Fiction: Augustine, son of an Englishwoman and a noble Indian, chooses a lawless life of pillage

Chittoorgargh, where Augustine was born, had a very romantic history. The story had been told to Augustine over and over when he was a child, by his mother’s servants, “the nymphs,” as she called them, and by the courtiers that attended his father. The fort was under siege for several months. The Rajputs inside held the invaders out, but they could get no supplies and soon they were without water and food. As the situation became desperate, the defenders took an oath to die fighting and not to allow any of their women to be captured. The women also took the oath, preferring death to the indignities they would suffer at the hands of their captors. They were a proud people and would bow to no one.

When all hope was finally given up, an enormous bonfire was built inside the fort and the ladies of the court, the officers’ wives, every woman within the walls, threw themselves into the flames and died. Then the men, frenzied with grief and anger, dressed themselves in scarlet and made a suicidal charge out of the fort into the siege cannons. No one survived, but they had defended their honour, for there were no women in the zenana to be carried away. The moral was obvious and Augustine was told the story so many times that he began to feel as though he had witnessed the event.

Bibbi Charlotte loved the story, the horror of the siege, the tragedy of their deaths, and the melodrama which surrounded the fort. She wept whenever she heard the story told and would hug Augustine to her, as though tomorrow he would ride out of the fort into the cannons and die

From the time he was old enough to understand the stories and legends that were told to him, Augustine was fed a diet of heroism and tragedy. Everyone around him had a story to tell, from the soldiers in his father’s regiment to the maidservants in his mother’s apartments. He listened with wide eyes and absorbed all of the tales of battles and charges, exaggerated stories about all the Rajput heroes, some of whom were looked on as gods.

Bibbi Charlotte also told him stories, though hers were different. They were set in a world that Augustine could not imagine, a world of medieval darkness, a world of woods and snow, very different from the deserts surrounding Chittoor. Even the cast of characters was different, though they embodied the same heroics and codes of honour.

For Augustine, the stories about the Rajput heroes were far more real and exciting, and he would often imagine his mother’s stories to be set in the deserts surrounding Chittoor, rather than in that strange, cold land, and her English heroes to be swarthy Rajput warriors.

Filled with an awareness of Rajput heroics, Augustine had begun to develop a pride in his father’s heritage and came to look at it as his own. He saw himself in those heroes and felt a blush of pride when told of their exploits. Still, he was not sure who he was. Trisuldas Thakur was a Rajput. But Bibbi Charlotte, though she admired the world at Chittoor, remained an Englishwoman within.

“Mother, am I a Rajput?” Augustine finally asked her.

Bibbi Charlotte’s answer was confusing and it upset Augustine. First, she began to cry, as she always did, sobbing all over him.

“No,” she said, “you are something better, a part of both worlds, mine and your father’s. Never forget that. You will never quite be a Rajput. Nor will you ever be an Englishman. You are yourself, Augustine.”

He did not understand. His sense of belonging to those heroic stories and carrying on those noble traditions fell away from him, and as he grew older he realized how alone he was. There was nothing at his back, no tradition, no history. His father had rested on a reputation hundreds of years old. Every part of him spoke of those dead heroes, the defenders of Chittoorgargh. Trisuldas Thakur was a hero by name and association. By being a Rajput he was immediately a warrior as well, and a hero.

Augustine had to create his own reputation, even though he lived in his father’s court and was brought up as a Rajput. In time he began to look at it not as a disadvantage but as a challenge. His mother’s tears had not been those of regret and sadness but of pride. For she hoped that her son would rise above these legends and stories and become a hero in himself.

Excerpted with permission from Silk and Steel: A Novel, Stephen Alter, Aleph Book Company.