The Far Pavilions (101 page)

The crowded terraces and the close-packed masses below stirred and swayed like a field of corn when a gust of wind blows over it, and the babble broke out again, less noisily than before, but so fraught with anticipation that the very air of the hot afternoon seemed to vibrate to the tension that gripped the waiting crowds.

The hum of voices drowned those distant sounds, making it impossible to hear them or to judge how long it would be before the cortège reached the grove. Half an hour, perhaps? The distance by road between the
Mori
Gate and the grove was less than a mile and a half, though the sound of the conches had not to travel so far, it being considerably less as the crow flies. But then Ash had no way of knowing how far the procession had come already. The trees and the
chattris,
the dust and the heat-haze made it impossible to see the road, and it might be nearer than he supposed.

The only thing that he could be sure of was that it would come very slowly, because of the crowds who would press forward to throw garlands upon the bier and make obeisance to the dead man's widows, struggling to touch the hems of their saris as they passed, begging for their prayers and stooping to kiss the ground they had trodden on… Yes, it would be a slow business. And even when the cortège reached the burning-ground there would still be plenty of time, for he had taken the trouble to learn all that he could of the rites that would be performed.

Tradition dictated that a suttee should wear her wedding-dress and also deck herself with her finest jewels; but not that it was necessary for her to take such valuable things into the flames. One must, after all, be practical. This meant that Juli would first strip off all her glittering ornaments. The rings, bracelets, earrings, pins and anklets, the necklaces and brooches that had been part of her dowry – all must be removed. After which she must wash her hands in Ganges water and walk three times round the pyre before she mounted it. There would be no need for haste and he would be able to choose his moment.

Only half an hour more… perhaps less. Yet all at once it seemed an eternity and he could not wait to have it over and be done with it. To be done with everything –!

And then, without warning, the incredible thing happened:

Someone clutched his arm, and supposing it to be his talkative neighbour he turned impatiently on him, and saw that the garrulous gentleman had been elbowed out of his place by one of the palace servants, and that it was this man who had hold of his arm. In the same moment it flashed across his mind that his purpose must have been discovered, and instinctively he tried to jerk free, but could not because of the wall at his back, and because the grip on his arm had tightened. Before he could move again, a familiar voice spoke urgently from behind the concealing folds of muslin that covered the lower part of the man's face: ‘It is I, Ashok. Come with me. Hurry.’

‘
Sarji!
What are you doing here? I told you –’

‘Be quiet,’ muttered Sarji, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder. ‘Do not talk. Only follow me.’

‘No.’ Ash tore at the clutching fingers and said in a furious undertone: ‘If you think you can stop me, you are wasting your time. Nothing and no one is going to stop me now. I meant every word I said, and I'm going to go through with it, so –’

‘But you cannot; she is here.
Here
– with the Hakim.’

‘Who is? If this is a trick to get me away…’ he stopped short because Sarji had thrust something into his hand. Something thin and small and hard. A broken sliver of mother-of-pearl carved in the semblance of a fish…

Ash stared down at it, dazed and disbelieving. And Sarji seized the opportunity to draw him away and drag him, unresisting, through the close-packed crowd that gave them right of way only because of the dress that Sarji wore: the famous saffron, scarlet and orange of a palace servant.

Behind the mass of spectators, a number of soldiers of the State Forces were keeping a path clear between the side exit from the terrace and the stairway leading up to the screened second storey of the central pavilion. But they too recognized the palace colours and let the two men through.

Sarji turned right, and without relaxing his grip on Ash's arm, made for a flight of stairs that plunged downward into shadow and ended at ground level in a short tunnel similar to that in which Dagobaz had been tethered. Only privileged spectators had been permitted to use this route, and there was no one on the stairs, the guards being outside the entrance – those below watching for the cortège and those on the terrace holding back the public. Half-way down there was a break in one wall where a low doorway led into a narrow, dog-leg passage that presumably came out by the central tank, and there was no one here either, for the same reason. Sarji plunged into it, and releasing Ash, loosened the wide end of the muslin turban that had been swathed across his face, and leant against the wall, breathing fast and unsteadily as though he had been running.

‘
Wah
!’ gasped Sarji, mopping the sweat from his face. ‘That was easier than I expected. Let us hope the rest will be.’ He stooped and picked up a bundle that lay on the floor. ‘Here, put these on quickly. You too must be one of the
nauker-log
from the Rung Mahal, and there is no time to waste.’

The bundle consisted of clothing similar to his own, and while Ash put them on, Sarji gave him a brief account of what had occurred, speaking in a disjointed and barely audible whisper.

He had, he said, been preparing to leave when Manilal arrived at the charcoal-seller's shop with news that upset all their plans. It seemed that the Senior Rani, realizing that she must die, had determined to use the considerable power and influence that she still possessed to save her half-sister Anjuli-Bai from sharing the same fate. This she had done.

On the previous night she had arranged to have her sister taken secretly from the Rung Mahal to a house outside the city, asking only that Anjuli-Bai should witness the final ceremonies; to which end a screened enclosure would be prepared for her use and she would be taken there on the day of the funeral by a picked band of guards and servants, all of whom had been selected because of their known loyalty to the Senior Rani. Word of all this had been brought that very morning by the serving-woman who had often acted as a go-between, and the Hakim had instantly sent Manilal to fetch the Sahib – only to find that the Sahib had already gone.

‘So we went back on foot to the Hakim's house,’ said Sarji, ‘and it was he who devised all this. He even had the clothing in readiness, because, he said, it occurred to him many moons ago that one day he might have to escape from Bhithor – and how better to do this than in the guise of one of the palace servants, who go everywhere without question? So he caused Manilal to buy cloth in the bazaar and to make two sets for their use, in case of need. And later, thinking that he might be able to take one or both of the Ranis with him, two more; and then a fifth and sixth, in case there should be more from Karidkote who would go. We put on those clothes and came here, no one preventing us and – are you ready? Good. See that the end of the turban does not slip down and betray you. Now follow me – and pray to your God that we are not questioned.’

They had not been. The affair had been absurdly easy, for the beauty of Gobind's scheme lay in the fact that the Rung Mahal and the various other royal palaces of Bhithor swarmed with servants; many more than could possibly have been necessary, and certainly too many for any one of them to know more than a third of the others by sight even when they were not on duty and able to leave their faces uncovered. Also on this occasion there was too much of interest going on for the guards on the terrace to notice that two men wearing the dress of royal servants had come up the stairs where only one had gone down.

After the semi-darkness of the passage below, the glare was so intense that Ash had to screw up his eyes against the sunlight as he followed Sarji into the lower storey of the main pavilion, where half-a-dozen members of the Rana's personal bodyguard had been posted to see that the public did not enter. But these too took no interest in a pair of palace servants, and Sarji walked boldly past them and up a curving stairway that led to the second storey, where purdah screens hung between the open archways.

Ash, a pace behind him, could hear him muttering beneath his breath, and realized that he was praying – presumably in thankfulness. Then they had reached the top and Sarji was holding aside a heavy curtain and motioning him to enter.

42

The make-shift room was cooler than might have been expected.

It was also very dark, for all but one of the split-cane
chiks
that enclosed it were lined with a coarse, brick-red cloth embroidered in black and yellow and sewn with little circles of looking-glass after the fashion of Rajputana. The single exception hung between the two centre pillars facing the burning-ground, its fragile slats letting in the only light and providing an excellent view to anyone looking out, while preventing anyone outside from seeing in.

The shadowy enclosure was roughly fifteen foot square and it appeared to be full of people, some of whom were seated. But Ash saw only one. A slim figure standing a little apart from the rest in an attitude that was curiously rigid, and that suggested, starkly, a captive wild animal immobilized by terror.

Juli
…

He had not really believed it until then. Even after those hasty explanations, and though he held the proof in his hand, he had not been sure that it was not some trick on the part of Sarji and Gobind to lure him away and keep him prisoner until it was all over and too late for him to intervene.

She was standing in front of the unlined
chik
, so that at first he only saw her as a dark figure outlined against the oblong of light: a faceless figure dressed like the others in the garments of a palace servant. Because of those clothes, a stranger entering the room would have taken her for a man. Yet Ash had known her instantly. He would, he thought, have known her even if he had been blind, because the tie between them was stronger than sight and went deeper than externals.

He pulled away the folds of orange and red muslin that had been wrapped about his face, and they looked at each other across the width of that shadowed room. But though Ash had put aside the loose end of his turban, Anjuli did not follow his example, and her face remained hidden except for her eyes.

The beautiful, gold-flecked eyes that he remembered so well were still beautiful – they could never be anything else. But as his own became accustomed to the subdued light he realized that there was neither gladness nor welcome in them, but such a look as might have belonged to the child Kay in Hans Andersen's fairy-story
The Snow Queen,
whose heart had been pierced by a sliver of glass: a blank, frozen look that appalled him.

He started forward to go to her, but was prevented by someone who moved quickly between them and laid a restraining hand on his arm: Gobind, unfamiliar in the same disguise as Juli wore, but with his face uncovered.

‘Ashok,’ said Gobind. He had not raised his voice, but both tone and touch conveyed a warning so vividly that Ash checked, remembering just in time that except for Sarji, and Juli herself, no one present knew that there was anything between the widowed Rani and himself – and must not know it; especially at this juncture, since there was not one of them who would not be as shocked by it as Sarji or Kaka-ji had been, and the situation was dangerous enough already without his making it worse by alienating his allies.

He forced his gaze from Anjuli though it was an effort to do so, and looked instead at Gobind, who permitted himself to draw a deep breath of relief – he had feared that the Sahib was about to shame the Rani and embarrass them all by some open demonstration of feeling. That danger at least had been averted, and he withdrew his hand and said: ‘I thank the gods that you have come; there is much to do, and these here will need watching. The woman most of all, for she would scream if she could, and there are a score of guards within hearing – in the pavilion above us, as well as below.’

‘What woman?’ said Ash, who had seen only one.

Gobind gestured with a slim hand and for the first time Ash became aware of the others in the curtained room. There were seven of them, not counting Manilal, and only one of these was a woman – presumably a waiting-woman of Juli's. The obese, slug-like man whose pallid cheeks and numerous chins were as smooth as a baby's could only be one of the Zenana eunuchs, and for the rest, two from their dress were palace servants, another two troopers of the State Forces, and one a member of the Rana's bodyguard. All of them were seated on the floor, and all had been gagged and trussed up like fowls – except the last, who was dead. He had been stabbed through the left eye, and the handle of the stiletto-like knife that had been driven into his brain still protruded from the wound.

Gobind's work, thought Ash. No one else would have known how to strike with such deadly accuracy, and it was the only vulnerable spot. The surcoat of chain-mail and the heavy leather helmet with its deep fringe of linked metal would have deflected any attack on the wearer's head, throat or body. There had been only one chance…

‘Yes,’ said Gobind, answering the unspoken question. ‘We could not stun him with a blow on the head as we had done with the others, so it was necessary to kill him. Besides, he spoke through the curtain to the eunuch, not knowing that we had the creature safely tied, and from what he said, it became plain that there are those who mean to see that Anjuli-Bai is punished for escaping the fire and thereby failing to do her duty as a Rani of Bhithor. She is not to be allowed to return to Karidkote or retire to one of the smaller palaces, but will go back to the Women's Quarters of the Rung Mahal, where she will spend the rest of her life. And lest she should find that life too pleasant, it has been arranged that as soon as her sister, the Senior Rani, is dead and can no longer intervene to save her, her eyes are to be put out.’

Ash caught his breath in a choking gasp as though the air had been driven from his lungs, and Gobind said grimly: ‘Yes, you may well stare. But that is what was planned. The brazier is out there in readiness, and the irons too; and once the pyre was well alight the thing would have been done – here, in this place and by those two, the eunuch and that carrion who lies there with my knife in his brain, the woman and these others helping. When I think of it I am sorry that I did not kill them all.’

‘That can be remedied,’ said Ash between his teeth. He was shaken by a cold, killing rage that made him long to get his hands on the fat eunuch's throat, and the woman's too, and choke the life out of them – they and the four others, bound and helpless as they were – because of the inhuman thing they had planned to do to Juli. But Gobind's quiet, commanding voice cut through the murderous fog that filled his brain, and brought him back to sanity.

‘Let them be,’ said Gobind. ‘They are only tools. Those who ordered or bribed them to do this thing will be walking in the funeral procession and beyond the reach of our vengeance. It is not justice to kill the slave who does as he is bid, while the master he obeys goes free. Besides, we have no time for vengeance. If we are to leave here alive we shall need that man's gear, and one of the servants' also. Manilal and I will see to that if you and your friend will watch the prisoners.’

He did not wait for an answer, but turned away and began to remove the dead man' accoutrements, starting with the padded leather helmet that was as yet comparatively free from blood, for he had been careful not to withdraw the knife and the wound had bled very little.

Ash allowed himself a brief glance at Juli, but she was still gazing out at the burning-ground and the waiting multitudes; and with her back towards him she was once again only a dark figure silhouetted against the light. He looked away again, and taking out his revolver, stood guard over the prisoners while Sarji watched the entrance and Gobind and Manilal worked swiftly and methodically, unfastening buckles and stripping off the surcoat, which for all their care was not a silent process.

The chain-mail clashed and clinked against the marble floor and jingled as they handled it, and the noise it made seemed very loud in that constricted space. But the surrounding curtains shut it in, and the sound of the enormous crowd outside was more than enough to cover anything less than a scream – or a shot; it would take a considerable commotion to cover that last, and Ash was well aware that the revolver was useless, for if he fired it the guards and servants on the floors above and below them would come running.

Fortunately the captives did not appear to realize this. The mere sight of it had proved enough to make them stop straining at their bonds and sit very still, their eyes above the clumsy gags white-rimmed with terror and staring fixedly at the unfamiliar weapon in his hand.

Gobind and Manilal finished disrobing the corpse and began to help Sarji remove his palace livery and replace it with the dead man's. ‘It is fortunate that you are of a size in the matter of height,’ observed Gobind, slipping the chain surcoat over his head, ‘though I could wish you were stouter, for that thing there was more heavily built than you. Well, it cannot be helped, and luckily those outside will be too interested in the funeral ceremonies to notice small details.’

‘– we hope,’ amended Sarji with a curt laugh. ‘But what if they do?’

‘If they do, we die,’ said Gobind unemotionally. ‘But I think that we shall live. Now let us see to these –’ he turned his attention to the bound captives and looked them over critically.

The woman's dark-skinned face was green with fear and the eunuch's pallid one twitched and trembled uncontrollably. Neither expected any mercy (and with good reason, since they themselves would have shown none to the widowed Rani), and having seen their fellow-torturer killed, they probably imagined that the manner of it – the swift upward stab through the eye – had been in retaliation for the injury he himself had intended to inflict on the Junior Rani, and that they, as his partners in guilt, would be dealt with in the same way.

They could well have been had it not been for Gobind – and for something that Manilal found hidden among the women's clothing – for neither Sarji nor Ash would have had the least compunction in putting an end to them by that or any other method, if their continued existence in any way threatened Anjuli's safety, or their own. Both were in agreement with Manilal, who said flatly: ‘We had best kill them all: it is no more than they deserve, and no more than they would do to us if they stood in our place. Let us kill them now and thus make certain that they cannot raise an alarm.’

But Gobind had been trained to save life and not to take it, and he would not agree. He had killed the helmeted guard because there had been no other way of silencing him; it had been necessary and he did not regret it. But to kill the others in cold blood would serve no useful purpose (provided that they were secured so that they could not summon help) and would only rank as murder. At this point Manilal, stooping to tighten the woman's bonds, had discovered that she had something hard and bulky hidden in a fold of cloth wrapped about her waist, and removing it, found it to be a necklace of raw gold set with pearls and carved emeralds: a thing of such magnificence that no waiting-woman could possibly have come by it honestly.

Manilal handed it to Gobind with the comment that the she-devil was clearly also a thief, but the woman shook her head in frantic denial, and Gobind said shortly that it was more likely to be a bribe. ‘Look at her’ – she had cringed in her bonds and was staring at him as though hypnotized – ‘this was blood-money, paid in advance for the foul work she had agreed to do.
Pah!
’

He dropped the necklace as though it had been a poisonous snake, and Ash stooped quickly and picked it up. Neither Gobind nor Manilal could possibly have recognized that fabulous jewel, but Ash had seen it twice before: once when the more valuable items listed in the dowries of the brides from Karidkote had been checked in his presence, and again when Anjuli had worn it at the formal departure from the Pearl Palace. He said harshly: ‘There should be two bracelets also. See if the eunuch has them. Quickly.’

The eunuch had not (they were found on the two palace servants) but he had something else that Ash had no difficulty in recognizing: a collar of table-cut diamonds fringed with pearls.

He stood looking at it with unseeing eyes. So the vultures were already dividing the spoils! – the Rana had only died last night, but Juli's enemies had wasted no time in seizing her personal possessions, and had actually used some of her own jewels to bribe her would-be torturers. The irony of that would appeal to someone like the Diwan, who had once hoped to retain her dowry while at the same repudiating her bridal contract and having her returned in disgrace to Karidkote. And from his knowledge of the man and his devious mind, Ash did not believe for a moment that the Diwan would pay such lavish bribes in return for something that he could order to be done for nothing.

It was far more likely that the choice of those jewels had been deliberate, for once the appalling deed had been done, the Diwan would be able to deny all knowledge of it and have the woman and her accomplices arrested. Then, when the jewels were found on them, they could be accused of having blinded the Rani so that she would not discover that they had been stealing her belongings, and they would be condemned to death and garotted. After which he would have nothing to fear, and with his cat's-paws dead, could safely take back the jewels. ‘A neat, Machiavellian piece of treachery in fact,’ thought Ash cynically.