But they reached the village margin, a barley field rippling in the afternoon light, and stopped in the last elephant grass under the sal trees. The barley field had furrows of earth into which they poured water,

Clever monkeys that they were, tiptoeing through life in their perpetual balancing act.

At the sight of the field, the exhausted creature looked up and around. He led the tiger now, around the field, and Kya followed him closer to the village than she would have dared in most situations, though the afternoon's mix of sun and shadow provided her with maximum cover, rendering her nearly invisible to others, a mere mind ripple in the landscape, if she moved quickly. But she had to keep to his faltering pace. It took a bit of boldness; but there were bold tigers and timid tigers, and she was one of the bold ones.

Finally she stopped. A hut lay before them, under a pipal tree. The man pointed it out to her. She sniffed; it was his home, sure enough. He whispered in his language, gave her a final squeeze expressing his gratitude, and then he was stumbling forwards through the barley, in the last stages of exhaustion. When he reached the door there were cries from inside, and a woman and two children rushed out and hugged him. But then to the tiger's surprise an older man strode out heavily and beat him across the back, several heavy blows.

The tiger settled down to watch.

The older man refused to allow her refugee into the hut. The woman and children brought out food to him. Finally he curled up outside the door, on the ground, and slept.

Through the following days he remained in disfavour with the old man, though he fed at the house, and worked in the fields around it. Kya watched and saw the pattern of his life, strange as it was. It seemed also that he had forgotten her; or would not risk the jungle to come out and look for her. Or did not imagine she was still there, perhaps.

She was surprised, therefore, when he came out one dusk with his hands held before him, a bird carcass plucked and cooked, it appeared even boned! He walked right to her, and greeted her very quietly and respectfully, holding out the offering. He was tentative, frightened; he did not know that when her whiskers were down she was feeling relaxed. The offered titbit smelled of its own hot juices, and some other mix of scents – nutmeg, lavender – she took it gently in her mouth and let it cool, tasting it between her teeth as it dripped hot on her tongue. A very odd perfumed meat. She chewed it, growling a little purr growl, and swallowed. He said his farewells and backed away, returning to the hut.

After that she came by from time to time in the lancing horizontal light of sunrise, when he was going off to work. After a while he usually came out with a gift for her, some scrap or morsel, nothing like the bird, but tastier than it had been, simple uncooked bits of meat; somehow he knew. He still slept outside the hut, and one cold night she slunk in and slept curled around him, till dawn greyed the skies. The monkeys in the trees were scandalized.

Then the old man beat him again, hard enough to make him bleed from one car. Kya went off to her hill fort then, growling and making long scratches in the ground. The huge mohua tree on the hill was dropping its great weight of flowers, and she ate some of the fleshy, intoxicating petals. She returned to the village perimeter, and deliberately sniffed out the old man, and found him on the well-travelled road to the village west of theirs. He had met several other men there, and they talked for a long time, drinking fermented drinks and getting drunk. He laughed like her kol bahl.

On his way home she struck him down and killed him with a bite to the neck. She ate part of his entrails, tasting again all the strange tastes; they ate such odd things that they ended up tasting peculiar themselves, rich and various. Not unlike the first offering her young man had brought out to her. An acquired taste; and perhaps she had acquired it.

Other people were hurrying towards them now, and she slipped away, hearing behind her their cries, shocked and then dismayed, although with that note of triumph or celebration one often heard in monkeys relating bad news – that whatever it was, it hadn't happened to them.

No one would care about that old man, he had left this life as lonely as a male tiger, unregretted even by those in his own hut. It was not his death but the presence of a man eating tiger that these people lamented. Tigers who learned to like manfiesh were dangerous; usually they were mothers who were having trouble feeding their cubs, or old males who had broken their fangs; so that they were likely to do it often. Certainly a campaign to exterminate her would now begin. But she did not regret the killing. On the contrary, she leapt through the trees and shadows like a young tigress just out on her own, licking her chops and growling. Kya, Queen of the jungle!

But the next time she came to visit her young man, he brought out a morsel of goat meat, and then tapped her gently on the nose, talking very seriously. He was warning ber of something, and was worried that the details of the warning were escaping her, which they were. Next time she came by he shouted at her to leave, and even threw rocks at her, but it was too late; she hit a trip line connected to spring loaded bows, and poisoned arrows pierced her and she died.

Four. Akbar

As they carried the body of the tigress into the village, four men working hard, huffing and puffing under its weight as it swung by its tied paws from a stout bamboo bouncing on their shoulders, Bistami understood: God is in all things. And God, may all his ninety nine names prosper and fall into our souls, did not want any killing. From the doorway of his older brother's hut, Bistami shouted through his tears, 'She was my sister, she was my aunt, she saved me from the Hindu rebels, you ought not to have killed her, she was protecting us all!'

But of course no one was listening. No one understands us, not ever.

And it was perhaps just as well, given that this tigress had undoubtedly killed his brother. But he would have given his brother's life ten times over for the sake of that tiger.

Despite himself he followed the procession into the village centre. Everyone was drinking rahkshi, and the drummers were running out of their homes with their drums, pounding happily. 'Kya Kya Kya Kya, leave us alone forevermore!' A tiger holiday was upon them, and the rest of the day and perhaps the next would be devoted to the impromptu festivalizing. They would burn its whiskers to make sure that its soul would not pass into a killer in another world. The whiskers were poisonous: one ground up in tiger meat would kill a man, while a whole one placed inside a tender bamboo shoot would give those who ate it cysts, leading to a slower death. Or so it was said. The hypochondriacal Chinese believed in the efficacious properties of almost everything, including every part of tigers, it seemed. Much of the body of this Kya would be saved and taken north by traders, no doubt. The skin would go to the zamindar.

Bistami sat miserably on the ground at the edge of the village centre. There was no one to explain himself to. He had done everything he could to warn the tigress off, but to no avail. He had addressed her not as Kya but as madam, or Madam Thirty, which was what the villagers called tigers when they were out in the jungle, so as not to offend them. He had given her offerings, and checked to make sure that the markings on her forehead did not form the letter 's', a sign that the beast was a were-tiger, and would change to human form for good at the moment of death. That had not happened, and indeed there had been no 's' on her forehead; the mark was more like a birdwing in flight. He had kept eye contact with ber, as one is supposed to do when coming on tigers unexpectedly; he had stayed calm, and been saved by her from death. Indeed all the stories he had heard of helpful tigers – the one that had led two lost children back to the village, the one who had kissed a sleeping hunter on the cheek – all these stories paled in comparison to his, although they had prepared him as well. She had been his sister, and now he was distraught with grief.