The Far Pavilions (61 page)

But the minutes had passed and there was still no sign of the missing riders. Old Budoo, the driver, had backed the
ruth
as far as it would go between the rocks, and unyoking his bullocks had edged them past and tethered them in the cramped space behind it, after which he pulled out the rugs, shawls and bolsters that had cushioned the Rajkumaries and their women against jolting, and fastened them to form a rough-and-ready screen against the dust and sand that was roaring down on them. The smell of it was already in the air and now they could hear it; but still Kaka-ji waited, hoping to see horses galloping towards him. It was only when the bow-wave of dust struck the far side of the hillock of rock where they refuged that he allowed Budoo to drag him into the
ruth;
and there, deafened and half stifled, the two old men had crouched together while the storm raged outside.

Kaka-ji's account of his own sufferings was vivid in the extreme, and he had enjoyed telling it. But he too was uncertain how long the storm had lasted, and when it had passed and all was quiet again, he and Budoo had both fallen asleep and had not woken until the sky was beginning to pale. They had intended, he said, to set out in search of his niece and the Sahib, for whose safety he entertained the gravest fears, imagining that they would have been caught out in the open with no form of shelter; but they had barely started when they had heard the Sahib shouting aloud.

He had seen no reason to doubt Ash's story and he had not thought to question his niece, for having experienced all the discomforts of the storm himself, he was convinced that nothing of an improper nature could possibly have occurred between them. Not even the lustiest of men and the most ardent of young women would be likely to think of such things – let alone put them into practice – while fighting for breath with a cloth over the head, and eyes, mouth and nostrils full of grit. In Kaka-ji's opinion, a dust-storm was a more efficient guarantee of proper behaviour than a dozen duennas, though this did not prevent him from impressing on Anjuli that she must on no account let anyone suspect that she had not spent the night in the
ruth
. Not even Shu-shu.

‘For you are shortly to be wedded,’ said Kaka-ji, ‘and it is most unseemly for a bride to go apart with any man, even if he be a Sahib. There are too many loose-tongued people who delight in slander, and if evil things were to be whispered about you, both the Rana and your brother would be gravely displeased. Therefore you will say only that you reached the
ruth
just as the storm struck, and stayed in it all night. And I and the Sahib and old Budoo will say the same.’

Anjuli could only nod wordlessly. She was too tired to speak – too tired to feel grateful for the way in which fate had played into her hands by letting her get caught in the storm with Ashok and then sending her uncle to save them both from scandal. Too tired even to think…

It was much lighter now, and presently, as the sun rose and a bright golden ray pierced between the embroidered curtains and lit up the dusty interior of the
ruth
, she fell asleep, and was still sleeping when they arrived at the camp.

Roused by Kaka-ji with the reassuring news that Shushila was safe, she stumbled out into the arms of Geeta and was instantly hurried off to bed.

25

The arrival of the
ruth
had created a small stir, but no more than that. For Ash had guessed right: the camp had been too badly hit for anyone to waste much thought on a single unusual incident when more than a hundred startling ones clamoured for attention.

Even the sudden and melodramatic return on the previous evening of Mulraj and the youngest bride had passed virtually unnoticed, for by then the whole camp was in a ferment and taking frantic measures to withstand the storm. Tent-pegs were being hammered home and guy-ropes tightened, and everything that was liable to be blown away was being battened down or otherwise secured. Syces, bullock-drivers and herdsmen were seeing to the safety of their animals, while the elephants had been hurried across the river and shackled to the stout trunks of a grove of palm trees in case they should grub up their pickets in panic and run amok through the camp.

Few people had leisure to spare even a glance for Mulraj and Shushila, galloping between the embattled tents only minutes before the storm whirled down upon the camp. And while it raged they could only crouch down under cover, with their mouths and noses bandaged against the dust, or struggle grimly to prevent their tents and carts and make-shift shelters from blowing away or being overturned.

When at last it was over, the havoc it had caused was so great that there was no time to think of anything but how to repair the damage, and the arrival of the brides'
ruth
shortly after sunrise, bearing the Rajkumari Anjuli and her uncle (who had been caught by the storm while out on the plain), had been greeted with relief, but aroused little curiosity. There were, as Ash had surmised, too many other things to think of, and his own arrival, jogging in slowly with the limping mare on a leading rein, had been unspectacular enough to attract no interest except among his own servants.

His tent was still standing, but unlike Anjuli, he had no sleep that day, because the damage to the camp was even worse than he had expected and it was clear that he and Mulraj, and every able-bodied man and woman in the place, were going to have their work cut out to repair it.

Considering the enormous number of men and animals in the bridal retinue, it was a matter for congratulation that only three people had lost their lives in the storm, and of the hundred or so who had been injured, most had received only minor cuts and bruises. The animals had suffered far more severely, for the majority had panicked in the choking dust, and the toll of broken necks and broken bones, and runaways who might or might not be recovered, was high.

Inspecting the incredible profusion of assorted debris, the snapped tent poles, torn canvas and tangled guy-ropes, and the endless drifts of dust and sand that had silted up against the sides of everything that had withstood the gale, Ash could only be grateful for the river, which although it had helped to deluge them with sand, would at least ensure that there was no shortage of water. To have had to contend with that on top of everything else, and in this heat, would have been the last straw. He gave thanks for small mercies, and went off to find Mulraj and discuss ways and means of making good the damage.

A large number of tents had been bodily uprooted or else blown flat on their cowering occupants, but the palace guard had had the sense to dismantle the big durbar tent and use its canvas to reinforce the smaller ones in which Shushila and her women slept. They, and Jhoti with them, had in consequence suffered less discomfort than anyone else, and had never been in any real danger. But as they did not know this, they made the most of their experiences, with the result that Anjuli, who had expected to face a barrage of questions, found to her relief that they were all far more interested in telling her everything that had happened to them, and there had been no need for her to tell lies. Or, indeed, to say anything at all, for all that had been required of her was to listen.

‘You were lucky to have been out of it and safe in the
ruth
,’ Shu-shu told her, voicing the opinion of everyone present except Jhoti, who commiserated with her for missing the fun.

‘You've no idea how exciting it was, Kairi!’ declared Jhoti. ‘The tent flapped and flapped and the dust came pouring up under it, and I made Shu-shu get under my
charpoy
(bedstead), and covered it with shawls because she howled and cried and said that the roof would fall on us and we should all be smothered. Such a fuss.’

‘I did not
howl
!’ protested Shu-shu angrily.

‘Yes, you did – like a jackal. Like six jackals!’

‘I did not!’

‘You
did!
’… The conversation relapsed into bickering, and neither then nor at any other time did anyone bother to ask Anjuli where she had been when the storm broke, and how or when she had managed to get back to Kaka-ji and the
ruth.

There were to be no more evening rides, or any further meetings in the durbar tent. Both Ash and Mulraj were too busy to spare any time for social gatherings, and as Jhoti followed them about the camp all day, chattering incessantly and convinced that he was giving valuable assistance, he was tired enough by nightfall to welcome the prospect of early bed, which left only Kaka-ji, who continued to drop in for a chat with his nieces, but found it dull without the others, and did not stay long.

As though in apology for that unseasonable storm, the weather improved out of all knowledge. The day-time temperatures fell below ninety, while the nights were once again cool. But no one was prepared to risk getting caught by another dust-storm, and men toiled like galley slaves to repair the damage and get the camp ready to move again. And not only for fear of a second storm, for by now the vast majority were tired of this nomadic existence and only too anxious to stay in one place for a time, and to enjoy the fleshpots of Bhithor and all the festivities that would attend the wedding.

Most of the errant livestock had been rounded up, fresh fodder had been procured and food supplies, though still low, were adequate, Ash having ranged far afield to supplement the meagre amounts that the near-by villages, also hard hit by the storm, had been able to spare them. The camp rang with the sound of hammers and saws as tent poles and vehicles were repaired, but with the best will in the world it was obviously going to be at least a week before the order to march could be given.

It had, in fact, taken a little more than that, eight days, to be precise, and in all that time Ash had not had a glimpse of Juli, or of Shushila either. He had been too busy. But Kaka-ji and Jhoti gave him scraps of news about them, and he told himself that as soon as the camp was on the move again he would make a point of seeing them, if only to make his peace with Juli. That was something he could do no matter how many other people were present; there were words and ways that she would understand, and he could not endure the thought of parting from her without her knowing that he was sorry for being unkind to her, and that he would love her all his life. It was unthinkable to let her go without another word and with the bitter memory of his churlishness unerased, though had it not been for that, he would have avoided seeing her again, since to do so would only be driving a knife further into his own heart. And into hers also.

Ash had imagined that an opportunity to pay a call at the durbar tent would soon present itself, but there had been no suggestion that he should go there, and when he mentioned the matter to Kaka-ji, the old man had shrugged it aside and said that there was no need to trouble himself. ‘You would find it very dull. My nieces are busy preparing for their arrival in Bhithor, and can talk of nothing now but what saris and which jewels they will wear.’

That did not sound like Juli, and Ash had been unable to resist saying so. Kaka-ji had agreed, but said with a chuckle that although it was Shu-shu who was exercised in her mind over the question of dress, he suspected Kairi of fostering it as a means of keeping her sister's mind off other matters. ‘And she is quite right,’ approved Kaka-ji. ‘Anything that will distract Shu-shu's attention and keep her from tears and bewailing is a good thing for us all.’

Jhoti had echoed his uncle's opinion (though in cruder words as he had little sympathy with ‘all this silly fussing about what to wear’) while Mulraj had hinted that it might be better, now that they were so near Bhithor, for both the Sahib and himself to keep their distance from the durbar tent, as the Rana was known to be a stickler for etiquette.

Indirect methods having failed, Ash sent to ask when he might call upon the Rajkumaries, and received a flowery but evasive reply, intimating that Shushila-Bai did not feel strong enough at the moment to entertain visitors, and would therefore have to postpone the honour of receiving him until a later day. The refusal had been sweetened with a great many compliments; but it remained a refusal. Did Juli too, like Mulraj, consider it advisable for her sister and herself to retire into strict purdah now that they were almost within reach of their future husband's territory? Or did she really intend not to see him again? Either way it would mean that he would now never be able to put things right between them, and that the memory of the manner in which they had parted would be an unhealed wound all his days: a punishment – and a just one.

But he had misjudged Anjuli. It was not in her nature to be unforgiving, and she had not blamed him for that sudden repulsion. She had understood the reason for it as clearly as though he had spoken his thoughts aloud, and she knew him too well to imagine that it would last, or that he would not regret it; and perhaps wonder, too, if she blamed him. Well, there was still a way of telling him that she did not. A very simple one.

One evening, at the end of a long, tiring day in the saddle, a basket of oranges had been handed to Ash by one of the royal servants who explained that it was a gift from the Rajkumari Anjuli-Bai. The Rajkumari regretted that her sister's health prevented them from receiving the Sahib, but trusted that the Sahib himself would remain in excellent health, and that he would enjoy the fruit. Ash looked down at the oranges, and suddenly his heart was thudding violently and for a dizzy moment it was all he could do not to snatch the basket from the man's hands, and search it there and then for the message he was sure it would contain. But he managed to control himself, and having rewarded the bearer, carried the basket into his tent, and spilling the oranges onto his bed, found nothing.

But something must be there, otherwise why should Juli, of all people, have bothered to send him a conventional gift of fruit? It was not in character, and the polite verbal message that accompanied it had certainly not contained a hidden meaning. Ash picked up the oranges and examined them one by one. The skin of the fifth bore a small mark, as though a sharp knife had cut into it, and he broke it open and was immediately lifted out of despair. The malaise of the past days, the pain of guilt and self-loathing and the ache of loss were suddenly eased as he looked down at Juli's message, and felt hope return to him and the tiredness and strain fall away and be forgotten.

She had not written to him. There had been no need to, for she had sent him something that said more than the longest letter could have done. The half of the little mother-of-pearl fish that she had given him once before on the night that he had escaped from Gulkote.

Ash stood for a long time looking at it; not seeing it, because he was reliving that night. Remembering the silence and the fear and the whispering, urgent voices: seeing again the moonlight shimmering on the snow peaks of the Dur Khaima and flooding the Queen's balcony with a cold radiance that glinted on the pearl in Hira Lal's ear and turned to silver a little slip of carved shell that was Juli's most precious possession.

She had given it to him because he was her bracelet-brother, and to bring him luck; and because she loved him. And he had broken it in two and told her that they would each keep half, and that one day, when he came back, they would mend it and make it whole again. And now she sent him back his half, knowing that he would understand what she meant… that they themselves were still two halves of a whole, and that while they lived there would always be the hope that perhaps one day, far in the future and when their actions had ceased to be of any importance to anyone else, they might even be able to come together again. It was a tenuous hope at best; but to have any at all was like coming upon a spring of fresh water after wandering for days in a burning desert. And even if it were never realized, the piece of pearl-shell was in itself a tangible proof that Juli still loved him, and that she had forgiven him everything.

Ash touched it as gently as though it were a sentient thing, and saw it through a haze of tears. And it was only when his sight cleared that he realized that Juli had not sent him back the piece that he had originally possessed, but her own. The half that she had worn for so many years above her heart in the warm hollow between her breasts, and that still held the scent of her skin: a faint, faint fragrance of dried rose-petals. It was an additional message from her, as loving and as intimate as a kiss, and he held it to his cheek and was immeasurably comforted.