The Game - Laurie R. King [113]
I shuddered in reaction, and someone chuckled, the sound damped and muffled.
I whirled, and there was the maharaja, sitting in a chair of unrelieved black. Panther, my mind informed me; and the fluffy black-and-gold rug on which his boots were resting was made of the tails of the tigers on the wall. I swallowed convulsively, whether to repress fear or visceral disgust, I was not sure.
The maharaja rose from his panther-skin chair and walked over to a table that appeared made of grey-painted wood, and on closer look proved to have a texture. It was covered in elephant hide, I realised, and somehow that final outrage tipped me over the edge, and I was suddenly icy calm.
“I have something for you,” he said. “Since you did not wish the boar’s head for your wall, I had this small souvenir made, a memento of your first pig-hunt.”
I looked apprehensively at the velvet-covered box he was holding out to me, and kept my hands at my sides. “That’s really not necessary.”
So he opened it himself and turned it for me to see.
Since Wednesday’s hunt, he had somehow contrived to have all four tusks of the boar removed and handed over to a goldsmith for mounting. The object before me had a central shaft as long as a hand, made of heavy, deep-red gold that had been intricately worked with a design I recognised from the stamp on the note that had brought me here, the crest of Khanpur. From the gleaming metal protruded the tusks, the shorter pair curving up from the bottom, the longer upper tusks rising from the shaft above them to curl together, nearly forming a circle above the gold. The tusks themselves had not been touched, aside from their removal, and looked as they had when they came to rest on the ground near my foot: the ivory as yellowed as a smoker’s teeth, the tip of the upper left one snapped off and worn blunt, even the dried spatter of blood that had been burned into my memory when the beast had been struggling to eviscerate me. The art of the goldsmith had been linked to these brutal tools for digging and killing, man’s most intricate craftsmanship used to set off all the nicks, grime, and blood that Nature had provided.
It was quite the ugliest thing I had ever seen in my life.
Beyond its mere appearance, the ornament was repugnant on any number of levels: aesthetically, yes, but also emotionally, in its attempt to create beauty from what was essentially a grisly extermination; theologically, in its glorification of the uncleanest of animals; even politically, that in a poor land, so much gold should be used for a frivolity. The maharaja of Khanpur held the box out to me, willing me to take it. I did so, reluctantly, then laid it immediately upon the elephant-hide table.
Satisfied, he went around the desk and sat down behind it, gesturing me to the chair on the other side. Since this appeared to be merely wood, not bison’s leg-bones or stiffened cobras, I sat down in it. He crossed his legs and said, “I wanted to have a further conversation with you about your proposal for women’s education.”
I had made no such proposal, but there seemed little point in arguing with him. Instead, I said, “Yes, I’m sorry about that, but it appears as if I’ll have to abandon it for the moment. I’ve been called back to Delhi. I’ll need to leave tomorrow.”
His eyes narrowed, but I could see that the news came as no surprise. Indeed, I should have been amazed if it had.
“Oh, Miss Russell—Mary—you must stay. We’re going after tiger on Sunday, you can’t possibly miss that.” The firmness in his voice left no room for contradiction, yet contradict I did.
“That is a disappointment,” I replied, although it was all I could do to keep from looking at the walls and asking him if enough damage had not been done to the state’s feline population.