But, the Ranee – wayward, yes; cunning, certainly; but corrupt, cruel … evil?

And yet one of her bands of thugs, said the approvers, had been Ghufoor Khan’s, and, as Fairbrother had discovered – with his own hands, digging out the grave (if the pit of putrefying corpses might be dignified thus) – it was Khan who’d murdered the moonshee and his family. (The child’s remains had sealed the testimony.) Their blood was upon her.

If, that is, the approvers spoke – or really knew – the truth.

‘I have to say that Sleeman and I are in dispute. The thug who murdered my moonshee may be a most valuable informer, but it can’t expiate his sin. I’d have him hanged before the entire brigade. Indeed, I can’t but think of it as a question of honour.’

‘Ah,’ said Somervile, with the air of a world-weary philosopher: ‘we are here in the realm of judgement, are we not? Judgement as opposed to merely judging. “Prudence is right reason in action”, you’ll recall.’

‘Aquinas? I wonder what he’d have made of India. The Gospel appears to make little headway here.’

‘Aquinas was merely echoing Aristotle: Prudentia auriga virtutum.’

Hervey frowned. Somervile was first, foremost, a scholar. But he’d always liked that image – Prudence, the charioteer of the virtues, the one that guided the others – though chariot-racing was a ferocious sport, was it not? ‘Frankly, I’m of a mind that Courage is above all things, since without it there’s no guarantee of the others.’

‘And I myself could not gainsay it.’

‘The fact is, this Ghufoor Khan, who’s murdered heaven knows how many, is to profit from his evil, whereas I am obliged to punish each and every offence against the Mutiny Act. How is discipline to be served when the regiment learns that the man who butchered Bunda Ali – who was practically on the strength – and his wife and bairns, shall walk free?’

‘Ah,’ replied Somervile, with the air of a man who knew he was about to preach a doctrine he didn’t entirely believe: ‘their reward shall be in the next world, whereas this Ghufoor Khan faces sterner judgement.’

Hervey frowned again.

‘Besides, it is cruel necessity.’

‘On that, perhaps, we may agree. But I shall continue to press Sleeman nevertheless to find a means of satisfying regimental honour on this account.’

Somervile smiled wryly. ‘I wish you well. Now, supposing that your work in suppression of this thuggee is coming to an end, may we talk about Chintal? I have a mind to go there myself.’

Hervey groaned. ‘With respect, I can’t see how that would serve.’

‘It would serve to assure me on certain matters.’

‘On what matters?’

‘Hervey, it may surprise you, but I do myself have misgivings about the new India Act. I see in it the seeds of alienation. I don’t doubt – indeed, I know – there was corruption in the old system, the Company chiefly engaged in trading, but traders are by the nature of things dealers with people, the native people. Now that we’re to be just governors and tax collectors and magistrates, there’ll be a tendency to draw apart, and if we do so we’ll lose the approval of the country, on which the whole accidental enterprise rests. This new place in Hertfordshire – Haileybury: they’ll come here with high Platonic ideals as a class apart, minded to keep their virtue by distance from the “producers”.’