Coromandel! (40 page)

That time--when he had cried, ‘The fur hats!’ and Catherine shouted, ‘Let’s catch up with them and speak to them!’--Jason had said, ‘We had better not. They may be bandits.’

True enough, the old man thought. Tibet was full of bandits. But he thought Jason had said No because he did not want to continue the search for the mountain Meru and the treasure it might hide. He was more interested in the scholar’s tomb, but even there his enthusiasm seemed to have waned or been diverted.

They had reached the level plain. Ishmael said, ‘Jason, ride on ahead, try and run down one of these hares.’

Catherine said, ‘Yes, go on, Jason. I’m hungry! Go far, where I can see you galloping.’

Jason hesitated, then cantered off. When he was half a mile ahead Ishmael said, ‘My daughter, I want to talk to you. That’s why--‘

She said, ‘I know. What do you think he’s thinking of?’

Ishmael adjusted the leather thong around his head. He kept his spectacles in place with it, for fear he might miss something if he had to stop to put them on. He said, ‘Why, Catherine, I don’t know. I had thought he might have told you.’

She said, ‘He hasn’t. You would have noticed if you hadn’t been so intent on the country and the people and the scholar’s tomb.’ She spoke with unusual sharpness and Ishmael thought: Goodness me, she’s upset. It must be serious.

She said, ‘I’m sorry, Father. But I am worried. He hasn’t told me, but I think I know what’s in his mind. He’s going to shut himself into a library or a temple or a mango grove, and leave the world.’

Ishmael started. ‘Impossible!’ he cried. ‘Why, that would mean he’d leave you too.’ But, by Allah, the woman might be near the heart of the matter in spite of that. He thought of Jason’s recent actions in this light and said slowly, ‘It is not impossible. But it is folly. Did I not tell him, about doing and dreaming? I had thought he understood.’

‘So had I,’ she said, ‘but he didn’t. Or if he did he didn’t agree. But what can we do? He needs me, and I need him. Father, I love him.’

‘I know, I know,’ Ishmael said. ‘I’ve been in love, even though I am sixty-nine.’ He spoke testily. Women--he had loved them every way it was possible to love them; and books; and the whirr of the sword unsheathing; and wine in the cup. The young were annoying sometimes, reminding you of the past.

Now she said again, ‘I’m sorry, Father. I know you have been in love. That’s why I was so happy when Jason met you. I thought: Here is a man who can lead Jason the way he should go. Jason is of the world. It is not right for him to shut himself away from it. He only thinks it is because we--he and I--have seen so much killing and struggling for money and power. He is impressionable--very. I am sure he has sworn never to kill again. I don’t want him to kill without need, and there are people who must live by such a rule. But he’s not one of them. He’s a hunter. Do you remember how he missed that great pheasant below the Mana Pass, when you told him to try to kill it because we were hungry? He never missed before. And look there! Hasn’t he started a hare?’

Ishmael looked ahead under shaded eyes. Jason’s horse galloped and turned across the plain half a mile in front. As he watched, the horse swung sharply, and Jason fell off.

He cried, ‘He’s fallen!’

She said, ‘Do you see? He’d rather kill himself than kill a hare.’

Ishmael said, ‘I can’t believe it--neither that nor the other, that he is going to become a recluse. He is thinking--about you, about how to get enough money to buy a house, about what he is going to do with his life.’

She said, ‘I do not think so.’

Ishmael rode a long time in silence while the wind tugged fiercely at the skirts of his coat. By Allah, the boy needed a smart whipping! Or a fight--something to warm his blood, make it run hot and fast in his veins. Disgraceful to brood on solitude and the contemplative life while this young wife longed for him and was neglected! Passionate thighs that young woman had, and a hungry mouth, and a mind to travel beyond the physical ecstasies of love.

He himself was in the way, of course. How could they make love, or even thrash out their problems with kisses to help at the difficult places, when he was there? No shady corners here, nothing but the enormous sweep of nothing. He’d better go out from camp a long way, say he was looking for stones or something, make it clear he would not return till midnight. Damnably cold for an old man at midnight. . .

Catherine said, ‘I see something moving beyond Jason.’ Ishmael looked up. Fur hats! He wouldn’t be put off a second time. A good furious gallop was just what he needed, to shake up his liver and clear his head. He beat his horse into a weary canter. His beard flew back all over his mouth and nostrils, and angrily he brushed it away so that he could shout, ‘Jason, fur hats! Catch them!’

Jason wheeled alongside, shouting, ‘Father, come back! They may be bandits.’

Ishmael yelled, ‘I don’t care. Come on!’

The three men ahead had trotted out of the rocks where the plain met another ridge. They wore fur caps and carried long bows slung across their shoulders. Now they turned. All three unslung their bows, fitted arrows, and fired. The arrows whistled past Ishmael’s head and stuck, quivering, in the earth.

Ishmael’s heart leaped, and the old scars tingled in his cheek. A fight! Better and better! He drew his sword, leaned low along his horse’s withers, and thundered on, shouting defiance. Another flight of arrows droned past him.

He yelled, ‘Dogs! Pigs! I’m coming! Ishmael of Multan!’ He turned and shouted, ‘Draw your sword, boy!’ But Jason galloped alongside with one hand upraised in the sign of peace, and his sword bounced about, undrawn, in its scabbard.

Two arrows sizzled by, but the third hit Ishmael’s horse in the chest. The horse screamed in sudden pain. The three bandits wheeled their ponies round; for a moment he saw the flat sunlight splash yellow on their brutish, terrified faces; then Jason cried, ‘We are men of peace! Do not be afraid.’ But the bandits fled.

Catherine arrived at a gallop. Ishmael roared, ‘Men of peace? What do you mean? I’d have cut their damned heads off!’ Breathing hard, he dismounted, adjusted his spectacles, and pulled the arrow from his horse’s chest. It was a Tartar arrow. Very interesting. Now what wood might those fellows use for their bows?

The bandits had disappeared round a shoulder of cliff. It was no good trying to catch them. Jason said, ‘I will clean your horse’s wound.’

Ishmael said, ‘I’ll do it. We’d better camp here. That’s what those rascals were doing when we disturbed them.’ He noticed that the grass under the hill was darker, richer green than elsewhere. A stream trickled out of the hill a little farther on, and then ran eastward along the foot of the ridge. After a few yards it disappeared again into the fine loess soil.

The bandits might return, but that couldn’t be helped--in fact it would be fine; then there’d be a real fight. Jason would have to fight. There was definitely something wrong with the boy. Ishmael decided to ride forward with him tomorrow and give him a good talking to.

The sun sank, and all warmth left the harsh landscape. They hobbled the horses and unrolled their blankets near the stream. In Tibet there could be no sitting round a great campfire, because there was no fuel. Sometimes they had found dried yak dung at a camp site, but here there was nothing. They worked a little butter into a little tsampa, kneaded water into the whole, and ate the cold, soggy mess with their fingers. They drank from the stream and lay down to sleep.

Ishmael thought: I’ll talk to him tomorrow, without fail. Or I’ll ride ahead and leave Catherine to talk. Something’s got to be done. This wild journey ought to have been so wonderful--even though their map is as unreliable as my ambassador’s diary. Have to tell them about that soon. But there must be a twin-peaked mountain somewhere around here. Jason was a good young man, perhaps the best he’d ever known. What to tell him, how to show him, so that he wouldn’t keep going off at dangerous tangents? It had happened all his life, from what he’d said about England and London and Manairuppu. The woman, his wife, was probably the answer. Jason needed anchoring to a firm piece of earth--wise, beautiful, understanding earth, that recognized the glory of the dream, but knew which dreams were good and which evil. Catherine . . .

Darkness did not come quite so suddenly here. For half an hour Jason watched the pale slope of the hill blacken against the sky. The stars came out, and Catherine’s flank moved warm against his through the blankets. He marvelled at the fiery brilliance of the stars. Again, as at Badrinath, the wind left the plain, so that the blades of grass stood unmoved and silent by his ear, but high in the sky, between earth and stars, he heard the drone of the wind in its long passage.

The bandits might come back, and then Ishmael would want to fight. But fighting never did any good. He, Jason, would go out to them, his hands upraised and love in his heart, and they’d all sit down together and be friends. When he got back to India he’d be careful never again to put himself in the way of such distractions.

Molly saw those stars, and Emily and Mabel in London by the Thames, and Parvati outside the temple. He had loved them all, in their ways, and they were all unhappy because he had loved them. It had been the wrong kind of love.

The stars were fierce as the eyes of queens tonight, and the air flowed like ice round his ears, and Catherine snuggled against him. How could a man contemplate in this world of ice and fire and women?

Ishmael said, ‘Catherine, there are at least six horses.’--Jason smiled. The old man was talking in his sleep again. But Ishmael said, ‘At least six. Nearer eight.’

Catherine started up and said, ‘I’ll put down the tent.’ Ishmael scrambled out, and his sword-blade flashed in the starlight. He whispered, ‘The bandits have come back. Draw your sword, Jason. Get down the stream bed a few paces, and then--‘

Jason sat up. He had heard the clatter of a horse’s hoof against a rock. That was all. The loess soil buried all other noise the approaching horsemen might be making. He said quietly, ‘No. We mustn’t fight. I will go and tell them we are men of peace.’ He set off towards the faint sounds.

Ishmael muttered, ‘Come back! They’ll kill you!’ But Jason walked slowly on along the bank of the stream. The unseen strangers had reached a stony outcrop among the loess, and their horses made a continuous low clatter. The starlight painted all things equal, whether light or dark--rocks and men, some moving, some still.

A tremendous whinny ran like maniacal laughter along the hillside. From startlingly close, two other horses answered the whinny. For a moment many horses cackled together in question and answer. A voice called sharply, but in a language Jason did not know.

He found himself in the middle of a group. There were six men altogether--three riding, three walking--and several pack horses already grazing, the sound of the tearing grass and champing teeth very clear in the silence. The men wore long- skirted coats, high boots, and cowled cloaks that came to a point above their heads. A light flared up, and the circle of faces took colour and form--bronze-red, hairless faces, fiercely tilted eyes, no eyebrows, expressionless. The riders dismounted and let their horses wander.

Jason said, ‘We are men of peace. Welcome to our camp.’ He tried to feel peaceable, but he thought they were a dangerous-looking crew and was guiltily glad he had his knife.

Ishmael was at his side, the sword in his hand and his old face alert and wary. He whispered, They are going to try to surprise us when we’ve gone back to sleep. But we’re going now. Too many to fight. Catherine’s unpicketing the horses.’

Jason said, ‘Very well.’ Better run than fight. A scholar had no business even thinking of fighting.

Ishmael said, ‘They don’t understand Urdu. I have a little Tibetan. I’ll tell them we must go. Then be ready. If they mean harm they’ll try to prevent us.’

He turned to the newcomers and broke into another language, speaking slowly and with obvious difficulty.

The leader of the strangers was a small old man with a face like a dried apple. When Ishmael finished speaking this man answered.

Ishmael translated. ‘He says, blessings be on us. He doesn’t seem to care whether we go or stay.’

Jason thought: They are certainly bandits. What else can they be, moving about over this featureless plain in the middle of the night?

The old man’s followers set about unloading their pack horses. They had brought fuel with them, and already a small fire glowed near the stream. The small wrinkled man spoke again.

Ishmael said, ‘He wants us to drink with them! By Allah, there will be poison in the wine. Get ready!’

The old leader clapped his hands. One of his men came running with a small goatskin under one arm and a pile of nesting cups in the other hand. He poured out the liquid into the tiny cups and handed one each to Ishmael, Catherine, and Jason. The little old leader made a courtly, obvious gesture--Drink.

Jason said, ‘Please to drink first,’ and held out the cup to him. His mind began to move fast and with a resentful desire to fight. But he must not fight. But was this fighting with words and wits any better than fighting with swords and arrows?

Ishmael said, ‘He never drinks spirits.’ He sniffed his own cup. ‘Barley brandy. It smells good. I don’t think it is poisoned, after all.’

Jason said, ‘Don’t drink!’ He saw another goatskin among a pile of rolled cloth and silver pots on the ground nearby. He said, ‘Tell him we’ll drink from that.’

Ishmael spoke, pointing to the goatskin on the ground.

The man holding the other cups dropped them. The murmuring in the background ceased. The little wrinkled leader spoke slowly.

Ishmael translated. ‘You mean--
that
?’

Jason nodded.

The leader picked up the goatskin, and then Jason saw that there were two, one slightly larger than the other. The small one had a leather case tied to the outside of it. The leader held them up, one in each hand.

Ishmael said, ‘Which?’

Jason said, ‘The small one.’ It would make no difference, because neither of them was likely to be poisoned. He had been too clever for the bandits.