Georgiana was about to say she was with child, but checked. ‘She is not entirely well, Your Highness. The heat: it became very tiring.’

Suneyla stared hard at her, the eyes Georgiana had found pleasingly large windows on the soul now hostile.

‘Have you not seen Fort William then?’

‘No, ma’am, not yet.’

‘But you are to go there?’

‘I know of no plans, ma’am. My father desires to return to Madras as soon as may be.’

‘Are there a great many soldiers in Guntoor?’

‘Highness?’

‘I have heard there are many soldiers,’ she said, but this time absently, as if trying to make nothing of it. ‘It must be delightful for a daughter to see her father at the head of so great a number.’

Georgiana was unsure whether she ought to dissemble, for if the Ranee had heard there were many soldiers, she must believe it. And what would be the consequences of denying something that might already be proved? Was the Ranee testing her? And if so, why?

‘Highness, there are a great many, yes. They have been hunting down the dacoits.’ And then she thought to – as it were – flush out the game by frankness. ‘But I understand that a great many more are soon to arrive.’

This appeared not to alarm Suneyla but somehow to encourage her. ‘It is as I thought.’

But Georgiana did not know what she thought – other than that Chintal’s spies did their work well. ‘Ma’am?’

Suneyla fell silent for a moment, then made a gesture to the walls and her ear, and lowered her voice further. ‘Miss Hervey, please give this message to your father: The hamadryads that he and I once observed in the forest are nothing to the court here. I am ready to consider any proposal.’

Georgiana stiffened.

Annie saw, and went to her at once.

Suneyla rose. Annie braced for the assault.

But Suneyla smiled warmly and took her hand. ‘My dear, we have had such delightful talk, Miss Hervey and I.’

Mira Bai was now close. Suneyla turned to her and said, in English, ‘It is accomplished.’

‘How exactly did you learn of it? Common knowledge, do you suppose?’

Hervey had been tightening Minnie’s girth strap. St Alban had found him just as he was about to leave.

‘One of the bodyguard, just after I’d returned from Colonel Bell’s. He said there was a great commotion in the palace, the dewan much agitated, and most others.’

Hervey shook his head. ‘Bestial.’

‘He said all the palace knew the story of Begum Sumroo, and if the Ranee could do to the nautch girl as the Begum did to one of her ladies, then she could do to any.’

‘Quite.’ Hervey wondered if he ought to go to the zenana. There was no reason to suppose that Georgiana was in any danger, but something as capriciously cruel as this …

‘Do you know of this Begum, Colonel?’

‘A very little. She was at Bhurtpore when we took it by siege. She’d brought her troops to assist Combermere – not that he needed any more. She was just after plunder. I saw her once – a hag, no less, though she was supposed to have been a beauty in her day. But that’s by the bye. Mind, if the Ranee’s imitating her methods …’