The Far Pavilions (15 page)

‘Yes.’
The boy's voice was almost inaudible and he shivered, feeling as though the very ground under his feet was no longer solid. ‘Poor Lalji…!’

‘Poor Lalji, indeed,’ agreed Koda Dad soberly. ‘Have I not told you many times that life is not always easy for those in high places?’

‘Yes; but he had been so much better of late. So much happier; and kinder, too. To everyone, not only me. Yet now all of a sudden I seem to be the only one he is unkind to, and always for things I have not done. It isn't fair, Koda Dad. It isn't
fair
.’

‘
Bah
! that is a child's saying,’ grunted Koda Dad. ‘Men are not fair – neither the young nor the old. You should have found that out by now, my son. What does Hira Lal say?’

But Hira Lal had only pulled at his earring and said: ‘I told you there would-be trouble.’ And as he refused to add anything to this comment, it could hardly be considered helpful.

A few days later Ash had been accused of damaging Lalji's favourite bow, which had snapped during target practice. He protested that he had not touched it, but was disbelieved and soundly beaten; and it was after this that he had begged permission to resign from the Yuveraj's service and quit the Hawa Mahal. It was not granted. Instead, he was informed that he would not only remain in the service of His Highness, but that in future he would not be permitted under any circumstances to leave the fortress, which meant that he was no longer allowed to accompany Lalji or the Rajah when they rode out to hunt or hawk on the plateau or among the hills; or go into the city with Koda Dad or anyone else. The Hawa Mahal had turned, at last, into the prison that he had visualized on the day that he first entered it: its gates had closed behind him and there was no way of escape.

With the advent of the cold weather Sita contracted a chill and a small dry cough. There was nothing new in this; she had suffered from such things before. But this time she did not seem to throw it off, though she refused to seek advice from the hakim, and assured Ash that it was nothing and would pass as soon as the clean winds of winter rid them of the lingering heat and dampness of the monsoon. Yet already the heat had gone from the plateau and the air that blew off the mountains carried the faint cool tang of pine-needles and snow.

News had come from Zarin in Mardan, but it was not good news. The Guides had been in action against one of the Border tribes, and in the fighting his brother Afzal, Koda Dad's second son, had been killed. ‘It is the will of Allah,’ said Koda Dad. ‘What is written is written. But he was his mother's favourite…’

It was a sad autumn for Ash, and would have been sadder but for the staunch support of that small but faithful ally, Kairi-Bai. Neither disapproval nor direct orders had the slightest effect on Kairi, who evaded her women with the ease of long practice and would slip away daily to meet Ash in the balcony on the
Mor Minar
, bringing with her, as often as not, an assortment of fruit or sweetmeats smuggled out from her own meals or stolen from Lalji's.

Lying there and looking out towards the white peaks of the Dur Khaima, the two children would devise endless schemes for Ashok's escape from the palace; or rather, Ash would propound while Kairi listened. But the schemes were not serious, for both knew that Ash would not leave his mother, who was getting daily frailer. She who had always been so hard working and energetic was now often to be found sitting tiredly in her courtyard, her back against the trunk of the pine tree and her hands lying idle in her lap, and by common consent the children were careful not to mention Ash's troubles to her; though there were many troubles, not least of them his knowledge that once again someone was actively attempting to murder the heir of Gulkote.

Three years are a long time in a child's life, and Ash had almost forgotten the poisoned cakes that had been left in Lalji's garden, until suddenly a similar incident recalled them vividly and unpleasantly to his mind.

A box of the special nut-sprinkled
halwa
that Lalji was particularly fond of was found lying on one of the marble seats in the pavilion near the lily pool, and the Yuveraj pounced upon them, supposing them to have been left there by one of his attendants. But even as he did so, Ash recalled in an ugly flash of memory a trio of fat carp floating belly upwards among the lily pads, and springing forward he snatched the box from the Yuveraj's hand.

The action had been purely instinctive, and faced with a furious demand for an explanation he found himself in a trap. Having never told anyone of those cakes, he could not speak of them now without being disbelieved, or accused of concealing an attempt on the Yuveraj's life: either way the truth would not serve him, so he took refuge in a lie and said that the sweets were his own, but were unfit to be eaten, having been handled in error by a sweeper – a man of the lowest caste – and that he had brought them here intending to feed them to the pigeons. Lalji had backed away in horror, and Ash had been punished for bringing them into the garden. Yet that three-year-old memory had not betrayed him, for later that evening he threw one of the sweets to a crow. And the crow had died. But because he had not spoken before, he dared not speak now.

The following week there had been another unnerving incident, involving a cobra that had somehow found its way into Lalji's bedroom. A dozen servants were ready to swear that it could not have been there when the Yuveraj went to bed, but it was certainly there in the small hours of the morning, for something had woken Ash, and within a few minutes of his waking he heard a clock strike two. His pallet lay across the threshold of the Yuveraj's room and no one could pass in without disturbing him: not even a snake. Yet lying awake and listening in the darkness, he had heard something that he could not mistake: the dry rustle and slither of scales moving across the uncarpeted floor.

Ash possessed all the European's horror of snakes, and instinct urged him to be still and make no move that might attract the creature's attention to himself. But the sound had come from inside the Yuveraj's room, and he knew that Lalji was a restless sleeper who might at any moment throw out an arm or turn over with an abruptness that would invite attack. So he rose, shivering with panic, and groped his way over to the curtained doorway that led into an outer room. There was an oil lamp there, its wick turned low, and he set it flaring and woke the servants.

The cobra was investigating the fruit and drink set out on a low table by Lalji's bed, and it was killed to the accompaniment of shrieks from Lalji and considerable uproar from a milling mob of servants, courtiers and guards. No one had ever discovered how it had managed to enter the room, though it was generally supposed to have found its way in through the bathroom sluice, and only Dunmaya saw its appearance as a deliberate plot against her darling.

‘She is a foolish old woman, that one,’ said Sita, listening to the tale of the night's doings. ‘Who would dare to catch a live cobra and carry it through the palace? And if they could do such a thing they would certainly have been seen, for it was not a small snake. Besides, who is there in Gulkote who would wish to harm the boy? Not the Rani; all know how fond she has become of him. She treats him with as much kindness as though he was her own son, and I tell you it is not necessary to have given birth to a child in order to become fond of it. Dunmaya did not bear the Yuveraj, yet she too loves him – even to seeing plots everywhere. She is mad.’

Ash remained silent and did not tell her of those long-ago cakes and the
halwa
that had so recently appeared in the same garden and had also been poisoned, or what Koda Dad had said about the Rani and Biju Ram. He knew that such ugly tales would only frighten her, and he did not intend that she should hear them. But all too soon there came a day when it was no longer possible to keep them from her, for Kairi stumbled upon something that was to alter their lives as drastically as the cholera had done in that terrible spring when Hilary and Akbar Khan had died.

The Princess Anjuli – ‘Kairi-Bai’, the little unripe mango – was barely six years old at that time, and had she been born in any Western country she would still have been considered a baby. But she had not only been born in the east, but in an eastern palace, and a too early experience of the plotting and intrigues of an Indian court had sharpened her wits and made her wise beyond her years.

Mindful of Ashok's warning and knowing him to be out of favour with her brother Lalji, Kairi no longer spoke to him or even glanced his way in public. But the system of secret signs and code words by which they could communicate under the eyes of the whole household without being detected served them well, and it was three days after the incident of the cobra that she ran to the Yuveraj's quarters and managed to convey an urgent signal to Ash. It was one that they were only to use in a dire emergency, and obeying it, Ash had slipped away at the earliest opportunity and made his way to the Queen's balcony, where Kairi had been waiting for him, white-faced and dissolved in tears.

‘It's your own fault,’ sobbed Kairi. ‘She said you threw away some sweets and saved him from a cobra. I truly didn't mean to listen but I was afraid she would be angry if she found me in her garden, and Mian Mittau had flown in there and I had to catch him – I
had
to. So when I heard her coming I hid in the bushes behind the pavilion and I heard… I heard what she said. Oh Ashok, she is bad! Bad and wicked. She meant to kill Lalji, and now she is angry with you about the cobra and because of some sweets. She said it showed that you know too much, so they must kill you quickly and she doesn't care how it is done, because it won't show by the time the kites and crows have finished with you, and who will mind about the death of a bazaar brat – that's you Ashok, she meant you. And she told them to throw you over the wall afterwards so that people will think you were climbing and fell off. It's true what I'm telling. They are going to kill you, Ashok. Oh what shall we do – what shall we do?’

Kairi threw herself at him wailing with terror, and Ash put his arms round her and mechanically rocked her to and fro while his thoughts scurried round in frantic circles. Yes, it was true… he was sure of that, for Juli could never have invented such a conversation. Janoo-Rani had always meant to kill Lalji and set her own son in his place, and to her certain knowledge he, Ashok, had stood in her way at least three times – four, if she was aware that it was also he who had found and thrown away those cakes. Had she known? He did not think anyone had seen him do that. But it made no difference now. She meant to see that he did not interfere again, and he would be a much easier target than Lalji, for no one would inquire too closely into the death or disappearance of such an unimportant person as the son of a serving-woman in the household of the neglected Kairi-Bai. He had never told Lalji of those cakes, or the truth about the
halwa
, and it was too late to tell him now. Particularly as Lalji had long ago persuaded himself that the falling slab of sandstone had been no more than an accident, and only two days ago had told Dunmaya that she was an evil-minded old trouble-maker who deserved to have her tongue cut out, because the old woman had voiced suspicions regarding the cobra. There was no help to be expected from the Yuveraj.

‘Juli was right,’ thought Ash despairingly. ‘It is my own fault for not telling Lalji about it and showing him what those cakes did to the fish years ago, and the sweets poisoning that crow.’ He hadn't any proof now; and even if he had it wouldn't help him because Lalji was so sure that the Rani was his friend, and he, Ashok, could not prove that she did it, or tell them what Juli had heard because they would say that she was only a baby and had made it up. But the Rani would know that she hadn't and perhaps kill her too – and his mother as well, in case Sita should ask too many questions if he were killed…

Twilight was gathering under the dome of the Queen's balcony, and Kairi had wept herself into exhaustion and now lay still and silent, soothed by the monotonous motion as Ash rocked to and fro and stared above her head at the far-away snows. The breeze was cold with the coming of winter, for October was nearly over and the days were drawing in. The sun had almost vanished and the distant peaks of the Dur Khaima made a frieze of fading rose and amber against an opal sky in which a single star shimmered like one of Janoo-Rani's diamonds.

Ash shivered, and releasing Kairi said abruptly: ‘We must go. It will soon be too dark to see, and – and they may be looking for me.’ But he did not go until the snows had turned from pink to violet and only the top-most peak of the Far Pavilions –
Tarakalas
, the ‘Star Turret’ – still held the last of the sunset.

He had brought no rice with him today, but Kairi wore a little bracelet of late rosebuds around one wrist, and he stripped it off and scattered the buds at the edge of the balcony, hoping that the Dur Khaima would understand the emergency and forgive him for not bringing an offering of his own: ‘Help me,’ prayed Ash to his personal deity. ‘Please help me! I don't want to die…’

The light faded from the peak and now the whole range was no more than a lilac silhouette against the darkening sky, and there was not one star, but a thousand. As the night wind strengthened it blew the rosebuds away, and Ash was comforted, for it seemed to him that the Dur Khaima had accepted his offering. The two children turned together and groped their way down through the ruined tower and back to Sita's courtyard, hand clutched in hand and eyes and ears strained to catch the smallest sound or movement that would betray a lurker in the shadows.

Sita had been cooking the evening meal, and Ash left Kairi with her and fled back to the Yuveraj's rooms through the maze of corridors and court-yards that formed a third of the Hawa Mahal, his heart thumping wildly and a queer cold feeling between his shoulder-blades at that spot where a knife might most easily be driven in. It was an enormous relief to find that he had not been missed because Lalji had received a set of jewelled chessmen from the Rani, and was engaged in a game with Biju Ram.