Chapter 8 #2
The box was a work of art. Relief carvings ornamented every inch of its surface, shimmering with inlaid details in mother-of-pearl.
Neil opened it. Inside lay a stack of almond-hued pages covered in age-browned script.
Bark paper, he automatically cataloged. It wouldn’t be an uncommon material for sixteenth-century works from this region.
He peeked up at the door to the library, wondering whether he ought to snatch the bark pages out of the box and make a run for the stairs.
The constable from outside stepped into view beyond the threshold. He leaned against the rail of the stairwell in a manner that indicated he intended to stay there, rifle slung casually over his shoulder.
Neil chanced another look at Constance. She mouthed a word at him with barely concealed irritation.
Stall.
Pulse pounding, Neil sat down in the chair and lifted the manuscript from the box.
The bark panels were held together with a ribbon, its color paled with time. Neil loosened it with a delicate tug and began to flip through the pages, moving with painstaking care.
The bulk of the manuscript was written in Devanagari, the most common writing system on the Indian subcontinent. The script was used for a range of Indian languages, which meant the text could be anything from Sanskrit to Bhojpuri.
Nerves taut, Neil chanced a look at Borthwick.
The colonel was still gazing out the window.
Fingers shaking at the risk, he flipped to the final page.
He could immediately see that the script was not Devanagari. The lines of the characters were straight rather than rounded, each glyph set off distinctly. It reminded him a bit of how Middle Egyptian differed from Demotic.
Brahmi, he thought with a shivering sense of interest.
He turned back another page and saw more Devanagari. Only the final bark panel had been inscribed in the once-forgotten script of ancient India.
Neil couldn’t possibly hope to make sense of it. He knew that Brahmi had been deciphered decades before, but it wasn’t a subject he’d ever directly studied.
If he was going to buy them more time for whatever Constance might be planning, he needed to look busy—but how could he do that when he was actually hopelessly lost?
The obvious answer popped into his mind—Neil had, after all, been a student for most of his life.
“Is it all right if I take a few notes?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” Borthwick replied.
Neil took a pen from his pocket with shaking fingers and pulled a sheet of blank paper from the pile on the desk.
“What do you make of India so far?” Borthwick asked.
Neil stiffened in the chair, but the colonel was still staring out the window at the still, humid night.
“It… seems very lovely,” Neil replied lamely.
Constance rolled her eyes at his pathetic response.
“I assume you’re speaking about the geography,” Borthwick replied evenly.
Neil latched on to the excuse. “That’s all I’ve really had a chance to see so far.”
Borthwick didn’t answer.
With a pang of relief, Neil returned his attention to the manuscript. As he hadn’t the foggiest idea what else to write, he decided to simply transcribe it, copying the Brahmi lines onto the notepaper.
“Most scholars I’ve met argue that India is complicated.
” Borthwick spoke as though he and Neil were already halfway into a conversation.
“They point to the proliferation of princely states. The diversity of languages, faiths, and ritual practices. I’ve heard one scholar say that India shouldn’t be considered a country at all—that Kashmir has as much in common with Tamil Nadu as France does with Serbia. ”
Neil was conscious of Constance standing in the corner behind him, all but invisible as far as Borthwick was concerned. With a burst of indignation, he set down his pen. “Surely there are overarching elements of culture and identity that bring the people of the different provinces together.”
Borthwick turned to look at him, his mouth curving into a narrowly amused smile. “Like what?”
Neil could see Constance’s glare in the corner of his eye, warning him to keep his mouth shut—but he couldn’t. His own anger was still too close to the surface, primed by what he’d witnessed back at the club. “The Ramayana, for instance.”
“The Ramayana,” Borthwick echoed thoughtfully. “A prince in exile loses his wife to a demon king. Sets out on a heroic journey to retrieve her. But that’s only a devotional story for the Hindu portion of the population.”
“It’s not a religious text for Indian Muslims, but they might still value it as part of their history,” Neil retorted.
At Borthwick’s thoughtful look, Neil’s throat tightened. He forced his attention back to the manuscript, scribbling a few English words over the Brahmi characters he had painstakingly inscribed. Coveted… godly… Nominative case?
The annotations were all nonsense, but at least if Borthwick came over to look, it would seem as though Neil was doing what he ought to be.
Possible reference to the Laws of Manu, he wrote between another copied line of text, recalling a tidbit from his Sanskrit class.
“I’ll tell you what I think keeps India together,” Borthwick continued after a moment, startling Neil into scraping his pen against the paper. “More than any fairy tale.”
Neil paused, looking up.
Borthwick’s steel gaze bored into him. “We do. It’s the British Empire that stops India from devolving into a chaos of warring factions.
Of course, it will take more than a few rail lines and telegraph wires to truly modernize the country—and the irony is that so many Indians are determined to thwart the influence of civilization every way they can. ”
Neil’s grip on the pen tightened.
“The princely states are hardly any better,” Borthwick continued as though Neil were still participating in the conversation.
“They present themselves as a bridge between the old orders and the modernity and prosperity of the empire, but most of them are secretly funding the revolutionaries among the hill tribes. Oh, they’re clever enough about it—they know perfectly well that if they’re ever caught, it would mean the confiscation of their estates and the loss of even the shallow illusion of independence they currently maintain.
But it isn’t that hard to see, once you know where to look for it. ”
Neil found himself thinking of the moment of tension between Constance’s Uncle Vijay and his solicitor earlier that morning.
One does not survive as an autonomous state in a land ruled by a British imperial viceroy without constant vigilance.
“What do you make of it, then?”
Borthwick’s voice came from far closer by. Neil startled as he realized that the colonel now stood right in front of the desk.
“Sorry?” Neil started to sweat.
“The manuscript,” Borthwick elaborated smoothly.
Neil scrambled, words spilling out of his mouth. “It’s written on pressed birch bark—I believe the local term for it is bhojpatra. I would estimate that it dates to the late sixteenth century. The text is in Devanagari, except for this final page, which looks to be in Brahmi.”
Borthwick’s interest sharpened. “You figured that out faster than the other one.”
The other one.
The words echoed threateningly through Neil’s brain.
He could feel the potential before him for a leap of intuition—one that would either help him secure Borthwick’s trust or completely bollocks things up.
We know far more than we ought to.
“Do you mean Professor Dawson?” Neil asked carefully.
“Is there someone else I should have been expecting?” Borthwick returned dryly.
“No,” Neil hurriedly replied. “I just… wasn’t certain that he was here.”
His throat was dry. Borthwick was still studying him. The silent weight of his attention was a vise compelling Neil to keep talking.
Neil was certain that if he did, he was going to blow the game. All Borthwick had to do was continue giving him that waiting, expectant look, and Neil would spill it all.
He grasped for something he could say instead—something other than I am trying to steal your manuscript.
“The man’s an idiot,” he burst out.
Dark amusement flashed through Borthwick’s pale eyes. “That aligns with my own assessment.”
Relief washed over Neil. He forced a stretched, awkward smile before bowing back over the manuscript, copying out another line of the Brahmi.
How many people could actually read Brahmi?
Certainly not Dawson.
And then Neil’s overtaxed brain finally spat out another obvious and deeply unsettling deduction.
If Borthwick knew Dawson, that meant that Dawson was here.
And Dawson would certainly know that Neil was not Dr. Bartholomew Culpepper.
Neil forced himself to keep writing. It gave him a reason to avoid meeting Borthwick’s eyes. “Is the professor here, then?”
“No,” Borthwick scoffed.
Neil felt a rush of relief.
“He’s at the club,” Borthwick elaborated—and Neil’s relief evaporated.
Constance shot him another warning glare.
Neil shut his mouth. Clearly Vedic, he scribbled between another pair of lines on his transcription. City… treasure… army…
He hoped the sound of his pen scratching against the paper sounded convincingly scholarly.
The bust of Clive by the window seemed to eye him with disdain for his awful performance.
Borthwick moved to the bookshelf. Sweat ran down the back of Neil’s neck, tracing along his spine. Why wouldn’t the man bloody leave?
“I’m afraid this sort of work does require time.”
Borthwick adjusted the line of the meaningless volumes on the shelf, leaving them a bit straighter than they were before. “Take as long as you need.”
Neil risked a more direct look at Constance. She continued to be ignored by both Borthwick and his constable—just another servant lingering in the corner.
Her hand drifted to her pocket… where Neil knew she had hidden at least one of her daggers.
He shook his head urgently.
Constance frowned at him.