Land of Hope and Glory (5 page)

It was a long ride back to Shri Goyanor’s property. Normally the journey from Poole would take an hour, but the mule-cart driver made numerous detours to drop off staples at farmsteads along the way. After two hours, Jack was still sitting with the other passengers in the back of the cart, his feet hanging over the side and jiggling as the wheels bumped over the uneven road. The pile of cabbages behind him formed a relatively comfortable backrest.

At one point they passed through a sattva stream, and he shivered, a tingle shooting up his spine. No one else in the cart seemed to notice, but when he sniffed he caught the distinctive smell.

He looked out at the countryside and imagined the invisible stream tangling and coiling across the fields, through the large mansions and between the stands of trees. These streams wove their way across England – across the whole world, in fact. Sattva was everywhere, in everything, to some degree. But it tended to clump into veins of differing strengths that stretched for miles above, through and under the ground.

‘Hold on back there,’ the driver called out and the cart juddered off the road and stopped beside a ditch.

What now?

Jack jumped to the ground and walked around the side of the cart. He could soon see why the driver had pulled over. Coming towards them along the road, surrounded by billowing dust, was a column of troops and horses. It looked like a full battalion, maybe more – at least 1,000 men.

The other passengers climbed down and stood beside him, watching as the army approached. The yellow dust reached them first, engulfing the cart and turning the day foggy. Boots stomped in unison, kettledrums pounded, and soon the first men emerged from the haze: European soldiers in blue tunics, round caps, loose breeches and puttees. Most of them had thick beards – they looked French to Jack. Their Indian officers rode alongside on horses, barking occasional commands.

Next came a battery of light artillery – twelve-pounders in European reckoning. Horses drew the guns on two-wheeled carriages, with ammunition carts attached behind. Swirling designs encrusted the pieces, the muzzles fashioned into grinning serpent heads. Wheels ground at the dry earth, thick chains clinked, and Jack smelt animals and oiled leather.

Then a contingent of elephants swayed through the murk, the great beasts covered by quilted caparisons and pulling carts and large siege guns. Mahouts sat astride the animals’ necks, driving the creatures forward with hooked sticks. A sergeant sat further back on one of the beasts, holding aloft the regimental standard – a flag tapering to two points.

Finally, a loud wheeze came from the rear of the column and a cone of smoke rose and mingled with the dust. The scent of sattva grew stronger. Several of the men standing beside the cart sniffed and muttered to each other – even they could smell it now.

Something was smelting sattva. Something powerful.

The last of the elephants lumbered past and a cloud of steam and smoke swirled across the road. Another wheeze, then a shrill whistle . . . and then a dark shape, larger than an elephant, solidified in the haze.

The onlookers murmured.

A monstrous form of black iron studded with rivets crawled into view. It looked like a giant lobster interwoven with hissing pipes and pistons. Smoke frothed from beneath its carapace, and its feelers lifted and swayed as they checked the air. It paused for a moment, then it gurgled, the sound like bubbles under the sea. A jet of steam shrieked from its side.

The onlookers all gasped and jumped back. One man slipped on the edge of the ditch and stumbled to the bottom.

A man near Jack crossed himself and whispered to his friend, ‘A demon.’

But Jack knew this was no demon. It was an avatar, a living being wrenched from the spirit realm and bound to the machinery of the material world. Most Europeans feared these creatures – considering them the work of the Devil – but Jack was used to them.

This one surprised him, though. He’d seen train avatars many times, but never something moving along the road like this. He’d heard stories of the marvellous machines back in Rajthana, but he’d never known whether to believe in them. Whatever the case, it looked as though the Rajthanans were bringing in their most powerful devices now.

The rebels didn’t stand a chance.

A Rajthanan officer riding nearby stopped his horse for a moment, closed his eyes and made a small gesture with his hand. The avatar shuddered and groaned, then began to creep forward again.

None of the onlookers seemed to have noticed the man, but Jack knew he must be a siddha – a ‘perfected one’. Only a siddha could command an avatar like that.

The siddhas were yogins who, after long years of practice, had developed one or more of the miraculous powers. It was the siddhas who created and controlled the avatars, studied the yantras and learnt to smelt sattva. But they guarded their secrets closely – few Europeans, or even Rajthanans, knew much about them.

Jack, however, knew more than most. After all, he was, in a sense, a siddha himself.

The avatar grumbled past, the scent of coal and sattva wafting about it, the chains along its sides snapping tight as it hauled a covered wagon. Soon it disappeared into the grainy murk up the road, the wagon trundling behind.

A bank of grey cloud rolled across the sky. Raindrops began to spatter the ground, the cart, Jack’s head. Jack stood and leant against the mound of cabbages as the cart bumped along the road. Ahead, through the thickening drifts of rain, he saw the wall of the Goyanor estate. The red towers at the top of the house peeked out above the dark-green trees surrounding the property.

The cart pulled up at the gate and he jumped to the ground. His tunic was wet and heavy, and the wound in his chest ached. All he could think about was crawling into bed.

He banged on the gate.

The slot opened and Edwin’s face appeared. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s me – Jack.’

‘Well, now. Could be an intruder. How can I be sure?’

‘Open the gate, you bloody idiot.’

Edwin swung the gate open and stood there in a long cloak, his hair drenched and coiling into his eyes. He smiled cheekily. ‘Afternoon, Master Casey.’

Jack sighed and smiled back. Edwin wasn’t a bad lad. He would come right in the end.

And suddenly Jack found himself hoping for the best for the boy, hoping for his safety in a future that seemed to be darkening every day.

2

J
ack sat cross-legged in his small room, staring straight ahead. A couple of sticks of incense burnt in a holder on the floor, the smoke filling the room and making his head swim. Morning light slipped under the door and through cracks in the walls, but otherwise the room was in fuzzy darkness.

He took a deep breath. His thoughts were racing today.

‘Your mind is like a rippling pool.’

Basic yoga training. He remembered sitting with the other men on the parade ground as the drill sergeant took them through the meditation.

‘Sit down, men. Cross your legs. Back straight. Hands on knees. Focus on the standard.’

The regimental standard – three red lions running in a circle on a blue back ground – was always strung up before them during yoga practice.

‘Focus on the standard, men. Don’t let anything else into your head.

‘Now close your eyes. Keep them shut. Anyone opening their eyes will be on the end of my boot.

‘Keep the standard in your mind. Keep every detail of it there. Don’t let your thoughts jump.

‘Your mind is like a rippling pool. Still it.’

But today Jack found it hard to calm his thoughts. He tried to concentrate on the standard, but images and memories flickered in his head . . .

Elizabeth standing in the snow last Christmas, waving goodbye as he pulled away on the back of the cart . . .

Elizabeth, as a child, running towards him across a meadow, her long dark hair flowing behind her . . .

And then Katelin, his wife, on her deathbed, her face glistening with sweat as the fever took hold, her skin so pale he could see the blue veins clearly beneath. Her Celtic cross necklace rose and fell with her slight breathing. She reached out to him with skeletal arms and the feeling of her fingers on his cheek was like the chilling touch of death, as if she were already gone, calling to him from the spirit world . . .

He snapped his mind back to the standard.

He breathed slowly and felt his heart beating, beating, each beat telling him he was still alive.

Gradually, he tamed his mind. He bent all his thoughts towards the standard, suppressed anything else. He saw every detail of the three lions: the open mouths, bulging eyes, twitching tails, extended claws.

His spine tingled, warmth pulsed in his forehead and energy trickled over his scalp. Sattva prickled his nostrils. He was touching on the spirit realm now, the realm of heaven, of God . . .

A loud knock on the door snatched him out of the trance. He sat still for a second and composed himself.

Another knock.

He opened the door and saw Sarah standing there in a blue dress and a white bonnet. The rain had cleared during the night and the day was bright and warm. He squinted in the sudden glare.

‘There you are,’ Sarah said. ‘The master wants you. There are some people – they’ve come to see you.’

‘People?’

‘Army, I think.’

Jack frowned. Why would anyone from the army visit him? He’d had nothing to do with the army for nine years.

He walked with Sarah to the opening in the wall bordering the servants’ compound. Before he went through, she tugged his sleeve and looked at him with concern. ‘What did the doctor say?’

‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t go, did you?’

‘Of course I did. Really. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

She smiled. ‘Thank God.’ Then the smile slipped from her face and she looked away. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘Don’t you worry.’

He considered patting her on the shoulder, but decided not to and instead stepped out into the garden, where a pair of peacocks strutted across the lawn.

Shri Goyanor was standing near the stone bridge, fidgeting. His spectacles flashed as they caught the light. ‘There are some army officers here. They need to speak to you.’

Jack nodded and followed his employer into the formal garden. He heard birds chirping in the trees and smelt the steam of the drying earth. Water burbled from fountains and shivered across ponds.

‘Look, Jack,’ Shri Goyanor said. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?’

‘No, sir.’

Shri Goyanor nodded. ‘Of course not. Good.’

They came to the gazebo – a circular, wooden structure with a thatched roof and trellis walls covered in jasmine vines. The jasmine leaves bobbed as bees flitted from flower to flower. Two Indian men sat cross-legged in the shade. Jack stopped and blinked in surprise.

One of them was Captain Jhala – commander of his old army company, and his guru.

Jhala stood and smiled.

Jack instinctively did a deep namaste, going down to his knees and prostrating himself for a moment, before getting back to his feet. You had to show proper respect to your guru. Jhala was the siddha who had given him the secret training.

Jhala put his hands together and bowed slightly. ‘Namaste. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Jack.’

Jhala had aged a great deal since the last time Jack had seen him. Although he would only be in his mid-fifties now, his face seemed to hang from his scalp, giving him a slightly morose appearance. His cheeks were jowly and he had large purplish bags under his eyes. What was visible of his hair – poking out from under his red and white turban – had gone silver, as had his eyebrows.

He’d always been a strong man, but he’d suffered from occasional bouts of a fever he’d caught in Rajthana when he was young. Jack recalled him being confined to bed with it on several occasions. Perhaps the illness had caused this premature ageing.

‘Captain Jhala, I don’t know what to—’ Jack began.

Jhala smiled again and tapped his turban. Jack noticed the golden braids woven into the material.

‘Forgive me,
Colonel
Jhala.’