Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (22 page)

evening. "Go. I need you no more tonight."

After a thoughtful drink, he went into his bedroom. A figure lay huddled in one corner,

"Bea." Why did she lie there? Was she ill? But as he crossed to her, he knew she wasn't Bea. He lifted her up.

The thasseel

"How did you get here?" He repeated the question in Hindustani.

Great lustrous eyes watched him piteously and he felt her body quivering. Only then did he see she was bound hand and foot.

"Ecod, what's this?" He hurried into the main room and tore an ornamental dagger from the wall. When he returned with it, she shuddered and closed her eyes, "I won't hurt you." He cut through the tough native ropes. When she was free, she collapsed before him supplicatingly, her small hands touching his boots.

"Here." He sat in a chair and raised her until she knelt before him. "Now, what is your name. Speak."

"Chanda, lord." Terror was in her voice, yet its music thrilled him. Gradually he coaxed out her story: One evening, as she walked alone in the temple grounds, a man appeared. As was her duty, she offered herself. But another man arrived and together they gagged her, covered her with a shawl and carried her off. Such sacrilege made her faint. When she came to, she was aboard a dhow at sea. For many days she remained bound in the cabin. There was a one-eyed Maratha devil who said she was now the slave of a Feringi god. Tonight he had brought her here.

Baja had done this for him! Why? It was flattering and puzzling. And what to do with her? She couldn't remain here.

Chanda—the Moon! By the lamplight her features did have the luminosity of the moon. His slave! His heart pounded. "If I set you free, where would you go?"

She shuddered. "By leaving the temple I am defiled, lord. Where could I go, save to seek death?"

He bent to comfort her, but she shrank away. "You are mine!" he flared, hurt. "I could starve you, beat you, kill you! But I do not do such things." Seeing her eye the dagger, he flung it through an open window. "You will stay here until I decide. I may put you among my compound servants." Once more he tried to soothe her, but she cringed as if his hand was a coiled cobra.

"Pale, without blood!" she moaned. "Krishna help me!"

He smiled then. Of course! She must never before have seen a European. "My blood's as red as yours—as hot. And you yourself are paler than most Hindus."

"I am from Rajputana," she said proudly. "We of my race descend from warriors of Iskander, who came conquering long ago."

"Then you're white too!" he laughed excitedly. "Alexander was from a land not far from my own." Macedonia, he felt, wasn't too distant from England. Hadn't he been near it when he was in Serbia?

She showed less revulsion. "Aie, lord, I did not know."

"The one-eyed one who brought you here, where is he?" But she shook her head. Well, Baja couldn't be far. He must take her away; there were strict orders against keeping native women in the fort area. But first? He bit his lips. No, the poor wench was half dead with fear, perhaps starved.

"You are hungry?" There was food in the dining room.

She nodded timidly. But when he brought it, she put it away, which angered him until he realized Hindu women did not eat with men. "Eat," he ordered. "I'll remain near, so don't tr)' to run away."

"I shall remain, lord." She was staring at the food avidly.

He went out to pace the veranda. God, she was lovely! His palms grew moist. Should he take her now, force her? No, that would be like Ritter. He must first soothe her. Perhaps there'd be a house in the bazaars. But would she stay there? He swore fretfully.

When he returned within, the food had gone and she was sitting on the floor again. Seating himself, he bade her come closer. "How came you to the Temple of Juggernaut, a thousand coss from Rajputana?"

Eight years before, when she was six, she told him meekly, her parents had brought her on a pilgrimage to the festival. Her father, great-bearded and laughing, was a zemindar —landowner—with many servants; her mother gentle and beautiful. She remembered how, afterward, on the long journey homeward they were joined by armed men who engaged to protect them through dangerous areas. But as they passed through a lonely defile, the guards' leader shouted: "Bhaee, pan lao!" and flung a cloth around her father's neck. The others did the same to her mother and the servants. In an instant all were dead, as she would have been but for the leader.

"They were thugs, lord. Human tigers who kill for loot." The leader kept her for a while, she went on, then sold her to a priest, who brought her to the temple. "There I was happy. There were many other girls. We were taught the holy Vedas, to read and write and dance the sacred tales. Two years ago a Brahman initiated me into the arts of love. Since then men have admired me." She gave a sob. "Now I am defiled and cannot return to the temple."

That she, still a child, was a prostitute might have shocked him but for Carla, who had loved him. He must make Chanda love him too. He would be very gentle with her.

He stroked her hair and, though she tensed, she no longer cringed. "You are beautiful, your hair is as black as a cloud," he ventured. "Thy lips are like the fruit of the talachucha."

"Aie, lord!" she breathed. A small hand moved timidly to rest on his own. "Arre, who would desire an outcast? I, who was of the Kshatriya—defiled!"

"O Essence of Beauty, the lord may become the slave," he murmured. "What matters if you are of Hind and I a Feringi? Are we not male and female? Do we not think, feel?"

She hesitated, then: "What is my lord? Of Sudra caste?"

"No, I am a warrior, an officer in my Emperor's service."

Doubt drained from her and suddenly she was a woman-child, fascinating, desirable. But when he touched a soft breast, she gave a little moan. "Noko, noko, rajl Touch me not! I am a miserable outcast, unworthy of thy condescension."

"God damn you for a tantalizing whore!" he blazed in good round English. Then in Hindustani: "In the name of the gods, let us be as man and woman have been since time's dawn!"

Her smile was swift, provocative. "Lord, am I not thy slave?"

The others had surrendered to him in a delirium of passion. But this child, priest taught, was far more skilled than they. Yet, amazingly, the lovemaking must follow a rote. There were movements, incitations of which he was ignorant. In his urgency he would have brushed them aside, but she knew no other way. And at the culmination, he realized Annie and Bea had nothing of this art. Half bred, they strove to be what they imagined European women were. But all the love mysteries of Hind were know to this thassee.

The monsoon had broken and the rain seemed like an impenetrable sheet as he belted on his sword. I can't turn her out in this! he worried. To hell with the order. Chanda! . . . How lovely a name, how lovely a creature! I'll find a house for her later, with servants of her own. Slave or not, I'll treat her well.

Where's Baja? Ecod, I'll have his hide if he's fooling me about those guns. Fifty thousand's a deal of rupees, and I'll be responsible. Still, he brought the girl; likely he'll have the cash.

Opening his large umbrella, he splashed through the mud to the fort, feeling curiously out of spirits. Soon Ritter arrived, looking sour and bleary.

"Gott, what a land! If only that cursed dowry would increase threefold, I'd go back on the next ship and buy my title. Baron Kurt von Ritter!" He rolled the words over his tongue. Then remembering his dignity: "Herr Leutnant, you will inspect the men's quarters and the magazine." He lumbered out again, his umbrella tentlike over his bulk.

Ram swore aloud. The quarters had been inspected only yesterday, and no ammunition had been withdrawn for weeks.

His teeth were chattering. What now? Cholera? Oh, God, no! Bowels were all right. . . But this shaking!

A dull ache behind the eyes, his body alternately chilled and burning, he dragged through his unfruitful tasks. But by noon he had to send Ritter a chit that he was ill, and lurched to his quarters.

Bolal Sen relieved him of his soaked outer clothes. "He of the one-eye awaits you, sahib."

"Bring him." He sat weakly. Damme, to have to talk now!

Baja appeared, grinning. "Arre, have I found merit in your sight?" Then his face sobered. "Aie, fever! Summon your doctor. I return when you are recovered." He clapped his hands importantly. When Gopal Das reappeared he ordered him to carry their lord to his bed and, if he valued his life, to serve him night and day. Then he vanished.

Ram was in a delirum for three days. Faces loomed and went: Wiktorin, Bolal Sen, Gopal Das. Once, during the night, he fancied that Chanda moved wraithlike near him; later that she raised his head and made him drink something that was ineffably cool.

He became rational, though weak. The surgeon came in, looking

complacent, "Ach, youngling, I brought you through," he beamed. "You would have died but for my treatments."

"I didn't feel near dying," Ram protested.

The other shook his head. "These diseases are usually fatal; but we were cabin mates on the ship. I made special efforts. Gott sei danke, they were rewarded. I drew over two pints of blood from you. Most satisfactory." He left, rubbing his hands.

Ram slept. When he awakened, Baja was beside his bed. "Wah, bhaee, you are recovering." The single eye beamed. "Your doctor is a fool. He might have killed you with his letting of blood."

"I thought so too." Ram grinned feebly. "What ailed me?"

"Something from the bad air. It comes often during the rains. Bhaee, I have money to deposit on the guns. I have need of them."

Tliey talked guns. Baja was surprised but not unduly shocked that they would cost half a lakh, though he said it would take time to accumulate so much. Meanwhile, would the factory's wheelwrights make carriages and caissons? Ram thought it was possible.

"In two weeks I return with the gold," the Maratha said, rising.

"Stay. I must thank you for the girl. She is lovely."

"Your brother is glad she gives you pleasure."

"Please me more by finding a house in the bazaars. I cannot keep her here—it is forbidden."

"Feringis are fools," Baja chuckled. "We keep our women in zenanas —wives and concubines alike. But you allow only your wives to live with you. A house shall be found."

Later, Ram sent for Chanda. She glided in, her anklets clinking.

"My lord wishes my presence?"

He raised himself on an elbow to watch her. Her eyes were doelike and her face was very pale. "You were here when I was ill?"

"Yes, lord, in the night hours, when no one else watched you."

He looked more closely. There was something missing. "Come here."

When she obeyed, he knew. She had removed her caste mark.

"Yes, lord, it is gone," she said simply.

"If I freed you, you could replace it and none would know."

"I no longer have a caste."

These heathen! Feeling guilty, he began to understand how terrible that must be. Yet—a caste of whores! When he asked if temple

girls remained dedicated to the god all their lives, she said that some married later. When others grew too old for marriage, they left the temple and became public courtesans—some grew wealthy.

"Are you now content to remain with me?"

She lowered her head. "Yes, lord."

"The one-eyed one who stole you—he was here today."

She nodded without expression.

"He is my friend."

"He is a bad man."

"Because he committed sacrilege by stealing you?"

"No, lord. Many who are bad Hindus are not bad men. He is."

But when he demanded her meaning she fled. Soon, however, she returned with a cool sherbet drink. "My lord is weary. Drink and sleep. I will watch."

He drifted into a dreamless slumber, from which he was roused by someone calling his name. It was Bea. "I dared not come sooner," she whispered. "That stupid surgeon said you had a mortal sickness, though Father swore it was but the rain fever." Slipping off her wet cloak, she put a cool hand on his forehead. Then she stiffened, staring. "Who's that?"

He turned and saw Chanda crouching in the shadows. "Go!" he shouted, embarrassment tightening his nerves. Obediently she vanished.

"So, now ye take natives!" Outraged, Bea cut short his lame explanations. "I'm no' good enough for ye, eh? And you pretending sick so ye could have her at your pleasure—a dirty black bitch!"

"Not so black as you!" Too late, he regretted the taunt.

"Oh!" Her face suffused. "As God's ma maker, Ram Anstruther, ye'll rue that! I'd have married ye, brought ye a fortune. But now!" She struck him so hard that lightning flashed before his eyes. She stormed out.

A pale sun burned its way through and turned the dampness into steam, so that natives and Europeans alike gasped as if their lungs were scalding. Ram dissipated his scant energy in cursing that he had ever come to this tormented land. But at last the day passed and now he was supping alone, sweat running down inside his clothes.

He gulped Madeira and swore because of a persisting headache and because Chanda wasn't there to pass soft fingers over his temples. But, during his absence, Baja Rao had come, Bolal Sen reported, and taken her away toward the bazaars.

She's mine! he fumed. Why shouldn't I keep her? And damn Bea and her works, she's not worth one of Chanda's toes. Dirty black bitch! Bah! He paced the room as the khidmatgar was clearing the table. "Leave wine," he ordered and went out onto the veranda.

If, he wondered ironically, he went through some sort of ceremony with Chanda, would she be accepted into the factory's high society? Whatever happened, he wouldn't let her go.

Someone approached the steps. He hoped it was Baja, reporting where he'd taken the girl.

"Ram!" Annie hurried to him. "Oh, I thought to find ye still in bed! I came as soon as I dared."

"I vow it's beyond my deserts, ma'am," he bowed stiffly.

"Best send off the servants." She hesitated. "Ram, I don't understand this."

He went inside. The khidmatgar had gone, leaving a wine decanter. Drawing the chicks, he puzzled why Annie had come. Where was Ritter? He felt uneasy.