by M. M. Kaye
Jhoti laughed, and a moment later Ash heard the pair move away between the trees. But though the afternoon was now silent he found himself oddly uneasy. There was something about the conversation he had overheard that did not ring true. Why, for instance, had Biju Ram, of all people, elected to side with the younger son against the elder, and carry his partisanship to the extent of helping to smuggle Jhoti out of Karidkote in defiance of the Maharajah's wishes? That his reasons were not altruistic could be taken for granted – unless his character had changed out of all knowledge during the past decade, which was something that Ash was not prepared to believe. Biju Ram had always known on which side his bread was buttered, and it was safe to assume that he still did so. On the other hand he had been Janoo-Rani's creature for many years, and if there was any truth at all in Mahdoo's slanderous hints as to the reason for her sudden demise, it was just possible that he might have turned against the parricide and transferred his allegiance to her younger son. Though not, decided Ash, unless there was a good chance of that son being able to reward him liberally one day for doing so.
Could there, then, be a move on foot to kill Nandu, the new Maharajah, and put Jhoti in his place? If so, then Biju Ram's behaviour was easily explained, as was his anxiety to keep the boy from running any risks. No wonder he too was attempting to molly-coddle the child, for if there was conspiracy against the Maharajah, it was possible that the Maharajah knew it and might kill his brother in order to deprive the plotters of a rallying point for revolt. And if Biju Ram's task was to remove the heir to a safe place until the throne was made vacant, it stood to reason that he would take very good care to see that the boy came to no harm.
Ash clasped his hands about his knees, and propping his chin on them, thought about Biju Ram and Karidkote. Ought he perhaps to send a word of warning to Mr Carter, the District Officer? or better still to the British Resident in Karidkote (there was bound to be one by now) ? But then he had no proof. It would not be enough to say, ‘I used to know Biju Ram, and therefore I know that if he is befriending young Jhoti it must be because he knows that Nandu is due to be murdered, and that Jhoti will soon be Maharajah.’ No one would believe him. And in any case it might not be true. The whole thing was probably only a figment of his imagination; though Mahdoo had said… But then that too was merely a rumour, the idle gossip of some camp-follower and therefore no more reliable than his own random suspicions. There was obviously nothing he could so, and anyway the internal affairs of Karidkote were none of his business.
Ash yawned and leaning back against the tree trunk prepared to follow the example of the majority and go to sleep. But the afternoon was destined to be a disturbed one. The muffled clip-clop of a horse's hooves on thick dust was barely audible in the silence, but it was still loud enough to attract his attention, and he turned his head and saw Jhoti ride past, carrying a hooded falcon on one wrist and keeping his horse to a walk for fear of waking the sleepers in the grove. He was riding the bay gelding, Bulbul, and he was alone: proof enough that he had won his point against Biju Ram.
Ash could sympathize with the child's desire to escape from supervision, but watching him turn away from the jheel and head for the open country, he found himself in unexpected agreement with Biju Ram. This was probably the first time that Jhoti had ever ridden out alone, for up to now there must always have been several men in attendance on him, one of whom would ride ahead to make sure that he did not venture into country where there were such traps for the unwary as nullahs and concealed wells, patches of bog or unexpected outcrops of rock.
‘It isn't safe,’ thought Ash. ‘Someone should have gone with him!’ Hadn't Mahdoo said something about Lalji's father and a riding accident? – that the late Maharajah had been out hawking when his horse bolted and fell into a nullah, breaking both their necks? His uneasiness increased and he scrambled to his feet and began to walk quickly back through the trees to where his own horse, The Cardinal, was tethered.
There was no sign of Biju Ram, and falconers, syces and guards were all asleep. But Mulraj, who was not, saw him pass and inquired in an under-voice where he was going in such haste. Ash paused briefly to explain and Mulraj looked startled.
‘So? Then I think I will go with you,’ said Mulraj. ‘We can pretend that we wished to spy out the land for game while the others slept, and took the same path as the boy by chance. Then he will not think that he has been followed. Let us be quick.’
Some of Ash's disquiet seemed to have communicated itself to Mulraj, for he began to run. They did not take long to saddle their horses, but to avoid rousing the others they rode through the grove at a walk, as Jhoti had done, and only when they were well clear of the trees did they break into a gallop. At first they could see no sign of the boy, for the plain shimmered under the mid-afternoon sun and the dancing heat-haze hid him from sight. But presently they caught sight of the little figure on horseback and reined their own mounts to a sedate canter.
Bulbul was still jerking his head and sidling impatiently, but Jhoti seemed to have no difficulty in controlling him. He was riding quite slowly through a patch of scrub, presumably in the hope of putting up a hare or a partridge, and Ash breathed a sigh of relief. The child had more sense than he had given him credit for and was evidently right when he asserted that he was quite old enough to look after himself. There had been no need at all for Mulraj and himself to go chasing off after the brat like a pair of anxious nursemaids, since he was plainly no milk-sop, and obviously at home on a horse. If he could only be persuaded to take more exercise and eat less halwa, and lose some of that puppy-fat, he would make a first-class rider one of these days; and as Mulraj had already pointed out, he knew how to handle a hawk.
‘We're wasting our time,’ observed Ash irritably. ‘That child knows what he's doing and you and I are behaving like a pair of old women. It's just the sort of thing he complains of, and I don't blame him.’
‘Look –’ said Mulraj, who had not been listening, ‘he has put up a partridge – no, a pigeon I think. Two of them!’
‘Teal,’ said Ash, whose eye-sight was keener. ‘There must be water among those bushes.’
They saw Jhoti rein in and heard his shrill, excited ‘Hai-ai!’ as he rose in the saddle and flung up his arm to help the falcon take off. For a moment bird and boy were motionless: Jhoti standing in his stirrups to gaze upwards and the falcon hanging above him, threshing the air with its wings like a swimmer treading water, until, sighting its prey, it was away with the speed of an arrow. The boy plumped back into the saddle, and was almost unseated as his horse responded with a frenzied bound and plunged forward through the bushes to bolt wildly out onto the stony plain.
‘What on earth –?’ began Ash puzzled; and had no time to finish the sentence, for the next instant he and Mulraj together were racing in pursuit, using whip and spur in a desperate attempt to overtake the run-away.
There was no need for questions, as they could see clearly enough what had happened: Jhoti must have saddled his own horse to avoid waking the syces, and he had failed to pull the girth tight enough, for now the saddle was sliding over to one side, taking him with it and making it impossible for him to check Bulbul's headlong flight. But there was good blood in the boy – Rajput blood, than which there is no finer – and though his mother's birth had been lowly, she had possessed courage and a quick brain, and her youngest son had inherited both. Feeling the saddle slide to the right and finding himself unable to prevent it, he freed his right foot and stood in the left stirrup, and using that as a lever, flung himself forward onto his horse's neck where he clung like a monkey. The saddle swung over and crashed to the ground, striking against one of the flying hooves as it fell and putting the final touch to Bulbul's panic.
‘Shabash, Raja-Sahib!’ called Ash, yelling encouragement. ‘Oh, well done.’
He saw Jhoti throw a quick glance over his shoulder and force a grin. The child's face was pallid with terror, but there was determination in it, and pride too
: he was not going to be thrown if he could help it. In any case, to let go now would mean the certainty of breaking an arm or a leg, if not his backbone, for the ground was as hard as iron and he knew that the few bushes that grew on it were armed with thorns that were capable of tearing his eyes out. There was nothing for it but to hold on, and he did so with the tenacity of a limpet. But because his cheek was pressed to the horse's neck and Bulbul's mane blinded him, he did not see what both Ash and Mulraj now saw: the death-trap that yawned ahead of him. A wide, steep-sided nullah that the rains of many monsoons had scoured deep into the plain, dry now and thickly strewn with stones and water-worn boulders.
The horse had not seen it either, for in the manner of bolting horses it was crazed with panic and capable of running straight into a picket fence or over a cliff. It also had a long start on its pursuers and was carrying considerably less weight. But the child's head pressing against its neck made it bear to the left, which gave Ash and Mulraj an advantage, since they rode on a straight line – and on far better horses. Ash's roan, The Cardinal, had recently won two flat races and a point-to-point in Rawalpindi, while Mulraj's mare, Dulhan, had the reputation of being the finest horse in camp.
Yard by yard they narrowed the distance, but the lip of the nullah was barely ten paces away when at last Mulraj drew level and dropped his reins. Guiding Dulhan with his knees alone he leaned out, and gripping the child around the waist, snatched him away just as Ash, coming up on the opposite side, caught Bulbul's trailing reins and attempted to turn him.
As a horseman, Mulraj had few equals and no superior, though had he been riding any other horse that day the whole affair would even then have ended in disaster, if not tragedy. But man and horse had known each other for years and established a rare accord that made them seem, at times, to be part of a whole that was half equine, half human. Mulraj had made his calculations, and coming up on the left of the bolting horse was already riding on a line that would take him parallel to the nullah. Because of this, and despite the fact that he was hampered by the boy in his arms and unable to use his reins, he was still able to turn Dulhan away from the rim.
But Ash was unable to check The Cardinal, and the bay and the roan together tore on and over the lip of the nullah, to end up in kicking, threshing turmoil among the stones and boulders ten feet below.
17
Ash did not recover consciousness for some considerable time, which was just as well, because in addition to concussion and a large number of cuts and bruises, he had broken his collar-bone, cracked two ribs and dislocated a wrist; and under these circumstances, a jolting, three-mile journey in a bullock cart would have been almost as unpleasant as the subsequent setting of broken bones without the help of anaesthetics. Fortunately, however, he came through both ordeals without being aware of them.
Even more fortunately, Kaka-ji Rao's personal hakim was an expert bone-setter, for had Ash been left to the tender mercies of the Rajkumaries' doctor, whose services had been offered by Shushila-Bai, it it would have gone hard with him, the royal physician being an elderly and old-fashioned practitioner who pinned his faith to herbal remedies and the curative properties of earth-currents and incantations, combined with offerings to the gods and various concoctions made from the dung and urine of the cow.
Luckily Kaka-ji, though a devout Hindu, had little faith in such medicines when it came to mending broken bones, and he had tactfully declined his niece's offer and sent his own doctor, Gobind Dass, to deal with the matter. Gobind had done so with great success; he knew what he was about and few college-trained European doctors could have done better. Aided by Mahdoo, Gul Baz, and one of the Rajkumari Anjuli's women, Geeta, who was a notable dai (nurse), he brought his patient safely through the two days and nights of high fever that had followed on the period of coma – in itself no small feat, for the sick man tossed and raved and had to be held down by force for fear that he should do himself further injury.
Ash was conscious of very little during those days, but once – it was at night – he thought he heard someone say, ‘ Is he going to die?’ and opening his eyes saw a woman standing between him and the lamp. She was only a dark silhouette against the light, and he looked up into a face he could not see and muttered: ‘I'm sorry, Juli. I didn't mean to offend you. You see, I –’ But the words clotted on his tongue and he could not remember what it was he had meant to say; or to whom. And in any case the woman was no longer there, for he was looking at the unshaded lamp and he shut his eyes against the glare and sank back into blackness.
The fever left him on the third day and he slept the clock round, awaking to find that it was again night and the lamp was still burning, though its flame was shielded from him by something that threw a black bar of shadow across the bed. He wondered why he had not turned it out, and was still puzzling over this trivial point when he discovered that his mouth was as dry as a desert and that he was very thirsty, but when he attempted to move, the pain that shot through him was so unexpected that it wrenched a groan from him. The bar of shadow that lay across the upper half of his bed moved instantly.
‘Lie still, child,’ said Mahdoo soothingly. ‘I am here… lie still, my son.’
The old man spoke in the voice of an adult addressing a child who has awakened from a nightmare, and Ash stared up at him, mystified by the tone and even more by Mahdoo's presence in his tent at such an hour.
‘What on earth,’ inquired Ash, ‘are you doing here, Cha-cha-ji?’
The sound of his own voice surprised him as much as Mahdoo's had done, for it was no more than a hoarse croak. But Mahdoo's expression altered surprisingly and he threw up his arms and said wildly: ‘Allah be praised! He knows me. Gul Baz – Gul Baz – send word to the Hakim that the Sahib is awake and in his right mind again. Go quickly. Praise be to Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate –’
Tears rolled down the old man's cheeks and flashed in the lamplight, and Ash said weakly: ‘Don't be an owl, Cha-cha. Of course I know you. For heaven's sake stop playing the fool and give me something to drink.’
But it was Gobind Dass, hurriedly aroused from sleep, who finally gave him a drink. Presumably one with a drug in it, because Ash fell asleep again, and when he awoke for the third time it was late afternoon.
The tent-flaps had been thrown back and through the open door he could see the low sunlight and the long shadows, and far away across the dusty plain, the faint line of the distant hills, already tinged with rose. There was a man squatting by the tent door and idly throwing dice, left hand against right, and Ash, watching him, was thankful to see that Mulraj at least had managed to avoid crashing into the nullah. The fog had lifted from his brain at last and he could remember what happened; and lying there he attempted to assess the extent of his injuries and was relieved to discover that his legs were not broken, and that it was his left arm and shoulder that was bandaged and not the right – proof that he had managed to fall on his left shoulder after all. He could remember thinking as The Cardinal plunged over into the nullah that he could not afford to lose the use of his right arm and must throw himself to the left, and there was a crumb of comfort in the fact that he had evidently managed to do this.
Mulraj gave a grunt of satisfaction at the fall of the dice, and glancing over his shoulder, saw that Ash's eyes were open and lucid.
‘Ah!’ said Mulraj, gathering up the dice and coming to stand beside the bed. ‘So you are awake at last. It was time. How do you feel?’
‘Hungry,’ said Ash with the ghost of a grin.
‘That is a good sign. I will send at once for the Rao-Sahib's Hakim, and it may be that he will permit you to have a little mutton broth –or a bowl of warm milk.’
He laughed at Ash's grimace of disgust and would have turned away to call a servant, but Ash reached out with his uninjured arm, and clutching a fold of his coat, said: ‘The boy. Jhoti. Is he safe?’
Mulraj appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then said reassuringly that the child was well and Ash
need not trouble his head about him. ‘All you have to think of now is yourself. You must get well quickly; we cannot move camp until you have regained your strength, and we have already been here for nearly a week.’
‘A week?’
‘You were without your senses for a full night and day, and for the best part of the next three you raved like a madman. And since then you have been sleeping like a babe.’
‘Good lord,’ said Ash blankly. ‘No wonder I'm hungry. What happened to the horses?’
‘Jhoti's horse, Bulbul, broke his neck.’
‘And mine?’
‘I shot him,’ said Mulraj briefly.
Ash made no comment, but Mulraj saw the betraying flicker of his eye-lids and said gently: ‘I'm sorry. But there was nothing else that I could do. He had broken both forelegs.’
‘It was my fault,’ said Ash slowly. ‘I should have known that I couldn't turn that horse of Jhoti's. It was too late…’
Another man might have uttered consoling denials, but Mulraj had taken a liking to Ash and so he did not lie. He nodded instead and said: ‘One makes these mistakes. But what is done is done, and there is no profit in bewailing what cannot be undone. Put it behind you, Pelham-Sahib, and give thanks to the gods that you are alive; for there was a time when we thought that you would surely die.’
The last words reminded Ash of something, and he frowned in an effort to remember what it was, and then said abruptly: ‘Was there a woman in here one night?’
‘Surely. The dai. She is one of the Rajkumaries' women and she has come every night; and will come for many more, being skilled in massage and the healing of torn ligaments and strained muscles. You owe her much – and the Hakim Gobind even more.’
‘Oh,’ said Ash, disappointed. And closed his eyes against the low sunlight.
Considering all things, he made a remarkably quick recovery; for which his constitution as much as Gobind's ministrations could take the credit. Those two hard years in the mountains beyond the North-West Frontier had paid dividends at last, for they had toughened him as nothing else could have done. The unorthodox nursing and insanitary conditions that prevailed in the camp – the dust and the flies, the cheerful disregard for even the most elementary rules of hygiene and the total lack of peace and quiet, all or any of which would have horrified a Western doctor. – seemed almost luxurious to Ash when compared to the horrors and hardships that he had seen injured men endure in tribal territory. He considered himself lucky – and rightly so, because as Kaka-ji took care to point out, he could easily have been dead; or at the very least, crippled for life.