Part Two


Arriving home to his silent house in the Praterghatta, a district now almost wholly turned over to officers of the various regiments barracked indefinitely in Calcutta, Eyre knew he would not sleep. Somehow, when he was on campaign, he could sleep like the dead in spite of the heat, the damp, the insects the size of birds, the threat of man-eating tigers and venomous snakes, not to mention the enemy; but a clean, comfortable bed in a quiet house seemed an instrument of torture at times. Of course it was not the bed, but too much time for thought that tormented him now that his body was no longer exhausted and his brain no longer filled with the practical minutia of keeping two battalions of infantry alive and fighting from one hour to the next. Strange that he should fear those thoughts, that grief-- which he had managed, through constant activity and strict self-discipline, to keep for the most part at bay for all these long months--more than death itself. Much more, for indeed he had never feared his own death.

His man, Padjur Singh, a wiry little Bengali who seemed to have an uncanny sense of his sahib's moods, had already drawn him a bath, and as Eyre sank gratefully into the steaming perfumed water that filled the great tin tub, he noticed that Singh's right hand was thickly bandaged with white cotton.

"What happened to you, Singh?" he asked, laying back his head. The ends of his long hair floated on the water. It should be cut, but it was such a nuisance when it was short, springing up and curling in all directions in defiance of the thickest pomades whenever it got so much as a half-inch overlong. Simpler to keep it bound up in the faithful queue.

"Damned mongoose, sahib!" Singh spat contemptuously. "Fighting mongoose I pay two rupees for from Sergeant-Major. Damned thing is scared of snake, and he bites shit out of Singh to get away!"

Eyre could hardly blame the animal, improbable as the idea of a mongoose afraid of snakes sounded. "Nonsense, Singh, they fight cobras, don't they?"

"Not this damned mongoose, sahib. Now he is gone, and Singh has lost two rupees!"

"I am sorry for your loss, Singh. Do you wish me to speak to Sergeant-Major?" Eyre inquired generously.

"No, sahib Already I catch the snake and sell it to him for four rupees."

Eyre laughed. "Well done, Singh. Although I wonder that you couldn't have made more.  A snake that can see off a mongoose must be valuable indeed."

"Yes, sahib," said Singh with a wide grin. "But I am not a greedy man. What will sahib have now? Food? Tea?"

"That will be all, Singh, thank you. I am going to look at my letters, and then I will go to bed. Goodnight, Singh."

When he'd finished bathing, he dressed himself in the loose blue cotton shirt and trousers that Singh called pajamas and went to sit at his writing table where a stack of letters awaited his attention. The topmost was addressed in his mother's distinctively crab-handed scrawl. He had inherited her left-handedness, and she had staunchly forbidden his schoolmasters to attempt to correct it, for all that his copybooks were disastrously smudged and his shirtsleeves continually ink-stained. He broke the seal and read quickly. She wrote of the fine autumn weather, and of a harvest more bountiful than she could remember. The tenant farms thrived. Cyprien had planted oaks in the wasteland of the lower quarter, and planned a pinery as well. Planted them, no doubt, with his own two hands, Eyre thought, imagining his broad-shouldered younger brother, who enjoyed nothing better than to have his hands in the dirt, to be close to the land that he loved. Cyprien should have been born the heir. But no matter. It was more than likely he would inherit after all, he, or one of his two boys.

He skimmed the lines for news of his daughter. Anthea would be six months older now than when he'd last had a letter, but that had little meaning for him. He had no idea of the difference between a child of four, and one of two years, which had been her age when he had seen her last. She showed all the signs of a fine intelligence, Lady Edrington wrote. She was able to read; she sat her pony well. She laughed a great deal. It was a letter to reassure an absent father that he should have no concerns for the well being of his child, but rather it served to remind him that such a concern existed. That he had once been a husband, that a child lived in the world who was the offspring of himself and Harriet seemed at times an idea too strange for him to fathom.

He read the letter through a second time. He searched his drawer for paper, and laying a new sheet on the table, smoothed the creamy bond with his fingers. He took up his pen and dipped it, and watched as a single black drop fell from the nib onto the unblemished page and began to spread, malignant, accusatory.

And then, from nowhere, came tears, hot and terrifying, silent and unstoppable. He gasped, feeling he might choke, and he dropped the quill as his hand jerked, marking a jagged black line, like a streak of lightning, across the page.

He had not wept since he was a child. Not when his father had died, not for dear friends killed horribly in battle in the full promise of youth. Not for Harriet. He had cried out, yes, in terror and in pain, as the surgeon had dug out a musket ball that had buried itself deep in the muscle of his back. His first battle, his first wounding, and now he remembered the man's words: "Rest easy, lad, rest easy. 'Tis only pain; it's not to fear. It tells you you're alive, it does. Rest easy."

Something told him that he must surrender, although every part of his being wanted only to fight the invasion that would surely consume and erase him forever.

"Oh God, Hat," he whispered hoarsely as stretched out over the table, laying his head on his folded arms, the salt tears and his wet hair soaking his clothing and the besmirched white paper. "I do miss you. My love, forgive me."

*****

Next morning, when Singh had finished dressing him for morning parade, he handed his man a pair of notes.

"Take these to Lord Byerly-sahib's if you please." He held up the first to show Jocasta's name written there. She had indeed seemed a little unwell on the carriage ride home, and he wished to inquire after her, as well as to accept her invitation to dine on the morrow. "This one is for Lady Byerly. This one," he held up the second, which had not been addressed. "You will give to the babu."

Singh gave a short bow. "Yes, sahib."

"And for God's sake, Singh, whatever you do, do not give the wrong one to memsahib, do you understand?"

Singh straightened abruptly and sniffed, affronted.

Edrington gave a short sigh. "I'm sorry, Singh. Thank you."

"Sahib," Singh bowed again, and was gone.

Eyre walked out of the house into the square where the morning sun was already dazzling, a white light that glanced off the paving stones and the whitewashed mud walls of the buildings. A threesome of laughing girls crossed his path as he made for the stables, and the sun made brilliant the bright colours of their silken saris, and precious jewels of the tinkling glass bead bracelets that decorated their arms and their slim brown ankles. Julian had been right, he thought, and Wellesley. It was the comfort he missed. The companionship.

Abstinence and idleness together would only drive him mad.

*****

Returning home in the late afternoon, Eyre was tired and a little cross, thinking only of getting out of his clothing that was soaked with sweat and caked with the yellow dust of the drill ground, and into a hot bath. Singh met him in his chamber with a cold glass of nimbu-pani--that bracing Indian liqueur that burned like hellfire going down, but refreshed like no other---and a note.

He was to meet a boy at eight o'clock at the Suhrawardi gate. The particulars of gifts were briefly detailed. Unbuttoning his jacket and waistcoat he moved to the window that looked out not on the open square, but on a narrow alley that was already darkening with blue shadows. A cooling shaft of air was drawn along its length, and he pulled off his neckcloth and opened his shirt, exposing his throat to the welcome breeze. He downed his drink in a single swallow, and the volatile liquid scorched his throat and insides, bringing a fresh bloom of purgative sweat. He leaned far out and extended his hand, letting the glass fall from his fingers to shatter with a faint and musical sound on the filthy stones below.

******

He took care to put on a good lawn shirt when he had bathed, and a linen coat that was the light, golden brown colour of a cured tobacco leaf. Somewhat drab, but as he regarded himself in the glass, he saw that it complimented him somewhat, contrasting with the intense dark brown of his eyes, the gold of his carefully dressed hair. A small silver pin, engraved with his family crest, with a tiny diamond in the center, nestled in the folds of his faultless white cravat.

The bibi khanas of Calcutta were beyond the civil lines, towards the Chitpore road (the "shit poor road" the men called it, somewhat unjustly) where the rich Bengali merchants lived. Making his assignation at the Suhrawardi gate, Eyre dismounted and led his horse through dark and drowsy streets that were oddly silent for so early of an evening. Here and there a puddle of golden light spilled from a doorway, or glowed from within a high curtained window. A dog barked. A woman laughed.

The house was like any other in the empty street, distinguished only by a deep blue door. The boy pushed it open and gestured him on, and Eyre gave him a few annas and muttered a thank you as his horse was led away.

The front room of the house was small, and he almost felt as if the top of his head might brush the ceiling, but it was warmly lit and well kept, furnished with a fine oriental carpet, polished tables, and plump, patterned cushions. An old woman appeared from behind a painted screen as he entered, looked at him, and then beckoned to a young woman to come from behind it.

She was, as promised, a most handsome girl, clean-limbed and shapely, perhaps twenty. Her skin was of a lighter brown than some of the Bengali and Madrasi girls he had admired, and her eyes, large, and having that exotic, smoky appearance typical of native women, were also unusual, a sludgy, brownish green, rather than black. A half-caste, perhaps?

They knelt on cushions on the floor surrounding a low table, and Eyre, his heart hammering, laid out his gifts. Coffee and tea. A small purse, filled with coins. A pair of combs, mother-of-pearl, their backs chased in silver. The old woman smiled and nodded, took the gifts, and left them alone.

They sat awhile, drinking tea, and eating roasted almonds and sugared limes that a servant set before them, talking a little in English, for Eyre's Bengali was poor. When there was nothing more to be said, they rose, and she led him up rickety stairs to a small room with white walls, and long muslin curtains at the blue-shuttered windows. A punkah fan hung motionless over a low, wide bed that was dressed with clean white linen.

Although he had known Harriet almost from birth, and there had been an understanding between their families as to their union for nearly as long, before his marriage he had had the normal adventures that might be expected of a young man in London, and abroad with his regiment. If Harriet had known of these other women, if the knowledge had pained her, she had never spoken of it, and now, perversely, he almost wished that she had, for he wished he could have had the opportunity to tell her that since they had married, he had been faithful to her. But that wish, he realized now, was a poor reflection on the state of his marriage, for it simply exposed the knowledge, deep in his heart, that he had never given her reason to trust in his faith, or in his love.

Faithful he had been in his body, and in his heart, truly, he had loved no other. But why now, when she was dead, did he feel like the worst kind of traitor?

The girl knelt in the center of the bed, her wide, dark eyes regarding him with slightly wary anticipation. She was modestly dressed in a sari of pale yellow silk, and a simple, short-sleeved white shirt, fitted close to the body. Her lustrous, black hair was braided and arranged in a coil around her head. She wore tiny silver hoops in her ears, and a delicate silver bracelet on each wrist. She sat motionless as he moved towards her and sank to his own knees on the floor beside the bed.

"Forgive me," he said gently, with a smile that cause her own lovely mouth to curve ever so slightly as she looked at him. "For the life of me, I cannot recall your name."

She smiled again, showing beautiful, small white teeth. "That is because you did not ask it." Her English, thankfully, was quite good, and her voice was soft, with that rhythmic, lilting accent of Bengal. "Irawadi, " she said quietly.

He shook his head slowly.

"Irawadi," she repeated. "My name."

"Irawadi?" he echoed her. "Like the river?"

She nodded, and he could not help but be drawn into her eyes. She was a stranger, a mystery, named for a wide, slow-moving Burman river whose sludgy brownish green depths were the very same colour as those calm, watchful eyes. He had taken a boat once on that river, from the far-flung British garrison at Mandalay, down, and down, to Rangoon, where the dark, silted waters oozed finally into the Bay of Bengal. The trip had seemed to take forever, the current so slow as to seem almost imperceptible, and when the sails were slack, and there was no wind to carry them along, their boat seemed hardly to move. It was as if time itself stood still, but no one else seemed to mind, and the boatmen would laugh and say that he should have patience. In time, the river would bring all things along, would carry them all to the sea.

She was looking at him expectantly, her head cocked a little to the side. "Irawadi…" she said, and made a small, gesture towards him with her hand, as if inviting him to speak. With a little start, he realized she was asking his name!

"Eyre," he said, feeling a little foolish pointing at himself.

"Ay-ur?" she pronounced it awkwardly, then laughed charmingly. "Like…the air?" As she said it, she raised her arms above her head, her pretty fingers fluttering in an arc.

He shook his head, laughing a little too. "No. Eyre," he repeated, realizing it didn't make a bit of difference. "It was the family name of my mother, before she married."

"Eyre." She reached out one slim, brown hand and placed it on his chest, just above his heart. Looking down, he saw that tips of her fingers were touching his silver pin, and as he watched, her other hand joined the first, pulling out the pin, loosening his cravat. His own hand came up, gently seizing her wrist and he held it as he rose from his knees and moved to sit beside her on the bed.

With lowered eyes and deft hands, she removed his cravat, and then slid his coat from his shoulders and laid it neatly over the far corner of the bed. He allowed her to pull his shirt off over his head, and all the while, he was only thinking he should not be here. He felt suddenly old, and exhausted, and the feel of the cool, crisp linen sheets beneath his palms, the sinking softness of the mattress made him wish she would only take him in her arms and let him sleep, quiet and at peace. But then she raised her arms and began to unpin her hair, and as he watched the inky tresses fall, and as she ran her fingers through the braids, loosening them to flow around her like a dark and rippling waterfall; as he smelled the fragrance of her perfume, released by the motion of air, carried on the heat of her body, he felt the unmistakable quickening of desire.

Taking her shoulders, he pushed her down onto the bed, gently, and there was no resistance, no fear, although he was a stranger. She watched him, calm, serene, with shining eyes whose mystery he thought that he might never know. He wondered if he might kiss her; would she know a kiss, even? Slowly, he bent forward, closer and closer, and her warm breath was in his ear as his lips touched hers so softly, on the corner of her mouth. There was a taste of limes, a few grains of sugar there, and as he drew a little away, her lips parted and he saw the tip of her tongue emerge to lick at that little bit of sweetness. And then she smiled again, and her arms went about his neck, drawing him down to her, and he did kiss her, as tenderly, as sweetly as any true lover.

He had wondered at the complexity of the garments that Indian women wore, at the way the length of sari silk was wound and draped and folded. He'd imagined it unwinding, layer upon layer, like thread from a spool. But Irawadi's silken finery seemed to melt in his hands like the butter whose colour and slippery softness it brought to mind. His hands slid under the little white shirt, and with a tiny bit of clumsy maneuvering, it too came away, and she lay before him naked and slender, surrounded by the gossamer shell of her chrysalis, as lovely, as fragile, as a new butterfly.

There was nothing of Harriet about her, a thing he realized now that he had actually feared. Her hips were lean and a little boyish where Harriet's had been lushly curved, and her breasts, beautifully shaped and tipped by dark brown nipples, were small and firm, where his wife's had been round and full and soft and pink.

He was hard now, so hard that he ached, and he sat up for a moment to remove the rest of his clothing, his breeches, his stockings. His boots had been left by the door downstairs. She knelt behind him as his back was turned, and he felt her fingers in his hair, untying the ribbon of his queue. He turned quickly, taking her in his arms and bearing her back down as the ribbon fell away, slithering down his back and onto the floor. His hair spilled forward, into her face, onto her bare shoulders. With gentle hands she pushed it away, saying with a sigh, "You have yellow hair."

"And you have eyes like the river." He was lying full on top of her, and he knew she must feel his rigid flesh, pushing between her thighs, throbbing with blood and heat. He had no idea what to expect. She could not be a virgin, surely? Perhaps he was just a sentimental fool, for to him, she did seem perfectly sweet and pure, gentle and trusting, a perfectly strange girl who inspired in him a tenderness that caught at his heart. He could not hurt her, but he needed her so.

He moved a little to the side, taking his weight off her. Softly, he stroked the sides of her face, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle touch. He began kissing her again, and his hands began to move over her body, the skin so smooth and soft, as brown as toast and warm as candleglow. He kissed the little brown nipples, delighting in her tiny gasp of pleasure as he teased the fragile skin between his lips. Slowly, slowly, he let his hand wander down the length of her, and slowly he began to caress the sleek inner slopes of her thighs and moving higher still, discovered to his surprise---how could he not have already seen? -- that her sex was completely smooth. Whether by nature or by design, he could not tell, but it was fascinating and new---and wildly arousing.

He was still a man; for all that he had managed for so long to ignore the needs of the flesh, to subvert his desires through action and discipline. But now his body burned, his heart raced, his very skin prickled with the keenness of his lust, and he feared what he might do if she should try to deny him now. Tonight, she had the right to refuse him. But tomorrow, if they had pleased each other, she would belong to him, to keep and to protect. He would be her sahib, and she would be his bibi, his khadin, words that his own language could not define. All and none of a lover, a mistress, a servant, a bride.

But she would not deny him, would she? She knew why she was here, and now she was caressing him, her hands sliding lightly along his flanks, and her lips were moving against his neck as she whispered something too softly for him to hear. His fingers moved between the soft outer folds of her sex, so delightfully soft and smooth, and with a throaty little sound she let her legs part a bit, and he pushed inside to find her warm and just a little moist. Perhaps she was a little afraid, or perhaps she simply did not desire him as fiercely as he did her. Did one ever really know with a woman? Yet he had always believed himself to be a considerate lover. He would not hurt her, nor take her selfishly, with regard for only his own pleasure, no matter his need, no matter how hotly he burned.

"Irawadi," he whispered her name, and brought his fingers up to her mouth, running the tips over her lips until she opened for him, and he let them slip inside.

"Here, my love," He stroked the silken insides of her mouth, and her eyes smiled at him as her tongue played a little with his fingers. He withdrew them, slick with her saliva, and as he covered her mouth with his own once more, the fingers moved to her secret place, using the moisture of her mouth to smooth the way for him. Gently, patiently he caressed her with short, rhythmic strokes that soon had her cooing softly in his ear, bubbling with slippery wetness, and opening to him like a flower.

And when he thought he could bear to wait no more; when his every nerve buzzed with febrile heat and his every muscle quivered with tension, every ounce of blood seeming to pound in the end of his painfully engorged cock, he felt her hands on him, holding him, guiding him into her. He surged forward, helpless in this quick, sharp moment of consummation, in his need to be inside, to fill her completely. He entered, sure and fast, and he savored a small triumph as he took her at last, for he knew when he looked into her eyes, round and dark and mellow, that she wanted him there. And she did not let them close, nor did she look away from him as he pushed in, and in, until he could go no further, until his hipbones melded into the rounded edges of hers, and they were locked together in nature's sacred embrace. The most intimate of strangers.

He held himself above her, struggling for control, pulsing within as his cock flexed sharply against her inner walls. He groaned, his teeth on edge. She made a small sound, a plea, an encouragement, and her hands moved to the small of his back, to his buttocks, kneading him a little as she shifted beneath him, bringing him deeper, closer, tighter to her. He sighed raggedly and lowered himself onto her, his mouth coming down on hers as he made his first thrusts into the narrow wet channel that was so exquisitely tight, so soft and welcoming and warm. He moved into her again and again, stroking stronger and harder, his hands cupping her sweet face as he kissed her. Then, needing more and more, he grasped her thigh, raising her leg to his waist, and she responded by wrapping herself around him, arching, tilting her hips to give him the deepest access. He plunged, holding her tightly in his arms, and burying his face in the soft skin of her throat, tasting the faint salt tang of her sweat, breathing the scent of her perfumed hair.

When he came it was like an explosion, sudden and fierce, a burst of white light at the back of his skull, blinding, breathtaking, and he cried out as his whole being poured out of him in a rush of fire that ended as quickly as it had begun, leaving him blessedly empty, and falling into her receiving arms, soft, exhausted, as heavy as lead. Their bodies were molded to one another, sheened with sweat. He exhaled, pressing himself into her once more, and feeling the little answering pulse, hearing her own faint sigh of completion.

*****

She stood by the window, slender and glowing in the light of a white sickle moon that hung in the opening as if it had been placed there by a stage master, her long black hair falling like a shadow down her back, stopping just short of her neat little behind. The shutters had been tightly closed against the heat of the day, and she opened them now to let in the cool night air. A breeze moved over his sweat-dampened body. She had set the punkah in motion, and it moved overhead with a low swish, it's long fringes stirring the fragrance of perfume and night-blooming flowers and love.

"Come back," he called her, his voice hoarse and a little thick with sleep. He must have dozed. The sheet was covering him, and he pushed it off him as she came to him. He was ready for her again, and he reached for her hand. She laughed as he pulled her down on top of him.

"Eyre," she sighed, closing her eyes, as she settled herself astride him. "Sahib," as he slid right up inside.

Go to Part Three