Nizams Daughters

beauty — strangely and unaccountably, for the raj kumari’s looks were not in any detail those of his distant love. Rather was it, perhaps, the way she held her head, lowered and to one side, so that her eyes had to lift slightly to meet his: Henrietta’s way when she teased, and tempted, him most — that challenge in her look and voice which made him weigh every word before he dare speak it, for she would give no quarter. Might he, therefore, take some comfort in the raj kumari’s philosophy — that it was Henrietta to whom he had been drawn, and by whom he had been so fired?

Such an explanation could hardly serve. He bade her — cautiously — to take a seat.

‘Captain Hervey, we are all in your debt,’ she began, adjusting the throw of her saree as she sat. ‘My father will express it better than I am able, but I wished also to thank you.’

He bowed self-consciously.

‘But I confess that I am bewildered by your action. You are not bound by anything — least of all my father’s hospitality — that should make you hazard your life in such a way. Why — and so far from your own people — might you do this? Is it that you love battle so much? That you glory in its dangers?’

‘Not the latter, madam, I assure you. I have never, I believe, shirked battle, but I have never taken pleasure in it. Satisfaction, but never pleasure.’

‘Then what has driven you to do these things here?’

Her suspicion was as artfully concealed as she was able.

How might he begin to explain his actions, with so great a gulf as their sex and their faith between them? ‘Madam, there is nothing more repellent to a soldier than that others who share his calling turn their arms against those who have hitherto trusted them. There is never any justification for mutiny. Discipline is the soul of an army, and when it is gone there is no army — only a brute mob. No soldier can then keep his honour who merely stands by.’

She paused before pressing him to own to a further interest, though he did not guess that she supposed him to be working to some scheme. ‘Captain Hervey, you will now entreat my father to accept the protection of the British, will you not?’

Her percipience did her great credit, and Hervey’s admiration was the more. There was no question but that he must answer rightly. ‘I shall. I would consider it more than prudent in any circumstances, but since the nizam’s intentions are at best uncertain, and likewise the army’s loyalty, I believe it to be the only possible course.’

The raj kumari looked closely at him, narrowing her eyes in a manner that conjured a startling menace. ‘And do you suppose that Chintal would ever then be free of interference by the British?’

With what passion did she serve her father’s interests! In that instant, Hervey was disavowed of any notion but that the raj kumari was quite unlike any woman he had known.

The rajah’s utter dejection seemed, at one moment the following day, as if it might wholly pull him down. Selden was even fearful of some derangement, and all its unthinkable consequences. But the rajah would see no physician, native or otherwise. And then, towards the evening, he had seemed to emerge from his despondency, ordering that the state processional, held four times each year, and which occasion the following day no official of the court had dared to enquire of, should continue. He told Selden it would be a sign to his subjects that they might have confidence in the permanence of Chintal, and of the rajah himself. He would process with all his elephants, as was the custom, to the great oxbow of the Godavari, where the ashes of the dead had been ceremonially scattered for generations, and there he would have his sepoys drawn up. He would remind them of their destiny and then absolve them from the penalty which Hervey had imposed. Throughout evening and most of the night, therefore, the palace was all activity, with constant curses and laments: Are bap-re, bap-re!

As Hervey walked towards the menagerie in the cool of the late evening, old Seejavi’s mahout greeted him solemnly in his fractured Urdu, and Hervey returned his salutations with a smile. ‘How go things in the hathi-khana?’ he asked, knowing full well the mahout would be flattered that Wellesley- sahib’s captain wished to hear of things in the elephant stables.

‘By the favour of the Presence, all is well. Tonight is old Seejavi’s festival, and tomorrow he will go with the rajah to the river, if he wills — but with no man on his back.’

‘And is he very old, mahout sahib?’

The wizened little man swelled with pride at both the thought of Seejavi’s age and the captain’s honouring him so. ‘He is the oldest elephant in all of India — compeller of worlds, mover of mountains. He has been with the rajah since the Great Fear. Men say he carried Cornwallis-sahib. Gopi Nath has just repainted his head, and three chirags burn on his skull-top; will not the Presence come and see him?’

Of course he would come. And soon they were in the hathi-khana, the most peaceful quarters of the palace that night — although elsewhere, a dozen mahouts and many more gholams sweated to prepare the howdahs and trappings for the morning.

‘See his tusks, mounted with gold: the rajah had that done when Seejavi charged through the Maratha hordes at the time of the Fear and enabled him to escape to the British. It was twenty years ago today, and the rajah always gives silver to the hathi-khana and decorates Seejavi, the amir-i-filan — the prince of elephants — lest he turn on us and kill his mahout. Seven mahouts he has killed in my memory, sahib. See the garland of roses the rajah sent him this morning: he will only wear them if his temper is good.’

Hervey contemplated Seejavi for many minutes. The old elephant stood swaying from side to side as if cogitating some equal mystery, the oil lamps atop his head flickering and dancing with frosty blue flames.

‘Seejavi will soon begin to speak, sahib.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, sahib. We never know what he will say, but he tells of battles and sieges, of suttees and sacrifices, and of men he has killed.’

‘Mahout sahib—’

‘Prince-born, it is true, I tell you. He will speak to Shisha Nag, his favourite he-elephant. He will tell him secrets — how he threw the vile Sindhia’s spy from his back and trampled him. And how, when he served the peshwa awhile, and they fought the nizam’s army, they captured the guns worked by some French. And how they made prize of the French camp, among them a French woman whom the rao claimed as his share. He carried her off in a howdah on Seejavi’s back that night, though she wept bitterly. The rao put his arm around her and she bit him till he bled, so that he swore again, but vowed she was a fit wife for a reiving Maratha. Seejavi took them across the Nerbudda, in full spate from the mango showers. And two sons she bore the rao! And Shisha Nag will listen respectfully — enviously, for the rajah does not use his elephants for war any longer.’

Shisha Nag stood a few paces behind Seejavi, swaying to and fro also, as if waiting for them to leave so that he might hear the amir-i-filan’s stories. Hervey smiled to himself: why should such a beast as this, old and wise, not be able to speak of these things?

‘Yes, Prince-born,’ sighed the mahout, ‘Shisha Nag has much to learn from him. And tomorrow Seejavi shall have nine full-size cakes for hazree, spread with best molasses. Tomorrow will be a grand tamasha — the very finest of parties, sahib.’

At eight next morning, the rajah emerged from his quarters into the great courtyard. There, in sunlight so bright that even the gold thread in his purple kurta glinted, he mounted a white Turkoman and, at the head of the palace troop, began the descent of the droog to where the procession had assembled on the maidan — a procession which, if lacking some of the order and symmetry of a parade on the Horse Guards, in its sheer colour and vitality surpassed anything Hervey had seen, or could ever have imagined.

He watched from the walls of the palace. The rajah had said nothing to him since the heartfelt greeting on his return from Jhansikote, nor had he sent any word, and although this might have occasioned some injury, Hervey confided that it was but a most conscious effort at self-reliance on the rajah’s part. Again, he found himself filled with admiration for the rajah’s attachment to duty, difficult for him — painful, even — though he knew it must be.

The palace troop — the lancers of the guard — wore purple also, thirty proud sowars on bays whose coats shone with the effort of many hours’ brushing. Two half-rissalahs — four hundred lancers in all — were drawn up as advance and rear detachments, and six huge war-elephants, their tusks capped by gold sheaths, richly caparisoned in silk shabraques — purple for the rajah’s, red for the others — stood with infinite patience. Ornate mounting steps awaited the dignitaries who would travel in the cupolaed howdahs. Awnings, extending like those which shaded the bazaar merchants as they sat in front of their shops, gave just sufficient relief from the sun’s coming strength to the bare-legged mahouts. All the officials of the court were gathered in their most extravagant finery, and all made