by M. M. Kaye
According to the Political Officer, such an uncalled-for display of caution could only offend the Rana, who was not in the least likely to back out of his obligations or attempt to dictate unacceptable terms, and therefore the sooner the camp was moved the better. The note, and its tone, was not something that Ash could afford to ignore, so bowing to the inevitable, he gave the order to march.
Two days later the last of the long column passed through the gorge under the guns of the fort crowning the ridge above it, to pitch their tents in the valley: and within a matter of hours Ash's fears weie fully realized and the Political Officer's confidence proved groundless.
The Rana sent a junior minister to announce that the terms of the marriage contracts drawn up in the previous year with His Highness the Maharajah of Karidkote were, on reflection, adjudged to be unsatisfactory, and the council had therefore decided that they must be re-negotiated on a more realistic scale. If the Sahib and such of the elders who chose to accompany him cared to present themselves at the city palace, the Rana would be pleased to receive them and discuss the matter in more detail, after which they would undoubtedly see the justice of his claims, and the affair would be speedily settled to the satisfaction of all.
The minister sweetened his message with a few fulsome compliments, and having tactfully ignored the Sahib's statement that there was nothing whatever to discuss, set the time of the meeting for the following morning and removed himself with some haste.
‘What did I tell you?’ demanded Ash. The question was not untinged by a certain gloomy satisfaction, for he had not relished the barely concealed accusation of timidity that the Political Officer's strictures on ‘undue and unnecessary caution’ had inferred. Or the angry grumbling in the camp and the reiterated fears of those who had agreed with Kaka-ji that the Rana must not be annoyed.
‘But he cannot do this to us,’ exploded a senior official, finding his voice at long last. ‘The terms were agreed. Everything was settled. He cannot in honour go back on them now.’
‘Can't he?’ returned Ash sceptically. ‘Well, all we can do is wait and see what he has to say before we decide what we can do about it. With luck it may not turn out to be as bad as we think.’
On the following morning Ash, Kaka-ji and Mulraj, attended by a small escort of cavalry, had ridden to the city to meet the Rana.
The ride was not a pleasant one. The unshaded road was little more than a cart-track, inches deep in dust and full of ruts and potholes, and the sun was very hot. The valley must have been a good two miles wide at the point where their camp had been pitched, but nearer the city it narrowed until its sides were less than half that distance apart, the gap between them forming a natural gateway that gave on to a wide plain encircled by hills and containing the life-blood of Bhithor – the great Rani Talab, the ‘Queen's Lake’. It was in the centre of this gap, midway between the two fort-crowned heights that flanked it, that the first Rana had built his capital in the reign of Krishna Deva Raya.
The city had changed very little since then. So little, that had its builders been able to return they would have found themselves on familiar ground, and still felt themselves at home, for here old customs and old ways still prevailed, and the lives of the inhabitants had altered almost as little as the solid sandstone of which their city was built or the jagged outline of the low hills that enclosed the valley. There were still only four gateways in the massive outer wall: the Hathi Pol – the ‘Elephant Gate’ – facing down the length of the valley, the Water Gate that looked eastward across the lake and the open country towards the far hills, and on the north and south, the Mori and the Thakur Gates, both of which faced an almost identical view – a belt of cultivated land three quarters of a mile wide, with beyond it the steep rise of a hillside topped by an ancient fort.
The cultivation gave the city the appearance of a rock standing in a river gorge and splitting the current into two streams: a green river made up of fields where the farmers grew grain and vegetables and sugar-cane, interspersed with groves of mango, papaya, lichi and palm trees. But the cultivated area did not stretch far, and beyond it the valley, grazing-grounds, plain and hills lay bleached and colourless under the glare of the sun, so that Ash was thankful to reach the shade of the great gateway, and more than grateful for the prospect of being able to dismount and sit in coolness and comfort in the Rana's palace, even though the accompanying interview might prove to be a trying one.
Just how trying it was likely to be was at once made clear by the behaviour of the guards at the gateway, who did not trouble to salute them, and the fact that the one person waiting there to conduct them to the palace was a very minor official who ranked little higher than a flunkey. This in itself was a discourtesy that verged on insult, and Mulraj spoke between his teeth in a muttered aside:
‘Let us go back to the camp, Sahib. We will wait there until such time as these people' (yeh-log – the term is one of contempt) ‘have learned manners.’
‘Not so,’ said Ash softly. ‘We will wait here.’ He lifted his hand, and as the escort clattered to a halt behind him, raised his voice and addressed the solitary courier:
‘I fear that in our haste to greet the Rana we have arrived too early and caught him unprepared. Perhaps he has overslept, or his servants have been dilatory in attending to him. These things happen, and no court can be perfect. But we are in no hurry. You may tell your master that we will wait here in the shade until we hear that he is ready to receive us.’
‘But -’ began the man uncertainly.
Ash cut him short: ‘No, no. Do not apologize, we shall find the rest pleasant. Ijazat hai.’*
He turned away and began to talk to Kaka-ji, and the man shifted uneasily and cleared his throat as though about to speak again, but Mulraj said curtly: ‘You heard what the Sahib said – you have his leave to go.’
The man went, and for the next twenty minutes or so the delegation from Karidkote sat at ease in their saddles under the shadow of the great gateway, while their mounted escort held off an ever-growing crowd of interested citizens, and Mulraj favoured Kaka-ji with a long monologue (delivered sotto-voce but still clearly audible to most of the by-standers) deploring the muddle and disorganization, the shocking lack of discipline and total ignorance of polite procedure that was to be met with in many small and backward states.
The men of the escort grinned and murmured agreement, and Kaka-ji added injury to insult by rebuking Mulraj for being so hard on men who had not had his advantages and therefore knew no better. It was not their fault, said Kaka-ji, that being ignorant of the ways of the great world they lacked polish, and it was unkind to censure them for behaving in a manner that appeared uncouth to men of superior culture.
Mulraj acknowledged the justice of the reproof and complimented Kaka-ji on his charitable outlook and kindness of heart, and raising his voice began to admire the size of the gateway, the smartness of the guard and the arrangements that had been made for the comfort of the camp. He appeared to be enjoying himself, and the obvious discomfort of the guard, and those by-standers who had been near enough to overhear the preceding conversation, suggested that the Rana's slighting treatment of his guests – presumably designed to put them at a disadvantage and make them realize the weakness of their position – was proving a boomerang by making it appear instead that he and his courtiers and subjects were nothing but ignorant yokels, unversed in etiquette and lacking in courtesy.
Ash alone held his tongue, for he had no illusions as to their position. They might win a point by forcing the Rana to accord them an outward show of civility, but the victory would be a trivial one. The real struggle lay ahead, when the marriage settlements came to be discussed; and here the Rana held all the cards. It only remained to be seen if he would dare to play them – and how far he could be bluffed.
A clatter of hooves announced the arrival of the Rana's personal bodyguard with two senior ministers and an elderly royal relative, who was profuse in his apologies for having m
istaken the hour of the guests' arrival and thereby failed to be on time to receive them. It was all due to a sad mishap (it seemed he had been misinformed by an officious secretary) and he assured them that the man responsible for it would be severely punished, as not for the world would anyone in Bhithor have inconvenienced such honoured guests.
The honoured guests accepted the apologies and permitted themselves to be escorted in state through a maze of narrow streets towards the city palace, where the Rana awaited them.
Ash had not forgotten the Gulkote of his childhood, and he had, at one time or another, seen many Indian cities. But none of them had been in the least like this one. The streets and bazaars of Gulkote had been clamorous and colourful, and as crowded with people and full of life as the teeming rabbit-warren that was Peshawar, or the old walled cities of Delhi and Lahore with their shops and street-merchants and jostling, chattering citizens. But Bhithor was like something out of another age. An older and more dangerous age, full of menace and mystery. Its pale sandstone walls had an oddly bleached look, as though the burning suns of centuries had drained them of colour, while the sharp-edged shadows were grey rather than blue or black. The planless labyrinth of streets, and the blank and virtually windowless faces of the houses that hemmed them in gave Ash an uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia. It seemed impossible that sunlight could ever penetrate into those narrow, man-made canyons, or the winds blow through them, or that ordinary people could live behind those barred doors and closely shuttered windows. Yet he was aware of eyes peering down through those shutters – women's eyes, presumably, for all over India the upper storeys of houses are woman's territory.
There were surprisingly few women in the shadowed streets however, and those few kept their faces hidden, holding their cotton head-cloths close so that once again nothing could be seen but eyes; wary and suspicious eyes. And though they wore the traditional dress of Rajputana, full-skirted and boldly patterned in black, their preferences seemed to be for such colours as rust-red, ochre and burnt orange, and Ash saw none of the vivid blues and greens that flaunted so gaily through the bazaars and by-ways of neighbouring states. As for the men, a number of these too gave the impression of being veiled, since even here in the city streets there were many who kept one end of their turbans wrapped about the lower part of their faces; and judging by their narrow gaze, a European was a novelty in Bhithor – and not a popular one, either.
The citizens stared at Ash as though he were some form of freak, and the expressions of those whose faces were uncovered betrayed more hostility than interest. It was, he thought, as though he were a dog walking down an alley full of cats, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle in animal response to that silent antipathy – the enmity of closed minds towards all that is strange or new.
‘One would think, to look at them, that we have come here for some evil purpose instead of for a wedding,’ muttered Mulraj under his breath. ‘This is an ill place, and one does not need to be told that they worship the Drinker-of-Blood. Phew! Look there -’
He jerked his head in the direction of a shrine to Kali, who is also Sitala the goddess of smallpox, that stood at the junction of two streets; and as they rode past it Ash caught a glimpse of the frightful goddess in whose honour the Thugs had strangled thousands of victims, and whose temples had benefited by a tithe of their loot. The nightmare deity, with her multiplicity of arms, her glaring eyeballs, protruding tongue and long necklace of human skulls, is worshipped throughout India as the wife of Shiva the Destroyer. A singularly appropriate patroness, thought Ash, for this sinister city.
A strong stench of corruption and a buzzing cloud of flies showed that her devotees were not backward in satisfying her thirst for blood, and it was a measure of his unease that he actually caught himself wondering if it were only goats that were being sacrificed to appease that thirst. He shook the thought from him with impatience, but was nevertheless inordinately relieved when at last they left the streets behind them, and dismounting in the entrance courtyard of the city palace, the ‘Rung Mahal’, were conducted through a maze of dusty rooms and dark stone passageways to meet the Rana. Though here too there was the same claustrophobic atmosphere that had been so noticeable in the streets: the same stillness and stifling heat, the same haunting sense of an unforgotten past… of old times and old evil, and the unquiet ghosts of dead kings and murdered queens.
Compared to the Palace of the Winds, the Rung Mahal – the ‘Painted Palaced’ – was a modest building comprising half-a-dozen courtyards, a garden or two, and not more than sixty or seventy rooms (no one had ever counted those in the Palace of the Winds, though the number was believed to be in the region of six hundred). Possibly it was for this reason – among others – that its owner had begun by treating his guests in a manner calculated to damp any pretensions they might have, and now followed it up by simultaneously dazzling them with magnificence and chilling their blood with as barbaric a display of military strength as Ash, for one, had ever seen–imagined.
It had been no surprise to find that the outer courtyards bristled with armed men, but the sight of the Rana's personal bodyguards, who policed the inner ones and lined the long dark corridors, had startled Ash considerably, not on account of their numbers, though there must have been several hundred of them, but because of their weird attire, and because here, once again, were masked faces.
The officers wore helmets of a pattern that the Saracens must have worn in the days of the Crusades. Antique iron casques with long flat nose pieces, damascened in gold and silver and deeply fringed with chain mail that protected the wearer's jaw and neck and partially concealed his cheeks, leaving only the eyes visible. The helmets of the rank and file, though similar in style, were fashioned of leather, and the effect in that half light was oddly inhuman, as though the macabre figures who lined the corridors were masked headsmen or the mummified bodies of dead warriors. Their surcoats too were of chain mail, and instead of swords they carried short spears. ‘Like lictors,’ thought Ash with a shiver.
He regretted that he had not brought his revolver with him, for the sight of these mailed figures brought home to him, as nothing else had done, that this was a place in which no rules – and no law as the West understood law – held sway. Bhithor was of another age and another world: she stood outside of present Time, and was a law unto herself.
In a final ante-chamber at least fifty servants, dressed in the Rana's colours of scarlet, sulphur-yellow and orange, divided to let the visitors through, and preceded by the royal relative with the senior officials bringing up the rear, they were ushered into the Diwan-i-Am, the ‘Hall of Public Audience’, where the Rana and his Prime Minister the Diwan, together with the councillors and courtiers, waited to receive them.
The Diwan-i-Am was a beautiful building, though at that season of the year unsuited for a morning audience, as it consisted of an open-sided pavilion formed by a triple row of columns, and was closed only at each end. With the sun blazing down upon it and no breath of breeze, the heat under the pillared arches was considerable, but its beauty made amends for any deficiencies in the way of comfort; and certainly the temperature did not appear to trouble the serried ranks of courtiers and noblemen who sat cross-legged on the uncarpeted floor, packed as closely as sardines in a tin, and dressed in their festive best.
At the far end of the hall a shallow flight of steps led up to a raised platform on which a central dais served as a throne for the ruler when he gave audience, received distinguished visitors or dispensed justice, and behind this stretched a solid wall of black marble with a polished surface that reflected the assembly as though in a mirror. The sides of the platform were enclosed by screens of pierced marble through which the ladies of the Zenana could watch the proceedings, but elsewhere the stonework had been plastered over with polished chunam and decorated in low relief with formal designs of beasts, birds and flowers that had once been brightly coloured, but had faded in the course of the slow centuries to pa
le ghosts of their former glory. Yet the Diwan-i-Am did not lack colour, since the Rana's courtiers, unlike his humbler subjects, were so gaily attired that a foreigner entering the hall might well have thought for a dazzled moment that he had walked into a flower-garden – or a fairground.
Turbans of scarlet and cerise, sulphur-yellow, sugar-pink and purple vied with achkans of every shade of blue and violet, turquoise, vermilion, grass-green and orange; while to add to the mass of colour, the centre aisle was kept clear by a double rank of crimson-turbaned retainers, gaudily uniformed in yellow muslin sashed with orange, and carrying huge, plumed fly-whisks made of horsehair that had been dyed a vivid shade of magenta.
There were more retainers on the raised platform, two of them standing behind the dais and plying fans of peacock feathers, and the remainder armed with naked tulwars – the long curved swords of Rajputana. And on the dais itself, cross-legged on a carpet sewn with pearls, ablaze with jewels and clad from top to toe in gold, sat the focal point of all this splendour: the Rana of Bhithor.
The warrior races of Rajputana are famous for their good-looks, and it is doubtful if any similar assembly of Western men could have matched the present one in the matter of physical beauty, distinction and panache. Even the grey-beards among them retained traces of the hawk-faced handsomeness they had possessed in youth, and held themselves as erect as though they sat in a saddle instead of cross-legged upon the ground. The white, tightly fitting jodhpurs and the sleek lines of flared, brocaded coats showed off each lean, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped figure to perfection, while the crisp folds of their brilliant turbans added inches to their height and made every man seem a giant. There were, of course, exceptions to the rule. Scattered here and there under the arched roof of the Diwan-i-Am were men who were fat or withered or ill-favoured, the most noticeable of these being their ruler himself.