A Far Horizon (32 page)

S
ati sat where the Chief Magistrate had placed her, too terrified to move. Pagal was slumped at her feet, one side of his face a bloodied mess where the guards had beaten him. The heat and stench in the cell were unbearable. Occasionally the flares of passing guards threw a weak light into the Black Hole. As far as Sati could see, there appeared to be no other women besides herself. Hatmen and rough soldiers filled the place. Many were wounded, and, with the heat and lack of attention, appeared on the point of expiring. The Chief Magistrate had a place at the window. The light of the fires outside illuminated his shape dimly. She wanted to turn away but felt forced to keep her eyes on him in order to protect herself. Her fear at the suffocating crush of desperate men faded to nothing before the sight of the Chief Magistrate. At her feet Pagal now appeared to have fallen into a troubled doze. She shook him gently but he did not stir and she let him sleep. At times he called for water, muttering and groaning in delirium. A guard passed again with a flare and stopped to stare through the window. By the light of the torch she could see the severity of the wounds to Pagal’s head. The soldiers had beaten him mercilessly before throwing them into the prison. She feared he might die in the night, leaving her alone. New panic filled her and, looking wildly about, she met the Chief Magistrate’s eyes once more.
For a moment he stared at her, then, stepping unsteadily between the crush of men, he began to push his way across the room.

The guard with the torch moved away but the faint light of the fires outside was enough to show Sati the Chief Magistrate moving towards her. Fear tightened in her throat. Soon he would stand before her, his shadow merging with the blackness to envelop her entirely. A fragment of memory thrust suddenly into her mind. Once, long before, she remembered the Chief Magistrate’s shadow had fallen upon her. She had been standing in a long bright room. She recalled the whorls on the floorboards and a picture on a wall. In her mind there was a boundary to the pool of light, beyond which, however hard she tried, she could not see. It was as if some knowledge was denied her. This sliver of memory frightened her whenever it appeared, moving like something unhinged in her mind, filling her body with weight. The Chief Magistrate had manoeuvred the last few yards of the tightly-packed room and finally stood before her. She drew away in terror but the brick wall pressed hard against her back. The Chief Magistrate towered above her.

‘Durga.’ For the first time in days she whispered the name and touched the amulet in her neck, willing the spirit to come.

Immediately obedient to the summons, Durga showed herself. Sati saw her dancing on the bodies of the suffering men, surrounded by light in the dark cell. As she watched, Durga sailed out through the window and circled above the guards. When she dived back into the room, there were sparks of fire in her hair. She flew towards Sati, diving deep within her, lifting her away from the Chief Magistrate’s grasp just as in the temple she had lifted her away from the bamboo cane. Sati felt herself float free of her physical body again, light as gossamer. Looking down from a height, she could see herself, cowering fearfully in her corner. Above her the ceiling of filthy bricks was shiny with moisture. A gecko ran across it, a spider sat in his web in a corner. At the window Sati breathed in the still night air and observed the smouldering heap of embers that had once been Governor’s House. The flowery balcony Mrs Drake had stood on was
gone. Sati stared at the smoking rubble. She searched the distant river for the
Dodaldy
’s
lanterns but there was nothing to see. Mrs Drake’s ship had moved down river, away from the dangers of Siraj Uddaulah.

Thoughts of the Governor’s wife still lingered in her mind. She was tied in some way to Mrs Drake, just as she was tied to Durga. Karma was a strange thing. She knew that sometimes soul wandered in the lives of a worm, an elephant or a moth, and in whichever of life’s mazes it struggled, karma bound a soul to others. Something she would never understand bound her to Mrs Drake. At last Sati turned her gaze away from the window to observe the Chief Magistrate. Something drew her gaze to that sinister shadow, just as her mind bent to the thought of Mrs Drake. It was as if he waited for her. The very darkness of the Black Hole seemed to spread out from the Chief Magistrate’s body, like a billowing cloak. Hidden beneath it wrestled things too gnarled to risk the light. Far below she saw herself cringe against the wall as the Chief Magistrate leaned over her. As she knew he would, he reached out a hand and touched her.

His thin fingers burned her skin. Until now, suspended far above her body, Sati had looked on, detached from the things that happened in the room. But the shock of the Chief Magistrate’s touch ricocheted up to her. She felt herself plummet downwards then, back into her terrified body. She found herself staring up into the Chief Magistrate’s face.

‘Durga,’ she screamed.

And immediately Durga was alert, preparing to fight Sati’s battle. Sati felt herself slip away within her own body, giving Durga the space to live. Durga’s deep voice rose above the whimpering men, loud enough to stir Pagal from his stupor. He raised his battered, bloody head at the familiar sound and smiled.

‘The Goddess has returned,’ he whispered.

Under Durga’s direction Sati stood up, uncurling slowly like a bud, until she faced the Chief Magistrate. From her mouth Durga’s raw voice flowed out.

In the room men stirred, trying to comprehend what was happening. Pagal managed to get up on his knees.

‘The Goddess is here.
Reverence.
Reverence
to
Her.
Reverence
.’
He dragged himself forward, dipping his head to Sati’s feet.

The Chief Magistrate understood enough of the language to catch the meaning of Pagal’s words. He gave a low growl of fury, and turned on the albino. Pagal’s pale face confronted him, as it had on that night of confusion in the parade ground.

‘Goddess? What goddess? I’ll show you what she is.’ Holwell gripped Sati’s arm, shaking her like a dog.

‘No!’ Sati screamed, and the cry was her own.

In just this way, with just this degree of terror, she knew now she had stared up at him once before. At last a door swung open in her mind, she remembered it all. The bright room was before her again and now there was no dark boundary hiding knowledge in its shadow. Filled with the afternoon sun, the room stretched away to the brilliance of a long window. In this illuminated place, she remembered, she had looked up to see the Chief Magistrate coming towards her. His shadow had suddenly fallen on her, cutting off the flood of light. She had looked down at the warm polished boards of the floor and seen the darkness of him stretching out as far as she could see in an elongated shape. He had reached out and gripped her arm, propelling her forward, his fingers digging deep into her flesh. She had been forced to cross the bright room enclosed within the Chief Magistrate’s shadow. She had been twelve years old.

She recalled entering a further room and then the slamming of a door. She remembered how her hands had fastened on a book and then on a china figurine, hurling them at the forbidding figure before her. These items had fallen ineffectually at the Chief Magistrate’s feet. Her screams had filled her ears, blocking out all other sound, but nobody came. The Chief Magistrate clamped a hand on her mouth. She remembered next the feeling of falling, and of the brightness about her vanishing. A weight sank down on her; something so heavy it pressed her flat, like a delicate flower trapped in the leaves of a
book. She could not breathe, she could not move. No voice came from her throat. The darkness tumbled about her, smelling of sourness and sweat. The Chief Magistrate appeared to hang above her like a spider, waiting to devour her. She was drowning in the darkness of his shadow, already it ran in her flesh. His chin dug into her shoulder, his bones grinding upon her own. She tried to fight but could not lift the weight of him off her. The great wrestling force of the Chief Magistrate pushed her further into darkness, tearing her limbs apart. Soon she was sure she must die. Yet at that moment when she thought death must come, life returned in a great searing pain, ripping her body in two. She began to scream and heard again the sound of her own voice. Suddenly then, she felt herself soar up, free of the Chief Magistrate, free of her body.

There had been no Durga then to guide her. She had floated, a fragment of herself, high above the scene in the room, looking down without emotion. She knew instinctively that what she saw had nothing to do with her. She was safe above it all. Far below her the Chief Magistrate was splayed on the floor in such a way that she thought him dead. But then he moved and with the litheness of an animal gathered himself together and stood up. She saw then that something lay beneath him, pitifully squashed. She saw with surprise that it was herself. The Chief Magistrate straightened his jacket and pulled his breeches into place. He turned and left the room.

She had known then of no way to return to her body. Instead she had listened to the soughing of the hot wind in the shutters and the cries of birds and animals. She had watched the day disappear over the river and darkness stream in with the stars. Below, in the room, that other half of her made no movement at all. She did not recall the moment of her return, when her ripped and oozing body summoned her back into its shell. She had woken in her grandmother’s arms, the old woman’s tears falling copiously on her.

Much later she had woken again to darkness and seen through the window a solitary star. She no longer remembered the pain, but only the feeling of her own solitude, cold as that distant star. At that
moment she knew she had broken in two and would never be whole again.

Now, as she stood before the Chief Magistrate in the stinking cell they called the Black Hole, the knowledge denied her for so long flooded her again. At last she was once more in possession of the bright room in her memory. Nothing was now refused her and would never be again. This sudden revelation flooded through her and was immediately sensed by the Chief Magistrate. He let go of her arm and drew back, his breath still sounding hard in his chest. As light is deflected from a bright surface, he felt the strength of her will turn against him.

She knew now she was free of his power. Something had unravelled and in the darkness she burned suddenly with new fire. The night would soon end and she would be free to give birth to the wholeness inside her.

‘Reverence.
Reverence
to
Her.
’
Pagal’s voice flapped up and down deliriously.

There were Portuguese soldiers in the room whose European blood, over generations of intermarriage, had been diluted to such a degree that they were now a fierce ebony. Although they pronounced themselves Christian, they could never shed, however hard the Church tried, the voluptuous comfort of ancient ways instilled by their Indian mothers. They had heard from their wives of the Goddess who sheltered with the refugees and now they pushed forward in the darkness, stumbling over compatriots and Hatmen, the wounded and the newly dead to reclaim their souls. They began uttering unfamiliar words, moving rusty ancestor thoughts, trusting suddenly in old gods.

‘
Reverence.
Reverence
to
Her
.’
They tried to fall to their knees beside Pagal, but in the confined space, they succeeded only in trampling on distraught men.

Sati turned away from the men crowding at her feet and leaned back against the wall to wait for the morning light.

The Chief Magistrate might stand before her still, but she would
never again be in fear of him. Durga too had suddenly vanished and might never return; she was free of all her fears.

Sometime that night Pagal died. The Reverend Bellamy, young Baillee, Clayton, Blagg and Witherington and the several wounded militiamen followed shortly after him. For Pagal, at least, the Goddess had waited to guide him through the perilous passage from one realm to the next. He died with her name upon his lips.

*

At six in the morning the nawab, in his camp of tents, had enquired after his prisoners and been given a report of the difficult night passed by all in the Black Hole. He had been surprised and upbraided his men for causing the Hatmen so much discomfort. He ordered all but Holwell and three other Hatmen – to be randomly chosen by the guards – to be released. At once the door of the Black Hole was opened. The remaining Hatmen trooped out, followed by the Dutch mercenaries and the Portuguese sepoys, who were now much subdued. All were ordered to sit on the benches outside the Black Hole. The fresh air and the sun, a drink of water and the fist of bread they were now given soon restored vital energy. The Chief Magistrate’s concern now was that a proper respect be shown for Bellamy’s corpse. He got up, intending to return to his dead friend, but was pushed back into place by a guard.

Soon the bodies of those who had died in the night were dragged out of the Black Hole. The Chief Magistrate saw Clayton and Blagg and then Witherington pulled out by their feet and heaved on to a cart. Next Baillee’s body and two Indian militiamen, humped over the shoulders of soldiers like meat from the abattoir, were dumped on top of them. Bellamy was then brought out and, however much the Chief Magistrate protested, was flung into the cart over Baillee. Pagal, the flaxen stubble on his head bright in the morning sun, was thrown on top of them all. There was nothing the Chief Magistrate could do to stop the albino’s inclusion in the funeral cart. The troops clearing the bodies from the Black Hole had mistaken him for a European. This troubled the Chief Magistrate, for now it appeared
the man would be buried with them. The Chief Magistrate rose to protest once more but was pushed back on to the bench with a musket. The thought that Bellamy and the other men would not get even the briefest of funerals filled him with fresh horror. Once the carts were full, they set off, trundled by oxen towards The Avenue. There, the Chief Magistrate was told, the bodies would be buried in the trench that had been dug across The Park. The Chief Magistrate followed Bellamy’s stiff pink legs – all he could now see of the Chaplain – until the cart disappeared from sight.