His friend smiled quizzically. ‘So it’s to be the second, then?’

Hervey had conceived two plans. The first was to intrude a force via the tunnel, but that would mean digging out a part of it (or blowing out – perilous in the extreme). Surprise would soon be lost, and the defenders could counter in numbers. The second plan was to pack the tunnel with powder where it ran under the outer wall, and make a practicable breach. A storming party – he refused to call it a ‘forlorn hope’ as they did in the Peninsula – would then cross the moat in makeshift boats. There was perhaps a chance that they’d take the place without a shot, for by the old rule of siege, if the defenders held out when a practicable breach had been made, that meant no quarter would be given. But here, where the defenders were insurgents and oath-breakers, the gallows awaited them anyway. Who would choose to be spared death by the sword only to die by the rope? This did, however, simplify Hervey’s position. For if the gallows awaited them by due process of law, there could hardly be qualms about summary justice by the sword. In the end, though, with great reluctance, he’d embrace the expediency he found so repugnant in Major Sleeman’s system: amnesty for the dewan’s ‘foot soldiers’. But there’d be none for Ashok Acharya, for that would be a signal to every would-be usurper in India that his enterprise was one of limited liability; nor amnesty for any thug who’d taken refuge and could be recognized. Besides, would it not be the Ranee’s prerogative that he himself would be usurping?

‘Your Rahabs are ready?’ asked Hervey cheerily of Fairbrother.

‘They are.’

‘And you trust them yet?’

‘I’ve offered them so many rubies they’ll look like Shakti on her wedding day.’

‘Very well. Let them do their worst – and best.’ He turned to Captain Hart. ‘Your sappers to the tunnel, then, as soon as may be.’ And then to Major Parry, ‘Orders to the brigadiers.’

Parry looked content at last. ‘Very good, General.’

And now Hervey knew he could do no more – nothing at least that would materially change the preparations; and when there was no more for a general to do, it was his duty to rest.

‘Goodnight, then, gentlemen.’

* * *

And Joshua rose early in the morning …

‘Tea, Colonel.’

Corporal Johnson’s hand summoned him from his deepest sleep in weeks.

Hervey sat up and listened to the dawn. It was not given to a man to know when would be his last; to a soldier especially. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. His thoughts were of Georgiana, though she was safe enough – and of Kezia.

As daylight came he shaved and put on clean linen, and took a leisurely breakfast of eggs, fruit and coffee.

Then he climbed into the saddle.

The morning was clear and fresh, the troops he passed were in good heart, well concealed, and the guns on the walls of the fortress-palace were silent but for the odd speculative shot, answered each time by howitzer and explosive shell – no doubt bringing curses from the dewan’s poor foot soldiers for their own imprudent artillery. Here was the long game of siege as practised for centuries – since the days of the Ancients, indeed, when the catapult hurled Greek fire.