Sentence The Fourhundredandeightyninth

And as Little Levy Balquhidder slept, and his spirit dreamed, those dreams took on form and substance, almost a life of their own, for they were not imaginings, they were memories of real people and actual events, and such is the nature of dreams, that time and space can be stretched or compressed, and while one dream may contain only dots and dashes, fleeting moments, never really amounting to minutes or even seconds, as if a strobe light was picking out instances gathered from many thousands, so another dream may, in the short period between falling asleep and wakening, cover not only hours or days, but weeks, months and even years, experienced in 'real-time' and in every detail, as if reliving part or all of one's life – and last night it was one of those, those extended dreams, which peopled the head of Little Levy with such a cast of characters as has never been seen in Melrose: for the scene was set in India during the Company Raj, when much of the sub-continent was ruled by the East-India Company, and it concerned one particular Maharani – Tulsi Bai Holkar, highly intelligent, extremely beautiful, and also young, who had been widowed by the sudden death of her husband, Maharajah Yashwant Rao Holkar, whose dynasty ruled Indore State, the victim of a stroke in the midst of planning an attack on Calcutta and the government, when suffering from the tensions and strains and severe stresses of running a war waged largely by civilians, peasants, farm-labourers, domestic servants and entire families against a highly disciplined and effective war-machine, The British East India Company's professional army; Tulsi became regent to the Maharajah's four-year-old son, Malhar Rao Holkar II; the boy was not her own child, for Tulsi had none, his mother being one of the Maharajah's other wives, but Tulsi accepted her responsibilities and became acting head of the Royal Family, of their people and Yashwant's loyal army which he had

raised; she was brave, she was fearless and, the spirit which had been her, remembered taking the Pashtun, Gafur Khan, to her bed and to head her army – always an avid practitioner of hypocorism, her pet name for him was Gaffer which she knew was an English word for Boss – she fought the British with tenacity and panache, accompanied by her lover, but when she led her force to join that of Baji Rao Peshwar, the British General, John Malcolm, arrived near Mahdipur and started negotiations: Tulsi Bai received them and considered them to be worth exploring – she did not want to see more of her people lose their lives if favourable terms could be agreed; she laid this before her own Generals, but they were angry – they had never liked being led by a forceful woman, young and beautiful, and they were jealous of Gafur Khan; on that terrible morning of the 20^th of December 1817 they seized her and ordered her to submit, to prostrate herself to them, but her spirit was determined and she refused; suddenly, first one and then another slashed at her with their swords, rough hands tore the auriferous collar, representing her status, from around her neck and as she fell, weeping and betrayed, immolated by those she had served and led in war, the spirit left her and entered the void from whence it had come, joined it's own kind, spinning in orbit around The Creator

and The Creator spoke to the spirit, told it that it had made mistakes, especially putting her lover in charge of her army, or taking the leader of her army as her lover, so there would be no victory lap or rest period for this spirit, as there was another life imminent and sent it back to earth, into the womb of a woman in the Kingdom of Hawaii, where she was born in the form of Kalama, only child of the Kona Chief Naihekukui and his wife Chiefess I'ahu'ula and was destined to marry King Kamehameha III; she was another determined woman, perhaps not so beautiful as Tulsi Bai, but a skilful administrator – her spirit having learned that there are better ways to achieve progress than going to war!