale, he knew that, however many came, they would still be only a small fraction of the whole network. He had decided that if circumstances permitted he would bide his time, complete this phase of his investigations at Parsola, and spend the summer persuading the government that large-scale operations must begin with the following Dussehra.
He hitched his weight forward to sit more easily in the rough saddle of the Cutch mare he now rode. The horse that Yasin had bought for him in Manikwal had long since been sold. They had captured and disposed of forty horses since then. Hussein had bought this mare in the Kuraon bazaar a few days back. No one would find it easy to trace the movements of the band through its horses. And now the end of the journey was in sight. Soon they would reach Parsola by the Mala marsh. The village and the marsh were in his district, not twenty-five miles from his headquarters at Madhya. His district? His headquarters? The phrases sounded ridiculous.
At Parsola they would meet many other bands and dispose of their jewels to the brokers assembled by Chandra Sen. But, according to report, Chandra Sen himself never came to the annual sales. He stayed at his home or chose that time to visit in Madhya. His object was to keep in touch with the authorities and be ready to distract them if for any reason they showed signs of investigating the area of the sale.
It was lucky that Chandra Sen would not be at Parsola, because he had already seen William in the guise of Gopal the weaver, and he knew that the Collector of Madhya had disappeared. If he saw ‘Gopal’ again, he would certainly connect the two things.
William thought of Mary. Their child would be born next month. He would like to be with her then. With luck, it should be possible.
His face was set in the grim and thoughtful mask that the grass fire had scorched on to it the day of the massacre at the Padampur ford. Behind the mask he feared for himself, because he had learned the power of Kali, and his own weakness, and had learned in the spasms of his three murders to love the evil of the goddess. Since Padampur he had not killed with his own hands; he was the great Jemadar, the planner. But the terrible beauty lingered, a warmth at his wrists and heart, and he was afraid of the moment when he must meet Mary’s eyes. He clung grimly to his purpose, but even there he was afraid. His notes lay concealed in twenty clever places along the miles of road he had traversed since first meeting with the band at Jalpura. To men of good intent the notes would be above any assessment of value. He had met hundreds of other Deceivers, and the notes were a complete tale of all he had seen and heard and done; of all the Deceivers who had engaged in any action, with their descriptions, habits, and homes; of each murder, and how it had gone, and how it might have been prevented—or improved upon. The words could be read for either purpose, according to the spirit of the reader. The spirit of the writer was ambiguous. This long season of murder would in the end save lives; but William remembered that sometimes he had written his notes in professonal pride and critical admiration, and therefore he was afraid.
As he rode he exchanged easy words with his companions. It was not difficult now for him to think and make conversation at the same time. This particular group of travellers was like a circus, and he did not have to listen with great concentration to what was said. It would have been all but impossible; the beetoos numbered over eighty—eighty-four at his last count—with whom were eleven Deceivers, counting himself. The whole straggled like a racecourse crowd down the road, in high spirits for the most part. There were several horses; palanquins for the trio of rich old ladies who formed the kernel of the party; two Hindustani cavaliers riding south to seek employment with a Deccan rajah; six harlots and their servants, moving house from Allahabad to Sagthali; a few merchants; a few tradesmen; a farmer or two; children, goats, bullock carts—cows.
William stared at the four stunted cows ahead of him. They were a serious matter. The laws of Kali expressly forbade Deceivers to kill any traveller accompanied by a cow; Yasin didn’t agree, but that was the general interpretation of Kali’s rules. A cow had to be got out of the traveller’s possession. One common method was to buy it. All the laws of Kali had reason behind them, though sometimes her servants were too foolish to see it. They had to have faith.
The Deceivers, after centuries of prosperity, were beginning to lose faith and disobey. How many women had William seen strangled?—and that was forbidden. Every Deceiver, his own band included, believed that Kali was only biding her time to punish them, and yet they disobeyed. William looked with hard, sad eyes at his
companions. It was impossible to know Kali without fearing her, to fear her without serving her. He had become her servant. Even when the time came to act, when his hand and voice sent Deceivers by hundreds to the scaffold, he would be the servant of her anger against them. He had eaten the sugar.
His band was much bigger now. Success had crowded him on the long journey. As he travelled, other bands had joined him in a loose confederation. The jemadars willingly submitted their authority to his in the conduct of affairs, while keeping in their own hands the detailed religious and disciplinary control of their men. That was because of his success. If they had been English they would have called him ‘Lucky’ Savage. As it was, behind his back they called him ‘Gopal Kali-Pyara,’ Gopal the Beloved of Kali. The bear troupe had four bullock carts now, and, beside the dancing bear, a hyena, a baby deer, and two mangy wild red dogs. All the cart floors were false, and jewels and specie and gold bars filled the drawers below.
On the road he had made contact with perhaps a twentieth part of the Deceiver network. In addition, he had heard gossip around the camp fires, and the words he had heard threw light far beyond the power of the blazing logs, far beyond the limits of his voyaging. One little anecdote revealed the existence of Deceivers who worked in boats in the Sunderbunds to the east, beyond Calcutta. A bright pearl, and its story, told of Deceivers in the steaming, forested hills that overlook Adam’s Bridge in the far south and the narrow channel to Ceylon. Round the fires he had heard of Deceivers who were the body-servants of British officers; of rajahs who had eaten Kali’s sugar and now guided the operations of Deceiver bands from their palaces; of moneylenders in Bombay, roving gentlemen-at-arms in the west. He had heard … too much. Kali’s hand lay over India.
The sun was low, and the three old ladies shouted to the coolies to carry their palanquins off the road into an extensive mango grove. Yasin always rode beside them. He had captivated them with his quiet charm and confessional manner. He was just like a rosy English vicar among valued parishioners. Whatever he suggested to the old ladies became the law of the party.
William left the road in his turn and found a spot in the grove to tie up his horse and unpack his meagre belongings. This was the ultimate stage for eighty-four human beings, this coming night their last, and the moon, when it rose, their final moon. Tomorrow the band would kill them all. It would not be the biggest job Deceivers had ever undertaken, but it was big enough. William tried to wish he could draw back, cancel it all, but he could not find that wish. The old, now familiar excitement grew in him. He had to go on because his reputation as a great Jemadar depended on it, and on that his life, and on his life his notes and the final destruction of Kali. But his hands were warm, and he was afraid. He began to collect sticks, wandering always farther from the mango grove and its brackish well.
The others came one by one to the appointed place, and no word was said. Yasin spread the sheet and laid the pick-axe on it. William stood behind, and expectation and unwilling reverence swept down from the quiet sky upon him.
‘O Kali, thy servants are waiting,’ Yasin cried in passion and wonder. ‘Grant them thy approval, they pray.’
They waited with heads bowed in silence. No animal moved, no bird called. The tops of the trees stirred in the evening breeze, bending toward the north. The silence pressed down on them. They stood for fifteen minutes. The darkness spread from the jungle to cover them.
To the right an owl called, the hollow pulse of sound moaning away under the boughs. To the left a second owl answered. For a minute the two birds called to each other.
The Deceivers backed away. Yasin snatched up the pick-axe and sheet and stammered, ‘We must cancel it—everything.’
Kali rose up in the twilight, a definite shape before William’s eyes, black-browed and serpent-haired. Always before, she had answered him at once, and answered ‘Yes.’ Now his torn spirit, and his fear of her, cried out to him to heed her warning. But the spirit under the spirit spoke, and that was deep based, and Christian, and English. That would not bow to heathen superstition. He turned furiously on his men and flung out his arms in the gloom.
‘We will go on!’ he cried harshly. ‘We cannot go back. A hundred and forty of our comrades are on their way to the killing ground. We cannot stop them or communicate with them. We will go on!’
Piroo said slowly, ‘Kali——’
‘Kali gave me a private sign, in the night when I first planned this adventure,’ William answered desperately. ‘It is all right. It is on my head.’
The deep-planted obstinacy brushed Kali aside. Only an hour ago he had looked for a way to abandon this horrible enterprise. Now the way opened clear in front of him, and he could not, would not, take it.
The stranglers slipped away. Yasin tucked the pick-axe into his waistband and said heavily, ‘So be it. It is on your head. Have the buriers dug yet? It is an enormous task to dig for so many.’
‘We rely on Hussein. He said there were big pits in the jungle, where men used to dig up the ironstone.’
Yasin said again, ‘So be it,’ and William followed him back to the encampment.
He lay down at last and began to review his plans for the next day. About two miles on from this grove the road entered a rock defile, where it climbed over a low saddle among thick forest. On either side small hills swept down to the saddle. He had never seen the place, but others had, and their descriptions had been detailed and enthusiastic. A little skill was necessary to telescope the party so that all the travellers would be in the defile at the same time. Yasin was to do that by contriving to get the old ladies in front to stop at the far end. The column would pile up behind them. As for strengths, beside the eleven Deceivers here a hundred and forty others, all under William’s orders, had been moving for days in twos and threes and larger groups on parallel roads, and ahead, and behind. Those men were on the move now, hurrying by footpaths and byways to the defile. They should be in a position by dawn. The travellers would get there about an hour later.
As in all good plans, the rest was simple. William would ride in the middle of the column and, when the best moment came, stand in his stirrups and shout, ‘O Kali, hear us!’ Five Deceivers of his band were to be alongside the two young cavaliers, the other five with the old ladies and their escort of even older retainers. When William shouted the mass in hiding would rush out and finish the affair. It was simple. But would Kali hear him?
He turned over on his face and prayed, and in his prayer English words stumbled among the words of the Deceivers’ language. It all depended on Hussein. It was Hussein who had remembered the old ironworkings half a mile into the wood near the defile. It was Hussein who had been William’s link of communication with the supporting bands; Hussein who had ridden off on a fast horse to tell them of the rendezvous and the details of the operation. Tomorrow morning, all that done, Hussein was to pass down the road in the opposite direction, to meet the party just before it reached the defile. As he passed he would say a word to William to confirm that all was ready.
William turned over on his back. Usually, when he had thought over his arrangements, he went to sleep. Tonight he could not sleep. All night he could not sleep, and his face was grey when he got up. He began to collect his kit and load it on his horse. He saw the misery in his men’s eyes and forced himself to smile encouragingly at them. The bustle of preparation for the move was far off and unreal today; unreal the figures who stretched their arms in the last warm darkness; far off the cries of the children who raced about the grove and played tag among the mango trees. The black mirrors enclosed him within himself, and there he grimaced at himself and was afraid, because Kali held him so that he could not find pity.
He mounted painfully and, among a group on foot, moved out on to the dusty road. It was very early. He rode with his head up but noticed nothing. On the dark glass a reflected figure moved, coming up from the south, a small and lonely horseman, unfocused in the pale vastness of the morning, lonelier by the bulk of the
crowd travelling against him. The horseman carried his head slightly on one side. He increased in size, coming closer, fumbling through the crowd, filling at last William’s horizon. His horse bumped against William’s thigh. William saw Hussein’s eyes level with his own.
‘Maharaj, your pardon. You are all right? All is well.’ With downcast eyes the lopsided horseman shook his reins and went on his way. William turned to glance after him. He knew him now, and knew he was different from what he had been. Today Kali had indeed hidden her light from them, so that there was no warmth, only the cold dawn in men’s eyes.
He was in the middle of the defile. Ahead he saw that the three palanquins had stopped. Yasin leaned down from his horse to point out something in the far distance. Already men and women on foot began to edge past the palanquins where they blocked the middle of the road.
William stood in his stirrups and, hearing his own voice as a stranger’s, shouted, ‘Kali, ‘O Kali, hear us!’
The travellers around him looked up in fear, for passion cracked his voice. He reined in his horse. He heard screams from the front as Yasin and a mounted servant slid to the ground, locked together by a rumal. He heard a flurry and a clash behind, and saw his Deceivers drag the young cavaliers from their saddles. Close at hand a traveller shouted, ‘Robbers, robbers, close up!’ The travellers began to run together into tight little circles, like sheep at the coming of a wolf. The men among them brandished sticks and shouted defiance at—nothing.
For two full minutes the separate struggles continued, one at the front around the old ladies, one at the back around the cavaliers. Between, nothing, and William astride his horse. Still nothing.
Hesitatingly men broke away from the protective circles and ran toward the fights. From the front a voice screamed again in desperation, ‘O Kali, hear us!’ It was Yasin. William saw the flash of steel. The pick-axe circled through the air and landed in the edge of the trees. And daggers stabbed and swords swung.
