Barbara Cleverly - The Damascened Blade

‘Okay. Mount up, folks,’ said Lily and she made her way at Joe’s side over to the horses now tethered in the shade of the thickest tree. She paused, her hand on the bridle, to look up into the branches. ‘Look at that, Joe,’ she said. “The bird. You kind of forget in this wilderness that creatures can thrive in the nooks and crannies. What is that?’

Joe looked. A parent bird was balancing precariously on the edge of a nest, thrusting something unspeakable into the throat of its young. He stared and was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s a bloody marvel, that’s what it is! It’s the answer to everything! Oh, sorry, Lily. The bird. Yes, it’s an, er, a lesser-spotted Himalayan mountain thrush. Yes, that’s what it is.’

‘Oh yeah? And you’re a greater-spotted liar bird! What’s up, Joe?’

A second later, she answered her own question. ‘Jeez! I see it too! Oh, but they couldn’t have! Could they? No! Bet they did though! Oh, Joe, we’ve got a few questions to put to certain parties who’ve been pulling our legs and jerking our chain when we get back to the fort!’

James Lindsay reviewed the chaos into which his life, both private and official, had descended with considerable misgiving. From the lookout post above the gates he scanned the distant hills. Joe, his dearest friend, was out there, probably in danger of his life if not already dead. And this was not his problem! Honest Joe! Working so desperately towards doing the wrong thing! Should he have confided in him? James considered for a moment and then decided, in his soldier’s calculating way, that it had probably been worth the risk. But where had it left them? It had left them with Joe running the risk. Thinly – very thinly disguised as a Scout, he was in a situation where, if he was discovered, he would be instantly executed as a ferenghi. And all in an effort to extricate Lily. Unreliable Lily! Lily on whom the only reliance that could be placed was that she would say or do the wrong thing, be in the wrong place and, if she could find a way to do so, enter the wrong room in the wrong clothes at the wrong time. He contemplated Lily and shuddered.

And as if that weren’t enough, James acknowledged that he had an abiding problem with Iskander! Enigmatic, a subtle plotter and – whatever else – a major player in the unravelling of the cat’s-cradle into which local politics seemed to have descended.

Once more, binoculars pressed to his eyes, he swept the approaches to the fort. What was this? He squinted again into the late afternoon sun. A solitary rider was coming in. A rider on a large Afghani grey. James stared and stared.

‘Rathmore? Rathmore, by God! Now what?’ Rathmore coming in alone? The lone survivor of some awful catastrophe? With a shudder James remembered the desperate ride of Dr Brydon who was spotted by the garrison at Jelalabad, struggling in half dead on an exhausted horse across the plain only to whisper that he was the only man of a force of sixteen thousand to make it back from Kabul. The rest had been shot and slashed to pieces by Afghani tribesmen, the women with them killed or taken hostage. Eighty years ago and now it was happening again.

In agony, James wiped the sweat from his eyes and squinted through his field glasses. No – the rider was not quite alone. He seemed to be the one-man advance guard of a party of five or six. Was he being pursued? James thought not. The group following in his wake were not attempting to catch up with him but riding at more or less the same pace, keeping their distance. Through the dust rising round the party it was hard to tell who they were. But it was undoubtedly Rathmore in front and going at quite a pace.

‘I’m not in the mood for Rathmore,’ James thought. ‘Do I go and meet him? Do I have him sent to me? That might give me a moral edge. No, I’ll go down.’ He picked up his cap, set it on his head and reluctantly descended the stairs so that when Rathmore arrived at the fort, he was standing ready to receive him with an insouciance he did not feel.

Stiff and indignant, Rathmore slid from his horse.

‘Lord Rathmore! An unexpected pleasure! I had hardly hoped to see you. And now what can I offer you? Not too late for tea, I hope?’

Rathmore eyed him sourly. ‘That’s enough, Lindsay!’ he said. ‘The sooner you realize that you’re in considerable trouble the sooner we can start talking sense! I am here in an official capacity… ’

James interrupted him. ‘I would have said a semi-official capacity but do please continue.’

‘… in an official capacity,’ Rathmore repeated, ‘and under your very nose, almost I would say with your connivance, I have been incarcerated!’

‘Would you say “incarcerated”?’ James enquired mildly. ‘I would have said “kidnapped”. But go on.’

‘I have been seized upon, made off with, exposed to every sort of indignity and I want to know what you’re going to do about it! There!’ he pointed. ‘There’s the scoundrel responsible and I want to know what you’re going to do with him!’

The small party wound its way towards the fort and James stared and stared again. He identified three Scouts, one of whom might be Joe; he identified, bobbing with excitement, the fair hair and slender figure of Lily dressed in green native tunic and trousers; he saw the comfortable figure of Grace taking as always the day’s problems one by one. Finally he saw the figure of Iskander, calm, debonair and unruffled, sure of himself, apparently sure of his welcome and very ready to greet James as an old friend and valued colleague.

‘There he is!’ said Rathmore. ‘There’s the rogue! He kept me prisoner and threatened to slit my eyelids. I insist on his immediate arrest!’

‘One moment, Rathmore,’ said James and he stepped forward to greet the party. ‘First things first. Aslam! Yussuf!’ he called out in greeting to the Scouts. Smiles, laughter and exclamation followed and the Scouts were dismissed, both men pleased to be setting off for barracks with the keen anticipation of telling their story to the rest of the unit.

‘Grace, Lily, Joe, Iskander,’ James nodded to each in turn. ‘Delighted to have you all back again safe and sound. If you’d like to come with me to the durbar hall I can offer you some refreshment. Now where have you got to? Tea? Or would a glass of sherry be more welcome?’

Rathmore was dancing with rage. ‘You’re not going to invite that black-avised fiend back inside the fort! Think, man! Think what happened last time! Don’t you ever learn?’

‘I haven’t made up my mind quite yet,’ said James, ‘whether to offer Iskander the hospitality of the fort or the guardhouse. I will let you know when I have made further enquiries. Now, perhaps you would all like to return to your rooms which are standing ready – I’m sure you’ll all want to freshen up and, er, change – and we’ll meet in the durbar hall in, let’s say an hour. That suit everyone?’

Rathmore turned with a splutter of disgust and stamped off through the gate. The others followed, entering with varying degrees of eagerness the confines of the fort. Joe lagged behind in the hope of exchanging a few words with James but his friend was avoiding his eye and, it seemed, anxious not to hear Joe’s story for the moment. There was something about his manner that puzzled Joe. His old confidence and decisiveness had returned, though, knowing what Joe now knew, this was inexplicable. Oh, well, Joe would go along with it for the time being. His moment to unravel all this would come.

‘By the way, Joe,’ James was saying, ‘hope you won’t mind but I’ve had your things moved down to Zeman’s old room. Had to accommodate yet another VIP who arrived this afternoon and I thought it more appropriate to put him upstairs.’ He waved a hand to the far side of the square where there stood an open-topped tourer, grey with dust, the flag of the High Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province drooping wearily on the bonnet.