the by,” he added wryly. “She must sound so, gallivanting about like that with a complete knave. But the yellow fever had got hold of her altogether, and she was a passionate collector—Chinese vases, Bengali silks. When my father decided that Lahore was absolutely the ticket, I believe he bartered their way into the Punjab with French wine and Turkish opium; the Sikhs were sceptical, and he conducted one or two discussions on the wrong side of a tulwar.* Once he was in, they realised he’d a positive genius for getting them anything they wanted, and the Sikhs ain’t Quakers, mind. A hotter hive of lechery and treachery you’ve not seen since the Vatican.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“So does war.” This time his words boxed my ears gently. “But people do it anyhow.”
“Were Mr. Singh’s family your neighbours, sir?”
“Indeed so. My family was in the import-export line, and Sardar’s were trading indigo and suchlike.”
“I think he said jaggery?” I lied, for Sahjara had told me.
“Yes! Great brown cakes of sugar and great blue cakes of indigo, and they were so rich they could have used solid gold piss pots if they’d— Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“You really needn’t, you understand.”
Mr. Thornfield coughed, amused. “I am beginning to. Well. We grew up playing at cavalry in the streets of Lahore, daring each other to run beneath the legs of the war elephants when the Khalsa paraded, quarrelling like fishwives over which had to be the villainous Afghan and which the conquering maharajah, manly pursuits of that sort. Sardar would—”
“I’ve been given to understand that is not his actual name?”
“Oh, a snake in the grass! You’ve clearly been pumping the Young Marvel for gossip.”
I might have quailed, but Mr. Thornfield’s tone remained a happy one, a low instrument playing in a major key, as was ever the case when he spoke of his ward.
“She gushes with the substance when the poor girl remembers anything of those days; but in this case, she is entirely correct. Mad as a crate of ferrets, Sardar, and if he was going into domestic work, by gad, he meant to do it in style. What could I do but shrug my shoulders and call the man Commander?”
“Mr. Singh possesses a magnetic presence. He seems a very decent sort.”
“He’s a saint is what he is, and we were very close as boys, and after I returned to the Punjab, we didn’t fancy the notion of parting. Have you ever had a friend, Miss Stone, and thought that if this particular person were absent, you should forever miss a piece of yourself?”
I remembered my quiet, quizzical Clarke and nodded.
“Well, Sardar may not have always called himself Sardar, but he has always been extraordinarily good to me. He took great pains to see the stuffing wasn’t thrashed out of me when I was a stripling in Lahore—and he has made certain that Sahjara was safe, always, no matter the circumstance.”
“Was it during the wars that Mr. Singh took risks for Sahjara?” I asked with care.
“Yes. We were not at war, however, when he took risks for me.” Mr. Thornfield smirked, tapping the tablecloth with gloved hands. “I’m not certain whether fighting or fornicating is the skill Sikhs have mastered the better, but they work terribly hard at both, y’see, and thus as a young wilayati,* I had plentiful scuffles to survive.”
“Do not Easterners wish to befriend the British in the interests of trade?”
Mr. Thornfield twisted his lips. “Nothing like a friend for a knife in the back.”
“Is that true of Mr. Augustus Sack?”
Mr. Thornfield hesitated; but at last he bit the inside of his cheek, shrugging.
“Fair play, Miss Stone—it’s only proper etiquette to explain sudden confrontations with knives, as you have so kindly done for me. Mr. Sack and our dead friend Mr. Clements and Sahjara’s father, Mr. Lavell, were all Company men when the conflict with the Sikhs broke out. So was I, nominally anyhow. To say the Sikh empire was rich is to say the sun does a jolly decent job at lighting the planet. Mr. Sack figures that some ripe booty which scarpered off God knows where can be found if only he plunders the Young Marvel’s head, and I won’t have it. Neither will Sardar, as you saw. And that’s all I have to say on the blasted subject. Oh, look, here’s Mrs. Kaur with the roast.”
The cover was lifted, the air flooded with cinnamon-spiced mutton, and not another word would Mr. Thornfield speak regarding adventures abroad. Instead