TWENTY-TWO

An hour later, Surrender-not and I were seated in a gilded, open-topped carriage pulled by half a dozen horses, each of whom looked like a potential Derby winner. They were held tightly in check by a turbaned coachman decked out in emerald and gold. It would have been an impressive sight by itself, but it was only one of twenty or more, a convoy of carriages relaying the members of the royal court.

Ahead of the procession walked a garlanded elephant, its tusks sheathed in silver. On its back, in a golden howdah, sat two natives blowing kombus, the large trumpets that produce an odd, high-pitched wail. Behind it came a phalanx of warriors in full ceremonial dress. They pulled a gun carriage, on which lay the mortal remains of the Yuvraj Adhir Singh Sai. There was no coffin, just his body wrapped to the neck in cloth and draped in the Sambalpori flag and myriad garlands of yellow and orange marigolds.

The procession wound its way through lanes choked with mourners. The streets were packed with men and boys, while small children perched in the branches of trees and women thronged the balconies and windows of the houses that lined the route. Flowers rained down from the rooftops.

Colonel Arora sat across from me.

‘I have some good news for you,’ he said, leaning forward to make himself heard over the noise of the crowd.

‘Good news isn’t something we’re used to,’ I replied, ‘I suppose it’ll make an interesting change.’

‘I mentioned to His Highness your request to cut Carmichael off from the outside world. I’m pleased to say he found the idea most droll. He’s agreed to the temporary severing of the telephone and telegraph lines for the next few days. In fact, he’s considering implementing it more often. He says just seeing the look on the face of our dear Resident would be worth the inconvenience.’ ‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘It just leaves us with the problem of Carmichael kicking us out of the Residency.’

‘So you’re homeless?’

‘Unless you can secure us accommodation at the Beaumont?’

The colonel grinned. ‘Oh, I think I can do better than that.’

The procession reached the edge of town and began crossing the bridge over the Mahanadi. The far bank of the river was less built up and the flowers no longer fell from above. With the crowds at the roadside stood a platoon of elephants, their ears painted and their flanks adorned in silks. As the gun carriage passed, a command rang out from a mahout and the elephants knelt in unison.

‘Look, sir!’ Surrender-not exclaimed, pointing. ‘I swear that elephant is crying.’

I was about to laugh, but sure enough, the big grey beast did seem to have a tear in its eye.

‘You are surprised?’ asked Colonel Arora. ‘When a Son of Heaven returns home, why should the animals not also mourn?’ The cortège wound its way south along the riverbank. In the distance, the temple I’d spied from Shreya Bidika’s prison cell came into view, its white marble tower rising high above.

As we drew closer, I saw that the edifice was embellished with the most graphic of carvings, gods and mortals intertwined in the sort of positions that your local vicar would probably never have imagined, let alone countenanced plastering all over the front of his church. And yet a vicar would be perfectly happy with gargoyles or stained-glass depictions of the damned burning in hellfire. It made me think. Why was it that we Christians seemed so squeamish about portraying scenes of love? What were our cardinals and archbishops so afraid of?

The procession came to rest at the gates of the temple compound. There, a guard of honour stood to attention like an exotic row of tin soldiers, their rifles held in front of them, and their golden turbans glinting in the sun. Beside them . . . the funeral pyre. It was larger than I’d expected, a pile of wood that could probably have been reassembled in the form of the Cutty Sark.

The dignitaries began descending from their carriages. Old men in white caps and white kurtas sombrely removed the garlands from the Yuvraj’s body, placing them to one side with the reverence that priests show to holy relics. Then the soldiers lifted him from the gun carriage and gently carried him to the funeral pyre.

The Maharaja was helped down from the lead carriage by two attendants, while another held a large black parasol above his head. A throne of sorts – a raised dais, finished in red velvet and covered with cushions – had been placed before the pyre. Beside it stood a shaven-headed priest in a coarse saffron robe. His forehead was marked with two white lines, joined at the bottom, around a thinner red stripe: the mark of the followers of Vishnu.

The attendants held the Maharaja’s hand and carefully assisted him to the dais, while the man with the parasol ensured no shaft of sunlight fell upon the royal head. The old man sat down, and another attendant with a large feathered fan began to wave a breeze for him.

The priest knelt and spoke a few words with the Maharaja. His Highness looked around, then pointed to a man dressed in white, who bore a striking resemblance to the dead prince. I guessed this was Punit, Adhir’s younger brother, and that he would be performing his brother’s funeral rites.

The congregation stood as the priest led Prince Punit over to one side, where a wood fire burned. Next to it was a small sack-cloth bag. The prince sat cross-legged before the fire as the priest lifted the bag and removed a silver vessel, into which he poured water from an earthen jug. I looked to Surrender-not for enlightenment.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘You’re a Brahmin, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t your understanding be a bit more than just vague? What would your father say?’

‘Not much, sir. He’s an atheist. My mother, on the other hand—’

‘Forget it.’ I sighed. ‘Just explain as best you can.’

‘Very well,’ he continued. ‘We don’t believe in the resurrection of the body. It is but the earthly shell for the soul, which must be released to continue its journey. For that to happen, the soul requires to be fed. They are preparing the meal – a mixture of rice and sesame seeds.’

The prince held the steel pot above the flames while the priest prodded at the fire with a bamboo stick. A thick white smoke curled from the end it. The priest took the pot from Punit then whispered something to him. The prince stood and began to walk slowly around the funeral pyre while the priest chanted a mantra, stopping every so often and waiting for Punit to repeat the words. The prayer complete, Punit returned to the priest’s side. He took a handful of rice and sesame from the pot, fashioned it into a small ball and placed it on his dead brother’s lips. The priest then passed him a sprig of wood. Punit dipped it in a pot of water and, reciting another prayer, he began to sprinkle water onto Adhir’s body.

Taking a pot of ghee, the priest dipped his finger and drew three lines on Adhir’s forehead. Three lines, I thought: just like the man who’d killed him, and the one who now administered his last rites.

The priest returned to the fire and began chanting, then lit a wooden torch and handed it to Punit, who walked over and held it to the funeral pyre. The pyre caught quickly, presumably brushed with something flammable beforehand, and as the flames spread, the priest’s chants grew louder. I looked over at the dais. Tears glistened on the face of the Maharaja. Punit, though, betrayed no emotion. Chanting in a low murmur, he processed around the flames, soon followed by a procession of other mourners.

The scent of charred sandalwood filled my nostrils, as black smoke stung my eyes and the chants reverberated around my fragile head. I turned away and caught sight of a white woman in the crowd. She wasn’t the only one in attendance: there were cooks, nannies, engineers and other staff from the palace, all dressed in sombre black. But this woman was different. She stood apart from the others, among the Indians, and she wore a white sari. The crowds parted. Momentarily I caught a glimpse of her face and my heart stopped. She looked so much like Sarah, my wife, that for a moment I thought I was looking at a ghost. She’d died back in 1918, but in that instant, the loss felt raw, as though it had only been weeks and not years. I tried to catch my breath.

‘Who’s that woman?’ I asked Colonel Arora, pointing her out.

Arora nodded solemnly. ‘That, Captain,’ he replied, ‘is the Yuvraj’s mistress, Miss Katherine Pemberley.’

The priest’s chants grew louder and a great sigh went up from the crowd. They surged forward and I lost sight of her.

I turned back in time to see Punit strike his dead brother’s head with a stave. The colonel caught my surprise.

‘He’s piercing Adhir’s skull,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘So that his soul can be released.’

The flames began to ebb. The mourners continued to circle the pyre with Punit at their head. The priest approached and sprinkled water onto the dying embers. Then he pored over the charred remains, sifting them with his bamboo staff. Suddenly, he bent over and with thumb and forefinger picked a small, blackened object out of the ashes.

‘The nabhi,’ explained Surrender-not. ‘The navel. We believe it has a special significance. In the womb it connects us to the umbilical cord and to our mothers, and at death, at temperatures hot enough to turn flesh and bone to ash, for some reason the navel doesn’t burn. It really is quite curious. We believe it contains our essence and must be returned to the earth.’

I watched as the priest took the navel, packed it in clay and placed it in an earthenware pot. He handed it to Punit, who took it and walked from the pyre to the river. The prince waded in till the waters reached his midriff and submerged the pot in the waters. A cry went up from the mourners. When he returned to the shore, he made for the dais, then joined a number of dignitaries, taking a vacant chair next to Fitzmaurice. If that came as a surprise, it was nothing compared to what I saw next.

In the row immediately behind, next to Emily Carmichael, sat Annie.