by M. M. Kaye
Bribery, intrigue and ambition haunted the dusty rooms and lurked behind every door, and even a child could not fail to become aware of it. Yet Ash had taken none of this very seriously until the day when a plate of the Yuveraj's favourite cakes had been found in the little pavilion by the pool in the Yuveraj's private garden…
Lalji had been chasing the tame gazelle, and it was Ash who had found them and idly crumbled one into the pool, where the fat carp gobbled it greedily. A few minutes later the fish were floating belly upwards among the lily pads, and Ash, staring at them with shocked, incredulous eyes, realized that they were dead – and what it was that had killed them.
Lalji had an official ‘taster’ and he normally ate nothing that his taster had not sampled first; but had he found those tempting cakes in the pavilion he would have grabbed and gobbled one as greedily as the carp. Ash snatched them up and carrying them quickly to the parapet at the far side of the garden, dropped them over, plate and all, into the void below. And as the cakes fell, wheeling down in the evening light, a crow swooped and caught one in his beak; and a moment later it too was falling into the gulf, a limp black bundle of feathers.
Ash had told no one of this incident, for though it might have seemed the natural thing to run with it to anyone who would listen, a too early acquaint-ance with danger had taught him caution, and he felt sure that this was something he had better keep to himself. If he told Lalji it would only add to the boy's fears and send old Dunmaya into a further frenzy of anxiety, and if any inquiries were made it was fairly certain that the real culprit would not be found, and equally certain that some innocent scapegoat would be made to suffer. Ash's experience of life in the palace had already taught him that justice was unlikely to be done if Janoo-Bai had anything to do with it, particularly since her position had recently been further strengthened by the birth of a second son.
It never once occurred to him that the scapegoat might have been himself, or that the cakes in the pavilion could have been intended for him and not, as he supposed, for the Yuveraj.
Ash therefore held his peace; for children can only take the world as they find it, and accept the fact that their elders are all-powerful, if not all-wise. He pushed the incident of the cakes into the back of his mind, and accepting servitude in the Hawa Mahal as a necessary evil that could not at present be avoided, resigned himself to enduring it until such time as the Yuveraj came of age and had no further use for his services. At least he now had plenty to eat and clean clothes to wear; though the promised pay had not materialized, owing to the rapaciousness of the Nautch-girl having reduced the Rajah's exchequer to a dangerously low ebb. But it proved a tedious existence, until the coming of Tuku, a little mongoose that had haunted Sita's courtyard and that Ash, in search of distraction, had tamed and trained.
Tuku was the first living thing that was wholly his own, for though he knew that he possessed every scrap of Sita's heart, he could not command her presence when he chose. She had her own duties and was only available at certain hours of the day; but Tuku followed at his heels or rode on his shoulder, slept curled up under his chin at night and came when he called, and Ash loved the graceful, fearless little creature, and felt that Tuku knew it and returned his love. It was a deeply satisfactory comradeship, and it had lasted for over half a year, until a black day when Lalji, feeling tired and cross, had insisted on having Tuku to play with, and having teased him unmercifully, was repaid with a sharp nip. The next two minutes had been a nightmare that haunted Ash for many months and that he was never entirely to forget.
Lalji, his finger dripping blood, had yelled with fright and pain and shrieked to a servant to kill the mongoose at once – at once. It had been done before Ash could intervene. A single slashing blow from a scabbarded sword had broken Tuku's back, and he had twitched and whimpered for a moment, and then the life had gone out of him and there was only a limp little scrap of fur in Ash's hands.
It did not seem possible that Tuku was dead: only a minute ago he had been fluffing his tail and chattering crossly at Lalji's impertinences, and now –
Lalji said furiously: ‘Don't look at me like that! What does it matter? It was only an animal – a savage, bad-tempered animal. See where he bit me?’
‘You were teasing him,’ said Ash in a whisper. ‘It is you who are the savage, bad-tempered animal.’ He wanted to cry – to scream and shriek. Fury welled up in him and he dropped Tuku's small body and sprang at Lalji.
It had been a scuffle rather than a fight. A degrading scuffle in which Lalji spat and kicked and shrieked, until rescued by a dozen servants who had converged upon the room from every direction and dragged the boys apart.
‘I'm going,’ panted Ash, gripped by a brace of horrified retainers, and glaring defiance. ‘I won't stay with you or work for you another minute. I shall go now, and I shall never come back.’
‘And I say you shall not go!’ screamed Lalji, beside himself with rage. ‘You shan't leave without my permission, and if you try to, you'll find you can't. I shall see to that.’
Biju Ram, who as a token gesture towards defending the Yuveraj had picked up a long-barrelled pistol – fortunately unloaded – waved the weapon negligently at Ash and said languidly: ‘Your Highness should have the horse-boy branded as one does horses – or mutinous slaves. Then if he should by any chance escape, he would be speedily recognized as your property and returned.’
It is possible that the suggestion was not intended to be taken seriously; but then Lalji was far too angry to think clearly and, blinded by rage, he had seized on it. There had been no one to protest, for by ill luck the only member of his household who might have done so with any chance of success was confined to his bed with a fever. The thing had been done there and then, and by Biju Ram himself. There had been a charcoal brazier in the room, for it was mid-winter and the palace was very cold; and Biju Ram had laughed his giggling laugh and thrust the muzzle of the pistol among the glowing coals. Ash was barely eight years old, but it had taken four men to hold him down, for he was strong and wiry and when he realized what was to happen he fought like a wild-cat, biting and clawing until not one of the four remained unmarked, though it was a useless battle, for the end was never in doubt.
Biju Ram had intended to brand him on the forehead, which could possibly have killed him. But Lalji, for all his fury, still retained a measure of caution, and it occurred to him that as his father might not altogether approve of such proceedings, it might be wiser to mark Ashok in a place less likely to catch the Rajah's eye. Biju Ram was therefore forced to content himself with pressing the mouth of the pistol to the victim's bared breast. There had been an odd sizzling sound and a smell of burnt flesh, and though Ash had resolved that he would die rather than give Bichchhu the satisfaction of hearing him cry out, he had been unable to stop himself. His scream of pain had drawn another giggling laugh from the dandy, but its effect upon Lalji was unexpected. It had aroused his better nature, and he had thrown himself at Biju Ram, dragging him back and crying wildly that it was all his own fault and that Ashok was not to blame. At which point Ash had fainted.
‘He's dying,’ shrieked Lalji, overcome by remorse. ‘You've killed him, Bichchhu. Do something, one of you. Send for a hakim*… fetch Dunmaya. Oh, Ashok, don't die. Please don't die.’
Ash was nowhere near dying, and he had recovered soon enough. The ugly burn had healed cleanly, thanks to the skilful ministrations of Sita and Dunmaya and his own good health, though the scar it left was to last as long as he lived; not as a circle, but as a crescent, for he had flinched sideways as he felt the heat, so that the muzzle had not pressed evenly and Lalji had pulled Biju Ram away before he could rectify this error. ‘I would have marked you with the sun,’ said Biju Ram, ‘but it seems that would have been to do you too much honour, and it is only right that by your cringing you should turn the sun into a mere moon instead' – but he was careful not to say that in front of Lalji, who did not care to be reminded of the episode.
Strangely enough, the two boys had been better friends after that, for Ash was well aware of the heinousness of his offence and knew that in former days he would have been strangled, or trampled to death by the Rajah's elephants. The least he had expected even now was the loss of a limb or an eye, for it was no light crime to lay violent hands on the heir to the throne, and grown men had paid with their lives for lesser offences; so he was relieved that his punishment had been no worse, and astonished that the Yuveraj should have intervened to stop it. The fact that he had not only done so, but publicly admitted himself to be in the wrong, had impressed Ash a great deal, as he was aware what that admission must have cost the Yuveraj.
He missed Tuku unbearably, but he did not attempt to tame another mongoose. Nor did he make any more pets, for he knew that he could never trust Lalji again, and that to let himself become fond of some other creature might only mean providing a useful weapon to be used against him the next time the Yuveraj was out of temper or wished to punish him. Yet despite this (and certainly from no wish of his own) he was to acquire an unexpected substitute for Tuku. Not an animal this time, but a very small human being: Anjuli-Bai, the shy, neglected baby daughter of the unfortunate Feringhi-Rani.
It was one of Lalji's good qualities – he had many, and given the right circumstances they might well have outweighed the bad ones – that he was unfailingly kind to his little half-sister. The child was frequently to be found in his apartments, for being as yet far too young to be confined to the Zenana Quarters, she came and went as she pleased. She was a thin little creature who appeared to be half-starved and was dressed with a shabbiness that would have been considered disgraceful by many a peasant family – a state of affairs that was directly traceable to the enmity of the Nautch-girl, who saw no reason why money or deference should be wasted on the daughter of her dead rival.
Janoo-Bai could not be sure that the child might not develop some of the beauty and charm that had once so captivated the Rajah, and she had no intention of letting him become either fond or proud of his daughter if she could help it; to which end she saw to it that the baby was banished to a distant wing of the palace and cared for by a handful of slovenly unpaid servants who pocketed the meagre household funds for their own use.
The Rajah seldom inquired after his daughter, and in time almost forgot that he had one. Janoo-Bai had assured him that the child was well cared for, and had added some disparaging comments on its lack of good looks, saying that it would make the arranging of a good marriage a difficult matter. ‘Such a small, sour-looking little thing,’ sighed Janoo-Bai with feigned sympathy, and she had nicknamed the child ‘Kairi’ – that being a small, unripe mango – and laughed with delight when the name was adopted by the palace.
‘Kairi-Bai’ preferred her half-brother's apartments to her own; they were brighter and better furnished, and besides he sometimes gave her sweets and let her play with his monkeys or the cockatoo and the tame gazelle. His servants too were less impatient with her than her own women, and she had taken a strong fancy to the youngest of them, Ashok, who had found her sobbing quietly in a corner of her brother's garden one day, having been bitten by one of the monkeys, whose tail she had pulled. Ash had taken her to Sita to be soothed and petted, and Sita had bandaged the wound, and having given her a piece of sugar-cane, told her the story of Rama, whose beautiful wife had been stolen by the Demon King of Lanka and rescued with the help of Hanuman, the Monkey God: ‘So you see, you must never pull a monkey's tail, because it not only hurts his feelings, but Hanuman would not like it. And now we will pick some marigolds and make a little wreath -see I will show you how – for you to take to his shrine to show him you are sorry. My son Ashok will take you there.’
The story and the construction of the wreath had successfully distracted the child's attention from her hurts, and she had gone off happily with Ash, holding confidingly to his hand, to make her apologies to Hanuman at the shrine near the elephant lines, where a plaster figure of the Monkey God danced in the gloom. After this she was often to be found in Sita's quarters, though it was not Sita but Ash to whom she attached herself, trotting about after him like some small persistent pariah puppy who has chosen its owner and cannot be snubbed or driven away. In fact, Ash did not try very hard to do either, for Sita told him that he must be especially kind to the forlorn little girl, not because she was a princess, or because she was motherless and neglected, but because she had been born on a day that was doubly auspicious for him: the anniversary of his own birth and the day of their arrival in Gulkote.
It was this more than anything else that made him feel in some way responsible for Kairi, and he resigned himself to being the object of her devotion and was the only person who did not address her by her nickname. He either called her ‘Juli’ (which was her own version of her given name, for she was still unable to get her tongue round all three syllables) or on rare occasions ‘Larla’, which means darling, and in general treated her with the tolerant affection he would have accorded to an importunate kitten, protecting her to the best of his ability from the teasing or insolence of the palace servants.
The Yuveraj's attendants had retaliated by jeering at him for being a nursemaid and calling him ‘Ayah-ji’, until Lalji unexpectedly came to his assistance and turned on them, saying angrily that they would please to remember that the Anjuli-Bai was his sister. After that they had accepted the situation, and in time became so used to it that it was doubtful if anyone noticed it any more; the baby was, in any case, of no importance and would probably not live to grow up, being a scrawny little thing, unlikely to survive the normal ailments of childhood, while as for the boy Ashok, he was of no importance to anyone; not even, it would seem, to the Yuveraj.
But in this last they were wrong. Lalji still trusted him (though he would have found it hard to explain why) and he had no intention of letting him go. The fate of Tuku and the violence that followed it were never referred to again, but Ash soon discovered that Lalji's threat to prevent his leaving the palace had not been an idle one. There was only one gate into the palace, the Badshai Darwaza: and after that day he could no longer go through it alone but only, on occasions, in the company of selected servants or officials, who saw to it that he did not stray off on his own or fail to return with them.
‘There is an order,’ said the sentries blandly, and turned him back. It was the same the next day and every day, and when Ash questioned Lalji, the boy had countered by saying: ‘Why should you wish to leave? Are you not comfortable here? If there is anything you lack you have only to tell Ram Dass, and he will send out for it. There is no need for you to go to the bazaars.’
‘But I only wish to see my friends,’ protested Ash.
‘Am I not your friend?’ asked the Yuveraj.
There was no answer to that, and Ash never knew who had given the order that he was not to be allowed to leave: the Rajah, or Lalji himself (who said he had not, but was not to be trusted), or perhaps Janoo-Bai, for reasons of her own? But whoever it was, the order was never rescinded, and he was always aware of it. He was a prisoner in the fortress, though he was allowed to go more or less where he chose inside the walls, and as the Hawa Mahal covered a very large area, he could hardly be considered as closely confined. Nor was he friendless, for he had made two good friends in the palace that year, and found at least one ally among the members of Lalji's suite.
Nevertheless, he felt the loss of his liberty keenly, for from the walls and the half-ruined towers and wooden pavilions that crowned them, he could see the world laid out before him like a coloured map, beckoning towards freedom and the far horizons. To the south-west lay the city, with beyond it the wide stretch of the plateau – its far rim sloping steeply down to the river and the rich land of the Punjab, so that sometimes, on clear days, one could even see the plains. But he seldom faced that way, for northward lay the foothills, and behind them, spanning the horizon from east to west, were the true hills and the vast, serrated massif of the Dur Khaima,
beautiful and mysterious, robed in forests of rhododendron and deodar and crowned with snow.
Ash did not know that he had been born within sight of those snows, or that he had spent his earliest years among the high Himalayas, falling asleep to the sight of them rose-dyed by the sunset or silver under the moon, and waking to see them turn from apricot and amber to dazzling white in the full blaze of the morning. They were part of his subconscious mind, because once, long ago, he had known them by heart as other children know the frieze painted on a nursery wall. But looking at them now, he felt sure that somewhere in the folds of those mountains lay the valley that Sita used to speak of at bedtime: their own valley. That safe hidden place that they would one day reach by long marches over hill-roads and through passes where the wind shrieked between black rocks and green glaciers, and the cold glare of snowfields blinded the eyes.
Sita seldom spoke of their valley now; she was too busy during the daytime, and Ash slept in the Yuveraj's quarters at night. But the old bedtime story of his childhood still retained its grip on his imagination, and by now he had forgotten – or perhaps he had never realized – that it was not a real place. It was real to him, and morning and evening, whenever he could steal away from his duties – or, more often, during the long, idle mid-day hours when all the palace dozed and the sun lay hot on the battlements – he would climb up to a little covered balcony that jutted out from the wall of the Mor Minar – the ‘Peacock Tower’ – and lying on the warm stone gaze out towards the mountains and think of it. And make plans.
The existence of that balcony was a secret shared only by Kairi, and its discovery had been a happy accident, for it could not be seen from inside the fortress, being hidden from view by the curves of the Mor Minar. The Mor Minar had been part of the original fort, a guard tower and a look-out, facing the foothills. But both roof and stairway had fallen long ago, and the entrance become blocked by rubble. The balcony was of a later date and had probably been built for the pleasure of some long-dead Rani, for it was no more than a folly, an elegant little pavilion of marble and red sandstone, pierced and carved into the semblance of frozen lace and topped by a hump-backed Hindu dome.