Ryman, Rebecca (21 page)

For
Olivia's entertainment that evening, the Maharaja had arranged an elaborate
ballet in the crimson and gold audience hall of the main palace, quite the
largest room Olivia had ever seen. She felt deeply honoured and touched at the
thoughtfulness. Attended by a host of ladies and chattering maidservants, she
and Kinjal sat in a curtained enclosure, for the hall was packed with people.
The Maharaja was in another enclosure with leading dignitaries of his court.
The ballet unfolded a story from the Hindu epic
Ramayana;
the dancing
was full of fluid grace, captivating rhythms and intricate footwork. Court
musicians swayed with the beat and made music on strange instruments—wind,
string and percussion—and the dancers all wore bands of brass bells on their
ankles. For Olivia it was an alien experience but nonetheless pleasant, for the
innovations and improvisations of the musicians, as explained to her by Kinjal,
showed complexities that were disciplined if not easily understandable.

At
the dinner that followed, served Western style in the Maharani's palace, there
were just the three of them. From the Maharaja's talk, wide ranging and
informal, Olivia learned much about the mystique of kingship as practised in
India with subtle balances between pragmatism and tradition, at least in
Kirtinagar. The Maharaja's plans for his State were ambitious and imaginative,
and his concern for his people was evidently foremost in his mind.

Two
subjects were not touched upon, among the many that were—the coal and Jai
Raventhorne. Olivia was certain that the omission in both cases was calculated.

"Our
base for the shoot will be my hunting lodge in the jungle." Dinner was
over and the Maharaja was almost done with the gurgling hookah at which he
pulled with unalloyed pleasure. "We have to make a dawn start so as to
reach it before the sun rises high."

An
early night was called for, but, still charged with excitement from everything
she had seen, experienced and heard, Olivia felt not the least sleepy. "I
am in the habit of reading awhile before I go to bed. My uncle tells me you
have an extensive library here with a fine collection of rare books. May I be
permitted to browse there for a half hour?"

Olivia's
request pleased the Maharaja, and an aide was immediately dispatched to unlock
the library, housed in a separate building, and prepare it for her perusal. She
bid Kinjal good night, for they would not now meet before the morning, and
followed the Maharaja across the compound. During the slow, leisured walk they
discussed books. "Bender's travel diaries about India might interest you,
Miss O'Rourke, and perhaps Kalidasa's epic poem,
Shakuntala.
I have
translations of both in English." They chatted for a few more minutes on
the steps of the library, a handsome white single-storied building with scarlet
bougainvillea spilling over the portico, and then the Maharaja excused himself,
pleading matters still to be attended to for the shoot. "We are truly
delighted that you are with us, Miss O'Rourke," he said; then, with
visible hesitation, he added in a murmur something that was extraordinary,
"but I sincerely hope you never have occasion to regret your visit."

For
a moment Olivia stood rock still. There was a gusty breeze blowing and the
Maharaja's voice had been low; after brief introspection Olivia decided that
the two had combined to deceive her ears, for there could be no logical
explanation for what she thought he had said. With a shrug, she abandoned her
bafflement and went inside.

Like
the evocative aroma of damp earth, there is also something universal in a room
filled with old books. Glass-fronted cupboards lined with velvet stood open for
her benefit; calf-bound volumes, neatly labelled and stamped in gold with the
crest of Kirtinagar, were arranged in order of language and subject. Ledgers,
also bound and crested, gave cross references and relevant information in that
immaculate, decorative calligraphy that was a natural product of Indian
aesthetics. On the reading desk a paraffin lamp threw a bright pool of light in
which were placed three or four books meant for her attention. With a discreet
cough the aide walked into an adjoining chamber and left Olivia to her own
devices.

As
she slipped into the seat and cautiously fingered the bound volumes, Olivia
washed over with nostalgia for her father's precious collection of books, which
had been her responsibility to look after, and for Sally MacKendrick's one-room
lending service, which went by the rather grand name of the
"library." Sally too loved books and they had together spent many
hours of contentment labelling, cataloguing and arranging the collection her
father had helped Sally acquire as a small business after Scot MacKendrick had
fallen prey to a band of
claim jumpers at the mines where he worked. The lingering mustiness in the air
of the Maharaja's library was like a whiff of home, but the rest of the
environment she was in now contained an element of unreality, a dreamlike
ethereality that seemed to remove her into quite another dimension, one she
could not quite assimilate. It was as if, ever since she had arrived in
Kirtinagar, she had been waiting for something to happen; she appeared to be
poised on the verge of a dark chasm filled with uncertainties. Books forgotten
for the moment, Olivia sat clasping and unclasping her hands, toying with a
gathering malaise made more irritating because it defied identification.

A
clock in the next room struck eleven and she jumped back into full alertness.
With a sigh she closed the book before her without having read beyond the
title. Picking up the rest of the books, feeling somewhat foolish at having had
the library unlocked without having benefitted from it, Olivia rose, fitted the
chair neatly back under the desk and turned to seek out the aide waiting in the
adjoining chamber. She stilled again with a sharp intake of breath.

The
apparition of Jai Raventhorne greeted her eyes from a far corner.

He
was sitting with his legs outstretched over a stool, his arms crossed against
his chest, his face shadowed. For a wild moment Olivia believed it was truly an
apparition, but then he spoke.

"Why
are you startled to see me?" He uncoiled himself from his seat and stood
up. "Didn't you know that I would come?"

It
was a moment before Olivia could speak, but when she did, what she said
surprised her. "Yes. I knew you would."

Suddenly,
everything fell into place: the short notice that made it impossible for Sir
Joshua to accept the Maharaja's invitation; the prescience that Lady Bridget
would not wish to accept for herself without her husband and that Estelle would
not wish to accept at all. Even easier to guess would have been Sir Joshua's
reluctance to let pass such a golden opportunity to ingratiate himself with
Arvind Singh, as would have been the only alternative left—to dispatch Olivia
as a surrogate.

Instinctively,
she also realised that Jai Raventhorne had master-minded this weekend for only
one purpose—to meet her again.

Walking
over to where she still stood in confusion, he reached out for the book on top
of the pile she held in her arms. "Hmmm. Did you find Bernier
informative?"

"Yes.
Very much so." As she struggled for composure, Olivia
could feel the
warmth in her cheeks. "His Indian journeys seem to have been as tireless
as they were perceptive."

Raventhorne
raised an eyebrow. "You learned all that merely by staring at the
title-page? You must be more clever than I thought, Miss O'Rourke."

Her
colour deepened. How long had he been watching her? "You seem to have an
incorrigible habit of scrutinising people when they are unaware of your
presence, Mr. Raventhorne," she said coldly but uncomfortably conscious of
her erratic pulse rate. "Obviously you apply your lack of scruples with
prolific indiscrimination."

"Indeed!
There is not much point in the lack if it is not made use of for all kinds of
profit." He sounded unworriedly cheerful as he relieved her of the books.
"Come, let us go outside. Confined spaces suffocate me."

The
aide having materialised again, Raventhorne handed over the pile and indicated
that the library could now be relocked. Olivia stood aside with nervousness and
an odd sense of anticipation that made her tongue feel clumsy against her
palate. "I . . . I presume you will be one of the guns at the shoot
tomorrow?" Even as she asked it she knew it was an inane inquiry.

He
touched her arm lightly, anxious to be gone. "Naturally. Arvind expects
some return for the trouble I have made him take on my behalf to fetch you
here!"

Olivia's
breath ran shallow again; the Maharani's conversation and the Maharaja's
parting remark suddenly appeared pertinent in some way she could still not
fully grasp. "May I ask why the trouble was necessary?" Her
breathlessness increased as she tried to keep pace with his impatient strides.
Even to her own ears, her voice sounded unfamiliar.

He
did not answer immediately. When they were half way across the garden he
stopped so abruptly that she almost cannoned into him. He turned to face her
with his brows pulled together in an edgy frown.

"You
and I come from two widely mismatched hemispheres, Olivia." He spoke
carefully, almost quietly, but with an undertone of bewilderment, "But
between us there is an . . . affinity. I want to find out why, for I don't like
it. It . . . disturbs me."

Her
face burned; she almost stopped breathing. The unexpected sound of her first
name on his lips had produced sensations within her stomach that made it feel
hollow. "I . . . don't understand what you mean..." Her whisper
sounded so patently false that he smiled.

"Don't
you?" He did not challenge her lie further. "The gross
pity of it
is," he took a long, sighing breath, "that we are so irreconcilably
on opposite sides."

Olivia's
short laugh was as inadvertent as it was incredulous. "You think of me as
an ...
enemy?"
She could not have been more astonished.

He
pondered as he stroked his chin between a thumb and forefinger. "Perhaps.
But more than that I think of you as a surprise. And I have never cared much
for surprises." He turned away and resumed his strides towards the
Maharani's palace.

Less
energetically, Olivia followed. The drift of the conversation alarmed her.
Unerringly, he had touched a chord she recognised. He had vocalised with a
single word something she would have chosen not to have acknowledged yet. An
affinity! Even as they walked across the deserted lawn with its no-doubt unseen
eyes, untouching and unspeaking, they seemed bound by a common thread,
intangible and at the same time forceful. Between them was a mute
communication, unenunciated but eloquent, that resonated behind the carefully
erected façades they maintained. Yes, she was drawn towards Jai Raventhorne.
Whatever that mysterious power that propelled her in his direction, it was
potent enough to be sensed also by him. Despite her alarm, Olivia felt a surge
of elation.

"We
went to see your ship." Olivia spoke not so much as to convey something
important as to break a silence far from easy. "It stood out from the
others and looked very graceful."

"We?"
They had arrived in the private garden adjoining the apartment she was
occupying.

"My
cousin Estelle and I."

"Ah
yes. Estelle Templewood." He pulled his pipe from his belt and sucked on
it without lighting it. The name of her cousin had been said as if some comment
was to follow, but it didn't. Instead, he paced idly, seeming to be entirely
involved in the action of his feet.

"Your
emblem . . ." Olivia hesitated.

"Yes?"

"What
made you choose Shiva's trident?"

"Why?
Do you disapprove of it?"

She
ignored the causticity. "No, but I do believe it is another of your
flamboyances devised to produce, well, a feeling of intimidation in those you
dislike . . ." It was an absurd observation considering that it in no way
concerned her!

"Good.
If it does, then that gives it sufficient justification."

"You
mean you like the idea of frightening people?"

"Before
the gods destroy, it is said, they make people mad. And fear is as efficient a
means of provoking madness as any."

"It
is also said," she pointed out quickly, "that
you
are mad!
Since I doubt if it is fear that makes you so, what is your excuse?"

She
knew he would answer with an evasion, and he did. "Does a madman need
excuses for his lunacy?"

"All
right then,
causes
—and I'm sure you have some because, as Voltaire
wrote, madness is to have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from
them."

He
laughed. "At least you do concede that my reasoning might be correct even
though to ask a lunatic to rationalise his lunacy is surely a contradiction in
terms!"

Olivia
sighed; the exercise in dialectics was as futile as always, but she refused to
be diverted. "To return to your emblem, Shiva's trident is a symbol of
destruction. Whom do you wish to destroy?"

Raventhorne
thrust his pipe back in his belt and shrugged. "Let us just say . . . the
destroyers."