The Strangler Vine (22 page)

He stopped, but then took another breath as if he could not quite restrain himself.

‘But let me say before you advance your suit, I have no interest in how the Company regards the running of my kingdom. I have adhered to all the arrangements laid out in the accord between my family and the Company. I say again, as I have said many times, that I do not give, nor ever have given, succour to Thugs and bandits, as Major Sleeman persists in insinuating. I regard them as a menace to my people. Rather, I believe that my prerogatives are daily being undermined by the Company, my word mistrusted and the Company’s manner increasingly peremptory.

‘Where does it say that Company troops may come riding into Doora to pick up whomsoever they like on some flimsy charge? Where was it ever agreed that a Resident’s authority might include delivering lectures on Christian morals to a native prince? The late Resident – I fear I cannot altogether mourn his departure, though I would not have wished such an ending upon him for all the world – had the impudence to tell me to put away my zenana and dress more like a European. I regarded this as both rude and well beyond any remit ever given to a Resident, and mentioned nowhere in the annals of the relations between the Company and the princely states. I wish to point out that my family and I enjoyed excellent relations with the former Resident, who was a precious support to my mother in the years of her regency, while the Company was trying to make a little Christian of me in Calcutta. In our view, he was removed with summary and insulting abruptness. It is not I who have changed, but the Company. If my views are still not clear, let me say without any obfuscation that I believe there are those in the Company who look for reasons to take my lands – but because I do not poison my first ministers, or murder my cousins, the Company cannot justify sending its armies here, and thus looks for other ways of relieving me of my throne. Now, you may take that back to Calcutta.’

I gasped and would have protested, but Blake placed his hand on my shoulder.

‘Maharaj, I – we – are not here to harangue you about Thuggee,
nor to deliver a homily from the Company. And please, I beg you to believe me when I assure you that I am of the opinion the attack upon us had nothing to do with Doora.’

I pressed my lips together and set my jaw. I was by no means sure that this was true.

‘We come only in search of Xavier Mountstuart. I know he rejoiced in calling you friend. I do not know why I was furnished with such letters from Calcutta – or rather I have an idea and I believe the reason was to damage us in your eyes so you would be unwilling to help us, though I do not entirely understand why.’

The Rao sat down on a carved wooden chair and placed his hands on the arms. Two of the guards came to stand on either side behind it. He looked slighter and more delicate than ever, but his expression was still haughty.

‘I have an obligation to you. But I do not choose to talk of my friend Mountstuart Sahib to “all and sundry”, as the saying goes.’

‘Maharaj, may I remind you that I may have come to you with the Company’s letter, but without the Company’s uniform. I come because I wish to discover what has become of the
malik-al-shuara
, whom I too once called friend.’

‘Then I must disappoint you, Mr Blake, for as you say, no one has seen Mountstuart Sahib in Doora this many a long year. Why are you so sure he has been here?’

‘We had been told he planned to come to you after visiting Jubbulpore, which we visited only to search for him. We ask simply if there is anything you can tell us about what might have become of him.’

‘But you have no evidence of his coming to Doora?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well then, for my part I would say your question is answered. I am sorry you have come so far for so little. Let us at least part in good faith. Let me give you both something to thank you for my deliverance. You, Mr Blake, as well as Mr Avery, for I have not thanked you for preventing me from firing my gun. How did you guess it was blocked? An amazing piece of clairvoyance. Your Hindoostanee, by the way, is really not bad at all.’

‘You are too kind, Maharaj. It was not clairvoyance, but reasoning. Your’ – he chose his word carefully – ‘opponents wished to leave nothing to chance.’

The Rao said, ‘My opponents planned well indeed. My household is penetrated, and who can I trust? Not the Company. If I were to die before little Arjuna is anointed, the Company would sweep us into the Bengal presidency for lack of an heir.’

Now I burst out. ‘Sir, that is completely untrue and an abominable impugning of our and the Company’s honour! Our deeds should show our intentions! We sought only to help!’

The room seemed to become uncomfortably quiet, the guards quietest of all, as if awaiting a word from their master. Even the parrot looked up. I had perhaps overstepped the mark.

‘Maharaj, you know we saved your life,’ Blake said. ‘I think you amuse yourself with us.’

The Rao said, ‘
Chote Sahib bahut accha nishaana-baaz hai – awr chahra bhi khubsurat hai – lekin mujhe lagta hai voh kuch be-waquf hai?
’

‘
Larke Ko maaf kar dena Maharaj. Voh abhi jawan awr jald-baaz hai – awr sirf thora sa be waquf
,’ Blake said.

The Rao raised his eyebrows. I caught the word ‘boy’,
larke
; and the word ‘stupid’,
be-waquf
.

‘And so, Maharaj, since, as you say, we have incurred your thanks and obligation, let me speak one more word on that subject for which we came?’

The Rao sighed as if his patience was being sorely tried, but nodded.

‘Let me tell you that Mountstuart was a good friend to me – as good as he was able to be. I owe him much, and I think I knew him well. Well enough to recognize the third ring on your right hand.’

The Rao looked bored. I looked at his hands, but he had wrapped left over right.

‘It is a gold signet ring with the insignia of a white rose. It belonged to his father’s family, who are from Ayr in Scotland. It was given to him by his mother, who hoped he would be a poet. I know he was here, and I do not believe he would have given it to anyone whom he did not trust. For myself, I would say that only someone
he trusted would know its provenance. And though it would be presumptuous of me, Xavier Mountstuart would have told you that your first minister’s and your cousin’s treason are the talk of the bazaar. Though you, of course, know that already.’

The Rao lifted up his hands and admired the gold signet ring that was indeed on his right hand. He began to laugh. ‘Mr Jeremiah Blake, who are you?’

‘I learnt my Hindoostanee and Sanskrit from Xavier Mountstuart. I had a talent for languages. Once he had schooled me, I accompanied him on certain expeditions.’

‘Where?’

‘Sind, Punjab, Coorg, several visits to Burmah before the war. Many places.’

‘I see. So, you were the boy.’

‘I was the boy.’

‘
My country! In thy days of glory past/ A beauteous halo circled round thy brow
,’ said the Rao.

And Blake said, ‘
And worshipped as a deity thou wast/ Where is thy glory, where the reverence now
? It’s not often that a Rajput king quotes an atheist firebrand, Maharaj.’

‘Or that a Company civilian does either. Henry Derozio introduced me to Xavier. Calcutta was a freer place in those days. I cannot imagine such associations now.’

‘Mountstuart introduced me to Henry Derozio. He gave me a copy of Thomas Paine’s
Rights of Man
, and later
The Age of Reason
. Might I ask, Maharaj, how you met Derozio?’

‘It is, of course, quite irregular for a commoner to interrogate a prince in such a manner,’ the Rao said languidly, ‘but you have stimulated my curiosity and so I will answer. At Drummond’s Academy in Calcutta. The Company took me into its keeping when my father died. I was eight. My mother fought to keep the regency and to save my throne. In Calcutta they gave me two tutors, German Lutheran missionaries, who failed to instill Christian beliefs in me, I fear, but gave me the Enlightenment instead: mathematics, botany, astronomy, music and poetry. And they sent me to classes at David Drummonds’ Academy. They thought that since he was a dour Scot
he must be a Presbyterian, but in fact, of course, he was a notorious free-thinker!’ The Rao laughed and brought his hands up to his face as if to hide his wide smile. His recollections had transported him to another time.

‘What a place it was! And Henry Derozio was its most brilliant boy – several years younger than me, but already his mind was so alive! Poor Henry. Of course, his free-thinking and his republican ideas and his
Rights of Man
went too far for me. But we shared a deep sense of our country’s former greatness, and desired to see it raise its head again in pride. And we found fellowship in that neither of us fitted. He was neither native nor European, and far too radical for either Hindoo or English. I was a prince, admiring European learning, but tied to my Hindoo heritage – never enough of one or the other. In Calcutta I was too Hindoo. When I returned to Doora I was too European. You know, I brought in laws against suttee and infanticide before the Company did; I had children vaccinated against smallpox. I have made Doora a centre of music such as it has not been since the days of my ancestor Rabindrath, the great friend of the Emperor Akbar. Calcutta gives me no credit for this, and accuses me of intransigence, yet my sardars mutter that I desecrate tradition. And now I find I am fighting for my throne and must seem more Hindoo than the most Hindoo in order to hold on to it.

‘Henry and I were fascinated by Mountstuart, the Scotsman who wrote such beautiful verse about our homeland, who spoke such perfect Hindoostanee, who shared with us an admiration for Byron. Of course, he also shared Henry’s tiresomely radical views, but I always think Mountstuart embraced them mostly because he so enjoyed shocking the fat Company moneybags, rather than because he truly believed them.’

The Rao recollected himself. He said, more coolly, ‘Mr Blake, I am told Mrs Parkes describes you as “of the Company and not of the Company”. Explain yourself.’

Blake thought for a moment.

‘I came here at fourteen or fifteen with the Company. I have spent more of my life here than in England. Mountstuart gave me an education. I served in the Company’s armies for many years, but slowly
and almost without realizing it, I lost my appetite for working in its employ. I came to believe I could not continue in good conscience. I rose to become a captain in its armies. It did not suit me; I did not suit it. I lost my rank.’

‘They wanted to restore him,’ I interjected, ‘but he refused them.’

‘If I wish to stay in Hind I must remain in its employ, but I will not wear its uniform. So in the last years it has used me to find things. And men.’

‘So you are on the Company’s errand.’ The Rao was suspicious again.

‘It sent me to Jubbulpore, but I came for my own reasons. I believed Mountstuart to be in danger – that is not unusual. But certain things I was told. …’ He looked directly at the Rao. ‘And now I know he was here.’

‘Well, I will tell you what I know. Even if you are the Company’s man, I do not think it will take you very far. He came from Jubbulpore, seeking refuge. It was when? In the Christian calendar it would have been, I think, June or July. He had travelled up through the jangal in disguise after the rains began. Not an easy journey, but this year the monsoon was mild. He was not well, and he asked me to hide him. He said the Company had played him false.’

‘This does not surprise me.’

I looked between the two. ‘Blake, what do you mean?’

‘We will speak of it later. May I ask how he seemed to you, Maharaj?’

The Rao paused. ‘He was physically quite weak, but after some days of rest, his capricious self again. Though quite agitated.’

‘You said he was not well, Maharaj?’

‘I did not see him every day,’ the Rao said, ‘but I made sure he was comfortable. He was quite obsessed with the Thugs. He was writing, furiously, often through the night, and sleeping in the day. He became possessed by the notion that he must meet with a certain Thug gang, whom he said were still at large. I considered the idea ridiculous, but of course I could not dissuade him. He was sure that there were those at court who knew how they might be contacted. I have worked hard to root out brigands in Doora, and I did not
want to believe him. But there are dark corners of the court, as you know, and in the end I allowed him to send out his message. Within a week a messenger came with a place and a time. Another sign, no doubt you will say, that I am not master of my own court.

‘I told him not to go. He was stubborn, and he gave me the ring. He said if he did not return, there would be no help in searching for him, and requested that if Company men came looking for him I would not give him away.’

‘Maharaj, may I inquire if he said anything more about the ring?’

‘He said if he did not return within a year it should be sent to his sister. He said someone might come who recognized it, but not whom.’

‘He left two months ago. We have heard nothing since. I found the messenger. He told us where he had taken Xavier. It was off the road to Mirzapore in the direction of Allahabad. I had soldiers there for three weeks. I had every path followed. We found nothing.’

‘And he left no message for anyone at all, Maharaj?’

The Rao shook his head.

‘I would like to go to that place. I would like to speak to the messenger.’

‘That will not be possible. He is, as my Lutherans used to say, no longer with us.’

‘Nevertheless, Maharaj, I must go there.’

‘That is a fool’s errand, Mr Blake, though I respect your persistence. I regret having helped Mountstuart. It would be improper to repay my obligation to you in such a manner. Can you not enjoy my hospitality, take a few stones, keep them for what I pray shall be a hale old age, and leave with my blessing?’

‘I think you know that I cannot.
Lekin shayed aap larke ke liye kuch kar saken
.’

Again I caught the word ‘boy’, and I bridled. The parrot turned noisily on its perch. The two guards stood like statues. The Rao picked up one of the pages he had been studying and turned it around so we could see it. It was a large, detailed and beautiful drawing of a lotus flower.