The next day, he returned home and presented himself at Parashurama’s house. He handed over the purse he had brought back.
‘How much did you get for the salt?’
‘Twenty rupees,’ Christopher replied.
The steward counted out the coins suspiciously, biting each one to check its validity and weighing them in a little scale.
‘It is correct,’ he said at last, grudgingly.
Parashurama smiled at Christopher. ‘My steward, Jayanthan, did not trust you. The first sack of salt contained a letter to the merchant in Neyoor. I asked him to send his fastest runner with a reply to me, informing me the price he had paid you for the salt.’
Christopher’s cheeks burned. ‘You didn’t trust me to give a fair account?’
‘Now I know I can.’ He counted out two coins and handed them to Christopher. ‘This is your fee – for now. I will find you again soon: I always have work for men I trust.’
Over the next few months, he was as good as his word. Different cargoes and different towns; sometimes other men went with Christopher, sometimes he went alone. Once or twice, groups of men made threatening moves, but at the sight of Christopher’s sword they invariably backed off. Each time, Christopher felt nothing but disappointment. He could feel the power growing inside him, tensed like a bowstring; he needed a release. In the bouts on the dais, he fought with such ferocity that one week he almost blinded a man.
‘What is the second precept I taught you?’ asked Ranjan.
‘Channiga,’ said Christopher, sullenly.
‘And what is channiga?’
‘Patience.’
One day, the rich man’s steward Jayanthan came to the kalari. ‘My master has another errand for you.’
At Parashurama’s home, the merchant tipped out the bag onto his hand. Rubies glinted in the soft light that came through the carved wooden shutters.
‘I need you to take these to a Tamil trader in Madura, on the other side of the mountains. The journey will take many days, and the roads through the mountains are infested with bandits.’
Christopher barely heard him. He was staring at the rubies. They winked at him like a whore in the doorway of a brothel. A wicked thought bloomed in his mind: that he could kill these two men here and now, and escape with the gems. Then he would have sufficient rupees to marry Ruth. His whole body ached with the temptation, with the awareness of his own capability.
What is the third precept? Ranjan’s voice resounded in his head.
Self control. His own inner voice responded.
He forced his face into a passive mask to hide his thoughts.
‘Jayanthan will go with you,’ said Parashurama, unaware how close to death he had come. ‘Only the two of you. I could send a caravan of many men – but that would attract attention, and every chieftain between here and Delhi would be drawn to the scent. Two men may hope to slip through where twenty could not.’
Christopher bowed. ‘I will honour your trust.’
They set out the next day, heading inland. The road was nothing more than a track through the wilderness, churned by the last monsoon rains and the few carts that had attempted it. Tamarind trees shaded the way, and the sounds of birds and insects were punctuated by the clack-clack of looms, where the weavers set up their workshops by the roadside.
Christopher had lived almost his whole life in India, but this was the first time he had ventured more than a few miles from the coast. Even working for Parashurama, his journeys had always been to the settlements along the coastal strip. Soon, the villages grew fewer and meaner. The clack of looms was replaced by the chatter and piping of birds he had never heard before.
They slept that night in the courtyard of a roadside temple. Next day, the road began to climb towards the Ghats, the great range of mountains that ran like a rampart down the west coast of India. The air grew cooler, the landscape ever more savage. They walked through an untouched forest of great timber trees and bamboo, giant creepers and orchids. Mosses grew luxuriantly, while the red flowers of the silk-cotton trees spattered the roadside like drops of blood.
They weren’t alone on the road. A few peasants joined them, struggling under heavy burdens: bundles of coir mats, baskets of fruit. Each time they approached, Jayanthan would grab Christopher’s shoulder and whisper loudly, ‘Be on your guard.’
However the moment the peasants realized Jayanthan’s high caste, they dropped to the ground and pressed their faces to the bare earth until he and Christopher had passed.
‘At least she can’t be a bandit,’ said Christopher, pointing to a woman leading a donkey laden with mangoes. She wore a demure white sari and white bodice, with a row of copper bangles on her arm.
As if she’d heard him, she turned back to look. Unlike the other peasants, she did not bow her head or flinch away the moment she gauged their status. She met Christopher’s gaze full on, her eyes frank and wide open. Her lips parted in a shy little smile that seemed to promise possibilities Christopher could only begin to imagine. Desire throbbed through his loins.
‘Brazen bitch,’ said Jayanthan. ‘She should be whipped for her insolence.’
Without hurrying, the woman led her donkey to the edge of the road and let them pass. Christopher tried to catch her eye again, but she was fiddling with the girth on her donkey’s panniers and did not look up at him again.
They passed a small shrine at the side of the road, in which sat the statue of Ganesh the elephant god, draped with garlands of faded flowers.
Jayanthan looked at the sword in Christopher’s belt. ‘I hope you are ready to use that weapon. That shrine marks the spot where a traveller was killed by bandits.’
As if on cue, a shrill scream broke the silence behind them. A moment later, a braying pack-mule bolted around the corner of the pathway. Christopher drew his sword and started back at a run.
‘Wait,’ shouted Jayanthan. ‘Your duty is to protect me.’
Christopher ignored him. He ran back, feet drumming up clouds of dust. Around the bend in the road, he found the woman he’d seen earlier. She lay on the ground, her skirts pushed up around her hips, the bodice torn from her pert young breasts. A muscular dark-skinned man held her down with his one hand, as he knelt between her knees and with his other hand opened the cloth that revealed his erect and burgeoning genitalia.
Bellowing the war-cry he had learned in the kalari, Christopher charged at him. But the rapist was not so overcome with lust that he had lost all sense of caution. He saw Christopher coming; and he leaped to his feet. With one quick glance he took in the sword in Christopher’s right hand, and he ran.
Christopher was fast, but the man was even faster. After a dozen paces pursuing him, Christopher realized he could not catch him in a straight chase. He came to a halt and dropped his sword to the ground. With both hands free Christopher lifted his tunic.
Wound around his waist, hidden from casual view, he wore an urumi. This was a thin ribbon of double-edged, razor sharp steel ten feet long and as flexible as the lash of a whip.
It was the last weapon he had learned how to use at the kalari, and the hardest to master. Used incorrectly, it could decapitate the man who wielded it.
The ivory handle fitted into his hand with perfection. With a flick of his wrist he unleashed the blade. It seemed possessed of its own life. It reached out, uncurling as it snaked through the air. The rapist was at the extreme range of the urumi; however the supple steel tip wound around his bare ankle like a serpent and tightened into a noose. It sliced through skin and flesh and tendons, and then it crushed the bones of his ankle. With a cry of agony the man fell and sprawled full length.
Christopher walked up to where he lay whimpering. He did not hurry but took his time, letting the blade of the urumi come back to his hand; slithering through the dust of the path and recoiling itself like a live cobra.
He stood over the man’s body and smiled down at him. ‘My friend, I think you know that your time has come. You can bid this w
orld farewell.’ He spoke in English which the man did not understand, but the tone and sense of the words was obvious. He whimpered and bleated for mercy, but still smiling Christopher flicked his wrist, and the urumi uncoiled itself and licked across the man’s throat. His flesh opened like a second mouth. The breath from his lungs erupted from his severed wind pipe. Almost immediately after it the blood jetted from his carotid artery, pumping to the rhythm of his heart. It splashed across Christopher’s feet, but he made no move to avoid it. He waited until the bleeding shrivelled and then stopped completely before he squatted down beside the corpse and rifled through his clothing. On a belt beneath his tunic he found a leather purse. He loosened the drawstring and poured the contents of the purse into his open hand. The coins were mostly copper but with sufficient silver to make him smile again.
The woman who the rapist had assaulted came up to where he squatted and leaned over Christopher to see what he had found. She was adjusting her clothing and straightening her skirts. Christopher looked up at her. This close she was very pretty. Her hair was thick and glossy with the oil with which she had combed into its tresses. One of her breasts was still protruding from her torn blouse. She saw Christopher looking at it and she smiled as she tucked it away unhurriedly.
‘Thank you, Sahib. May all the Gods smile upon you. I will be eternally grateful to you for saving me from this animal.’ Her voice was low and sweet toned. She placed her hand upon his shoulder and squeezed it. And Christopher wanted her.
But she seemed unaware of the effect she was having on him.
‘Where is your companion?’ she asked him.
‘Oh, sweet Christ!’ Christopher swore. He had forgotten about Jayanthan. He jumped up and ran back around the bend in the path, and almost collided with Jayanthan who was puffing towards him.
‘How dare you abandon me?’ he raged. ‘When my master hears of this—’
‘That woman was about to be raped by a bandit,’ Christopher reminded him coldly. ‘What would you have had me do?’
‘What if it had been a trap? If the bandit had friends waiting to pounce on me the moment your back was turned? You do not forget your duty because some low-caste peasant bitch is getting a tupping.’
It took all Christopher’s self-control not to retaliate. The dead man’s blood was warm on his shins, and the joy of the kill was fierce inside him. He might have taken out Jayanthan’s tongue with the urumi, just for speaking so crudely.
Instead he turned away and went back to where the woman was gathering the mangoes that had spilled from her basket and was reloading them onto the donkey. Now she offered one to Christopher.
‘Take it,’ she encouraged him. ‘It is all I can give you, for now.’
He thanked her warmly and quartered the fruit with his knife. Then he popped one of the quarters into his mouth and chewed with gusto.
‘Sweet,’ he told her. ‘As sweet as the girl who gave it to me.’
She smiled coyly, and dropped her eyes to her feet. ‘My name is Tamaana,’ she told him.
‘Chris …’ he started and then caught himself and switched to, ‘Absalom.’ Bemused by her beauty, he had almost given his real name. He glanced at Jayanthan, but the steward didn’t seem to have noticed.
She looked at the empty jungle around them and shivered. ‘Will you walk with me today to protect me, please Absalom?’
‘No,’ said Jayanthan.
‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘No,’ repeated Jayanthan. His voice rose to a petulant high pitch. ‘You are being paid to escort me and obey my orders.’
Christopher spread his legs wider and folded his arms across his chest. ‘If you wish to continue by yourself, then of course you may do so. However, I will walk with the lady.’
‘When our master hears of this …’ Jayanthan spluttered, touching the place on his chest where the bag with the rubies hung.
Tamaana stepped between them. ‘I do not wish to cause trouble with your friend.’
‘He is not my friend and he is not my master.’ Christopher took the donkey’s bridle and started walking. ‘I am going where I was ordered to go.’
‘What about him?’ she grimaced at the dead body in its pool of blood. Already, flies had started to settle.
Christopher shrugged. ‘Leave him there as a warning to others.’
They walked together for the rest of the day: Jayanthan striding silently ahead, Christopher and Tamaana following behind him. Jayanthan did not as much as glance at Tamaana: she was lower caste, and therefore virtually invisible. Christopher could hardly keep from staring at her. He could not stop thinking of what he had seen, the ripe swelling of her breast poking through her torn bodice, and the shadowy curls clustered between her thighs when the rapist had pulled her skirts up around her waist.
Think of Ruth, he told himself. Think how much sweeter it will be when you are finally together as man and wife.
But it was hard to think of Ruth when he had Tamaana by his side. Thinking of Ruth made him sullen, knotted up inside, but Tamaana brought him out of it with her chatter and her smiles. She was not much older than he was, but she was precocious and lively, with a friendliness and openness that stemmed from her humble upbringing. Her father was a farmer, in a small village near the coast, she told him. He had heard from a traveller that there were food shortages across the mountains, where the Nizam of Hyderabad had been waging war, and so his daughter had suggested taking a load of mangoes to see if they could get a better price.
‘You travelled alone?’ Christopher marvelled.
‘My brothers are all needed to work on the farm.’
‘What about your husband?’
He couldn’t help looking at her as he said it. He blushed as she caught him. She gave a smile that was not entirely shy.
‘I have no husband. My father could not afford a dowry. And, in truth, he needs me to help work the farm.’
Christopher stared at her. ‘I cannot believe anyone so beautiful as you could not find a husband.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘I must do as my father commands.’
As dusk fell, they came to a temple, at a lonely place not far below the mountain peaks. A walled enclosure surrounded a small pagoda, though the courtyard was overgrown with weeds and brambles. Blackened fire circles showed that other travellers had camped here before them.
Jayanthan laid out his blanket inside the pagoda. Christopher cut down a patch of weeds near the door and made his bed there.
‘I prefer to sleep outside,’ he told Tamaana. ‘Inside, the vermin and insects prey on you.’
They did not light a fire, in case it drew unwanted attention. They ate a simple supper of rice and daal, and one of Tamaana’s mangoes. Christopher insisted on paying her for it – ‘Otherwise, you will have none left and nothing to show for it by the time we have crossed the mountains.’
It took Christopher a long time to get to sleep. He lay on the grass, listening to the sounds of the night. Beyond the walls, the jungle creatures were vociferous. There would certainly be tigers in these mountains, and only the Lord knew what else. The forests hid a thousand places where unseen lookouts could have monitored their progress, waiting for their moment to strike.
Something rustled. Not in the forest, but inside the walls. He reached for his sword, his pulse racing. He felt no fear: his body longed for the chance to fight again.
‘Absalom?’
Tamaana came wading through the waist-high grass, holding up the skirts of her sari to avoid the brambles. She sat down beside Christopher, so close their shoulders almost touched.
‘I could not sleep. I kept seeing …’ She shuddered. ‘You cannot imagine.’
‘You’re safe now,’ Christopher reassured her.
She leaned against him, nestling her head in the crook of his arm. He held himself rigid, confused. He felt a raw and overwhelming urge to kiss her.
He gritted his teeth. Ruth, he told himself. Be strong for Ruth.
‘The
way you dealt with that monster who attacked me! I have never seen anything like it. It is a terrible weapon you wield. Wherever did you learn to use it so skilfully?’
‘I learned it in the kalari.’
She shifted her weight, twisting slightly. Her hand slipped onto his knee for balance.
‘You must have studied there many years.’
‘Not so long. I grew up far from here, in Bombay.’
She looked intrigued. ‘Are you not an Indian, then?’
‘No.’ The question didn’t surprise him. With his dark hair and dark eyes, he really had the look of a native. The long hours in the sun in the kalari had completed the transformation, turning his skin a deep nut brown. Only his size marked him out from other men.
‘My father is English, but I have lived almost my whole life in this country.’
Her hand slid up from his knee onto his thigh. Her fingers settled naturally into the crevice between his legs.
‘Is England a hot country?’
‘No. My father says it is cold and it rains all the time.’
‘Like here in the time of the monsoon?’
‘Maybe.’
Her hand had moved again. Now it rested squarely between his legs. Her fingers worked dextrously through the thin cotton, rubbing and teasing. Make her stop, his mind ordered; but his body betrayed him. His manhood rose eagerly, stiffening to her touch.
‘This is not right,’ he gasped. ‘There is … someone else.’
‘I understand,’ she said, though she didn’t move her hand. ‘You are married?’
‘No.’
‘Then how can this be wrong?’ She started moving her hand faster, massaging him until Christopher thought he would explode with desire.
‘Have you ever been with a woman before?’
‘No,’ he admitted.
She unlaced her bodice. The two halves fell open, revealing her breasts, full and perfectly shaped.
She took Christopher’s hand, opened his fingers and laid it on one of them. In the cool night air, the nipple was firm and proud. He squeezed it between finger and thumb, and she gasped.