I made nothing of this. Where the deuce had I been in ’52, and what on earth was ‘it’ on whose wearing I was apparently an authority? The Queen smiled at my mystification. ‘It may be somewhat changed,’ says she, ‘but I am sure you will remember it.’
She took a small leather box from the case, set it down among the tea things, and with the air of a conjurer producing a rabbit, raised the lid. Elspeth gave a little gasp, I looked – and my heart gave a lurch.
It ain’t to be described, you must see it close to … that glittering pyramid of light, broad as a crown piece, alive with an icy fire that seems to shine from its very heart. It’s a matchless, evil thing, and shouldn’t be a diamond at all, but a ruby, red as the blood of the thousands who’ve died for it. But it wasn’t that, or its terrible beauty, that had shaken me … it was the memory, all unexpected. Aye, I’d seen it before.
‘The Mountain of Light,’ says the Queen complacently. ‘That is what the nabobs called it, did they not, Sir Harry?’
‘Indeed, ma’am,’ says I, a mite hoarse. ‘Koh-i-Noor.’
‘A little smaller than you remember it, I fancy. It was recut under the directions of my dear Albert and the Duke of Wellington,’ she explained to Elspeth, ‘but it is still the largest, most precious gem in all the world. Taken in our wars against the Sikh people, you know, more than forty years ago. But was Colonel Mackeson correct, Sir Harry? Did you see it then in its native setting, and could you describe it?’
By God, I could … but not to you, old girl, and certainly not to the wife of my bosom, twittering breathlessly as the Queen lifted the gleaming stone to the light in her stumpy fingers. ‘Native setting’ was right: I could see it now as I saw it first, blazing in its bed of tawny naked flesh – in the delectable navel of that gorgeous trollop Maharani Jeendan, its dazzling rays shaming the thousands of lesser gems that sleeved her from thigh to ankle and from wrist to shoulder … that had been her entire costume, as she staggered drunkenly among the cushions, laughing wildly at the amorous pawings of her dancing boys, draining her gold cup and flinging it aside, giggling as she undulated voluptuously towards me, slapping her bare hips to the tom-toms, while I, heroically foxed but full of good intentions, tried to crawl to her across a floor that seemed to be littered with Kashmiri houris and their partners in jollity … ‘Come and take it, my Englishman! Ai-ee, if old Runjeet could see it now, eh? Would he leap from his funeral pyre, think you?’ Dropping to her knees, belly quivering, the great diamond flashing blindingly. ‘Will you not take it? Shall Lal have it, then? Or Jawaheer? Take it, gora sahib, my English bahadur!’ The loose red mouth and drugged, kohl-stained eyes mocking me through a swirling haze of booze and perfume …
‘Why, Harry, you look quite upset! Whatever is the matter?’ It was Elspeth, all concern, and the Queen clucked sympathetically and said I was distrée, and she was to blame, ‘for I am sure, my dear, that the sudden sight of the stone has recalled to him those dreadful battles with the Sikhs, and the loss of, oh, so many of our gallant fellows. Am I not right?’ She patted my hand kindly, and I wiped my fevered brow and confessed it had given me a start, and stirred painful recollections … old comrades, you know, stern encounters, trying times, bad business all round. But yes, I remembered the diamond; among the Crown Jewels at the Court of Lahore, it had been …
‘Much prized, and worn with pride and reverence, I am sure.’
‘Oh, absolutely, ma’am! Passed about, too, from time to time.’
The Queen looked shocked. ‘Not from hand to hand?’
From navel to navel, in fact, the game being to pass it round, male to female, without using your hands, and anyone caught waxing his belly-button was disqualified and reported to Tattersalls … I hastened to assure her that only the royal family and their, ah, closest intimates had ever touched it, and she said she was glad to hear it.
‘You shall write me an exact description of how it was set and displayed,’ says she. ‘Of course, I have worn it myself in various settings, for while it is said to be unlucky, I am not superstitious, and besides, they say it brings ill fortune only to men. And while it was presented by Lord Dalhousie to me personally, I regard it as belonging to all the women of the Empire.’ Aye, thinks I absently, Your Majesty wears it on Monday and the scrubwoman has it on Tuesday.
‘That brings me to my second question, and you, Sir Harry, knowing India so well, must advise me. Would it be proper, do you think, to have it set in the State Crown, for the great Jubilee service in the Abbey? Would it please our Indian subjects? Might it give the least offence to anyone – the princes, for example? Consider that, if you please, and give me your opinion presently.’ She regarded me as though I were the Delphic oracle, and I had to clear my mind of memories to pay heed to what she was saying.
So that, after all the preamble, was her question of ‘first importance’ – of all the nonsense! As though one nigger in a million would recognise the stone, or knew it existed, even. And those who did would be fat crawling rajas ready to fawn and applaud if she proposed painting the Taj Mahal red white and blue with her damned diamond on top. Still, she was showing more delicacy of feeling that I’d have given her credit for; well, I could set her mind at rest … if I wanted to. On reflection, I wasn’t sure about that. It was true, as she’d said, that Koh-i-Noor had been bad medicine only for men, from Aladdin to Shah Jehan, Nadir, old Runjeet, and that poor pimp Jawaheer – I could hear his death-screams yet, and shudder. But it hadn’t done Jeendan much good, either, and she was as female as they come … ‘Take it, Englishman’ – gad, talk about your Jubilee parties … No, I wouldn’t want it to be unlucky for our Vicky.
Don’t misunderstand; I ain’t superstitious either. But I’ve learned to be leery of the savage gods, and I’ll admit that the sight of that infernal gewgaw winking among the teacups had taken me flat aback … forty years and more … I could hear the tramp of the Khalsa again, rank on bearded rank pouring out through the Moochee Gate: ‘Wah Guru-ji! To Delhi! To London!’ … the thunder of guns and the hiss of rockets as the Dragoons came slashing through the smoke … old Paddy Gough in his white ‘fighting coat’, twisting his moustaches – ‘Oi nivver wuz bate, an’ Oi nivver will be bate!’ … a lean Pathan face under a tartan turban – ‘You know what they call this beauty? The Man Who Would Be King!’ … an Arabian Nights princess flaunting herself before her army like a nautch-dancer, mocking them … and defying them, half-naked and raging, sword in hand … coals glowing hideously beneath a gridiron … lovers hand in hand in an enchanted garden under a Punjab moon … a great river choked with bodies from bank to bank … a little boy in cloth of gold, the great diamond held aloft, blood running through his tiny fingers … ‘Koh-i-Noor! Koh-i-Noor! …’
The Queen and Elspeth were deep in talk over a great book of photographs of crowns and diadems and circlets, ‘for I know my weakness about jewellery, you see, and how it can lead me astray, but your taste, dear Rowena, is quite faultless … Now, if it were set so, among the fleurs-de-lys …’
I could see I wasn’t going to get a word in edgeways for hours, so I slid out for a smoke. And to remember.
I’d vowed never to go near India again after the Afghan fiasco of ’42, and might easily have kept my word but for Elspeth’s loose conduct. In those salad days, you see, she had to be forever flirting with anything in britches – not that I blame her, for she was a rare beauty, and I was often away, or ploughing with other heifers. But she shook her bouncers once too often, and at the wrong man: that foul nigger pirate Solomon who kidnapped her the year I took five for 12 against All-England, and a hell of a chase I had to win her back.fn1 I’ll set it down some day, provided the recounting don’t scare me into the grave; it’s a ghastly tale, about Brooke and the headhunting Borneo rovers, and how I only saved my skin (and Elspeth’s) by stallioning the mad black queen of Madagascar into a stupor. Quaint, isn’t it? The end of it was that we were rescued by the Anglo-French expedition