The Tender Herb: A Murder in Mughal India (Murray of Letho Book 6) Read online

  The Tender Herb: A Murder in Mughal India

  by

  Lexie Conyngham

  ‘That the Tender Herb, the East, should be so crushed beneath our Merchant Feet that never should it flower again, is sin itself.’

  Archibald Blair, The Duties of the Orient, 1714

  The Tender Herb: A Murder in Mughal India

  Lexie Conyngham

  First published in 2014 by The Kellas Cat Press, Aberdeen.

  Copyright Alexandra Conyngham, 2014

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work as been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-9574312-8-7

  Dramatis Personae

  Murray’s travelling household:

  Charles Murray of Letho, gentleman in transit

  Henry Robbins, butler, who should have been in Edinburgh

  Daniel, manservant, who should have been more careful

  Artemesia, an excellent cook

  In Naples:

  La Contessa Donna Maria Agostina de Palaepolitani de Cumae, a lady of inestimable descent and wealth

  Agostinella, her daughter, proving a little difficult to shift

  Mr. Harrison, a humble British agent

  Employees of the Honourable East India Company:

  Charles Metcalfe (a real historical character)

  William Fraser (an even more real historical character)

  Parker, a belatedly adventurous clerk, unexpectedly married to the delectable Sophia

  Brighton, assistant to Fraser and overseer of Mahesh

  Mr. Wade, a reluctant officer, though his wife is keen

  Sparrow, a cocky griffin and natural leader

  Nimmo, easily led

  Indians:

  Jamal, an impressively educated servant

  Amuda, a delightful musician

  Hassim, a cook willing to travel, complete with pepper-pot

  Mahesh, a lively lad

  Uma, a devoted housekeeper

  Zakeer, a belligerent knife-vendor

  Arun Capoor, a scholar-merchant

  Mrs. Capoor, his tenderly devoted wife

  Other Europeans:

  Sir James and Lady Hutton, a couple of a fatalistic bent

  Dr. Elphinstone Esslemont, largely religious

  Sophia Parker, married to Mr. Parker above, interested in her fellow men

  Miss Helena Denning, more inclined to privacy

  The ladies of the Fishing Fleet, hoping not to be sent back empty

  Sergeant Mackintosh, a soldier with responsibilities

  Private Aeneas Maclachlan, a soldier in trouble

  Mary Maclachlan, a regimental wife in abeyance

  Rubislaw, a young and accident-prone doctor

  Henry Booth, a devoted butler

  Chapter One

  ‘For we set ourselves and our sons upon the seas, at the greatest risk to our minds and bodies, to gain that which we must risk yet more to hold.’

  The Duties of the Orient, Introduction

  I

  Mary was in trouble.

  The words, echoing like gunshots, had been bouncing around Henry Robbins’ head since the letter had arrived in Edinburgh – well, since it had reached him in Queen Street, a few days later. Mary was in trouble, and everything since had been a scramble, a rush, as near a panic as Robbins ever came, to think of and prepare for the best way of extracting her.

  Part of the problem, even with hurrying, was that the letter had taken ten months to arrive. That was not a bad time for letters from inland India, but it still mocked his urgency. Then, even when the ship had arrived in Leith, he had not been there to collect the letter, had not even been expecting it. Patie, the groom next door, had happened to be at Leith waiting for a horse and had picked up the letter from a shilpit manservant who was trying to see the contents against a watery sun. He had delivered it triumphantly to Robbins and had then hung around for nearly an hour, clearly wearing to find out what was in it. Robbins, however, was impervious to Patie’s hint-dropping blather, and Patie eventually left unrewarded, except by a tankard of very good ale.

  Robbins did not touch the ale. Instead, he waited until he had heard the mews gate close behind Patie, and then, alone in the big blue-green kitchen, he broke the seal and drew a breath.

  Mary’s handwriting, as sharp and black as her extraordinary triangular eyebrows, strode forcefully across the cover, undeterred by whatever horrors the letter had seen on its travels through the Presidencies of the Honourable East India Company. She had left Edinburgh for India with her new husband, Aeneas Maclachlan, in the autumn of 1810, so this must have been written almost as soon as she had arrived. Robbins, losing in the one woman a fellow servant and a friend, had done his best to forget all about her: he had not expected a correspondence. Now that it was here, he was almost reluctant to open it.

  Since he had, and had read the determined lines inside, he had scarcely paused to eat or sleep. In the course of a day or two, he had visited Simpson, his master’s man of business; he had written to his master’s estate in Letho to summon a servant to replace him in the Edinburgh house, and he had called on his master’s oldest friend in the Old Town, seeking information and advice, and receiving it. Finally, he walked down the hill to Leith, and purchased himself a passage – not to India, but to Italy. Then he went back to Queen Street, to pack.

  II

  ‘I don’t care if you have to turn Hindoo, Daniel: you’ll still marry the girl.’

  Daniel, his usual confidence somewhat diminished in the face of his master’s anger, stood looking sheepish in a pool of hot July sunlight. Murray had opened one of the tall wooden shutters, hoping for a breath of air to drift in from the rose-pink Neapolitan piazza, but even in his shirtsleeves he felt stifled. Daniel was wearing his usual thick coat and, irritatingly, did not even seem to be sweating. Daniel had adapted to the Neapolitan life very well – perhaps a little too well, to judge by the present situation.

  ‘When is the child due?’ Murray asked reluctantly.

  ‘In October, she reckons, sir.’

  ‘Then you haven’t much time, have you? You’d better find an accommodating priest.’ Murray rose and stalked over to the window, wishing Daniel had announced his unplanned breeding in a colder season. He stood with his back to the hot light, and studied his manservant. The room about them was solid, spare and a little severe, old white walls, stone floor and wooden furniture anciently dark. Daniel was a contrast, though: young, cheerful and daft. The trouble was – well, there were several troubles, for the girl so inconveniently expecting Daniel’s child was also Murray’s cook – the trouble was that you could not help liking Daniel. He was even becoming quite a competent servant, and given a few decades might make a reasonable husband and father. ‘Do you love the girl?’ he asked in the end.

  He half-expected Daniel to shrug, to look bewildered as he searched for some meaning in Murray’s words, but instead an expression of determination came over his healthy face.

  ‘I do, sir,’ he announced. Murray nodded.

  ‘Then try Father Piero at Santa Croce – I hear he is a kindly man. You’d better go now, Daniel. Wait – is the girl keeping well?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Daniel beamed suddenly. ‘She’s blooming like – like a morning glory!’

  ‘My, Daniel,’ Murray remarked drily. ‘Off you go before you start writing poetry.’ He turned back to the window, and his sharp intake of breath stopped Daniel in his tracks.

  ‘What’s the matter, sir?’

  ‘You’ll never believe who’s just appeared in the street,’ said Murray, a worried frown on his face. Daniel’s eyebrows asked the question for him. ‘It’s Robbins,’ announced Murray, ‘unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s Henry Robbins.’

  It was almost two years since Murray had left Edinburgh, since master and man had last seen each other, though their correspondence had been regular. To Murray, Robbins was little changed: his eyes, usually lidded, glowed in a pale, almost skeletal face which seemed unlike ever to show a wrinkle. Such considerations might have been thought premature, for his age was, in fact, a couple of years short of thirty, about the same as Murray’s, and due to an unfortunate set of circumstances the pair had been left to sort out the difficult relationship of master and man pretty much for themselves. For the most part, it had worked.

  Robbins eyed his master with perhaps a more wary curiosity, due not so much to his station as to the memory of the state in which he had last seen Murray – angry, disillusioned, and suffering a severe knock to his pride. Robbins saw a tall, well-built, competent-looking man: his dark hair and newly-tanned face would make him almost inconspicuous in Naples. Robbins thought he saw, but was not sure, a tension still about the eyes. There had been a knock to Murray’s knee, as well, that had half-crippled him: Robbins wondered how the warmer climes of the Mediterranean had treated that, and waited to see Murray walk.

  ‘Daniel, some wine for our traveller – you’ll sit, Robbins, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ve only walked from the harbour, sir,’ protested Robbins, standing
to attention out of habit.

  ‘But you’ll have had a wearing journey before that, no doubt.’ Murray was convinced that Robbins had arrived for no other reason than to bring bad news, and wanted to put it off as if it might then go away. He was a patient man, and enquired after Robbins’ own health and the voyage until Daniel had brought wine and water and, at Murray’s pointed nod, had left the room again. Then Murray leaned forward and sighed.

  ‘Well, then, Robbins, what is the matter? Is it my brother?’ George Murray was a lieutenant in the Royal Regiment, at present in foreign parts, and therefore at as much hazard from the climate and disease as from enemy action.

  ‘No, sir, I have heard nothing in that quarter, and the Blairs and all your Edinburgh acquaintances were in good health when I left them.’ He stopped, gathering his thoughts. They had run this way and that for the length of his journey, and always came back to the same thing – Mary was in trouble. ‘No, sir, it is Mary.’

  ‘Mary!’ Tall, dark, defiant, even in her cap and apron. ‘I am to be married, sir,’ she had told him, and his heart had sunk. He remembered, too, seeing his own feeling mirrored in Robbins’ eyes. He could not quite keep the hope out of his voice. ‘Is she back?’

  ‘No, sir – ’

  ‘Is she all right?’ Murray followed quickly, his feelings turning to dread.

  ‘Ah, yes and no, sir. She is well enough in herself, or was when she wrote this, ten months ago now, sir.’ He handed Murray the letter he had kept in the breast of his coat and, abstemious as he was, took a fortifying sip of wine. Murray observed this, and it did nothing to quell his fears. He unfolded the letter.

  Dear Mr. Robbins, it began conventionally in Mary’s unconventional writing – he could almost hear the determined Island tones as he read.

  I hope you will forgive me for addressing this to you and taking the liberty of an old friendship in doing so. There have been some difficulties in my new life here and I am uncertain where else to turn for advice, long though it might be in coming.

  ‘Not like Mary not to know what to do,’ Murray murmured. Robbins nodded grimly.

  We arrived in Bombay in March and were directed to proceed at once to Delly, a town in the interior. After a difficult journey we came here on the seventh of September and the men began to build a new barracks. All was well until my Aeneas was on sentry-go one night – a man died, and he has been accused of murder. The case is not a simple one. The dead man was not a soldier and he died outside the new barrack walls, so the local magistrate says it is his right to try Aeneas. The regiment has turned against him and will not save him for they say he has disgraced them. The magistrate himself is a Scotsman, though you would scarce know it, and has allowed me, who as a woman in this country have scarce any influence, to write to you that you or maybe Mr. Murray would be able to advise me.

  Aeneas says the man came out of the darkness from the street and when Aeneas stepped forward and challenged him, he seemed to lean forward. He fell and Aeneas caught him, finding, by the light of the torch at the gate, that the man was stabbed through with a Hindoo dagger. These daggers are very readily bought in the town and many of the soldiers also have them as keepsakes as they are cheaply enough come by.

  The dead man was no native but a clergyman of the English church. The talk is that had he been a Hindoo the magistrate would have hanged Aeneas out of hand for he has an affection that way and no great love for the English church, but I think there is more to it than that myself. The magistrate speaks frequently with Aeneas in his prison cell and I doubt it is for love of Scotland that he keeps his company so.

  Aeneas bears his lot well, but your soonest reply would relieve him mightily, even if no practical help.

  Your friend in hope,

  Mary Maclachlan

  ‘I see she has lost none of her wits,’ Murray remarked at last, flicking back through the letter, ‘but I wonder how helpful we can be at this remove? This was written last October – the poor man may already be dead.’

  ‘I came to ask permission to go there, sir,’ said Robbins, who had been turning the same question over in his mind. ‘It will be a lengthy matter, though, and you may wish me to resign my position.’

  Murray contemplated him for a moment.

  ‘How were you planning to reach India?’ he asked, trying to make it sound as commonplace as Glasgow.

  ‘An East Indiaman touches at Gibraltar in about a week and a half, sir. I had hoped to sail back from here to there and join it.’

  ‘And your passage?’

  ‘I have some money put by, sir, and Mr. Blair was good enough to give me some introductions to people in Bombay who might help me find a little work there, to pay for the journey inland.’

  Not for the first time, Murray felt impressed by his manservant. He considered for a long moment. To travel to India was not something to undertake lightly: the time taken, alone, never mind the hazards of the journey and the climate, were no small matters. Robbins waited, the wine glass motionless in his hand. Murray looked about him: there was little to hold him in Naples. He rang for Daniel.

  ‘How soon will we have to leave?’ he asked Robbins. An unaccustomed smile shone in the back of Robbins’ pale eyes.

  ‘Within the week, sir. Mr. Blair sent some introductions in Bombay for you, too, sir.’

  ‘I thought he might have,’ said Murray, and grinned.

  Daniel entered, and still mindful of the fact that Robbins had trained him in the Murray household, bowed almost to perfection. Murray noted that he had brushed his hair.

  ‘Daniel, my plans have changed. Can you manage to sort out a marriage between you and Artemesia in a week?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’ Daniel looked dazed.

  ‘Good. Go and find Father Piero now, then straight back here and prepare a room for Robbins. Then we must all think about necessities for India.’

  ‘We’re going to India, sir?’ asked Daniel, half-dismayed, half-enthralled.

  ‘Robbins and I are going to India. You – and your bride – are going back to Letho – perhaps after the baby has been safely delivered,’ he added, with a thoughtful look at Robbins. ‘Daniel has been fraternising with the locals once too often,’ Murray explained. Robbins nodded. With Daniel, it had only ever been a matter of time. ‘In fact, I should sit down now and arrange a few matters – ’

  ‘Sir?’ Daniel interrupted, bravely keeping track of so many new things, ‘there’s your sorry tonight, sir, at the Villa Palaepolitani.’

  ‘Oh! Heavens, so there is,’ cried Murray, then reflected. ‘And I could tie up one or two loose ends there, too.’

  II

  The soirée at the Villa Palaepolitani was not an occasion from which one could excuse oneself by anything short of serious illness or intimate bereavement. The Villa Palaepolitani was pleasantly situated on a hill to the north of Naples, overlooking the sea and the pretty Isola de Capri with its fishing boats and staggering Roman antiquities. At night, from the terrace, the lights of Naples below gave a delicate loveliness to the town that was not obvious in the robust daylight. The air was a little cooler now, and it made Murray’s formal garb, the creamy high-collared waistcoat, the elegantly-knotted cravat, slightly more bearable. His hired carriage jerked and scuffled up the half-made Via Posillipo – Napoleon’s general, Joachim Murat, placed in control of Naples on Napoleon’s behalf, had thought it wise to spend the public purse in pleasing the rich and powerful who had their homes on this beautiful hillside, but the scheme was progressing only slowly.

  The villa, on his arrival, was glittering frostily with candles and lamps, but the principal activity was in the gardens. The air was balmy even after dark, and tables of fruits and sweetmeats had been laid out on the terrace where the citrus trees rustled in the cooling Mediterranean breeze. People with the air of knowing their own importance drifted about, searching for someone else important enough to talk to, the men’s pale waistcoats and ladies’ light gowns ghostly in the candlelight. Murray preferred the villa, like Naples, by night: in the daylight it had a dead, verdigris air, echoing with empty rooms and long-gone Contes. The present Contessa, however, was very much alive, as witnessed by the firm fingers she attached painfully to his arm as he walked out on to the terrace.