their foray in the jungle. They’d probably buried him there at the shrine, on the spot where he died. I don’t think much love was lost.”
“Quick burial. Get rid of the evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if he was fragged. I mean, if those sappers took him out. Who would ever know? They’re being shot at from all sides. They were holed up and desperate, and he may have been lording it over them. It sounds as if he was probably putting their lives at risk. An officer like Howard might have understood if he found out, turned a blind eye. He’d have been more loyal to his sappers than to some blundering civil official.”
“Possibly,” Jack murmured. “And a quick burial wouldn’t have excited any interest. People were buried in India the day they died. Howard’s little boy Edward was buried in Bangalore only a few hours after he was taken ill, months before Howard even got to the graveside.”
Costas yelped, and sprang backward. Jack stared with horrified fascination at what had appeared a few inches from his face. It was a huge snake, a cobra, yellow-brown with dark bands, rising ramrod straight from a hole in the roots in front of Bebbie’s tombstone. It flattened its neck and stared at Costas, its tongue flickering in and out, hissing and swaying.
“Okay,” Jack murmured through clenched teeth, not moving a muscle. “What do we do now?”
“Keep absolutely still,” Pradesh said.
Costas began swaying slightly.
“That means all of us,” Pradesh whispered. “It doesn’t matter how far away you are. You should see how far these things strike.”
“Just getting into the spirit of things,” Costas murmured.
“That’s something you definitely don’t want to do,” Pradesh said quietly, his eyes glued to the cobra. It opened its mouth wide, fangs extended and dripping with poison.
Costas stopped swaying. “Got you.”
Pradesh reached down slowly, to a gourd wedged between the roots, and scooped up a handful of what was inside. He raised his arm above the snake, and dribbled vermillion powder over it. The snake began to lower, coiling down, somehow soothed, and then it leapt sideways, straightening like a spear and flying several times its body length into the matted foliage on the edge of the clearing. There was a rustle, and it was gone. Jack and Costas remained stock-still, in stunned silence. Pradesh turned to them and grinned. “A little trick I learned as a boy. When I stayed up here with my father. I used to keep one of those as a pet.”
“A pet,” Costas said weakly.
“It’s a portent,” Pradesh said. “The rising of the snake signals the beginning of the festival of Thota Panduga. That’s what’s about to happen here.” He gestured at the tamped earth of the clearing. “This is where they dance. It’s a sacred spot, and not because of Bebbie. Back in 1858, the hill chiefs were hanged here by the British for carrying out human sacrifice. The Koya don’t forget these things. They still sacrifice fowl here, under the toddy- yielding trees. They’ll have prepared food last night and left it among the roots, to feast on today.”
Jack relaxed slightly, rocking back on his haunches, and looked around. Geckos flickered across the rocks, and ran up a dark brown termite mound in front of the jungle. Insects were everywhere, not just mosquitoes but dragonflies and butterflies, alighting on the flowers that clustered in the sunlight around the edge of the clearing. The jungle seemed to erupt in noise. In the dripping canopy above, Jack saw hanging fruit bats, their wings furling and unfurling. He noticed that the troop of langur monkeys they had heard on the rocky path up from the beach had followed them here, and were sitting on tree roots around the clearing, suddenly chattering and screeching. Beyond them Jack realized he was looking at human faces, men, women and children, several dozen at least, silently watching.
“We’ve got a friend,” Costas said, gesturing.
A man had silently materialized on the edge of the clearing. Pradesh said something in Koya, and touched the man’s hands in greeting. The man was lithe, wiry, with taut muscles, his skin dark brown. He was wearing only a white loincloth, tied by a cord of twisted creepers, and a loose turban, and he was barefoot. He had wide cheekbones and a broader nose than the lowlanders they had seen along the river, and his eyes looked jet-black. He was carrying a bow and a handful of arrows, and he had a curved, viciously pointed dagger in his belt. Pradesh turned and gestured for Jack and Costas to come forward. “This is Murla Rajareddy,” he said. “He’s a toddy-tapper.” Pradesh pointed at an old car tire and a coil of rope against a palm tree, evidently a sling used for climbing up into the canopy. “He uses the knife to cut open the bases of the palm leaves, and then collects the sap in gourds. Now’s the best time of year for it. That’s what the festival’s really all about.” Jack saw that the man’s torso was scarred with gouges and furrows, some old and healed, some fresh, lines of parallel weals that glistened red beneath some kind of medicinal paste. Pradesh spoke to the man, who replied softly, pointing at his scars. Pradesh turned back to Jack and Costas. “He’s also the village tiger hunter, the only one allowed to kill them. He says a tiger came through about ten days ago, and he had a narrow escape. It had taken and eaten a child from another village. He thinks the arrival of the tiger was an omen of what was to come next, the arrival of other outsiders who’ve been through here recently. I’ll ask him about that. It’s why they’re so suspicious of us. They thought we might be the same.”
Jack and Costas shook hands in turn with the man, who bowed his head slightly but kept his eyes on them. He reeked of alcohol. He was surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes, but he seemed oblivious to them.
“How do they deal with the malaria?” Costas asked.
“They make pills for the fever. It’s a paste made from the bark of Alstonia scholaris, the root bark of Ophioxylon scrobiculatum and the root, stem and leaves of Andro-graphis paniculata.”
“You believe in it?” Costas asked.
“It’s worked for me. Sir Ronald Ross established the role of mosquitoes in malaria after treating Rampa veterans, but there was more to learn. Even today, doctors from the lowlands think jungle remedies are the work of witch doctors. The irony is, it’s their own superstitions about the Koya that prevent them from learning from these people.”
The toddy-tapper reached down and picked up a gourd from behind the tree. Fat black rats scurried into the darkness of the jungle behind, then turned around, eyeing the men ravenously. Costas looked at them, and gave Jack a baleful look. The man ignored Jack, and handed the gourd to Costas.
“It seems that you’re the chosen one,” Pradesh said.
“Chosen for what?”
“It’s called tiger food.” He grinned. “Those who eat it gain magical powers, allowing them to charm the tiger and bind him to them. When the festival’s over, you’ll be stripped naked and sent into the jungle to find the tiger, a kind of meet and greet.”
“Right. So when exactly is that chopper arriving?”
Pradesh checked his watch. “Twenty-five minutes.”
“I think I might just go and wait on the beach.”
“When you enter into a native ritual, you should never back off Very bad form, you know. Any anthropologist will tell you that.”
“Anthropology, archaeology, it’s all the same to me,” Costas grumbled. “I’m an engineer. An engineer who’s supposed to be on holiday.” He peered into the gourd. “Anyway, what is it, exactly?”
“It’s fruit from the tamarind tree, the tamar-i-hind. They’re like velvety green broad beans, and you suck the pulp of the seeds. They mix it with palm pith and mango kernels. As a special treat for the festival, they’ve already cracked the seeds in their mouths, and spat out the pulp. The saliva makes it congeal into a paste. Really rather good.”
“I didn’t hear you say that.” Costas looked pale.
“It’s their greatest delicacy.”
“Do I have to?”
“Count yourself lucky. He might have been fingering you for sacrifice.”
“They still do that?”
“You never can be too sure. Old habits die hard. And they’ve been provoked recently, just as they were in 1879. I suggest you accept his gift.”
Costas peered into the gourd, smiled appreciatively at the man then dipped a finger. Taking it out, he licked it, then smiled, nodding enthusiastically. He glanced at Jack, then at Pradesh. He swallowed hard, and for a split second looked like a child about to throw up. “Tell him it was excellent. Got anything to wash it down?” he said
