And yet, as Garratt himself had said (and many another), in cleverness and fortitude – in sheer gameness – the female of the species Felis tigris was greatly superior. Garratt respected the tigress because she raised her cubs and fended off predators, and would die in the act if need be. A tigress was like a fighting cock, which gives battle though knowing it will be killed.

Well, he, Hervey, had seen tooth and claw enough in the Princess Suneyla when first he’d been in Chintal, and perhaps would do so again when it came to his mission of observation (in truth a reconnaissance for war). The Ranee was mercurial, said Sleeman, as well as venal – Hervey certainly knew of the quicksilver – and quite possibly on the lookout for a pretext to make war with Fort William, if only a war of words and martial bluster. And yet, Hervey would confess, he was himself animated by the prospect of seeing her again. Yes, Suneyla had schemed against her father, paying the price with banishment to the forest of the Gonds; but that apart, he’d admired her as a woman of spirit (and, he must admit, of some beauty), as well being intrigued by her … difference, as formed wholly in so alien – exotic – a place as this. Indeed, for a week or so they’d enjoyed some intimacy; it had been vocal only, but in the forest, when they’d gone to see the hamadryads, it had verged on something more. Later he’d trembled at the thought, for he was then affianced to Henrietta. He put it down to the heat, the humidity, the strangeness of the surroundings. No, there was not impropriety in his desire to see her again; just …

Meanwhile the honour of the regiment rested on his ‘Bow Street patrols’ – and, he’d be first to admit, on the address of his particular friend. For Fairbrother’s gambit would surely prove the ace in Sleeman’s game, and he was determined that his friend should have recognition. Indeed, he’d already resolved with Sleeman that they’d jointly write the citation, directly to Bentinck. It was a pity, to say the least, that Fairbrother having discovered the whereabouts of Arjan Brar, Sleeman’s men let him slip. But then, although Sleeman had seen service, he seemed at heart a political. Hervey didn’t suppose he’d had opportunity to acquire that coup d’oeil which was the mark of the true cavalryman.

And yet he couldn’t condemn him, for he’d seen how calmly he’d received the information that Brar had evaded his policemen. A lesser man would have railed against the incompetence of the inspector and his sepoys, but instead he’d congratulated them for taking captive the wife and children, and thereby made a half-capable officer an entirely loyal one. Besides, with all his pretty ones in custody, Arjan Brar wouldn’t lie low indefinitely, he said – and this time there’d be no escaping. (And, no doubt, he secretly chided himself for sending an inspector rather than going in person.)