The Far Pavilions (12 page)

Koda Dad's two eldest sons had taken service under the British in that same Corps of Guides that Ash's Uncle William had belonged to, and now only Zarin Khan, the youngest, still remained with his parents, though he too had set his heart on a military career.

Zarin was nearly six years older than Ash, and by Asian standards a grown man. But apart from the difference in height, the two were very alike in build and colouring, for Zarin, like many Pathans, was grey-eyed and fair-skinned. They might easily have been taken for brothers, and indeed Koda Dad treated them as such, addressing them both as ‘my son’ and cuffing them with equal impartiality when he considered that they deserved it: an attention that Ash regarded as an honour, for Koda Dad Khan was a re-incarnation of the friend and hero of his baby days – the shadowy but never-forgotten figure of Uncle Akbar, wise, kind and omniscient.

It was Koda Dad who taught Ash how to fly a hawk and train an unbroken colt, how to spear a tent-peg out of the ground at full gallop with the point of a lance, fire at a moving target and hit it nine times out of ten, and at a stationary one and never miss at all. It was also Koda Dad who lectured him on such matters as the wisdom of keeping his temper and the dangers of impulsiveness, and took him to task for acting or speaking before he thought – a case in point being his attack on the Yuveraj and his threat to leave the palace. ‘Had you held your tongue you might have left when you would, instead of getting yourself penned up in this manner,’ said Koda Dad severely.

Zarin too had been kind to the boy and treated him as a younger brother, cuffing and encouraging in turn, and best of all, Ash was occasionally permitted to accompany them outside the Hawa Mahal, which was almost as good as going alone, for though they too were instructed to see that he did not run away, their manner, unlike that of the Yuveraj's servants, never smacked of the gaoler, and with them he was able to enjoy the illusion of freedom.

Ash had forgotten the Pushtu he had learnt in his father's camp, but now he learned to speak it again because it was the native tongue of Koda Dad and Zarin and, boy-like, he wished to imitate his heroes in all things. He would speak only in Pushtu when in their company, which amused Koda Dad, though it ruffled Sita, who became as jealous of the old Pathan as she had once been of Akbar Khan. ‘He does not worship the gods,’ reproved Sita severely. ‘Also it is well known that all Pathans live by violence. They are thieves, murderers and cattle killers, and it grieves me, Ashok, that you should spend so much time in the company of barbarians. They will teach you bad ways.’

‘Is it bad to ride and shoot and fly a hawk, mother?’ countered Ash, who considered that these accomplishments more than made up for such peccadilloes as murder and theft, and had never been able to see why cattle should be regarded as holy, despite all the teachings of Sita and the admonitions of the priests. If it had been horses now – or elephants or tigers – he could have understood it. But cows –

It was difficult for a small boy to keep track of the gods, when there were so many of them: Brahm, Vishnu, Indra and Shiv, who were the same and yet not the same; Mitra, ruler of the day, and Kali of the skulls and blood who was also Parvati the kind and beautiful; Krishna the Beloved, Hanuman the Ape, and pot-bellied Ganesh with his elephant head who was, strangely, the son of Shiv and Parvati. These and a hundred other gods and godlings must all be propitiated by gifts to the priests. Yet Koda Dad said that there was only one god, whose Prophet was Mohammed. Which was certainly simpler, except that it was sometimes difficult to tell who Koda Dad really worshipped – God or Mohammed – for God, according to Koda Dad, lived in the sky, but his followers must not say their prayers unless they faced in the direction of Mecca, a city where Mohammed had been born. And although Koda Dad spoke scornfully of idols and idol-worshippers, he had told Ash about a sacred stone in Mecca that was regarded as holy by all Muslims and accorded a veneration equal to anything offered by the Hindus to the stone emblems of Vishnu. Ash could see little difference between the two: if one was an idol, so was the other.

Thinking the matter over, and unwilling to go against either Sita or Koda Dad, he decided that it might be better to choose his own idol, there being authority for this – or so it seemed to him – in a prayer that he had heard the priest of the city temple intone before the gods:

‘
Oh Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my

human limitations.

Thou art Everywhere, but I worship thee here:

Thou art without form, but I worship thee in these

forms;

Thou needest no praise, yet I offer thee these

prayers and salutations.

Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my

human limitations.
’

That sounded eminently sensible to Ash, and after some deliberation he selected the cluster of snow peaks that faced the Queen's balcony: a crown of pinnacles that lifted high above the distant ranges like the towers and turrets of some fabulous city, and that were known in Gulkote as the Dur Khaima – the Far Pavilions. He found the mountain a more satisfactory object of devotion than the ugly red-daubed
lingam
that Sita made offerings to, and he could also face towards it when he said his prayers, as Koda Dad faced towards Mecca. Besides, reasoned Ash,
someone
must have made it. Perhaps the same someone whom both Sita and her priests and Koda Dad and his maulvies acknowledged? As a manifestation of the powers of that Being it was worthy of veneration. And it was his own. The personally selected interceder, protector and benefactor of Ashok, son of Sita and servant of his Highness the Yuveraj of Gulkote.
‘Oh Lord,’
whispered Ash, addressing the Dur Khaima:
‘thou art Everywhere, but I worship thee here…’

Once adopted, the beautiful, many-peaked massif acquired a personality of its own, until it almost seemed to Ash that it was a living thing, a goddess with a hundred faces, who, unlike the stone emblems of Vishnu and the shrouded rock in Mecca, took on a different guise with every change and chance of weather and season, and each hour of every day. A gleaming flame in the dawn light and a blaze of silver at mid-day. Gold and rose in the sunset, lilac and lavender in the dusk. Livid against the storm clouds or dark against the stars. And in the months of the monsoon, withdrawing herself behind veil after veil of mist and the steel-grey curtain of the rain.

Nowadays, whenever he visited the Queen's balcony, Ash made a point of taking a handful of grain or a few flowers to lay on the broken ledge as offerings to the Dur Khaima. The birds and squirrels appreciated the grain and in time became surprisingly tame, hopping and scampering over the boy's recumbent form as though he were part of the stonework, and demanding food with the persistence of professional mendicants.

‘Where have you been,
piara
?’ scolded Sita. ‘They have been looking for you, and I told them that you would surely be with the rascally Pathan and his hawks, or in the stables with his good-for-nothing son. Now that you are of the household of the prince it is not seemly that you should go running after such persons.’

‘The servants of the Yuveraj would seem to think I am your keeper,’ grumbled Koda Dad Khan. ‘They come here asking “Where is he? What is he doing? Why is he not here? ” ’

‘Where have you been?’ Lalji would demand petulantly: ‘Biju and Mohan have been searching everywhere for you. I won't have you going off like this. You are my servant. I wanted to play
chaupur
.’

Ash would apologize and say that he had been wandering in one of the gardens or down at the stables or the elephant lines, and then they would play
chaupur
and the matter would be forgotten – until the next time. The Hawa Mahal was so large that it was easy enough to get lost in it, and Lalji knew that the boy could never go outside it alone and would in the end be found. But he still liked to feel that Ashok was near by, for instinct told him that here was one person who could not be bribed or suborned into playing the traitor; though as there had been no more ‘accidents’, he was beginning to think that old Dunmaya's fears for his safety were largely imagination and that Biju Ram might be right when he said that no one, not even the
Nautch
-girl, would dare to harm him. If that were so, then there was no longer any reason to keep Ashok in attendance on him; particularly as he did not find the boy such an amusing companion as Pran or Mohan or Biju Ram, who, though probably untrustworthy and a full ten years older than himself (Biju Ram had turned twenty), were always ready to entertain him with amusingly scandalous stories of the Women's Quarters, or initiate him into various pleasurable vices. In fact if it were not for a strong feeling that Ashok was in some way a talisman against danger, he would have been tempted to dismiss him, because there was often something very like scorn in the younger boy's steady grey gaze, and his refusal to be amused by Biju's salacious wit or the entertaining cruelties of Punwa implied a criticism that was lowering to Lalji's self-esteem. Besides, he was becoming jealous of him.

It had started over Anjuli; though that had been a very minor irritation, for she was only a silly baby and a plain one at that. Had she been a pretty or engaging child he might have regarded her as a rival for his father's affections and hated her – as he hated the
Nautch
-girl and the
Nautch
-girls eldest son, his half-brother, Nandu – but as it was, he remembered the
Feringhi
-Rani's kindness to him, and repaid it by being kind to her daughter and tacitly confirming Ashok in the role of unofficial mentor, bear-leader and protector to that small unripe mango, ‘Kairi-Bai’. But he had been displeased when one of his equerries, Hira Lal, had taken a liking to the boy, and even more displeased when Koda Dad Khan, who was something of a legend to the young bloods of the palace, had done the same thing. For Koda Dad had the ear of the Rajah and he had spoken well of the boy.

The ruler of Gulkote was a large, lethargic man whose excessive fondness for wine, women and opium had drained him of strength and given him, in his early fifties, the appearance of a much older man. He was fond of his eldest son, and would have been shocked beyond words at the very idea that anyone could wish to harm his heir, and unhesitatingly condemned to death even the
Nautch
-girl herself had it been proved to him that she had attempted to take the boy's life. But increasing age and weight had made him dislike trouble, and he had discovered that, whenever he paid any attention to Lalji, trouble with the fascinating Janoo-Bai invariably followed. Wherefore in the interests of peace he saw very little of his eldest son, and Lalji, who loved his father with a burning, jealous love, resented the neglect bitterly, as he resented, too, any word spoken to anyone else during his father's all too brief visits.

The Rajah had only spoken to Ash because Koda Dad had remarked that the boy might be worth training, and also because he seemed to remember something about his having once saved Lalji's life, which entitled him to a little attention. For these reasons he had been gracious to Ash, and would sometimes order his attendance when he rode out to try a new falcon on the game-birds that abounded on the flat lands of the plateau. On these occasions Lalji would sulk and scowl and later take some petty and spiteful revenge, such as keeping Ash in attendance on him for hours on end without allowing him to eat or drink or sit until he was dizzy with fatigue, or, more viciously, driving him to rage by some senseless act of cruelty to one of the pet animals in order to have him beaten for the resulting explosion.