by M. M. Kaye
Her voice died out on a whisper, and Ash said gently: ‘You don't have to trouble yourself about such things any longer, Larla. Put them away and forget them. All that is over and done with.’
‘Yes, it is over and done with; and being a half-caste there is no need for me to trouble myself as to what my people or my priests will do or say, since it seems that I have neither the one nor the other. Therefore from now on I will be a half-caste, and a woman of no family, from nowhere… one whose only god is her husband.’
‘Her wedded husband,’ persisted Ash obstinately.
Anjuli turned to look at him, her face dark against the sunset. ‘It may be… if you truly desire it, and if… But until you have seen those who are in authority over you and spoken with your priests, you cannot know if it is possible, so let us talk no more of it now. The sun is almost gone and I must go down and prepare food for us while it is still light enough to see.’
She slipped past him and went down the dark stairway, and Ash let her go without making any attempt to stop her. Instead he went to stand by the parapet, and leaning his arms on it, looked out towards the hills, as she had done, and reviewed all the difficulties that lay ahead.
45
‘I shall have to be careful,’ thought Ash. ‘Very careful.’
Last night after Bukta had left him he had contemplated flight. Juli and he must leave Gujerat at once, and on no account must he return to Ahmadabad. They could board the Bombay train at some small wayside station, and long before the Diwan's men could pick up their trail they would have left Central India and the Punjab behind them, crossed the Indus and be safely back in Mardan.
It had seemed the obvious thing to do. But then that was the trouble: it was too obvious. It was what he would be expected to do, and therefore he could not do it. He would have to be a lot cleverer than that – and pray that whatever decision he came to was the right one, for if it were not, neither Juli nor he would live long enough to regret it.
He had still not made up his mind when Anjuli called him down to eat. She had made a small fire in the corner of the tomb, and before it went out, Ash burned the packet of letters that he had written in the room above the charcoal-seller's shop in Bhithor, and that Sarji and Gobind had known they dared not keep, because had the Bhithoris found them they would have been evidence that would have betrayed him. He watched them shrivel and turn black, and later, when Anjuli was asleep, he went noiselessly out into the starlight to sit on a fallen block of stone near the entrance of the tomb, to think and plan…
He did not doubt that Bhithor and its Diwan would require vengeance for the lives of those who had died – and a lingering death for the widowed Rani, who would be blamed for everything. The hunt would be called against her, and it would not be abandoned until the hunters became convinced that she and her two remaining rescuers had lost their way among the trackless hills and died of thirst and starvation. Only then would Juli be safe. Juli and Bukta. And incidentally, he himself.
He had allowed Bukta to suppose that the Bhithoris would have no reason to connect an officer-Sahib from a cavalry regiment in Ahmadabad with the disappearance of one of the late Rana's widows. But that was not so, since was it not a Captain-Sahib, one Pelham-Martyn of the Guides, who had escorted the Ranis to their wedding and outwitted the Rana and his councillors in the matter of the bride-price and dowries? And had not an officer of the same name recently warned certain British officials in Ahmadabad that if and when the Rana died his widows would burn? – and sent off several strongly worded telegrams to that effect?
Besides, as it was already known in Bhithor that the Hakim-Sahib had arrived there by way of Ahmadabad, and that his servant Manilal had subsequently visited that city on two separate occasions in order to purchase medicines, the Bhithoris would certainly not neglect to send spies there in search of the missing Rani. In fact it was only too likely to be among the first places they would think of; and once there, decided Ash grimly, they would find abundant evidence that he had interested himself in the widows, and almost certainly discover that both Gobind and Manilal had stayed at his bungalow. That last would be the vital link, and unless he was much mistaken, from there it would be only a short step to murder: his own as well as Juli's. And probably Bukta's too.
The odds were frightening, because the one thing he could be certain of was that Bhithor would move quickly. The Diwan could not afford to be dilatory, and search parties would already be hurrying to cover every possible escape route to Karidkote, while others would soon be on their way to Gujerat. Yet after careful consideration Ash came to the conclusion that the best thing he could do – in fact the only thing – was to return to his bungalow and brazen it out.
Juli would have to go on ahead with Gul Baz, while he followed a few days later with Bukta, arriving as though from the direction of Kathiawar in the southern half of the peninsula, instead of from the northern districts that bordered on Rajputana – and with a different lie to account for Sarji's death and the loss of the horses.
They must say that they had changed their plans and gone south together, and that Sarji and the horses had been drowned while crossing a tidal river, the bodies being swept out to sea and lost in the waters of the Gulf of Kutch. His own grief at the loss of his friend (genuine enough, God knew), not to mention the loss of a much-valued horse, would more than account for his showing no further interest in the fate of the Ranis of Bhithor.
He still had a good deal of leave at his disposal: those weeks that he had planned to spend with Wally on trek through the high country beyond the Rotang Pass. The trek would have to be cancelled, for he must spend the next week or so idling about cantonments, disposing of unwanted property and making leisurely arrangements for the homeward journey to Mardan, in order to demonstrate to any who might be interested that he had nothing to hide and was in no particular hurry to leave the station.
The presence of an additional woman in the servants' quarters was unlikely to arouse much interest (even if it were noticed) for who would expect to find a high-born lady, daughter of a Maharajah and widow of a Rana of Bhithor, agreeing to live in seclusion among the Sahib's Mohammedan servants, in the guise of his bearer's wife? Such a thing would be unthinkable, and even those Bhithoris who had termed her ‘the half-caste’ would not credit it. They would probably watch him for several days, taking careful notes of his behaviour and his every move, and in the end they would come to the conclusion that he could have taken no part in the escape, but had lost interest in the Ranis after sending off those telegrams, and did not intend to do anything more on their behalf. They would return to Bhithor and report as much to the Diwan, who would turn his attention elsewhere. And Juli would be safe.
It was a pity about that trek; Wally was going to be disappointed. But he would understand that it could not be helped, and they could always go another year. There was plenty of time…
His mind made up, Ash lay down across the entrance to the tomb so that no human or animal could pass in without waking him, and was asleep before the moon rose. But though tonight his sleep was untroubled by dreams, it was not so with Anjuli, for three times that night she cried out in the grip of a nightmare.
On the first occasion Ash, jerked into consciousness by that choking scream, scrambled up to find that the tomb was filled with a cold radiance. The moon had risen while he slept and was shining in through the broken dome, and by its light he could see Anjuli crouching against the far wall with her arms across her face, as though to blot out some intolerable sight. She was moaning, ‘No! No, Shu-shu, no…!’ and he caught her in his arms and held her close, rocking her shuddering body and murmuring endearments and comfort, until at last the terror left her and for the first time in all those desperate, terrible days, she broke down and wept.
The storm of tears ceased at last, and it seemed to have washed away some of her tension, for presently she relaxed and lay still, and after a time he realized that she had fallen asleep again. Moving very gently so as
not to wake her he lay down, still holding her, listening to her shallow breathing and appalled by her thinness.
Had they starved her?… from what he knew of the Rana and the Diwan, he would not put it past them, and his mind blackened with rage at the thought as he tightened his arms about the skeletal form that had once been so smooth and firm and sweetly slender, and whose every lovely line and curve his hands and lips had explored with such heart-stopping delight.
Less than an hour later she began to toss and turn, and once more started up, screaming Shu-shu's name. And again, shortly before dawn when the tomb was dark because the moon no longer shone into it, the nightmare trapped her for the third time that night, and she woke in the black darkness and struggled frantically against his restraining arms as though she imagined herself to be in the grip of an enemy come to drag her to a pyre – or towards a brazier where a fire-iron glowed white-hot among the coals.
It had taken longer to quieten her after that last awakening, and as she clung to him, shuddering with the aftermath of terror and begging him to hold her – hold her – the physical desire that had once been a living flame between them, and that Ash had thought lost, blazed up in him so fiercely that he would at that moment have sacrificed their hope of safety to be able to take possession of her body and obtain comfort and release for his own – and with it a temporary forgetfulness of all the problems that pressed upon him.
But there was no answering urge in the wasted body in his arms, and he knew that if he were to take her now it would be by force, for she would recoil from him; and also that if he were to give way to his own desires and to succeed in awakening a like response in her, their situation would be a great deal worse than it was already, because once the barriers were down it would be next to impossible for them to keep apart during the following days. Neither of them would be capable of it, yet if suspicion was to be disarmed it was essential that Juli should spend the next week or ten days in one of the servants' quarters behind his bungalow, and that he himself should go nowhere near her. If he were seen to do so it could be fatal for them both, and this way was better. There would be plenty of time for love-making once they were married and the nightmares were over.
Anjuli fell asleep at last, and presently Ash too slept, and did not wake until she stirred in his arms and drew away from him, aroused by the joyous chorus of parrots, pigeons, doves and weaver-birds greeting the dawn. When the sun was up, and after they had eaten, he told her of the plans he had made during the previous night, and she listened to him, raising no objection and seeming willing enough to fall in with any decisions that he might choose to make: but apart from this they talked very little. Anjuli was still suffering from shock and exhaustion, and for both of them that long day in the ruined tomb had been haunted by the thought of Shushila. Neither of them had been able to put her out of their minds; and though Ash had done his best to do so, the thought of her had returned to him so persistently that he was almost tempted to believe that her uneasy little ghost had followed them there, and was watching them from the shadows of the kikar trees.
In the late afternoon Bukta returned accompanied by Gul Baz and two spare horses, and though Anjuli had been awake and heard their voices, she had remained on the roof and let the three men talk together. Bukta had approved of the new plan, for he and Gul Baz had discussed the matter at length, and come to a similar conclusion: ‘But I have said that this tale of a wife or a widowed daughter will not serve,’ said Gul Baz. ‘I have a better plan –’
He had: and what was more, he had already taken steps to put it into operation. After discussing the matter with Bukta they had, he said, decided that the only thing to do was to substitute the Rani-Sahiba for the shy, silent woman whom he had installed more than a year ago in the hut behind his own quarter – and who had in any case been expecting to leave in the near future, since she was aware that the Sahib and his servants were about to return to the North-West Frontier Province, and had always known that the irregular but useful arrangement she had made with the Sahib's bearer would automatically cease when he went back to his own country. As that day was almost here it was only a question of terminating it a little earlier than expected; and this Gul Baz had done.
When he left the bungalow early that morning he had gone in a hired tonga, and taken the woman with him, having let it be known that she wished to visit her mother in her home village, and that they would be returning late. In fact, she would not be returning at all. It would be the Rani-Sahiba who would come back with him, though his fellow-servants would not know that there had been any substitution – one woman in a bourka being very like another. As for the other one, the Sahib need not fear: she had been well paid and there would be no danger from that quarter, for apart from being a close-mouthed woman, there was no chance of her returning to the cantonment area, or even the city, until well after they themselves were back in Mardan.
‘But tonight when we return it will be seen that she has come back with me as I said, so if any stranger should come asking questions he will learn nothing, there being nothing to tell. I have here a bourka for the Rani-Sahiba, old but clean. It belonged to that other one and I took it from her, saying it was too worn and mended, and that I would buy her a new one in the bazaar; which I did. Also by good fortune she is a tall woman, for the shikari tells me that the Rani-Sahiba is also tall. We shall return after dark, and no one will notice any difference; and once installed in the but the Rani-Sahiba will be safe, for I shall say she is suffering from some slight sickness and must keep to her bed. There will be no need for her to speak to anyone, or even be seen.’
Ash said: ‘And what happens when the time comes for us to leave Gujerat?’
‘We have thought of that too,’ said Bukta. ‘There will be no difficulty. Your servant has only to say that his woman wishes to visit a relative in the Punjab and that he has agreed to take her with him as far as Delhi – or Lahore, if you prefer, it makes no matter. He will arrange all that. He has a head upon his shoulders, has that Pathan. Moreover the woman is known to have lived under his protection for close on a year, while the Rani-Sahiba has only been missing for a handful of days. Now, as to our own return –’
Some twenty minutes later a party of four horsemen could have been seen riding swiftly across the croplands towards the dusty main highway that runs between Khed Brahma and Ahmadabad, and on reaching it they broke into a gallop, heading south.
Twilight overtook them when they were still many miles from the city of Ahmad Shah. But they pressed on through the dusk, and later in the starlight; and when at last they came within sight of the twinkling lights of the cantonment, the moon was rising. They drew rein near a clump of trees and Ash lifted Juli down from the saddle. They did not speak, for they had already said everything that was necessary; and besides all four were anxious and more than a little weary. Gul Baz handed over his horse to Bukta and salaamed to Ash, and followed by Anjuli, who walked a pace behind him as befitted a woman, he went away in the moonlight towards a village on the outskirts of the cantonments where he could hire a tonga to take them back to the bungalow.
Five days later Ash returned to Ahmadabad, riding one of Sarji's horses and attended by one of the syces from Sarji's stables.
The syce had been entertained by Kulu Ram and others before taking the horse back with him later that day, and before he left he told his hosts, with a wealth of detail, the story of the death of his master, who had been tragically drowned while attempting to swim his horse across one of the many tidal rivers that ran into the Gulf of Kutch, and of how the Sahib's horse had also been drowned, and the Sahib himself only saved by a miracle. The tale had lost nothing in the telling, and Gul Baz had been able to report later that it had obviously not occurred to the teller – or to anyone else – to doubt it.
‘So that is another ditch safely crossed,’ said Gul Baz. ‘As for the other matter, that too was passed over in safety. No one has thought to question the identity of the one who returned he
re with me. Nor will they, for she keeps to her room, feigning poor health; which I think is in part true, for during her second night here she cried out in her sleep so loudly that I awoke and ran out to her hut, fearing that she had been discovered and was being abducted. But she said that it was only a dream and that –’ He broke off, seeing Ash's expression, and said: ‘Has this happened before, then?’
‘Yes. I should have thought of it, and warned you,’ said Ash, angry with himself for the omission. He himself had not been troubled by any further dreams of Shushila, but she continued to weigh on his conscience: her small, reproachful face was still apt to rise up before him at unexpected moments, and if this was so with him, how much worse must it be for Juli, who had loved her?
He asked if any of the other servants had been awakened, but Gul Baz did not think so. ‘For as you know, my quarter and the one that was Mahdoo-ji's stand apart from the others, and the hut in which the Rani-Sahiba lies is close behind it and thus well shielded from those that are occupied by the other servants. But on the next day I purchased opium and made a draught for her to take after sundown, since when she has slept soundly and made no further outcries in the night – which is as well, for the shikari spoke truth when he said that the Sahib might be spied upon.’
According to Gul Baz, on the previous day several strangers had come to the bungalow, one asking for work, another purporting to be a vendor of drugs and simples, and a third inquiring after an errant wife, who, so he said, was believed to have run off with the servant of some Sahib. This last one, on hearing that Pelham-Sahib had left for a shooting trip in Kathiawar earlier in the month and had not yet returned, had asked many questions…
‘All of which,’ said Gul Baz, ‘we answered. Sympathizing with him in his distress and telling him many things: though none, I fear, that were of help to him. As for the seller of drugs and such-like, by good fortune he was here again today when the Sahib returned, and he stayed to listen to all that the syce had to tell. Afterwards he packed up his wares and went away, saying that he had many other customers to attend to and could waste no more time here. I do not think he will return, for he has seen for himself that the Sahib came back alone, and learned from that syce, whose tongue wagged as freely as an old woman's, that no third person accompanied the Sahib and the shikari when they brought the sad news of the drowning in Kathiawar to the family of the Sirdar Sarjevar Desai.’