Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (27 page)

Ram's eyes widened. "It's safe for you to go there now?"

"Aye, since he's gone. The new hands don't seem to care."

Ram had almost forgotten the blustering captain, but now he raised his glass. "To his perdition!" Fred approved profanely.

They drank more toasts, friendly ones, until Fred took papers from his portmanteau. "Let's to work, look you. The monsoon's due soon and I want to be out of this cursed river before it floods. Come, check over the goods, so that one-eyed friend of yours pays me the gold and jewels."

"I'll have my gunner check the artillery." Ram went unsteadily to the tent's mouth and shouted for Jakes Topc/if—Artilleryman.

Jakes arrived. Taking the lists, he looked hard-eyed at Morgan. "I don't take poor stuff, mister. If the pieces ain't perfect, keep 'em. And I accept naught but fine-corned powder."

Ram stifled an oath. Jakes was growing too high! True, Fred was no great shakes, but he was an Austrian militia officer.

But Fred only shrugged. "All's of finest quality, so don't haggle, look you." When the seaman had left, however, he commented

thickly: "That one was born to hang. His phiz is devihsh famihar, I think. I vow I've seen him around Fort WilHam."

Ram barely avoided blurting that Jakes was an H.E.I.C. deserter. Instead, he explained: "Baja found him at Puri. He's good with guns, and in this work we don't ask a man's past."

"You've found fine loot with your black friends?" Fred asked, drunkenly crafty. "What about it, man, eh?"

"I've done well thus far." Ram fingered the great diamond in his pocket, which reminded him of something else. He gave orders that the tea chest and a bale of silk he'd brought with him be carried into Fred's tent. Both were addressed in his own hand to Mistress Hannah Anstruther at Dalesview.

"I'll thank you to put these aboard the next ship." He gave a letter to the same address. "They're gifts for my Gammer."

The other eyed the chest dubiously. "Ecod, where in Hindustan d'ye find tea that's fit for sending home?"

"A China merchant gave it me for a trifling service I did him. 'Tis from Cathay and of most rare quality." It was fine tea, true, but by Chanda's inspiration packed in it was a set of red and white chessmen. One hollowed-out piece held Ganesha's other eye. The tea would pay the English tax; but even if it were opened, only chessmen would be found—a safe way of sending them. Who would think to look for a gem inside one? As for the silk, it would make many fine dresses for Dalesview's womenfolk.

The letter told of the gifts and concluded, "When, Gran, ye play the pieces, remember the Red King wins all." Gammer's sharp wits would set her fingering the piece and find it heavier than the rest. The eye would pay off all mortgages and more.

Business having exhausted Fred, he began to snore on his cot, so Ram went out into the heat and sought Baja. Only when they were free of the camp, did Ram produce the diamond.

"Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, whence came this?" Baja gaped.

Ram told him. "But only you and I share it; and the golden god, if gold he is," he added. "I'll not divide with any verminous gossein or your other strange friends."

"Bhaee, the gods of Hind and your Feringi god have blessed us!" Baja capered around wildly. "None shall learn its source, but it will travel by trusted hands to a great merchant, who'll pay half a lakh

at least for it! Wah, we must hasten back to Ahmedpur. Then we'll find your cave and greet Ganesha most reverently—with tools." That it was solid gold, he was sure. "Tales tell of such disappearing from their temples. This must be one such."

Another day, and the munitions were handed over, Fred paid in coin and gems. Ram bade him farewell, sending good wishes to the Humes, whom he intended never to see again.

Then the week-long journey across the mountains and back to Ahmedpur. On the way he and Baja had planned how carefully they would slip away without creating suspicion and reach the cave. Baja insisted that even Chanda must not be told.

Chanda! How sweet her welcome; how sweet to lie with her beside him and to think of the future! He was tempted now to awaken her, simply to see her lovely eyes widening in recognition. But she must be tired, with the child growing within her . . . my child! If it's a girl, it'll have her gold-ivory color; if a boy, belike 'twill have my ruddy hair. . . . Gammer'll call it pretty names and spoil it, as she used to spoil me. . . .

He slept.

His dreams were sweet, but then began one of his infrequent nightmares, in which huge, grotesque figures as large as the Juggernaut himself were bearing down upon him, were gripping his throat with enormous hands, while screams and curses came from afar.

It was real!

Dazzled by torches, he was being dragged across the floor. Incredibly, he knew then that he was in the grip of some of his troopers. Hauling him to his feet, they twisted his arms behind him brutally. Yelling in Hindustani and English, he kicked out with his bare feet. One blow caught a captor in the stomach, doubling him up and making him drop his torch. Instantly Chanda, cowering beside the divan, snatched up an unlit lamp and tossed it upon the spluttering torch, so that its spilled oil ignited. "Fly! Fly, lord!" she implored as men, stamping and yelling, tried to put out the flames. But then she moaned as someone hit her. Her cry tore into Ram's brain and red haze filmed his eyes. Raging, he broke free and drove toward her, only to be seized again, and now a saber's point pricked his chest deeply. He glared unbelievingly, for the sword was held by—Jakes!

He screamed then, for Chanda, like himself nude, was locked in the deserter's free arm.

"My turn now, ye young barstard!" Jakes wounded him again, just over the heart. "I'd sHt yer bleedin' throat, but His Highness wants ye ahve, damn yer!" Grinning, he sheathed the saber and began to paw Chanda obscenely.

Utterly crazed and using demoniac strength, Ram fought to reach her. . . .

CHAPTER 9 AHMEDPUR PRISON, 1726

Gradually Ram's eyes focused upon a stone floor. At once sickening pain lanced him, and every slight movement was sheer agony. He lay, he realized, against a stone wall and from somewhere above sunbeams played upon him. He was still nude.

"Arre, bhaee, I thought you would never awaken," he heard.

He sat up, the floor and walls spinning around him; but at last they became steady and he saw Baja, nose puffed hideously and slanted toward his left cheek; a long gash extended from his empty eye socket to his mouth. He wore only a skimpy dhoti.

"Where are we?" Ram had to grope for the Hindustani words.

The other achieved a wry grin. "Honored guests of His Highness the Maharaj Dadaji Rao Bahadur. Bhaee, I feared you were dead when they flung me in here. You lay in a pool of blood, but the cut in your head and your chest wounds have now closed."

Ram could remember no blow on his head, but now he traced a gash from his crown to behind his right ear. The hair was matted, the skin puffed. His torso was blood-smeared, with wounds under his nipple and near his heart.

"Jakes! The traitorly whore's bastard!" Realization brought him swaying to his feet. "But why, why did he turn on us?"

"Not he alone." Baja rose to support him. "Another was that unspeakable mouth of a urine-drinker, Khafi Khan—may his members rot!" Abruptly he rolled on the floor, writhing and screeching curses until, amazingly, he sat up and said calmly: "They plotted long, Khafi Khan, Jakes and the rest, dripping flattery in Dadaji's ears and convincing him they are great generals, who will bring half Hindustan under his sway. Thus we are prisoners while they grow rich under his smiles. May their—!"

Four armed men entered the cell, with another who carried a water jar, some chupattis and a small pot of ghee—clarified butter. One guard flung a bundle at Ram, consisting of his breeches, shirt and waistcoat, but no boots or stockings.

"Cover thy nakedness, Feringi."

Ram obeyed gladly, the clothes restoring his self-respect. But at once he and Baja were flung down, and a smith entered with a portable forge. Shackles were forced around their ankles and welded together. The heat seared their legs, but they were held so helplessly they could only groan and curse. When it was done, the guards left, rebolting the heavy door, which was pierced only by a small grille at eye level. Ram rubbed his blistered ankles. The shackles were attached by rings to a connecting bar, which made it impossible to close the feet or to take a full step.

"I feel safer," Baja said surprisingly. "Prisoners about to be murdered are not so honored. No, the rajah has use for us."

"Use?"

"It's plain." He spoke in a whisper. "The fools think he trusts them, but he's too clever. They can't take the field until after the monsoon. If then they win him great victories, he'll have us killed. If not, they'll die and we'll be restored to favor."

It was shrewd reasoning, but it brought Ram no comfort, and remembrance of Jakes passing his hand over Chanda's lovely body brought a new frenzy. "Chanda! Chanda!"

"Bhaee, this is no time for idle regrets," Baja said sternly. "Come, we'll explore our domain. I've been in worse." They peered through the door's grille onto a little high-walled yard with a solid wooden gate. Their cell, eight feet by twelve, had a small window at either end, set high up and heavily grilled. "Ramji, I ache from many hurts, yet you must mount my back and see the outside."

Though the leg irons made it difficult—and most painful for Baja —Ram was at last able to peer through one window. "A high wall, with houses beyond. It must be a street between, for I can hear vendors calling and cart wheels moving." He slid down.

"I know it, it runs outside the palace walls," Baja nodded. "Now the other." The view from this one was partly blocked by another high wall, but Ram could see the palace dome beyond it.

"Arre, our rajah likes us close to him," Baja said. "Now eat, for we need our strength." He insisted upon Ram taking his full share, though he himself used the barest amount of ghee on his flavorless chupattis and sipped only a little water.

"Tear off a sleeve," he ordered later. "Untended wounds kill fast in prison." When Ram complied, he ripped the sleeve into strips. Soaking one strip with the water, he sponged Ram's blood-matted head, and bandaged it with another wetted strip. With a third piece he cleaned the worst of his own hurts.

Though cooled by the bandage. Ram soon had a new torture; his bladder was overfull. Yet he dreaded to relieve himself when already scores of flies swarmed over the remaining chupattis and ghee.

At last the door was unbolted and the jailer crooked a finger, standing aside warily as they shuffled outside. The yard was no larger than the cell, but in one corner was a primitive latrine. Black clouds overhead made the air stifling, for the monsoon was overdue. Soon the jailer signed for them to return inside.

"Then say so!" Ram flared. "Are you dumb?"

He was. He opened his mouth to show he had no tongue; he pointed to his ears, indicating he was also deaf.

When they were bolted in once more, Baja chuckled. "Dadaji takes care we can never bribe our way out. But I have a kingdom to win, so we must use other means to escape."

"Escape? Do you think we can dig under these thick walls with bits of the water jug? Can we walk through the town in irons and beg the gate guard to pass us out?"

"Are there no prisons in Feringiland? Do no prisoners escape?" Baja became absorbed with the folds of his dhoti, so that Ram half expected him to produce a file. Instead, he pulled a thread from the cloth and held it up. "This will cut our way out."

Ram was sure then he was imprisoned with a madman.

"We must save most of our ghee. Praise Bhowani, we have very dusty quarters. Thread, oil and dust! While the rains prevent campaigning, w'e'll cut ourselves free." Baja kneaded the thread in the ghee until it was impregnated, then he gathered dust and covered the thread with it. Carefully he passed an end under the hasp of one shackle and painstakingly drew it up and down, up and down.

Ram groaned at this obvious insanity. God, if only Chanda still lived and could escape from that bastard Jakes, she'd devise a real rescue. Who'd ever heard of sawing through metal with cotton?

"You also must saw," Baja said, working with infinite delicacy. "Tonight we'll start on the window."

To indulge him. Ram tried to draw a thread from his shirt. But he was clumsy and whenever he found a free end, it broke off too short. He tried his breeches, but the wool was too finely woven.

"Aie, I shall be shamed when we get free!" Baja chuckled. "I'll have no dhoti left. Here's a thread. Use it gently."

But for pride's sake Ram had to find his own. He examined his long waistcoat; its pocket flaps were fringed with gold lace and stiffened with buckram—coarse linen impregnated with gum.

"See!" Baja exulted. "And this after only an hour's work." A thin bright mark showed on the hasp.

Encouraged, Ram unraveled some strands of lace. Being fine-drawn metal they were far stronger than thread, though dust did not adhere to them so well. But he set to work.

"Three months, and we'll be free," Baja predicted happily.

"Three months? But what of your scout friends? Surely they won't let you rot here while Khafi Khan and Jakes lord it over them?"

"Didn't you give me the diamond?" Baja countered. "Suraya Rao, the gossein, and two more left last night, bound for a certain gem merchant in Delhi. None of my brothers remains here."

"Brothers?"

"By vow only. Whence think you I had wealth enough to buy cannon? I'm one of a band in which all contribute to the common good."

So that's why the scouts served only under him. Ram realized; why the gossein was at the temple and those others that night at the rest house!

"Khafi Khan also took the oath to Bhowani, holy wife of Siva, yet he's betrayed us!" Baja cried. "His end will be terrible!"

By nightfall, Ram could barely move his wrists, but Baja insisted they start on the window facing the street. So, leaning half bent against the wall, he supported Baja while he began to file. They rested, then Ram mounted. His wire strands wore out quickly and seemed barely to scratch the first bar. Yet both men worked at it in turns until dawn.