The Maharajah's Monkey (19 page)

Someone had cut her throat.

I howled, throwing back my head, scaring a flock of crows which squawked in a nearby tree. I flung my arms around her neck. Hugs, tears, could do no good. My donkey, if not already dead, was very nearly there. All I received for my pains was a crimson blotch on my pale coat. Tara's life was draining away, drop by drop. Her eyes were filmed over, nearly gone.

I had no choice.

I drew my howdah pistol and looked away. The shot scared the crows. They erupted like black fire from the tree and scattered into the sky. When I could bring myself, finally, to look, Tara was no more. In her place was a pile of flesh on the rocks. Without another glance I walked away, hurrying as fast as I could.

I was unsure what to do. Should I go back and tell the monk what had happened? That thieving monk? Or should I make haste to find my friends? In the end it was quite clear. With all his sorcerer's tricks, Yongden could look after himself. My friends could not. I had to warn them. You see, Tara's murder was a clear warning. The Bakers' gang had found my donkey. In all likelihood, they had spirited my aunt and Champlon away.

Shivering in the cold, despite my furry coat, it took me a full forty-five minutes of hard tramping to reach the rendezvous point. I was obviously late, for Waldo, Isaac and Rachel were waiting with our convoy of donkeys and porters, almost stamping the ground in their impatience. As soon as I saw them, I realized something else was wrong. They were cross. I knew by the way they moved apart when they saw me, that they had been talking about me.

“The wanderer returns,” Waldo burst out, nastily. “Please welcome our conquering heroine Dr. Scarface Livingstone.”

“The Great Explorer Kit Salter,” Isaac said in a loud, theatrical voice. “And over here, her junior assistants Isaac, Waldo and Rachel.”

I was so full of grief for my donkey and fear for my aunt I could hardly understand the meaning of my friends' words. Why had everyone chosen this horrible day to discover my faults?

“Listen to me,” I begged. “I haven't time for this, right now.”

“You never have time for your friends,” Waldo said curtly.

“Something awful has happened.”

“Oh, that's wonderful, that is,” Waldo butted in, sarcastically. “Something awful. You and your precious aunt go off having all the adventures while the rest of us are stuck here looking after the luggage.”

“Look here, Kit,” Rachel intervened, her brown eyes shining with anger. “We are all in this adventure
together.
It is not decent of you to sneak off in the night without telling us. We're all taking risks here. We're all cold and tired. You have to let us into what is going on! We all sense it and feel upset. You and your aunt have secrets. We always see you huddling together. Well, if you don't want us, we will just leave, won't we, Waldo?”

Waldo nodded, while in the back of my throat I felt a terrible roar of frustration building up.

“Enough!” I screamed. “I'm sorry if I've done wrong but I don't have time for this now! Aunt Hilda and Champlon have disappeared and Tara has been murdered.”

The porters were watching our argument silently, their slanting eyes betraying no emotion.

“Murdered?” Rachel asked stupidly. I saw shock on her face—and maybe a little regret for picking this time for silly grievances.

I walked toward them, thrusting the dark, damp patch on my sheepskin coat forward. “See this? Know what it is? No? Tara's blood!”

Rachel screamed. Suddenly, it was all too much and I found myself dry throated. There was a tear gathering in the corner of my eye. Quickly brushing it away, I explained what had happened.

“Who could do that to a defenseless animal?” Rachel asked. “What kind of person would murder Tara?”

The cook, Chamba, a plump and smiley man, stepped forward and began muttering about how the murderers would suffer “bad karma.” The followers of the Buddhist religion believe that bad deeds you commit in this life haunt you in your next life. This form of luck they call
karma
—if you are very wicked you could be reborn as a slug. I don't know if I believe in next lives—and anyway, it wasn't good enough for me. I wanted revenge on the
murderers who had cut Tara's throat. In this life.

“We need help from someone who knows these mountains,” Waldo interrupted. “We've got to go back and find this hermit fellow.”

“Yongden said he would meet us up the mountain,” I interrupted, gesturing in the direction of the towering Mana peak. All my doubts about the monk resurfaced, but I put them aside. Waldo was right, we needed help. “Something about a place where the paths part. A rock shaped like a bear cub.”

There were indrawn breaths at the name Yongden from the Sherpas. I could see them eyeing each other warily.

“Yongden is sorcerer. In good time we do not go near,” Chamba, who seemed to be their leader, said. “In bad time he help. Follow me. I know bear rock.”

So it was agreed. I was given another donkey, though I scarcely noticed which one it was, and we moved off. I sat hunched in my saddle as we trotted upward, scarcely taking in our dizzying ascent, toward the wall of ice—the glacier between us and Tibet. All my thoughts were inside—for my aunt and Champlon—and my poor old Tara. We could have been walking up Woodstock Road in my home town for all the notice I took of our surroundings.

At some stage the way became too perilous to ascend
sitting on our donkeys—too narrow and littered with stones—so we had to get off and walk. We had been trudging some three or four hours, concentrating on the rhythm of our feet and not letting our spirits flag, when the cook suddenly gave a shrill cry. Jerking out of my reverie I glanced in the direction the cook had been pointing. Suddenly, I realized I hadn't been looking as I walked—not really! We had left the trees and greenery of Mana village behind and were now truly in the wilderness. A boulder was lying across the path, one of a hundred or so that had fallen from the mountain. There was no tree, or flower, or patch of green in sight. Everything was a desolation of rock, snow and ice, a landscape from another planet.

This, I imagined, was what it would be like to go for a hike on the moon.

But it wasn't the landscape the cook was pointing out. It was a rock rearing over the road. It was grayish, patterned with lighter veins of white stone—a strange and monstrous eruption from the mountain. The rock was shaped exactly like a standing bear cub. It had one paw raised as if it was about to shake your hand. In this bleak place it was an oddly friendly sight. We all quickened our pace.

Part of me wanted to be right about Yongden. For him not to turn up. Of course the other, more sensible
part, desperately wanted him to be at the rock rendezvous. Who else was there to turn to in our attempt to find my aunt and Champlon?

I was the first to reach the rock, and see it fully. I almost fell down the cliff in shock. Sitting on a flat ledge were three bundles of sheepskin. One of them looked up and, framed like an Eskimo in a halo of white fur, was the pugnacious face of my aunt. With her were Champlon and Yongden. They had cleared the snow away, set down an oilskin and were chatting companionably as they munched on leathery strips of dried meat. For all the world as if they were having a picnic in Hyde Park! At least my aunt and Champlon were munching. Yongden was not. I presumed that, like many Buddhists, he was a vegetarian who regarded the taking of an animal's life as a sin.

“Thank heavens,” I blurted out, completely forgetting how we'd parted. “I thought they'd got you!”

“Who do you mean by
they
, pray tell?” Aunt Hilda asked tartly. “Please try and be more precise.”

“The Baker Brothers.”

I held my breath and waited. Aunt Hilda's grim face was all the answer I needed.

The clammy spirit of those malevolent millionaires had hovered over us for much of the voyage. It wasn't a surprise that they were behind the desecration of
Yongden's cave. Who else could it have been? The villagers would have been far too fearful of the holy man's reputation.

“The curse,” Waldo exclaimed. “Has it—I mean how do they look?”

It was rumored that the curse of the mummy we had encountered in our last adventure had struck the brothers and destroyed their health. Their villainous behavior in Egypt was said to have displeased ancient forces.

Champlon shrugged. “They are not the pretty sight.”

“Hideous,” Aunt Hilda muttered. “Specially one of them. His skin looks like porridge!” She shuddered. “I suspect they are after the same thing we are …”

For a moment I was about to interrupt and ask exactly what Aunt Hilda was after. However, she wouldn't have told me, so I let her continue.

“We think, Champlon and I, that they mean to break into Tibet and get to the prize before us. I wouldn't put any type of skulduggery past them!”

“They 'ave some bad men around wiz zem.” Champlon agreed gloomily.

“That monkey and a gang of the most dishonest brigands they could recruit in India,” Aunt Hilda went on.

My mind had been working very slowly: “But if they had you—why are you here?”

A smug expression spread across Champlon's face: “It is not possible it keep Gaston Champlon prisoned,” he announced.

I refrained from pointing out that they had found it surprisingly easy in the past to keep him prisoner—and blackmail him into doing their bidding.

“You see, ze sug wiz ze monkey, 'e surprise us when we 'ave come down ze path from ze Yongden's cave. 'E took my gun, my loverly Webley. 'E bound our 'ands and took us to meet ze Baker Brothers. But zey do not reckon wiz Gaston Champlon. I always keep annuzzer pistol in my left sock. I manage to break my 'ands free,
et voilà
!” In his excitement Champlon relapsed into French.

So Champlon had fought free. Of course he was a magician with a gun. He had taken one of the Baker Brothers captive, only releasing him when their donkeys and pistol were returned.

“How did you manage to stop them? Hypnotizing you, I mean?” asked Isaac. I wondered if it was suspicion I heard in his voice and glanced quickly at Champlon, who looked away guiltily.

“Ze monkey, I did not let it near me,” Champlon replied quickly.

Yongden had been listening to our talk impassively: now he stood up and said we should be on our way. But
before we went on, I needed to have a private word with him. I walked right up to the monk and murmured:

“Please give it back to me.”

Standing so close to him, I could feel the tug of my map. Was it my imagination that sensed it, pulsing, pulling, in an inner pocket of the monk's loose saffron robe? The monk looked me in the eye and inclined his head.

“Please,” I begged.

“Not yet.”

There was nothing I could do. Though a bitter taste welled up from my stomach, and my hands itched to simply grab the map from him, I was powerless.

“We must get going now,” my aunt announced. “Several days' march to the border.”

Immediately there was a wail of protest from Rachel, Isaac and Waldo.

“We haven't had lunch,” Isaac complained.

“
I
haven't even had breakfast” I snapped.

“I can't walk without lunch,” Isaac went on. “My legs won't work.”

“Lunch?” Yongden said, as if he didn't understand the word. I had a sudden vision of his life. Eating delicious food, I sensed, would be far down on his list of priorities. “Please eat. Then must go.”

Sadly, even Chamba was unable to conjure something
tasty out of our supplies in this frozen wasteland. I watched as he took out a flint pouch and struck a fire with rock. A few twigs of kindling blazed and then a log. It was a small, weak fire. Still it was hot. I had my first taste of what was to become our staple meal. Tsampa—a Tibetan barley grain—and dried meat. The barley tasted like wallpaper glue and chewing the dried meat felt like eating one of Aunt Hilda's boots. Even Isaac looked as if he wished he hadn't insisted on lunch. Seeing the look on our faces as we silently gulped down this fare, my aunt gruffly told us to cheer up. This was the good times, she explained, our food would get steadily worse.

Rather glumly, we finished our lunch and, shouldering our packs, got to our feet. So, we were about to try to sneak into a ferocious and hostile country under the direction of an enigmatic sorcerer monk. A man whose intentions were unclear, and who had stolen my map. Days of tramping through snow, rock and ice, some of the harshest terrain in the world, lay ahead of us.

Were we brave explorers? Or lunatics? As my feet began to plod forward—of their own accord, for the rest of me was terribly tired—I was truly not sure!

Yesterday I stopped feeling my toes. Earlier today it was the turn of my fingers. My hands were protected by three pairs of gloves, layers of wool tucked into fleecy sheepskin mittens. They were wadded till they resembled two footballs. Yet they were still turning into claws of ice.

If there is anywhere colder on this earth, please, please let me never go there.

The thermometer my aunt carried had stopped working, somewhere about twenty degrees below zero. This is colder than it ever gets at home, even on those winters when the rivers freeze and we go skating on Port Meadow. Do not believe that you know what
cold
means, not till you come to a landscape like this. All I could see for miles was white. White snow, white ice, white peaks, even the sky looked bleached. The sun blazed, turning the landscape into a series of dazzling mirrors.

We were lost in a land made of ice.

Skidding on this ice, or walking into a snowdrift taller than a man, was not the greatest threat here. It was avalanches. The load of snow and rock teetering on the mountain beside us could collapse, burying us forever. We were warned in no uncertain terms that we must be very quiet. So save for the clop of our donkeys' feet on ice and the sharper crackle of our crampons, we moved without a sound.