The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
Jhoti had insisted on Shushila wearing male attire, as no one, he declared, could possibly manage to ride comfortably – let alone well – while swathed in a sari. And though Kaka-ji had protested at this, he had been over-ruled, for Shushila was enchanted at the prospect of dressing up, and Mulraj, who also considered a sari an impossible garment to ride in, pointed out that it would arouse less curiosity in any strangers they might happen to pass, if they gave the appearance of being a party of men out for an evening canter.
Dressed in borrowed clothing, Shushila made a charming boy and Anjuli a handsome young man. And even Kaka-ji had to admit that their costume could hardly be considered immodest, and was certainly more sensible; though he failed to notice that this change of dress resulted, inevitably, in an easier and far more informal atmosphere – a phenomenon that can be observed at any costume ball, where the mere donning of a false moustache or a farthingale seems to convince the wearers that they are no longer recognizable, and enables them to lose their inhibitions and frolic in a manner that they would never dream of doing on any other occasion.
The fact that his nieces were wearing what to them was fancy-dress made it possible for Anjuli-Bai to ride off with Pelham-Sahib in pursuit of a jackal, or to see what lay beyond a ridge of higher ground, without anyone, including himself, thinking that there was anything undesirable in it. For without the flowing lines of a sari to remind him of her sex, his elder niece seemed to shed her identity and become only an anonymous young person who could safely be allowed a certain amount of freedom. Harmless freedom naturally, for was not he there himself to keep a close eye on them all?
Kaka-ji congratulated himself on the success of his plan, because there was no doubt that the health and spirits of both girls had greatly improved. Shushila had already lost the wizened look that had so alarmed him and would soon be as pretty as ever, and her women assured him that her appetite was returning and her nerves were far better of late. He could also see that she enjoyed the riding lessons almost as much as Jhoti enjoyed giving them, and as he listened to his nephew's shrill little voice shouting advice and encouragement, and Shushila's answering laughter, Kaka-ji felt a glow of satisfaction at his own ingenious solving of a troublesome problem.
Much the same could be said of Ash, who had only one fault to find with the present situation: the fact that the evening rides were all too short and far too quickly over. The nights and the long, dusty days became no more than a preparation for that single hour in which he could be with Juli, even though he could not expect to spend more than a portion of the time with her, since caution and good manners forced them both to ride and talk with the others for at least some part of it. Nor was it always an hour, for like Ash, Jhoti and Mulraj and Kaka-ji had also ridden all day, and sometimes they too were tired – not that Ash, for one, would ever have admitted it. When that happened the hour would be cut by a quarter, or a half. But Ash was still grateful for every minute of it.
As the camp crawled southward across Rajputana like a vast and colourful circus procession (or, as it often seemed to Ash, an insatiable horde of locusts) the weather became warmer and he realized that the time would soon come when it would be too hot to march when the sun was high. But there was no need to start planning for that yet, as the temperature was still tolerable even at noon, and the nights remained mild.
The days slid into weeks almost without his noticing it, and he enjoyed every one of them: though it was far from being an idle time, for each day brought its own crop of difficulties, ranging from the routine ones of provisioning (which included dealing with claims for damages to crops and grazing-grounds by irate village headmen) to arbitrating in a wide variety of disputes within the camp, and, on more than one occasion, helping to beat off an attack by armed raiders. These and a hundred other matters kept him fully occupied. But he would not have changed places with anyone in the world, for he found the constant and varying demands upon him stimulating, while the fact that there had been a serious attempt to murder young Jhoti – and would probably be others – added a spice of danger to the journey that offset any element of tedium. And at the end of each day there was always Juli, and riding beside her in the quiet hour before sunset he could relax and forget his responsibilities to the camp and to Jhoti, and become Ashok again instead of ‘Pelham-Sahib’.
It was on one of these evenings – a hot, still evening at the end of an even hotter day – that he heard for the first time the story of how Hira Lal had accompanied Lalji and the old Rajah to Calcutta, and had vanished from his tent one night and never been seen again taken, it was said, by a tigress, a notorious man-eater who was known to roam the district and had already accounted for more than a dozen villagers. The proof of this had been a fragment of Hira Lal's blood-stained clothing, found among the bushes. But there had been no pug-marks and no trace of the drag, and a local shikari (game hunter) had tactlessly insisted that he did not believe that this was the work of the man-eater – an opinion that was later borne out by the news that the tigress had killed a herdsman near a village some twenty-five miles away on the very night that Hira Lal disappeared…
‘No one in the Hawa Mahal believed it either,’ said Anjuli, ‘and there were many who said he had been made away with by order of the Rani – though they did not say it out loud, but only in a whisper: very small whispers. I think, myself, that they were right; everyone knew that she had been enraged when she learned that my father had decided to take Lalji with him when he travelled to Calcutta to lay claim before the Viceroy to the throne of Karidarra, and it was no secret that it was Hira Lal who had persuaded him to do so – perhaps because he did not trust her not to bring about Lalji's death as soon as my father's back was turned. She was always jealous of Lalji.’
‘And I imagine she made away with him in the end,’ observed Ash grimly. ‘ Lalji and Hira Lal both. It almost makes one hope that there may be a hell after all; with a special section reserved for people like Janoo-Rani who do their murdering at second-hand.’
‘Don't!’ said Anjuli in a low voice, and shivered. ‘You do not have to wish for that. The gods are just, and I think she paid in this life for all the evil she did – and more. Much more, for she did not die an easy death, and towards the end she shrieked out that it was Nandu himself who had poisoned her, though that is something I will not believe; no son could have done such a thing. Yet if she believed it, how terrible it must have been for her to die thinking that. There was no need for a hell after death for Janoo-Rani, for she found it here; and as we know that those whose conduct is evil attain an evil re-birth, she will also have to pay in her next life, and perhaps for many lives afterwards, for every ill deed that she committed in this one.’
‘ “Take what you want,” says God. “And pay for it,” ’ quoted Ash. ‘Do you really believe all that, Juli?’
‘That we must pay for all we do? Of course.’
‘No: that we are born over and over again. That you and I, for instance, have already lived many lives and will live many more.’
‘If one has been born once, why not again?’ asked Juli. ‘Besides, the Upanishads* tell us that this is so, and according to that teaching it is only those who attain to the knowledge of the identity of the Soul of Brahma who reach “the way of the gods” and do not return to earth. Therefore it follows that you and I have not yet freed ourselves from the cycle of re-birth; and as I do not think either of us are seekers after holiness – or anyway, not yet -we shall surely be born again.’
‘As a worm or a rat, or a pariah dog?’
‘Only if we have committed some terrible sin in this life. If we are kind and just, and give to the poor -’
‘And the priests,’ interjected Ash derisively. ‘Don't forget the priests.’
‘And the priests also,’ amended Anjuli gravely, ‘then – who knows? -we may even be born as great ones. You a king or a famous warrior; or even a Mahatma. And I a queen – or a nun.’
‘The gods forbid!’ said Ash with
But Anjuli did not smile and her face was suddenly sober as she said slowly, and almost as though she were speaking to herself: ‘But I had forgotten… I will soon be a queen in this one. The Junior Rani of Bhithor…’
Her voice died out in a whisper and they rode on without speaking, until presently Ash reined in to sit watching the sun go down. He knew that Juli had drawn rein beside him, but though he would not look at her, he was acutely aware of her presence – of the faint fragrance of dried rose-petals that clung about her and the fact that he had only to move his hand a little way to touch hers. The sun slid below the horizon and was gone, and from the shelter of a patch of high grass a peacock called mournfully into the silence. Ash heard the girl beside him draw a slow breath and let it out on a sigh, and he said abruptly, still without looking at her: ‘What are you thinking about, Juli?’
‘The Dur Khaima,’ said Juli unexpectedly. ‘It is strange to think that I shall never see the Dur Khaima again. Or you either, once this journey is ended.’
The peacock cried again, its harsh call a loneliness in the gathering dusk. And like an echo of that sound came Jhoti's high-pitched voice calling to them that it was time to go back, and there had been nothing for it but to turn their horses and rejoin the others.
Ash had been noticeably silent as they rode back to the camp, and that night for the first time he took stock of the situation, and made a serious attempt to sort out his emotions and decide what, if anything, he meant to do about Juli. Or could do.
To the consternation of Gul Baz, he announced that he was going to take a long walk and would not be returning for some hours; and having brusquely refused to allow anyone to accompany him, he strode off into the darkness, armed only with a stout, iron-bound lathi (staff) such as country folk carry.
‘Let him be, Gul Baz,’ advised Mahdoo. ‘He is young, and it is too hot for sleeping. Also I think there is something that troubles him, and it may be that the night air will serve to clear his mind. Go to bed, and tell Kunwar that I will be chowkidar tonight. There is no need for us both to wait up for the Sahib.’
The wait had proved much longer than Mahdoo expected, for the Sahib did not return until shortly before dawn; and long before that the old man fell asleep at his post, secure in the belief that Ash must arouse him in order to re-enter the tent, and untroubled by any serious fear for the safety of one who had learned caution on the Border and was well able to take care of himself. Any anxiety he felt was solely on the score of his Sahib's state of mind, which the old man had divined with far more accuracy than Ash would have given him credit for – or appreciated.
‘Unless I am greatly mistaken, and I do not think I am,’ mused Mahdoo, communing with himself before sleep overtook him, ‘my boy is in love… and with someone he sees daily yet cannot win – which can only be one of the two Rajkumaries. Unless it is one of their women – that could well be. But whoever it is, there can be nothing in it but danger and disappointment for him; and let us hope that he has realized this, and that his night-walking will serve to cool his blood and permit prudence to prevail before matters go too far.’
Ash had not only realized it. He had seen the danger from the beginning and had not underrated it, but for one reason or another he had put off thinking about it. Stubbornly refusing to look ahead and see where all this was leading, or where it would end – perhaps because at the back of his mind he knew only too well, yet could not bring himself to face it.
He had, in effect, been indulging in a form of mental sleep-walking, and Juli's reminder that she would soon be a queen – ‘Junior Rani of Bhithor’ – had acted as a dash of ice-cold water thrown in his face, awakening him at last to the discovery that the path he was on was no wide and level one, but a narrow ledge on the face of a precipice.
Her words had been a reminder, too, of another thing he had chosen to ignore: the swiftness with which the days were slipping by, and the fact that far more than two thirds of their journey was over. By now half Rajputana lay behind them; they had long since skirted the deserts of Bikanir, passed south of Ratangarh and Sikar, and from there marched north-eastward up through the harsh, rock-strewn ridges that guard the great Sambhar Lake and the approaches to Jaipur. Now, having crossed the Luni River and forded two tributaries of the Banas, they were facing south once more and it would not be long before they reached their journey's end; and then… Then he would attend the wedding ceremonies and watch Juli walk seven times round the sacred fire with the Rana of Bhithor, and when it was all over he would ride back to the Punjab alone, knowing that this time she was lost to him for ever.
It did not bear thinking of. But he would have to think of it now.
There was no moon that night, but Ash had always been cat-eyed in the dark, and grim necessity during his years in tribal territory had helped to sharpen his sight so that now he could walk confidently where many others would have had to grope forward with caution. He had brought the lathi with him as a walking-stick and not a weapon, for he had no fear of being attacked, and as for losing his way in unfamiliar country, there was little danger of that because he had ridden across it earlier that evening and noticed that half a mile away, in a direct line from his tent, the level ground narrowed to form a natural roadway between a wilderness of thorn-scrub and pampas grass and a wide belt of broken rock. As this provided the shortest and easiest way to reach the open country beyond, he was not likely to miss it even in the darkness, particularly with the lights of the camp providing a beacon that could be seen for miles across the plains.
The ground underfoot was hard and dry, and once his eyes had grown accustomed to the starlight he walked quickly; intent only on putting as much distance as possible between himself and the camp, because it seemed imperative to him that he should get beyond the range of the sound and smell of men and animals, and the sight of oil lamps and cooking fires, before he even began to think of Anjuli and himself.
Always, until now, the affairs of the camp had come between him and any serious consideration of personal matters, since he could not afford to be dilatory where his command was concerned but must deal promptly with every difficulty as it arose, however petty it might be, for unless solutions were found and arguments settled in the shortest possible time, chaos could easily result. But with Juli it had been different. The problem that she posed was a strictly personal one and so could be set aside to be dealt with later; there was no need to hurry, for he would be seeing her that evening – and tomorrow evening, and the evening after that… They had plenty of time…
But now, all at once, it could be put off no longer; time was running out, and if there was anything to decide he must decide now – one way or another.
The roar of the camp dwindled by degrees to a gentle hum and then a faint murmur that faded and was finally lost, and now at last the night was quiet: so quiet that for the first time in many weeks Ash found that he could hear the sough of the wind and a dozen small sounds that were suddenly audible in the silence. The whisper of dry grass and casurina fronds stirring in the breeze. The hoot of an owl and the scutter of some small nocturnal animal foraging around a clump of pampas. The chirr of a cricket and the flitter of a bat's wing, and from somewhere very far away, the sound that is the night-song of all India – the howl of a jackal-pack.
For a mile or so the plain remained level, and then it sloped sharply upwards, and Ash crossed a long, low ridge that was barely more than a spine of rock thrusting up from the naked earth, and once on the far side of it, found that he could no longer see the glow of the camp fires or any trace of human habitation. There was nothing now but the empty land and a sky full of stars; and there was no point in going any further. Yet he walked on mechanically, and might have done so for another hour if he had not come on a dry watercourse that was full of boulders and smooth, water-worn pebbles that slid treacherously underfoot.
To have crossed that by starlight would have been to risk a sprained ankle, so he turned aside, and selectin
Their faces rose unbidden from the past and simpered at him. Four young women, all of whom had been older and far more experienced than he, and whose appeal to men had been unabashedly erotic. Yet not one of them had been mercenary, and it was ironic that he should have wished to marry Belinda Harlowe, who had the soul of a huckster, because by contrast she had seemed to epitomize all that was sweet and good and virginal – and was, in addition, a ‘lady’. He had told himself that he loved her because she was ‘different’ – different from four over-generous wantons whose bodies he had known intimately but whose minds he had known nothing about and had never been interested in – and it had taken him more than a year to discover that he knew nothing about hers either, and that all the admirable qualities that he had believed her to possess had been invented by himself and forcibly bestowed on some mental image of his own devising.