FERINGHEE: Nathan's Story II (SONS OF THE NEW WORLD Book 5) by JAMES SHORT

Author:JAMES SHORT [SHORT, JAMES]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Short
Published: 2024-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Ten Akali horsemen met Nathan at the Sutlej River bordering the Sikh Empire. Fully bearded, regally dressed in blue with voluminous turbans, and holding themselves as proud as any lord of a land, the Akali were the most feared soldiers on the Indian subcontinent. Fierce in aspect, severe in morals, preferring death to mercy, and holding celibacy as their ideal, the people appreciated their presence. Their only vice, which they considered the path to enlightenment, was the consumption of bhang or hashish. One Akali spoke a little English, facilitating communication with Nathan’s patchy Punjabi. Nathan was impressed with how these Sikhs were complete unto themselves. Their rituals, prayers, turbans, long hair, shortswords, and bracelets seemed to give them all they required in life. He, himself, felt hollowed out, physically and emotionally. He had never fully recovered his strength from the efforts of the last months. By midday, he was exhausted but gritted his teeth and traveled on. At night, he still awoke with shivers.

As he rode with his escort through the Punjab, Nathan decided that the air was different where people were unafraid. Wealthy merchants willingly supplied nightly lodging. Nathan had not eaten so well since the feasts with Ahmet. In this well-ordered land, curiosity replaced fear of the stranger. When Nathan explained his mission, his hosts were incredulous, telling Nathan the khanates, with their empty miles of searing heat or biting cold, were no place for a civilized man. The tribes, incessantly warring, were as pitiless and unyielding as the land. Caravans needed fifty armed guards to deter raiders. The cities of this desolation, Bukhara and Khiva, fed by trade, were fabulously wealthy. Beyond the reach of the Persian and Russian armies, their slave markets were unmatched in variety, selling among dozens of ethnicities: Chinese, Persian, Russian, Pashtun, Tibetan, Hindi, and Turkoman.

English girls would fetch a high price because of their rarity. This distinction might help Nathan in finding them. Since Ranjit Singh forbade slavery, slavers avoided his realm, and the people from the Punjab had little reason to travel to the khanates. The prosperity of the Sikh Empire was well known, and whatever merchandise they needed came to them. Caravans with spices, silks, or rugs often traveled south through the Punjab to the ports of the Sind. The pirates of the Indian Ocean offered less of a threat than the tribes of the khanates.

On the sixth day, Nathan had a brief audience with Ranjit Singh in his summer Ram Bagh Palace, facilitated by a letter of introduction from Colonel White. Surrounded by a vast garden, the building dwarfed any Nathan had hitherto seen, including the palaces of Delhi. The gatehouse was itself a small palace. The servants and guards rivaled rajahs in the richness of attire. Ushered through miles of corridors before entering the grand hall, Nathan had expected the man to match his surroundings: tall, big-boned, sumptuously dressed.

Maharajh Ranjit Singh was a disappointment. Swarthy, short, with a pockmarked face and a drooping left eyelid, what set him off was that he dressed like a supplicant rather than a maharajah.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.