PROLOGUE ONE — ANCIENT HISTORY
The room was surprisingly light and airy, and yet more than a little too cold in the opinion of Seikh Bokshu. Despite his protestations that this climate was ill suited to the prospects of his master’s recovery, the physician had insisted on the drapes, shutters, and windows being flung open, to prevent the build-up of ill humours.
The September air carried a bitter edge that morning and the grounds surrounding this fine Georgian Mansion were shrouded in a heavy fog which had roiled in from the local estuary -the Severn as he had heard his hosts name the river - giving the otherwise expansive estate a claustrophobic and otherworldly feel. Bokshu prayed that this was not an unpleasant omen for his employer.
The master lay bed ridden in the centre of the room, his pallid demeanour a saddening contrast with the bright wallpaper and garish European ornamentations bedecking the bedroom. The heavy and drawn breathing were simultaneously a torture and a boon for Bokshu and the other anxious observers, for at least whilst the painful inhalations and wracking exhalations continued, they were an obvious sign of life yet in the master.
“Out, out, out, all of you! We need to give this good Bristolian air room in which to work on the patient.” The fussy exhortations of the physician thus driving the travelling party to follow him out into the neighbouring antechamber.
As the master’s attendant Bokshu was the last out of the bed chamber, following close behind the master’s son. He made to shut the heavy wooden door fully behind him but was thwarted by the thick carpet which overflowed from the bedroom into the voluminous dayroom. The size of the chambers granted to the party were an indication of the master’s growing reputation as he toured Europe.
“My father…he will live…yes?” The master’s son drove the all-important question out through a series of choking sobs.
“At this moment I cannot say with any degree of palpable certainty which path the Raja’s condition may deign to take,” said the physician. “The fever has taken strongly within him, but he is clearly of good breeding and well nourished. Hopefully, he will have the strength to drive on through this and continue God’s work in India.”
Pompous old filibustering idiot thought Bokshu. All talk and no cure; exactly what I would expect from a Britisher physician, really. Still, the idiot came with a strong reputation, a teacher at the recently enfranchised medical college nearby, or so the Indian party had been informed by their local Unitarian friends.
CRACK!
At that moment a tremendous thunderclap rent the air, dropping the men collectively to their knees, and it seemed to Bokshu that his vision, his perception of the antechamber around them, was being squeezed, no squashed rather, like a cheap mattress under the backside of a portly babu.
A sudden rush of air from the antechamber to the bedchamber followed, and as various swirling papers settled into a new chaotic pattern across the room Bokshu’s senses returned to normal.
He staggered to his feet, lurching across his still prostrate companions to the bedchamber door. The door would not give, seemingly locked solid, though Bokshu knew this not to be the case.
“Master! Master! Are you alright? Master!” Bokshu pounded on the door, but seemingly to no avail. As he paused preparing to bring his fists down on the heavy wood again, he was startled to hear an unfamiliar voice from the other side.
“Awake, your time is not yet done.” The melodious baritone barked out in a strangely accented but noticeably formal version of Bengali.
“Awake I say, the Bharat Empire has need of you. Time to rise and make the world anew.”
A high-pitched whine came from inside the bedchamber followed by a sharp pop, like a champagne cork being released.
Bokshu charged the door with his shoulder and this time there was no resistance. He flew into the room, catching his foot on a rug and stumbling headfirst onto the bed. As he pushed himself back to his feet, he thought he saw the faint outline of a large man fading from the foot of the bed like an afterimage you might see behind your eyelids as you close them on a bright day.
“Ah! Bokshu, your timing as ever is perfect,” said the Master. “See if you can get a decent chai out of these lovely Christian fellows. My throat and my person in general appear to be extremely parched.” The master was sat up in bed, his face beaming, his colour fully restored, as indeed were his wits.
For a man seemingly minutes from meeting his maker, reflected Bokshu, Ram Mohan Roy has never looked so healthy.