Shadow of the Moon (53 page)

The words were spoken with entire conviction, and though she could only have been referring to a bird or a squirrel, Winter was suddenly and strangely reassured. The terror and the tension ebbed away from her, and a bold blue jay, its plumage glinting like a handful of jewels in the morning sunlight, swooped down to take a fragment of bread from Nissa's small palm.

28

The sun was still below the horizon when Alex left the green crop-lands behind him, and gave Chytuc his head across the wide stretch of the open plain where his hooves clicked against the bleached bones of cattle and his black body as yet cast no shadow.

The line of the ravine was still invisible, but the tall group of
dhâk
trees made a small dark landmark against the dun-coloured level of the plain. The morning air was sharp and cold and exhilarating. Partridges called from among the tussocks of grass and thorn-scrub, and in the far distance a slow-moving line of dark dots betrayed a herd of blackbuck.

A rough cart-track idled across the plain towards the ravine and Chunwar, but the heavy dew and the rain of the previous day had laid the dust, and the prints of Chytuc's hooves lay clear on a surface that showed that no cart and only two men on foot had passed within the last few hours. Alex noted the fact, but without optimism. There was no reason to suppose that reinforcements had not entered the ravine from the opposite side, and he could only hope that there were not more than three or at the most four men lying in wait for him. The conversation that Winter had repeated to him made it seem likely that there would be only two, but it was not safe to count on that.

Mehan Lal … Yes, he remembered Mehan Lal, and he had a fairly clear idea as to why the man had been selected to carry out this particular form of assassination. Mehan Lal possessed an unusual accomplishment, and Alex had once seen him use it to bring down a galloping leopard that had broken cover during a partridge shoot. The creature had bounded across an open stretch of ground, and Mehan Lal had swung and released a weighted silken rope with unbelievable swiftness and accuracy. The rope, swung by its weights, had whipped about the leopard's fore-paws and brought it to a rolling, snarling stop. It was said of Mehan Lal that he could bring down anything from a galloping horse to a long-legged heron with his weighted rope, and Alex did not doubt it.

He slowed Chytuc to a canter as the clump of
dhâk
trees loomed larger and the tops of the scrub and trees and cane that choked the ravine showed as a dark line above its rim. As he neared it he reined in to a walk: there was no necessity to risk Chytuc breaking a leg, though he doubted if anything would be tried in the way of tripping the horse. That Chytuc should be capable of dragging his dead body for a reasonable distance appeared to be an essential part of the scheme.

Alex had ridden through the ravine comparatively frequently, and he
tried now to visualize it and put himself in the place of two men who wished to ambush a third and kill him, preferably by a blow on the head. There was a tree that grew on the bed of the ravine and spread its branches above the track. A man lying along one of those branches might strike down at the head of a horseman riding beneath. But would the leaves be thick enough to hide such a man? He could not remember, but of one thing he was sure; on the downward slope it would be easier to see into the branches, for they would for a moment be on a level with the eye. Therefore there would be nobody in that tree. It would be as he breasted the slope on the opposite side.

Alex drew out the slim skinning knife that he carried under the saddle flap. It was an item of equipment that was useful on long rides in rough country, and had in its day been put to a multitude of uses. Niaz kept the blade sharpened to a razor-like edge and Alex ran his thumb lightly along it and grinned appreciatively to see the blood start at its touch. He held the knife with the blade uppermost against his sleeve and touched Chytuc with his heel, and they passed by the
dhâk
trees and down over the rim of the ravine.

Chytuc's hooves slipped a little on the slope and Alex spoke softly. He was riding loosely, sitting relaxed in the saddle, and there was nothing about him to betray the fact that every nerve and faculty was tense and alert. He heard the faint rustle to one side of the track, and the whistle of the weighted rope; and because he had been waiting for it he pulled back on the rein and brought up his left hand in the same movement.

The rope whipped about him like a live thing with a life of its own, but instead of pinning his arms to his sides, his arm was raised to meet it. The knife blade shored upwards severing the rope, and Chytuc, reined in savagely, had backed instead of plunging forward.

Almost simultaneously a man rose from the high grass by the track and clawed at Alex's boot, but Alex had dropped the reins after that one savage jerk and there was a pistol in his right hand. The explosion and the howl of pain sent Chytuc rearing wildly on the narrow track, and the slashing blow of an iron-tipped
lathi
from the opposite side missed its mark and caught the horse's flank, raising a vicious weal. Alex dropped the knife and fired again, as with a squeal of rage Chytuc reared up with flaying hooves. The next moment horse and rider had burst out of the ravine and onto the level plain with the speed and violence of a thunderbolt.

Alex made no attempt to check the infuriated horse but let him have his head until his pain and panic had subsided. They rode into Chunwar by way of the canal bank, and Alex noted that the report that it had been illegally breached was correct, but that it was another cultivator, and not Mohammed Afzal, whose fields had reaped the benefit. He called upon the Kotwal - the village headman - and having dealt with the matter of the breached canal, rode back to the ravine accompanied by the Kotwal and some of the more responsible villagers.

A man who gave his name as Sobha Chand was discovered hiding in the thickets a quarter of a mile above the track. It had not been difficult to trace him for he had a bullet through the shoulder and was suffering from severe loss of blood. He appeared to imagine that he was either dead or dying. Mehan Lal had not gone so far. A smashed knee is a painful thing, and he crouched in the tall grass by the path and groaned. There had been a third man, but he had fled.

Alex had seen the two wounded men loaded into a bullock-cart, their wounds roughly bandaged, and had ridden slowly back to the cantonments in the wake of the cart, where having handed the groaning pair of would-be assassins over to the care of the police, he had returned to his bungalow for breakfast. He hoped that the morning's work might act as a deterrent to others interested in his removal, since the average native of the country, though for the most part careless of death, possessed a disproportionate fear of being painfully wounded.

Having breakfasted he walked over to the Commissioner's office and paid particular attention, without appearing to do so, to the demeanour of every servant whom he met. No face expressed any surprise at his appearance, but he noted with interest that although Durga Charan, the head
chupprassi
, could control both his face and his bland, unwinking eyes, he could not prevent his hands from quivering. Alex dropped his gaze to those unsteady hands and allowed it to linger on them thoughtfully.

‘Durga Charan,' said Alex softly, ‘I think that I have heard some talk of
taklief
(trouble) in thy village. It may be that thou shouldst take leave and see that all is well with thy house … while thy health permits.' The man had said nothing, but an hour later he had asked the Commissioner for leave to go to his home.

Winter had heard Alex's footsteps and his quiet voice, and she had gone to her bedroom and locked the door behind her and wept for the first time since her wedding night: weeping for relief and thankfulness as she never wept for the loss of her illusions.

It had been a Tuesday, and that evening the ‘Tuesday Crowd' were to dine as usual at the Residency. Winter had been too tired and too worn out by the anxieties of the previous night and the varied emotions of the day to be able to stand up to a scene with Conway, and she had agreed to dine with them on the understanding that she could retire immediately afterwards. Provided she sat at his table, said Conway, he had not the smallest objection to her feigning a headache and retiring at the conclusion of the meal. In fact he would appreciate it, by God he would! She cast a damned damper on such parties, and they would do very well without her.

He looked at her with scowling irritation, wondering how he could ever have imagined, even for so short a time, that she had grown into a beauty? He had not paid much attention to her of late, and it suddenly struck him that she had lost a lot of weight and was looking remarkably sallow. A pity.
He disliked skinny women. And her eyes were too big. He had thought them amazingly fine when she had first arrived in Lunjore. The most speaking eyes he had ever seen in a woman's head. Lashes like - like black butterflies! dammit, mused the Commissioner, surprised at himself for such an unusually poetical flight of fancy. But now there was a blankness about them and they seemed to look round him or through him, but never at him, and there were blue shadows beneath them like bruises.

He said a little uneasily: ‘You are not looking at all the thing, my dear. Are you not feeling well? Lunjore is not held to be a good station for women. The climate is not all it should be. Perhaps it might be a good thing if you were to go away on a short visit, to set you up before the hot weather. The Abuthnots would I feel sure be pleased to see you. Or we might consider a visit to Lucknow. You will like to see your father's house - our house. What do you say to that?'

He saw the bright, transient colour flood up into his wife's pale face and her eyes lose their blankness and become brilliant again, and thought with baffled amazement: ‘Why dammit, she
is
a beauty—'

Winter said with a tremor in her voice: ‘Could I really go to Lucknow? I have wanted to so much. Could I really?'

The Commissioner was gratified by her response to his careless suggestion, though he considered that she should have shown a more proper reluctance to leave him. But she was, on the whole, an amenable little thing, and except for stubborn moments, such as her refusal to enter into the spirit of his gayer evenings, she gave no trouble. And she was - or wasn't she? - good looking. It was odd that he could never make up his mind on that point. He patted her shoulder with condescending affection, and said well, well, they would see about it. It might not be a bad idea at all. The Casa de Ballesteros - he believed that it had once been called something fanciful to do with peacocks - was really a very fine house. He had stayed there once or twice when inspecting the property on behalf of her guardian.

Pleased with that momentary flicker of beauty and his own magnanimity, he had put an arm about her waist, and pulling her against him had planted a wetly alcoholic kiss upon her cheek. It had been intended for her lips, but Winter had turned her head away, though she had done nothing else to avoid his embrace but had stood quite still, enduring it with closed eyes; wishing with a sudden passionate intensity that it was Alex who held her. She heard footsteps in the hall and Iman Bux's murmured ‘Huzoor', and realizing that in the next moment a visitor would be ushered into the drawing-room, attempted to free herself: ‘Conway - please. Someone is coming in—'

‘Let 'em!' mumbled Conway thickly. He had started his drinking early so as to be in good spirits for the arrival of his guests, and had found, as always, that the feel of a woman's body in his arms - even that of so slim and unyielding a one as his wife's - was remarkably pleasant.

Winter's arms had been hanging stiffly at her sides, but now she put up her hands and caught at his coat sleeves in an endeavour to thrust him away, so that for a moment it appeared as though she were returning her husband's embrace. She heard the door open and found herself looking into Alex Randall's expressionless face.

It was a sudden and nightmare repetition of the day at Delhi when he had walked in and found her in Carlyon's arms. A nightmare with a cruel twist to it, because then she had been so afraid that it would be Conway who would find her in that degrading position; but it had been Alex. And now it was Conway who held her, and again it was Alex. But it was Alex whom she loved.