I tried to reason with her, and persuade her that some trusted person would watch over the boy. When this did not satisfy her, I suggested a room at the hotel.

She dismissed this suggestion with a wave of her hand. 'No! Too obvious. You must take us somewhere no one will think to look, and you must stay with him until I know what to do.'

'But Sir Richard Hartington is here, from the India Office, and you have the protection of the duke and d.u.c.h.ess.'

'So did Jaya have all these protections. If it were not for Dr Simonson, he would be dead.'

'As long as you keep your son by you, he will surely be safe here.'

'It is time to take matters into my own hands. Do you have children?'

'No.'

'But you will understand. In all of nature, a mother will fight for her offspring.'

Having watched my cat's litter of kittens diminish from six to five overnight, I doubted that, but not Indira's determination.

'You have your trusted aides-de-camp. Won't they ensure the child's safety?'

'Jaya has his aides-de-camp, and the maharajah's doctor, and valet and servants and secretaries; much good they did him. Half of them sick, the other half useless. I want Rajendra out of this house. I want him somewhere where he will not be found, placed with a person who will guard him with his life.'

His life? Yet she was asking me.

'What about Mr Chana?'

'How can I know for certain? I believe he colluded in giving my husband a propitious day for a so-called marriage to the wh.o.r.e.'

'What will the maharajah and maharani say if I disappear with their grandson?'

'They are too distraught to think about this. Maharajah Shivram is with Jaya now, persuading him to take some tea and rice. They need not know. I will tell them tomorrow.'

'But I thought...'

'That I am a good Indian widow, who defers to everyone and has no mind of her own?'

'No.'

'My boy is now crown prince. I want him out of this house, away from this place of sickness.'

'I don't know this area. There is no one I can trust except...'

'Except whom?'

Reluctantly, I told her what no one else knew that my former policeman a.s.sistant was lodged at the hotel. By now, I hoped that my housekeeper would also be there.

'Your highness, there is only one place I can think of at this time of night that will be vacant and you would not want your child to go there.'

'What is this place?'

'It is the cottage, rented by the man who accompanied your husband on his ride, Isaac Withers. He is in the hospital now and his son has moved there to be close to him so the cottage stands empty.'

'Then that will do.'

'It is a hovel.'

'As long as it is a safe hovel, I do not care.'

'It is about two miles away,' I said.

'Then let us go.' Indira stood, and spoke to the ayah.

Moments later, we left the house quietly by the servants' entrance, carrying an unlit lantern. I led the way. Indira followed. Behind her came the ayah carrying the child. Wishing to avoid the road where we would be seen from the servants' tents on the other side, I followed the path across the fields, towards the woods near the river.

Only when we entered the woods did I light the lantern.

I glanced at the ayah. She was too slight to carry such a big boy, but he seemed exhausted. Perhaps taking him to a remote spot was not a good idea, but it was too late now.

I turned and looked back, having a feeling of being followed, but could see no one.

Once in the woods, there was little chance of our being observed, except by owls and foxes. Only when Indira gave a small cry did I remember the dainty sandals she wore, and realised that even through my stockings the nettles stung. The ayah did not let out a sound.

'Here.' I handed her the lantern. 'Take this. Let me carry the child now.'

She hesitated, but then, on a nod from the maharani, handed over her charge. The sleeping boy was a dead weight. I had seen a fireman carry a survivor from a burning house.

'Help me balance him over my shoulder.'

Indira took the lantern, and translated.

Gently, the ayah helped me transfer the child to my shoulder. Too late I realised that the fireman in question had much broader shoulders than I. Hoping desperately not to drop the crown prince on his crown and thereby deliver another blow to the dynasty, I struggled on.

A low roar from our right indicated how near we were to the Strid. Little moonlight filtered through the trees and we now relied on the light that the ayah carried. She had been reluctant to take the lead, to walk ahead of her mistress, but now she did, swinging the lantern a little. This had a dizzying effect and once more I turned to glance back, but could see no movement, and heard nothing but the hoot of an owl.

Everything looked different in the darkness. I feared I would miss the cottage. If so, we would walk into the morning at this rate.

It was the ayah, her eyes glued to the ground, who saw that the footpath veered to the left. From the outside, the stone dwelling with its thatched roof looked inviting.

The door was unlocked. I turned the k.n.o.b. The door creaked open onto a single small room, the stone floor covered in dirty straw. As the ayah walked about with the lantern, light fell on a broken-back chair and a buffet by the empty fire grate. A few boards had been tacked together to make a table. On this sat a saucepan, thick with grease. The bed, once I realised that was its purpose, held only a striped mattress, with flocks peeping out of holes. There was no blanket.

'I'm so sorry. You can't stay here.'

'Tonight they will stay here,' Indira said firmly. 'You will stay with them. Tomorrow you will make a different arrangement.'

'Very well, if you insist. For tonight it will have to do. But I must go to the hotel, fetch some blankets and food and bring my a.s.sistant here to act as bodyguard.' She was about to interrupt, but I did not let her. 'Don't worry. I won't be seen. I will be back as quickly as I can, with Mr Sykes. He is utterly reliable.'

She protested. 'I cannot leave my son with only his ayah.'

'You stay here, your highness. When I return, I will take you back to Bolton Hall and Rajendra and the ayah will have a trusty bodyguard.'

The confidence in my voice belied fears that I might not wake Sykes from his slumber, or that the maharani would already have been missed. My reputation would hit the India Office dust if it became known that I had whisked the princess and her son away at dead of night and brought her to this hovel.

Smiling rea.s.surances I did not feel, I left them with the lantern and walked back along the road to the hotel, glad of the moonlight now that the clouds had parted.

I walked, quickening my pace. The enormity of this folly hit me like a falling tree. Indira was crazed with grief and fear. I should have calmed her, called for Sir Richard.

No. I did not trust Sir Richard as far as Indira was concerned. But could I trust her, or myself?

What an idiot, to take important guests from the protection of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, leave them and a young servant alone and unprotected.

A sound startled me. I dared not stop to listen. Moments later, another sound, a whistle. I paused. Should I turn back? Too late.

If Indira and Rajendra were slaughtered before I could return, there would be only one person to blame. Kate Shackleton.

Thirty-Nine.

It was almost midnight when I tiptoed to Sykes's room and tapped on the door. Fortunately, he had stayed awake, alert and fully dressed. Feeling a huge sense of relief at the sight of him, I half collapsed into the bucket chair, feeling suddenly exhausted.

Briefly, I explained the predicament.

He perched on the bed. 'Mrs Sugden is in the hotel. She is in a ground-floor room, opposite yours.'

'I hate to disturb her at this time.'

'I notice you don't hate to disturb me.'

He listened to my account of taking the princess, her child and his ayah to the Withers's cottage.

'How much of a hovel is it?'

'A tramp would think it heaven. Once the little boy wakes, he will either be delighted at the adventure, or horrified at the discomfort. We need to take bedding, and food.'

'Right.' Sykes untucked the sheets of his bed, placed the pillows on top and began to make a roll of the eiderdown, blankets and sheets.

'I'll do the same in my room. We'll need food.'

'I'll raid the kitchen.'

'Meet you by my motor.'

A few moments later, I tapped on Mrs Sugden's door. Unlike Sykes, she had decided that sleep was her preferred choice of pa.s.sing the night. Fortunately she is a light sleeper. I explained the task, leaving out the state of the cottage. With a bit of luck and a dim lamp, she would not be too appalled until morning light.

In the time it took me to follow Sykes's example and roll my bedding, ready to be taken to the motor, Mrs Sugden was dressed and waiting.

Like three conspirators, we met by my motor and stared at it, considering the logistics. The motor was too small for the three of us to sit comfortably.

Sykes came up with the solution. The bedding and food would go in the d.i.c.key seat; Mrs Sugden in the pa.s.senger seat. He would ride on the running board.

It was a great relief to find my charges still alive.

Within half an hour, I had deposited Sykes and Mrs Sugden in the cottage with the ayah and Rajendra, who had woken and now looked surprisingly chipper at the prospect of spending a night in a dank cottage near a dark wood. In English, he told Mrs Sugden he was hungry, and spoke to the ayah about making his bed. Or at least, I a.s.sume that is what he said because she took most of the bedding and arranged it comfortably for him on the planks that served as the Withers's sleeping quarters.

Part one of my mission accomplished, I drove Indira back to Bolton Hall. One small snag was to find the side door closed.

Indira walked to the front and rang the door bell. I waited, out of sight, until the butler eventually came to let her in.

Of course, there is always something one forgets. Back in my now familiar hotel room, I donned pyjamas, and looked at the stripped bed. A feeling of chill came over me. There was a simple solution: take the bedding from Mrs Sugden's room.

I crossed the hall. Unfortunately, Mrs Sugden, being a woman of foresight, had locked the door and taken her key with her.

But there would be a linen cupboard somewhere along the corridor. This entailed going back into my room for the flashlight, to ensure that I did not open doors with a room number and startle some unwary sleeper.

Cautiously, I walked the corridor, shining my torch left and right. There was no linen room, only a cupboard containing brushes and mops.

Then I remembered that on the floor above, there must be at least two linen cupboards because Ijahar had commandeered one as a laundry and storage room.

I tiptoed up the creaking stairs to the next floor.

To my surprise, Ijahar had not emptied his little room of his master's shirts, undergarments and his array of irons. I looked along the shelves anyway, in hopes of spotting some heavy drapery I might purloin. There were more undergarments, socks, shirts, soap, laundry materials including starch in a jar and two blue paper bags of powder, presumably washing powder. The poor man did not have a rich taste in snacks, only a few charcoal biscuits and a piece of root ginger. One of my older colleagues in the VAD, Marion Calder, had sworn by charcoal biscuits, saying they did wonders for her indigestion. A bunch of nettles lay on the slatted shelf. Perhaps Ijahar drank nettle tea. I could conjure up a solemn conversation between him and Marion Calder regarding an efficacious diet for the healthy digestive tract.

I sniffed at the ginger. It protected against colds. On the rare occasions when we VAD nurses could procure a piece of ginger, we used it as an anti-emetic, the one sure way of keeping a patient from vomiting.

Ijahar had wanted flowers for his master's body and I found it touching that he had also placed flowers and leaves by a stack of starched shirts.

I left the little room, and walked along the corridor. To my disappointment the next cupboard contained the same array of brushes and mops as the cupboard on my own floor.

Facing a chilly night, I returned to my room, donned coat and socks and lay down to catch whatever sleep might come my way.

After a long while, I fell into a shallow sleep. It was one of those nights not just of disturbed dreams, but of voices. This happened to me sometimes. I would be spoken to in my sleep very clearly and yet entirely nonsensically.

This time the voice that woke me said, 'He is too young.'

These messages from nowhere are always somewhat terse.

I half woke, thinking that yes, Rajendra was too young to be dragged from his bed in the middle of the night. I fell back to sleep and saw Rajendra lying on the rough bed in the cottage. As is the way with dreams, I was also in the cottage, unseen. When a sudden noise startled Sykes and he ran to the cottage door, there was nothing I could do. He called Mrs Sugden's name.

I woke shivering, and not just from the cold. A sense of foreboding swept over me, as if the dream might be a warning. I was tempted to give up on sleep altogether and go out to my car. Had I given all the motoring blankets to Sykes and Mrs Sugden? I couldn't remember.

Wandering about in the middle of the night would be no good for me or anyone else. Putting on an extra cardigan, I forced myself to lie down again. Eventually, I slept, until light filtered into the room through the gap in the curtains. I woke thinking of that terse little phrase, 'He is too young.'

There were several interpretations for this piece of useless information, the most obvious being that Maharajah Narayan was too young to die.