Bahram’s frown deepened as he scanned the passage, but then suddenly his face cleared and his eyes lit up. ‘But it is just a memorial, no? Written by some bloody bandar of a baboo. Hundreds of these they must be writing. Emperor will throw and forget. What he cares? He is Emperor, no, busy with his wives and all? Mandarins will not tolerate any change – or else where they will get cumshaw? How they will fill their pipes? Those bahn-chahts are the biggest smokers of all.’

*

Bahram had known Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, the current President of Canton’s General Chamber of Commerce for many years. A rubicund man with a silken blandness of manner, he was connected to the Earls of Balcarra, a prominent Scottish dynasty. He had been in China some sixteen years and was widely liked, being universally regarded as a good fellow who never gave himself any airs. Bahram had dined with him many times and knew him to be an excellent host: what was more, he knew him also to be a discerning judge of food.

It was thus with a pleasurable sense of anticipation that Bahram picked out his clothes for Mr Hamilton’s dinner. In place of an angarkha he chose a knee-length white jama of Dacca cotton: it was discreetly ornamented with jamdani brocade, and the neck and cuffs were lined with bands of green silk. Instead of pairing this with the usual salwar or paijamas, Bahram settled on a pair of black Acehnese leggings, shot through with silver thread. The weather being still quite warm he picked, as an outer garment, a cream-coloured cotton choga embroidered with silver-gilt karchobi work. The ensemble was completed by a turban of pure malmal muslin. Then, as Bahram picked up a slim cane with an ivory knob, the valet-duty khidmatgar misted the air with a puff of his favourite raat-ki-rani attar; after lingering in the fragrant cloud for a moment, Bahram made his way to the door.

The dinner was to be held in the Chamber’s dining room, which was only a five-minute walk from the Achha Hong. But it was the custom, in Canton, for people to hire lantern-bearers to light their way when they were invited out to dine, even if they were going only a short distance. Bahram had employed the same bearer for decades: known to foreigners as Apu, this man had an uncanny ability to divine when he was needed. He also seemed to possess some occult faculty of persuasion that enabled him to keep at bay the cadgers and chawbacons of the Maidan. This evening, as on so many before, Apu arrived punctually, just before sundown, and Bahram set off shortly afterwards: with his embroidered choga flapping in the breeze, and a paper lantern glowing above his white turban, he was about as striking a figure as any – but such were his lantern-bearer’s powers that he was the only passer-by not to be besieged with importuning cries of ‘Cumshaw, gimme cumshaw!’