“Do they interest you?” Mr. Singh sounded pleased. “These are the weapons of the Khalsa, and I’m afraid we are all quite adept with them.”
“Mr. Thornfield has a cuff like yours,” I noted, too alight with inquisitiveness to care whether I was being rude.
“You are observant. Yes—he is a Sikh, just as I am.”
“However is that possible?”
“There is no Hindu; there is no Mussulman,” he answered, and I again had the impression he quoted scripture. “If there is no Hindu and no Mussulman, and all can form a single brotherhood, then there is no Christian either. I beg your pardon, as that is not a popular opinion in this country.”
I could reach only one conclusion: Mr. Charles Thornfield was improbably born in the Punjab, took medical courses, gained a military commission, and at some point embraced an entirely foreign culture. The master of the house (temporarily, anyhow) was the pitied and often despised sort who had allowed his Britishness to fade in the searing desert sun, politeness and gaslight and snobbery leached into the dunes. During my newspaper scoutings, I had often glimpsed accounts of such hapless folk, as we were forever at war with somebody: London was pockmarked with men who professed a respect for the Buddha, women who had converted to—horror of horrors—vegetarianism.
“I shock you, Miss Stone.”
I laughed. “You don’t, on my life you don’t. Which of these are you best with?”
Mr. Singh emitted a happy puff through his nostrils, pointing at one of the shining metal circlets. “That is a chakkar—a steel throwing ring honed into a blade. Members of the Khalsa used to hurl these at their foes before enemies rode within striking distance. Now experts are almost unheard-of.”
“Save yourself.”
“I am considered passable,” he demurred, but his eyes sparkled.
My attention snagged upon something still more extraordinary, and I approached where it hung above a rack of billiard cues. The object had a rosewood sword grip; where the blade was meant to emerge, however, a metal band was coiled in upon itself and tied with thick black leather, so that it resembled a hilt attached to a lengthy ribbon of steel wound into a tidy ring.
“What on earth . . . ?” I stretched to the tips of my toes to look more closely.
“What excellent taste you have in exotic weaponry, Miss Stone.” Instantly I relapsed onto my heels, wondering whether it was too late to affect disapproval. “No, no, I cannot fault your appreciation for what may be the most extraordinary collection of Sikh artefacts in England. This is an aara, and only highly advanced warriors are trained in them. Essentially, you regard a combination of a whip and a sword—when unrolled, the metal strip divides flesh as if it were butter. I need hardly add that foolhardy fascination with this weapon leads only to missing fingers or worse.”
I allowed my pupils to lose their focus in the aara’s shining whorls—half recalling all the times in London when a strange man had approached, the jaundiced light of malice in his eyes, and imagining that I could have snapped the blackguard’s head off from twelve feet distant.
“Will you show me, sometime, when your schedule permits?”
“I regret I must decline.” Mr. Singh held the door open for me, signalling a need to return to his tasks. “I was once considered formidable with the aara, I admit, but fell out of practice. For that pleasurable spectacle, you will have to await the return and good humour of Mr. Thornfield.”
? ? ?
I’ve finished, I promise. Now I must see that Dalbir’s hoof has been tended properly.”
Five days later, Sahjara and I sat in a converted schoolroom which would have elevated most eyebrows—draperies of orange and amber embroidered with flowering trees lined the walls, conjuring an impossible forest when outside all was grey and snow-softened. There were also chalkboards, paper and ink, drawing utensils, plentiful books, and a pianoforte which look neglected and obligatory.
“If you’ve finished translating the entire passage, I’ll correct it—then of course you may check in on Dalbir.”
Sahjara’s pony, Dalbir, was named “brave soldier,” a moniker I should have thought droll for a pony had he not been more along the lines of a petit dragon, dappled-grey and wonderfully irritable with everyone save Sahjara and myself; the unfortunate beast had suffered a badly chipped hoof that morning.
My pupil ambled over with her French essay, handed me the papers, and then unselfconsciously sat upon the luxurious carpet with her head against my knee.