The Far Pavilions (100 page)

As he came nearer Ash could glimpse the saffron-clad figures of priests moving to and fro, and looking towards the city he saw that there were horsemen on the road, riding at a gallop to judge by the dust cloud that rose up behind them and partly obscured the groups of pedestrians that followed in their wake. Presently the twin forts that crowned the hills to the left and right of the city caught the first rays of the sun and flamed red-gold against the cool aquamarine of the sky, and now from every corner of the plain pale smudges of dust told of parties of people converging on the burning-ground in carts and dhoolies, on horseback or on foot. It was clearly time to get to the grove, and obedient to the pressure of Ash's knee, Dagobaz quickened his pace.

Once among the trees on the eastern fringe of the grove, Ash dismounted and led his horse towards the ruins of an ancient
chattri
surmounted by a triple dome. There were several tunnel-like passages in the massive plinth, some of them leading directly to a central tank that was open to the sky, while others sloped sharply upward and had once contained stairways that led up to the broad terrace overlooking it. The stairs had fallen long ago, and nowadays no one visited the ruined
chattri,
but one of the passages was still in good repair, and as a temporary stable would be far cooler and more comfortable than the charcoal-seller's shed.

Ash tethered Dagobaz to a fallen block of masonry and fetched water from the tank in a canvas bucket that he had brought with him. He had also brought grain and a small bundle of
bhoosa
in a saddle-bag, for he knew that Sarji might not be able to collect the horse for another hour or two, and that after that there would be no stopping until they were clear of the valley and far along the trail through the hills. So it was necessary to supply Dagobaz with food and water now.

The water was green and stagnant, but that wild gallop across the dusty plain had made Dagobaz thirsty and he drank it gratefully. When he had finished, Ash fetched a second bucket-full and wedged it carefully between two blocks of sandstone so that it would not collapse. Dagobaz smelt it but did not drink, and ignoring the
bhoosa
, dropped a wet affectionate nose onto his master's shoulder, nuzzling him as though he sensed that there was something wrong.

‘You'll be all right with Sarji,’ consoled Ash huskily. ‘He'll take care of you… you'll be all right.’ He put an arm about the black head and gave it a brief, hard hug, and then pushing it aside, turned on his heel and walked out of the shadowed archway into the brightness of the sunrise.

The fringes of the grove were still deserted, but near the centre the sound of bird-song gave place to the voices of men. Where the trees stopped behind the
chattris
that faced the open sweep of the burning-ground, groups of people could be seen hurrying to and fro: enterprising vendors of food and drink busily setting up their stalls under the shade of the branches, and already serving a handful of early customers. But as yet there did not appear to be many spectators, and although there were a score of priests and officials and a number of men in the uniform of the palace guard in the clearing, none showed any interest in Ash, since all were far too busy supervising the construction of the pyre and talking among themselves.

The
chattri
nearest to them was a larger and more elaborately decorated version of the far older one where he had left Dagobaz, being built in the form of a hollow square surrounding a vast tank. But here the stairways in the thickness of the outer wall were in excellent repair, and Ash climbed one, and reaching the broad stone terrace without being molested, took up a position in the angle between the outer parapet and the wall of a small pavilion that flanked a much larger central one consisting of three tiers of diminishing width, each tier composed of graceful pillared arches with the final one topped by a number of hump-backed domes.

Similar though smaller structures adorned the other three sides of the square, and below them, from the level of the terrace and facing inward, wide, shallow stone steps led down to the water's edge. The
chattri
had been built to face eastward into the sunrise and the clustered trees, but directly behind it lay the open ground, and today the western pavilions looked down onto a hastily constructed brick platform not thirty yards from the foot of the terrace wall, where half-a-dozen priests were constructing a pyre from logs of cedar and sandalwood strewn with aromatic spices.

The newly risen sun striped the ground with brilliant bars of light and long blue shadows, but as it moved up the sky the shadows shrank and changed their shapes and the dawn wind died; and suddenly the freshness was gone from the morning and the day was breathlessly hot. ‘There will be a breeze soon,’ thought Ash. But today there was no breeze. The leaves hung limp and still and the dust lay unstirred, and behind him the green, glassy surface of the tank mirrored every detail of the
chattri
so clearly that had he moved to the back of the terrace he would not have needed to look up to where the purdah-screens formed a make-shift room out of the second storey, because it lay there in the water.

For the present it appeared to be untenanted; there was no flicker of movement from behind the split-cane
chiks
that faced towards the burning-ground, but by now there were many more people in the grove: a number of early arrivals from near-by villages, several ash-smeared Sadhus and a further influx of minor officials, puffed up with their own importance and issuing orders to the men who had brought the logs and to those whose task it would be to hold back the crowds and keep a way clear for the funeral procession.

It was as well for Ash that he had taken up his stand when he did, for before long what had begun as a trickle increased to a flood as the thousands from the city poured into the grove, turning the wide, dusty space and the long, narrow aisles between the trees into a sea of humanity that stretched back on either side of the road by which they had come.

Above this, men clustered as thick as swarming bees on the walls and terraces, the stairways, pavilions and rooftops of the surrounding
chattris
, and soon every branch of the nearer trees bore its load of determined spectators. The voice of that multitude was a corporate sound – a deep and deafening one that rose and fell like the purr of some giant cat. And still the wind did not blow…

The dust that fumed up under the restless feet of the crowd hung in the air like the smoke trails of the early morning fires, and with every passing minute the heat increased as the sun blazed down on the stone-built
chattris
and glittered blindingly on the quiet surface of the tanks. But the crowd were impervious to these discomforts. They were used to dust and heat and cramped conditions, and it was not often that they had the opportunity to witness such a notable ceremony as the one that would be enacted here today. If it involved a certain amount of discomfort, well, that was a small price to pay for something that all who were privileged to be present would talk of for years to come, and describe to generations yet unborn. For even here, in this remote corner of Rajasthan, there were few who were not becoming uneasily aware that in the India beyond their borders the old ways were changing and old customs dying out, and that if the Raj had its way, this might be the last suttee that anyone in Bhithor would ever see.

Ash, from his vantage point on the terrace, was equally unaffected by the dust and din and the soaring temperature. He would probably not have noticed if it had suddenly begun to rain or snow, for all his faculties were concentrated upon keeping calm and relaxed. It was essential that his eye should be clear and his hand steady because there would be no second chance; and remembering what Kaka-ji had told him about the benefits of meditation, he fixed his gaze on a crack in the top of the parapet and counted his heartbeats, breathing slowly and evenly and forcing himself to think of nothing.

The crowd pressed upon him from the left, but his back was against the wall of the pavilion, and the space between his knees and the edge of the parapet was too narrow to allow room for even the smallest child to squeeze in front of him. So far, this side of the terrace was still in shadow, and the stone at his back still retained some of the coolness of the previous night. Ash relaxed against it and felt curiously peaceful; and very sleepy, which was hardly surprising considering how poorly he had slept ever since Manilal's arrival in Ahmadabad, though in the present circumstances, with the prospect of eternal sleep a mere hour or so away, it seemed a little ridiculous.

Ridiculous or not, he must actually have dozed off; for aroused by the sudden impact of a solid body and a sharp pain in his left foot, he opened his eyes to find that the sun was directly overhead and the crowd were no longer facing away from him, but had turned and were staring up at the
chattri
.

On the terrace itself half-a-dozen helmeted members of the Rana's palace guard were laying about them with their staves in an attempt to clear the way to the stairway leading to the second storey, and as the crowd surged back before them, the stout gentleman on Ash's left had been forced to give ground and had jerked him into wakefulness by stepping on his toes.

‘Your pardon,’ gasped the stout one, recovering himself and struggling to remain upright. He appeared to be in imminent danger of falling backwards over the parapet to land on the heads of the citizens twenty feet below, and Ash put out a hand to steady him, and inquired what was happening.

‘It is some high-born women who have arrived to see the burning,’ explained the stranger breathlessly, replacing his turban which had fallen off in the struggle. ‘Doubtless the family of the Diwan. Or perhaps that of the heir? They will watch from above – from behind the
chiks
up there. Though the boy himself will walk in the procession and set light to the pyre. They say that his mother…’

The man talked on and on, gossiping, speculating and commenting, and Ash nodded now and then, but after a time he ceased to listen. His mouth was dry and he wished he had thought to bring his water-bottle with him instead of leaving it strapped to Dagobaz's saddle. But one of the many things that he had learned during those years in Afghanistan, when he had been masquerading as a Pathan and had to keep the Moslem fast of Ramadan, was how to endure thirst. And as Ramadan lasts a month (during which time no food or water may be taken between dawn and sunset) when it falls in the hot weather it can be no mean test of endurance.

Juli too must be thirsty, thought Ash. It would be another torment to add to those she must suffer on that long, last walk in the dust and the sun between the peering, jostling crowds. And she must be so tired… so very tired… It was difficult to believe that soon he would actually see her again in the flesh: the real Juli, instead of the one he had only seen in his imagination for the past two years. Her sweet grave eyes and tender mouth; the wide tranquil brow and the faint hollows at her temples and below her cheek bones that he always longed to kiss. His heart turned over at the thought, and it seemed to him that to see her again, if only for a moment, was worth dying for…

He wondered what the time was. To judge by the sun it must be well past mid-day, so it could not be long now before the Rana's body was carried out of the Rung Mahal to begin its last, slow-paced journey from the city. And behind it would come Juli… Juli and Shushila, Ranis of Bhithor…

They would be dressed in all their wedding finery: Juli in yellow and gold and Shu-shu in scarlet. But this time their spangled saris would not be pulled forward over their faces, but thrown back, so that everyone could see them. The suttees. The holy ones…

Ash knew that in the past many widows had been given drugs in order that they should not shrink from their duty or make any attempt to avoid their fate, but he did not believe that Juli would go drugged to her death; though she could be trusted to see that Shu-shu did, and he could only hope that the drugs would be strong ones – potent enough to numb Shushila's senses and shut out reality, while still enabling her to walk. For they would be expected to walk. That was the custom.

He shut his eyes against the glaring sunlight, but found this time that he could no longer shut out thought. Pictures formed behind his closed eye-lids as though he were seeing lantern-slides flashed on a screen: Juli in her yellow and gold wedding-dress with her black hair rippling unbraided to her knees, supporting the dazed, ruby-decked figure of her little sister… The two of them moving out from the shadows of the Queen's Palace into the blazing afternoon, walking towards the Suttee Gate and pausing there to dip their hands into a bowl of red dye before pressing them against the stone sides of the archway, where the imprint of their palms and fingers would join those of many former queens of Bhithor who had in their turn passed through that cruel gate on their way to death.

Well, at least it would bear no more prints, thought Ash. And perhaps some time in the next century, fifty, sixty or a hundred years hence, when even such dark corners as this would probably have been tamed and become respectable and law-abiding – and dull – parties of earnest globe-trotters would come to stare at the archway and be told the tale of the Last Suttee. The very last in Bhithor. And of how an unknown madman…

Ash had not noticed when the gossiping voice at his elbow ceased, or when the deafening babble of the crowd began to die away until even the hucksters and the children stopped shouting and stood quiet to listen. It was the unexpected silence that broke his waking dream. The watchers had seen puffs of white smoke and bright flashes from the forts that overlooked the city, and now that silence had fallen, they could hear the boom of cannon. The forts were firing a salute as the dead Rana left his capital city for the last time.

A man in the crowd cried shrilly, ‘Hark! They come,’ and Ash heard a far-off sound, harsh, ululating and indescribably mournful – the screech of conch-shells blown by the Brahmins who walked at the head of the funeral cortège. As he listened there came another sound, equally far away, but as unmistakable: a great roar as thousands of voices greeted the appearance of the suttees with shouts of ‘
Khaman Kher! Khaman Kher!
– ‘Well done!’