Nizams Daughters

some of the religious houses of Spain. His hijda guide beckoned him inside one of the open, slatted double doors, where the scent of mimosa turned to one of incense. He was conscious of other figures scuttling away, like mice. It should have set him on his guard, but here, unaccountably, he felt no fear of ambush. The hijda led him along a dark passageway, to an inner room where light streamed through tall windows at which muslin curtains hung perfectly still in the sticky, airless heat of the afternoon. There, in a large bed, its sheets perfectly white, lay Selden, his face as ochreous as that day in Toulouse when it looked as though the fever would finally carry him off. He was, however, without the delirium into which the fever periodically cast him, and he greeted Hervey with an attempt to raise himself on an arm. It ended, nevertheless, in a bout of coughing that was only relieved by lime-water and the hijda’s gentle ministrations.

Hervey sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Selden, this is a wretched business. Is there a physician who treats you?’

He coughed again. ‘No, and there is no need, for there is nothing to be done but to sweat out these attacks. It will pass: I feel it.’

But Hervey could at least alleviate his discomfort now by telling him that the nizam’s guns were no more a threat.

Selden, though he had heard the nizam’s forces had received a check, was so amazed that he began another bout of frenzied coughing, which only brandy from Hervey’s pocket flask was able to put a stop to. ‘I should never have thought it possible, Matthew Hervey — not even with your address. In truth I feared I should never again see you alive!’

Hervey smiled. ‘There is still business to attend to down the Godavari!’

‘Just so, Hervey, just so. And there’s more danger there than you might suppose. Three lakhs and more have been drawn off from the pay that was due to the rajah’s sepoys, and it seems that some may have gone to the pockets of his white officers. And one of them remains — the German.’ He began coughing so violently that Hervey thought he would expire, but more brandy eventually stayed the paroxysm. ‘But it is worse. The nizam learned of this through one of his spies — Kunal Verma no less, the same that was found in the well. And, so my own spies inform me, he will use it to coerce that officer into taking absence of leave while the Pindarees are active — or even to throw in with them in the field.’

Hervey was more sickened by this news than before. That an officer should steal from his men was beyond his comprehension, but that he should then abandon them, and the rajah, to whom he must have taken some sort of oath, beggared belief. A more ignoble deed he had not heard of in all his time in the Duke of Wellington’s army — an army which had had more than its share of rogues and felons.

‘Don’t be fooled, Hervey: jewels here — and there are many — will buy most men in the end.’

A month ago, perhaps two, Hervey would have railed against the betrayal, cursed the dissipation. But instead, wearied with both the heat and the intrigues of the past fortnight, he simply sighed. Yet, perhaps strangely, his resolve was not diminished. Rather was it strengthened — as had been the resolve of many at Waterloo when they saw others break and quit the field. ‘Well, so be it!’ he pronounced. ‘We shall see how the rissalahs fare under their native officers!’

‘I’m afraid there is more — worse, indeed,’ said Selden, shaking his head.

Hervey could not have imagined it.

‘The nizam now has guns on the lower Godavari.’

Hervey did not know what to address first — this new intelligence or Selden’s knowing it. In the end he was pragmatic. ‘But how did they get there?’ he demanded. ‘Not a single one escaped our ambuscade.’

‘It seems they have been taking guns downriver — disassembled — these past several months. The rajah’s concession to dastak enables any Haidarabad vessel to navigate the river unmolested.’

‘And how have you learned of all this — and now, at this time?’

‘My dear Hervey, I remember once your quoting to me what the Duke of Marlborough was wont to say — that no war is won without good and early intelligence. And I have told you that in India war is made with spies and bullock carts. The people who nurse me now, the hijdas as we know them, have been my trusty spies these last dozen months. And an exceptional source of intelligence are they.’

Hervey sat silent, his admiration increasing with every word Selden spoke.

‘There is a hijda brotherhood which transcends other allegiances, and there are many hijdas in Haidarabad — perhaps more than anywhere in India. They have of late fallen prey to the nizam’s sons, whose greed has exacted too high a tax on their possessions. They have a means of communicating that would stand tolerable comparison with the Admiralty’s signal chain — though how it works I don’t know. Nor need I. Well, suffice it to say that the hijdas of Haidarabad have communicated with those of Chintalpore.’

‘And is there any more intelligence?’ asked Hervey, now so thoroughly bemused that nothing, it seemed, could come as a surprise. ‘Some plan of action to spike the nizam’s guns, perhaps? Some subterfuge or stratagem?’

Selden raised his eyebrows and furrowed his brow. ‘I am but a horse-doctor with a few friends who are — shall we say — demi-rep?’

Hervey had feared as much. Perhaps it was as well that the rajah was occupied with his prayers, for without any plan he might become wholly cast down. ‘Do we even know who it was that murdered Kunal Verma?’

‘And Steuben also.’

‘Steuben! He was murdered? I thought his death an accident.’

‘I don’t know for sure. There were no witnesses.’

‘Then do you know who murdered Kunal Verma?’

Selden thought for a while. ‘No.’

Hervey sighed.

‘What shall you do, now?’ asked Selden after a suitable pause.

‘What options do I have?’ smiled Hervey.

‘You ask a fevered horse-doctor for a military appreciation?’ said Selden, at last managing a smile himself.

‘Then I shall ask myself what the duke would do were he here!’

‘Hah!’ said Selden, managing another smile. ‘Is that entirely wise? I hazard a guess what the duke would do, for we had three years and more of it in the Peninsula!’

Hervey returned the smile faintly, expecting the worst.

‘He would find some bit of ground with a few bumps and hollows — would he not? — and then wait for the enemy to give battle. Scarcely an option in this case: the Pindarees would never be so obliging.’

Hervey frowned. ‘You forget the battle of Assaye,’ he countered. ‘The duke still thinks of it as the best fighting he has ever done.’

‘I do forget it. I never, indeed, knew much of it.’

He gave a little shrug. ‘Sindhia outnumbered him by so many — horse, foot and cannon — he appeared to have no option either.’

‘And?’ said Selden, still not conceding.

‘L’audace! He attacked. He simply attacked!’

XVIII. IN THE CANNON’S MOUTH

The plains of the lower Godavari, four days later

The rajah’s modest force at Jhansikote was better found than Hervey expected. It cheered him greatly, for though he had left Chintalpore with his head full of heroic thoughts of Assaye, he had almost become resigned to a hopeless outcome. Defeat for the rajah, confusion for the Company, was what any reasonable appreciation would suggest. And for himself… oblivion, at best. What a loathsome month it had been — a month like no other he had seen: not before Corunna, neither after Toulouse, nor even before or after Waterloo. Then