Far Pavilions (44 page)

‘You may be right,’ acknowledged the Garrison Commander. ‘But then I have to admit that I don't know any of the ruling princes. Have some more port?’

The conversation had switched to pig-sticking and horses, and Ash had not returned to his tent until well after midnight.

The following morning had dawned wet and windy, so that he was able to sleep late, for under such conditions the camp took longer than usual to get on the move. And because of the weather, he again had little opportunity to take note of his fellow-travellers, who unlike himself were shrouded and unidentifiable under cloaks or blankets worn to keep out the wet. Not that this worried him, as there would be plenty of time later on, and he was more than content to jog along in silence; even the discomfort of spending the day in a damp saddle, head down against a gusty wind that tugged at his sodden cloak and drove the rain into his eyes, being infinitely preferable to being tied to an office desk in Rawalpindi. The almost total lack of paper-work was, in his opinion, one of the main advantages of this present assignment, another being that any problems that arose were likely to be familiar ones, differing only in degree from those that cropped up frequently at regimental durbars, and just as easily dealt with.

But in this he was mistaken, for that self-same evening he was to come up against one that was not only unfamiliar, but very difficult to deal with. And, potentially, extremely dangerous.

The fact that he was entirely unprepared for it was largely his own fault, though insufficient consultation between Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi and the Commandant of the Corps of Guides, together with inadequate briefing by the Political Department and the illness of the District Officer, could also be held responsible. But it was Ash's original attitude to his appointment – that disgusted dismissal of it as a mere matter of playing sheep-dog and chaperone to ‘a pair of dowds and a parcel of squealing women’ – that had led him into the old error of his early school-days: neglecting to do his homework.

He had no one to blame but himself, since he had, quite simply, not bothered to find out anything about the background and history of the state whose princesses he was to escort to their wedding, while the authorities in Rawalpindi, for their part, had given him no information on that head because they assumed that Mr Carter, the District Officer, would deal fully with it; and they could hardly have been expected to know that an attack of malaria would prevent the District Officer from doing anything of the sort. But as a result, Ash had entered on his command in a blithe state of ignorance and wholly unaware of the pitfalls that lay ahead. Even the information that a young brother of the Maharajah's had elected to join the camp at the last possible moment, and would be travelling with them, had not struck him as particularly interesting. After all, why shouldn't the child accompany his sisters to their wedding? He had dismissed young Jhoti's presence as something of no importance, and beyond sending a polite inquiry as to his health, gave the matter no more thought. But that evening, as darkness fell, a servant brought him a message to say that the little prince was now fully recovered from his indisposition and would like to see him.

The rain had stopped some hours before and the sky was clear again as Ash, wearing mess dress in honour of the occasion, was once more conducted through the roaring, lamp-lit camp to a tent near that of the princesses, where a sentry armed with an ancient tulwar provided a token guard and a yawning servant waited to usher him into the Presence. A solitary hurricane lamp hung on an iron pole outside, but passing in under the tent-flap Ash was met by a blaze of light that momentarily dazzled him, for the interior of the tent was lit by half-a-dozen European-style lamps that had been designed to carry shades of silk or velvet, but that now stood, unshaded, on low tables set in a half-circle about a pile of cushions on which sat a plump, pallid little boy.

He was a handsome child, despite his plumpness and his pasty complexion, and Ash, blinking in the glare, was suddenly reminded of Lalji as he had seen him on that first day in the Hawa Mahal. This child must be about the same age as Lalji had been then, and was sufficiently like Ash's memory of the Yuveraj for the two to be brothers, though Lalji, thought Ash, had been a far less personable child than this one, and he would certainly not have risen to his feet to greet his visitor, as Jhoti was doing. The resemblance was mainly a matter of dress and expression, for Lalji had worn similar clothes and he too had looked sour and cross – and very frightened.

It occurred to Ash, bowing in acknowledgement of the boy's greeting, that if (as Wally maintained) all princesses were beautiful, it was a pity that all young princes should be plump and cross and frightened. Or, at least, all the ones that he himself had met so far.

The absurdity of this reflection made him grin and he was still smiling when he straightened up… to find himself looking directly at a face that even after all these years he recognized instantly and with a paralysing sensation of shock – the face of a man who stood immediately behind the little prince and less than three paces away, and whose narrow eyes held the same slyness, the same chilling look of calculation and malice that had been so familiar in the days when their owner had been Lalji's favourite courtier and the
Nautch
-girl's spy.

It was Biju Ram.

The smile on Ash's face stiffened into a fixed grimace and he felt his heart jerk and miss a beat. It was not possible – he must be mistaken. Yet he knew that he was not. And in the same instant he knew too, and without any shadow of doubt, why the boy Jhoti reminded him of Lalji. Because Jhoti was either Lalji's brother or his first cousin.

He could not be Nandu: he was too young for that. But there had been at least two more children, and for all he knew the
Nautch
-girl might have borne many others later on. Or could this be Lalji's son…? No, that was not likely. A cousin, then? – a child or grandchild of one of the brothers of the old Rajah of Gulkote…?

Ash became aware that several people were beginning to look at him curiously, and also that there was no trace of recognition in Biju Ram's narrow-eyed gaze. That slyness was habitual; and so was the malice. As for the look of calculation, it probably only meant that Biju Ram was assessing the calibre of the new Sahib and wondering if it would be necessary to placate him, because in no circumstances could he have recognized this Sahib as the ‘horse-boy’ who had saved the life of the Yuveraj of Gulkote so many years ago.

Ash forced himself to look away and to reply to the polite questions of the little prince; and presently his pulse steadied and he was able to glance casually about the tent and assure himself that there was no one else there whom he knew. There were at least two. But even then he could surely not be in any danger of discovery, for apart from Koda Dad (and he would never have told), no one else in Gulkote could have learned that Sita's son was an
Angrezi
. There was nothing to connect the boy Ashok with a Captain Ashton Pelham-Martyn of the Guides, and little enough resemblance between the two. It was only Biju Ram who had not altered. True, he was much fatter and beginning to grow a little grey, and the lines that dissipation had already begun to draw on his face when he was a young man were deeper now; but that was all. He was still smooth and spruce and sly, and he still wore a large diamond drop in one ear. But why was he here, and what was the relationship between the Yuveraj of Gulkote and the ten-year-old Jhoti? And who, or what, was the child frightened of?

Ash had seen fear too often not to recognize it, and the signs were all there: the wide, over-bright eyes and the swift glances that flickered to left and right and back over the shoulder; the tensed muscles and jerking turn of the head, and the uncontrollable quiver and clench of the hands.

This was how Lalji too had looked; and with good reason. But then this child was not heir to a throne. He was merely a younger brother, so it seemed inconceivable that anyone should wish to harm him. A more likely explanation was that he had run away to join the wedding party against the wishes of his elders, and was only now beginning to assess the possible consequence of his escapade.

‘He's probably only a spoilt brat who has gone too far and is now scared of being spanked,’ thought Ash. ‘And if he is playing truant, I'll bet anything that Biju Ram put him up to it… I must find out about his family. About all of them. I should have done it before…’

The little prince had begun on introductions, and Ash found himself greeting Biju Ram and exchanging the few formal sentences suitable to the occasion before passing on to the next in line. Ten minutes later the interview was over and he was outside in the semi-darkness, and shivering a little, not only because the night air struck cool after the heat in the over-lighted tent. He drew a deep, shuddering breath of relief as though he had escaped from a trap, and was ashamed to discover that his palms were sore where his nails had pressed into them – though he had not even realized until this moment that he had been holding his hands tightly clenched.

That night his tent had been pitched under a banyan tree, some fifty yards beyond the perimeter of the camp and screened from it by the cluster of smaller tents that housed his personal servants. Passing these, he changed his mind about sending for one of the Karidkote clerks, because Mahdoo was sitting out in the open smoking his hookah, and it occurred to Ash that by this time the old man had probably picked up as much information about the royal family of Karidkote as any denizen of that state. Mahdoo enjoyed gossiping, and as he came into contact with many people whom Ash did not meet, he heard things that are not usually spoken of to Sahibs.

Ash paused beside the old man and said in an undertone: ‘Come and talk with me in my tent, Cha-cha (uncle), I need advice. There are also many things that it may be you can tell me. Give me your hand. I will carry the hookah.’

A hurricane lamp with the wick turned low had been left hanging in Ash's tent, but he preferred to sit outside under the narrow awning, from where he could look out past the dense shadows of the banyan tree to the wide plain that lay beyond it, dim in the starlight. Mahdoo squatted comfortably on his hunkers while Ash, impeded by mess dress, had to content himself with a camp chair.

‘What is it that you would know,
beta
(son) ?’ inquired the old man, using the familiar address of long ago, which was something that he did very rarely in these days.

Ash did not reply to the question immediately, but was silent for a space, listening to the soothing bubble of the hookah and arranging his thoughts. At last he said slowly: ‘Firstly, I would know what connection there is between this Maharajah of Karidkote, whose sisters we take to their wedding and whose brother travels with us, and a certain Rajah of Gulkote. There must be one, I am sure of that.’

‘But of course,’ said Mahdoo, surprised. ‘They are one and the same. The territories of His Highness of Karidarra adjoined those of his cousin the Rajah of Gulkote, and when His Highness died, leaving no heir, the Rajah left for Calcutta to lay claim before the
Lat
-Sahib himself to the lands and titles of his cousin. There being no one nearer in blood, it was granted to him, and the two states were merged into one and re-named Karidkote. How is it that you did not know this?’

‘Because I am blind – and a fool!’ Ash's voice was barely more than a whisper, but it held a concentrated bitterness that startled Mahdoo. ‘I was angry because I knew that the Generals in Rawalpindi were only using this appointment as a pretext to send me further away from my friends and the Frontier, so I would not even take the trouble to ask questions, or to find out anything. Anything at all!’

‘But why should it matter to you who these princely folk are? What difference does it make?’ asked the old man, troubled by Ash's vehemence. Mahdoo had never been told the story of Gulkote. Colonel Anderson had advised against it on the grounds that the fewer people who knew that tale the better, as the boy's life might depend on his trail being lost. It was the one thing that Ash had been forbidden to mention before Ala Yar or Mahdoo, and he did not wish to go into it now. He said instead:

‘One should know all that one can about those under one's charge, for fear of… of giving offence through ignorance. But tonight I have been made to realize that I know nothing at all. Not even… When did the old Rajah die, Mahdoo? And who is this old man whom they say is his brother?’

‘The Rao-Sahib? He is a half-brother only: the elder son by some two years, though being the son of a concubine he could not inherit the
gadi
(throne), which went to a younger son whose mother was the Rani. But all the family have always held him in great affection and respect. As for the Rajah – the Maharajah – he died some three years ago, I think. It is his son, the brother of the Rajkumaries, who now sits on the
gadi
in his place.’

‘Lalji,’ said Ash in a whisper.

‘Who?’

‘The eldest son. That was his milk-name. But he would have been –’ Ash stopped, remembering suddenly that the District Officer had spoken of the Maharajah of Karidkote as only a boy and ‘not yet seventeen’.

‘Nay, nay. This is not the son of the first wife, but a younger one: the second son. The first one died of a fall some years before his father. It is said that he was playing with a monkey on the walls of the palace and fell and was killed. It was an accident,’ said Mahdoo; and added softly: ‘– or so they say.’

‘
An accident
,’ thought Ash. The same kind of accident that had so nearly happened before. Had it been Biju Ram who pushed him over to his death? Or Panwa, or… Poor Lalji! Ash shuddered, visualizing that last hideous moment of terror and the long, long fall onto the rocks below. Poor Lalji poor little Yuveraj. So they had done for him at last and the
Nautch
-girl had won. It was her son, Nandu, the spoilt brat who had been banished, shrieking, on the occasion of Colonel Byng's visit to Gulkote, who was now Maharajah of the new State of Karidkote. And Lalji was dead…