Vikram Chandra - Red Earth and Pouring Rain

‘Sahib. O Sahib. Wait.’

Thomas turned, flicking his hair over a shoulder; it was one of the many arms-sellers he had dealt with recently, a thin, nervous man with Shaivite caste-marks on his forehead.

‘I am going, Sahib,’ he said. ‘We will try to get out, tonight. But before I go, I thought, I must see the Sahib, only he will appreciate this. Look.’ He held out a two-and-a-half-foot length of heavy steel, worked at the top into curving petal-like flanges, crowned with an octagonal spike at the top of the bud. ‘Look. It is less a mace, more a thing a woman might love for its delicacy. Look at the workmanship of the handle. Look at the strength of the neck. One might be glad to fall under a blow from this, one might consider oneself blessed.’

‘Indeed,’ said Thomas. ‘It is pleasing to the eyes, with the curve of these, the boss and then the heavy straight line of the spike.’

‘I knew it. Only you could appreciate the worth of a piece like this. Call her Rose-of-the-Morning, Sahib. Bulbul-of-Heaven.’

‘Princess-of-the-Heart.’

‘Marvellous. Princess-of-the-Heart, indeed.’

‘How much?’

After the obligatory bargaining, Thomas carried his new possession home, swinging it to and fro, listening to the faint but clear whistling of air between its blunt blades. That night, he slept with it by his head, rubbing his palm over the cross-hatching on the hilt, liking its comfortable chill, and later turning, in his sleep, to rest his head against it, to taste, inadvertently, the electric bitterness of the metal. He awoke, suddenly, with dirt in his nostrils and mouth, ears ringing; there were voices, raised and hysterical, nearby, muffled by the yellow haze of plaster and dust shaken loose from the walls; Thomas began to strap on his buckler.

‘Come, brother. It is time.’ Iqbal Singh emerged from the murk, tying the drawstring to his pants.

‘What was it?’

‘A mine under the East Gate. It vanished, I hear, the whole gate.’

‘Of course.’

They ran up a narrow staircase; outside, the sky was coloured with the first hint of grey to the east, silhouetting the rush of figures, the faces of men, the rhythmic up-and-down of the battlements. ‘We live,’ Iqbal Singh said, ‘in very bad times.’

Then they rushed into the melêlée; in the jostling, heaving mass it was impossible to tell friend or foe, and so blows were exchanged anonymously, randomly, and bodies moved under foot, writhing, suffocated; Thomas used his weight, pushing his way through the crowd, flanked by Iqbal Singh, noting, curiously, the queer high-pitched sound emitted by the throng, its heavy, not-unpleasant odour of perspiration and fear, and the momentary glimpses — in the jumping red light of flames, the quick hot white flashes of pistol discharges — of bulging eyes, gaping mouths, hands, lips, elbows, eyebrows. Finally, they gasped for breath at the gate of the Rani Mahal, at their accustomed post. Above them, a thick column of pitch-black smoke grew thicker at the base, piling billow upon billow; the gate itself stood open, and a dozen men from the guard crouched by it, nervous and indecisive; below, a dense, rippling line of flashes marked the enemy’s advance party as it ascended, rolling up the defenders.

‘Close it,’ Iqbal Singh shouted. ‘Close it, fools.’

They strained at the gate, which moved, creaking, slow; something rang against the arch above, sprinkling them with a stinging cloud of marble chips, and a man dropped behind Thomas, exhaling breath in a quick whine; the gate closed, they struggled with the huge rusted bolt which squeaked and fought them, dropping large brown flakes on their feet, and just as it slid, protesting, through the first hasp, the gate sagged inward, reverberating like a gigantic diaphragm from ramming blows and shot.

‘Leave it,’ Iqbal Singh said. The echoing drum-beat sound chased them as they ran along a circular, rising passage-way, overlooked by balustrades and loopholed walls; then they were in the palace proper, racing through pillared halls and court-yards where red and green parrots squawked and flapped and fell out of branches; a figure appeared in a doorway, an obese, finely-dressed man holding a cavalry sabre awkwardly.

‘We’re your men,’ Thomas said.

‘Where are all the guards, all the rest?’ Iqbal Singh said.

‘No guards, it was all so sudden.’ He began to cry. The tears left shiny tracks down his puffy cheeks. ‘We didn’t even have time to put by wood for jauhar, it was all so sudden, so they all went out to the balconies at the back.’

‘Fool’s errand we came on,’ Iqbal Singh said. ‘They can’t char themselves, the great Rajput ladies, so they’ll fly like little birdies. Nothing to protect here, brother, let’s go home.’

But Thomas was already off, running, The Red One in his right hand and Princess-of-the-Heart in his left, and the others followed; they bolted through carpeted living rooms, under huge crystal chandeliers, and over silk-laden beds in apartments, up flights of stairs, past delicate stone screens, and then into a large hall — black-and-white tiles, Thomas saw in that first moment, and on the wall a painting, a large painting, a dancing woman, musicians — where on the other side a large group of women clustered about a series of balconies that opened out onto the valley below; he ran towards them, and seeing him come, one of them, an old woman, with white hair, pale skin, raised her foot, put it on the sandstone railing running around a balcony, and stepped, face quite without fear, into the air, and for a moment her yellow skirt, patterned with red, ballooned out around her, holding her up, it seemed, but then she dropped out of sight. Shouting, Thomas ran along the edge of the hall, herding them away from the balconies, away from the edge; he saw her and knew it was her, despite the voluminous ghunghat veiling her face: she was motionless, facing a balcony, back to a pillar, clutching it; he ran up to her, saw her head move beneath the cloth as she felt him approach, he reached up with the mace, notched a fold of the ghunghat with the spike, pulled it away, it was her, as the cloth fell away from her head her eyes were quite without expression, the pupils dilated, the blood rushed to her skin, reddening, the cloth fell, Thomas heard a roaring, smoke, masonry collapsed, the cloth fell.

‘JAHAJ JUNG!’

Thomas turned, dazed, to see Uday Singh, his white beard blackened by soot, coming through a jagged hole in the wall in a crouching run, followed closely by a squat, ruddy-faced European in a green coat; oily smoke poured through the gap in the brick, sliding over the tiles; Uday moved sideways, crab-wise, relaxed but already stalking, presenting never more than a profile closely guarded by the oscillating point of a sword.

‘A coincidence worthy of the old stories,’ he said, chuckling. ‘But I should have known I would find you in here, Jahaj Jung, among the pretties.’

The European had stopped in the middle of the hall, his jaw working back and forth, sweat running down his face, his chest pumping until it seemed he would burst out of his green coat.

‘Damn’ black nigger bastards,’ he said in English tinged strongly with a Scottish accent. ‘Get them away from the women, Uday Singh.’

‘Yes, Skinner Sa’ab,’ Uday said, in English, and then switching to Urdu: ‘The firangi wants you away from the pretties.’ Uday smiled. ‘Will you go, Jahaj Jung? I serve the English now, and I must make you go.’

Thomas, his attention still focused on her, saw, at the edges of his field of vision, men hanging back, staring at him with fear and even awe, but even now he watched her, the mace lowered (the ghunghat dragged to the ground). She looked past him, her eyes lowered, at the drop, at the valley beyond, the scattered trees, the brown fields, haze, heavy cumulus clouds massing to the south.