by M. M. Kaye
The following week there had been another unnerving incident, involving a cobra that had somehow found its way into Lalji's bedroom. A dozen servants were ready to swear that it could not have been there when the Yuveraj went to bed, but it was certainly there in the small hours of the morning, for something had woken Ash, and within a few minutes of his waking he heard a clock strike two. His pallet lay across the threshold of the Yuveraj's room and no one could pass in without disturbing him: not even a snake. Yet lying awake and listening in the darkness, he had heard something that he could not mistake: the dry rustle and slither of scales moving across the uncarpeted floor.
Ash possessed all the European's horror of snakes, and instinct urged him to be still and make no move that might attract the creature's attention to himself. But the sound had come from inside the Yuveraj's room, and he knew that Lalji was a restless sleeper who might at any moment throw out an arm or turn over with an abruptness that would invite attack. So he rose, shivering with panic, and groped his way over to the curtained doorway that led into an outer room. There was an oil lamp there, its wick turned low, and he set it flaring and woke the servants.
The cobra was investigating the fruit and drink set out on a low table by Lalji's bed, and it was killed to the accompaniment of shrieks from Lalji and considerable uproar from a milling mob of servants, courtiers and guards. No one had ever discovered how it had managed to enter the room, though it was generally supposed to have found its way in through the bathroom sluice, and only Dunmaya saw its appearance as a deliberate plot against her darling.
‘She is a foolish old woman, that one,’ said Sita, listening to the tale of the night's doings. ‘Who would dare to catch a live cobra and carry it through the palace? And if they could do such a thing they would certainly have been seen, for it was not a small snake. Besides, who is there in Gulkote who would wish to harm the boy? Not the Rani; all know how fond she has become of him. She treats him with as much kindness as though he was her own son, and I tell you it is not necessary to have given birth to a child in order to become fond of it. Dunmaya did not bear the Yuveraj, yet she too loves him – even to seeing plots everywhere. She is mad.’
Ash remained silent and did not tell her of those long-ago cakes and the halwa that had so recently appeared in the same garden and had also been poisoned, or what Koda Dad had said about the Rani and Biju Ram. He knew that such ugly tales would only frighten her, and he did not intend that she should hear them. But all too soon there came a day when it was no longer possible to keep them from her, for Kairi stumbled upon something that was to alter their lives as drastically as the cholera had done in that terrible spring when Hilary and Akbar Khan had died.
The Princess Anjuli – ‘Kairi-Bai’, the little unripe mango – was barely six years old at that time, and had she been born in any Western country she would still have been considered a baby. But she had not only been born in the east, but in an eastern palace, and a too early experience of the plotting and intrigues of an Indian court had sharpened her wits and made her wise beyond her years.
Mindful of Ashok's warning and knowing him to be out of favour with her brother Lalji, Kairi no longer spoke to him or even glanced his way in public. But the system of secret signs and code words by which they could communicate under the eyes of the whole household without being detected served them well, and it was three days after the incident of the cobra that she ran to the Yuveraj's quarters and managed to convey an urgent signal to Ash. It was one that they were only to use in a dire emergency, and obeying it, Ash had slipped away at the earliest opportunity and made his way to the Queen's balcony, where Kairi had been waiting for him, white-faced and dissolved in tears.
‘It's your own fault,’ sobbed Kairi. ‘She said you threw away some sweets and saved him from a cobra. I truly didn't mean to listen but I was afraid she would be angry if she found me in her garden, and Mian Mittau had flown in there and I had to catch him – I had to. So when I heard her coming I hid in the bushes behind the pavilion and I heard… I heard what she said. Oh Ashok, she is bad! Bad and wicked. She meant to kill Lalji, and now she is angry with you about the cobra and because of some sweets. She said it showed that you know too much, so they must kill you quickly and she doesn't care how it is done, because it won't show by the time the kites and crows have finished with you, and who will mind about the death of a bazaar brat – that's you Ashok, she meant you. And she told them to throw you over the wall afterwards so that people will think you were climbing and fell off. It's true what I'm telling. They are going to kill you, Ashok. Oh what shall we do – what shall we do?’
Kairi threw herself at him wailing with terror, and Ash put his arms round her and mechanically rocked her to and fro while his thoughts scurried round in frantic circles. Yes, it was true… he was sure of that, for Juli could never have invented such a conversation. Janoo-Rani had always meant to kill Lalji and set her own son in his place, and to her certain knowledge he, Ashok, had stood in her way at least three times – four, if she was aware that it was also he who had found and thrown away those cakes. Had she known? He did not think anyone had seen him do that. But it made no difference now. She meant to see that he did not interfere again, and he would be a much easier target than Lalji, for no one would inquire too closely into the death or disappearance of such an unimportant person as the son of a serving-woman in the household of the neglected Kairi-Bai. He had never told Lalji of those cakes, or the truth about the halwa, and it was too late to tell him now. Particularly as Lalji had long ago persuaded himself that the falling slab of sandstone had been no more than an accident, and only two days ago had told Dunmaya that she was an evil-minded old trouble-maker who deserved to have her tongue cut out, because the old woman had voiced suspicions regarding the cobra. There was no help to be expected from the Yuveraj.
‘Juli was right,’ thought Ash despairingly. ‘It is my own fault for not telling Lalji about it and showing him what those cakes did to the fish years ago, and the sweets poisoning that crow.’ He hadn't any proof now; and even if he had it wouldn't help him because Lalji was so sure that the Rani was his friend, and he, Ashok, could not prove that she did it, or tell them what Juli had heard because they would say that she was only a baby and had made it up. But the Rani would know that she hadn't and perhaps kill her too – and his mother as well, in case Sita should ask too many questions if he were killed…
Twilight was gathering under the dome of the Queen's balcony, and Kairi had wept herself into exhaustion and now lay still and silent, soothed by the monotonous motion as Ash rocked to and fro and stared above her head at the far-away snows. The breeze was cold with the coming of winter, for October was nearly over and the days were drawing in. The sun had almost vanished and the distant peaks of the Dur Khaima made a frieze of fading rose and amber against an opal sky in which a single star shimmered like one of Janoo-Rani's diamonds.
Ash shivered, and releasing Kairi said abruptly: ‘We must go. It will soon be too dark to see, and – and they may be looking for me.’ But he did not go until the snows had turned from pink to violet and only the top-most peak of the Far Pavilions – Tarakalas, the ‘Star Turret’ – still held the last of the sunset.
He had brought no rice with him today, but Kairi wore a little bracelet of late rosebuds around one wrist, and he stripped it off and scattered the buds at the edge of the balcony, hoping that the Dur Khaima would understand the emergency and forgive him for not bringing an offering of his own: ‘Help me,’ prayed Ash to his personal deity. ‘Please help me! I don't want to die…’
The light faded from the peak and now the whole range was no more than a lilac silhouette against the darkening sky, and there was not one star, but a thousand. As the night wind strengthened it blew the rosebuds away, and Ash was comforted, for it seemed to him that the Dur Khaima had accepted his offering. The two children turned together and groped their way down through the ruined tower and back to Sita's courtyard, hand clutched in h
and and eyes and ears strained to catch the smallest sound or movement that would betray a lurker in the shadows.
Sita had been cooking the evening meal, and Ash left Kairi with her and fled back to the Yuveraj's rooms through the maze of corridors and court-yards that formed a third of the Hawa Mahal, his heart thumping wildly and a queer cold feeling between his shoulder-blades at that spot where a knife might most easily be driven in. It was an enormous relief to find that he had not been missed because Lalji had received a set of jewelled chessmen from the Rani, and was engaged in a game with Biju Ram.
Half-a-dozen sycophantic courtiers surrounded the chess players and applauded their young master's every move, and at the far end of the room a solitary figure sat cross-legged under a hanging lamp, absorbed in a book and paying no attention to the game. Ash tiptoed over to him and begged in a whisper for a word in private, and Hira Lal's lazy eyes scanned the boy's face for a brief moment before returning to the book.
‘No. Tell me here,’ said Hira Lal in an unhurried undertone that did not carry to the group of courtiers. ‘If it is important, it is better not to go apart, for then someone might follow to find out what it is that you do not wish overheard. Turn your back to them so that they cannot see your face, and do not speak in a whisper. They will never believe that you would talk secrets in so public a place, so you may say what you will.’
Ash obeyed him. He had to have advice, and of all the Yuveraj's household only Hira Lal had befriended him. He would have to trust him now because there was the night to be got through, and he did not know how many of the household were in the Nautch-girl's pay: perhaps half of them – or all of them. But not Hira Lal. Instinct told him that he could rely on Hira Lal, and instinct was right. Hira Lal listened without comment, his slim fingers absently toying with his dangling earring while his gaze strayed about the room in a manner calculated to suggest to the group by the chess players that he was bored and paying very little attention. But when Ash had finished, he said quietly: ‘You did. well to tell me. I will see to it that you come to no harm tonight. But the Rani is a dangerous woman and she can afford to pay highly to achieve her ends. You will have to leave Gulkote – you and your mother both. There is no other way.’
‘I cannot’ – the boy's voice cracked. ‘The Yuveraj would never give me leave and the guards will not let me pass the gate alone.’
‘You will not ask for leave. As for the gate, we shall find some other way. Tomorrow go to the Master of Horse and tell him what you have told me. Koda Dad is a wise man and he will devise something. And now I think we have spoken together long enough; that is the second time Biju Ram has looked our way.’
He yawned largely and closing his book with a bang, rose to his feet and said in a carrying voice: ‘Horses I can endure, but hawks, no. You must not expect me to show interest in creatures that bite and smell and shed feathers and fleas all over the floor. Grow up, boy, and study the works of the poets. That may improve your mind – if you have a mind.’
He tossed the book to Ash and strolled over to join the group surrounding the chess players. But he was as good as his word. That night one of the Rajah's personal bodyguard shared the ante-chamber with Ash, his presence being explained as a mark of His Highness's disapproval at the laxity that had permitted a cobra to enter his son's bedroom.
There were no alarms in the night; but Ash did not sleep well, and as soon as he could escape next morning he went off to see Koda Dad Khan. Hira Lal had been before him.
‘It is all arranged,’ said Koda Dad, checking him with an upraised hand. ‘We are agreed that you must leave tonight, and as you cannot go through he gate you must go over the wall. For that we shall only need rope; much rope for the drop is a long one. But there is enough and to spare in the stables, so that will be easy. It is the last part that will be difficult, for you will have to climb down the rocks by goat tracks, which are hard enough to find by daylight and will be more so by night. It is fortunate that there is a moon.’
‘But - but my mother?’ stammered Ash. ‘She is not strong and she can't she could not…’
‘No, no. She must leave by the gate. There is no order forbidding it. She must say that she wishes to purchase cloth or trinkets in the bazaar, and means to pass a night or two with an old friend. They will not question it, and once she is gone you must pretend to be ill so that you need not sleep in the Yuveraj's quarters tonight. You have only to cough and make believe to have a sore throat, and he will instantly agree to let you sleep elsewhere for he is afraid of infection. Then as soon as the palace is quiet, I myself will let you down on a rope, and after that you will have to get away quickly. Can your mother ride?’
‘I don't know. I don't think so. I have never –’
‘No matter. The two of you together cannot weigh as much as a full-grown man, and she can mount behind you. Hira Lal will arrange for a horse to be waiting for you among the chenar trees by Lal Beg's tomb beyond the city. You know the place. You cannot enter the city, as the gates are closed at night, so your mother must leave it during the afternoon when many people are about and no one notices who goes in or out. Tell her to take food and warm clothing, for the winter is coming and the nights are cold. And when you have her on the horse, ride hard for the north, since they will be sure you will go southward where the climate is kinder and the crops more abundant. With luck they may not search for you for a full day or more, for at first the Yuveraj will think that you are ill, and by the time he finds that you are gone you must be far away. Yet it is not he, but the Rani that you have to fear. She will know very well why you have fled, and desire your death the more – for fear of what you may know and who you might tell. The, Nautch-girl is a ruthless and dangerous enemy. Do not forget that.’
Ash's young face whitened and he said hoarsely: ‘But Juli knows too – knows. If the Rani finds out who told me, she will have her killed too. I shall have to take her with me.’
‘Chup!’* snapped Koda Dad angrily. ‘You talk like a child, Ashok. You must be a man now, and think and act as one. You have only to tell Kairi-Bai to keep her mouth shut, and even the Nautch-girl will not suspect her, for the child comes and goes like a sparrow and no one troubles to notice her. But if you run off with the Rajah's daughter, do you think that he would swallow such an affront to his honour? Why, he would hunt you to the death; and there is no man in all Hind who would not think him right and help him to do so. So let us have no more of such foolishness!’
‘I'm sorry,’ apologized Ash, flushing. ‘I didn't think.’
‘That has always been your besetting sin, my son,’ growled Koda Dad. ‘You act first and think afterwards: how many times have I not said so? Well, think now if there is a safe place from where we may lower you over the wall on the northern side, because there the ground below is more broken and there are bushes and goat tracks among the rocks. But it will not be easy, for I know of no place on that side where you could not be seen by a man looking out from the wall or a window.’
‘There is one,’ said Ash slowly. ‘A balcony…’
So for the first time he went to the Queen's balcony by night, to leave it for the last time; clinging to the end of a rope that Koda Dad Khan and Hira Lal lowered down the forty-foot drop on to the tumbled rocks, where thorn bushes made black patches of shadow in the clear October moonlight, and the wandering goat tracks wound steeply downwards towards the milky levels of the plateau.
He had said goodbye to Kairi earlier that day after Sita had left, and had not expected to see her again. But she had been waiting for him in the Queen's balcony, a small, forlorn shadow in the moon-flooded night.
‘They don't know I'm here,’ she explained hurriedly, forestalling criticism. ‘They think I'm asleep. I left a bundle in my bed in case anyone looked, but they were b-both snoring when I went out and they didn't hear me. Truly they didn't. I wanted to give you a present, because you are my bracelet-brother, and because you are going away. Here – this is for you, Ashok. To – to bri
ng you luck.’
She thrust out a thin, square little palm and the moonlight glinted on a small sliver of mother-of-pearl carved in the semblance of a fish. It was, Ash knew, the only thing she had to give: the sole trinket she possessed and her dearest and greatest treasure. Seen in these terms it was perhaps the most lavish present that anyone could or would ever offer him, and he took it reluctantly, awed by the value of the gift.
‘Juli, you shouldn't. I haven't anything to give you.’ He was suddenly ashamed that he should have nothing to offer in return. ‘I haven't anything at all,’ he said bitterly.
‘You've got the fish now,’ consoled Kairi.
‘Yes, I have the fish.’
He looked down at it and found that he could not see it clearly because there were tears in his eyes. But men did not cry. On a sudden inspiration he broke the little slip of mother-of-pearl in two, lengthways, and gave her back half of it. ‘There. Now we have each got a luck-charm. And one day, when I come back, we'll stick them together again and –’
‘Enough,’ interrupted Koda Dad roughly. ‘Go back to bed, Kairi-baba. If they find you gone and raise an outcry we shall all be ruined; and the boy must leave at once, for he has a long way to go before moonset. Say goodbye to him now, and go.’
Kairi's small face puckered woefully and the tears that streamed down it drowned the words that she was trying to say, and Ash, embarrassed, said hastily, ‘Don't cry, Juli, I'll come back one day, I promise.’
He hugged her briefly and pushing her towards Hira Lal, who was standing silent in the shadows, said urgently: ‘See that she gets back safely, won't you, Hira Lal? Her women mustn't know that she has been out tonight, for the Rani might hear of it, and then when it is found that I have gone -’
‘Yes, yes, boy. I know. I will see to it. Now go.’
Hira Lal moved out into the moonlight, and as he did so the grey silk of his achkan became one with the night sky, and his face and hands took on the neutral tint of the stonework, so that for a moment it seemed to Ash that he was looking at a ghost, and that Hira Lal was already only a memory. The thought sent a chill through him, and for the first time he realized how much he owed to this man who had befriended him. And to Koda Dad and Kairi, and others who had been good to him: falconers, syces, mahouts from the elephant lines; and before that, all the playfellows and acquaintances of his happy days in the city. It was strange that only now, when he was leaving Gulkote, did he see that there had been almost as many good times as bad ones.
