‘Very well,’ said the colonel. ‘And what are your intentions until then?’
‘I’m going hunting,’ I said. And before that, there are a couple of ladies I’d like some answers from.’
THIRTY
‘What do you want me to ask her?’
In the heat of the morning, Annie and I followed Colonel Arora towards the Banyan Mahal. It was a palace within the palace, an ornate, terraced building of yellow sandstone, its facade dotted with latticework windows.
‘I want to understand more about Adhir and about her relationship with him. And I want to know if she has any idea who might have been behind his assassination. I’ll suggest more questions as we progress,’ I replied.
The entrance to the zenana was guarded by two bearded warriors who appeared to have been chiselled out of a quarry, probably somewhere in the deserts of Rajasthan. The Rajputs had a history of offering their military services to princes across India, like the Swiss in Europe.
Inside, the corridors were patrolled by a rather different sort. The only men who were allowed unrestricted access to the Banyan Mahal, other than the Maharaja and his sons, were the eunuchs.
‘In distant times,’ Arora had explained, ‘they’d have been slaves captured in battle, or criminals, caught and castrated.’ These days, it seemed, their provenance was, if anything, more disconcerting. They tended to be boys, mutilated in adolescence, often by their families in search of monetary gain. And eunuchs commanded a price; after all, who better to guard a king’s harem than men forcibly freed from the lures of the flesh?
‘Wait,’ said Arora. He pulled sharply on a rope and somewhere a bell rang. ‘The chief of the zenana will take you from here.’
The echo of footsteps on stone heralded the arrival of a slender, smooth-faced man dressed in a blue silk uniform.
He pressed his hands together in greeting. ‘I am Sayeed Ali,’ he said. His English sounded impeccable. ‘You must be Miss Grant and Captain Wyndham.’
I nodded.
‘If you would care to follow me. Her Highness the Princess Gitanjali is expecting you.’
‘I’ll meet you here after the interview,’ said Arora.
‘You’re not coming?’ I asked.
He arched an eyebrow. ‘It is best to avoid the Banyan Mahal unless one has specific business there,’ he replied. ‘Moreover, I have to organise the meeting you requested with the concubine.’
We left him and followed Sayeed Ali along a corridor whose walls were lined with murals that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Kama Sutra, and into a cloistered courtyard dominated by a huge banyan tree, which I guessed gave the palace its name. We walked through another arched doorway into a stairwell, climbing two flights before entering a well-apportioned sun-lit apartment. The room was divided by a carved teak screen peppered with small holes. In front of the screen, the marble floor was covered with a black and gold Persian rug, strewn with silk cushions.
‘Please be seated,’ said the eunuch. ‘Pier Highness will be with us shortly.’
With that, he stood back and we made ourselves comfortable on the floor.
Soon came a click and the sound of a door opening somewhere behind the screen. There was a rustle of fabric followed by bare feet on marble. Annie and I stood up, more out of courtesy than anything else, as a body clad in white moved behind the screen, intermittently blocking the pin-pricks of light that fell through its holes. It halted in front of us. Then a woman’s voice: ‘Please, be seated.’
The princess, it seemed, was doing likewise.
‘Your Highness,’ said Annie softly, ‘thank you for taking the time to meet with us. My name is Annie Grant. I was an acquaintance of your late husband, and with me is Captain Sam Wyndham of the Calcutta Police. He is leading the investigation into your husband’s assassination.’
There was a slight movement behind the screen. Through the latticework I caught sight of uncovered, dark hair.
‘I understand that you wish to ask some questions of me?’
The voice was strong, tremor-free, with no indication that she was a woman in mourning. And her accent and diction were those of an educated woman, no stranger to the English language.
‘That’s correct, Your Highness,’ said Annie.
It suddenly occurred to me that I’d never questioned a witness in quite this manner before. While I’d often relied on Surrender-not to translate my questions to natives who couldn’t speak English, I’d never interrogated a witness whom I could not see. This presented a few problems. A person’s face often tells a different story from their words. What’s more, you can learn a lot from their physical reactions to your questions – tics, a loss of composure, perspiration, a whole gamut of clues that a smart investigator can pick up on.
In this case, it seemed the tables were turned. Annie and I were seated at a distance from the screen, unable to discern much of anything behind it. The princess, I realised, was up close: the latticework would offer her a clear view of us. Given the situation, my best bet was to try a line of questioning more forceful than I might otherwise have been inclined to use. But how exactly was I supposed to forcefully question a princess whose husband had been cremated only the day before?
‘Tell her that we might have to ask her some difficult questions,’ I whispered to Annie, ‘but only in the interests of identifying who-ever’s behind her husband’s assassination,’
Annie nodded, then turned to the screen.
‘Your Highness may find some of the questions rather direct in nature. I would ask that you keep in mind that our sole objective is to find the parties behind your husband’s murder,’ she said.
‘I understand,’ replied the princess. ‘I shall attempt to answer your questions to the best of my ability. Now please continue.’
Before I could feed her a question, Annie had already started asking one.
‘Could you begin by telling us how you came to be married to Prince Adhir?’
There was a rustling of silk from behind the screen.
‘Adhir and I were betrothed to one another when I was six and he was nine, though the process had been set in motion many years prior to that. I was chosen for him by his father’s priests, from the matching of our astrological charts based upon the moment and location of our births. I dare say I was one of many girls of the right caste whose charts were examined, and I cannot tell you on what grounds, other than karma, I was chosen over the others. However, I didn’t meet him until I was thirteen. We were married shortly afterwards, at which time I left my family and moved into the palace.’
‘Ask her if she had any say in the matter,’ I whispered.
‘Are you sure?’ said Annie.
I nodded. ‘Please ask the question, Miss Grant.’
‘Did either of you have any say in the arrangement?’ asked Annie.
‘That is a strange question to ask,’ replied the princess. ‘How can a child be expected to have a say in such matters? From the age of six, I was groomed for the role. It is difficult to have expectations of a different life when the durbar and the zenana are your destiny. It is the way of things, the way it has always been; the same for king and commoner alike. Until recent times, was it not much the same in your own country?’
Annie gave me a hard stare. ‘Forgive me, your highness,’ she continued. ‘I meant no offence.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the princess, ‘the captain was wondering whether, having married so young, there was love between Adhir and me?’
I struggled to find the appropriate words, and settled instead for a slight nod of the head, which I hoped she could see through the holes in the screen.
‘I can tell you, Captain, that from even before I met him, I loved him. And that my love for him never wavered.’
‘And what of his love for you?’ I asked, momentarily forgetting my place. Behind me, the eunuch Sayeed Ali stirred. ‘Captain Wyndham, I would urge you to remember the terms on which this interview has been granted. Another breach of p
rotocol and I will have to insist that it is terminated.’
I apologised.
There was a pause from behind the screen. The question had been a provocation on my part. The princess’s reply, when it came, was tinged with defiance.
‘I am aware of the gossip, Captain. The stories of the Englishwoman at the Beaumont Hotel. Rest assured, there is very little that is not known in the zenana. I have even seen her. But believe me, whatever her relationship with Adhir, it was never any threat to his love for me. He always had his concubines, and they had no impact on our relationship. Why should the matter be any different just because the woman in question happens to be white? The love we had transcended whatever tawdry liaison she might have had with him.’
There was bitterness in her voice.
‘Tell me more about your husband. What sort of a man was he?’ asked Annie promptly. It was a good question. I decided to just sit back and listen.
‘A good man.’ There was no hesitation in the princess’s reply. ‘A man who cared. He had plans to bring Sambalpore into the twentieth century.’
‘What sort of plans?’
‘He believed that the days of British rule in India were numbered, and that the future belonged to the people. In such a world, the continued existence of princely states was, he believed, anachronistic. He saw it as his duty to prepare Sambalpore for the changes he knew were coming.’
‘And what did others make of his ideas?’
There was another pause.
‘If I may, Miss Grant, let me answer that by first asking you a question. Do you consider yourself an Indian?’
Annie hesitated.
‘I do, Your Highness,’ she replied finally.
Despite the screen between us, I could feel the princess smiling.
‘Then you understand this land and its people. They say our history stretches back thousands of years, but in that time, how much has really changed? Our people worship the gods in the same way their forefathers have done for millennia, our farmers till the soil much as our ancestors did in the time of the Mahabharata. In our land, change comes slowly. Mountains are reduced to pebbles by the desert wind in less time. There will always be those who set their hearts and wills against it.’
‘Did your husband do anything to upset any such people? Priests, maybe?’
‘Adhir was not a religious man,’ she replied. ‘In fact, he believed it to be the cause of superstition and backwardness in the country. But he knew what the religious practices and rituals meant to his people. He did his duty.’
‘His duty?’ I whispered.
‘I would be grateful if you would elaborate, Your Highness,’ said Annie.
There came a clinking of bangles from behind the screen.
‘The people expect their rulers to lead their religious rituals. If the Maharaja cannot, it falls to his heir to conduct them. Adhir was supposed to have led the procession at the festival in a few days’ time, when the Lord Jagannath and his chariot return to their own temple. With Adhir gone, I expect that his brother Punit will lead the ceremony.’
‘Tell me about Prince Punit,’ said Annie.
‘What is there to tell?’ she replied. ‘He is his father’s son.’
‘Unlike his brother?’
‘Adhir, I think, took more after his late mother. Punit is unlikely, let us say, to push the type of reform that Adhir had in mind. He is not the sort to take such steps.’
‘Was there anyone in particular at court who objected to your husband’s ideas?’
‘I would imagine there were many. He was often at loggerheads with his father. Adhir blamed Davé for this. He felt the Dewan had too much influence on his father; that he was putting ideas into the Maharaja’s head. He believed that Davé was solely interested in maintaining his own position and that he saw any change as a threat to that.’
As she spoke, something in her tone changed. It was so subtle that normally I might not have noticed it. But the inability to see her face had forced me to concentrate on her voice. The way she talked of her husband had altered ever so slightly. When she’d talked of her love for him, or of his intentions for the kingdom, her tone had been fulsome. She believed every word of what she said. Now, though, there was something different. Her husband may have felt that the Dewan was responsible for turning his father against him, but I got the feeling she didn’t.
‘Ask her if she agreed with her husband’s opinion?’ I whispered. ‘That the Dewan was putting ideas into the Maharaja’s head.’
Annie did as I asked.
There was a rustling from behind the screen. I had the impression she was looking round at something . . . or maybe someone. Then her attention seemed to return to the screen.
‘You will understand,’ she began, ‘that there are some questions which—’
A noise came from behind the screen. There was the sound of footsteps on the marble floor as someone approached the princess. Through the holes I saw a flash of green silk, followed by whispers.
‘Your Highness?’ asked Annie.
‘It seems I am required in the zenana,’ she replied. ‘I am afraid that we shall have to cut short our conversation. Before we end, though, let me add one final thing. I understand that the captain was with my husband at the moment of his death, and that he was responsible for tracking down his killer. For that, he has my gratitude.’
A last question, if I may, Your Highness?’ said Annie.
There was a pause, as if the princess might be seeking permission.
‘Very well.’
‘What will happen to you now?’
‘You mean am I to be tossed aside now that my husband is no more?’
‘Forgive me for any offence,’ said Annie. ‘I only meant, will you return to your family?’
‘You must understand, Miss Grant,’ replied the princess, ‘the zenana is my family. It has been so since the day I married Adhir. That has not changed. I am a princess of the House of Sambalpore and I shall always eat off a golden plate.’
Annie thanked her for her time, but even as she spoke, it was clear that the princess was already on her way out of the room and back into the sequestration of the zenana.
THIRTY-ONE
Arora was waiting outside. He stood in the shade of a tree, smoking a cigarette which he stubbed out as we approached.
‘I trust the interview went well,’ he asked.
‘It was most enlightening,’ I replied. ‘Did you manage to arrange the next one?’
‘Oh, yes. The concubine, Rupali.’ He smiled mischievously and brandished a sheet of paper with the royal seal affixed to the bottom. ‘I have the order right here. It would appear that His Highness cannot say no to a request from Miss Grant.’
‘She has that effect on a lot of men,’ I mused as he passed me the letter.
Annie ignored the remark. ‘Tell me about the concubines.’
‘His Highness has a large and very handsome assortment of women,’ said the colonel.
‘How does he choose them?’
‘All sorts of ways,’ he continued. ‘Sometimes His Highness will simply be passing through a village and a girl will catch his eye. Then there are those he meets on his royal tours. I’m told he once brought back a dozen or so from a tour of Kashmir. Their families are paid handsomely, of course. Most of the time, however, he leaves it to the discretion of his advisers; though there are rumours that one or two of them can be rather “hands on” in their selection process.’
‘I presume there’s a pecking order?’ I said.
‘Naturally. At the top are the maharanis, His Highness’s official wives, Shubhadra, Devika and of course Adhir and Punit’s mother -the late Second Maharani; then Adhir’s widow, the Princess Gitanjali. After that there are about fifty favoured concubines, all from good families or with particular talents. Then come the others, the village girls, of whom there are significantly more.’
‘That’s a lot of names to remember.’
The colonel laughed.
‘It would be, but our Mr Golding has devised a system of classification. Only the maharanis and the princess are known by their names. The concubines are each known by an individual letter and number sequence, starting from Ai and ranging to D42. It apparently makes the tracking of their costs easier.’
‘Costs?’ asked Annie.
‘Everything from the clothes they wear and the food they eat to the jewels and other gifts that His Highness bestows upon them are meticulously recorded by Mr Golding.’
‘What about the girl we’re going to meet?’ I asked. ‘Where does she rank in the pecking order?’
The colonel retrieved a list from his pocket and consulted it. ‘C23,’ he replied, ‘a simple village girl. Barely twenty years of age. She speaks Oriya and not much of anything else.’
‘You’ve met her?’
‘No, but I’ve read her entry in Mr Golding’s asset register.’
‘A resourceful man, Mr Golding,’ I said. ‘It would be a shame if we can’t track him down.’
A veritable disaster,’ replied the colonel. ‘He was in the process of a much more complex task when he disappeared, that of classifying the royal offspring. There are even more of them and His Highness often needs to be reminded of their names, so you can imagine the difficulty.’
Taking our leave of the colonel, we re-entered the zenana and retraced the path back to the anteroom where we’d first met Sayeed Ali. I pulled the cord to ring the bell and waited.
A few minutes later, the eunuch returned.
‘Miss Grant, Captain Wyndham. Is there something you have forgotten?’
‘No,’ I replied, brandishing the letter. ‘Were here to question another of your charges, a Miss Rupali.’
I handed him the order, which he carefully scrutinised.
‘This is most unorthodox,’ he said, looking up.
‘I’d imagine the murder of the Crown Prince qualifies as unorthodox too,’ I said. ‘That may be why His Highness the Maharaja is keen for us to interview whomsoever we deem necessary.’
A Necessary Evil Page 22
