The Maharajah's Monkey (17 page)

“Rachel!” I said, aghast.

She was standing by my bed in her slip. For a moment I wondered if I was seeing things, for my friend had transformed into a fury. Her hair was writhing, eyes flashing furiously as she brandished an antler she had broken off a stag's head. As I looked on, she shrieked
again and threw the antler at the window. It crashed through the pane, sending glass scattering across the room.

“Rachel … what are you doing … exactly?” I asked, advancing cautiously into the room.

“I think I hit it,” she panted, glaring at the empty window.

I followed her glance. “There's nothing there … my dear.”

My friend put her hand to her face. I noticed, with a shock, that she had a scratch on her hand.

“The little beast,” she growled.

I felt slow and fuddled for I had no idea what Rachel was talking about. She pointed dramatically at the bed. My eyes followed her trembling finger. There was a yellow envelope on the pillow. Again! This time it had been ripped open and the peacock's feather, hair and seeds had fallen out on to the cover. The answer came to me in a flash. The monkey. It must have been!

But I thought it was after
me
. I did not expect it to attack my friend. Then I realized, for truly I was awfully slow today, that we were standing in my room.

“I think I hit it,” Rachel said.

“Start from the beginning,” I said, slumping on the bed. “Tell me what happened.”

“There's nothing to tell. I came in here to find you. I
saw that monkey dropping a letter on your bed. It ran at me and I lost my temper. You know the bowl thing.”

“Which one?”

“You know that horrible thing, made out of a rhinoceros foot.”

I nodded.

“I threw it at the monkey. Then it charged me, scratched me. Really wanted to hurt. I could've wrung its neck—but you came in and it fled. I've failed …” All the anger had drained out of Rachel and she sat down next to me on the bed, her breath coming in shuddering sobs.

“I suppose you would have done better,” she said, flatly.

“I'm proud of you.” I put my arm round her. “That
thing
is vicious.”

“You know what this means,” Rachel said, quietly.

I blinked. “What?”

“
They
are watching us.”

“At least we're on the right track.”

“How can you put it so flippantly?” Rachel turned to me, her dark eyes inches from my own. “Don't you see what this means? The Baker Brothers are one step ahead of us. It's as though they're playing with us.” She fell silent and believing she had finished, I was about to reassure her when she burst out again. “Kit, I know them.
Don't forget they kidnapped me.”

“How can I ever forget?”

The evil brothers had kidnapped Rachel and taken her prisoner to Egypt. She still had not told me all she had endured during that awful time.

“So, you could say we're quite well acquainted.” She gave a grim smile. “I know how much the Bakers can hate.”

Hate. That word again, Champlon had talked about those brothers as haters, now Rachel. We were silent as we thought about this, for there is very little to say in the face of implacable hate. Then my aunt yoohooed from downstairs.

“Come on, girls. This isn't the time for primping and preening,” she bellowed, her voice booming like a steamship foghorn. “Get your pretty faces down here at once.”

“Primping and preening indeed!” I said, insulted.

“You primp,” Rachel replied with a watery smile. “I'll preen.”

Grinning, we threw on some clothes and raced down the stairs to where Aunt Hilda was waiting in the street outside the boarding house. Not all of us were going to Tibet, alas, for my poor papa was too unwell to proceed any further. Somehow Aunt Hilda had managed to wangle an invitation from the Viceroy himself, Lord Mayo. Father would recover his health surrounded by luxury. Frankly
though, I did not envy him. Any house infested with Mrs. Spragg and Edwin could not be called peaceful. Gaston Champlon had been invited to join my father at the Viceregal Lodge. But that doughty explorer was not one to miss an adventure. Though still sickly, he was ready to depart, seated on the back of the finest donkey.

We made quite a convoy as we left Simla, six of us sahibs and memsahibs, along with a retinue of sixteen small but sturdy mountain donkeys, a cook, and porters from the Sherpa hill tribes. An army going into battle. Canvas tents, stoves, boots, ice picks, crampons, food—everything but a roof and walls.

As Tibet was notoriously bandit-infested, we also carried ten Martini-Henry rifles along with five large and clumsy, but quick-loading, howdah pistols. Champlon had bought a new revolver, which I had glimpsed in its leather case. He carried it around with him at all times, like a talisman that could keep him safe from sorcery as well as attackers. I sincerely hoped that we would not have to use our weapons, but the Sherpas seemed to think they were wonderful. I caught one young boy playing with a rifle, firing it off into the tree tops as if it were a toy!

I had my own particular donkey. She was a playful young animal, with a dark brown pelt and a white splash on her muzzle, shaped exactly like a five-pointed star. I
named her Tara—which means Star in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. Whenever something annoyed her she would flatten her ears and kick the ground, but when I fed her apples or bits of sugar she would whinny and lovingly nuzzle my hand. Riding on Tara, I felt able to cope with anything, especially as I had secretly purloined one of the howdah pistols and wore it strapped in a holster under my coat.

This part of the journey was the best. Traveling with our convoy in pleasant hills, with some of the world's highest peaks towering in the distance. I think it raised all our spirits and Champlon seemed quite restored. It took us about a week to get to the highest hill station, a pilgrim town called Badrinath. What a strange place; thronged with wailing ash-smeared men in dirty saffron robes, with matted hair flowing down their backs. They looked like the foulest tramps and the sight of them scared Rachel half to death. She was quite puzzled when I explained they were Hindu holy men, like monks or priests. After a day's rest we traveled onwards to the border and the way became harder, both physically and mentally. The boys both suffered from altitude sickness. This condition, caused by the lack of oxygen in the mountain air, drains the life out of you, leaving you dizzy and nauseous. Strangely Rachel and I were unaffected, which proves yet again that women are the
stronger sex! I'm proud to say I seemed to cope, as we climbed higher and higher. My breath coming in gasps, my ankles and thighs hard as iron bands, I felt I was pushing myself to the very limit. But the Sherpas assured us, with knowing smiles, that this was nothing to trials we would have to endure in Tibet.

Indeed many of them were not willing to risk crossing into the “roof of the world.” I do not know if they were scared of bandits, the mountain snows or even “bad spirits,” but more and more of them seemed to peel off from our party as we climbed higher and higher. When I tried to ask one Sherpa, a lad named Tensing, about the monk who Bashir Ali had recommended as a guide he turned very pale.

“He is a
najlorpa
,” he said.

“A what?”

“A sorcerer. He live three years in cave. Only human he see is hand with this on,” he gestured.

“Glove?” I guessed.

“Yes, glove. In silence every day glove put food through hole in door.”

“Gosh! That must be lonely.”

“It make you mad. Most people mad in head. Not Yongden.”

I was silent, thinking of those endless days in a dark, cold cave with only your own thoughts for company.
After a few days you would know every nook and cranny, every ledge of rock inside the cave. What it must be to spend months, years thus. Perhaps, after a time, the world inside his head had come to seem more real to Yongden, than the world outside.

“He much, much powerful. Yongden does not live in world,” the Sherpa said, echoing my thoughts. “Please go away from him. He make play inside your head!”

What a strange land we were hoping to penetrate! As we jogged along, I recalled what I knew about Tibet. Most of that desolate country stands three miles up in the sky. It is a wind-swept plateau ringed by snowy peaks, larger than France, Germany, Spain and Italy put together. Perhaps the fact that for hundreds of years Tibet has been forbidden to foreigners makes it more mysterious and alluring. Look at any map and all you see is an enormous empty space, as if the whole country has been washed away by snow. It is more of a blank than the great Zambezi river, which my aunt's rival, Dr. Livingstone, has recently explored.

I felt sure in my bones that we would make it into Tibet. We would be the first Europeans in modern history to explore this savage land.

The sun was tinting the ice on the glaciers, painting them pink, as we trudged along a steep mountain track toward Mana, the last village on the Indian side of the
border. I could see it spread out before us, rocky houses with shingle roofs, surrounded by neat fields and mountain firs. All around us was the sound of rushing water from the river that snaked the mountainside. A week's trek past the village was Tibet. But before we entered that country we had to traverse a sheer wall of ice and outwit the ferocious Tibetan border guards.

My aunt called a halt to our progress and made a speech. “The mountains have ears,” she announced. “As you know, the Tibetans ban foreigners from their country. Our story is that we are pilgrims—I am an eccentric English convert to the Hindu religion. We have come to Mana to visit the holy site and from here our main convoy will proceed back down to the valley. Any spies suspicious of our movements will follow the main convoy and be put off our scent. Be careful, I warn you—our lives may depend on it.”

Surely we needn't have worried, I thought, as we entered Mana, for we were soon surrounded by smiling villagers with wide faces and slanting eyes. The people here in this wild borderland are a mix of Tibetan and Indian hill tribes, nomads who tend their flocks and trade with Tibet. They seemed simple, friendly folk who greeted us as if we were kings and queens, visitors from another world. Little children ran alongside our donkeys, calling out happily. Women arrived with colorful
woven blankets and scarves to barter for chocolate, tea and the cheap goods which we had supplied ourselves with. I felt a little guilty as one toothless old lady, in a blue headscarf, delightedly swapped a beautiful woolen blanket with me for a pen and a string of beads. Still, the blanket would keep me warm amid the snows.

Later, as we set up our tents, the headman arrived to tell us through our Sherpa interpreter that the villagers had prepared a feast in our honor. Snowflakes had begun to fall—even though it was late August—and were melting in tiny puddles on our faces. The skies had turned a leaden gray, but by the roaring fire our hands and faces were toasty. We feasted on goat stew with rice. Later, dancers performed to the plangent cries of a stringed instrument. People, animals, huts were transformed by the flickering firelight into an unreal world, a fairytale realm where spirits and demons roamed. To the throb of a tabla drum a singer howled at the skies as the fire burned down to glowing embers.

“My toes are freezing,” Waldo whispered to me, jerking me out of a reverie.

“Mine feel like icicles,” I hissed back

“Mine are like icebergs. Huge, solid blocks,” answered Waldo. Wasn't that just like my friend? He always had to go one better than you.

“Do we have to sit through much more of this wailing?” he went on.

“Hush,” I chided. “They've been very kind. They could've slit our throats.”

“That would be a relief, my ears are starting to bleed.”

Another sound mixed in with the beat of the tabla and the howl of the singer. In the distance someone was shrieking and there was the sound of rushing feet.

“What's going on?” My aunt demanded standing up.

The headman rose and the singing was suspended as a young man came careening to the very edge of the fire. His turban was askew and he was out of breath. The headman and the man had a muttered conversation for several minutes, incomprehensible to us, but clearly very agitated. Then our interpreter took over.

“He finds body,” he explained. “He is goatherd come back to village and step on body.”

“Where?” Aunt Hilda took charge.

“On path.”

We snaked after the distraught goatherd and the headman in cautious single file. He took us from the camp and up to the path that led away from the village toward the mountains of Tibet. The headman carried a flaming brand that lit up our feet and threw an intermittent light on the icy ring of peaks encircling us. The darkness, pressing in on all sides, was pregnant with the
threat of prowling beasts and enemies that wished us ill.

We had been walking for about five minutes, when the goatherd came to an abrupt stop. Something was splayed out in the middle of the path. It was the body of a substantial man, his legs akimbo, his scarlet turban spooling out on to the path like a rivulet of blood. In the man's shirt front was the hilt of a silver dagger. A clean, vicious stab that must have killed him instantly. It took but one glance at the man's face to recognize him. It was Malharrao. The old Maharajah.

Rachel screamed and my aunt, stooping by the body, hissed: “Why?”

“The Baker Brothers must have tired of him. Malharrao was no longer useful, now they've left Baroda,” I guessed. Then with quivering finger I pointed out something that lay next to the body. A dirty yellow envelope. Spilling out of it was the tip of a shimmering peacock's feather.

“Very clever,” Aunt Hilda said. “The Baker Brothers have combined a murder and a warning to us in a single stab.”

When she straightened up, she was seething with rage. The Bakers didn't know my aunt if they thought such an act would scare her off. If anything it would only make her redouble her efforts to find Shambala and the treasure they both sought.