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.’
Hervey smiled and nodded appreciatively.
‘I am glad you approve, for I make but one condition.’
Hervey nodded again.
‘It is that you shall command the subsidiary force.’
Herve
y’s eyes were wide with disbelief. ‘Sir, that is not possible, I—’
‘Those shall be my terms.’
‘Sir, allow me to explain. I am an officer of the Duke of Wellington’s staff, albeit a junior one. But I have been given quite specific duties here, duties I could not discharge were I to command such a force. The second objection is that I am a King’s officer, not a Company officer. I am not in the least certain that such a command would be lawful.’
‘There is not a third, perhaps greater objection?’ asked the rajah.
Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘I, I do not think so, sir.’
‘Then you do not feel yourself incapable of such a command? Insufficient for the responsibility of such a force?’
‘Sir, I—’
But the rajah would not let him finish. ‘No, of course you do not think yourself incapable. Captain Hervey, I should think there are few men more capable of exercising command than you.’
He blushed. ‘I am flattered, sir — greatly honoured — but it does not diminish the primary objection.’
‘Then,’ said the rajah, sighing, ‘we shall see what the agent of the Company has to say of the matter.’ And with that he called for hazree. ‘Take breakfast with me first, Captain Hervey.’
Instead, however, Hervey begged leave to speak with the collector at once.
He found him at breakfast in his quarters. It was the first opportunity he had had to speak with him alone, though even here he could not be certain that their conversation would remain private. There was little he could do about that, however, and, in any case, he proposed to say nothing — nor even did he think anything — that might not be laid before the rajah without embarrassment. That some of the rajah’s establishment were in the nizam’s pay left him no alternative, indeed.
Somervile seemed pleased, but not surprised, to see him, and beckoned his khitmagar to bring him coffee. ‘These are momentous times, are they not, Captain Hervey?’ he asked, smiling.
‘I am beginning to think that I might not see otherwise in my lifetime,’ replied Hervey, sighing.
‘I learn that the Duke of Wellington is having a little difficulty in Paris, too.’
‘Oh?’ said Hervey. ‘How so?’
‘He has been assailed in the street. It seems that there is some resentment that he commands an army of occupation. The royalists feel that now the usurper Bonaparte is gone France should be returned to the French. And, I hear tell, there is trouble with one or two husbands…’
‘I am sure that the duke is able to bear these things with fortitude,’ smiled Hervey. ‘How are things with Lord Moira?’ he ventured.
The collector looked baffled by the enquiry. Hervey wished he had not made the connection so directly, for Somervile was quite astute enough to draw the inference.
‘Lord Moira is, it seems, in the very best of sorts. He is quite determined on vigorous action in order to have peace from these Pindarees, and I understand that he now has the support of Leadenhall Street and the government. Or at least, there is quiescence in those quarters. I have it on the best authority, even, that he is soon to be ennobled with a marquessate.’
Hervey sensed that his next words were crucial to preserving his cover, but before he could speak the collector demonstrated the perceptivity of which Lucie had made so much.
‘Captain Hervey, did you suppose that the Duke of Wellington were somehow to be translated here at the expense of Lord Moira? Are you in some manner his scout?’
Hervey was aghast.
The collector laughed. ‘My dear sir, I have known as much since first we met! You forget that it is my business to be in the minds of men. You suppose that what in London is plausible will be equally so in the Indies. Well, I may tell you that it is not. You may, so to speak, have a parade of Grenadiers pass muster on the Horse Guards, but in India the sun is so bright that the merest speck on a tunic will stand out like an inkblot on parchment!’ He laughed again, calling to his khitmagar in confident Telugu for more coffee — and then to leave them alone. ‘Captain Hervey, you would be an adornment in Calcutta — for sure — but more importantly, you would come to see India as I do. And, since the wretched affair of Warren Hastings, there are fewer men each year who are prepared to see India as it is, rather than as it might be were only its rulers Englishmen.’
Hervey was not immediately convinced. ‘Do you not confuse our purpose in the East, sir?’ he asked boldly.
‘ “Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live”?’
Hervey all but scratched his head. ‘That is familiar, but—’
‘Milton,’ he replied.
‘Oh, Milton. My major was wont to quote Milton, but he had a decidedly melancholic turn. It does seem apt, though.’ Then he had second thoughts. ‘But have we not fought Bonaparte these past twenty years on that very precept?’
The collector frowned. ‘Would that you knew your Milton better, for it is less contrived at polity than with private morals!’
‘I think it dubious to suppose there is a distinction…’
‘Oh, Captain Hervey!’ groaned the collector, and then declaimed as if on the boards: ‘ “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” ’
‘Milton again, sir? And what is your meaning by that?’
‘Dust and heat — the essence of India!’ said the collector, surprised.
Hervey looked blank.
‘Captain Hervey, I shall speak plain: if you are the man I believe you to be, you will ever think meanly of yourself if you refuse the rajah’s request.’
‘Forgive me, sir, but I think you must perceive my difficulty at least. Such a course would be to stray a very great deal from that which I was meant to follow. I took a gamble in coming to Chintalpore because I believed it would be most expeditious to my mission. I must have the greatest care not to compound an error. And in any case, how do you know of the rajah’s request?’ he added, indignantly.
Somervile chose to ignore the question. ‘Captain Hervey, officers are appointed to the staff of great men to exercise their judgement, being in the mind of their principal. There is nothing uncommon in your exercise of initiative in coming to Chintalpore. I dare say that you are in a better position today to instruct the duke in the actuality that is Haidarabad than if you had dutifully ploughed your way first up the Hooghly river!’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Hervey, mollified slightly; ‘but how did you know of the rajah’s request?’
‘It is of no matter,’ replied the collector dismissively.
‘I consider that it is, sir!’ insisted Hervey; ‘I wish to know what collusion there has been in this concern!’
The collector smiled. ‘Captain Hervey, you must not suppose there are spies everywhere. I said before that it was my business to know what is in men’s minds. I knew perfectly well that that would be the rajah’s stipulation.’
Hervey sighed again. ‘See here, Mr Somervile, I make no admission by this, but the duties given to me by the Duke of Wellington do not permit of it. Nor, I believe, may a King’s officer be so employed on Company business without express authority.’
The collector sighed too, and more wearily. ‘The latter is but the refuge of the legalist. The former — well, I do not suppose that the duke is entirely illdisposed towards initiative.’
‘There is a perfectly able King’s officer here in Chintalpore who could exercise command with equal address as I.’
‘Who?’ enquired the collector, incredulously.
‘Mr Locke.’
‘Locke? That potulent officer of Marines? From what I hear you would have the greatest difficulty hauling him off his little nautch girl!’
Hervey frowned in dissent. ‘That is unfair. He fought like a lion at Jhansikote.’
‘Hervey,’ said the collector, his voice lowered in conspira
cy, ‘there will be no shortage of lions. What the rajah needs is a lion with the acuity of a mongoose!’
XV. FEVER
The following day
Hervey walked with Emma Lucie in the water gardens before the heat of the day drove all but the unfortunate to seek the shade. Despite the collector’s best efforts she had insisted on staying in Chintal for a further week, for it was the first time she had seen a princely state (Mysore she dismissed as merely an outpost of Madras). Hervey was glad she had stayed. He was, perhaps for the first time, feeling acutely the want of support that was the community of the Sixth. Private Johnson was a greater strength than ever he could have imagined, but he could hardly share his doubts with a man whose life rested so completely in his hands. There was Locke. But somehow Hervey was unable to confide. There ought to have been Selden, but Selden protested that he supposed him more capable than he was. ‘In the end I am a horse-doctor, that is all,’ he had lamented. And Selden was abed with fever too — no doubt induced by the late confusions, but in periodic deliriums nevertheless.
Hervey had on his straw hat, but though it kept off the sun its leather brow-band made his forehead permanently moist. He took it off and wiped his brow with his sleeve for a third time. Emma Lucie, in a white cotton frock and a broad straw hat with a trailing silk band, looked for all the world as if she might have been in his father’s garden at Horningsham. Years of acquaintance with the climate had conditioned her very comfortably to this spring season. As they reached the most active of the fountains Hervey stopped and bade her sit on its wall, for here he could be sure that noone might overhear them against the sound of falling water.
‘The rajah has asked me to take command of the Company’s subsidiary force when the treaty is signed.’ His tone was less than resolute.
‘You seem uncertain, Captain Hervey. I should have thought it a splendid thing for an officer.’
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