Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

Finally, the speaker was on the roof.

‘Let the child say something,’ Ganesha said.

‘Saira, say something.’

‘Say what?’ Saira said, and the words rang out clear as the chimes of a fine bell from the speaker above. Saira jumped, a hand clapped over her mouth. ‘One, two, three,’ she said. ‘Testing, testing, one, two, three.’ Her voice went right to the edge of the maidan and maybe a little beyond.

‘Obstacle removed,’ said Ganesha.

‘Don’t be smug, youngster,’ Yama said. ‘All right, Sanjay. Where were we?’

Where we were, god, was with Benoit de Boigne, in his journey across the seas, in his search for a dream.

So, I began to type, and Mrinalini read it all out.

Listen…

ON A MAIDAN, within sight of green mountains, Uday Singh and George Thomas exchanged cuts, the sound of their clashing swords echoing among the banyan trees and the water-filled fields.

George Thomas watched Uday Singh’s sleepy eyes and relaxed stance, listening to the other’s easy breathing and waiting for an opening. They circled each other, moving always to the right; Thomas felt the world recede, distanced by their revolutions, and saw only Uday’s white beard, the shimmering edge of his blade, the place where his tunic curled back to reveal the ridge of the collar-bone and the dimple at the base of the throat, and Thomas felt Uday’s presence, his spirit, his courage, his old wounds, his loves, his disappointments, his fear, felt that old unspoken intimacy, that sometimes obscene knowledge between adversaries, and waited for a secret wavering, an internal retreating that would reveal itself as an opening.

Thomas saw Uday’s eyes narrow, and suddenly saw a crack in his guard, felt Uday drop back, there it was; Thomas lunged forward, but even as his thighs clenched and his point reached out he knew it had been a mistake, because Uday moved lazily, slowly aside, avoiding the thrust easily and cutting from underneath in a scooping movement to tap Thomas gently on the stomach with smooth steel.

Thomas straightened up, panting.

‘How do you do that?’ he said. ‘You knew I was coming before I did.’

‘I could see you making up your mind,’ Uday said. ‘It’s not so hard. It comes with age.’ He thumped Thomas on the back. ‘You’re getting better. Your Urdu still needs work, though.’

As they walked back to the tents, they stripped off the heavy leather and chain mail armour that glinted in the late-afternoon sun. The grass under foot was wet with the first rains of the monsoon; in a red tent, Thomas ate, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor, and Uday watched.

‘Eat something,’ Thomas said. ‘Nobody’ll ever know’

‘The gods will know, and I will know,’ Uday said, smiling. ‘Eat, firangi.’

‘Firangi? Me? I’m no foreigner, I’m Jahaj Jung, old man, or haven’t you heard?’

‘Jahaj Jung, the warrior from the seas,’ Uday said, smiling. ‘That very man,’ Thomas said, ‘but here comes a firangi.’

The man who entered, stooping a little, was tall and thin, with long, lank dark hair and a large nose.

‘Reinhardt,’ Thomas said. ‘Sit. Eat.’

‘Later,’ Reinhardt said. ‘I have an idea. A plan.’ He lowered himself to the floor and poured wine into a cup.

‘Get on with it,’ Uday said.

‘Of course,’ Reinhardt said. ‘The rains will set in soon, and we will languish in these muddy fields, no campaigning, no money to be earned. But not far away, there is a palace. There is a palace with a woman in it. A palace with a princess who needs officers for her brigades.’

‘Sardhana,’ Uday said. ‘You’re talking about Sardhana.’

‘Of course,’ Reinhardt said, grinning. ‘A beautiful woman, they say, a tempestuous woman, a hungry woman, a passionate woman.’

‘A witch,’ Uday said. ‘Zeb-ul-Nissa, the Witch of Sardhana. Daughter of a dancing woman. Married a general named Le Vassoult, who died. Now she rules his estate, with spells and terrors and a hand of steel.’

‘Will you come?’ Reinhardt said.

‘Of course he will,’ Uday said.

‘A beautiful woman?’ Thomas said.

‘Unquestionably,’ Reinhardt said.

‘A passionate woman?’

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘A tempestuous woman?’

‘Surely’

‘You’re crazy to go near her,’ Uday said. ‘She has the magic of the Brahmins, the hidden magic. But of course you have to go.’

‘A woman with an estate, a kingdom,’ Thomas said. ‘Too good to let go.’

‘You have to go,’ Uday said. ‘You would have to.’

‘Uday the fencer with the foresight,’ Thomas said.

‘Fencing or women, survival is the same thing,’ Uday said. He smiled. Jahaj Jung. Be careful.’

‘You aren’t coming?’

‘I have more sense than to go near a witch.’

‘Children’s stories,’ Thomas said.

‘Precisely the ones to be afraid of,’ Uday said.

The next morning Reinhardt and Thomas rode out. Uday waved good-bye from a ridge of mud between two fields, his white tunic transparent in the low slanting sunlight, his beard shifting slowly across his broad chest in the wet breeze. Reinhardt began to sing a French song in a thin, piping voice; Thomas twisted in his saddle, watching the straight-backed figure get smaller and smaller until it was hidden by a grove of heavy-topped mango trees; then there was the distant singing of women in the fields, the heavy sticky fall of hooves in mud, the creaking of leather, the call of thousands of crickets, the busy chirping of birds, and the distant rumble of thunder, the rolling black and grey of the clouds above.

At noon they stopped in the ruins of a serai at a cross-roads and sat on crumbling stone, nibbling at cold chappatis and pickles. A group of Marwari merchants and their Pathan escorts huddled on the other side of the building and watched them curiously.

‘How long have you been here?’ Thomas asked.

‘Here, in India? A year and eight months.’

‘Why do you still wear that coat?’

‘This coat? What’s wrong with the coat? It’s Parisian, I had it made in Paris, made for me.’

‘Why not wear this? It’s better here, more comfortable.’

‘I like this coat. Do you find something wrong with it? What?’

‘No, nothing.’

Thomas looked away, and said nothing about how the long tails of the coat flapped about the rump of the horse when Reinhardt rode, making rider and horse look like some monstrous bird of prey; that afternoon they cantered through a light drizzle. Reinhardt seemed to recover from his quick irritation and resumed his singing. The road grew steadily wider, and the traffic thickened: farmers with loads of hay on ancient two-wheeled carts drawn by magnificent white oxen, shepherds with flocks of thick-bodied goats, traders with covered carts, caravans escorted by lance-bearing Rajputs and Afghans; Reinhardt grinned and slapped his thigh.

‘A rich place, this Sardhana,’ he said.

‘It’s all rich,’ Thomas said. ‘If it weren’t for the wars, what a thing this Hindustan would be.’

‘If it weren’t for the wars, where would we be?’ Reinhardt shouted, spurring his horse. ‘Come on, on to the Begum.’

At dusk they drew up to a large arched gate in a crenellated wall.

‘We are officers,’ Thomas said, ‘come to see the Begum and serve her.’

The officer of the guard, a toothless, much-scarred campaigner from Bengal, hooked his thumbs into his belt, and walked in a half-circle around the horses.

‘It is late,’ he said, ‘and the Begum gives audience in the morning. Go. Come tomorrow.’

‘Send word to her now,’ Thomas said.