eyes fixed on Christopher. He felt like a plaything, passed from hand to hand, chased hither and thither by forces beyond his reckoning.
“When is this Festival?” he asked.
“You said it would be soon.
Are we in time?”
Her eyes held his. At the end of the passage, a crow cawed and flapped its wings.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“It begins at dawn tomorrow.”
It was dark when they reached Ta Khure. An uneasy darkness, edged with fear. In the streets, corpses lay exposed for the dogs, pillows beneath their heads, prayer-books in their cold hands, waiting. It was the custom.
On Tsering’s advice, they had walked from the consulate rather than draw attention to themselves by riding. Winterpole had not wanted to come at first, but Christopher had insisted he accompany them. He did not trust him on his own.
Gradually, the walls of the sacred city had enfolded them as they made their way through the tangled maze of silent alleyways towards the centre. The temples were full of chanting and the flickering of lamps. Everywhere, monks were preparing themselves for tomorrow’s festival. In the larger streets, pilgrims still walked or hobbled or crawled towards the Khutukhtu’s winter palace.
It was not clear to them how Tsering found his way through the dark lanes of the Khure without a light; but he seemed not to falter, as though possessed of eyes akin to those of an owl or a cat.
The festival moon had not yet risen, and the faint light of the stars made little impression in the cramped and narrow alleys down which they wound their slow and uncertain way.
Tsering and Christopher went in front, with Chindamani and Winterpole watching their rear. On their way to Ta Khure, Christopher explained to the monk the circumstances of his brother’s death. He kept from him the fact that Tsewong had been a Christian convert, that he had died wearing a silver crucifix that had once belonged to Christopher’s father. Not to the abbot of Dorjela, thought Christopher, but to my father, who really died all those years ago in the snows beyond the Nathu-la.
“I don’t know why he killed himself,” Christopher admitted.
“He left no message, no clues. Perhaps the missionary with whom he stayed would know. But he denied all knowledge of your brother.”
“Yes,” said Tsering.
“That is what I expected: that he would deny him in the end.”
“I don’t understand. You speak as if you knew him. As if you knew Carpenter.”
Tsering nodded, a dim shape in the gathering dusk.
“I knew him, yes. He once came to Dorje-la. Didn’t you know that?
About six years ago, a year or so before I left Tibet to study here.
Perhaps he came again the Lady Chindamani would know.”
“I’ve never spoken about him to her. Why did he come to Dorjela?”
The monk paused, slackening his pace.
“He had heard I do not know where that the abbot of Dorjela was a pee-ling, that he had once been a Christian. Perhaps he thought the abbot was still a Christian, that he was some sort of missionary like himself- I don’t know. Anyway, he came to us at the height of summer, asking to be granted admission to the gompa.
He stayed for several weeks: his journey had been bitter, and he was tired and feverish. When he had rested and taken herbs, he was allowed to visit the Dorje Lama. They were together for a day.
Then Kah-pin-the returned and said he wished to leave. The abbot appointed my brother as a guide, to lead him back through the passes to Sikkim.”
He walked more slowly now, watching the darkness form gently about his words, calm nightfall envelop his memories of his brother.
“When he returned,” he resumed, “Tsewong and I were together a long time, talking. He said that the pee- ling teacher had converted him to his faith, that he had become a Christian.” He paused and looked at Christopher.
“After that, he was never easy in his mind.
It was always a burden to him, this foreign faith, this thing of a dying god and a world redeemed in blood. He had never been happy with the life of a monk, but his new beliefs did not seem to bring him happiness either. He struggled with them, as though the pity of it all devoured him from outside. Once, I think he told the abbot of his dilemma, but he would never tell me what passed between them.”
Christopher felt the silver crucifix against his chest. He guessed how deeply his father must have understood Tsewong’s position.
They walked on into the thickening darkness. Winterpole changed places with Christopher, allowing him to walk behind with Chindamani.
Chindamani kept close to Christopher, her hand in his, seeking security or warmth or something he, in his present nervousness, felt scarcely able to give. Once her lips found his briefly in the darkness as they stopped at a narrow intersection redolent with the scent of some hidden blossom. He did not know whether she had explained the nature of their relationship to Tsering; but before it grew dark he had seen that the monk still observed all the proper tokens of respect for the Ta.ra.-trulku with whom he walked.
For his own part, Christopher was finding it easier to treat Chindamani as an ordinary woman. He thought of her now with less awe than previously. Away from Dorje-la, the goddess in her was stifled somewhat. Or perhaps that is the wrong expression.
The open plains and nervous vistas of Mongolia seemed to have swept away something of the air of naive self-sufficiency that had been nourished in her by the narrow walls and shadowy, painted chambers of the monastery.
They found the enclosure with little difficulty, though Christopher could not see how it differed externally from any of the others.
Urga was in reality little more than a nomad settlement that had grown huge and permanent. Many of its temples were tent-temples that could be dismantled and moved when occasion demanded.
And the majority of dwellings were gers, circular juris of thick felt erected on thin birch lattices.
The wall was not difficult to climb: it had been designed for privacy rather than as a protection against robbers. Even in troubled times like these, theft was uncommon. They slipped over, clinging to the shadows, watching and listening for a sign of life.
Christopher carried a pistol he had found at the consulate. He held it ready, but prayed that he would not have to use it. He wanted to find Samdup and, if he was there, William, and take them out quietly, with the minimum of fuss. Zamyatin could wait. Without Samdup, Christopher suspected, he was nothing.
In front of them, barely visible, were two gers, one small and one larger than average. They loomed out of the darkness, white, dome-shaped structures that seemed somehow confined by the walls around them.
“Which one?” Christopher whispered to Tsering.
“The large one. The smaller ger will be used for storing fuel and provisions. The boy may be in the large ger or the wooden house to the rear, I’ve no way of telling. Let’s try the ger first.”
They started forward, bending low and moving on tip-toe towards the ger. The ground was hard-packed clay, firm and resilient, smothering their footsteps. No sounds came from the tent.
In the distance, dogs were barking madly as they circled the city in search of food: there was no shortage.
Suddenly, Tsering stiffened and halted, crouching lower than before. He motioned to Christopher and Chindamani to get down.
At the south-east corner of the tent, where the door was situated, they could make out the dim figure of a man. He was leaning on something that could have been a rifle, and seemed to be keeping watch.
“Go round the back,” Tsering hissed.
“Wait for me there.”
He moved off into the darkness without a sound.
“You two go,” whispered Winterpole.
