The Place of Dead Kings (16 page)

Siddha Atri often rode off from the column and Jack saw him standing on hilltops, observing the landscape through a complicated-looking spyglass set up on a tripod. Sometimes Atri and his batman would disappear for much of the day and at other times he sent porters to plant flags on distant slopes. Jack asked Robert what Atri was up to, but the big man merely shrugged. He had no idea either.

Jack did his best to find out more information about the expedition. He talked to Robert and the other porters, but no one knew anything of note. They’d all been told they were going to Mar to find a Rajthanan called Mahajan. That was it.

Jack tried to snoop around near the Rajthanans’ tents in the evenings. He heard scraps of conversations in Rajthani, but nothing of interest. When he realised Wulfric and the Saxons were becoming suspicious, he stopped.

The land buckled the further north they travelled. The Scottish guide, a wiry man almost as tall as Robert, led the party ever deeper into the knotted countryside. He often clambered far ahead, pausing on outcrops to get his bearings and scout the way ahead.

As the ground became more treacherous, the oxen struggled to pull the statue. Two of the wagon’s wheels broke and had to be replaced by Robert and his gang, who seemed as confident repairing Rajthanan vehicles as native carts.

On the morning of the ninth day since leaving Dun Fries, Rao summoned everyone to a clear patch of ground just outside the camp. He stood on top of a boulder, his scimitar hanging at his side and a rotary pistol in a holster attached to his belt. The wind shuffled his tunic and from time to time he placed a handkerchief over his nose and breathed through it.

He spoke in Arabic and then repeated himself in English. ‘Men, I have been informed by our guide that we are now passing into more dangerous territory. The tribes north of here are not like those to the south. They will not have seen army troops before. We will be as strange to them as they are to us.

‘There is no need to fear them necessarily. Should they attack, we shall deal with them swiftly. Their primitive weapons will be no match for our muskets. But be on your guard.’

The men were dismissed and within half an hour the column was moving out once again, the vehicles rattling along the crude track.

For the whole of that day, they saw not a single other person. The natives, if they were anywhere at all, remained hidden. Siddha Atri still occasionally rode away from the party, but he remained closer than before and always within eyesight.

A wall of dark mountains appeared in the distance, rising above the foothills. The wind blowing down from the slopes contained a trace of ice.

‘The Highlands,’ Robert said. ‘Never thought I’d get to see it.’

‘And Mar’s up there somewhere,’ Jack said.

‘Aye. Somewhere in there.’

Pain wormed across Jack’s chest. It was faint, but stronger than it had been for weeks. Kanvar’s cure would wear off in less than three weeks now and the injury was getting worse.

In the late afternoon, as shadows clutched the landscape, the ruins of an ancient castle appeared ahead, rising like a giant claw from the summit of a hill. The outer wall had crumbled in several places, revealing an inner bailey overgrown with grass and weeds. Two broken towers poked above the wall and slabs of half-buried stone lay scattered across the slope.

Wulfric called a halt and the soldiers and porters set about making camp on a stretch of grassland at the base of the hill. After unloading the statue, Jack stood staring up at the castle for a moment. Twilight had set in and the broken stonework was indistinct against the blue-black sky.

‘A strange sight, don’t you think?’ Robert had walked up beside Jack.

Jack nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Since we got to Scotland we’ve seen no large towns, no castles, no monasteries, no cathedrals. Just tiny villages. And then there’s this castle up there. What’s left of it anyway.’

‘Aye. There were once castles in Scotland. There were kingdoms in the lowlands, just like in England. But the kingdoms fell apart long ago. The castles crumbled. There’s nothing left now but ruins.’

Jack had never heard this. ‘Why did the kingdoms fall?’

Robert shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell you. I’m no scholar. Can’t even read.’ He frowned. ‘A monk did tell me once that when the Moors came, we Scots were cut off from everything else. We weren’t Mohammedans like the rest of Europe. We weren’t part of England. We were left on our own. And our kingdoms withered and died . . . That’s what this monk said anyway.’

Jack was silent. The wind gave a reedy moan as it whipped across the hillside.

It was strange to think that once kings, queens, knights and courtiers had inhabited the castle. Perhaps at the bottom of the slope there’d been a town, with people in it who lived a life similar to the English.

And yet now it was all gone. Forgotten.

‘Look!’ one of the porters shouted.

‘I see it,’ another cried out.

Porters and soldiers scurried to the edge of the camp to see what was going on. Jack and Robert picked their way around the tents and arrived at the bottom of the hill, where a small crowd had gathered. Several porters were pointing excitedly up the slope.

Rao, Parihar and Atri strode over from the direction of the officers’ marquees.

‘What’s going on?’ Rao asked Wulfric.

Wulfric pointed up into the darkness. ‘Look, sir. Up there.’

Jack stared hard, but even with his abnormally good eyesight he saw nothing at first. Then he noticed a dark shape moving about halfway down the scarp. Further to the left was another shape. Then another.

About fifty hunched figures were creeping down the incline. As they came closer, the firelight picked them out and a murmur rippled through the crowd below.

‘Lord Shiva!’ Rao said.

The figures were men, but they looked more animal than human. Their hair was long and matted, their beards wild, and grease and dirt streaked their faces. They wore huge brown cloaks that were as shaggy as bearskin, and simple tunics that reached to their knees. Their legs were bare and their shoes were nothing more than roughly sewn animal hide.

Most of them held spears, but a few carried bows and arrows. Crude amulets hung from chains about their necks, the metal clinking and rattling as they moved.

A few of the Saxons slung their knife-muskets from their shoulders and pointed their weapons up the slope. The approaching natives froze, crouched and spoke softly to each other.

‘Put your muskets down,’ Rao said.

The soldiers looked back at Rao, confused.

‘Down!’ Wulfric shouted.

The men flinched and lowered their weapons.

The natives spoke further, then began descending the slope again. They approached as tentatively as cats. When they were about a hundred feet from the bottom of the hill, they halted. A tall man, who appeared to be the leader, handed his spear to another then crept ahead with his hand outstretched, palm open, as if to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon.

‘Talk to him,’ Rao said to his Scottish guide.

The guide wove his way to the front of the gathering and stepped slowly up to the tall native. The guide spoke in a strange language, his voice slipping between being soft and harsh, as if he were whispering and clearing his throat in turn. Both he and the native then squatted on their haunches and talked some more. During the conversation, the guide drew something from a bag and handed it to the native.

Finally, the guide stood and called across to Rao. ‘He says he is Chief Morgunn mac Ruadri vic Cannech of the Grym tribe. He comes in peace and grants you permission to pass through these lands. In exchange he wanted fire sticks.’

Rao frowned. ‘Fire sticks?’

‘Matches, sir,’ the guide said. ‘He says he’s heard of them but never seen them. He knows of the land of the Mar tribe. He says it’s to the north, but far, many days. He also says the lands north of here are dangerous, full of hostile tribes.’

The soldiers and porters shuffled and murmured on hearing this.

Rao held up his hand. ‘Enough. You will give me a full report in my tent. Tell the Chief that we thank him for his permission and we wish him and his tribe good health and long lives.’

The guide nodded, squatted and spoke again to the Chief, who replied with a few words, then slipped back to his men. The natives crept quickly back up the slope and in less than a minute had slid away into the dark.

‘Hostile tribes?’ Saleem said as they walked back to the other side of the camp.

‘That’s not all the Chief said.’ Robert’s expression was sombre.

‘What?’ Jack came to a stop. ‘You understood?’

‘Aye,’ Robert said. ‘He was speaking Gaalic. I ken it well enough. Some people speak it in the south too.’

‘What else did he say, then?’ Saleem fidgeted with the hem of his tunic.

Everyone in the small group – Jack, Saleem, Andrew and a few of the other porters – stared at Robert.

The big man licked his lips and scratched his beard. ‘He said we must beware Mahajan. He’s heard Mahajan’s a demon who’s risen from the mouth of hell. His men have taken over Mar and are spreading their power to the neighbouring lands. They carry the sign of the skull on their chests.’ He pressed his hand to his breast. ‘They are evil. They torture and kill people. He said we must not go to Mar. We must turn back and go home.’

Everyone went silent. Saleem swallowed so loudly Jack could hear it.

Jack glanced up at the ruins at the top of the hill. The outer wall was like a row of broken, rotting teeth. ‘Well, I was told only desperate men would come on this journey. We must all be desperate.’

The men chuckled. As Jack had hoped, his words had eased the mood.

‘Aye.’ Robert grinned. ‘We must be mad. But if I’m going to be mad I’d rather do it with you lot than anyone else.’

T
he call to rise drifted across the camp, the horn’s sound frail and uncertain as it echoed in the empty valleys. They all woke. The Rajthanans did their puja before the Ganesh statue and the Mohammedans prayed in rows, standing, kneeling and prostrating themselves in turn. Then they all ate breakfast and packed away the camp. Within an hour and a half they were off once more, marching deeper into the Highlands.

The day was clear, save for a few blotches of cloud, but the air was cool and a chill wind whispered down the slopes. The hills swept like great waves about them, while the higher mountains gathered ahead, the tallest peaks dusted with snow and veiled by mist.

The Scottish guide led them to the north-east, following the directions given by the Chief of the Grym tribe. They spent most of the morning meandering along a narrow gully until the ground sloped up towards a pass. The guide led them up the scarp, following a thin track as it snaked into a forest of birch trees that had lost most of their leaves. The ground was in turns rocky and slippery. Tree roots reached into the path, tripping and hindering them. The carts and wagons bounced over the uneven ground and the animals battled to haul the heavy loads.

The sounds of the wheels grinding, men shouting and oxen bellowing was loud, but seemed to fade quickly into the enormous silence of the valley. When Jack glanced around, he saw no sign of movement. Everything seemed still, smothered by the silence. It seemed, at that moment, as if the party were the only living things on earth and were toiling away across a deserted landscape.

Within an hour, the oxen and mules were exhausted, shivering and often losing their footing. Wulfric ordered a rest stop when they reached a short stretch of flat ground. Porters walked the horses in circles to cool them and watered the oxen and mules. Atri took the opportunity to climb up on to a boulder, peer at the surroundings through his spyglass-like contraption and write notes in a journal. His Rajthanan batman and a pair of porters stood nearby, waiting to pack away the instrument.

What was Atri up to? Jack still had no idea.

Andrew groaned and lay on his back. ‘This bloody journey never ends. Let’s just call this spot Mar and then go home.’

The others from Shropshire chuckled at this.

Jack noticed Saleem had pulled off one of his boots and was rubbing his foot through his hose.

‘Blisters?’ Jack asked.

Saleem nodded and winced. Then he quickly said, ‘But I’m all right. I can keep going.’

Jack slapped Saleem lightly on the back. ‘Don’t worry. Happens to all of us. Those blisters will hurt like hell for a day or two, then they’ll burst and harden and your feet will be tougher than ever.’

Saleem smiled slightly and stared at the ground. ‘I was remembering when we walked most of the way to London.’

‘You see, we made it then. Through worse than what we’re facing now.’

Saleem went quiet and picked at the burrs stuck to his hose.

‘You thinking about Charles?’ Jack asked.

Saleem nodded.

Charles had been their companion on the way to London. The young man was from the same village as Saleem and had died during the siege. Saleem had told Jack he’d carted the body home for burial after the battle.

Jack crossed himself. ‘He was a brave man, Charles. He’d be proud of us now, I reckon.’