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  General Wrangham, who sat with folded arms in the foremost row of chairs, rose and stood beside the prosecuting officer. He avoided Amaury’s eyes, and in colourless tones described the scene on parade, repeated accurately the words that passed, the challenge that followed. His sentences dropped in the silence like stones in a deep dark well.

  The prosecutor, a sallow, shifty-eyed major of the Madras European Regiment, said in an insinuating voice, ‘You have stated, sir, the accused disparaged both your competence and integrity. What, in your view, provoked this outburst?’

  ‘I demanded to see the regimental rolls,’ Wrangham said woodenly.

  ‘Ah.’ The prosecutor licked a finger and turned a page of his brief. ‘Surely an unusual request on a review parade? May I ask why you wanted them?’

  ‘That, sir,’ said the general fiercely, ‘does not in any fashion concern the issue before this court!’

  ‘I venture to disagree. There must have been strong reasons for the accused’s abusive refusal. Had he, do you think, a fear the rolls might not be found... correct?’

  ‘The point is irrelevant, sir. I will not answer!’

  The president caught the prosecutor’s inquiring glance, and cocked an eyebrow at the Judge Advocate, who shook his head.

  ‘I rule the question out of order.’

  Foiled in his attempt to drag Amaury’s malversation into the proceedings, the prosecutor sulkily sat down. ‘No further questions.’

  ‘Do you wish to examine the witness, Captain Amaury?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  General Wrangham braced his shoulders. ‘I have only this to add. I think, upon reflection, my conduct in sending a challenge was monstrously ill-judged, and seriously regret it.’

  Under a hundred astonished eyes and Amaury’s wondering gaze he returned to his chair. Witnesses in procession took the stand and confirmed baldly the general’s evidence: a staff colonel, Anstruther embarrassed and stuttering, the paymaster simmering with denunciations which the president quickly suppressed. Sunlight beat on the windows, lanced through shutters and painted parallel brassy bars on limewashed walls. In a temperature like an oven the red coats glowed like red-hot coals, a gloomy half-light shone on mopped wet faces. The prosecutor ruffled his papers, and asked no questions. Nor did Amaury.

  The president linked his fingers, leaned elbows on the table. ‘The prosecution’s evidence is closed. Captain Amaury, you have declined proper representation, either by a brother officer or attorney-at-law. Have you anything to say on your own behalf?’ Amaury saw a sympathetic glint in the stone-grey eyes. ‘Nothing, sir.’

  The president stared at his hands. ‘I believe you seriously unwise, sir. However ….’ He rose to his feet. ‘The Court will now retire to consider its findings.’

  Spectators streamed to the doors, seeking air and illusory coolness in the torrid warmth outside. Amaury crossed his legs, tilted back his chair and studiously examined the ceiling.

  Marriott read the document again.

  Charles Marriott, Esquire, Junior Merchant,

  At Mr Harley’s Office, Fort St George

  Sir,

  I am directed to inform you that, by Order of the Governor in Council, You are hereby appointed Collector of the Revenues in the Bahrampal District of the Northern Circars.

  In obedience with the Order you will proceed at your first Convenience to Bahrampal, and when completely Established engage your most prudent Endeavours to extract the Rents and Taxes which are assigned to the Honourable East India Company under Article Four of the Treaty concluded with the Nizam Ali of Hyderabad in 1766, notwithstanding which Article no Revenues have accrued for many Years past.

  The Governor commands me to acquaint you with the Unsettled conditions prevailing in the Jagir* of Bahrampal which, by the latest Intelligence, persist in Circumstances near Anarchy. A Magistrate shall be appointed to attend on your Endeavours; and to guard against Hostile Enterprise the Commander in Chief has directed three Companies of Sepoys to protect your Mission.

  Mr Joseph Harley is authorized to offer such further Assistance as you may require.

  I have the honour to be, Sir,

  Your obedient Servant,

  J. Palmer, Secretary

  Madras, March 1st, 1801

  *[A territory awarded by a native ruler to a follower, who administered the district, collected revenues, and raised and maintained troops for his ruler’s service, rewarding himself from a proportion of the revenues.]

  Marriott looked across the office. Fane furtively watched him over a propped-up ledger.

  ‘I daresay, William, you know what this letter contains?’

  Fane nodded. ‘Harley warned me I should go as your Magistrate. What the devil do I know of legal codes and judicial systems? Dame, Charles, by all the signs we are stirring a tiger’s lair!’

  ‘It cannot be so bad as you imagine, else they would provide a regiment with cannon to support us. I wonder what Harley has to say.’ He crossed to the Senior Merchant’s office and handed him the paper. Harley looked it over; a smile puckered his wrinkled cheeks.

  ‘Yes, I have seen a copy. Well, Mr Marriott, what do you want to know?’

  ‘When must I depart, sir?’

  Harley leaned against his chairback, tapped fingertips together and regarded Marriott beneath greying bushy eyebrows. ‘You sound a thought... reluctant. I assure you, sir, you have been afforded a chance which many another Writer - ah, Junior Merchant - would gladly seize. I think you have been overlong indulged in civilized surroundings, embedded in an undemanding ease. Permit me to recommend, Mr Marriott, the virtues of versatility. You follow the proud tradition of Covenanted Servants - none would hesitate at a pinch to command a regiment, read a sermon or administer a dose of physic. You must gird yourself to leave the fleshpots of Madras and plunge into realms of hardship and high endeavour. Um. I perceive my exhortations strike no enthusiastic sparks - but I am positive you will not debase your office.’

  ‘What arrangements,’ said Marriott patiently, ‘must I put in train?’

  Harley became brisk. ‘You will draw from the Central Treasury, under a written authority from the Paymaster General - I have it here, countersigned by the Governor - a sum equivalent to twenty thousand pounds in pagodas and gold mohurs. This, I need hardly remind you, is the Company’s money, for which you will strictly account.’

  ‘Am I held responsible,’ said Marriott,' horrified, ‘for safeguarding a fortune in gold and silver? I protest, sir, I can conceive no reason for carrying to Bahrampal so vast a treasure!’

  ‘Mr Marriott, you will find a use for every fanam.’ Harley smiled dourly. ‘Kindly recollect you have to pay your sepoys and non-combatants - the last will certainly desert you if you don’t. And in settling your District you will discover that bribery brings quicker results than a whole brigade with guns.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Marriott resignedly. ‘What else?’

  ‘You may hire hackeries and baggage beasts according to your needs; the charges will be met by the Commissary General. You will receive a captain’s field allowance, some two pagodas a day, and may draw a year’s advance.’ He pushed two leather-bound volumes across the table. ‘Here you will find a description of the land revenue system, the land tenures, and the customs of the villages existent in the Circars, as summarized by Mr Lionel Place in ’95. Study them during your journey to Bahrampal - possibly a two months’ march. Naturally you will carry victuals for the road; thereafter you subsist on local supplies.’

  ‘And the military?’

  ‘They will be self-supporting, bringing their own transport.’ Harley frowned; his fingers played a rapid tattoo. ‘General Harris ordered the 23rd Native Infantry to provide this detachment. I am not perfectly satisfied about the officer’s experience: the colonel appointed his son in command, an ensign newly commissioned.’

  ‘Henry Todd?’ said Marriott, surprised. ‘I know him well.’

  ‘Truly? Colonel Todd, apparentl
y, considers himself in your debt, and offers as security his most valuable possession.’ Harley extracted his watch. ‘ ‘Tis time we closed the office. Make your preparations, Mr Marriott - I expect you gone within the month.’

  Marriott returned to Moubray’s Gardens, the palankeen bearers grunting an andante to his thoughts. Consigned to the Circars’ uttermost borders he was as far removed from Caroline as a denizen of Mars. His unremitting wooing had advanced him not a whit; she stayed coquettishly elusive and artfully evaded every approach to an offer. All his rewards were a kiss or two, warm fingers lying in his, provocative glances from long-lashed emerald eyes - favours she lightly accorded to a dozen .merry blades. Unless he trapped the butterfly she would fall in another’s net. Morosely he determined, before leaving for the north, to test his fortune once for all by proposing for her hand.

  His new responsibility oppressed him like a suffocating garment. He had copied letters by the hundred, totted accounts and counted bales - was this a fitting prelude for persuading hostile peasants to surrender hard-earned cash? Moreover the posting tore in shreds the private trading connections he had woven in the Carnatic; his lucrative emoluments must suffer a shattering loss. And what in the devil’s name should he do about Amelia?

  He found Amaury in his bedroom, lounging in a chair and smoking a cheroot. ‘I could not bring myself to witness your purgatory, Hugo. What was the outcome?*

  ‘Guilty, of course. Dismissed, naturally. Verdict and sentence, according to the usual routine, sent for confirmation to the Commander in Chief, who will indubitably refer them to Leadenhall Street. A year or more before I learn the result. Meanwhile, by Wrangham’s indulgence, I am released from arrest.’

  An attendant removed Amaury’s coat, stripped waistcoat and breeches; he sauntered naked to an alcove and sat on a wicker chair while a servant, tilting buckets, sluiced him with tepid water. Marriott leaned on a doorpost and looked at his friend dejectedly.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘That, Charles, I cannot at the moment determine. Do you think that if I apply to the Court of Directors for Free Merchant’s Indentures they will grant my request? No - I thought not. Then I may seek a prosperous plantation and settle to raising indigo and sugar; or remove to Bengal and try my fortunes there.’ Amaury scratched himself, and examined his stomach. ‘Damn my eyes, I have contracted prickly heat - a million prickling pains like the points of pins! Where the devil is my ointment?’

  Marriott said despondently, ‘I desert you when you need me most, for I must presently remove from Moubray’s Gardens.’

  The fingers that smoothed a salve on a red-rashed belly were suddenly still. Without raising his head Amaury said, ‘You too, Charles? Why do you go?’

  Marriott told him.

  Amaury thoughtfully closed the alabaster box, wrapped a towel round his waist, wandered to a window and stared across the Adyar’s turbid waters.

  ‘I shall apply for leave of absence,’ he said dreamily. ‘There will be no difficulty - nobody wants me here. And then’ - he faced Marriott, eyes alight and dancing - ‘I shall go tax-collecting with you to the Circars, Charles, and help you squeeze the natives dry as the sun-cracked earth they live on!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Amaury relieved Marriott of all responsibility for transport and supplies. ‘For,’ he declared, ‘you have hardly stirred from Madras, whereas I assisted Dallas as Agent for Bullocks during the Mysore war. We shall want more than palankeens and chatta-bearers for travelling to the Circars.’

  ‘We are not going to war,’ said Marriott discontentedly, ‘so a cumbersome train is superfluous.’

  Amaury looked at him in wonder. ‘Upon my conscience, Charles, you display a surpassing ignorance! In any military movement followers outnumber fighting men by five to one; and a baggage bullock is necessary for every soul in the force. Then you want bullock-loads of fodder to feed the bullocks. On campaign, naturally we travel stripped to essentials. A captain, for example, is limited by regulation to a body-servant, cook, waiter, groom, grasscutter, four coolies for conveying his small baggage, a palankeen with nine bearers, and four baggage bullocks and drivers. Fortunately, we are not on campaign, and such stringency does not confine us.’

  Amaury summoned his banian, and settled down to list the stores and baggage. Marriott wandered to the veranda, stared unhappily at-a sun-parched lawn and dusty oleanders. He braced himself and climbed the stairs to Amelia’s boudoir. She abandoned her solitaire and rose happily to greet him. Marriott kissed her, and pushed her gently back in the chair.

  ‘I bring sad intelligence, my dear. This is the way of it.’

  He described the mission, his imminent departure on a six-hundred-mile journey, the duration of his exile to the Circars which, Harley estimated, would be at least two years. Amelia listened silently, eyes widening in consternation, and squeezed her hands together. ‘So,’ Marriott finished miserably, ‘I fear we must part.’

  ‘What shall I do? Must I return to durance in the Black Town?’

  ‘That surely will not be necessary, for I shall make provision for you to the limits of my means. I can secure, if you wish, a passage home on an Indiaman.’

  ‘How,’ asked Amelia sadly, ‘may I present myself to my family with the odium of my conduct known to all?’

  Marriott said hesitantly, ‘It should not be difficult to find another gentleman in Madras who will take you into keeping. You are a most accomplished and elegant person, Amelia.’

  Tears brimmed the clear blue eyes. ‘You cannot so cast me off, Charles! Has our attachment meant so little that you will now discard me like an incompetent servant?’

  ‘What can I do?’ Marriott said desperately. ‘It is impossible you should go to Bahrampal!’

  Amelia ruffled the cards, and carefully laid an ace on a king. ‘Why not?’ She slid a queen beneath the king. ‘Women march with armies when they go to war. After Seringapatam fell Captain Norris’s lady bore him a daughter in Tippoo’s kitchens!’

  ‘She was a military wife, inured to hardships. You are a gently nurtured--’

  ‘In the life I led in the Black Town,’ said Amelia bleakly, ‘I too encountered hardships. I believe that nothing the Circars can evoke will injure my sensibilities. No, Charles--’tis my only rescue from this scrape. If you refuse I shall follow your horse on foot!’ Marriott clattered downstairs and burst into Amaury’s room. ‘Amelia demands she accompany us!’

  Amaury looked up from his writing, pen in air. ‘Hire five elephants,’ he told the banian. ‘Each can carry the equivalent of sixteen bullock loads. Also fifty camels. The fewer bullocks the better - the damned animals die like flies. Why so dismayed, Charles? A very suitable arrangement - I had not thought you propounded otherwise.’

  ‘A delicate female,’ Marriott stuttered, ‘exposed to dangerous hazards in a cut-throat country?’

  Amaury smiled widely. ‘You misjudge your Amelia, Charles. Beneath her fluttering languishments she is tough as tempered steel. Take your dulcinea - she will enliven our tedious journey.’

  ‘Do we march with a zenana?’ Marriott wondered. ‘Are you bringing Kiraun?’

  ‘Ah, no. She has chosen Hyderabad, taking a competence I shall provide. Doubtless she will enlist a nautch girls’ troupe and thrive mightily at the Nizam’s court. Now, Jaswant, I think two hundred basket-coolies are enough...’

  Fane moved his quarters from the Fort to Moubray’s Gardens, bringing his servants and horses. Amaury opined they should take every horse they had, and persuaded them to buy two more apiece. Animals and natives began to overflow the compound: drovers, coolies, bullocks, elephants, camels, donkeys and a travelling larder of goats and cattle and sheep. Amaury forbade hackeries and carts - ‘the roads beyond Godaveri are quite unfit for wheels.’ Marriott regretfully cleared his private godown, sold the trading goods, closed his merchants’ accounts and sent his chattels and furniture for auction at the Fort.

  On a day when Amaury reported the convoy almost
ready, Marriott dressed in his best blue broadcloth coat, a green striped satin waistcoat trimmed with silver twist, tan deerskin breeches, ribbed white stockings, silver-buckled shoes and a superfine cocked hat adorned by a red cockade. He gulped a tumbler of brandy and was carried in a palankeen to General Wrangham’s house.

  He left an hour later, half elated, half depressed, and thoroughly baffled. He had found Caroline and a gaggle of damsels engaged in a hand of loo. She scanned his dandified attire, divined the purpose of his visit and became absorbed in the game. Marriott stood awkwardly beside the table and answered as best he could the girls’ light-hearted demands for advice upon the play. Yielding at last to the entreaty in his eyes Caroline declared herself loo’d, and led him to a window bay on pretext of examining some porcelain punch bowls lately shipped from China. Marriott grasped the fleeting moment, and laid his heart, his hand and fortune at her feet.

  Caroline traced a finger on a Sung vase’s painted peonies. ‘No, Charles. I confess myself partial towards you, and deeply sensible of the honour you accord me. But I cannot accept your offer. The circumstances forbid.’

  ‘You are not promised to another gentleman?’

  ‘Not yet, although mama bestirs herself most busily on my behalf, and impresses on my notice the amiable qualities possessed by various judges, Councillors and generals.’ She sighed. ‘All are prodigiously ancient, none under forty!’

  ‘Then I cannot understand what should hinder our betrothal!’

  ‘My parents would never consent. You are not far enough advanced in the Company’s service, your fortunes are uncertain; they consider you too young. For myself,’ she said frankly, ‘I do not find vastly appealing the prospect of engagement to one who will be removed for years by several hundred miles.’

  ‘When I have composed the affairs of Bahrampal,’ Marriott said despondently, ‘I shall find leisure to visit Madras. My companions - Fane and Ensign Todd and Amaury - will manage matters in my absence.’