The Confusion

After provisioning themselves in the town they turned south and followed the coast deeper into Malabar. From time to time they would pass a criminal who had been impaled on a javelin and left to die by the road-side, which only confirmed the impression that they were in a well-ordered place now, and had not taken any undue risks in sending their escort home. The heat of the sun in this far southern place was murderous, but the farther they went the closer the came to the Laccadive Sea with its cool onshore breezes, and in many stretches the road was lined with Palmyra palms whose enormous leaves cast volumes of shade on the way below.

They knew they were close to the court of Queen Kottakkal when frail racks began to line the road, all a-drape with those same palm leaves, which had been put there to dry and whiten. The Queen’s scribes used them as paper. A lot of shouting could be heard up ahead.

“What’re they hollerin’ about?” Danny wondered.

“Maybe one of their ships just came back loaded to the gunwales with booty,” Jack said, “or maybe a crocodile is loose in the town square.”

The road opened up into the main street of a fair-sized port town consisting mostly of woven reed dwellings. There were occasional timber houses along the street, and these became more numerous and larger as they drew closer to the waterfront: the bank of a significant river that ran slowly and quietly through a deep-looking channel that broadened, a quarter of a mile downstream, to form an inlet of the Laccadive Sea. The town had doubtless stood here for ?ons but gave the impression of having just been set up in the midst of an ancient forest, as giant trees-teaks, mangoes, mahua, mahogany, coconut-palm, axle-wood, and one or two cathedral-sized banyan trees-stood between houses, and spread and merged overhead to create a second roof high above the palm frond thatchings that topped the buildings.

Young Nayar men were racing from house to house and tree-trunk to tree-trunk hollering at each other in extreme excitement. The travelers had only just come into view of the waterfront when a posse of Nayar boys burst out of a house and ran past them, completely ignoring them. Moments later those Nayars were pursued by a shower of arrows that came hissing down all around, some landing among the Shaftoes and lodging in the soft ground.

“Those black fookers are shoowatin’ at us!” exclaimed Jimmy, yanking out his pistol and cocking the hammer.

“Not just at us, Jimmy boy,” Jack said, in an ominously quiet voice.

All of the others turned to see Jack sprawled in his little two-wheeled carriage, both hands clutching his abdomen, where an arrow projected from his body at right angles. “It’s a damned shame,” he whispered. “Come all this way to die here and now…”

Jimmy was torn, like a man on the rack, between his desire to go and kill some black people, and the strictures of the Fifth Commandment. “Dad!” he cried, dismounting, and crossing over to the carriage in a couple of strides. He put his hand up to Jack’s face as if to give him a tender caress-then clamped his father’s jaw between thumb and fingers and wrenched his head this way and that, inspecting him. “You still bear the marks o’ the beatin’ we gayave ya-an’ to think you’ll carry ’em to yer grayave.”

“To me they’re like the sweet kisses I never had from the two of you-and never deserved-”

“Aw, Dad!” Jimmy cried, and planted one directly on Jack’s lips. Fortunately from Jack’s point of view it only lasted a few seconds-then Jimmy grunted, bit his father’s lip, and spun away from him, clutching his ribs.

Danny was looking down on them coolly from the back of his horse, holding a bow whose string was still quivering. “When you’re finished, tell me so I can go an’ throw up. Then we’ve a score to settle with those Nayars, or what e’er the fook you call ’em.”

Jimmy bent down stiffly and picked up the arrow that Danny had just loosed into his ribs. It had a blunt tip.

“Take two-you’ll be needing ’em,” Jack said, handing Jimmy the one that had bruised him in the stomach.

A couple of Nayars charged each other in the middle of the street nearby, and fell into a terrific duel with bamboo swords.

“I’m startin’ to like the looks o’ this town!” Jimmy said. “May we use firearms?”

“I do not think it would be considered sporting,” Jack said, as Danny shot a blunt arrow into the chest of a strapping Nayar who was just emerging from a doorway. A dozen arrows swarmed from the windows of the same dwelling and knocked Danny out of the saddle.

“Ye basetards!” Jimmy bellowed, and charged the doorway before the snipers could nock a second flight of arrows.