Sarwat Chadda - Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress

Vik pushed off with the oar and, after a few seconds of faffing, found his rhythm and took them across the Ganges.

The far bank was about half a kilometre away, but the river flowed at a languid speed, like it knew it was too hot to hurry. Ash peered into the water and watched his face ripple and part in the black, shiny waters.

“See anything?” asked his uncle.

“Just me.” Ash leaned back. “How can anyone be so ridiculously good-looking?”

“So modest also,” said Uncle Vik mockingly. “Just like your father.”

“What’s that?” Lucky pointed at something upstream.

It looked like a half-submerged log, wrapped up in cloth. The current brought it closer and Ash swung the lantern towards it.

A woman’s face gazed at him. Her mouth was partially open and filled with weeds. The skin was sallow and waxy, her eyes misty, and a damp thread of white hair hung over her wrinkled skin. She’d been wrapped in a rice sack: Ash recognised the Elephant logo of the Varanasi Best Rice Company.

Anita turned Lucky’s face away from the corpse, but Ash just stared, in spite of the tightness of his throat and the accelerated beating of his heart.

“Why didn’t they cremate her?” Ash asked. His uncle grunted as he strained with his strokes, eager to get them away from the dead woman.

Vik sighed. “Not everyone can afford the wood, Ash.”

So they just dumped her in the river. Ash watched the woman float away until she was lost in the darkness.

The boat bumped against the bank. Trousers rolled up, Ash helped his uncle haul the boat out of the water. Uncle Vik pointed up the slope. “We’ll head up to the Seven Queens. It’s a good place for a picnic. You’ll have a great view over the countryside.”

Ash stopped as a sudden rush of coldness spread over him. “The Seven Queens?” What had Savage said about them?

“You’ll see,” said Uncle Vik.

The four of them clambered up the slope and on to the flat terrace of fields. The countryside was divided by shallow dried-out riverbeds that would only fill during the monsoon. A few bare trees dotted the landscape, and ahead were huts and tents, a few parked vehicles. They were all white Humvees, bearing the poppies and crossed-sword emblem of the Savage Foundation.

“The Seven Queens,” said Uncle Vik.

A row of seven white marble platforms glowed like pale bone in the bright moonlight. Over each stood a gently sloping marble canopy held up by slim columns.

“They’re beautiful,” said Aunt Anita. She stroked the marble with her fingertips. “Why are they called the Seven Queens?”

Uncle Vik gestured down-river, towards the palace. “They were the wives of the old maharajah. This marks the spot where they were cremated.”

Aunt Anita stopped and looked around. “You do pick the most romantic places, Vikram.”

hat are you working on, Uncle?” asked Lucky. “And when can I have my pony?”

“We’ll see about that,” said Aunt Anita.

“I want a black and white one.”

“Lucky…”

Uncle Vik took something from his pocket. As he held out his hand, Ash saw the glimmer of what looked like small square silver and gold coins.

“Get the magnifying glass and have a look,” Uncle Vik said, pointing at the tool-kit.

Using the glass Ash inspected the minute images stamped on the coins: long-horned cattle, bearded men, lithe women, and shapes that seemed either distorted or a weird combination of human and animal.

“These are seals from a new dig out in Rajasthan,” Uncle Vik said.

Ash picked one up. “Where, exactly?”

“Savage is keeping most quiet about that, but I suspect Jaisalmer, in the Thar desert. There’ve been a few Harappan finds there over the years.”

“What finds?” Lucky asked as she arranged the seals on the picnic rug, checking them out with the big lens.

Vik took off his glasses and rubbed them with his shirt. He coughed as he put them on, going into professor mode.

“The Harappans were an incredibly advanced civilisation that prospered between six and four thousand years ago. They traded with the other civilisations of the age, the Old Kingdom Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. Then, overnight,” Vik snapped his fingers, “they disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Lucky put the seals down and wrapped her arms round her knees, her attention now on her uncle’s story.

Vik continued. “It was like they wanted to be forgotten. India went from being a great kingdom with links to all corners of the world to a cluster of illiterate villages, just like that. The cities were consumed by the sands within a few decades. Uncanny.”

“War, then?” said Ash.

“No,” said Uncle Vik. “From the places we’ve excavated we’ve found no signs of weapons, burned buildings or broken walls, the usual signs of military conquest. The Harappans simply vanished from history. It’s only in the last hundred years that we’ve started uncovering their cities. Now Savage believes he’s found the capital.” Uncle Vik’s smile broadened. “Think what we might find there.”

“Maybe more treasure?” said Lucky.

Ash laughed to himself. She was no doubt hoping there would be an entire stable of ponies on offer if there was.

“To be sure there will be palaces, libraries, royal tombs and temples. Treasures in gold and in knowledge. The city hasn’t been disturbed for thousands of years. Whatever was buried there, still remains.” He picked up one of the seals. “I’ll probably go out there once I’ve finished Savage’s translations.”

“What are you translating?” asked Ash.

“An ancient royal treasury list,” said Uncle Vik. “Savage believes there’s treasure buried here, near Varanasi. It has some connection to the works out in Rajasthan, I just don’t quite know what yet.”

“Enough work. Eat,” said Aunt Anita as she opened a box and handed out fresh samosas. Uncle Vik fiddled with his old radio. The plastic box was held together by tape and elastic bands, but eventually he got some kind of Indian music station. The soft chords of a sitar strummed out, rising above the crackle of static and the whispers in the wind.

“Come on, Lucks.” Ash got up. He picked up one of the spare torches and flicked it on. “Let’s have a nose around.”

“Ash—”

“We’ll be careful, Uncle.”

They climbed about the ruins that dotted the northern fields of the old palace grounds. The walls were in poor condition. Local people had been steadily pilfering the bricks over the years to help assemble their own houses. There were rows of pits too, each neatly marked out with red string. Vik had told them how sites were searched: each area was divided into neat ten-metre-square packages and dug to an agreed depth, usually between three and five metres deep. Picks, shovels and trowels were neatly stacked up against the various huts and temporary offices, little more than awnings, with light and power fed by thick black electric cables that branched out from a rusty generator like a network of tentacles.

No one’s here, Ash realised. That was strange. Once word got out there was a dig going on you got amateur treasure hunters, thieves, who’d creep over the site at night, hoping for some gold or artefacts to sell on the black market. So why no guards?

And no workers either. There were tents, cooking equipment and all the signs of a large workforce, but no one around. They must commute in every day. That too was unusual. What was it about this place that frightened everyone?