tolerantly. Though he would not do even thus were there a Christian realm on his borders.’
‘That is hardly likely, sir, from all I have heard. The missioners make few converts, even where they are active.’
The rajah frowned. ‘Captain Hervey, the missioners would need to make only one convert in a Hindoo dominion.’
Hervey was incredulous. ‘You mean, sir, that all a prince’s subjects would be baptized with him?’
The rajah nodded. ‘Indeed, yes — all save his Mussulmen, no doubt. So you see, Captain Hervey, it would take a ruler as great as the Emperor Constantine to adopt that alien faith.’ And he smiled benevolently.
Hervey smiled too, for he knew well enough that Constantine’s conversion had as much to do with the promise of victory as anything else.
As indeed did the rajah. ‘His triumph over his fellow Caesar brought the Christians freedom to worship — yes. But I do believe his own conversion, a little later, was rather more profound.’
‘On this, who could argue?’ replied Hervey, ‘for a man’s heart — as the nizam’s bears witness — is in the end impossible to know.’
The rajah was much intrigued. ‘Mr Selden will never talk of that faith. He refers me only to the creeds.What is your opinion in this?’
Rarely did Hervey feel less adequate for a task. ‘Mr Selden,’ he began, confident that here at least he was on ground of which he could be moderately certain, ‘does not believe. That is to say, he does not believe
‘You could not account more sufficiently for your own faith, Captain Hervey? I would be astonished if this were so.’
The challenge was as fair as it was difficult, he conceded.
‘Perhaps, therefore, you may ponder on it until this time tomorrow, and then we may resume. I do so feel the want of scholarship here in Chintalpore in these times.’
Hervey agreed readily enough, pleased the rajah did not press him now. To what purpose this exchange was directed, he had not the slightest idea; nor why, indeed, the rajah should at this moment feel so driven to introduce it when so much else demanded his attention. How he wished himself free of intrigue. It was uncommonly difficult to share a man’s table while at the same time being a deceiver.
Such escape was a vain hope, though. There was no dismissal in the rajah’s invitation to ponder on the creed. Instead, his aspect became grave once more as he took the bible from Hervey and placed it back in the recess. ‘Now I wish to consider with you the great danger that Chintal finds herself in,’ he said, walking to the window and glancing with more than a suggestion of anxiety towards the city. ‘I have today received intelligence that the nizam’s artillery is being assembled close to our border.’
Hervey could scarce believe it. Only a moment before, the rajah was speaking of receiving the nizam here in Chintalpore.
‘The nizam has very great artillery, Captain Hervey: he has pieces so big that the walls of any fortress would be quickly reduced.’
The exact import of the rajah’s intelligence was beyond Hervey at that moment, but the movement of artillery was a usual presage of hostilities. ‘I have heard of the formidable power of these batteries, of course, Your Highness — the nizam’s beautiful daughters?’
‘Just so — the nizam’s daughters. The daughters of Eve no less, for such power tempts a man to more than might be his due. The nizam has three sons, also — the basest of men. They have often boasted what they would do with these guns. The nizam himself at one time I called a friend, but he is become enfeebled. His sons will not be satisfied until they have disseised me of Chintal. I know they have exacted plunder from the Pindarees, and encouraged them — and aided them — in ravaging us, but the gold which my Gond subjects extract from the rivers and hills, with all the skill of their ancestors, is what their minds are set on. Captain Hervey, would you consider it possible to fight the nizam when we have but a half-dozen light pieces?’
The prospect was absurd. Had not Bonaparte himself said that it was with artillery that war was made? ‘Your Highness, I hardly know the particulars… And you have Colonel Cadorna to give you this advice, a man of greater experience than me.’
‘But he is not with me at this moment, Captain Hervey — and you are one of the Duke of Wellington’s own officers.’
It seemed pointless confessing his own narrow regimental seasoning. He wondered if the rajah somehow hinted obliquely at the obligation of the jagirs, as explained by Selden. Was this why the rajah had mentioned the duke’s name? ‘Your Highness, I am a mere staff captain. You ask me things which are of sovereign importance to Chintal—’
‘I do, Captain Hervey,’ said the rajah, softly but resolutely.
Hervey had now to think, as it were, on two tracks — as a horse responding to contrary aids. The rajah wished for his strategical opinion: that itself required the very greatest address. But he also had to consider what effect his opinion might have on the outcome of his mission, for whatever the true importance of the jagirs, his mission as stated demanded an estimate of Haidarabad’s fighting capacity. And implicit in their speaking now was Hervey’s acceptance of the nizam as the enemy — the nizam, ‘our faithful ally’ as Colonel Grant had called him. How he wished he had gone to Calcutta in the first instance. Yet how might the duke’s greater purpose be served if a man as good as the rajah were crushed? Nor was it merely a question of the worthiness of men: the independence of Chintal — the collector had made it clear — was a pressing matter to the Company. And was it not the nizam’s sons who were the enemy rather than the nizam himself? In any event, the rajah expected an answer. ‘Your Highness, if the precepts on which war is made are universal, then I fear that I have no counsel but to seek terms. But something Mr Selden has said to me may indicate that in India it may not be quite so: bullocks, money and faithful spies are the sinews of war here.’
The rajah looked encouraged.
Indeed, Selden’s words seemed to gain in substance even as Hervey spoke them. Peto’s treatise on the art of manoeuvring, which had been his constant companion these past weeks, was coming alive at last as he began to imagine the rudiments of a strategy — a strategy, indeed, not without precedent. ‘Sir,’ he resumed, and rather more resolutely, ‘the Duke of Marlborough, who mastered the French a century ago, used to say that no war can be conducted without good and early intelligence. I believe, therefore, that it is of the first importance that you should know everything there is to be known of the nizam’s intentions, and in the case of your own intentions you must dissemble to the utmost.’ He took another breath, half-surprised by his own authority. ‘You have two able rissalahs of cavalry. They should be your eyes and ears on the borders with Haidarabad; they should deceive his spies as to your strength and intentions; and, perhaps above all, they should attack at once wherever it appears the nizam’s forces are assembling, for though their material success might be limited, the moral effect would be incalculable.’
It was a faint hope, a very faint hope; scarcely grand strategy. But Hervey said it with enough resolve for the rajah to be encouraged. ‘I am indeed fortunate to have two matchless rissalahs,’ he agreed. ‘But now, Captain Hervey, let us eat — and perhaps you might begin to elaborate on your plan.’
The sudden commotion outside made the rajah start. Hervey sprang up as, seconds later, the doors flew open and in stumbled a sepoy officer smeared in blood glistening still in its freshness. Hervey lunged towards him but saw at once he could be no threat to the rajah’s safety.
The rajah’s look of anguish turned to utter dismay. ‘Subedar sahib, what has happened?’
Subedar Mhisailkar, a thickset Maratha officer who had served the rajah for thirty years, was crying like a child. ‘Sahib, sahib,’ he wailed, ‘the sepoys are killing their officers!’
His Urdu was garbled but plain enough. The rajah was unable to speak. ‘Call the jemadar,’ Hervey shouted to a bearer ‘—and Locke-sahib and Seldensahib!’
The rajah, recovering somewhat, sent for his physician and sat the old soldier down on cushions, bringing him lime-water and dabbing at the blood about his eyes with a silk square. ‘My old friend,’ he cried, ‘how could my sepoys do this to you, of all people?’
Hervey’s admiration was now as great as his pity, for here was no native despot of popular imagination, no brutal prince who would bait tigers with village boys. Whatever had brought the sepoys at Jhansikote to this, it could not have been the rajah’s tyranny.
