The Nizam's Daughters

by Mallinson, Allan

  ‘Because they eat rats?’

  ‘Is tha tellin’ me them’s not poisonous?’

  ‘That is what I understand; but believe me, Johnson, I would have done the same – only I fancy I would not have been so quick!’

  The bluff had lost something of its charm to them, so they gathered up the reins. But as they turned for home Hervey’s eye was caught by activity below, on the approaches to the palace.

  ‘Looks like somebody important,’ suggested Johnson.

  Hervey got into the saddle and took out his telescope: ‘Twenty, I can see. Half a dozen civilians with white faces. And the uniforms behind look the same as those Madras troopers we were with in Guntoor. Now what do you suppose this is about?’

  That evening

  Hervey rode back at no great pace and took his time bedding Jessye down. He saw no necessity to hurry, for he knew his letter could not yet have reached Madras, let alone elicited a response in the form of a visitation, and so he supposed that here was some initiative by the Company or even by the rajah himself. In either case he wished to be at arm’s length from the proceedings. But how fortunate, he reflected, that he was able to address such a missive to someone with whom there was mutual confidence. Indeed, he owed much, did he not, to that felicitous meeting with Philip Lucie on the Madras foreshore, for, fever apart, he was close to securing the registry documents and he would soon begin making his journey west to see the nizam’s forces. And it was perhaps as well that the nizam had cancelled his visit to Chintal, since he would now be able to observe him first on his own ground – perhaps a fairer gauge.

  He went to his apartments, bathed and made ready for dinner with the rajah, to which he and Emma Lucie were invited alone. The rajah had of late become absorbed in a study of the Pentateuch, and Emma Lucie, he supposed, would be well versed in those books. Since the tryst at the pagoda Hervey had observed the rajah’s manner become strange. Indeed, it seemed singularly ill-matched to the hour. Before, he had spoken frequently of the nizam’s daughters; now they appeared to occupy him not in the least. Hervey wondered if money had changed hands at the pagoda, whether the shrivelled figure were an agent of the nizam’s, or a spy of the rajah’s.

  Before the appointed time for dinner, however, he was summoned to the rajah’s apartments, where he found the principal members of the party observed from the bluff – the Collector of Guntoor and Cornet Templer. ‘You are acquainted with one another, I understand,’ said the rajah.

  All made bows and the usual gestures of greeting. The collector looked pulled-down by the journey, his thinning hair glistening with little beads of perspiration. Cornet Templer, on the contrary, looked enlivened by it, his eager features incapable of concealing his delight at being there.

  The rajah resumed. ‘Well, Captain Hervey, it very much seems that we are in peril both where the sun rises and where it sets. The nizam, I learn, is intent on striking in the west, and – from the intelligence which these envoys of the Honourable Company bring – the Pindarees are set to ravage the east of Chintal.’

  But the collector looked puzzled by this appreciation. ‘Your Highness, I brought intelligence of the Pindarees on the lower Godavari: why do you say the nizam is intent on striking Chintal? Are you not aware of the Pindaree depredations in his own domain?’

  The rajah was not. The rajah knew only of the guns, about which, he revealed, he received daily reports, telling of their seemingly aimless movement about his border with Haidarabad.

  The collector said he must explain the situation with the Pindarees at some length, and the rajah bade all sit, ordering his khitmagars to bring refreshment.

  ‘Your Highness,’ began Somervile, measuring his words carefully so that none of their import might be lost. ‘Last October a body of – by some estimates – ten thousand Pindarees crossed the Nerbudda and swept through the nizam’s provinces as far as the Kistna.’

  ‘That I knew. And not even the Company’s subsidiary force in Haidarabad could do anything to prevent this,’ said the rajah accusingly.

  ‘I regret not, sir.’ Somervile cleared his throat and moved quickly on. ‘The Pindarees then returned to their stronghold in the wilderness between the Nerbudda and the Vinhya Hills with so much plunder that merchants came from far and wide to purchase it. And, with such demonstrable success, they were able to attract even greater numbers to their ranks. In February, therefore, a force three times as big as that which had ravaged Haidarabad crossed the Nerbudda again, but this time their object was the Company’s domain – the Northern Circars. They marched through Nagpore without, it seems, the rajah of that state raising a single musket to oppose them, poured into the Circars and sacked the civil station at Guntoor – not many days after you had left, Captain Hervey.’

  ‘I have only recently heard of it, Your Highness,’ said Hervey, turning to the rajah. ‘The destruction of life and property was very great, I understand.’

  The collector confirmed it. ‘Over three hundred villages were plundered, many torched and razed to the ground. Two hundred persons put to death and three times as many grievously wounded. Thousands more – men and women – subjected to the vilest torture and defilement. Twenty-five lakhs of rupees – more than £300,000 – is my estimate of the loss of property alone.’

  The rajah sighed wearily. ‘I am troubled to learn that my fellow prince Raghujee Bhonsla should have connived at such outrages by letting through these marauders without hindrance.’

  ‘It is now of no moment, Your Highness,’ said the collector, ‘for the Rajah of Nagpore died one week ago.’

  The rajah looked alarmed: ‘Raghujee Bhonsla is dead? I am very sad for it, but I am even more fearful, for Persajee – his son – is blind, palsied. He must not be rajah of so powerful a state as Nagpore!’

  The collector remained wholly composed. ‘You need have no worry on that account, Your Highness. The rajah’s nephew Modajee – Appa Sahib – is, with the help of the Company, to be acknowledged as regent. We expect to conclude a treaty of alliance soon.’

  ‘Consider, father: a subsidiary force and a resident in Nagpore!’ said the raj kumari in a tone of disapproval.

  Hervey had not noticed her beside the window, behind him.

  The collector sought to reassure her. ‘Your Highness,’ he tried, ‘surely it would be best to have a reliable neighbour, as would be guaranteed by the Company? The Rajah of Nagpore will be forbidden to make any alliances except with the approval of the Governor-General and his council, and it is an express condition of the treaty that Nagpore should never initiate hostilities against allies of the British. He could therefore be of no threat to Chintal.’

  ‘But there is just such a treaty with the nizam,’ she countered. ‘There has been a British resident in Haidarabad these many years, and it has not made our position more assured.’

  The collector was now seeing where the chief obstacle to his embassy lay. ‘You are right, madam, to say that Haidarabad has not been without tumult. But there has been no eruption of warfare outside that kingdom’s borders.’

  ‘That is as maybe,’ sneered the raj kumari, ‘but Haidarabad has used every subterfuge to gain an equal result. The nizam’s sons now throw the court into confusion while the resident is bribed into inaction!’

  The collector bridled inwardly at the slur (though he would have admitted, privately, that there was truth in it), but forbore to show offence. Instead he tried to deflect the guilt. ‘Madam, I own that the Governor-General would at present share your poor opinion of Moneer-ool-moolk, but—’

  She would hear none of it, however. ‘Sir, do you suppose we have no knowledge of affairs in Haidarabad? I speak not of the nizam himself, but of his vizier Chundoo Lall. He is the scourge of the nizam’s kingdom. He, a fellow Hindoo, imposes his dastak on Chintal by threatening us with the very forces the resident has been so pre-occupied in bringing to such efficiency. And all in exchange for Chundoo Lall’s gaudy bribes – a marble palace and gilded furniture from London, i
t is said!’

  The collector knew he would have to trim. ‘Madam, I assure you that I am not insensitive to the concerns of Chintal. That, indeed, is why I am come. With the greatest of respect, the danger to Chintal lies first in the Pindarees. The Governor-General – and take note that it is Calcutta now which acts, not merely Madras – the Governor-General hopes very much that the Nagpore subsidiary force which will be embodied once the treaty is signed will be of sufficient strength to deter them. Six, or perhaps seven, thousand will be the number. Colonel Leach, a Company officer of considerable distinction, will be placed in command. Yet more is needed if these brutes are to be prevented from finding booty here.’

  The raj kumari was convinced this was but an incomplete explanation of their mission. ‘And what is your design for us, therefore?’

  ‘Your Highness, Lord Moira would welcome the assignment of the forces of Chintal to these efforts to keep the Pindarees north of the Nerbudda, or better still, to extirpate the menace once and for all.’

  The rajah bade his daughter keep silent, and conceded there were fewer causes worthy of greater effort than the extirpation of the Pindarees. He thought for a while in silence, and then asked that the collector withdraw so that he might consider it more fully – which the agent of the Company did with all proper ceremony and deference. When he was gone, the rajah turned to Hervey and asked his opinion.

  Hervey agreed wholeheartedly with the Company’s proposal. Indeed, it was the very thing his letter, now en route to Madras, urged. He might wish these overtures had begun in a manner less pressing, for the implication of concerted action from Fort William – from the very place, indeed, where he expected the Duke of Wellington to be installed in but a few months – made him acutely conscious of another factor. He was obliged to consider what might be the duke’s own wishes in the matter, for any alliances would constrain a new governor-general as surely as if they had been concluded by him in person. This much seemed easy, however, for a vigorous policy likely to promote greater peace would be entirely within the duke’s notion of stewardship. But Lord Moira’s intention to take vigorous action was so much at odds with what he had been told in Paris – that it was Moira’s very passivity which was most likely to lead to the duke’s being appointed in his place. ‘Sir,’ he began resolutely, but perplexed, ‘I believe you may be confident of my respect for you and of my affection for Chintal: I would do nothing that would imply otherwise.’

  The rajah bowed.

  ‘I am strongly of the opinion that you should make an alliance with the Honourable Company – and with all haste. At least, that is, one limited in time or purpose, for a treaty is the greatest guarantee of your sovereignty in these difficult circumstances.’

  The raj kumari turned on her heel and strode to the window, hissing. She would not engage in debate over the sovereignty of Chintal.

  The rajah looked at her wearily, and then at Hervey. ‘Do you suppose they would send an officer in command of this subsidiary force who was sensible of my condition, Captain Hervey?’

  ‘It could only be to mutual benefit,’ he replied.

  The rajah looked at his daughter again, and then bade him leave them.

  For the first time, Hervey was conscious that no matter where he went in the palace, or its gardens, he was observed – or, at least, might be observed. And overheard, too, should he speak in more than a whisper. He would have liked to meet with the collector and Cornet Templer, but to do so could only arouse suspicion that he was in collusion with the Company. He therefore avoided their quarters and went instead to look for Emma Lucie. He found her beside one of the fountains in the water garden, reading – as if there were not a care in the whole of the palace. ‘Do I disturb you, madam?’ he enquired.

  ‘You do not disturb me, Captain Hervey,’ she said with a smile, closing her volume of the natural history of Madras. ‘But something disturbs you, evidently.’

  Hervey sighed. ‘For all its perils, the battlefield is at least a place of simple certainties.’

  She looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Events here have taken another turn.’

  ‘Why should you, above other men, be privileged to a life without confusions, Captain Hervey?’ she smiled. ‘What are these events?’

  The reproach in her voice was not excessive, but enough nonetheless to check him. ‘You are right, madam. I accept the rank and position readily enough.’

  ‘Well, let us not dwell too deeply on such matters. What exactly troubles you?’

  ‘You are aware, I must suppose, that Mr Somervile is come?’

  ‘Mr Somervile, here?’

  Clearly she was not. ‘Why yes, Miss Lucie: he is come with an offer of alliance with Chintal, this very afternoon.’

  Emma Lucie rose as if to leave, and then sat down again. ‘I had not thought that—’

  ‘Forgive me, madam,’ Hervey interrupted, ‘but he comes with intelligence that there are to be further Pindaree forays, and next it is expected they will ravage Chintal.’

  She seemed less agitated. ‘I see. And this is what distresses you?’

  ‘Indirectly, madam. I have been in India these past three months and I am become embroiled with a very minor potentate – albeit most engaging – whose interests are threatened by a man whose assistance I was intent on seeking.’

  ‘Assistance, Captain Hervey?’

  She had seized on it quickly. Had the hesitation in his voice betrayed him? ‘Yes: you will recall that I am to visit his lancers.’

  ‘Oh,’ she replied, sounding not entirely convinced.

  He judged it better to remain silent.

  And she said nothing at first. But then she smiled – laughed almost. ‘Captain Hervey, your friend Mr Selden – a most intriguing gentleman – has much entertained me this afternoon with stories which likened your time here to the trials of Hercules.’

  Hervey frowned. ‘Mr Selden is sick with a fever, madam. I had not thought him capable of receiving anyone.’

  ‘Indeed – he is not at all well. But he had insisted on being brought to the rajah’s stables, it seems, to examine a new foal. Such a pretty little thing. Yes, he was quite full of classical allusions to your time here.’

  He did not see how it could be so.

  ‘Oh, do not be modest, Captain Hervey: I have heard of your Herculean efforts to divert rivers, to capture boars, and even to confront the Hydra!’

  He smiled at the rivers and the boars, but reference to the Hydra escaped him. ‘You confuse me, I believe, madam.’

  She frowned. ‘Indeed? I had heard you saved the princess from a most fearsome two-headed serpent deep in the jungle.’

  Hervey blushed a deep crimson. How could Selden have known of the encounter? ‘I . . . that is,’ he stammered; ‘I confess that I ran from it.’

  ‘You, Captain Hervey? You ran from it?’

  ‘Well, Miss Lucie, in truth it was not one snake but two. They were entwined: perhaps that gave the impression of two heads.’

  ‘Why were they entwined, Captain Hervey?’ she asked, with all apparent innocence.

  He blushed deeply again. ‘It was part of their courtship, I understand.’

  ‘And does such entwining always signal an inclination to mate?’

  He felt almost as close to danger as he had been in the forest. What did Selden know, and how? ‘I am not privy to the habits of the hamadryad, madam,’ he replied, with as much an air of unconcern as he could manage.

  But she was not inclined to let it pass. ‘Do you know if the hamadryad mates for life?’

  ‘Miss Lucie, as I said, I know little of the habits of this or, for that matter, any snake.’

  She frowned once more. ‘They are not so common in Madras, but I read in my natural history that the female will allow the male to make advances – even to mate with her – and will then kill him with a single bite. Do you know what is the habitual diet of the hamadryad, Captain Hervey?’

  He shook his head as she leafed through
her book to find the page.

  ‘There,’ she said, showing him the place. ‘Its scientific name . . . see?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hervey, tumbling to her meaning, ‘Ophiophagus hannah.’

  ‘Yes, Captain Hervey: Ophiophagus hannah – it eats only other snakes. Indeed, the female will even kill and eat a male with which she has just mated.’

  Hervey shivered involuntarily, now convinced her purpose was more allegory than natural history. ‘Perhaps we might change the subject, madam; I cannot even recall how it came about.’

  ‘I spoke of the labours of Hercules,’ she smiled.

  He was partially relieved.

  ‘It is as well, anyway, that we close that allegory, sir, for Hercules’ eleventh labour would be most perilous.’ She inclined an eyebrow.

  Hervey saw it at once. ‘Taking the world on his shoulders, do you mean, madam?’

  ‘Just so. The rajah seems especially keen that you shoulder his burden, does he not?’ She raised both her eyebrows, and smiled.

  Hervey looked at her intently. ‘You do not suggest that the rajah seeks to confine me in some way?’

  She raised her eyebrows again, and tilted her head. ‘I have been in India many years—’

  ‘No!’ he protested. ‘If I am any judge of men at all, the rajah is incapable of such a thing!’

  ‘I do not know the rajah,’ she replied softly, ‘but I believe any prince in his position would often as not be an unwitting deceiver. He may not have the cares of the world on his shoulders, but those of Chintal are quite enough of a burden for one man, by all accounts.’

  Next morning, following a feast and entertainment as impressive for their improvisation as for their sumptuousness (which was nevertheless great), the rajah summoned Hervey once more to his apartments. He was quite alone, although the screens in his chamber might have concealed an entire council of ministers – a possibility Hervey would scarcely have imagined had it not been for Emma Lucie’s caution.

  ‘Captain Hervey, I have considered most carefully the position. Indeed, so long did I turn these things over in my mind that I saw the day break over Chintalpore. I have resolved to conclude a treaty with the Honourable Company.’