None of the woman had the faintest notion of what could be going on: puzzlement compounded by the sight of the punkah cord being held steady in the boy's hand, with a large round glass-like object hanging from the end of it.
The boy shouted, the cord began to run through his fingers, the object dropped, within eight feet of the surface of the pool before stopping again – and Camilla Hartley-Dexter screamed in fear.
What was hanging from four securing ropes at the bottom of the cord was a large transparent glass bowl, open topped and with steeply curved sides, like the ones used to keep goldfish in. But there was no water inside this bowl and the mass of wriggling bodies trying to climb the smooth sides were not gold in color but green. Small green snakes, each about six inches long and instantly recognizable as green kraits – the deadliest snakes on the entire subcontinent. All that was needed was for the bowl to continue its fall into the water and the whole mass of deadly and infuriated reptiles would be tipped out of their small prison into the larger confines of the pool. A fall and a release which could only mean a quick and agonizing death for anyone still inside the pool.
Jean Ellington was the first to recover at least part of her wits. She wriggled like one of the snakes herself as she tried to slide on her back over the pool's retaining wall while still keeping her eyes on the bowl hanging over them all like the sword of Damocles.
"Stop it, you fool – stop it!" Camilla screeched. "Look at him!"
Jean looked up, straight into the glistening eyes of the boy and those shiny white teeth – and the glittering steel of the knife blade now pressed against the cord hanging from the pulley below the beam he was lying on. The gesture, the meaning and the threat were all as clear and unmistakable as an aimed gun and far more terrifying. Amanda instantly stopped trying to get over the wall: furthermore, as the boy pointed a finger at her and then at the pool, she slipped back into the water without hesitation.
Normally, she might have been astonished and disgusted in obeying a native urchin. But nothing was normal with that tangle of writhing bodies and evil little heads pressing against the glass directly above her. Many terrible and fearsome things she could have borne calmly and courageously but an intertwined mass of venomous snakes were not among them. She was petrified with fear.
"Hallo, ladies. Another warm afternoon, isn't it?"
The wives gaped at the hut door and at Manga holding it open with a deep bow for His Royal Highness the Colonel Prince Ravi of Kultoon. He passed her a small leather purse which sent the ayah down on her knees in obeisance. But even that action was nowhere as astonishing as the fact that Prince Ravi was wearing nothing but a pyjamy tunic of pure silk around his muscular body, a tunic secured only by a loosely knotted sash at the waist. He strolled into the hut with all the casual assurance of a born aristocrat – and behind him came a crowd of men, the other officers of the Kultooni Irregulars, all dressed in the same half naked style as their Colonel. And all of them grinning in the same way at a shared joke. Some of them also had purses in their hands, which they threw down in front of the eye rolling ayahs.
The clinking and chinking noises as the purses hit the floor sent the Indian women into scrabbling seizures which were rapidly followed by worshipping gratitude, the servants all on their knees like Manga, arms outstretched and foreheads dipping down and down again in thanksgiving. The cavalrymen scarcely noticed the servants' reactions as they gathered in a line behind their Colonel, like spectators on the touch line of a polo field. And even the bowl of angry snakes could not keep the women's eyes away from the riding crops several of the brown skinned men were either holding or had dangling from straps around their wrists.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Your Royal Highness?" Carol Carnac-Smyth yelped.
The Prince reached out his hand and one of the younger officers put into it the heavy and ungainly shape of a Webley.45 pistol. Ravi pulled back the hammer with his thumb, lifted the barrel up and pointed it directly at the glass bowl. Then he moved it slightly to one side: there was a huge bang, the pistol recoiled in a chorus of screams and the smell of cordite spread around the room. Camilla Hartley-Dexter for one felt a sudden warmth in the water between her legs in reaction to the shot as she pissed herself in fear. The bullet must have passed within an few inches of the bowl and if it had hit it …
"Well, ladies," the Prince said calmly, "To answer the question, I thought we might have a really jolly jig-jig party. That is to say, you're the ones who get jig-jigged by all these fine fellows here -otherwise I might try a little more target practice. Think about it before you come to any rash decisions."
He handed the smoking pistol back to the junior officer then clicked his fingers. Things happened: unexpected things. A shower of silver coins fluttered down from above to land and float on top of the pool.
No, not silver coins: the same size, round as coins, silver in color but far too light to be metallic.
Jean Ellington picked one up and stared at the familiar words on it -the very same words she had first seen at school when one of the girls had shown the exact same kind of silverfoil packet to her friends in fits of giggles. What were being scattered into the pool were rubber contraceptive sheaths in their sealed packets, each one guaranteed free of defects by the manufacturers, The Imperial and Britannic Rubber Company, Adam and Eve Street, Market Harborough, Great Britain.
Jean looked up again, past the coiling snakes and saw the boy on the rafter reach into a haversack at his waist and pull out another handful of condoms to scatter like confetti over the women. Confetti might be a suitable metaphor Jean realized with total disbelief: unless this was all a incredible joke there was nothing at all to stop the Prince from treating all the white women as if they were his wives, taking them as he wished for his pleasure – and giving them to his friends as well for their gratification.
Zan-zar-zamin, land, gold and women, the traditional objects of crime on the frontier. The Prince already had land and gold in plenty: now he seemed set on completing the trilogy. But no Indian had dared to molest a European woman since the great mutiny of eighty years before.
The British suppression of the mutiny had been so ruthless that since then a unprotected English virgin with a sack of gold on her back could have walked from the mountains to the sea without fear of being molested.
"You wouldn't dare," Jean said, her voice croaking like a frog's.
Prince Ravi smiled. "You know, Mrs Ellington, I had a feeling one of you might say that. So let me introduce you to Mr Manji and his assistant."
Mr Manji was a fat little babu in a cheap copy of a European suit, his assistant a thin little babu in an even cheaper copy of a European suit. But there was nothing very cheap about the tripod they carried in or the big American made Speedmaster camera on top of it. It was the sort of camera that only a professional photographer would use and the Prince waved his hand towards it as though introducing it as well.
"Ladies, whether you want to take advantage of the contraceptives I have supplied is up to you. But you are going to have no choice at all about being photographed in every detail as you behave like a chorus line of French whores. Afterwards you may certainly tell your husbands all about it if you wish, but I doubt that New Delhi and London will begin a war of suppression against Kultoon on your behalf. Dear me, no, not with Mr Gandi already making so much political trouble. But if that should happen, and trouble is caused, you can be certain that I will make sure that every peddler of filthy pictures from Suez to Shanghai will soon be supplied with ample stocks of highly detailed photographs of each one of you being broken in as remounts for the Kultooni cavalry. And dear me, won't they sell like hot cakes in the local bazaars? Not above half, I shouldn't wonder. So my advice is not to tell any tales out of school unless you want to become very famous."
The Prince clapped his hands lightly together with glee. "But don't think I'm not prepared to deal fairly with you. If any one of you wishes it so, I will have the snake bowl lowered a little so that you may put your hand inside it and thus die without being dishonored. I'm quite certain that none of you will be so foolish, but the offer is always there, should any of you wish to emulate the fate of the good Queen Cleopatra. And as for those of you whom may be suffering overmuch from maidenly shyness, we've brought the riding crops. Red cheeks at both ends is too much of a good thing, hey?" 'He's mad, stark staring mad," Deborah Boxwood thought.
It was Carol Carnac-Smyth who spoke up though: "And what happens if you make a stupid mistake with those snakes which results in us all getting killed? Do you think the Viceroy will overlook that?"
The Prince shrugged and spread his hands like a bazaar carpet seller showing his astonishment at an unreasonable offer: "If such a sad thing should happen one could only presume the snakes were dropped into your bathing pool by those snakes in the grass in the Congress Party. No doubt some of the troublemakers that Mr Gandi is always organizing to shout in the streets for the British to quit India. Your deaths might give New Delhi the courage to deal with those scum in the way they should be dealt with."
Carol's mind raced and the conclusions she reached were not comforting: the truth was that there were very good reasons why Prince Ravi would probably be quite content to kill the British women.
Kultoon and the other independent states like it were happy to be part of a British run India, for they knew that if India ever did become independent their lands would quickly be seized by the new government and subsumed into the newly born nation. Prompted by such fears for their future the native princes were fretting because they thought the British should have hung Gandi and his fellow nationalist leaders long ago. And they knew from their grandfather's tales that when the future of British India had trembled in the balance once before it had been the massacres of British women and children which had sent the tiny British army of India into a berserker rage. A rage which had burnt and blasted all hopes of Indian independence for generations. A rage which had lasted so long that many British soldiers in India still had 'CAWNPORE WELL' tattooed on their bodies as part of the rites of passage from raw recruit to seasoned veteran. Prince Ravi and his father might well want to see some new tattoos on brawny British arms as a reminder of new atrocities: 'GAZEPORE SNAKEPIT' would probably serve their turn quite well. And when Carol looked around at the other faces around the pool she felt that most of the women understood Indian politics well enough to take Ravi's threat very seriously.
Yes, and already Ravi come within a hand's span of shattering the bowl and dropping the kraits in amongst the women. That was how little he cared about their lives: Hamlet wasn't in it compared to this mad prince. Carol could imagine the tangle of writhing green bodies falling into the water, bursting apart and spreading out in a maddened fury, and then the screams of the women trying to get out of the pool with snakes hanging from arms and legs, already fated to die in choking agony like pi-dogs with rabies, swollen tongues protruding from foam dewed lips. And because every detail of her fate was already clear in her mind she dared say nothing in rebuttal to Ravi.
The Prince looked at all the women, all apparently as speechless as Carol herself was. He grinned, lifted a languid hand and clicked his fingers: "Bring along the party requisites, please, gentlemen."
There was a bustle of activity as two officers came into the Moorghi-Khana carrying a wickerwork picnic basket between them. They lifted it up and set it down carefully on top of the table. Damp patches began to form on the magazines underneath the basket. One of the men undid the lid of the basket and lifted it up. But none of the British women even noticed that action: what they were gaping at was what four more officers were bringing into the room. It was a sight beyond belief.
The four men made their way through the onlookers, to the edge of the pool. Then they set down their burden in front of the Prince. It was a rocking horse. Made of wood, skillfully painted a realistic shade of dappled gray, a tail made of what looked like real horse hairs, and with bright blue dolls' eyes painted on the head. It was far larger than any normal toy and in fact looked as if it might have come from a fairground ride. But the strangest thing of all about it was the saddle on top of the wooden horse, a fat well padded red silk pillow of a saddle which ran all the way from mane to tail. In addition there were reins on the well shaped head, fine leather reins, and thick leather stirrups on each side of the horse with wide wooden foot rests.
Ravi patted the horse on the head: "Patience, ladies, all will soon be clear. But first a peace offering."
The officer who had lifted the lid of the basket held up chunks of white between his fingers and called out: "Come on, Kirpa, old boy, hurry up."
Another officer passed him an ice bucket. In the summer heat it seemed almost as an incongruous sight as the rocking horse, but the clatter of the white shards as the officer dropped them into the container and the way he rubbed his numbed fingers afterwards confirmed that the bucket was being used for its intended purpose. Confirmation made doubly sure as a champagne bottle was lifted carefully out of the ice filled wicker basket. The audience in the pool gaped again as the officer holding the bottle opened it with a few twists of his finger and sent the cork flying high in the air. It was obvious that he'd been trying to land it inside the bowl of snakes and missed by only a few feet. Another of the Kultooni cavalrymen had a tray ready and took out glasses from the basket, champagne glasses cold enough to be instantly covered in condensation as they were set out on the tray and each one instantly filled with foaming liquid.
"Bollinger, the 1913 vintage," Prince Ravi boasted. "I hope you ladies appreciate it. You certainly should since I had to have a private box car entirely filled with ice at a freezing works in Calcutta in order to have some small portion of it still intact by the time it got here.
I wish I could share some of the champagne with you but unfortunately my religion forbids it."
He smiled again and pointed at the rocking horse: "Champagne and a jolly fine wooden horse, hey? No doubt you are wondering what old Ravi is playing at. I already have you at my mercy, isn't it, so why the French champagne and the toy? Well, ladies, these props are for a little game we are going to be playing. The Kultooni Irregulars are inviting you all to take part in a Saumur steeplechase. Perhaps many of you know that Saumur is the town in France where French cavalry officers are trained, and I'm sure that some of you know the traditional test undertaken by an officer graduating from Samaur to prove he is a worthy successor to Marshal Ney."
The Prince smiled, held up one of the glasses above his eyes and watched the tiny streams of bubbles in it rising to the top of the champagne: "This is part of the test, proving that the aspiring candidate can hold his drink. Champagne of course, since it is in France. Each officer is given three hours to complete the test. During that time he must drink three bottles of champagne, ride thirty miles across open country and seduce three women. The order in which he carries out these tasks is left to his own judgement."
Ravi carefully put down the glass and folded his arms: "Ladies, today we are privileged to offer you the chance to show your mettle in a Saumur steeplechase. Five of you and fifteen bottles of champagne to be consumed in the next three hours. Unfortunately we can't let you go riding out into the country so we've bought you a horse in here. It may only be a rocking horse but whilst each one of you is on it I think I can guarantee there'll be some very fast galloping, my word, yes. But to make up for the lack of outdoor exercise we've increased your indoor exercise – three bottles each and four men each in three hours. Not very difficult, hey!"
He slapped his palms together and one of the ayahs came scuttling forward, to pick up the tray. "Please accept a glass each as the tray is taken around. The first lady to refuse will immediately be placed on the horse's back in exactly the same condition as Lady Godiva was when she made her famous ride through Coventry."
The woman in the pool gaped at him, except for Amanda, her eyes being fastened on the tray as the ayah knelt down to present it to her. She was totally confused as to what to do, until the Prince took a step towards her. Without any more delay she immediately decided that he was perfectly capable of making good his threat and picked up one of the cold glasses and sipped from it – the iced Bollinger as delicious a drink as anything she could ever remember tasting in her entire life.
"No heeltaps, young Amanda," the Prince said genially. "All down the hatch, chin, chin. There's a lot to drink yet."
She obeyed and swallowed the rest of the glass in one gulp, and went to put it back on the tray, only to find it already carried away.
"Keep the glass, Amanda, a refill is already coming."
Three of the native officers, slim and smiling, came towards her. One of them was carrying an ice bucket with the long neck of a champagne bottle protruding from the top. More officers were breaking up into small groups, each group with a bucket and a bottle, and each group walking around the pool and stopping at the back of one of the women.
It was as if each of the wives had been assigned her own escorts.
Amanda realized with a shock that was probably the truth, the selection already made of which man – which men – would have each woman. She looked around and saw the same knowledge dawning on her friends' faces. Amanda also noticed that none of the women were refusing to drink. Jean Ellington had been the most obviously reluctant to pick up a glass but Carol Carnac-Smyth had snapped something to her which had made Jean comply. And that was no surprise, what with those damned snakes hanging overhead.
"Now, who's the senior lady present today?" The Prince demanded.