Rassul poured out a drink and withdrew and Alex talked trivialities for a quarter of an hour by the drawing-room clock. Whatever it was that Winter wished to tell him, he had no intention of hearing it now. She had established her point, and no one listening to her voice and her light laugh could suspect her of having anything in the least disturbing on her mind. He finished his drink and rose: ‘I must say a few words to the Commissioner if you will excuse me. Do you ride tomorrow?’
‘Yes. A little before five. It is too hot now once the sun is up.’
Alex said: ‘You should ride by the river. It is cooler there. I expect I may see you. Good night, Mrs Barton.’ He went into the small drawing-room that led off the larger one and was greeted ungraciously by the Commissioner, stayed to watch a hand of whist, and left.
There were no signs in the skies that night and the pariah dogs were silent; but the city was not. The city was awake and restless. Tom-toms throbbed and conches blared as they had in the little village beyond the tank and the mango-tope, and there were an unusual number of pedestrians upon the road that led past the Residency gateway from the cantonments to the city.
‘It is Ramadan,’ said Niaz; but he said it uneasily, looking over his shoulder.
‘It is dewanee - the madness,’ retorted Alex; and added as Niaz prepared to leave, ‘We ride before sunrise. Bring a gun.’
‘Which? Do we shoot partridge or kala hirren (blackbuck)?’
‘Pigeon,’ said Alex briefly.
‘Ah!’
Alex turned swiftly at the tone. ‘Didst thou see, then?’
‘Nay. It was too far. But that bairagi (holy man) did not wish us to see the bird, and therefore he told it to go. Wherefore, I wondered—’
‘I too,’ said Alex. He had seen such things done before, and it did not strike him as in the least impossible that the man could order a bird’s departure without speech or movement. He had heard it said that even little silent Zeb-un-Nissa, Akbar Khan’s grand-daughter, could do the same.
It was cool in the early light of the May morning, cooler than Alex ever remembered it to have been at this time of the year. May and June were normally burning months in the plains, but this May was not like others, and he could only regret it, since an early hot weather and soaring temperatures would have sent many women hurrying to the hills with their children, while this unusual mildness was causing them to linger and put off the day of separation.
The land and the river and the sky were all one colour in the dawn light: a clear, opalescent grey in which only the morning star still shivered as a challenging point of brightness. There was a faint swathe of mist smoking off the river, and a pair of sarus cranes cried harshly from among the crops as Alex and Niaz rode along the narrow, embanked roadway that curved across the plain.
Winter had ridden out by the wooden bridge that spanned the nullah behind the house, instead of by the main gateway. She saw the two horsemen far out on the plain ahead of her as she emerged from the thick belt of scrub and jungle that covered the far bank of the nullah and was an arm of the denser jungle that stretched away eastward, closing in upon the river bank three miles further down where the river joined the main stream that formed the boundary between Lunjore and Oudh. The distant horsemen were as small as marionettes, and though they appeared to be moving slowly, a long white cloud of dust behind them showed that their horses were at full gallop, and Winter threaded Furiante between the rough tussocks of grass where the narrow jungle track ran out onto the plain, and giving him his head, rode to cut them off before they reached the river bank. The exhilaration of speed and the rush of the morning air brought a glow of colour to her cheeks and she was laughing as she reined in beside a clump of three tall palm trees where Alex had pulled up to wait for her.
‘Good morning, Captain Randall. Have you brought that shotgun for more target practice?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Alex, unsmiling. He wheeled his horse beside her and they moved off together parallel to the river bank, Niaz and Yusaf falling back out of earshot: ‘What is it that you wished to tell me?’ Winter’s face sobered and she threw a quick look over her shoulder. ‘It’s all right. They can’t hear, and it wouldn’t matter if they did. What is it?’
‘It’s something that Ameera said,’ replied Winter, and she told him of that hot, still afternoon on the river terrace of Pavos Reales: of the little covered boat that had drifted in to the water-steps, and the thing that Ameera had told her in halting Spanish so that even Hamida should not know what it was that she had said.
Alex did not say any of the soothing and reassuring things that George Lawrence had said. He said nothing at all for a long time, riding beside her in silence and looking out over the brightening river through narrowed eyes.
So he had been right. A day and a date. He was sure that it must be so, for men like Kishan Prasad and the Maulvi of Faizabad would not content themselves with stirring up general discontent. That was an easy thing to do - too easy. And though sporadic outbreaks of mutiny and violence would embarrass the authorities, they could be dealt with and stamped out provided they were localized. It was a general mutiny of the Bengal Army, coupled with a popular rising, that was to be feared. And such a thing called for a day and a date …
The last day of May … and it was already the third. Three days gone. Twenty-seven left. Twenty-seven days in which to turn aside the wind that was rising steadily and blowing hot and fitfully through every cantonment in India. How did one stop a wind that had been whistled up by the blindness and obstinacy and egotism of men who imagined that it was a simple matter, and one worthy of all praise, to pry the East loose from its centuries-old laws and customs and force it into a Western mould?
‘I can do nothing about the regiments,’ thought Alex, ‘but some of the talukdars will stand behind me - or at least stay quiet. And so I think will the villages. The city is the trouble. There are always budmarshes (scoundrels) by the score in the kennels of any city, and the scum of the bazaars and the back alleys will rise at a word simply for the chance of murder and loot … Will the police stand if the Army breaks? I must see Maynard again … Can I get Barton to demand plenary military powers in Lunjore that would give him the right to order the sepoys to be disarmed if their Colonels refuse to take action? I could always get him drunk enough to sign anything, and do the job myself. How does one prove to a set of courageous, pig-headed, devoted die-hards that their beloved men are listening nightly to treason? To suggest as much to a man like Gardener-Smith is almost on a par with telling him his wife is unfaithful to him. Worse if anything, as it deprives him of the satisfaction of knocking me down! “… there will be no safety anywhere; least of all where there are regiments.”’
Alex said abruptly: ‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘I told George Lawrence, but I don’t think he believed me. No, I don’t mean that - I mean he believed that Ameera had said it, but he thought that she was only repeating another bazaar rumour. Do you think that?’
‘I wish I did. But it fits in too well with my own view of the situation.’ He relapsed into silence again, riding with a slack rein.
The land and the sky and the still river were no longer grey, but filled with a soft, luminous brilliance, and an almost visible shiver ran over the vast plain as the light lifted in the east. ‘The Wings of the Morning,’ thought Winter, ‘it is like wings - invisible wings - or like someone running, with wings on their feet.’
A white egret flew slowly along the shallows, its reflection mirrored in the quiet water, and a line of dust showed where goats and cattle were being driven out to the grazing grounds. A flock of pigeons, dark against the brightening sky, swept up out of the distant city and circled upwards until their wings paled and shone to the sun that was still below the dusty horizon.
Alex reined in and dismounted swiftly, and Niaz cantered forward without a word and handed over the shotgun he carried as though he had received an order. A partridge called from a clump of dry grass: Fakiri!
Fakiri! Fakiri! But neither Alex nor Niaz moved in its direction. They were watching the pigeons, and Winter, observing them with a puzzled frown, was startled by the look of grim concentration on the two faces. She turned to follow the direction of their intent gaze, and saw a single pigeon separate itself from the wheeling flock and fly towards them, but at an angle that took it across the river.
‘It is out of range,’ muttered Niaz.
Alex nodded. He had not raised the gun and now he handed it back and Niaz received it, neither of them taking their eyes off the solitary bird as it dwindled into a speck against the immensity of the sky.
Winter would have asked a question, but Alex’s face did not invite questions and she remained silent. He swung himself back into the saddle and they rode back down the river bank and across the plain at a gallop, and reached the outskirts of the cantonments as the first dazzling rim of the sun lipped the horizon.
There was plenty of traffic upon the cantonment roads, for the early mornings were by far the most pleasant (and would soon be the only possible times) in which to walk or ride. Today being Sunday the bells were ringing for the six o’clock service and there were a quantity of early church-goers to be seen driving along the shaded roads, and Alex abandoned his taciturnity and conversed with the utmost cordiality as though he had nothing in the least disturbing on his mind. He accompanied Winter to the Residency gates, acknowledged Akbar Khan’s dignified salutation, and returned to his own bungalow for breakfast. He did not keep the Ramadan fast when within reach of his own kind.
Niaz, who had eaten before dawn, was sitting cross-legged on the verandah rolling a supply of cigarettes when he came out. He stood up, slapping the fallen tobacco from his clothes, and said as though continuing a conversation: ‘I will tell Amir Nath. I do not think he will talk. But it must be done on the far bank. That was too close.’
Alex nodded, he seldom wasted words on the obvious. ‘Tell him, tomorrow at five,’ he said.
It was barely light when he rode out on the following morning, and he was not pleased to find Winter at the far side of the wooden bridge that spanned the river a mile above the city. Reining in with unnecessary violence, he demanded to know what she thought she was doing there.
Winter arched her brows at him. ‘Riding,’ she said lightly. ‘Why do you ask?’ Alex favoured her with a penetrating look and she laughed and said: ‘Very well - I’ll confess. I wanted to watch.’
‘Watch what?’ Alex’s voice and face were not encouraging.
‘Perhaps you do not know,’ said Winter pleasantly, ‘that Amir Nath is a friend of mine. He has let me fly his shahin.’ She saw Alex’s mouth tighten ominously and said quickly: ‘He didn’t tell me. I promise you. I saw him going this way yesterday evening and I stopped to talk to him. He only said that he thought of taking them out into the open country on the far bank to try them against the partridge there, so I thought I would ride this way and watch. It was only when I saw you that I remembered the pigeon. It is that, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Alex briefly.
‘Can I come? I won’t if you’d—’
‘You may as well,’ said Alex ungraciously. He called down a greeting to the old fisherman who lived in a reed hut below the bridge, and touched Chytuc with his heel.
A mile and a half down the far bank of the river and out of sight of the city they turned inland through grass and low scrub and drifts of sand, and presently a small white-bearded man, thin as an arrow, rose up apparently out of the ground, and Alex stopped and dismounted.
‘The Huzoor is in good time,’ said Amir Nath. ‘Will he fly the jurra himself?’ He lifted the hooded goshawk that held to his wrist, and the bird turned its head with a faint jingle of bells and flexed and unflexed its taloned feet, stretching a little and ruffling its feathers.
Alex shook his head. ‘No. I have not handled one for too long, and I would not have him miss.’ He held out his hand in a heavy leather riding-glove and took the goshawk from the old falconer, stroking it and talking to it while Winter dismounted and talked to Amir Nath. ‘Is Nunni here?’ she asked presently. ‘Assuredly,’ said the old man, and gave a shrill call.
A small boy rose up from the tall grass and grinned shyly at Winter. He carried a peregrine falcon on his wrist, and was Amir Nath’s great-grandson. Winter sat down on a tussock of grass and they carried on an animated three-cornered conversation while the sky paled above them and the partridges awoke, and a flight of parrots swished overhead, making for the river. The goshawk on Alex’s hand stretched its neck, turning its head eagerly from left to right and tugging at its jesses, and Alex returned it to Amir Nath.
Five hundred yards above them Yusaf, sitting his horse at the bend of the river, stood up in his stirrups and raised his arm, and Niaz, three hundred yards below him, whistled. Alex said: ‘It will come over high.’
‘High and to the left,’ agreed Amir Nath composedly. ‘But he is a king of birds.’
Alex had brought a gun again, but the pigeon was well out of range. It came flying steadily, as had the one they had seen on the previous morning, making for the borders of Oudh.
‘It is too high,’ thought Alex. ‘The hawk will never see it—’ Amir Nath had removed the hood and now, with a shrill cry, he hurled the bird up and into the air. There was a rush and a whirr of wings and the goshawk mounted with the speed of a feathered arrow, circling upward. It hung for a moment, motionless, sixty feet above them, and then it had sighted the pigeon and was away.
‘Shabash’ shrilled little Nunni, dancing among the tussocks of grass.
‘Said I not he was a king of birds?’ said Amir Nath. ‘Watch him bound to his prey. Maro! Maro!’
Niaz, who had ridden up, stooped from the saddle, and Nunni, thrusting the tercel at his great-grandfather, clutched at his hand and scrambled up before him with the agility of a squirrel, and then they were away in pursuit.
The pigeon flapped and jinked, turning and twisting, making for the shelter of the dense miles of jungle that blanketed the borders of Lunjore and Oudh. But she did not reach it. The goshawk towered above her, seized her and clung to her and dropped to the ground.
Three hours later Alex was confronting the Commissioner with a small strip of native-made paper on which were written a few lines in shikust. ‘And that, I think, sir,’ he concluded, ‘is how bad news seems to get about this country so quickly. There’s probably a chain system of ’em.’
‘What the devil does it say?’ demanded the Commissioner peevishly.
“‘It is too soon. Be patient and await the auspicious day.”’
‘Well - well? What of it? Can’t see any harm in that? Too soon for what? Doesn’t make sense!’
‘I take it to refer to some premature outbreak in Oudh,’ said Alex with exemplary patience. ‘If we hear within the next day or so that any such incident has occurred, I think we can take it as conclusive. I know that it does not prove much by itself, but added to all the rest it seems to me to have points of interest. Not the least of them being that we now know that we have leading agents and agitators in the city. It also bears out the theory that what is planned is a simultaneous rising on a given date - “the auspicious day”.’
‘Nonsense!’ said the Commissioner. ‘Probably refers to a wedding.’
‘As you like, sir,’ said Alex in his most expressionless voice.
‘Why do I do it?’ he thought, walking back to his bungalow. ‘Why in hell’s name do I do it? It’s a waste of time and it only puts his back up. Yet I cannot keep him in the dark. I can’t have him saying when the mine goes off, “Why did you never tell me?” Justifying myself in advance again! - as if it mattered. Oh, well, I suppose I may as well do the thing thoroughly and be damned to it—’
He spent another exhausting and abortive morning on his feet (he was not offered a chair) placing his views yet again before the three commanding officers of the regiments stationed in Lunjore. But with no better results than before. Colonel Gardener-Smith st
ill steadfastly refused to believe anything against his men, though Alex suspected him of feeling less confident than usual, and was sorry for the old gentleman.
‘You don’t understand, Randall,’ the Colonel had burst out, striking his hands together passionately. ‘You are young and you have never commanded a regiment - you have barely served with one! Can you not see that it is you, and men like you, who are responsible for any feeling of - of unrest that there may be in the Bengal Army? Where there is complete confidence there can be no suspicion and distrust, and it is distrust - this distrust that you are doing your best to arouse - that breeds disaffection! I cannot distrust my men. To do so would destroy them - and myself!’
Colonel Moulson had been offensive, and Colonel Packer had announced that he trusted in the Lord and therefore feared no evil. Alex went down to the police lines and discussed the possibility of disaffection among the police with Major Maynard who commanded them.
Major Maynard alone confessed to uneasiness, but not on account of his police, whom he believed to be staunch.
‘It’s old Packer,’ he said. ‘Unless something can be done to stop him preaching the Word to his men we shall find ourselves in the basket. Can nothing be done to gag the old fool?’
‘I’ve tried,’ said Alex tiredly. ‘I got him an official wigging, which he holds against me. I gather I am one of those “by whom the offence cometh"! But that was the best I could do.’
‘It doesn’t appear to have damped his proselytizing ardour,’ commented Major Maynard. ‘Perhaps he yearns for a martyr’s crown?’
‘I daresay he does - and at this rate he’ll get it! But I have no desire to qualify for one myself. Doesn’t he know he’s playing with gunpowder? He told me that he was “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”, and that as, in temporal matters, he obeyed the orders of his superior officers in the Army, so in spiritual matters, as a Soldier of Christ, he obeyed the orders of the Lord, which instructed him to save the heathen from damnation. He has a great deal of support in Lunjore.’