Sharpe 3-Book Collection 1: Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, Sharpe’s Fortress. Bernard Cornwell
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and for gods and for women.’
McCandless smiled, tacitly yielding the argument which was not important. He did not have to persuade Appah Rao to treachery, the very presence of the Mysorean General was proof that he was already halfway to betraying the Tippoo, but McCandless did not expect the General to yield gracefully. There was pride at stake here, and Appah Rao’s pride was great and needed to be handled as gently as a cocked duelling pistol. Appah Rao had always been thus, even when he was a young man in the Company’s army, and McCandless approved of that pride. He had always respected Appah Rao, and still did, and he believed Appah Rao returned the respect. It was in that belief that the Colonel had sent a message to Seringapatam. The message was carried by one of the Company’s native agents who wandered as a naked fakir through southern India. The message had been concealed in the man’s long greasy hair and it had invited Appah Rao to a reunion with his old commanding officer. The reply had specified this temple and this night as the rendezvous. Appah Rao was flirting with treachery, but that did not mean he was finding it either easy or pleasant.
‘I have a gift,’ McCandless said, changing the subject, ‘for your Rajah.’
‘He is in need of gifts.’
‘Then this comes with our most humble duty and high respect.’ McCandless took a leather bag from his sporran and placed it beside the lantern. The bag chinked as it was laid down and, though Appah Rao glanced at it, he did not take it. ‘Tell your Rajah,’ McCandless said, ‘that it is our desire to place him back on his throne.’
‘And who will stand behind his throne?’ Appah Rao demanded. ‘Men in red coats?’
‘You will,’ McCandless said, ‘as your family always did.’
‘And you?’ the General asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘To trade. That is the Company’s business: trade. Why should we become rulers?’
Appah Rao sneered. ‘Because you always do. You come as merchants, but you bring guns and use them to make yourselves into taxmen, judges and executioners. Then you bring your churches.’ He shuddered.
‘We come to trade,’ McCandless insisted equably. ‘And what would you prefer, General? To trade with the British or be ruled by Muslims?’
And that, McCandless knew, was the question that had brought Appah Rao to this temple in the dark night. Mysore was a Hindu country and its ancient rulers, the Wodeyars, were Hindus like their people, but the Tippoo’s father, the fierce Hyder Ali, had come from the north and conquered their state and the Tippoo had inherited his father’s stolen throne. To give himself a shred of legality the Tippoo, like his father before him, kept the old ruling family alive, but the Wodeyars were now reduced to poverty and to ceremonial appearances only. The new Rajah was scarce more than a child, but to many of Mysore’s Hindus he was still their rightful monarch, though that was an opinion best kept secret from the Tippoo.
Appah Rao had not answered the Scotsman’s question, so McCandless phrased it differently. ‘Are you the last Hindu senior officer in the Tippoo’s army?’
‘There are others,’ Appah Rao said evasively.
‘And the rest?’
Appah Rao paused. ‘Fed to his tigers,’ he eventually admitted.
‘And soon, General,’ McCandless said softly, ‘there will be no more Hindu officers in Mysore and some very fat tigers. And if you defeat us you will still not be safe. The French will come.’
Appah Rao shrugged. ‘There are already Frenchmen in Seringapatam. They demand nothing of us.’
‘Yet,’ McCandless said ominously. ‘But let me tell you what stirs in the wide world, General. There is a new French general named Bonaparte. His army sits on the Nile now, but there is nothing in Egypt that interests Bonaparte or the French. They have their eyes farther east. They have their eyes on India. Bonaparte wrote to the Tippoo earlier this year. Did the Tippoo show you his letter?’ Appah Rao said nothing and McCandless took the silence to mean that Rao knew nothing of the French General’s letter and so he took from his sporran a piece of paper. ‘Do you speak French, General?’
‘No.’
‘Then let me translate for you. One of our agents copied the letter before it was sent and it reads, “le sept pluviôse, l’an six de la République Française.” That’s the twenty-seventh of January this year to the rest of us, and it says, “I have reached the borders of the Red Sea with an innumerable and invincible army, full of the desire to deliver you from the yoke of England.” Here.’ McCandless offered Appah Rao the letter. ‘There’s plenty more in the letter like that. Take it back with you and find someone who will translate it.’
‘I believe you,’ Appah Rao said, ignoring the proffered letter. ‘But why should I fear this French General?’
‘Because Bonaparte’s ally is the Tippoo and Bonaparte’s ambition is to take away the Company’s trade. His victory will strengthen the Muslims and weaken the Hindus. But if he sees Mysore defeated, and if he sees your Rajah back on his ancestor’s throne, and if he sees a Hindu army led by General Appah Rao then he will think twice before he takes ship. Bonaparte needs allies in this land, and without Mysore he will have none.’
Appah Rao frowned. ‘This Bonaparte, he is a Muslim?’
‘He’s friendly to Muslims, but he has no religion that we know of.’
‘If he’s friendly to Muslims,’ Appah Rao observed, ‘why should he not be friendly to Hindus also?’
‘Because it is to the Muslims that he looks for allies. He will reward them.’
Appah Rao shifted on the hard floor. ‘Why should we not let this Bonaparte come and defeat you?’
‘Because then he will have made the Tippoo all powerful, and after that, General, how long will there be any Hindus in his service? And how long will the surviving Wodeyars live? The Tippoo keeps the Wodeyar family alive for he needs Hindu infantry and cavalry, but if he no longer has enemies, why will he need reluctant friends?’
‘And you will restore the Wodeyars?’
‘I promise it.’
Appah Rao looked past McCandless, gazing up at the small light reflecting off the serene image of a Hindu goddess. The temple was still here, as were all Mysore’s temples, for though the Tippoo was a Muslim he had not torn down the Hindu sanctuaries. Indeed, like his father, the Tippoo had restored some of the temples. Life was not hard under the Tippoo, but all the same the Tippoo was not the ancestral ruler of Appah Rao’s country. That ruler was a boy kept in poverty in a small house in a back alley of Seringapatam, and Appah Rao’s hidden loyalty was to the Wodeyar dynasty, not to the Muslim interlopers. The General’s dark eyes shifted to McCandless. ‘You British captured the city seven years ago. Why didn’t you replace the Tippoo then?’
‘A mistake,’ McCandless admitted candidly. ‘We thought he could be trusted to keep his promises, but we were wrong. This time, if God wills it, we shall replace him. A man bitten by a snake once does not let the snake live a second time.’
Appah Rao brooded for a while. Bats flickered in the courtyard. The two men in the gateway watched as McCandless let the silence stretch. The Colonel knew it would not serve to pressure this General too hard, but McCandless also knew he did not need to press. Appah Rao might not be certain that a British victory would be in Mysore’s best interest, but what would serve that interest in these hard, confusing times? Appah Rao’s choice lay between the Muslim usurpers and foreign domination, and McCandless knew only too well of the simmering distrust that lay between Hindus and Muslims. It was that breach that the Scotsman was assaulting in the hope that he could widen the rift into full betrayal.
Appah Rao finally shook his head, then raised an arm and beckoned. One of the two men in the gateway came running forward and knelt beside the General. He was a young man of startling good looks, black-haired and with a fine long face of strong bones and defiant