Coromandel! (30 page)

Jason decided to change his plan. He had meant to escape in the boat after he had somehow warned the three kings of treachery--but he could make better use of it than that. He had told the captain that he was going out to the Dutch ship in it.

God’s blood, he would! He would pretend he was a messenger from the king. If he spoke with enough assurance he could prevent or delay the Dutchmen from opening fire. There were risks, but the king had almost certainly not told the Dutchmen of his existence, and it was a better plan than any other he could think of.

He settled down to await his time.

Music wailed in the hidden streets, and the army of Tiruvadi surged in a mob onto the square, halted, took up a tight formation, shouted twice, and fell silent. They wore coats of every colour--or no coat--and some had spears and some swords and one or two long firelocks. They were about a thousand strong.

The army of Ponpalamai marched in from the south, and among them were many horsemen. The army of Krishnapatti flooded in from the west.

A soldier ran down the stair from the upper room and muttered, ‘The four kings have come on elephants and are now under the awning.’

Jason craned his neck but could see nothing, not even the elephants, for the mass of horses and men and standards filling the square.

The messenger ran down again from the upper room and said, ‘The ship is crossing the bar!’

Jason said, ‘Now I must get ready.’

He left the house by the back door, slipped across the courtyard, and crouched on his heels at the top of the muddy slope leading down to the river. The boat lay ready, and the paddle lay beside it. He peered carefully round the corner of the wall. Some Manairuppu soldiers were leading goats and buffaloes into the square; twenty bands had begun to play, and some of the mass--that part which, by its position, could see down the river--had turned to stare towards the sea.

The great Dutch ship, her hull black and her sails red, rose to meet the tide rip on the bar. Her bow dipped, and the water curved out from it in a heavy blue wave, and white lace wrinkled along the ship’s black sides behind it. She rode over the shallow water of the bar, settled, and came on in silence.

Jason launched his boat and began to paddle towards the ship. Once he glanced over his shoulder. Confusion was spreading in the square. Perhaps the kings were already shouting, ‘Treachery!’ But the music would drown those shouts, and the temple horns were blowing and the priests shouting incantations and the swords falling on the sacrificial animals. He paddled with sudden desperation.

The bow of the ship loomed over him. He stopped paddling and shouted, ‘Don’t fire. I have a message from the king.’

Ah, he had spoken in Tamil. They would not understand. He shouted again in English. Three heads sprang up over the bow, two blond and one dark--the chamberlain! The chamberlain’s mouth dropped open, and his hat fell off. His arms waved; he was yelling something; the blond heads disappeared. The sails roared down with a clatter and a rush.

Jason swung the boat round with two fierce strokes of the paddle and headed upriver, racing on the tide to beat the ship.

After half a minute’s frantic paddling he stood up, waving his paddle in the air, and began to shout and scream his warning to the packed armies in the square. ‘The houses around you are full of soldiers,’ he shrieked. ‘Look to your arms! Treachery! Close up to fight!’ The black bulk of the Dutch ship towered behind him; the anchor thundered into the river. In the square the noise rose to a full-throated universal scream, and all the men and animals struggled together in mad confusion.

The Dutch ship fired its guns. The blast hurled Jason to his knees. For a moment he struggled to prevent the craft from rolling over. When he looked up he saw that long avenues had opened up across the square--avenues paved with torn, prostrate figures. A man on one leg was hopping towards the river. The ship fired again and again and again. The houses burst open, and Manairuppu soldiers poured into the square, and swords rose and fell like twinkling fireflies.

A fountain of water jumped out of the river in front of him, and a cannon-ball whistled viciously over his head. He turned quickly. The Dutchmen were trying to bring the bow chaser to--bear on him, but could not depress it sufficiently. The chamberlain was dancing up and down and waving his fists.

Jason paddled furiously towards the bank. The farther he went the greater would be his danger, because the bow chaser would soon be able to bear--but he could not stay where he was, or they’d bring out the firelocks and shoot him with those.

The first four shots missed him. Ten seconds more and he’d be on the bank. The fifth shot hit the stern of the log boat. The boat flew to pieces, the logs kicked out of the water, catapulting him high in the air. Among logs and rope and flying paddle he fell back into the river.

He struggled quickly through waist-deep water to the bank. A cannon-ball showered him with mud, and he broke into a gasping run. He glanced back once. The ship’s longboat, full of Dutch soldiers in armour, was rowing towards the shore, directly behind him. He ran now along the river bank, past the square, towards the sea. They could not see him from the square because the bank sloped down sharply to the river.

What was the use of running? Why didn’t he take his sword --he had it in his hand--and go and kill the king? The king would be guarded. The Dutch longboat reached the bank. The chamberlain shrieked and yelled. Four horsemen broke loose from the king’s bodyguard and began to force their way to the river bank, where they could run him down. Jason reached the end of the square, ran behind the house where he had spent the night, and plunged into the alleys of the city.

After a moment he untied his cummerbund as he ran, and threw it away. Then the pink sash for the sword, then the sword itself and its encrusted scabbard--he threw them away. Exultant crowds shrieked in the streets. The four horsemen followed him, but he could move faster than they among the press of the people.

Six more cavalrymen rode out of a side alley in front of him. His pursuers, signalling over the heads of the crowd, made the new arrivals understand that they were to let no one pass them. Jason hurried on, untying the strings of his money bag. When he reached the line of horses across the street he threw gold and pearls, diamonds, pieces of eight, rubies, and gold mohurs into the dirt at their feet. The crowd saw and dived for the money. The soldiers saw and rode their horses together, flung themselves down and joined the mad, fighting mob on their knees. Jason slipped through among them.

He ran into a courtyard and saw a fat woman cooking at her fire. He tore off the rest of his clothes, grabbed hot ash from the fire and dust from the earth, and rubbed them over his dripping body. He pulled at his hair and ran filthy fingers through it and down his face. The fat woman screamed and screamed beside him. He shouted, ‘Quiet!’ climbed over the back wall, picked up one of the hundred sticks and staves lying in the street, and slowed his pace.

Now, stark naked, smeared with ash from head to foot, his hair matted in front of his face, the long stick in his right hand, he strode south. He shouted angry gibberish as he went, which might have been the challenges and exhortations and holy texts of a fakir, but was not, for it was English blasphemy and cursing against God. People who saw him coming stepped hurriedly out of his way with a prayer and a joining of the hands. He was holy of the holiest, drunk with holiness, because he owned nothing in the world beyond a stick. Wild and filthy, he strode past the soldiers and out of the booming city.

The pearling fleet was preparing for sea. Jason stood among the men on the sand, clean again, and wearing a loincloth Simon had given him when he arrived in the middle of the night. The pearlers had been celebrating the Dussehra then, and had paused only momentarily to greet him and help him to a hut, before returning to their jugs of toddy. He had slept, but now, in the early morning, by the scattered wood ash and the broken jugs and the man lying stretched face down on the dry mud above the creek, he knew they had kept it up all night. Simon’s eyes were bloodshot, and the women looked worn and dishevelled.

Simon stood in his log boat, his wife patiently holding the boat steady with the paddle, and said, ‘Are you sure you will not come to sea with us, Jason? You will bring us luck.’

‘No,’ Jason said shortly. ‘I must get ready to move on. At any moment the king may send men to find me.’

Simon said, ‘Do not fear. You are born to be a great man. It is in your eyes. What has happened ‘ He stretched out his arms. ‘It has happened. Give us a blessing, please, if you cannot come with us.’

Jason hesitated--but, damnation, what did he care? He raised his hand and murmured, ‘Abracadabra, ding dong bell, pussy’s in the well.’ Simon made the sign of the cross, kissed both lingam and crucifix charms. His wife began to paddle, and the boat gathered way.

Jason watched with sullen hostility as the little craft rippled out into the turquoise sea. Simon had been responsible for his present troubles, by lying about the Dutchman. Everyone had lied to him, but, by God, he had tried to help Simon and his miserable pearlers and this was how they repaid him. He turned back and walked up the beach towards the huts. The drunkard had roused himself and staggered into his hut to sleep it off. Two old women and a crippled man squatted in a group under the largest palm tree, but the mud bank was deserted, and there Jason sat down and put his chin in his hands and thought.

The king knew now that he had tried to prevent the massacre by the river yesterday. The king was a contradictory little man and might not be very angry, since the massacre had succeeded. But it was not safe to assume that. The king also knew that the pearlers were Jason’s friends. But he would be busy now. And he would think, perhaps, that Jason was trapped in the kingdom by his own actions, and that there was therefore no reason for haste in catching him. Certainly there would be no shelter in the three neighbouring kingdoms, because he had been the treacherous envoy who had beguiled them into destroying themselves. Then there were the Dutch for the king to deal with, and some enemy soldiers would be hiding in the city and would have to be ferreted out; and there were six more days of the Dussehra.

He was probably safe here for a day or two yet. Then he must go. He needed money and a good horse. With them he could leave the kingdom, cross Ponpalamai, and reach Madura. He needed a sword and a dagger. He needed clothes. Above all he needed money, at once. Well, he could get that easily enough. He knew the ways of Coromandel now. Some of the people who looked poor were in fact rich. Women carried their wealth about on them in the form of gold bangles and ornaments.

One of the old women under the palm called, ‘A stranger is coming.’

Jason stood up, his heart beating painfully. But, peering through the reeds, he saw that it was only one person coming down the path. It was a woman. She walked slowly with a big square bundle on her head, one arm uplifted to hold the bundle, and the other swinging wearily at her side. She wore nothing above the waist. Her breasts were small and high, and her belly flat; her cotton skirt swung with the movement of her hips. Jason started forward. It was a red skirt with yellow and black designs. Parvati had sometimes worn a skirt of that colour and pattern.

The high sun hid the woman’s face in the shadow of the bundle. For a moment he could not be sure. Then he saw. It was Catherine d’Alvarez.

He stared at her naked torso as she came close. He had seen a thousand Indian women like that since he landed in Coromandel--but this was the Portuguese grandee’s daughter, who wore high-necked dresses and long sleeves.

He relaxed with a frown. She was not really pretty, and he disliked her. She came to a stop near him. Her dark eyes glistened for a moment, seeking his own, then slowly she leaned forward and fell face down in the mud. The bundle burst open and scattered its contents around her. Jason stared down in disbelief at a necklace, his Wiltshire poaching knife, a blanket, Voy’s shoulder sack, her wooden spectacle case, his books. Among the books his map fluttered in the small wind.

The old woman said, ‘Aren’t you going to help her? Is she an enemy?’

Jason started, hurried to the stream, filled a pan with water, held her sitting upright, and dashed the water in her face. After a moment she shook her head and opened her eyes and said,

‘They murdered my father and the housekeeper and Father Felipe.’

Jason gasped. ‘Murdered them! But--‘

She said, ‘You murdered them, Jason. My father warned you. I warned you.’ She burst into a torrent of weeping. ‘Thank God I could not see. But I heard. They chopped them with axes and swords in the big hall, and Father Felipe in the orange garden.’

Jason said tensely, ‘It wasn’t my fault. How was I to know they would attack you? I risked my life to stop the massacre by the river.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she said. ‘You only cared about turning the tables on the king. You weren’t thinking about saving anyone’s life.’ She stood up and leaned heavily on him for a moment. ‘Where is my bundle?’

‘Here. At your feet.’

‘Everything that we need is here. Parvati gave me this skirt and dyed me. Parvati got your books and the map and the rest from the palace. She risked her life. Let go now.’

She stood away from him and turned her head slowly round and whispered, ‘The sun is shining. I can smell mud and seaweed. They have been drinking toddy, and now there is food cooking--fish.’

The slim column of her neck fitted gracefully into her shoulders. The sheen of the sun touched the curve of her breasts. The long muscles of her belly ran down on either side of her navel. Jason looked away, flushing.

She said, ‘I want to sleep. How can I sleep? What I see is more than I can see, more than I saw. Jason, never, never forget what you have done.’ She spoke at him firmly and without anger. She said, ‘I know you could not help it, because you are you. But this was really not you. This happened because you had let yourself become selfish. You were thinking only of how
you
could be rich and powerful and ‘