The Deceivers

by John Masters

  ‘He’s wandering round in native clothes, alone, begging his way. He’s in the district, came recently. A friend of Chandra Sen’s recognized him. I’m afraid he’s insane, Mary. I’ll have to go and get him’

  He looked at her as he spoke. Her happiness that William was alive warmed her heart and shone in her face. This was the first news she had had of him for five months. George’s lips tightened.

  Chandra Sen said, ‘I do not think that would be safe, sahib. Your honour cannot travel without being remarked. People pass the word of your coming ahead of you. Everyone wants to know when the Collector is near, so that they can bring petitions to him.’

  ‘What of it? I’ve got to get hold of Captain Savage.’

  ‘Let me go, sahib. He is on the move, beyond Parsola. I can find out where he will be and come upon him suddenly. Unless we are very careful, he will disappear again. As it is, I fear he will do himself a mischief when we try to hold him. His mind is upside down. I have some experience in these matters. But I will do my best to bring him back safe.’

  ‘He won’t hurt himself,’ Mary burst out, ‘he’s——’ She bit off the sentence. William had agreed, at Hussein’s insistence, that no one must know why he had left Madhya. Chandra Sen looked at her thoughtfully. When she did not finish George said, ‘There’s always the risk with people whose minds are—upset. I think Chandra Sen is right. Will you do that, then, patel-ji?’

  ‘Very well.’ Chandra Sen bowed slowly to each of them in turn and left the room. They heard a mutter of talk between the patel and his servant on the verandah, then the creak of saddlery, the quickening, dying beat of hoofs.

  The sounds faded at last, and George said with sudden spite, ‘You knew all the time what William was doing. I saw it in your face just now. You lied to your father.’

  ‘I did not lie to anyone,’ She put a perceptible emphasis on the ‘anyone,’ George was not thinking of her father but of his own misty hopes and of her subtle encouragement. It had never been much: it could not be, with William’s child growing in her: with another man it would have been nothing: but it had been enough. She had done her part, and by a look, a shrug, an implied promise, deceived George so that he had not used his power to track William down.

  George shrugged petulantly, ‘Oh well, it’s all the same now. I’m afraid he’ll be put into an asylum.’

  She felt tears coming and shook her head furiously. She would not cry in front of George. The baby stirred inside her, and all the loneliness of the months came to overwhelm her.

  Words fell tiny and all but soundless into her ear. ‘Memsahib, it is I, Hussein. Let me in quickly.’

  Astonishment held her without fear, and yet for weeks past she had expected to hear that faraway voice. She opened the windows through which Chandra Sen had five minutes ago left the bungalow. The moon shone bright on the drive and the wall and the road beyond. Hussein slipped into the room and stood beside the windows, where he could not be seen from the road.

  George started up. ‘Who in hell are you? Mary, who is——’

  Hussein ignored him and spoke to Mary in slow, clear Hindustani. ‘Your sahib needs help. He is at Parsola, with many Deceivers. He has found out all that is wanted. Tell this sahib now what he was doing. Make him send for all the cavalry, and come at once with them, or it will be too late. Your sahib is in danger.’

  She understood from Hussein’s strained face and haunted eyes that it was not merely physical danger which threatened William. ‘Fear of the gods’—she remembered that, and looked out at the cold moonlight, and turned to George.

  George said, ‘My good man, I can understand Hindustani better than the Memsahib. What’s all this about Deceivers? And’—he moved forward to get between Hussein and the windows—‘you stay there! I’ve heard of you. You’re the man with his head on one side who was implicated in the Chikhli murders and the Bhadora affair. You’re under arrest. Sher Dil!’ He raised his voice to a shout.

  Hussein’s right hand trembled at his waistband. Then he gritted his teeth and stood motionless in George’s grip. He said, ‘Sahib, send for the cavalry! From Sagthali or Khapa, or both. They’ll take a day and a half to come, and meanwhile I will explain everything. Do not hold me. I do not want to run away, because if I go outside now I think I will die. But if I stay here, and you do nothing, Savage-sahib will die.’

  ‘Why will you die? George snarled. ‘Not that it matters. I’ve turned out the military before, on your account, you lying little swine! It’s on the scaffold that you’ll die! We happen to know where Savage-sahib really is—and he’s not with or after any Deceivers. Chandra Sen, Patel of Padwa and Kahari, has gone to get him.’

  Hussein hung his head. His expression of misery deepened, but his eyes gleamed and he looked sideways at Mary. Mary heard Sher Dil shuffling across the compound from the servants’ quarters. Sher Dil never hurried to obey George’s commands. Hussein seemed to shrink, and Mary, watching him, called out, ‘George!’ so that George turned to loom at her. Hussein drove his bony left elbow into George’s stomach. Dumb amazement gaped in George’s open mouth. The windows rattled and Hussein was gone.

  Sher Dil padded in. ‘Your honour called?’

  George gripped his stomach and groaned. Mary’s mind raced but her feet were lead and she could not move. At last George said, ‘Man … Hussein … lopsided head … attacked me. Send for the police.’ Sher Dil ambled out of the room.

  Mary ran to George and grabbed his arm. ‘Hussein is telling the truth! I promised not to tell you before, but William went off with him in the beginning, to track down the Deceivers.’

  George sat limply in a chair and looked up at her. ‘I don’t believe it! And who are the Deceivers?

  ‘Do you accuse me of lying?’ she whispered with a tense, sick fury.

  He hesitated, quailing before the lightning in her eyes. ‘No, you’re accusing Chandra Sen of lying. I’d rather take his word than Hussein’s, damn it. The little swine’s a murderer. From what Chandra Sen said, we’d be as good as killing William if we descended on him with squadrons of cavalry. Is that what you want?’ He was cornered and bitter.

  She said, ‘Are you going to send for the cavalry?

  ‘No.’

  Her hands itched to claw his handsome face, pull out his golden curls in tufts and strew them on the floor. She gathered herself up, leaning over him in wordless rage. Then she rushed out of the room.

  The morning of the sale William walked apart and alone in the jungles. Hussein might come any time with news. Then he could put Kali behind him, but not before, because there were moments at night when she was still beautiful in his dreams. As the sun moved across the sky and the hour of the sale approached, he felt physical fear. Chandra Sen might be there. And yet it was not Chandra Sen, or death, that he feared. Kali would stand at the patel’s right hand and reproach him with her burning eyes, and his fear was of her.

  The sun bent down, and before the night’s full moon set the sale would be over. A day or so more, and eight hundred Deceivers would be on the way to wives and homes and children. And he among them. But he dared not face Mary and embrace her because he had embraced the brutalities of Kali. Mary would know at once, while he would remember the harlot girl at Manikwal. He walked slowly through the woods, his head bent, and Hussein did not come to him.

  At sunset, as the moon rose, his men took the jewels out of the bullock carts and loaded them in saddlebags on two pack-horses. The hyena set up its maniacal call; the bear shuffled and slavered in farewell. Piroo led the horses in tandem, and William walked behind. Three times on the path through the jungles a voice challenged them from the moon-splashed darkness. Three times Piroo prefaced his answering greeting with the words, ‘Ali, my brother.’ William never saw any of the challengers.

  Lights blazed in Parsola, and the moving, eddying people lent the little place the excitement of a great city. Men and pack animals—horses, donkeys, bullocks—crowded the street. Piroo turned his head to say
, ‘We’re the only band that needs two horses.’

  They came to the barn. It was a large low building, made of earth and cow dung, a relic of times past when the local landowner had built it to hold his tributes of produce. William knew it; officially it had been in disuse for some years. The thatched roof had decayed and drooped down like an old drunken woman’s bonnet over the outsides of the walls. Four unglazed windows peered out on the side away from the street, and there was a great door in that wall.

  Piroo led the horses inside, and William looked about him. Reeds and marsh rushes covered the earth floor. A few small lamps gave a feeble light; he could not see Chandra Sen anywhere. He found an empty space near the door, took the bridles, and said to Piroo, ‘Unload here.’

  Piroo spread two blankets and quietly emptied the first saddle-bags. All over the barn these blankets covered the rushes, at least thirty of them, each afire with rings, bangles, and necklaces. By each blanket two men sat. Another score of men, marked plainly with the stamp of ‘bannia,’ did not sit beside any blanket but wandered around, talking with one another and with the men on the floor.

  Piroo went out to tether the animals. William again searched the yellow, sparkling gloom. He squatted slowly down on his haunches and closed his eyes. Suddenly he thought of the catacombs of Rome as he had imagined them when he was a boy. In those daydreams he had seen a place like this, where men brought their gifts to Holy Church, and sentries held guard against the Roman law, which was cold and did not know the Word.

  Men closed the door behind him. He wanted to get up and run away, but could not. It was too late now. The hum of talk in the barn quietened, giving place to light and smell. Ten thousand gems threw up a spectral brilliance. The Deceivers were angels bathed in light. The roof of the barn, all grimed and smoky black, became a barred mosaic, a cathedral under the earth, a sacred arch held up by the worship of men’s hearts. Kali stepped down, and the smells of mould and damp, as from a grave, pierced his nostrils.

  An unseen man raised his voice at the far end of the barn. ‘I ask silence, my friends and fellow Deceivers …’

  William recognized Chandra Sen’s voice and tried to keep his hands steady. The men behind him blocked the door. He strained to see the patel, but could pick only a white robe above the heads of the gathering. A trick of shadow concealed the face.

  The high, familiar voice went on, ‘Before we start with the sale of these jewels, which are Kali’s gifts to us, there is something you must know. We have found a man who, having eaten Kali’s sugar, would deny her.’

  The men in the barn groaned low, not angry but shocked and outraged. Still William could not see Chandra Sen’s head.

  ‘That man is here,’ the high voice cried. ‘On earth, we are the hands of Kali, and act for her. What does she wish us to do?’

  William rose slowly to his feet. Here at the side of the barn he had no hope of escaping. He must get forward, speak to Chandra Sen, warn him that the cavalry were coming, tell him that no violence, only submission, might save him.

  Chandra Sen moved, and a lamp shone up into his face. William locked eyes with him, and tucked the forefinger of his right hand into his waistband.

  ‘Yes, yes, Jemadar-sahib, the rumal, Kali’s rumal!’ the men in the barn murmured. ‘The rumal for the apostate!’ They had seen William when he came into the barn. They had whispered of him as the great jemadar whose band had killed more and won more than any other. Now they saw him get up and walk forward, touching the place where his rumal lay, and they murmured in agreement.

  The warm waves of their approval lapped William’s back. He relaxed his shoulders. These men were his, not Chandra Sen’s, because he was a killer while Chandra Sen was a thinker. He could do with them what he willed. He walked on, much more slowly, looking into Chandra Sen’s eyes.

  Suddenly from the darkness Chandra Sen dragged out a man whose hands were bound behind his back and thrust him into the light. It was Hussein, dusty, head hanging on one side, eyes downcast.

  Chandra Sen spoke only to William, but with a piercing softness that all in the barn could hear. ‘This is the man, great Jemadar.’

  William did not look at Hussein. He stood close against Chandra Sen, and stared into his face, and sought the meaning of the riddle. Chandra Sen said, ‘Ask him, great Jemadar, can the sweetness of Kali’s sugar ever leave the mouth of man?’

  William said, not turning his head, ‘Hussein, can the sweetness of Kali’s sugar ever leave the mouth of man?’

  ‘Of some men, yes,’ Hussein said and lifted his head.

  ‘No, no, never!’ Chandra Sen cried, and the Deceivers echoed, ‘Never, never!’

  Chandra Sen said to William, ‘Great Jemadar, Prince of Stranglers, Beloved of Kali, give this traitor his disproof. Strangle him!’

  William gazed at the thin, ascetic face and knit his brows. An inner radiance transfigured Chandra Sen and glowed behind the wide eyes, wider now in a wonder of adoration. Chandra Sen knew him but had not come here to kill him. This was not Chandra Sen the patel, or Chandra Sen the jagirdir. This was a priest of Kali, at whose right hand Kali now stood. No vengeance or anger troubled the soul behind the eyes, only a burning glory of salvation—William’s salvation. William might have to be killed, but first the priest must save his soul and fix him for ever in Kali’s breast.

  Chandra Sen said again, ‘This is the man, great Jemadar. How can he escape, in life, when he has eaten the sugar, taken the silver, used the rumal? Only Kali can give him back his wife, his unborn child. Strangle him!’

  The large eyes were warming William’s own, and his wrists itched, and the goddess touched the small of his back with her lips. Hussein had no wife, and no child, born or unborn. It was Mary, and his old life, that Kali offered him through Chandra Sen’s two-edged words. To recover them he must give up his soul to Kali. For them he must take the oath in the death throes of this lopsided little man who was looking at him and who wanted a red coat. The Deceivers in the barn waited for him to kill. They were his servants only while he loved Kali. To keep them he had to kill—someone, Hussein. He could make up a story afterward, but now he had to kill. Here was the crisis of his spirit, for death was Kali’s love.

  He stood, blinded by the white clarity of his mind, his hands at his waist. Why should he not kill Hussein, and so save his own life, and Mary’s? And afterward, when they were safe, tell all? Hussein was a murderer many times over and worthy of death.

  He saw in Chandra Sen’s eyes that he would be let free if he killed. And he saw that Chandra Sen knew that the oath, so taken, would not be broken. There was nothing to stop him—except himself.

  Chandra Sen was right, Kali was right. To kill, in this mind and in these circumstances, would break him loose for ever from the love he had believed in and sought now so desperately to find again. Once he had been an ordinary man, one among a thousand million undistinguished others of every race and colour and creed, who lived, strongly or weakly, by love. This killing that tingled in his hands would rank him for ever where he now stood, among the select who lived by scorn, without love. Nor was he just a man, or only of this place and time; he was a part of eternity. If he failed, how many others, following, would fail? Kali’s road wound up high hills, and from their summits she had shown him the spreading cities of the plain which could be his kingdom. He felt the press of the future, the pushing feet of men unborn who would dedicate whole peoples to the rule of Kali, and take possession of countries in her name, and still call themselves Christian, and their feet would follow only where his had led.

  He thought of Mary and his child. They were the actual flesh of love. He would not see his wife or his baby unless he whirled the rumal. For the fourth time. A murderer, a soldier, a robber-baron … another murderer. What was the difference?

  Hussein was an ordinary man who wanted a red coat. All the simple world, and love, were there. William smiled suddenly at him and swung round, the rumal in his hand. Hussein jumped at Chandra Sen, t
hrowing himself bodily on top of him. A thickset man lunged at William from the shadows. It was Bhimoo the watchman. William began to swing the rumal, but it burned in his hand and he punched the watchman in the throat, then hurled the rumal down the barn. It flew through the air, its tail curling out behind the weight of the rupee in its head, and landed on a blanket of jewels. The Deceivers came struggling to their feet, gasped, and began to shout.

  Hussein fought to his knees, his hands still locked behind his back. Mary’s oak cross fell from his waist among the rushes. He shouted to William, ‘They haven’t taken her yet! Go, go, for your God’s sake, go!’ and threw his body forward on to the nearest lamp. It smashed, spilling oil over the floor, and the rushes took fire. William struck out with his fists and reached a window. The pick-axe hanging at his waist caught on the sill and he tugged it fiercely through. Until then he had forgotten it—but he would not let them have it back now.

  Hands grabbed at his feet. He kicked out. Under his arm he saw Hussein’s face and the flames that ran up Hussein’s hair and clothes and sent Chandra Sen and the Deceivers reeling away from him to grab at the corners of the jewel-laden blankets. As he fell to the ground outside he heard the little lopsided man’s last cry: ‘Ane wala hun—I am coming!’ the standard, million-times-heard answer of a chuprassi to his master’s call.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The uproar in the barn had not permeated to the street. A knot of men near the corn-chandler’s store rose in astonishment as William ran out of the yard. They started to run because he was running. He flung up his arm and shouted, ‘Traitors! Thieves!’

  They all ran together, shouting. William burst through among them, untethered the nearest horse, leaped into the saddle, and jabbed his heels into its sides. The animal broke into an ungainly see-sawing gallop and lumbered west down the street. The tumult behind increased. At the limit of the village William looked over his shoulder and saw men tumbling out of the barn and running for their horses. Their shouts clashed out in anger against the night. His horse had a mouth of iron; he tugged savagely at the right rein and turned into the fields.