Hervey paused and looked about the ranks, and would have forgiven a voice in agreement had any come; but a parade was a parade, especially with Armstrong posted. The only sound came from the distant repeaters, rendering his words – he trusted – into Hindoostanee.

‘No one who murders one of the regiment can expect to escape apprehending – ever – and nor can he expect mercy.’

He paused again.

‘For that is our bond.’

And with that he turned about and rode from the square.

Yet he cursed that it wasn’t the whole truth. Until Ghufoor Khan was brought to the scaffold, justice was incomplete.

Major Garratt stood the parade easy and ordered ‘eyes left and right’ to witness punishment. Georgiana and Annie reined about, but did so at a walk, for otherwise it would have seemed unbecoming.

They were not out of earshot when the crowd gasped as one, and the thugs were – soon – no longer of that world.

An hour later, Hervey took up his pen to write to Kezia, as he had whenever there was opportunity and anything worthwhile – or seemly – to say. He’d written already of their time at Chintalpore, and there was not a great deal else to tell save some diverting – he hoped – story of the camp, or of Georgiana and Annie. And a little about the food, of course, and the weather, and the birds, and anything else he could think of that might reassure her. He ended, though, by saying that their first mission here, the suppression of thuggee, was complete, and not without success – but sparing any details of the measure of that success – and that their second charge would likely begin in two or three weeks’ time, assuring her that it would be no very great thing once the force was assembled. And in the meantime – he always tried to make his campaigning sound more sport than war – he hoped to shoot snipe with Georgiana in the marshes of the Krishna.

He sealed it with the agate sealstone she’d given him before leaving England. It wasn’t always easy to imprint the fine-limbed stallion cleanly in the wax, but this time the impression was as good as might be, and he handed the letter to Corporal Johnson with evident satisfaction.

‘There is a hircarrah today is there not?’

‘I’ll go find out.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘Have you heard anything more of Mr Waterman’s death?’

‘No, Colonel, or else I’d ’ave told yer.’

It amused him that Johnson preferred ‘Colonel’. It was, though, apt, for the general rank was local and they weren’t on parade, and he’d be colonel again soon enough when the business of Chintal was done. Indeed, he was quite sure he’d be colonel indefinitely, whatever Kat had written.

‘Frankly, it troubles me that I make such a matter of the moonshee and yet – if there has indeed been foul play – I’m not able to say as much about Mr Waterman.’