The Maharajah's Monkey (18 page)

It was well past midnight before we retired to our tents. The funeral of Malharrao would be held at daybreak tomorrow, for it is the custom here to cremate the dead as soon as possible. I noticed, as I fell into a dull sleep on the ground besides Rachel, that the water in my bottle had turned to ice.

I woke with a start. My limbs were aching, the ground freezing under my back. I really must talk to Isaac about inventing some sort of sleeping sack. A beam of light flickered briefly through an opening in the tent and outside a twig cracked. Instantly alert, I crawled out of my tent to find Aunt Hilda and Champlon, fully dressed and about to mount their donkeys.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back to your tent, Kit,” my aunt hissed.

“I want to come too!”

“Heavens. You know we must get ahead of the Baker Brothers,” she muttered. “Can someone muzzle this child!”

“Let 'er come,” Champlon said. “She weel wake everyone.”

“It was a big mistake to take this dratted child with us,” Aunt Hilda grumbled, but she consented to me accompanying them.

Luckily, I had gone to sleep in all my clothes to keep warm. I would not have put it beyond my aunt to have sneaked off while I was changing. Hurriedly lacing up my boots, I jumped on my Tara and trotted after them. I didn't need to ask again where we were going. This must be a mission to find Yongden, the monk, who would guide us. The murder of Malharrao would only have sharpened their resolve to act fast. I could only hope that our disappearance wouldn't lead the villagers to think we had anything to do with the dead body. In the morning, many of the Sherpas would pack and pretend to move back down to the valley. Meanwhile we would persuade Yongden to show us the secret mountain way to Tibet.

Later we would all meet again on the mountain trail—our pre-arranged rendezvous.

We had gone half a mile out of the village, up an increasingly rutted track when we had to abandon our mounts and take to our feet, for the way was simply too dangerous for donkeys. We tethered them and trudged heavy-footed up the mountain. The sky flowed over our
heads, a rippling swatch of star-speckled black velvet. A pitted lump of moon lit our way. We had to proceed with great care. One blunder would have sent us hurtling down the precipice. Finally, we saw a series of caves in the rock face rising above us. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. The largest cave was scorched, grass and twigs flamed away. The opening leered at us, like an enormous black eye.

We were too late. Our enemies had been here before us.

Champlon instinctively put his hand to his holster to draw his pistol—but there was no one around, just a lone vulture which hovered above us, looking for food. Stooping a little, we entered the cave. Rocky walls enclosed us. Yongden, the hermit, had few possessions. A wooden bowl, which lay smashed in the center of the room. A few large cushions for a bed, which had been savagely ripped. Feathers still fluttered in the air, like lost snowflakes. Religious scrolls showing a fat smiling Lord Buddha on the walls. On an altar, formed from a few pieces of wood, were copper bowls full of water and grain, lamps full of butter. These offerings to the gods were the only things which had been left untouched.

Of the hermit there was no sign.

“Blast it and ruination,” hollered my aunt, glaring at the mess. “They've got the bloomin' monk.”

“We 'ave no chance of finding 'im in the mountains,” Champlon muttered. “We 'ave not the—”

“We can go on without the monk,” I interrupted.

“Keep quiet, Kit,” snapped Aunt Hilda. “Remember rule number one: children should be seen and not heard.”

With that, she turned her back on me and continued whispering to Champlon.

I wanted to hit back at my aunt with some biting retort, but a more sensible part of me realized that she was desperately worried. Why she had to take out her anxiety on me I didn't know. I wandered around the cave, trying to look proudly unconcerned. I became aware of a shaft of light, a broad golden band, coming from the altar. How strange. One of the butter lamps had flickered into life. I let out an exclamation. Where a moment before there had been empty space there was a skinny brown man. Dressed in orange robes, he was sitting cross-legged in front of the altar. He had a smooth shaven head and a soft face. It was his eyes that arrested me; pools of oily blue-black, like the liquid swirling in the very depths of a well. They weren't exactly friendly, or comforting, this person's eyes.

“Aunt Hilda!” I said.

“Seen and
not heard,
” Aunt Hilda barked, without turning her back.

The man—the monk—was watching me, impassively.

“You're not real,” I said to him.

The others turned around to see who I was talking to. Aunt Hilda screamed at the sight of the apparition.

“Welcome,” the monk said.

“Gomchen Yongden?” Aunt Hilda asked.

The monk inclined his head.

“How,” I muttered. “I … I … looked there and—”

Yongden murmured: “I did not wish you to see me.”

“Impossible!” Champlon barked. More to himself than the rest of us he added, uncertainly, “It is a tricks. A cheap conjuring tricks.”

The monk shrugged.

“How do you make such tricks?” Champlon blurted.

The same smile flickered over Yongden's face and his hands danced briefly in the air. “All this is a painted veil.”

“I stood right there,” I said, pointing to a spot a couple of feet away from Yongden.

He didn't answer, but smiled, showing us a mouth with more gaps than teeth.

“Who did this to you?” Aunt Hilda asked, changing the subject. She looked around, at the smashed and ripped things, the marks of fire on the walls. “It's outrageous!”

Yongden shrugged.

“Who were they?”

“Ghosts,” Yongden replied.

“Ghosts?” Aunt Hilda asked uncertainly.

“Men with no souls. Ghosts.”

“What did they look like, these ghosts?” I interrupted.

“White men, white clothes. When they not find me they say, ‘Destroy everything.'” Yongden paused a moment, reflecting. “They strange men, some type that I not met before. When I look their eyes, I saw nothing. Something gone away from them. They were people, yes, but without a soul.”

“People without souls,” I murmured, half unconsciously. The words brought to mind one image, the Baker Brothers. Their blank eyes, blank faces. They had given me the same feeling; their eyes had nothing,
nothing
, behind them. All of us were quiet for a moment, for the thought of people without souls blew a chill into us.

I sighed, for whatever we did it seemed the Bakers were there, ahead of us. They knew what all this was about, while I was like a blind man, groping in a dark passage. Well, at least one thing was perfectly plain: they were seeking Shambala. The Bakers would not be trudging through snow and ice; facing death by exposure and avalanche, unless there was something of immense value at the end of their quest.

Abruptly Aunt Hilda snapped into a businesslike mode and was asking Yongden if he would accompany us to Tibet as a guide. “We have heard you know these
mountains better than anyone,” she pleaded. She was all ready to wheedle and flatter, do anything to persuade this strange shaven-headed hermit, but he forestalled her.

“Show me your map,” he said simply, holding out his hand to me. “I guide you.”

Aunt Hilda looked at Champlon and then she looked at me. No one had mentioned a map. A bolt of fear flashed through us all.

My hands stayed stubbornly still. I looked the monk in the eye without speaking.

He didn't speak either. He held out his hand, perfectly still.

“Kit,” Aunt Hilda said.

“No. No, I won't.”

“Kit, give him the map or I'll—”

I meant to go on refusing but that monk's eyes were burning inside me and I found my hands moving to my pocket taking out the map and handing it over. I burned with rage at myself but at the same time my hands were perfectly passive and normal.

“This is our only map,” Aunt Hilda said, as Yongden examined it. “Not much of one. Doesn't make a lot of sense.”

“This is the map,” he said. His wrinkled hands turned over the torn parchment, so lightly his fingers hardly
seemed to touch the surface. He was looking at the marking that said:

Abominable Cave
Hope and glory to those who undertake this—

and then like most of the inscriptions it ended, for the rest had been snatched away by that thieving monkey. The monk's eyes roved over the page and I felt horribly possessive. I was hurt and raging inside. He had no
right
.

It was
my
map. I was
meant
to have that map.

I held out my hand for it but Yongden shook his head. “I keep.” He rolled it up carefully and put it in some unseen pocket in his loose saffron gown.

“But—” I began but Aunt Hilda dug me savagely in the ribs.

“You go now and I meet you before border,” Yongden said. “At the parting of the paths, you will see a brown-gray rock. It look like bear cub. There I be.”

I was about to protest hotly at his taking my map—my map. That piece of torn parchment and I were deeply, mysteriously connected. Its delicate markings, its mountain paths and gaping ravines, flowed quicksilver in my veins. It had become my guide and mentor. Suddenly, I was struck by the conviction that this hermit,
for all his shaven head, was a common thief.

I glared at him, putting all my anger into my eyes. He barely seemed to notice.

“You do us great honor, Gomchen Yongden, to accompany our journey. We offer humble thanks and salutes. When shall we meet you?” Aunt Hilda asked.

“When you are there. So will I.”

With that we took our leave, the grown-ups practically pushing me out of the cave. I was so fuming inside I could barely bring myself to put one foot in front of the other. Outside I turned on Aunt Hilda and Champlon.

“Well,” I said. “I expect we will never see hair nor hide of Mister Yongden again.”

Aunt Hilda glared at me. “You just don't understand, do you?”

“Understand what?”

“Frostbite. Savage border guards. Temperatures of 30 degrees below freezing. Avalanches. Glaciers. The whole kit and caboodle.”

“I know about that.”

“You read a few story books and you think you know everything,” she scoffed. “The reality, my little dreamer, is very different. If we are to have any chance—any chance whatsoever—of getting into Tibet, that strange man is our only hope.”

Champlon agreed. “'E is our lifeline in these mountains.”

“So you see where this stands,” Aunt Hilda snapped and turning she began to tramp down the rocky mountain. “We need him a far sight more than we need some pesky child who always thinks she is right.”

She shouted over her shoulder, as a parting shot: “I've already told you. Talk less and
listen more
! Then you might become half-bearable.”

Why was Aunt Hilda suddenly being so nasty? She was a big bully. For a moment I wanted to pick up a piece of wood and throw it at her. But to be honest, I didn't dare. Tears spurted in my eyes. I sat down on the ground with a thump, my thoughts in a whirl. My map stolen, my stomach churning. I felt sick and hot. To cap it all Aunt Hilda was so beastly. How dare she treat me like some ninny of a girl? How dare she?
How dare she?

For some time I sat like this, tears hot on my face. I felt very alone, because my map had so occupied my imagination it had given me stomach for this whole journey. So I sobbed, till the pain eased a little and the sun had crawled up the sky. My tears were finally spent and my sheepskin coat was covered in soot. Never mind Aunt Hilda—or, though even the thought hurt me—my map. I had to go on with the plan. We had to meet the others at the rendezvous point, or risk destroying our
elaborate precautions for putting the villagers off our scent. I would play along with her plans—and see if Yongden really did meet us at “bear-cub rock.” Sighing, I got to my feet and scrambled down the path my aunt and Champlon had taken.

But when I got to the bend in the path, my aunt and Gaston Champlon had vanished.

I hurtled down the mountain. My heart was thumping away madly, an awful sick fear welling up in my mouth. Where on earth were my aunt and Champlon? They couldn't have abandoned me on a mountain, not over a tiff. By the time I reached the place where we had left the donkeys, I was finding it difficult to breathe in the thin air and my calves had taken a pounding.

Thank goodness Tara was waiting where I had left her, tethered to a fir tree. But where were Champlon and Aunt Hilda's donkeys? We were in a ravine. To the left of us was a dizzying precipice, a sheer drop down to the valley below. To the right a craggy and impassable wall of grayish-white rocks, studded with trees and hardy grass. Up and down the mountain there was no sign of the two of them. Nothing whatsoever.

So, they thought they could give me the slip did they? Typical of my aunt. Well, I would jump on Tara and ride hard to catch them up.

“Tara! Tara!” I called striding toward my donkey.

Tara made no answering whinny. She was oddly mute, as if she didn't recognize my voice. This was all wrong. Tara always greeted me with delight, charming me so she would receive some tasty titbit.

“Tara what's wrong!” I wailed, coming up to her from behind, placing my arm round her neck. “You silly old donkey! I had no choice. You would have fallen down the mountain!”

My dear donkey made a movement, the tiniest of shrugs. I looked into her eyes and in a rush realized everything was wrong. Her eyes were covered with a white film. Were no longer seeing. Worse, when I glanced down horror awaited me. Tara had a horizontal gash in her throat, which was dripping red. Stupidly, frozen into panic, I watched her blood drop on to the earth.