Far Pavilions (81 page)

‘These priests they are rapacious,’ confessed the Diwan in a resigned, man-of-the-world voice. ‘We have reasoned with them, but alas, to no avail. They have now demanded that my master build a new temple as the price of their consent to this marriage. It is iniquitous – but how can he refuse? He is a most religious man, and he cannot go against his priests. Yet to build a temple will cost a great deal of money; so you will see that he has no choice but to ask that his Highness of Karidkote should defray an expense that will have been incurred on behalf of His Highness's half-sister. It is all most unfortunate' – the Diwan wagged a regretful head and spread out his hands in a gesture of rueful deprecation – ‘but what can I do?’

Ash could think of several things. But the question was plainly rhetorical, and in any case he could not have answered it for the simple reason that he could not trust himself to speak, because it was Juli who was being subjected to insult by these contemptible, smirking blackmailers. He was aware, through a red haze of rage, that Kaka-ji was replying to the Diwan in a gentle, dignified voice; and presently that they were all out in the sunlight once more, mounting their horses and riding away again. But he still had no idea what answer the Diwan had received.

‘Well, and what now, Sahib?’ inquired Mulraj.

Ash did not reply, and Kaka-ji took up the question, repeating it and demanding to know what they could do in the face of this latest outrage.

Ash came out of his dream and said abruptly: ‘I must speak to her.’

The old man stared at him in bewilderment. ‘To Shu-shu? But I do not think-’

‘To Anjuli-Bai. You must arrange it for me, Rao-Sahib. I must see her. And alone.’

‘But that is impossible!’ protested Kaka–ji, shocked. ‘On the march, yes. There it did not matter too much. But not here in Bhithor. It would be most imprudent and I could not permit it.’

‘You will have to,’ insisted Ash tersely. ‘For unless I do, I will take no further part in these negotiations, but send word to Spiller-Sahib that I can do no more and that he and the Rana must decide the matter between them.’

‘But you cannot do that!’ gasped Kaka-ji. ‘What if he should give way to the Rana for the sake of peace? – which he might well do, as Mulraj has said. We should be undone, for how could we pay such a sum? Even if we had it – which we have not – it would beggar us, and without money we could not make the return journey. Nandu, I know, would never send us any more, for he would be mad with anger and -’

Agitation was making Kaka-ji speak with more frankness than he would normally have dreamt of using in public, and realizing it, he broke off to throw an anguished glance over his shoulder at the four other members of the party, who had fallen behind them, and was relieved to see that they were not only well out of earshot but engaged in an animated conversation of their own.

‘Besides,’ said Kaka-ji, lowering his voice and returning to his original argument, ‘what good can you do by speaking to Anjuli-Bai? There is no way in which she can help us, and to tell her what the Rana has said would only be an unkindness, there being no way out for her or for Shu-shu.’

‘All the same, I must see her,’ said Ash implacably. ‘She has a right to know how things stand. A right to be warned beforehand, in case…’

He hesitated, and Mulraj finished the sentence for him: ‘In case the Rana refuses to wed her. Yes, I think you are right, Sahib.’

‘No,’ said Kaka-ji unhappily. ‘It is not wise or proper that you should do so; and I cannot think that it is necessary. But as I see that you are both against me in this, I will tell her myself. Will that content you?’

Ash shook his head. ‘No, Rao-Sahib, it will not. I must speak to her myself. It is not that I do not trust you, but there are things that I wish to say that you could not. But only you can arrange it.’

‘Nay, Sahib. It is impossible. I cannot… It would become known. It would be too difficult…’

‘Nevertheless you will do it for my sake. Because I ask it of you as a great favour. And because, or so I have heard, you and her grandfather, Sergei, were friends, and you knew her mother, who -’

Kaka-ji checked him with an uplifted hand: ‘Enough, Sahib. You heard aright. I admired her grandfather the Russian very greatly when I was young. A strange man – a magnificent man – we feared him for his rages as much as we loved him for his laughter; and he laughed often. I have heard that even when he lay dying, he laughed and was not afraid…’

Kaka-ji sighed and was silent for a moment or two. And presently he said: ‘Very well, Sahib, I will do what I can. But only on one condition. I myself must be present.’

Nothing that Ash could say would make him give way on that point. The old man was convinced that if it should come to the ears of the Rana and his council that Anjuli-Bai had talked alone with a young man who was unrelated to her, they might use it as an excuse to send her back from Bhithor in disgrace -and in all probability portionless as well. They were quite capable of impounding her dowry as ‘compensation’ for the loss of a bride, and the fact that the young man in question happened to be a Sahib whom the Government had placed in overall charge of the camp and empowered to negotiate the marriage settlements would be neither here nor there. The only factor of importance would be his sex, and a scandal would merely strengthen the Rana's hand and stiffen his attitude on the question of Shushila's bride-price.

‘You have nothing to fear,’ promised Kaka-ji. ‘No word of what passes between you will ever be spoken afterwards by me: I will promise you that. But if by some evil chance news of it were to leak out, my niece must be safeguarded. I must be able to say that I, her uncle – brother to her father who was lately Maharajah of Karidkote – was present throughout. If you cannot agree to that, then I for my part cannot help you.’

Ash looked at him long and thoughtfully, recalling certain rumours he had heard about him, ‘old, forgotten, far-off things’ that might or might not be true. If they were… But there was obviously nothing to be gained by arguing with him now. Kaka-ji had meant what he said and would not go back on it; and as it was going to be impossible to have any speech with Juli without his help, there was nothing for it but to accept his terms. At least he could be trusted to keep his word and hold his tongue.

‘I agree,’ said Ash.

‘Good. Then I will see what can be arranged. But I can make no promises on behalf of my niece. It may be that she may not wish to see you, and if that is so, I can do nothing.’

‘You can try to persuade her,’ said Ash. ‘You can tell her… No. Just say that it is necessary, and that I would not have asked it of her – or of you – had it not been.’

Kaka-ji had arranged it. The meeting was to take place in his tent at one o'clock in the morning, at which time all the camp should be asleep. And as Ash would have to find his way there unseen, it would be as well, suggested Kaka-ji, if he disguised himself as a night-watchman, for it could be arranged that the
chowkidar
whose duty it was to patrol that part of the camp would be given a drug that night – something that would send him to sleep for an hour or so.

‘Gobind will see to it,’ said Kaka-ji; ‘and also that no servant of mine is within sight or hearing. He is to be trusted, and it is necessary that I trust someone; but as we cannot be too careful, even he will not know who it is who comes to my tent by night. Now listen carefully, Sahib -’

Ash would have preferred a less complicated arrangement, and could see no reason for such elaborate precautions. But Kaka-ji was adamant, and on the score of secrecy, the meeting could not have gone better. No whisper of it had ever leaked out, and both his niece and the Sahib had come to his tent and left again without attracting any attention or arousing the least suspicion. But in all other respects it had been a sorry failure, and afterwards the old man was often to regret that he had gone back on his original refusal to have anything to do with it; and even more that having done so he had insisted on being present, as but for that he could have remained in happy ignorance of things that he would so much rather not have known.

His niece Anjuli had arrived first, shrouded in a dark cotton bourka and slipping into the tent as silently as a shadow, to be followed a few moments later by a tall, turbaned figure wearing a dingy shawl wrapped high about his mouth and nose in the time-honoured manner of
chowkidars
, who distrust the night air. Kaka-ji noted with approval that following his instructions the Sahib was carrying a night-watchman's
lathi
and the length of chain that is rattled at intervals to warn away evil-doers, and congratulated himself on his attention to detail. Now it only remained for the Sahib to say what he wanted without wasting words, and for Anjuli to refrain from unnecessary comments, and in less than a quarter of an hour the whole thing would be over and the two of them safely back in their own tents without anyone being the wiser.

Buoyed up by a warm feeling of complacency, Kaka-ji made himself comfortable on a pile of cushions and prepared to listen without interruption while the Sahib informed Anjuli of the Rana's demands and their possible consequence to herself.

The old man had been far too preoccupied with the impropriety and hazards of such a meeting to give much thought as to what exactly might be said at it, or why the Sahib should have been so insistent that only he could say it; which was unfortunate for Kaka-ji, as had he done so he might have been better prepared for what followed – or taken strong measures to prevent it altogether. As it was, that pleasant glow of complacency lasted only as long as the time it took Ash to adjust his eyes to the light and make out Anjuli's shrouded figure, standing motionless among the shadows beyond the lamp.

She had not removed her bourka and as its brown folds matched the canvas walls behind her, for a moment or two he did not realize that she was there, though he was aware of Kaka-ji sitting cross-legged and unobtrusive at the far side of the tent. The slight draught of his own entrance had set the pierced bronze lamp swaying, so that it sent a dazzle of golden stars across the walls and floor. The dancing points of light confused his eyes and made the shadows shift and sway and take on a dozen different shapes, and it was not until they steadied again that he saw that one of those shadows was Anjuli.

The sound of a
lathi
and a chain falling to the floor was disproportionately loud in that waiting silence, and though Kaka-ji was not an imaginative man, it seemed to him in that moment as though something vital and elemental quivered between those two silent figures: an emotion so intense as to be almost visible, and that drew them towards each other as irresistibly as a magnet and steel. He watched, rigid, as they moved on the same instant, and as they met, saw Ash put out a hand to lift the bourka and throw it back from Anjuli's face…

They neither spoke nor touched each other. They only looked, long and hungrily, and as though looking were enough and there was no one else in the tent, or in the world. And there was that in their faces that made speech unnecessary, for no words and no actions – not even the most passionate of embraces – could have conveyed love so clearly.

Kaka-ji caught his breath and attempted to rise, moved by some hazy notion of throwing himself between them and breaking the spell. But his legs refused to obey him and he was forced to stay where he was, cold with dismay and unable to do anything but stare in stunned disbelief; and when at last the Sahib spoke, to listen with horror.

Ash said softly: ‘It's no good, my dear love. You cannot marry him. Even if it were safe for you to do so after so much delay; and that is something you have not told me yet. Would it have been safe?’

Anjuli did not pretend to misunderstand him. She nodded wordlessly: but the small gesture of negation was so desolate that he was ashamed of his own involuntary spasm of relief. He said: ‘I'm sorry' – the words caught on a tightness in his throat and sounded dry and inadequate.

‘I too,’ whispered Anjuli. ‘More than I can ever say.’ Her lips quivered and she controlled them with a visible effort and bent her head so that her mouth and chin were in shadow: ‘Is – is that why you wished to see me?’

‘Partly. But there is something else. He does not want you, my Heart. He only agreed to take you because he could not get Shushila on any other terms, and because your brother bribed him to do so with a large sum of money, and asked no bride-price for you.’

‘I know’ – Anjuli's voice was as quiet as his own. ‘I have known it from the first. There are few things that can be kept secret from the Women's Quarter.’

‘And you did not mind?’

She raised her head and looked at him dry-eyed, but her lovely mouth was pinched and drawn. ‘A little. But what difference does that make? You must know that I was given no choice – and that even if I had been, I should still have come.’

‘For Shu-shu's sake. Yes, I know. But now the Rana says that the bribe he accepted from your brother was insufficient, and that unless nearly three times more is paid he will not wed you.’

Her eyes dilated and she put a hand up to her throat, but she did not speak, and Ash said harshly: ‘Well, we have not that sum to spare, and even if we had, I could not authorize such payment without instructions from your brother, who from all I hear would never agree to pay it – and rightly. Yet I do not think that he will demand the return of both his sisters. The cost of this journey has been so great that I am very much afraid that when he has thought it over he will decide that it will be wiser in the long run to swallow the affront, and let the Rana's marriage with Shushila take place.’

‘And… what of me?’ asked Juli in a whisper.

‘You would be sent back to Karidkote. But without your dowry, which the Rana is certain to claim as compensation for the loss of a bride that he does not want. That is, unless we are prepared to risk bloodshed to prevent him getting his hands on it.’

‘But – but he cannot do that,’ breathed Anjuli. ‘It is against our law.’

‘What law? The only law here in Bhithor is the Rana's.’