Far Pavilions (104 page)

Ash, on the other hand – who only a short while ago had been equally impatient to see the last of Gujerat – was suddenly afraid of having to leave it, because if he were to be recalled to Mardan before Gobind managed to smuggle out some news from Bhithor, he might never know what had happened there, or be able to send on a message to Kaka-ji, or do anything to help.

The very thought was so intolerable that at this juncture he would actually have been relieved to hear that he must serve another five years in Gujerat; or even ten or twenty, for to leave now could mean deserting Juli just when she might need help more than she had ever needed it before, and at a time when her very life might depend on his presence here in Ahmadabad, and his willingness to do anything he could to help her.

He had deserted her twice before: once in Gulkote when she was a child, and again in Bhithor – though that had been sorely against his will. He would not do so a third time. Yet if he was ordered back to Mardan, what then? Would it do any good if he were to write to Wally and Wigram Battye, asking them to use their influence to get his recall postponed if they should hear that it was being considered? But then, having told both of them how much he wanted to get back to the Guides, how did he propose to explain this abrupt
volte face
…? ‘I'm sorry I can't tell you why I've changed my mind and would rather not come back to the Corps just now, but you'll just have to take my word for it that it's vitally important that I should be able to remain here for the time being –’

They would think he must be ill or mad, and Wally, at least, would expect to be trusted with the truth. But as the truth could not be told there was no point in writing at all.

Ash fell back on hope. With luck the ‘Tin Gods’ who had banished him to Gujerat had forgotten about him and would leave him alone. Or better still, Gobind would manage to get in touch with him and tell him that their fears were groundless and that all was well with the Ranis of Bhithor, in which case it would not matter how soon he was recalled to the Guides. The sooner the better in fact, for Wally's last letter had increased his longing to get back almost as much as Kaka-ji's letter had made him wish to stay.

Wally wrote to say that the Guides had been in action again, and that Zarin had been wounded, though not seriously. The letter gave a detailed description of the affray (which involved a gang of Utman Khel tribesmen who two years previously had murdered a number of coolies working on the Swat River canal-works), and sang the praises of its instigator, one Captain Cavagnari, Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar, who having heard that the leader and several members of the gang were living in a village called Sapri some five miles upstream from Fort Abazai and just inside the Utman Khel border, sent a message to the village headman demanding their surrender, together with a large sum of money to furnish pensions for the families of the murdered coolies.

The inhabitants of Sapri, fondly imaginging their village to be impregnable, replied offensively, and Captain Cavagnari decided to take them by surprise and laid his plans accordingly. Under the command of Wigram Battye, three officers of the Guides, two hundred and sixty-four sowars of the cavalry and a dozen sepoys of the infantry – the latter mounted on mules – set off one night after dark for Sapri, accompanied by Cavagnari, who had managed to keep the whole operation so secret that two of the officers had actually been playing racquets up to the last moment, and left almost straight from the courts.

The first part of the march had been simple, but eight miles short of their goal the country became so rough that the horses and mules had to be sent to Fort Abazai, while the Guides groped their way forward in the darkness on foot. Sapri, still confident that the intervening wilderness of rocks, precipices and nullahs afforded ample protection against any attack, awoke in the dawn to find itself surrounded and rushed for its arms, but after a brisk spell of fighting during which the murdered coolies were fully avenged, the ring-eaders and nine others who had been implicated in that massacre were taken prisoner.

‘Our losses were only seven men wounded,’ wrote Wally, ‘and Wigram has put up Jaggat Singh and Daffadar Tura Baz for the Order of Merit for “Conspicuous bravery in action”. So as you can see, we haven't exactly been living an idle life up here. What about you down there? You know, I hate to say it, but your letters seem to contain a great deal about this pearl among horses that you have acquired, but next to nothing about yourself, and it's you and your doings I want to hear about, and not his. Or does nothing ever happen in Ahmadabad and Roper's Horse-Show? Wigram says to send you his salaams. Zarin ditto. Did you hear about that young ass Rikki Smith of the 75th N.I.? Well you'd hardly credit it, but…’ The rest of the letter consisted of gossip.

Ash put it away with a sigh. He must write to Zarin, and tell him to take better care of himself in future. It was great to hear from Wally and get all the news and gossip of the Regiment; but it would be better still to be able to talk to him again – and to serve once more with a regiment that was always in action, instead of one that had seen little or none since the days of the Mutiny, and to which he was only temporarily attached as an uninvited guest who had been wished on them by a higher authority, and who might at any moment be recalled to his own Corps; ‘… only not too soon,’ prayed Ash: not until he had heard from Gobind…

But the days dragged by and no word came out of Bhithor; though it was spring now, and over a year since he had arrived in Ahmadabad ‘on temporary attachment’ to Roper's Horse. How long was temporary? ‘This year, next year, sometime…?’ What
was
Gobind doing?

Ash paid yet another visit to Jobbling's the Chemist, where he bought a bottle of liniment for the treatment of a fictitious sprain, and passed the time of day with Mr Pereiras, an inveterate gossip who could be counted upon to mention any item of interest (such as a special order for medicines for a ruling prince) without any prompting.

Mr Pereiras had been as voluble as ever and Ash had learned several things about the ailments of a number of prominent people, though nothing about the Rana of Bhithor. But that same evening, returning late to his bungalow, there on the verandah waited a fat, travel-stained figure: Gobind's personal servant, Manilal, bringing news at last.

‘This oaf has been here for two hours,’ said Gul Baz indignantly, speaking in Pushtu (Bhithor again!), ‘but he refuses to eat or drink until he has spoken with you, though I have told him a score of times that when the Sahib returns it will be to bath and change and eat his dinner before speaking to anyone. But this man is a fool and will not listen.’

‘He is the Hakim's servant, and I will see him now,’ said Ash, beckoning Manilal to follow. ‘And in private.’

The news from Bhithor was neither good nor bad, a circumstance well illustrated by the fact that Manilal had been allowed to travel to Ahmadabad, but that Gobind had not dared send a letter with him for fear that he would be searched. ‘Which was done,’ said Manilal with a ghost of a smile, ‘– very thoroughly.’ The message was therefore a verbal one.

The Rana, reported Gobind, was suffering from a combination of boils, indigestion and headaches, due largely to chronic constipation. His physical condition, as was only to be expected considering his mode of life, was poor, but improving – the foreign medicines having proved most efficacious. As for the Ranis, from what he had heard, all was well with them.

The younger and Senior Rani, whose confinement was imminent, was reported to be in good health and eagerly awaiting the birth of her child, whom the soothsayers, astrologers and midwives all confidently predicted would be a son. Already preparations were being made to celebrate this auspicious event in a most lavish manner, and a messenger stood ready to ride with the news to the nearest telegraph office (a distance of many miles) from where it would be sent to Karidkote. But Gobind was somewhat disturbed to learn that this was not, as he had supposed, the Senior Rani's first pregnancy but the third…

He was at a loss to know why no hint of the two previous pregnancies had ever reached Karidkote, since one would have expected such a pleasant piece of news to be announced immediately, but the fact remained that she had twice miscarried in the early months. This, he imagined, might well have been due to grief and shock, as the first miscarriage had coincided with the deaths of her two waiting-women, and the second with that of the faithful old
dai,
Geeta: which hardly seemed like a concidence. But though he still suspected that there was some mystery connected with those deaths, one thing was quite clear: the Senior Rani was neither ill-treated nor unhappy.

Extraordinary as it might seem, the marriage that had begun so ominously for her had, if gossip was to be believed (and he personally was inclined to credit it), turned out to be an unqualified success, the little Rani having taken it into her head to fall wildly in love with her unprepossessing husband, while the Rana, for his part, had found the combination of exquisite beauty and extravagant adoration so refreshing to his jaded palate that he had actually lost interest in his catamites, and to please her had dismissed the two handsome and degenerate young men who had previously been his favourite companions. All of which made good hearing.

The Junior Rani, on the other hand, had been less fortunate. Unlike her sister she had not found favour with the Rana and he had refused to consummate the marriage, declaring openly that he would not deign to father a child by a half-caste. She had been banished to a wing of one of the smaller and seldom-used palaces outside the city, from where, after only a month, she had been recalled at the insistence of the Senior Rani. Later she had again left the Zenana Quarters – this time for the Pearl Palace – only to be recalled once more after some months of separation. Since when she had been permitted to remain in the Rung Mahal, and now lived quietly retired in her own suite of rooms.

Gobind was of the opinion that the Rana probably intended to divorce her, and to send her back to Karidkote as soon as her sister the Senior Rani became less dependent upon her, which could be expected to happen once there were little sons and daughters to occupy Shushila-Bai's attention. But this of course was only conjecture, for the Sahib must realize that it was almost impossible (and indeed extremely dangerous) for anyone in Gobind's position to ask leading questions about the Ranis of Bhithor, or to show too much interest in their welfare and their relations with the Rana. Therefore he could well be mistaken in this, as well as in other matters. But though a wife only in name, at least the Junior Rani appeared to be safe and in good health, and it was to be hoped that the same could soon be said for the Senior Rani.

Gobind trusted that the Sahib would write as soon as possible to Karidkote to set the Rao-Sahib's mind at rest. For the present there would appear to be no cause for anxiety, and but for the fact that the deaths of the
dai
and the waiting-women had been concealed from their relations he, Gobind, would have said that there was nothing wrong in Bhithor, or at least, not so far as the two Ranis were concerned. Nevertheless, he confessed that those deaths continued to trouble him: there was something not quite right about them – something unexplained.

‘What does he mean by that?’ asked Ash. ‘What sort of thing?’

Manilal shrugged and said slowly: ‘There are too many stories… moreover, no two of them agree, which is a strange thing. Like my master, I too am from Karidkote and therefore a stranger and suspect. I cannot ask too many questions or betray too much interest: I can only listen. But it is not difficult to guide the talk into certain channels without seeming to do so, and sitting among the palace servants or strolling in the bazaars of an evening, I have now and then dropped a little word that like a pebble in a pool has set ripples circling outwards… If these women did indeed die of a fever, why should there be any talk? Why should anyone trouble themselves over something that happens so often, and to so many? Yet these three deaths have not been forgotten, and those who speak of it do so in whispers; some saying that the serving-women died from this cause and others from that, but none agreeing except on one point – that no one knows the real cause.’

‘What do they say of the third woman, the
dai
Geeta?’ asked Ash, who remembered the old lady with gratitude.

‘They say it was given out that she fell by accident down a steep flight of stairs, or from a certain window, or from the rooftops of the Queen's Palace – for again the stories are all different. There are those who whisper that she was pushed and others who hold that she was dead before she fell – strangled or poisoned, or killed by a blow on the head, and afterwards flung down from a high place so that it would appear, to be an accident. Yet no one has put forward a reason why these things should have been done, or by whom – or upon whose orders. Therefore it may be that they are nothing more than the invention of babblers and scandalmongers who like to pretend to more knowledge than their neighbours. But it is curious… Curious that there should still be so much talk when two of the women have been dead for well over a year, and the
dai
for close on one.’

That was all the news from Bhithor, and apart from the death of old Geeta, it was better news than Ash had expected. But Manilal was not too sure that he would be allowed to come to Ahmadabad a second time –

The men who had stopped and searched him had found nothing on him except two empty medicine bottles and some money. But they had questioned him exhaustively as to what messages his master had charged him to deliver, to which he had replied, gabbling parrot-wise: ‘I require six more bottles of the medicine that was formerly in the larger bottle and two more of that in the smaller, here is the money in payment.’ Adding that he meant also to buy on his own account some chickens, the Rao-Sahib being fond of eggs, and perhaps some melons and a certain kind of sweetmeat, and…

When they put a stop to this by twisting his arm and demanding to know what further messsges the Hakim had sent, he wept copiously (it was one of his accomplishments) and asked
what
other messages? His master had strictly instructed him to take these bottles to the
dewai dukan
in Ahmadabad, and to say to the shopkeeper: ‘I require five bottles of…’ or was it
three
bottles?… there now – they had muddled him with their questions and put it out of his head, and the Hakim would be angry.