movement, who claimed that the tribal uprisings were somehow part of an independence struggle against the British. And now it’s the Maoists, the so-called People’s War Group. The tribals are angry again because the government has been selling mining concessions, and the PWG have taken the tribals’ side. In reality the PWG couldn’t care less. It was just a way to get the tribals to leave them alone in their jungle bases where they plan terrorist attacks around India. My father confronted them and was murdered for it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said.
“It’s why I’ve never been posted up here,” Pradesh replied ruefully. My colonel knows my family history. I was too close.”
“You don’t look the vengeance type,” Costas murmured.
“Try me,” Pradesh said quietly.
Costas pointed at the claw hanging from Pradesh’s neck. “Isn’t that going to get us into trouble with any Koya we come across? I mean, if the tiger’s sacred?”
Pradesh shook his head. “Once a tiger’s dead and the spirit has left, the skin and claws have great value. The skin is worn by a muttadar for dancing and ceremonies, and the claws are distributed among the young men of the village. They’re good-luck charms, to ward off the angry spirits when the men are hunting deep in the jungle.”
Costas downed his tea in one gulp. “I think I’d opt for an assault rifle.”
Pradesh grinned. “That would help too.”
“Let’s have your story,” Jack said. “What the Koya remember about that day.”
Pradesh paused. “It was told to me by my grand father when I was a boy. For the hill people here it has become part of their lore, shrouded in legend like the foundation myths of the gods. But it concerns your great- great-grandfather.”
“Go on.”
“The most sacred objects of the Koya were velpus, a word meaning idols or gods,” Pradesh said. “Each family had one, each clan. They were usually small objects that would seem commonplace to us but were exotic to the Koya, like a piece of wrought iron. Each velpu was kept inside a length of hollow bamboo about a foot long. They were guarded with great secrecy, only brought out on rare occasions to be worshipped. The greatest of them all, the supreme velpu, was called the Lakka Ramu. It was kept in a cave shrine deep in the jungle, and was never opened. It was said that the god inside was too dazzling, and would blind anyone who gazed on it. Perhaps it was glass, maybe a gem-stone, something exotic that had reached the Koya from the outside world countless generations ago. The supreme velpu held the soul of the Koya people. Without it, they would be living in a shadowland, at the whim of the malign spirits who haunted the jungle, especially the dreaded konda devata, the spirit of the tiger. And they have been in that shadowland since 1879.”
“What happened?” Costas asked.
Pradesh glanced around and lowered his voice. “My grandfather, the village chief, was a hereditary muttadar. By ancient tradition the chiefs of Rampa village had been guardians of the jungle shrine where the sacred Lakka Ramu was hidden. My grandfather’s grandfather was the muttadar in 1879, but he didn’t survive the rebellion. I know what happened to him from the rebels who watched the events of that day unfold from the jungle, men of my own clan who slunk back to their villages after the revolt was over and passed the story down to their children. You showed me Howard’s diary, Jack, the final entry. On that day the muttadar was surrounded by the rebels and shot full of arrows. They knew what he’d done.”
“Which was?” Costas said.
“The muttadar feared that Chendrayya, the rebel leader, would come to the shrine and take the Lakka Ramu, and use it to control all the hill people for his own purposes. Chendrayya came from another clan, one that had been locked in a feud for generations with the muttadar’s clan, an ancient dispute over which family should control the shrine. The British officers knew all about tribal feuds from their experiences on the north-west frontier of India, and they used it to their advantage.”
“The muttadar came over to the British,” Jack murmured.
“He took the velpu from the shrine for safekeeping, then he took a huge chance and volunteered himself as a guide and interpreter,” Pradesh said. “His condition was that the British officers allow him to return the velpu to the shrine when it was all over. He was on the river steamer with the sappers on that final day in Howard’s diary, 20 August 1879. It’s in the pages you emailed me, Jack. It fits with what I knew exactly. There was a big firefight that day with the rebels in the jungle, dozens killed and wounded. Then Howard and the others on the steamer must have witnessed that sacrificial scene by the river. The muttadar saw it too, and got jittery, went to pieces. It would have seemed as if all the malign spirits of the jungle were converging on him, taunting him for taking the velpu. There’s no record in Howard’s diary of what happened next, and nothing more in the regimental records at Bangalore. Most of the officers who returned from Rampa just wanted to forget about it. But there’s a story told to me by my grandfather. A British official with the sappers, a man called Bebbie, had been taken ill, and was still in the jungle. Howard and Wauchope set off with a rescue party. Bebbie was laid up near the shrine, already dead. The muttadar had volunteered to lead them to the spot, providing he could take the idol with him. The British officers probably felt they had no choice. Even with their superior weapons it would have been suicidal to venture into the jungle, a small force of a dozen against hundreds of rebels. They gambled that the presence of the idol would keep the rebels from attacking them. The muttadar backed off from the shrine at the last minute, terrified that the god would wreak vengeance on him, and then he was murdered. Howard himself took the idol into the cave.”
“And afterward Chendrayya stole it?” Jack said.
Pradesh shook his head. “No. Howard kept his word to the muttadar . But then he and Wauchope must have realized that their only chance of escape was to take the idol back with them, to use it as a safeguard just as the muttadar had done on the way in. There was a firefight as they emerged from the cave, but when the rebels saw they still had the bamboo velpu they backed off The two officers retreated through the jungle to the river, with the sappers. And they took something else out of the shrine, another sacred relic. It was a broken sword, attached to a golden gauntlet in the shape of a tiger’s head. The Koya believed it had been worn by the great god Rama himself.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Jack murmured.
“You know this?”
“Something I haven’t shown you yet. A family heirloom.”
“You have it?” Pradesh gasped.
“It’s brass, not gold, but it must be the same,” Jack replied excitedly. “Howard gave it to his daughter, my great-grandmother, and I’ve inherited it.” Jack sat back, exalted. He had known the gauntlet had come from the jungle, but nothing more. This was extraordinary. Then he remembered Katya, her reaction when he had told her about it. And he remembered Katya’s uncle, Hai Chen, the anthropologist who had disappeared in the jungle over four months ago. That was the other reason Jack was here. He stared out into the jungle canopy. Maybe Hai Chen had simply walked away. Maybe there had been an accident. Solitary anthropologists had disappeared in jungles before. Then Jack thought of the Maoists, the dangers that lurked out here. He pursed his lips. Something more was going on. The pointers were there, but it still didn’t add up. He turned back to Pradesh, who said something under his breath, not in English or Hindi but in another language, a soft clicking sound. He looked at Jack, his eyes alight. “The recovery of this object would mean everything to the Koya,” Pradesh murmured. “I hardly dare ask. Do you have the velpu too?”
Jack shook his head. “I’d never heard of that before now.”
Pradesh closed his eyes for a moment, and exhaled hard. “What we know is this. The Rampa Rebellion continued for months more, but that day was a turning point. Never again was there a rebel force of that size, and afterward Chendrayya was only able to muster loyal bands of a few dozen, the hard core, many of them already outcasts and criminals. Most of the rebels in the early months had been honest forest men, Koya and Reddis. Once they saw the murder of the muttadar and saw how much Chendrayya coveted their sacred velpu, they lost their ardor for the rebellion. And knowing that the British had the idol-and realised its power over them-would have weakened their resolve still further. They knew they would only ever get it back when the rebellion was finished.”
“But you’re saying they never did get it back,” Costas commented.
“That shrine,” Jack said. “It’s near a Rampa village?”
Pradesh nodded. “About eight miles north-east of here, through dense jungle. It’s named after the god
