‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Gert’s voice behind them.

  The words needed no translation. Paul turned slowly, arms out in surrender. The joy in his heart turned to ash. Gert stood in the doorway. Moonlight streamed through the window and shone on the blued barrel of the hunting rifle in his hands.

  ‘What are you doing with my daughter?’

  He stepped forward. Paul had the wall at his back and could not move. Gert saw the sacks by Paul’s feet, spilling over with food. His mood darkened.

  ‘I save your life, feed you, clothe you, take you in as one of my own family – and this is my reward? That you will steal my own daughter from me?’ He raised the rifle. ‘You are no better than a wild animal.’

  ‘No, Papa,’ Mary pleaded. She stepped forward, putting herself between Paul and her father. ‘He loves me.’

  Gert’s hands tightened around the rifle so hard Paul feared it might go off by accident.

  ‘Have I raised a harlot in my own home? I expected better of you, but I should have known. George warned me you were too much like your uncle.’ He sniffed. ‘Whatever you think you feel for him, it is only some girlish fancy.’

  ‘I am not a girl any more.’

  As she spoke, Mary moved forward into the patch of moonbeam. The light shone through the thin cloth of her nightdress, silhouetting her naked body beneath. It hid nothing: the unlaced bodice, the tear at the neck where Paul had pulled it off her, and the dark bloodstains that spotted the fabric between her thighs.

  Gert’s eyes widened with shock that hardened to fury.

  ‘What have you done?’

  The moment seemed to last forever. Gert, Mary, Paul – and the gun between them. Paul could see Gert’s knuckles tensed on the trigger. In his rage, even his own daughter standing before him might not stop him firing. Paul started to go forward, trying to put himself in front of Mary to shield her. Gert’s hunter’s eyes caught the movement almost before Paul had begun. He swung the rifle towards him.

  Paul had faced death so many times it was a familiar experience – but this time something was different. He did not hear his mother’s voice, or even the bird-headed god’s: they were silent. The only thought in his mind as he stared down the barrel of the gun was Mary. To die now, having tasted such bliss, was almost too cruel. And yet, strangely, it did not frighten him.

  But Gert was an outraged father, not a murderer.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ he growled. ‘Get out and never let me see you again. And you . . .’ He turned to Mary. ‘We will speak of this with your mother in the morning.’

  Paul did not understand what Gert had said – only that he would not be killed. He glanced at Mary, and saw the pain of parting written on her face.

  ‘You must go. Go,’ she repeated, pointing to the door.

  Paul wanted to cling to the moment. To savour her face, to gaze into her eyes until she understood his love for her. Gert would have none of it. He grabbed Paul by his collar and dragged him to the front door. Paul glimpsed Mary’s stricken face framed by golden, dishevelled hair, mouth open as if to call something after him. Then the door slammed and she was gone.

  Gert marched Paul across the yard to the front gate. Jama waited there, talking softly with his fellow guards. Gert sniffed the night air.

  ‘Any sign of trouble?’

  ‘The night is quiet.’

  ‘Open the gate.’

  They removed the heavy bar that locked the gate and heaved it open a crack. As soon as it was wide enough for a man to pass through, Gert gave Paul a hard shove between his shoulder blades. Paul stumbled out.

  ‘If I ever see you again . . .’

  Remembering that Paul could not understand, Gert stopped speaking and shook the rifle at him in a gesture that needed no translation, keeping his eye on Paul until the gate crunched shut.

  Paul was left alone outside the fort. He stood there for a moment, stupefied by all that had happened. All he wanted was to be back with Mary. To be taken from her, he felt some part of his soul had been ripped away.

  He wanted to curl into a ball and sob until he shrivelled away – but he could not stay where he was. What if Gert decided to use that rifle after all? Paul stumbled away across the field, legs moving independent of any thought. Where did Gert expect him to go? Was he supposed to go aboard the ship, for Cape Town? But that thought was unbearable.

  Gert had acted in anger. Perhaps by morning his temper would have ebbed. Susan would calm him, Mary would plead for him, and Gert would relent. Or else Mary would find a way to creep out and join Paul.

  Everything would be better in the morning.

  He crossed the open field and entered the line of trees at its edge. He could wait there, undisturbed, until dawn.

  Belatedly, with a stab of guilt, he remembered Sana.

  Where is she?

  He wished they had not argued, and he wished he could talk to her to explain. It still stunned him that she thought Paul might be attracted to her romantically.

  What could she have been thinking?

  If he had considered more carefully, he would have realised that there was only a year or two’s difference in age between Sana and Mary. But he did not see them that way. To him, Mary was in the full bloom of womanhood, while Sana would always be a little girl to him. He hated to think of her on her own. What if she never came back? What if the last words she had spoken to him were words of anger?

  He crouched there, sobbing silently. Thorns and branches scratched his arms, but he did not mind. There was something pure and clarifying in the pain. He snapped off one of the branches – one with a particularly large thorn near its tip – and scraped it against his arm over and over again, until the blood ran freely and he could not feel it.

  Lost in his grief, he did not hear the rustling leaves. Even the soft snap of a twig did not intrude, nor the warmth of another creature’s energy radiating just behind him.

  Something tapped his shoulder. In an instant, Paul’s senses were alive again. What if the smell of the blood running down his arm had drawn predators? A moment earlier, he had thought he wanted to die. Suddenly, he wanted to live so much it hurt.

  He spun around with a low cry. Sana’s eyes gleamed out of the darkness, caught in a shaft of moonlight that pierced the tree canopy.

  She said nothing, but simply stared at him ferociously. Clearly she had not forgotten, nor forgiven him.

  How did you get out? he mouthed.

  ‘The side gate. There are no guards there.’ She spoke in a whisper, her voice no louder than the chatter of insects.

  How did you find me?

  ‘I saw you come out.’ She looked him up and down, no hint of pity. ‘They threw you out, then.’

  He nodded, though it had not been a question.

  ‘I thought they would.’

  He had no response.

  ‘It is good.’

  No.

  ‘Yes.’ She gripped his shoulder, her small hands digging so deep between the bones he gasped in agony. ‘We must go before the bad men come.’

  He gaped at her.

  What do you mean?

  ‘Men from the boat. With guns.’ She gestured to the fields beyond the trees, the open ground leading up to the fort. ‘They are coming.’

  He barely understood her. Bewildered, he put his face through the foliage to see what was out there. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness in the woods, and out in the fields the moon was shining strong and bright. He saw clearly: the pale walls of Fort Auspice, sparkling with the crushed shells ground into the mortar; the glow of the sentries’ lamps; the long grass in the pasture, stretching down to the lagoon. And – only a few paces in front of him, keeping close to the shadows thrown by the trees – a dozen men crawling on hands and knees.

  Their skins shone pale in the moonlight: white men. He did not recognise them, though they must have come from the ship, but he knew in a heartbeat why they had come. They carried themselves with the same purpose as the Tigréan warriors he had seen coming for the king of Gondar on the hunt, all those years ago. All were armed with many weapons.

  Gert was right to distrust Hugo.

  They crept past towards the walls of Fort Auspice. Every sinew in Paul’s body stretched taut to snapping.

  What should I do?

  He ought to warn the others, but if he revealed himself, then he would have no protection. Hugo’s men would shoot him dead.

  The walls are strong and well defended. Gert’s men are ready.

  He wanted to believe that was enough – but the thought of Mary sleeping unawares behind those walls preyed on his heart.

  ‘We must go,’ hissed Sana.

  A shot ripped open the night. The flash of the musket blinded Paul; he closed his eyes, even as the image lingered on his eyeballs. It had come from the walls. Gert’s precautions had worked. His sentries must have seen Hugo’s men approaching. The attackers, expecting no resistance, had been taken by surprise.

  They responded quickly. The night became a storm: guns crashed, and muzzles flashed from inside the cloud of powder smoke that swirled around the gate. Gert’s men kept up a brisk fire, while the attackers had to fire and run before the defenders could pinpoint their positions. But they could not hide. The defenders lit flares that threw back the curtain of night with a burning white light that was as bright as day.

  There was no need to warn the family now, and nothing Paul could do to help. Paul watched from the trees, like Gondar again, seeing Yostos’s and Goshu’s armies battle for the throne. This time, the outcome did not seem to be in doubt. The walls were strong, and the gate well defended. In the light of the flares, the attackers could not get close. Whatever Hugo’s purpose – Paul still had no idea why he should have launched this attack – it would fail.

  But Hugo was not ready to give up yet. While his men peppered the front wall with musketry, Paul saw a smaller group slipping away into the darkness around the side of the fort. Looking for another way in, no doubt, but they would be disappointed. The walls were well maintained all around the compound, and the only other door . . .

  Paul froze. He turned back to Sana and gestured towards the back of the fort.

  When you came out of the side gate, did you lock it?

  She shrugged, and did not meet his eye. He remembered how distraught she had been when she left, how furious with him. If she had blundered through the gate, would she have thought to lock it behind her?

  Sana had said it was unguarded. If the attackers found the unlocked gate, they could get in. Mary and her family would be massacred.

  Paul pointed through the trees in the direction of the fort. He made to go, but Sana grabbed his hand.

  ‘This is not our fight,’ she hissed.

  The family saved our lives.

  ‘They threw you out. They hate us.’ She tugged his hand. ‘If you go back, they will kill you.’

  He was not sure who ‘they’ were – Gert, or Hugo’s men, or simply the Fates that had been trying to kill him ever since the revolutionaries came for his mother. But he could not sit there and watch Mary and her family be massacred.

  Could he?

  Endure anything, say anything, become anything. But promise you will survive.

  Constance’s words were suddenly so real, it was as if she was standing there in the forest with him, as if the hand clutching his wrist was his own mother’s.

  You have endured worse than this, Paul told himself. You survived.

  The shooting by the gate continued. The staccato rhythm resonated inside him like the drums that had marched his mother to the guillotine. He had stood there that day, a few paces away, and done nothing.

  If you go back, they will kill you.

  The gunshots grew louder. A thought began to smoulder at the back of Paul’s mind – an image of the bird-headed god in the Egyptian temple.

  To master life, you must hold it as light as a feather.

  Was that the message the god had given him? To let go of everyone else in order to protect himself? In the desert, in Gondar, and aboard Ilya’s boat, he had killed men, or planned their deaths, or watched them die so that he would survive. Whatever attachments he felt, he had severed those bonds to save himself.

  But he could not do it to Mary. His feelings were too strong. The weight of his mother’s charge seemed to lift away; his life counted for nothing next to Mary’s. He felt as light as a feather.

  And suddenly, he understood what the god had been trying to tell him that day in the temple.

  He pulled free of Sana’s grip and began running towards the house.

  HOLKAR, 1807

  A

  dam lay stretched out on his bed, fully dressed. The stifling heat spurred a memory he had almost forgotten in the past weeks: the night he had found Lizzie in her cabin. What had happened to her? She must be married by now. He hoped she was happy.

  He remembered their parting – her hope that he would give up his quest to live with her, and his harsh dismissal. Had he made the right choice? All he had achieved was death and ruin – yet the man he had come to kill was alive and triumphant.

  A bar of light glowed under the door. Someone was coming. Adam sat up, just as the door swung open. Panjit came in, carrying a lamp. His face was lined with cares, made deeper still by the shadows of the flame.

  ‘Have you come to arrest me?’

  Adam had been waiting for it. He knew what Panjit had to do.

  Panjit shook his head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You should,’ Adam urged him. ‘I am what Hugo wants.’ Enough people had suffered for the cause of his revenge. He would not drag down this proud city as well. ‘Bargain with Hugo. Offer him my head. I think he is so furious with me, he would drop his other demands just to get hold of me.’

  ‘Do not underestimate his appetite for our diamonds,’ said Panjit with a weary smile. ‘Or overestimate your own worth. Hugo does not know you are here.’

  Adam was confused. ‘He must suspect it. Otherwise, why insist that you hand over any fugitives?’

  ‘Hugo suspects many things. But according to my spies, he believes you escaped down the river and away from here. He has had his cavalry scouring the countryside for you all day.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘His wife has run away, and she has taken their son. Hugo is mad with jealousy and fury. He thinks she has sought refuge here.’

  ‘Why would he think that?’

  Before Panjit could reply, the door opened again with a squeak of hinges. Adam looked up to see a slim figure standing there. She was wrapped in a shawl and veil, but even so, he recognised her. He had been entwined with that body only the day before.

  Clare pulled off the veil. Raven-dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. She did not approach Adam, but stood stiffly in the doorway, like a winged bird hiding in the undergrowth. Her face was bruised. She had not escaped Hugo unscathed.

  ‘Where is Ralph?’ said Adam.

  ‘The Maharani’s doctor is seeing to him.’ Her voice was so low it almost disappeared. ‘A splinter pierced his cheek.’

  Adam bowed his head, torn by guilt. For the thousandth time, he wished his bullet had hit Hugo in the chest and ended everything.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I cannot stay with Hugo.’ She touched the bruises on her face. ‘Life with him would be a living death.’

  ‘But you are not safe from him here. Tomorrow he is bringing his army to occupy the citadel.’

  Adam glanced at Panjit. Why had he brought Clare here? If Hugo found Clare in Holkar, it would not just be her life in danger. Hugo would use it as a pretext to punish the whole city.

  The old Indian had closed his eyes, and seemed to be snoozing.

  ‘Panjit Rao has offered to smuggle me out of the city,’ said Clare. ‘By the time Hugo learns I am not here, I will be far away.’

  ‘You cannot outrun him,’ Adam warned. ‘There is nowhere in India his power does not reach.’

  ‘You think I do not know that?’ She shook her head. ‘No one better. That is why I have come to you.’

  ‘I had my shot at Hugo.’ Adam’s voice was flat with despair. ‘I missed. He will not let me get near him again.’

  ‘Perhaps there is a way.’

  Panjit had listened to their conversation in silence, his eyes shut. Now he sat up, alert and with such an intent smile that Adam knew he had been waiting for this moment. He had a plan, and he had manoeuvred Adam and Clare like pieces on his chessboard to achieve it.

  But what was the endgame?

  ‘I think the knight has one more move to make.’

  *

  Clare and Ralph left before dawn. They slipped out of a back gate, hidden in a curtained palanquin, with four servants and a small detachment of soldiers to protect them.

  Adam watched them go. A knot twisted his stomach – so many emotions he could not reconcile. Memories played through his mind: cricket on the lawn and tea on the veranda; Clare naked in bed; Ralph screaming as he clutched his bleeding face.

  The palanquin paused while the guards opened the little gate. The curtains swung back; Adam glimpsed Clare. Ralph lay beside her, his head on her breast. His right cheek was wrapped in bandages; he was asleep. Adam guessed the Maharani’s doctors must have given him opium for his pain.

  Clare had seen Adam. She reached out a hand through the curtains.

  ‘I hoped you would be here.’

  ‘I came to say goodbye.’

  She leaned forward, trying not to disturb Ralph.

  ‘It does not have to be goodbye. If you succeed in our plan today, you could follow after us. We could be together.’

  Her lips were open, her eyes wide. The yearning on her bruised face was almost as painful to see as Ralph’s injury.

  ‘I would give everything I had if I could make you happy, make Ralph whole again.’

  Hope flared in her eyes. ‘You will come with me?’

  He gazed on her fragile beauty, so vulnerable and inviting. It was tempting to succumb. But in his heart, he knew that it was impossible. Whether he killed Hugo or died in the attempt, he could not give her the love she needed. They had nothing in common except Hugo. Alive, Hugo’s dark gravity was what bound them together. Dead, he would linger like a ghost between them, driving them apart until they hated each other.