The Far Pavilions (54 page)

The dawn light was flooding across the plain by the time he reached his tent, and Mahdoo, snoring peacefully, did not stir as he stepped over him. The lamp that hung from the tent pole had burned out, but he did not need it now; there was enough light to see by, and he stowed the rifle and the broken
lathi
under the bed, and having removed his shoes and coat, lay down in his shirt sleeves and was instantly asleep.

There had seemed no point in arousing Mahdoo, and it had not occurred to Ash that he would give the old gentleman the fright of his life, for he had not yet seen his own face in a looking-glass and had no idea of the spectacle he presented. But Mahdoo, waking half an hour later in the clear light of early morning and entering the tent to see if the Sahib had returned, imagined for one nightmare moment that he was looking at a corpse, and very nearly suffered a heart-attack on the spot.

Reassured by the sound of breathing, he tottered out to fetch Gul Baz, who came running and after a short inspection declared that there was no need for anxiety, as the Sahib was obviously not badly hurt.

‘I think he has only been in a brawl,’ observed Gul Baz reassuringly. ‘Those marks on his cheeks are such as are made by finger-nails and little stones. Also there is not much blood on the cloth about his head, and he is sleeping peacefully. It would be wiser not to wake him, and later we will get a piece of raw goat's meat to bind over his eye to reduce the discoloration and the swelling.’

The raw meat had been duly applied to an eye that by then had turned every colour of the rainbow, and may conceivably have done it some good. The rest of Ash's injuries were equally superficial and faded quickly, and within a week there was nothing to show that he had been in a fight but the ghost of a black eye and a faint scar that might have been mistaken for a frown line on his forehead. But however quickly these faded, the marks had been there and the man he had fought must have had similar ones: gravel rash, at least, and with luck an impressive collection of bruises, which should make it a simple matter to identify him.

It had not, however, been at all simple, because Ash had overlooked something: the fact that in a camp as vast as this one, any number of men incurred minor injuries every day of the week, and though the majority of cuts and bruises were due to carelessness or the normal hazards of daily life, a great many were acquired as a result of arguments that had ended in fights: ‘and as for Gunga Dass,’ reported Mahdoo, ‘it seems that his wife and his wife's mother, finding that he had spent much money on one of the harlots, attacked him with cooking pots and broke a
chatti
on his head. Then there is Ram Lalla who…’

There were many such tales; too many. ‘Were there only a hundred men in the camp, it would be a different matter,’ said Mulraj. ‘But there are thousands, and even if we should find the man we seek, he is sure to have a tale ready and a dozen witnesses to swear to its truth and tell how he came by such injuries; and who could disprove it?’

The only thing that had been easily proved was the ownership of the rifle, because as Ash had surmised, it was no old-fashioned musket but a modern, precision-made weapon, a Westley-Richards sporting rifle, capable of great accuracy up to a range of four hundred yards. He had felt sure that there could be few weapons of this type in the camp, and in this too he had been right: there was only one. His own.

To find that he had very nearly been murdered by his own rifle annoyed him even more than the attempt itself. The colossal impertinence of it added insult to injury, and he promised himself that when he found the man he would give him the thrashing of a lifetime. But the fact that the rifle had been removed from his tent under Mahdoo's very nose, and without one of his servants hearing a sound, was perhaps the most disturbing part of the affair, for it showed that he had little or no protection against assassination, and proved what he had already suspected: that someone, or possibly several people, had been keeping a close watch on him.

His attacker had obviously seen him start out last night, unarmed except for a
lathi
, and having overheard enough to know that he had intended to be away for several hours had been sufficiently cunning to realize the opportunity this offered. He must have seen the servants retire and Mahdoo settle down at the tent door to keep watch, and once the old man fell asleep it could not have been difficult to creep in at the back without disturbing him. The hurricane lamp would have been burning, but it would have been turned down low, providing only a glimmer of light that would have been enough to enable the thief to move without noise. And once in possession of the rifle he had only to leave as he had come, and following the same route that Ash had taken, lie up in the gully to wait, in the sure knowledge that his quarry would return that way.

Once again it occurred to Ash to wonder how many people had seen Juli come to his tent, and the very thought of it made him cold with fear and anger and a sudden sickening apprehension. If that attempt on his life had been on Juli's account, then he had made a serious mistake in mentioning it at all – let alone discussing it in detail with Mahdoo and Gul Baz and Mulraj, and speculating with them as to the possible reasons for it. He should have kept his mouth shut and invented some plausible story of a fall in the dark to account for that black eye and the other souvenirs of the night.

But then he had been in no state to concoct lies, or even consider whether or not to tell the truth when he had awakened late in the day, after hours of exhausted slumber, to find Mulraj staring down at him in frowning concern while Mahdoo and Gul Baz hovered anxiously in the background. He had merely explained the circumstances, and it had been the sight of his own face in the glass that had prompted him to remark that all they had to do was to keep a look-out for someone who bore similar marks – a man of medium height and inclined to plumpness, who was known to be a good marksman and…

It was at this point that Ash, turning towards his bed with the intention of producing the rifle, was side-tracked by a suggestion from Gul Baz that inquiries among the
dhobis
might prove profitable since one of them might remember washing a garment that was badly torn and stained. Ash had agreed, but the reference to washing reminded him that he himself was sorely in need of a bath, and as it was now late afternoon and he had eaten nothing since the previous evening, that he could also do with a meal.

The two servants had hurried off to see to the matter, and as luck would have it, a
bheesti
began to pour the bath just as Ash was groping under the bed for the rifle, with the result that he did not even look at it, but handed it to Mulraj and continued the conversation from the far side of a canvas partition while splashing in the tub and shaving.

Mulraj agreed that there could be few such weapons in the camp and that it should be a simple matter to trace the owner. ‘For it is of the same pattern as the one that you yourself use to shoot black-buck. An
Angrezi
rifle,’ said Mulraj, and replaced it under the bed. He was far more intrigued by the
lathi,
and after examining it, declared that the Sahib had clearly been born under a lucky star, for the bullet had struck one of the narrow iron rings that strengthened the stout bamboo, and with such force that although it had been deflected, the ring was almost flattened and the bamboo inside it reduced to a pulp. ‘The gods were surely on your side last night,’ commented Mulraj, and left, promising to lose no time in setting a few private inquiries on foot. So it was not until a full hour later, when Ash had dressed and done justice to a large and satisfying meal, that a closer inspection of the rifle disclosed its ownership; and by then it was too late for second thoughts.

He could hardly tell Mulraj, or even Mahdoo, that he had changed his mind and no longer wanted any help in tracking down the man who had tried to murder him, for they would want to know why; and the truth would not serve, because he could not explain that he was afraid that they might also uncover a motive – a motive for murder that had nothing whatever to do with Jhoti or jealousy (or even the fact that he, Pelham-Sahib, had once been a boy called Ashok) but was solely concerned with the Rajkumari Anjuli-Bai and the honour of the royal houses of Karidkote and Bhithor…

It was a relief when both Mahdoo and Mulraj discovered, separately, that to try and find a man with a scratched and bruised face in a camp numbering close on eight thousand was like looking for one particular windfall in an apple-orchard after a stormy night. And also when Gul Baz's investigation failed for the same reason (according to the
dhobis
, so much clothing became torn and stained on the march that it was impossible to keep count of it).

Any inquiries, however artfully pursued, would inevitably arouse curiosity, and Ash was now thankful that he had not also thought to hand Gul Baz a piece of evidence that some
dhobi
might well have recognized. But then he himself had not realized – or not until much later – that the strip of pewter-grey cloth that he had used as a bandage was not his, but part of the man's clothing – the entire left front of a thin cotton coat that had torn away in his hands, and by doing so allowed his assailant to escape.

He must have tied it about his head without thinking, and on removing it, thrown it aside and never noticed it again until after he had found out about the rifle; by which time he could only feel grateful that no one else had shown any interest in it either, for the colour and material – a handwoven mixture of cotton and silk in two shades of grey that produced a ‘shot’ effect – was a valuable clue, and as such, the fewer people who knew about it, and the sooner it was destroyed, the better.

From now on he would keep quiet about any new clues, and with luck the investigation that he had so rashly set on foot would come to nothing, and the whole affair be forgotten – except by himself, for he had every intention of trying to discover the identity of the man who had attempted to kill him. But he would do it without assistance; this was something he must handle alone or not at all, and if the incident had done nothing else, it had at least forced him to make up his mind about Juli… he supposed he should be grateful for that.

The absurd, unformed hopes that had lurked for so long at the back of his mind, and that only yesterday had crystallized with startling suddenness in an urgent problem that must be solved without delay – all the fears and the wild plans that he had taken out onto the plain to wrestle with for the whole of one long night and carried back with him, still unresolved – had been settled by a bullet fired from his own gun; because it had brought home to him, as nothing else could have done, that he had been right to be afraid for Juli.

Ash had not been blind to the dangers of his own position in the camp, for unlike too many of his countrymen (and most of his countrywomen), who had already forgotten the lessons of the Mutiny, he knew that India as a whole had little love for the Raj. India had always respected strength, and she accepted the realities of power and was prepared to tolerate, if not enjoy, a situation that there seemed little prospect of putting an end to at present – and that on the whole happened to suit her fairly well. But she was like a bamboo thicket that sways to every breeze and bends gracefully before a gale yet never breaks, and hides among its canes a sleeping tiger that may awake at any moment, and kill.

As the sole representative of the authority of the Raj and the only European in camp, Ash's position was bound to be a little precarious, and he had taken certain precautions to safeguard himself. The siting of his tent, for instance, and its position in relation to his servants and his horses; the fact that he slept with a revolver under his pillow and an Afghan knife on the table by his bed, and that once his tent was pitched one or other of his servants would always be on guard unless he himself were in it. Yet despite all this his tent had been entered and his rifle stolen, and he himself had been spied upon, followed and ambushed as easily as though he had been a child, or a sheep. He meant to be a great deal more careful in future, but he knew that the advantage would always lie with the enemy, who could choose his time while he, the victim, even though forewarned, could not be perpetually on guard and suspicious of everyone. Sooner or later, not knowing who to suspect, there would come a time when the guard would be dropped; and then…

It was not his own body that Ash visualized lying sprawled and bleeding in the dust, but Juli's. And he knew that he could not bring her to her death. He must do nothing to prevent her marriage to the Rana, and perhaps after all she would find a measure of happiness in motherhood, if in nothing else, though that thought still stabbed as cruelly as a dagger in the heart. But to picture Juli lying dead was infinitely worse; and at least in Bhithor she would be with Shushila, and as a Rani – even a Junior Rani she would possess a certain amount of influence and considerable prestige, and live in comfort surrounded by waiting-women and servants. Her life might not be too unbearable, and though at first she would miss the mountains, the memory of them would fade; and in time she would forget the Peacock Tower and the Queen's balcony. And Ashok.

Juli would accept her fate and endure it without complaint. And at the worst, it would be better than death, for as long as one was alive there still was a chance, even though it might only be what Wally termed ‘a fighting chance’ – a chance of being able to twist fate to suit one's purpose, of making something out of the impossible, a chance that life might take a sudden unexpected turn, and disaster become victory. But to die and be buried, or burned… that was for the old, not for someone young and strong and beautiful, like Juli. Yet if she were to run away with him now, death would catch up with them very quickly.

They should have gone earlier, while they were still in British India… but it was too late to think of that now, and even if they had done so it would only have meant postponing the inevitable a little longer. Ash had not forgotten how the
Nautch
-girl's henchmen had once hunted him throughout the length and breadth of the peaceful Punjab, where there were British troops in a dozen cantonments and a police-post in every village, and he knew that they would almost certainly have caught him in the end if the Guides and Colonel Anderson had not turned him into a Sahib and whisked him out of the country.