Forbidden Jewel of India. Louise Allen

I’ll clip you on the jaw and carry you out. Do you understand?’

      Furious, frightened—do not let him see that—Anusha nodded and he removed his hand. ‘Where are my maids?’ He jerked his head towards the corner and she opened her mouth to scream as she saw the two crumpled bodies lit by the flickering light of one ghee lamp. The hand came back, none too gently. The skin bore the calluses of a rider and chafed her lips. He tasted of leather.

      ‘Drugged,’ he murmured in her ear, pressing his palm tight over her mouth to foil her attempt to bite. ‘There are spies, I cannot risk it. Listen.’ He freed her mouth again.

      Now she was awake she realised that the drums that had been echoing through her dream were real, their sound vibrating through the palace. She had never heard them like this, at night, so urgent. ‘An attack?’

      ‘The Maharaja of Altaphur has moved fast. There are war elephants and cavalry not four hours distant.’

      ‘He discovered you are here? That you had come for me?’ Anusha sat up, dragged the covers around her as Herriard sank back on his heels beside the low bed. He was wearing Indian dress again, but now it was plain riding gear with boots and a tight, dark turban to cover the betraying shimmer of pale hair.

      ‘He was already mobilising his troops—he must have been to get so close so fast. Then his spies told him that someone from the Company was here, perhaps that I intended to take you away, perhaps that I was negotiating. My guess is that he decided on a pre-emptive strike to seize the state before your uncle made an alliance with the Company.’

      ‘My uncle will not surrender to him!’ The floor was cold under her bare feet as she scrambled out of bed, the night air chill through the thin cotton of her shift.

      ‘No, he will stand firm. The raja has already despatched riders to his allies in Agra and Gwalior and to Delhi. The Company will send troops as soon as it receives the news and then I suspect Altaphur will back down without further fighting. Your uncle only has to withstand a siege for a matter of weeks.’

      Was he attempting to soothe her with easy lies? Anusha tried to read his face in the gloom and control her churning stomach. ‘You will stay here and fight?’ Why one more soldier would make any difference, she did not know, but somehow the thought of this man at her uncle’s right shoulder made her feel better. He was arrogant, aggravating and foreign, but she had no doubt that Major Herriard was a warrior.

      ‘No. You and I are leaving. Now.’

      ‘I am not going to leave my uncle and run away! What do you take me for? A coward?’ His eyes flickered over her and she was suddenly aware of how thin her garment was, of how her nipples had peaked in the cool air. Anusha swept the bedcovers around her like a robe and glared at him as he got to his feet. ‘Lecher!’

      ‘I rather hoped I could take you for a sensible woman,’ he said with a sigh. He added something under his breath in English and she pounced on it.

      ‘What is this? A tutty-hooded female?’

      ‘Totty-headed. Foolish,’ he translated. ‘No, clawing my eyes out is not going to help.’ He caught her wrists with contemptuous ease. ‘Listen to me. Do you think it will help your uncle to have to worry about you on top of everything else? And if the worst happens, what are you going to do? Lead the women to the pyres or become a hostage?’

      Anusha drew in a deep breath. He is right, may all the demons take him. She knew where her duty lay and she was not a child to refuse out of spite. She would go, not because this man told her to, but because her raja willed it. And because this was no longer her home. ‘No, if my uncle tells me to go, then I will go.

      How?’

      ‘You can ride a horse?’

      ‘Of course I can ride a horse! I am a Rajput.’

      ‘Then dress for riding—hard riding. Dress as a man and wear tough cloth and good boots, wrap your hair in a turban. Bring a roll of blankets, the nights are cold outside, but only pack what you must have. Can you do that? I will meet you in the court below. Jaldi.’

      ‘I may be totty-headed, Major Herriard, but I am not a fool. And, yes, I understand the need to hurry.’

      ‘Can you dress without help?’ He paused on the threshold, a broad shadow against the pale marble.

      Beyond words, Anusha threw a sandal at him and its ivory toe-post broke against the door jamb. He melted away into the darkness, leaving her shivering, the drumbeats vibrating through her very bones. For a moment she stood there, forcing herself to think clearly of what she must do, then she ran to the two maids. Under her groping fingers the blood beat strongly below their jawbones. Spies or not, they were alive.

      She lifted the nightlight and took it round the room, touching it to the wicks of the lamps in every niche until there was enough light to see by. The mirrored fragments in the walls reflected her image in a myriad of jagged shards as she pulled out the last of the trunks, the one containing clothes for use on the journey. She dressed in plain trousers, tight in the calf, wide at the thigh, then layers above, topped by a long, dark brown split-sided coat. Her soft riding boots were there and she pulled them on, slid a dagger into the top of the right one and another, a tiny curved knife, into her belt.

      It was quick to twist her hair into a tight plait to pile on the crown of her head and she wrapped and tied a turban out of dark brown cloth, fumbling as she did so. Sometimes she secured her hair like this when riding, but her maids had always tied it.

      Money. How much money did Herriard have? Anusha pulled the long cloth free, rummaged in the trunk again and found the jewels she had intended to wear as they arrived in Calcutta, chosen to emphasise her status and her independence. She stuffed the finest into a bag, coiled her hair around it and rewrapped the turban.

      Two blankets rolled around a change of linen, toilet articles, a bag containing hairpins and comb, tinder box. What else? She rubbed her temples—the drums stopped her thinking properly, invaded her head. Soon someone would come to check on her, fuss over her, shepherd her to the inner fastness of the palace where she really wanted to be. Where it was her duty not to go.

      Anusha found her little box of medicines, added that, rolled up the blankets, tied them with leather straps and caught up the bundle in her arms. The walls were honeycombed with passages and stairs and she took one of the narrowest and least-used ways down, tiptoeing as she reached the doorway.

      But Herriard had seen her. He stepped away from the wall, his eyes glinting in the reflected torchlight, and reached for the bundle.

      ‘I can manage. No, not that way, I must say goodbye to my uncle, to the Lady Paravi—’

      ‘And risk being seen? They know what we are doing and they have other things to think about just now. Come on.’ He pushed her in front of him through the door, back into the palace. He seemed to know the way as well as she, pulled her into alcoves as servants ran past, knew when to stop and slide into the shadows to avoid a distracted sentry, his attention on someone shouting on the battlements.

      A slender figure stepped out right in front of them and she stopped so abruptly that Herriard ran into her and gripped both her arms above the elbow to steady himself. His body was hard and immovable against her back and his voice was a soft rumble. Suddenly she was glad of his size. When he released her it was as though a bulwark had been removed.

      ‘Ajit, are the horses ready?’

      ‘Yes, sahib,’ the man said and she recognised the major’s servant. He must have run up the steep road from the base court for he was panting. ‘Pavan and Rajat and a good mare for the lady. The lower gate is still open for soldiers taking up positions outside the walls, but we must hurry or we will be noticed.’

      They ran, skidding on the black stones worn smooth by the passage of elephants and horses and men over hundreds of years, hugged the walls that loomed over them, slowed at every one of the gates where the road changed direction, all the better to confuse attackers if they got within the outer