Palace Tiger

Chapter 1 Northern India, 1922 Putli's mother, her hands on her hips, straightened painfully, glad after two hours to break the rhythmic coordination of arm and shoulder, glad to stand back and count the mounting bundles of tall cut grass that had fallen to the steady swish of her sickle. The weight of the coming baby was beginning to unbalance her and slow her down. There was no doubt of that, but an early start while the oat grass was still wet had paid off and she was pleased. She called out a practised musical cry answered by her daughter working a few yards behind her on the steep slope that led up to the forest beyond the village. Glad to share this pause, mother and daughter smiled with wordless tenderness. Her mother looked with satisfaction at the eight-year-old girl. Yesterday had been the most important day of her daughter's life. She had been feted and spoiled by the whole village and fed to bursting with puris and rich milk and sweetmeats. It had been her wedding day. Putli's mother had been proud to see the pretty girl, her eldest child, dressed for the first time in the costume of a married woman. No longer the infant in simple cotton dress, she was now wearing the tight blue bodice, the short skirt and the chaddar of the women of her tribe. Putli's mother remembered the two small brown right hands clasping each other as the bride and groom made their marriage vows and she had been happy to see that the boy chosen from a neighbouring village was as strong and handsome as her daughter. The bridegroom's mother, a distant cousin, had earned her approval too, and this was very important for Putli's mother. In a few years Putli would leave her family home and go to join her young husband as his wife and become a part of his family. This was the way of it with girl children. Putli's mother acknowledged and accepted it but she would be sad. Oh, she had two good sons who had come after Putli and of these she was rightly proud, but it was her oldest child who was secretly her joy. She had a loving husband who had allowed her without question to rear Putli, although not all mothers of first-born girl children were so lucky. And her care had been rewarded by the constant good humour and energy of the child. She would miss her sleepy smile as she rose uncomplaining in the early morning to help with the meal and polish the cooking pots; she would miss her chatter as they brought back the cows or harvested the wheat. The light of her life would too soon be shining at another woman's hearth. Putli opened her mouth to shout something to her mother but her mother never heard the words. In deep and stealthy silence a gold and black shape detached itself from the grass behind Putli and leapt at her. An iron-clad paw scythed through the air and severed the slender neck with one blow. The dark head, still entangled in its chaddar, fell to the ground and the tiger, seizing the body in its jaws, turned to make off through the long grass towards the trees above. With a despairing howl, Putli's mother swung about. Rage, disgust and hatred gave strength to her slim arm and she hurled her sickle in a glittering arc at the savage face. By the grace of the jungle spirits, the spinning blade hit the tiger in the eye and, half blind, his shattering roar changed to an almost human cry of pain and affront. Releasing his prey, the beast shook the sickle from his great head, turned and in a second was again a shadow amongst the grasses. The crumpled body of Putli lay at her mother's feet. Chapter 2 Simla, May 1922 Ambling down the Mall, Joe Sandilands steered his sweating hireling through the thickening crowds to return it to the stables at the Chummery, enjoying, as always, the early morning sounds of the waking town. Simla, the summer capital of British India, rose early and went about its business at a brisk pace. Uniformed men were striding between the milCleverly, Barbara is the author of 'Palace Tiger ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780385340090 and ISBN 0385340095.