Cornwell, Bernard 01 Sharpe’s Tiger-Serigapatam-Apr-May 1799

It was the answer Rao had feared. ‘And did they?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So what did they find out?’ Rao asked, laying the pistol down on the table. ‘What did they find out?’ he asked in a harder voice.

‘Private Sharpe told me that the British shouldn’t attack in the west, sir,’ Mary said, forgetting to describe Sharpe as her brother. ‘That’s all he said, honestly, sir.’

‘All?’ Rao asked. ‘Surely not. Why would he tell you that? Did he think you could get the news out of the city?’

Mary stared down at the pistol. T was to find a man, sir,’ she said at last.

‘Who?’

She looked up at the General, fear in her eyes. ‘A merchant, sir, called Ravi Shekhar.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘No, sir! Truly.’

Rao believed her, and felt a wash of relief. His greatest fear was that Sharpe and Lawford might have been given his own name, for although Colonel McCandless had promised to keep Rao’s treachery a secret Rao could not be certain that the promise had been kept. McCandless himself had not been questioned under torture, for the Tippoo seemed convinced that the elderly Colonel ‘Ross’ had indeed been foraging when he had been captured, but Rao still felt the threat of discovery moving insidiously closer. Lawford and Shaipe could not identify Rao himself as a traitor, but they very well might identify McCandless and then the Tippoo’s jettis would turn their attentions to the elderly Scotsman, and how long would he endure their merciless treatment? The General wondered if he should make a dash from the city to the British lines, but rejected the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him. Such an escape might secure Appah Rao’s own safety, but it would sacrifice his large family and all the faithful servants who were in his employment. No, he decided, this dangerous game must be seen to its finish. He pushed the pistol closer to Mary. ‘Take it,’ he ordered her.

Mary looked astonished. ‘The pistol, sir?’

‘Take it! Now listen, girl. Ravi Shekhar is dead and his body was fed to the tigers. It’s possible the Tippoo will forget you even existed, but if he remembers then you might need that pistol.’ Appah Rao wondered if he could smuggle the girl clean out of the city. It was a tempting thought, but every civilian was stopped at the gates and had to produce a pass stamped by the Tippoo himself, and very few received that pass. A soldier might succeed in escaping the city, but not a civilian. Appah Rao gazed into Mary’s dark eyes. ‘I am told

that placing it in your mouth and pointing it slightly upwards is the most effective.’ Mary shuddered and the General nodded to Kunwar Singh. ‘I give her to your care,’ he said.

Kunwar Singh bowed his head.

Mary went back to the women’s quarters while Appah Rao made an offering at his household shrine. He lingered there, thinking how he envied the certainty of men like the Tippoo or Colonel McCandless. Neither man seemed to have any doubts, but rather believed that destiny was whatever they themselves made of it. They were not subject to other men’s wills and Appah Rao would have liked such certainty for himself. He would have liked to live in a Mysore ruled by its ancient Hindu house, and a Mysore in which no other nations intruded: no British, no French, no Mahrattas and no Muslims, but instead he found himself caught between two armies and somehow he had to keep his wife, his children, his servants and himself alive. He closed his eyes, touched his hands to his forehead, and bowed to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god who guarded Appah Rao’s household. ‘Just keep us alive,’ he prayed to the god, ‘just keep us alive.’

The Tippoo himself came to the courtyard where the tigers had been restored to their long chains. Four infantrymen guarded the two Englishmen. The Tippoo did not come in state, with chamberlains and courtiers, but was accompanied by only one officer and two jettis who watched impassively as the Tippoo strode to Sharpe and tugged the medallion from around his neck. He pulled so hard that the chain cut into the back of Sharpe’s neck before it snapped. Then the Tippoo spat into Sharpe’s face and turned away.

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