by M. M. Kaye
He must have tied it about his head without thinking, and on removing it, thrown it aside and never noticed it again until after he had found out about the rifle; by which time he could only feel grateful that no one else had shown any interest in it either, for the colour and material – a handwoven mixture of cotton and silk in two shades of grey that produced a ‘shot’ effect – was a valuable clue, and as such, the fewer people who knew about it, and the sooner it was destroyed, the better.
From now on he would keep quiet about any new clues, and with luck the investigation that he had so rashly set on foot would come to nothing, and the whole affair be forgotten – except by himself, for he had every intention of trying to discover the identity of the man who had attempted to kill him. But he would do it without assistance; this was something he must handle alone or not at all, and if the incident had done nothing else, it had at least forced him to make up his mind about Juli… he supposed he should be grateful for that.
The absurd, unformed hopes that had lurked for so long at the back of his mind, and that only yesterday had crystallized with startling suddenness in an urgent problem that must be solved without delay – all the fears and the wild plans that he had taken out onto the plain to wrestle with for the whole of one long night and carried back with him, still unresolved – had been settled by a bullet fired from his own gun; because it had brought home to him, as nothing else could have done, that he had been right to be afraid for Juli.
Ash had not been blind to the dangers of his own position in the camp, for unlike too many of his countrymen (and most of his countrywomen), who had already forgotten the lessons of the Mutiny, he knew that India as a whole had little love for the Raj. India had always respected strength, and she accepted the realities of power and was prepared to tolerate, if not enjoy, a situation that there seemed little prospect of putting an end to at present – and that on the whole happened to suit her fairly well. But she was like a bamboo thicket that sways to every breeze and bends gracefully before a gale yet never breaks, and hides among its canes a sleeping tiger that may awake at any moment, and kill.
As the sole representative of the authority of the Raj and the only European in camp, Ash's position was bound to be a little precarious, and he had taken certain precautions to safeguard himself. The siting of his tent, for instance, and its position in relation to his servants and his horses; the fact that he slept with a revolver under his pillow and an Afghan knife on the table by his bed, and that once his tent was pitched one or other of his servants would always be on guard unless he himself were in it. Yet despite all this his tent had been entered and his rifle stolen, and he himself had been spied upon, followed and ambushed as easily as though he had been a child, or a sheep. He meant to be a great deal more careful in future, but he knew that the advantage would always lie with the enemy, who could choose his time while he, the victim, even though forewarned, could not be perpetually on guard and suspicious of everyone. Sooner or later, not knowing who to suspect, there would come a time when the guard would be dropped; and then…
It was not his own body that Ash visualized lying sprawled and bleeding in the dust, but Juli's. And he knew that he could not bring her to her death. He must do nothing to prevent her marriage to the Rana, and perhaps after all she would find a measure of happiness in motherhood, if in nothing else, though that thought still stabbed as cruelly as a dagger in the heart. But to picture Juli lying dead was infinitely worse; and at least in Bhithor she would be with Shushila, and as a Rani – even a Junior Rani she would possess a certain amount of influence and considerable prestige, and live in comfort surrounded by waiting-women and servants. Her life might not be too unbearable, and though at first she would miss the mountains, the memory of them would fade; and in time she would forget the Peacock Tower and the Queen's balcony. And Ashok.
Juli would accept her fate and endure it without complaint. And at the worst, it would be better than death, for as long as one was alive there still was a chance, even though it might only be what Wally termed ‘a fighting chance’ – a chance of being able to twist fate to suit one's purpose, of making something out of the impossible, a chance that life might take a sudden unexpected turn, and disaster become victory. But to die and be buried, or burned… that was for the old, not for someone young and strong and beautiful, like Juli. Yet if she were to run away with him now, death would catch up with them very quickly.
They should have gone earlier, while they were still in British India… but it was too late to think of that now, and even if they had done so it would only have meant postponing the inevitable a little longer. Ash had not forgotten how the Nautch-girl's henchmen had once hunted him throughout the length and breadth of the peaceful Punjab, where there were British troops in a dozen cantonments and a police-post in every village, and he knew that they would almost certainly have caught him in the end if the Guides and Colonel Anderson had not turned him into a Sahib and whisked him out of the country.
Juli would be far easier to find than that little bazaar boy had been, and what chance would she have of getting safely out of the country if he himself were under arrest? There would be endless delays, and while officials argued and prevaricated, Nandu would act – that at least was something he could be certain of, as there was nothing in all the tales that Ash had heard about the new ruler of Karidkote to suggest that he would permit his half-sister to disgrace him in this fashion without taking immediate steps to wipe out the stain. And if Nandu was dilatory in exacting vengeance, there would still be the Rana to reckon with.
British India or no British India, they would hunt Juli down as remorselessly as a wolf pack on the trail of a hind, and long before Ash could arrange to get her out of the counrty they would have closed in for the kill.
Death, or the Rana? He would never know which one Juli would have chosen. Or whether she loved him enough to prefer the first, or still only thought of him as a favourite brother. But whichever way she chose, he would still have lost her.
Ash laid his head on his arms and sat motionless for a long time, looking into a future that was bleak and empty and devoid of all meaning. And that evening he did not join the riding party, but excused himself on the score of work.
When he did not go again, the rides were discontinued, though he was unaware of this. Shushila sent several times, inviting him to the durbar tent, but he pleaded a headache and did not go. He knew that he could not withdraw completely from that circle, but it was preferable to feign illness and pressure of work, or even to risk giving offence by appearing boorish, rather than to see too much of Juli.
The less they saw of each other the better it would be for both of them – particularly for her, if the attempt on his life had been on her account – but now that he no longer had the evening rides to look forward to the days seemed endless and the business of the camp an intolerable burden, and it became increasingly difficult to keep his temper and listen patiently to the innumerable complaints that were brought before him daily and that he was expected to settle. Because although Mulraj and his officers and such elder statesmen as Kaka-ji Rao dispensed justice in the camp, Ash had come to be regarded as the court of final appeal, and all too many cases came up before him for judgement.
Men quarrelled and came to blows, stole, lied and cheated, contracted debts that they did not pay, or accused each other of a variety of crimes that ranged from murder to giving short weight at the food stalls; and Ash would sit for hour after hour, looking attentive while accuser and accused produced their witnesses and talked interminably. And as often as not he would realize, suddenly, that he had not heard one word of what anyone had said and had no idea what the dispute was about. Then it would all have to be said over again; or, more frequently, he would set the case aside ‘for further consideration’ and go on to the next – and often hear very little of that too.
The effort not to think about his own affairs seemed to be affecting his ability to think about anything, though fati
gue probably had a good deal to do with it. He was sleeping badly and was always tired; and the weather did not help, for each day it grew hotter, and already the louh had begun to blow – the hot wind that whines across Rajputana when the cold weather is over, and dries the moisture from ponds and plants and the bodies of men. Later, when the rivers ran low and the countryside was parched with heat, there would be dust-storms; dense, brown, smothering clouds that could blot out the sun and turn noon-day into night; and though the season for such storms still lay well ahead, the prospect of it provided Ash with yet another reason for urging speed. Yet in the circumstances, any exhortations to hurry were a waste of breath, since the camp no longer marched in the daytime but moved only in the early hours of the morning.
Each evening scouts rode on ahead to spy out the land and select the best available stopping place for the following day, and the tents were struck before first light so that the long procession could crawl forward in the comparative coolness that preceded the dawn, to stop again as soon as the sun was far enough above the horizon for the heat of its rays to become unbearable. Very often the distance between one camp site and the next would be no more than five miles, and sometimes it was less, because their progress was governed by the need for water and shade – though the latter could, and of necessity often was, dispensed with. But canvas and carts and straw were a poor protection against the blazing sun; and only the animals, tethered in the open and suffering torments from the heat, had reason to be grateful for the scorching wind which at least kept them free of flies. As the pace became slower and slower, men and women alike became irritable and intolerant, and tempers flared; yet however slowly they moved, each day's march brought them inexorably nearer to the border of Bhithor, and it would not be long now before they reached the end of their journey.
It could not be too soon for Ash, who had once wished that it would never end and now only wanted to get it over quickly. The physical discomforts of the march were becoming enough to try anyone's temper, but combined with acute mental stress and the mounting problems of the camp, they verged on the intolerable. On top of which he now suffered from a disagreeable sense of insecurity, for only three days after the attack on him, his tent had again been burgled, this time in broad daylight, it having been the first occasion on which the camp had moved off before dawn in order to avoid marching in the heat, and stopped when the sun was high.
The site chosen that day had been near a shallow expanse of weed-choked water that had evidently once been a man-made tank, dug many centuries ago to supply some long-forgotten city, the traces of which still surrounded it in the form of low mounds, crumbling sandstone blocks and the remains of ruined walls that were barely higher than the rustling, lion-coloured grass, and split by the roots of neem and kikar and sal trees.
As usual, Ash's tent had been pitched under a tree on the outskirts of the camp, with his servants' tents arranged in a half circle some way behind it. The waist-high grass had been cut or trampled down for twenty yards around to ensure that no one could approach unseen, yet some time during the hottest part of the day someone had done so.
No less than two of Ash's men had been on guard at the time, squatting in the shade of a neem tree at the edge of the clearing from where they could keep the tent under observation. But the fact that neither had seen anything suspicious was not altogether surprising – they had been up since four o'clock that morning, and having eaten their mid-day meal were replete and lulled into drowsiness by heat and the hot wind. Both had dozed off at intervals – secure in the conviction that their mere presence would be enough to deter any wrong-doer from approaching – and they had heard nothing to rouse them, for their ears had been filled with the dry rustle of leaves and grass in the wind.
Ash had been busy elsewhere, and he had returned to find his belongings in considerable disorder: the locks of his boxes forced and their contents strewn about the floor. Even his bed had been stripped, and the entire tent showed signs of being searched in great haste, yet with a thoroughness that he found oddly disquieting. Every piece of furniture had been moved and the matting rolled back to see if anything had been buried in the earth underneath it. His mattress had been slit open with a knife and both pillow-slips had been removed. But the search had proved unrewarding, as apart from a handful of small change – most of it copper – there had been neither money nor firearms in the tent, for Ash had taken to carrying his revolver, and had given the two cash boxes, the rifle and shot-gun and his spare ammunition to Mahdoo, who had hidden them in a shabby canvas bedding-roll which he added to his own luggage.
The only other mitigating circumstance – if it could be called that – was the fact that the thoroughness of the search seemed an indication that the thief had been looking for money, and was therefore not the man who had previously stolen the rifle. Ash drew what comfort he could from that, because although it was unpleasant enough to find that someone had managed to enter his tent without being seen, ransack it and leave again, all in broad daylight and with two of his servants in plain sight, it was better than wondering if once again one of his own weapons had been needed to use against him, and if so, why. To make a murder look like suicide? – or because suspicion would naturally fall on his servants if he were found shot with his own gun?
That last seemed the most likely explanation, as all the camp knew that the Sahib's tent stood apart and was not easy to approach unseen, so who but one of his own people would have been able to enter it and take the rifle? The reasoning would have appeared sound enough, and the majority would have accepted it because the alternative (that in a camp where there were literally thousands of firearms – muskets, muzzle-loaders and jezails without number, most of them easily stolen – a man bent on murder would go to immense trouble in order to steal the Sahib's gun) would seem absurdly far-fetched. The only question would be which one of the Sahib's servants was the murderer?
Ash would have liked to discuss this latest piece of unpleasantness with Mulraj, and had he been certain that the thief was only after money he would have done so and found it a great relief. But he was not certain, and so he said nothing. He told Mahdoo and Gul Baz that he did not wish it talked of, and Gul Baz had tidied up the tent without assistance, and later confided to Mahdoo that the sooner they were done with this wedding and free to return to Rawalpindi again, the better he would be pleased. ‘I have had enough of Rajputana,’ said Gul Baz. ‘And more than enough of this camp. There is something here that I do not understand: some evil which threatens the Sahib, and perhaps others too. Let us pray that we may separate ourselves from these Karidkoties and turn our faces to the north before it overtakes us.’
Much the same thoughts were in Ash's mind, but with one difference, for he had few illusions about himself and knew that what he must pray for was patience and self-control.
He found that he could get through the days provided he filled every moment of them with some form of activity that would prevent his thinking of Juli, but the nights were a different matter; however hard he drove himself, and however tired he became, the moment he lay down to sleep her face rose before him and he could not banish it. He would turn and toss and stare into the darkness, or rise again to light the lamp and write unnecessary reports or check columns of figures – anything to shut her out of his mind, and Gul Baz, coming to wake him before first light with a mug of tea, would find him asleep at the table with his head on a pile of foolscap.
As the world turned pearl-grey before dawn and men and animals awoke reluctantly to a new day, he would climb wearily into the saddle and ride off to do what he could towards getting the camp on the move, while his servants struck his tent and loaded it with the rest of his belongings on to the bullock cart, where Mahdoo would already be ensconced among the cooking-pots, squatting comfortably on a pile of baggage that included a shabby canvas bedding-roll. The air would still be cool from the night, and at this hour there was no wind, for the louh did not blow before sunrise. But no one had leisure
to notice, let alone enjoy it, for the uproar and activity that preceded departure, and the artificial heat of torches, oil lamps and cooking fires made an inferno of the early mornings.
As the crow flies, Bhithor was no great distance ahead. But now they were no longer crossing a featureless plain, and the country here was full of low, barren hills whose slopes were slippery with shale and dry grass and whose ridges were bare rock. A traveller on foot could cross them without much difficulty and thereby save himself many miles, but it was impossible for a cart to do so. The camp must go round them, winding to and fro along the wide, shallow valleys that meandered between the hills, and doubling on its tracks with monotonous regularity, as though caught in a maze. It was a particularly tedious form of progress, and when at last they came out into comparatively open country again no one was surprised when the younger bride put her foot down and demanded a halt of at least three days, announcing that if it were not granted she would refuse to move another step. She was, she said, aware that only a few more marches would bring them to the borders of Bhithor, but she had no intention of arriving in her new country ill from exhaustion, and unless she were allowed a few nights' uninterrupted sleep she would collapse.
Her ultimatum had been well timed, for that day's march had brought them to the banks of a river where there were trees in plenty; and no one, with the exception of Ash, was averse to a halt. It was an excellent site for a camp, and although the river had shrunk in the heat to no more than a narrow channel threading a shimmering waste of sandbanks, it was still capable of providing an inexhaustible supply of water, besides being easily fordable. Better still, on the far side there were several villages surrounded by cultivated land, and the inhabitants were eager to sell such things as grain and vegetables, milk, eggs and sugar-cane, while the country being more open here there would be plenty of fodder for the animals, as well as black-buck and chinkara on the plain, and fish in the river. As a camping site it could hardly have been improved upon, and Ash found no support when he wished to push on.