Company Of Spears

around the upper pool, with its temple to Surya (the sun god, he explained), then began following the stream, with Hervey selecting his line of advance as if they were in the forests of Chintal, for much of the daylight was shut out by a dense canopy of oriental maple, hornbeam and rowan, and Persian ironwoods already showing promise of vivid colour.

‘I understand Mr Repton was responsible for the park,’ said his companion at last as they came to one of the little pools halfway to the Indian bridge. ‘But that one of the Daniells laid it out.’

Hervey knew of Repton well enough, but he was more familiar with the work of the Daniell brothers, for they had painted India from Rajasthan to Mysore, and when he saw one of their paintings he was at once transported. ‘I understand that is so. The Daniells are fine painters. There’s one of theirs in the house. I imagine when you were in India you were not able to see the Taj Mahal?’

Kezia showed no sign of painful memory. ‘No, I was not. And I know that to be a particular deprivation. I should have liked to see it very much. You have, I take it?’

Hervey nodded. ‘A little before we laid siege to Bhurtpore. It is a wondrous sight, and not merely the domes and towers: the gardens are a delight, and in truth, these here are not so very different. At least, they put one in mind of it by their singularity, by their not being so English, I mean.’

A rabbit, caught napping perhaps, darted from under a rose bush. Kezia’s greyhound lurched.

‘Perdi!’ snapped her mistress, and the little dog froze.

Hervey marvelled at the command. Bringing a spaniel to a halt would have been impressive; stopping a greyhound, even the Italian sort, with a rabbit within reach was a remarkable achievement.

They continued, unspeaking, past hydrangeas and Plume Poppy, Honey Locust and bamboo. The place had grown quite silent but for their own footsteps. There was less birdsong now, the quiet time, nor sound of sheep or cattle in distant pasture. Hervey glanced at his companion – his intended. She looked content.

They rounded a big juniper bush to see the Indian bridge with its statuary of Brahmin bulls, the pride of the lower park.

‘Nandi,’ said Hervey, pointing to the balustrade above. ‘The happy one, Shiva’s favourite.’

Kezia smiled. ‘They are very handsome. And they can certainly transport one back to that dust and heat, even though I was there so short a time.’

They walked on, into the dark shade under the bridge, towards the pool beyond. Suddenly she stopped. ‘Gracious! What a very … arresting thing!’

Hervey thought the same. Quite arresting enough to stop him too in his tracks.

‘Do you suppose it a faithful image? Could there be a serpent so big, I mean – not its three heads,’ she asked, sinking to the viewing bench as if quite overpowered by the monstrous bronze reptile.

Hervey sat down next to her (it seemed a perfectly natural thing to do), and began contemplating the question – as well as the figure itself. The gigantic snake coiled round the trunk of a tree in the middle of the pool, its mouths wide, fangs and forked tongues challenging any who would come from under the bridge. It stood full eight feet, perhaps more – eight feet of venomous danger, if venomous it was; otherwise its coils were perfectly able to crush the life out of any who defied its challenge.

‘I cannot speak of sea serpents, madam,’ he replied, shaking his head, ‘but I never saw a python as big.’

Nor, certainly, a cobra. He had been surprised when first he had seen a cobra, ten years ago at the Rajah of Chintal’s banquet, by how small it was in comparison with their reputation. But that had been the cobra di capello, the ‘thing of the bazaars’ the rajah had said, which rose from a basket to the charmer’s pipe and swayed from side to side inches from his face as if determining the best moment to strike. But its mouth was invariably sewn up, the raj kumari had told him. If he wanted to see the real cobra – the hamadryad, the king cobra – they must go into the forest, for the jungle was the hamadryad’s green fastness.

And he had seen the hamadryad there. He had watched as the male had approached the female, had edged the length of her, inch by careful inch, as cautiously as may be, for at any moment she might turn on him, sink her fangs into him, shoot her venom deep in his vitals – and without warning. With the raj kumari he had watched their coiling, their writhing-mating. He had watched with a strange and increasing awareness of her at his side, and then there had been the beginnings of their own congress, the hamadryads potent and threatening only yards away, and the jungle all-concealing. There had been no consummation, however. The female hamadryad had taken sudden objection to the male’s advance, and with a terrible hissing and thrashing she had put an end to him – and to herself, for the male had struck back, too late for self-defence but not for retribution. And Hervey and the raj kumari, the trance violently broken, had sped from the trysting place believing themselves in mortal danger – and Hervey certain that his soul had been.

‘Major Hervey?’

He woke. ‘I’m sorry, I…’

‘I asked if the python were a water snake.’

‘I … I think they may swim if needs be. I think all snakes may, though on this I am uncertain.’

He observed her closely. There was nothing of the forest in Kezia Lankester. She was of an altogether purer fire, as beautiful as the raj kumari but in so different a way. She was a civilized, thinking woman. When the raj kumari thought – that is when she had not been acting wholly on impulse – it had been to calculate, and her calculating had been her ruin (and his, almost).

‘Lady Lankester, I … that is, would it be improper if I expressed to you my very great admiration, and…’

Her expression remained impassive but benign.

‘And my wish that you would consider a proposal of marriage?’

Kezia Lankester entirely kept her countenance. She said nothing for the moment, seeming instead to be reflecting on what she had heard, utterly composed still, as if it had been an invitation to some diversion or other.

Hervey looked at her intently, trying not to reveal his mounting alarm. He had botched it; he felt sure.

She caught her breath a little before answering (alarming him the more). ‘Major Hervey, I am most deeply obliged to you.’ A faint smile came to her lips, as though she were dismissing a child, kindly, for some amusing excess. ‘I can only suppose that you are moved by some sense of obligation, and it does not surprise me – and certainly does not dismay me – for in my short acquaintance with your regiment I have come to see its great virtue of constancy.’

He made to speak, intending to reassure her that his proposal was in no sense prompted by any sense of obligation (at least not to her), but he hesitated, and she stayed him with the merest gesture of a hand.

‘Major Hervey, I assure you, I am by no means offended by these thoughts. On the contrary: they are very noble.’

Again he would have spoken to this point had not she anticipated him once more and bid him wait.

‘I am flattered by your proposal. Such a one, to a widowed mother, might not be forthcoming again. Your prospects, on the other hand, are decidedly handsome.’

‘Lady Lankester—’

‘I have made myself plain, I trust.’

On the contrary, Hervey was wholly uncertain. And he would know with what finality he was being rejected. He frowned slightly, inclining his head a fraction, but enough to persuade her that she must repeat what she had presumed to be plain speaking.

‘Major Hervey, I am honoured to accept your proposal.’

Hervey’s mouth fell open. ‘I … I had not imagined …’ He took her hand. He bent forward to kiss her. Her lips were still parted slightly, and it was Hervey, not she, who ended the kiss.

He caught a glimpse of Perdita eyeing him – coldly, he sensed. She would get used to it; she would have to. If Kezia Lankester could accept him – ‘the coldest woman’, poor Strickland had thought her; but the widow of Sir Ivo, a man he admired in highest degree – then so could an undersize greyhound from that fickle, fiery country!