The Game (30 page)

Inside the tent, I accepted a glass of champagne and my attendant conjured up a silver tray with flatware and an empty plate, and moved along the tables at my elbow, arranging my choices on the luminous bone china. To my relief, the meal was considerably less oppressive than that of the night before, a buffet composed of English sandwiches, soups hot and cold, and several kinds of curry. My plate and tray filled to excess, I shook my head at the offer of more and walked over to where the Goodhearts sat, their padded stools and divans shaded by the wide branches of a tree and protected from the ground by layers of priceless Oriental carpets. My attendant arranged cushions and fiddled with the silver tray, unfolding a pair of supports that raised it a few inches from the ground. He draped my table napkin over my lap, positioned the table-tray in front of me, and retreated, lingering nearby to fill my glass and fetch additional temptations.

The tank—what I would call a lake—covered several acres, and had been in existence long enough that large trees lined its borders. Reeds stretched out into the water, sheltering a wide variety of birds, from tiny green things no larger than a butterfly to slow-moving storks. A princely barge shaped like a swan lay moored to one side, simply begging to be taken seriously, although it looked like a rich man’s jest.

To be a prince in British India must, I reflected, be an uneasy thing. The knowledge that, but for this foreign power, one would be fully a king had to cause some degree of frustration, some sense that despite the riches and the honours, despite being (as Nesbit had put it) “above British law,” one’s life was essentially composed of empty ritual. A proud man like the maharaja of Khanpur surely had to chafe at his enforced impotence, and a certain resentment against the Crown could be understood. I could also begin to see the importance of a thing like pig sticking: Where war is forbidden, sport becomes the substitute, wherein a man’s conduct determines his worth, and a silver trophy represents a battle won.

It was, I decided as I speared the last delicate asparagus, a small miracle that more of India’s princes did not assuage their boredom and frustration by descending into feudal ruthlessness.

I permitted the servant to clear my plate and take the tray, turning down his offer of more wine, a third ice, a sliver of chocolate . . . , and stretched out my legs into the sun, deliberately putting dark thoughts from my mind. From where I sat I could see elephants on the other side of the water, languidly reaching for leaves. Closer to, half a dozen peahens pecked their way along the base of some shrubs, oblivious to the full display of their ever-hopeful male. After a couple of minutes, they were startled by the cry of a parrot, and the colourful feathers folded away as the flock slipped into the bushes.

The noisy parrot was not a wild creature, but harbinger of our luncheon amusement. I personally would have been happy to sit and watch Nature’s entertainments, but the great enemy, Boredom, was to be given no chance of a toehold in this place. Three young men trotted up with brilliant green parrots on their shoulders, and proceeded to put on a show. The birds rode miniature bicycles across diminutive tight-ropes, loaded and shot Lilliputian cannon, counted out the answers to elementary mathematical problems by dipping their heads, and in conclusion lay flat on their feathered bellies in salute to the maharaja. The parrot-trainers were followed by a troupe of gymnasts and contortionists, children who tied themselves into knots and threw one another into the air. The third act, a voluptuous young woman who played tunes on a sea of water-filled crystal goblets, lacked the ability to sustain interest, and the warm afternoon combined with the wine made us an inattentive audience. She left after a third tune, and a gramophone was brought out and wound. Sunny gave a little sigh of happiness, and her brother stirred and sat up.

“So, Jimmy,” Goodheart called. “Who took the morning’s first blood?”

“Miss Russell did, although she permitted me to finish the beast off.”

A startled silence fell, before Sunny squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh, Mary, how super! Have you ever done this before?”

“We don’t have all that many wild boar in southern England,” I pointed out. “I shouldn’t think the domesticated variety make for quite the same challenge.”

“You ought to introduce them,” Goodheart suggested. “Get into training for a world cup of pig sticking.”

The man had been making a joke, but the maharaja’s voice cut in, an edge to his words that overrode all conversation. “The British do not need to train for sticking pig. They simply arrange the rules to their satisfaction.”

The green field and its tent and rugs froze into an awkward silence, until our host shrugged to indicate that he had only been making a joke, and then rose to consult with the
shikari
s gathered on the far side of the tent. Mrs Goodheart made some kind of enquiring sound at her son.

“Don’t worry about it, Mother,” he reassured her. “Jimmy’s just a little touchy about having lost the Kadir Cup last year, some kind of technicality. Don’t much understand it myself; I s’pose I shouldn’t have said anything.”

After a while, Sunny went down to dabble in the water, and I stretched out on the silken carpet with my legs in the sun and my topee over my face, half listening to the conversations around me. The gramophone played, a few guests danced laughingly on the manicured grass, and I was nearly asleep when I heard my name, said loudly as if not for the first time. I pulled the topee from my face and sat up, looking into the dark unreadable eyes of the maharaja.

“I’m terribly sorry, Your Highness,” I said. “What was that?”

“The beaters have located the wounded pig,” he said. “I don’t like to leave it. Would you care to come?”

I was speechless. Six men at his disposal, two of whom were old hands, and he was asking me, a woman, and dangerously inexperienced at that.

One of the old hands had the same thought. “I’ve finished here, Jimmy,” Captain Greaves interposed. “I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you, Simon, but Miss Russell and I shall have no problem.”

“From what Goodheart said, it’s a big ’un, I’m happy to—”

“No.” It was said in a flat voice, no anger, but it laid another uncomfortable silence over the gathering, which I hastened to break.

“Certainly, I’m glad to be of help. Shall we go now?”

The servants had brought fresh horses with them. The maharaja had another Arab, a white gelding otherwise identical to the stallion, while I was given an ill-tempered little mare whose ears went back when I approached and who tried to shy against the reins the
syce
held. I checked her girths with care, since this was the kind of beast who holds her breath to keep the saddle from being secured, but I found them snugly secured. I glanced at the man holding her for me, and saw the humour in his eyes: Yes, she’d tried the trick on him.

“Thank you,” I told him, and mounted briskly.

Once I was in the saddle, the worst of the mare’s temper subsided, and she responded to my directions without much hesitation. We followed the road back to the tree, where the
shikari
s still waited, and took the spears they offered us. My host conferred with them, in a language that was not Hindi, then led me into the fields, in the opposite direction from that in which we had gone the first time.

I had hoped to use the opportunity to question the prince, but quickly realised that this was not going to be possible, not until we had dispatched the wounded pig. The maharaja was completely focussed on the task at hand, and once we had caught the beaters up, his undergraduate style dropped away completely. He studied the splintered spear-shaft one of them had retrieved and listened intently to their information, his eyes searching the landscape as if he might see the pig through the thick brush. North of us stretched scrubland, but to the south, a thick stand of trees rose up, following some kind of a stream-bed. At last he grunted, and turned to me.

“They’ve tracked him as far as that split tree, you see? There’s a
nullah
down there—a stream-bed—and heavy brush. He’s already ripped open the leg of one bearer; they’re not too keen on going in after him. And if he gets as far as those trees, he’s lost.”

“I hope the man’s all right?”

The maharaja looked at me as if I’d spoken in a half-understood language that he had to translate internally, then replied, “Yes, he’s sure to be. But you do understand that once we get in there, your mare won’t have any clear ground where she can escape? You have to have your stick ready at every moment.”

“But if I can’t see the boar, how do I know where to point the spear?” I asked, reasonably, I thought.

“Your horse will know. And you’ll feel him.”

Oh, this is just grand, Russell,
I berated myself.
You’re about to have one of your host’s animals ripped apart underneath you, because you couldn’t pass the opportunity to prove yourself. Clever.

We rode into the two-acre thicket from two angles, me at four o’clock and the maharaja at seven, pressing towards the top, where at least twenty beaters stood, banging on rocks and trees, staring nervously at the ground between us and them. I suddenly noticed that the men were armed only with long sticks, not spears, and of course none of them were mounted. I hoped for their sakes they were fleet-footed, and could climb trees like monkeys.

A partridge exploded from the tree in front of me, nearly stopping my heart and making me laugh nervously. I was perspiring heavily, as was the mare. Contrary to the maharaja’s claim, she didn’t seem to think there was anything in here at all, and the only thing I felt was growing nerves.

Then, between one step and another, her ears swung forward. I made a faint whistle between my teeth to catch my companion’s attention, and nodded at the direction the mare was watching, more or less straight ahead. Jimmy studied the land, then gestured for me to circle more to the right, that we might trap the animal between us. I urged the mare to the side and began to circle in on the offending scrap of shrubbery.

Fifty feet, forty, and at thirty-five I began to understand what he had said about feeling the animal. It was as if the boar gave off waves of heat, or just fury; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the bush burst into flames. My mount began to twitch, picking her way delicately, and the beaters a hundred yards away kept up their drumming on the ground.

This time I saw the blood first, a splash of shocking red against the dusty vegetation as a black shape the size of a small water buffalo shot out of his hiding-place like a launched shell, the broken-off spear protruding from his left haunch, bouncing with every move as he aimed his rage at the gelding’s white gut. The maharaja was ready for him, but the horse was not, and it shifted a fraction, taking the readied spear a degree or two off aim. The pig hit the spear hard, but instead of sinking into his vitals, the sharp head sliced across the shoulder blade and then stuck.

I had an unclear idea of pig physiology, but by the looks of it, a spear in that position was not going to prove immediately fatal. Nor did it seem all that securely planted, I noticed in alarm. As if to illustrate the matter, the pig began to push, grunting in fury, while the man on the horse tried to change the angle to one that might bite in more deeply. The pig pushed hard and the horse gave way, until they were circling around and around in the bush, held apart by a slim length of wood.

I put my heels into the mare’s side, trying to get close enough to use my spear without getting in the way of the partners, but I couldn’t, not while mounted. Without thinking, I kicked my feet from the stirrups and dropped to the ground.

The prince caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye and shouted something, and there was a sudden increase of noise from the beaters, but I could see that there would be an opening after the white hindquarters next passed, and I readied myself to dash forward.

But I didn’t know pigs. I didn’t realise that the animal would see me as well, didn’t foresee that the distraction of two enemies would make him back away, yanking the spear from its resting place. Didn’t realise that once the beast was free, it would come for me. But that is precisely what it did: a quick reverse scurry and the maharaja’s spear was swinging free while the blood-drenched creature got its legs under it and ran again—this time at me. Instinct alone lowered the point of my spear—anything to keep that furious bristling face away from my soft skin, to keep those wicked tusks at a distance, to postpone the inevitable for a moment.

The spear took him straight in the chest, and it was like slamming into a train. I flew backwards, clinging to the spear with every ounce of self-protection in my being, scarcely aware of sitting down hard onto the rocky ground. The universe narrowed down to this tiny space, my entire being focussed on the fact of my straining muscles pushing one way and the huge, stinking, primeval Fury shoving the other, two opposing forces separated only by a thin and sharply arching bamboo stalk, its fibres audibly creaking with strain. The boar was so close I could count its long, feminine eyelashes, so near I memorised the smear of dried blood on its lower right tusk and the scars on its snout, knew the shape of the pebbles crunching beneath its hooves. The creature’s breath was hot and intimate on my face, and we stared into each other’s eyes while its legs thrust towards me, its tusks yearning for my vitals with an urge so all-consuming that it overpowered any awareness of the steel blade driving ever more deeply into its chest. It grunted and strained, then suddenly my vision went pink as the breath blowing across my face went bloody, and through the red mist on my spectacles I saw the boar give a last convulsive push. The spear snapped, his legs buckled, and he came to rest with his upper tusk pressing against the leather of my outstretched boots, his back legs still twitching with effort. And then he died.

At some time in the past minute—hour?—the maharaja had come down from his horse, and was standing at my shoulder with his spear at the ready. But he had held off using it, and now he allowed its point to rest on the ground.