But he’d not given her cause for triumph, at least; if that had been her intention. Neither pig nor nullah – nor rissaldar either – had unseated him. If she, the would-be ‘Tigress of Mysore’, had intended humbling the Company’s representative – the British Crown’s, indeed – she’d not succeeded.

In fact, she’d surely set back her cause by challenging the supremacy of the Company in front of the court – albeit in sport (though wasn’t sport the image of war?). Indeed, was it not perilous to have done so before not just her courtiers but her bodyguard – her praetorians, who like all praetorians might unseat her?

He was defiantly triumphant.

Minnie was blown, however, her neck and flanks drenched, her breathing heavy. His every instinct was to dismount, run-up the stirrups, loosen the girth and lead her in hand. But he couldn’t present himself on foot to any man or woman who remained in the saddle. Minnie would have to bear it a little longer. She’d have every attention as soon as may be.

He pressed forward, but the Ranee herself suddenly dismounted – and as elegantly as it was unexpected.

He cursed beneath his breath. She’d outplayed him, forcing him now to dismount, Acton taking the reins before himself springing from the saddle, along with Fairbrother.

‘Your Highness, may I present Colonel Hervey,’ said the sirdar.

It had been eighteen years. How long she’d spent in the forest of the Gonds – in just what circumstances, comfort and liberty – he’d no notion; but the years had been kind. Excessively kind, perhaps. She was the same slender figure of their first encounter; her face, lighter than the Madrasi women whose complexion he’d so much admired in those days (and did yet), was unlined; her hair, jet black, was just as he remembered, and her eyes larger still. Though unadorned by any jewel save a gold pendant on her forehead, she remained, by any estimate, a beauty of high degree.

‘Her Highness Princess Suneyla Rao Sundur.’

If the sirdar knew of their tryst in the forest all those years ago, when the sampera – the snake-catcher – had hissed to bid them be silent as they crept to the nest of the hamadryad, and Suneyla had taken his hand and squeezed it in a gesture of reassurance, and he’d not loosed it, so that then, moving a little ahead, she was leading rather than walking with him in that place of primal instincts … If the sirdar knew, he concealed it perfectly.

No, the sirdar could have no idea. He himself had thought almost nothing of it until now. Now, when ceremony made memory suddenly vivid by contrast.

What was this game she was playing? Why had she prepared this … contest, this spectacle, like the munera of Ancient Rome?

‘Your Highness,’ he said simply, saluting.

She had once called him Matthew – for a moment or two, in the forest – and now all was formality.

But she smiled as she held out her hand – a confident, regal smile (meant no doubt for those who watched). Even so, it disarmed him in part, for a smile – however devious – was hard not to reflect. And to be other than gracious was anyway to risk the resentment of her followers, and therefore his purpose in Chintal. He took her hand and bowed.