Far Pavilions (117 page)

But to Wally – a practising Christian, and a dedicated soldier in love with his regiment – suicide would seem unforgivable: a sin not only against God, but the Guides, because at this particular time, when ‘wars and rumours of wars' were the talk of the North-West Frontier, it would be regarded as a form of cowardice comparable with ‘Desertion in the face of the enemy’. For if hostilities on a scale of the first conflict with Afghanistan broke out the Guides were going to need the services of every officer and every man, and since cowardice and ‘letting the side down’ were the two cardinal sins in Wally's lexicon, he would undoubtedly think that the needs of Queen and Country should take precedence over any purely personal attachment, however deep, and that if Ash was set on dying, then the proper and honourable course would have been for him to hurry back to Mardan and take up his duties, and hope to be killed in battle, leading his men.

But then Wally had never known Anjuli-Bai, Princess of Karidkote and Rani of Bhithor, so the letter addressed to him was, in consequence, a very brief one and would allow him to suppose (if or when he should hear that Ash was dead) that he had died at the hands of a mob, following an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the burning of a widow. That way he would still be able to think of his friend as a hero – and keep his illusions.

‘He'll grow out of them one day,’ thought Ash. ‘And no one else will talk: certainly not the Bhithoris. The Bhithoris will lie and evade and pervert the truth until even those who were there and saw it all won't be quite sure what happened – if anything. In the end it will probably be given out that the Ranis died of typhoid fever, and the authorities may even pretend to believe it in order to save their faces and avoid having to take any action.’

As for him, no one but a handful of his friends would ever know or care what had become of him… ‘This time tomorrow, it may all be over,’ thought Ash; and was surprised to find that he could face the prospect with so little emotion. He had always imagined that the phrase about the ‘condemned man eating a hearty breakfast’ had been meant as a grim joke, but now he realized that it was probably true, for once one gave up all hope, a curious peace took its place. One accepted the inevitable, and ceased struggling. He had been hag-ridden for days by fear and hope and the need to make plans that had invariably proved impossible to carry out, and now that all that was ended he could only feel a sense of exhausted relief, as though he had been freed from a burden that had become too heavy to carry.

The stars were growing pale as the moonlight brightened, and now the line of hills beyond the city was no longer a vague shadow against the indigo of the night sky, but sharp-edged with silver as though they were covered in snow; and for a magical moment it seemed to Ash as though he saw the Dur Khaima itself, transported to this hot and arid corner of Rajputana to bestow a last blessing on a some-time worshipper. He picked up a handful of the crumbs that he had strewn on the window-sill, and let them fall again, murmuring the old prayer…
O, Lord, forgive
…
Thou art everywhere, but I worship thee here
…

The years had gone so fast… so fast. But it had been a good life, and he had much to be thankful for; and so many memories to take with him – wherever it was that one went. If it were true, as some said, that when men died their spirits returned to the place that they had loved best during their lifetime, then he, Ash, would awake to find himself among the mountains, perhaps at long last in that very valley that Sita had described so often that he could almost believe that he had seen it. The valley in which they would build themselves a but out of deodar logs, and where they would plant cherry trees and grow corn and chillies and lemons, and keep a goat. And allow Kairi-Bai to come with them…

The thought brought him the first comfort he had found that day, and when he turned from the window and lay down, fully dressed on the string bed, he was smiling.

41

Gobind had been right: the Rana did not live through the night. He died in the dark hour before dawn, and not long afterwards the stillness was shattered by the boom of the great bronze gongs that have announced the death of every ruler of Bhithor since Bika Rae, the first Rana, founded the city.

The sound shuddered through the hot darkness and reverberated among the surrounding hills like a roll of thunder, the echoes passing it on and on down the valley and out across the quiet lake. It woke the sleeping city and sent flocks of roosting crows wheeling and cawing above the rooftops, and brought Ash from his bed, instantly awake and alert.

The little room was still breathlessly hot, for the night wind had died. The moon too had gone, hidden by the hills and leaving the room in such darkness that it took Ash a minute or two to find and light the lamp. But once that was done the rest was easy, and five minutes later he was down in the yard with Sarji and saddling Dagobaz.

There had been no need for silence or caution. The night was filled with the deep-throated booming of the gongs, and by now lamps were being relit in every house and the crowds who had slept in the open were awake and vocal.

Dagobaz did not care for the gongs. His ears were laid flat back and his nostrils flared as though, like the horses in the Old Testament who cried ‘Ha Ha!’ among the trumpets, he could smell
‘the battle afar off, the thunder of the Captains, and the shouting’
. He had flung up his head and whinnied when he heard Ash's step, and for once stood quietly without backing or sidling, or playing any of his usual tricks.

‘This is the first time I have known him behave so well,’ said Sarji. ‘He is one who likes to show that he has a will of his own and does not wear a saddle from meekness – or choice. You would almost think that he knows there is serious work afoot.’

‘Of course he does. He knows everything, don't you, my son?’

Dagobaz bowed his head to nuzzle Ash's shoulder as though in affectionate agreement, and Ash rubbed his cheek against the velvet nose and said with a catch in his voice: ‘Be good to him, Sarji. Don't let him…’ He broke off abruptly, aware of a constriction in his throat, and for the next few minutes busied himself with the remaining straps. When he spoke again his voice was curt and unemotional:

‘There, that's done. I've left you the carbine, Sarji. I shan't need it, but you and the others may, so you must take it with you. You know what to do, don't you? There's no need to go over it again. We have been good friends, you and I, and I'm sorry that I let you get involved in this affair and brough you into danger – and that it had to end like this. I should never have let you come, but then I'd hoped that… Oh well, it doesn't matter now. But be careful, Sarji – be very careful. For if anything were to happen to you -’

‘It won't,’ said Sarji quickly. ‘Do not worry, I will be careful, I promse you. Here, you had better take my whip. It may come in useful to clear a way through the crowds. You have the revolver?’

‘Yes, open the yard door for me, will you? Goodbye, Sarji. Good luck… and thank you.’

They embraced as brothers do, and then Sarji went ahead with the lamp, and unbarring the door, held it open while Ash led Dagobaz out onto the street. ‘It will be light soon,’ said Sarji, holding the stirrup while Ash mounted. ‘The stars are already pale and the dawn is not far off. I wish…’

He broke off with a sharp sigh, and Ash leant from the saddle to grip his shoulder for a brief moment, then touching Dagobaz with his heel, he rode away without looking back.

It had not proved as easy as he had thought to reach Gobind's house, for the eerie clamour seemed to have drawn half the population of Bhithor to the Rung Mahal, and not only the square in front of the palace but every street and alleyway leading to it was packed to suffocation. But somehow he had managed to force a way through, using Sarji's whip mercilessly on the surrounding heads and shoulders, and urging Dagobaz onward a foot at a time while the crowd shouted and cursed and gave way before him.

The door of Gobind's house was barred, and anyone deputed to keep watch on it must have been swept up and carried along with the crowd minutes ago, as Ash himself would have been had he not come on horseback. But being mounted gave him another advantage, for by standing up in his stirrups he could just reach a first-floor window that had been left open because of the heat of the night. There was no light in the room behind it – or, as far as he could see, in any part of the house. But when he hammered on the lattice with the butt of the whip, Manilal's round, pale face appeared in the opening.

‘What is it? Who is it?’

Ash thrust the two letters at him by way of reply, and without speaking wrenched Dagobaz round and began to force his way back down the street against the moving torrent of people. Ten minutes later he was clear of them and riding hard through dark and almost deserted alleyways towards the
Mori
Gate. Here there were lights again: oil lamps, lanterns and cressets. And more people, though not too many; one or two guards and nightwatchmen, and a few small groups of country folk from outlying villages, who had evidently been camping out under the great archway and were now busy preparing an early meal before setting off to join the crowds about the palace.

The glare from the cressets and the wavering gleam of half-a-dozen little cow-dung fires made the sandstone walls glow like burnished copper, and by contrast the landscape that lay beyond the gateway appeared as a square of blackness – for the charcoal-seller had not lied about the opening of the gates: they stood wide and unguarded, so that the spirit of the dead ruler might pass through if it so wished…

Legend had it that the gate most favoured on these occasions was the
Thakur
Gate, because of its proximity to the city temple. But until now no one, not even the priests, had ever claimed to see a spirit pass. Tonight, however, all those who had the good fortune to be near the
Mori
Gate were to declare that they had actually seen this happen: that the Rana himself, clad all in gold and mounted on a coal-black horse whose hooves made no sound, had swept past them as silently and swiftly as a sudden gust of wind, and vanished into thin air.

The gold, of course, was pure invention. But then it must be remembered that the spectators were simple folk and saw only what they expected to see. To them, a Rana would naturally be splendidly dressed. It is also possible that a combination of torch-light and the glow from those small cooking fires, falling on Ash's light-brown clothing (and aided by the haze of smoke), could have lent it a fleeting illusion of splendour. But for the rest, the clatter of Dagobaz's hooves had been drowned by the mourning of the gongs, and in order to avoid any risk of being stopped, Ash had taken him through the gateway at full gallop, where once beyond the range of the firelight and the flares, horse and rider had instantly been lost to view.

All unaware that he had destroyed one legend and created another that would be told and re-told for as long as superstition survived or men believed in ghosts, Ash rode away from the city along the dust-laden north road.

For a moment or two the transition from light to darkness made the countryside seem an inky waste and the grey ribbon of the road barely visible for more than a few yards ahead. Then his eyes adjusted to the change and he realized that the dawn was already at hand and the near hills sharply distinct against a brightening sky in which the stars no longer blazed and glittered, but showed as pale as the petals of faded jasmine blossoms.

The little wind that is the forerunner of morning had begun to breathe across the fields, rustling the standing crops and lending an illusion of coolness to the air, and already it was possible to make out objects twenty and thirty yards distant: a boulder, a shrub, a
kikar
tree or a feathery tuft of pampas grass; and further off still, a herd of black-buck trotting sedately away across the plain after a night spent foraging in the cultivated land, and the lean grey shape of a wolf loping steadily towards the hills.

Dagobaz had always revelled in early morning gallops over open country, and of late he had spent too many hours shut up in a shed in the charcoal-seller's yard. In addition to which that frightening and inexplicable booming had set every nerve in his body on edge, and even out here he could still hear it, fainter now, for the breeze was carrying it away down the valley, but still all too audible. He redoubled his efforts to escape it, and as they were now beyond the crop-lands, swerved from the road and took to the rougher ground, his rider making no effort to restrain him.

The wolf glanced over its shoulder and broke into a canter, imagining itself pursued, while further to the left the black-buck herd took fright and went bounding away across the shadowy plain. And for a brief space Ash forgot what lay ahead and was suddenly caught by the familiar intoxication of speed and of being at one with his horse. A tremendous, all-possessing excitement that seemed to hold him rigid, his hands motionless on the reins, his thighs clamped to the saddle. What did it matter if he died today or tomorrow? He had lived. He was alive now – joyously and intensely alive – if this was the last morning he would ever see, what better way to spend it?