by M. M. Kaye
‘Hurry,’ said Ash peremptorily, and urged Baj Raj into a gallop. But less than a minute later Juli's mare stumbled and slowed to an uneven trot, and he was forced to stop and turn back.
‘I think it is only a pebble,’ said Anjuli, dismounting to investigate. But it proved to be a piece of flint as sharp-edged as glass, and so deeply imbedded that lacking a knife and hampered by bad light, it had taken Ash the best part of ten minutes to remove it; and when he had done so the mare still limped, for the cut was a deep one.
‘You'd better take Baj Raj and get back as fast as you can, and I'll come on later,’ decided Ash. ‘In fact it's probably a good idea in the circumstances for you to arrive back alone. You can pretend we got separated in the storm, and you spent the night alone in a cave and started back as soon as it began to get light. It will sound better that way. You can tell them you don't know where I am.’
‘When I am riding your horse? And you mine? They would never believe it!’ said Anjuli scornfully: ‘Any more than they would believe that you would have permitted me to get lost.’
Ash grunted and said: ‘No, I suppose not. It would take a lot of explaining and at the moment I can't think of a good enough story. Anyway, I suppose the fewer lies we tell the better.’
‘We do not need to tell any,’ said Anjuli curtly. ‘We will tell the truth.’
‘All of it?’ inquired Ash dryly.
Anjuli did not answer, but remounted her horse in silence and they moved on again, this time at a walk. But although there was still very little light, and no sound but the creak of saddle-leather and the soft clop of hooves on thick dust, Ash knew that she was crying. Crying very quietly with her eyes wide open, as she used to do in the old days when she had been Kairi-Bai, and in trouble.
Poor little Kairi-Bai. Poor Juli… He had failed them both: forgetting the one, and now blaming the other because she had wanted to snatch a brief moment of glory out of the drabness and servitude that was her life, and had laid plans to keep it secret; not for her sake, but for Shushila's – because if she were to be cast off by the Rana and sent back in disgrace to Nandu, what would happen to her frail, hysterical, selfish little sister? It was unjust to blame Juli. But the descent from the heights of love and rapture and extravagant hope had been too violent, and that ugly picture of serving-women and concubines instructing their juniors in sexual tricks had so sickened him that for a dreadful instant he had wondered if the physical ecstasy he had experienced had been artfully heightened by what she herself had termed ‘harlot's tricks’, and if her own response had been real, or only simulated in order to add a sharper edge to his pleasure.
That suspicion had vanished as quickly as it had come. The intangible bond that linked them, and that made him aware at this moment that she was crying, could not have deceived him as they lay embraced, but something of the chill and the distaste still stayed with him. Enough, at least, to prevent him from further speech; though he had the grace to feel ashamed of himself for hurting her, and for keeping silent instead of apologizing and reaching out a hand to comfort her.
This was a sorry ending to an episode that she had risked a great deal for, and had hoped to treasure as a golden memory that would sustain her in the loveless years that lay ahead. He knew that if he let her go like this, without further words or even a touch of the hand, he would regret it until the end of his life. But at the moment he could not bring himself to do either, for his own disappointment was too bitter to be borne, and weariness and a crushing sense of failure pressed so heavily on him that he felt curiously numb and apathetic – as though he were a punch-drunk boxer, beaten to his knees on the canvas and vaguely aware of the necessity of getting to his feet before he was counted out, but unable to make any effort to do so. He would talk to Juli presently. Tell her he was sorry, and that he loved her and would always love her; even though she herself did not love him enough to desert Shushila for his sake… It was strange to think that although Janoo-Rani was dead she could still strike at both of them through her daughter, who was going to wreck their chance of happiness and ruin their lives…
The last star faded in a wash of pale light that crept slowly upward from the horizon and drained the darkness from the plain, turning it from black to a pearly grey in which the scattered boulders and occasional bushes cast no shadow. They were clear of the hills now, and ahead of them, in the far distance, a tall outcrop of rock thrust up out of the wide amphitheatre of plain, cutting a dark silhouette against the prevailing greyness. It was the spot where they had left the ruth and its escort on the previous evening, and Ash recognized it with relief, for he had paid little attention to the countryside yesterday and was not entirely sure where they were. But that jagged pile was the one unmistakable landmark in a colourless, treeless land where the outlines of the encircling hills presented few distinctive features, and once they reached it, they should be able to find their way back to the camp easily enough. But the sky was already beginning to turn yellow in the east and it would not be long now, thought Ash grimly, before the day broke and displayed them both in the merciless sunlight, dirty and dishevelled and still a long way from the camp.
He turned to look at Anjuli, and saw that she was drooping with fatigue and paying no attention to where she was going, but sitting slack in the saddle and allowing the limping horse to choose its own path between the stones and the low scrub. Even in that dim light her coat showed sadly crumpled and her attempt to confine the tangled mass of her hair into a single heavy plait, using her fingers for a comb, had not been particularly successful. Her head was turned away from him in order to hide the fact that she was crying, but even if he had not already known it intuitively the growing light would have betrayed her, for it glinted wetly on the outline of her averted face.
Perhaps a similar perceptiveness had made her aware of his gaze, because as he watched her she straightened her shoulders, and lifting a hand as though to push back her hair, brushed away the tell-tale wetness in a gesture that appeared so unstudied that anyone else would have been deceived.
It did not deceive Ash, and he felt his heart contract with love. There had been so much gallantry in that small, seemingly casual action, and in the determined straightening of her back. She had not asked for pity, and she would hide her grief and face the future with courage, and without complaining.
There was good Rajput blood in Juli, and the fire and rashness inherent in it had been cooled and balanced by a strong Cossack strain that was a legacy from her grandfather, old Sergei Vodvichenko – that hard-headed, aristocratic Soldier-of-Fortune who had sold his sword to the highest bidder and won battles for Ranjit Singh and Holkar and Scindia of Gwalior, and bequeathed his gold-flecked eyes and his high cheek bones to his granddaughter Anjuli, Princess of Karidkote.
Rajput and Cossack… it was a strange amalgam, and an unlikely one. But it had produced Juli, who was loving, faithful and passionate, and who possessed, in addition to courage, that particular brand of quiet fortitude that is rarer and far better than courage – together with the strength to keep a promise, once given, even if it meant the sacrifice of her own happiness.
Ash had once made her a promise and forgotten it. Though there was some excuse for that; he had, after all, been barely eleven at the time. Yet he was uncomfortably certain that had their positions been reversed and she had made him a similar promise, she would neither have forgotten it nor broken it. Juli, like Wally, took a disconcertingly literal view of such things; and it occurred to Ash that in some ways they were remarkably alike.
His mouth twisted in a wry grimace of self-contempt, and he reached out a hand to her. But he had left it too late, for even as he did so she reined in and pointed at something that moved in the half-light, separating itself from the shadowy bulk of the rocky outcrop ahead of them. An object that lurched away across the plain looking like a prehistoric animal with a double hump. It was the ruth.
‘Look!’ cried Anjuli. ‘It is Shu-shu. So they did not get back eit
her.’
But it was not Shu-shu. It was only Kaka-ji and the driver of the ruth.
Ash stood up in his stirrups and shouted out to them, and then spurred forward, leaving Anjuli to follow slowly in his wake coughing in the white clouds of dust that had been churned up by Baj Raj's galloping hooves. By the time she came up with them, Kaka-ji had told his own story and heard something of theirs, and there had been no need for Ash to make any suggestions, for one look at Anjuli had been enough for the old man.
‘Arré-bap!’ exclaimed Kaka-ji, startled. ‘Get inside the ruth at once, my child.’ He hurried to help her dismount, and then turning to peer at Ash, took in for the first time the enormity of that tattered shirt.
‘It will be better,’ decided Kaka-ji, looking from one dishevelled figure to the other, ‘if we let it be supposed that we have all been together this past night. No' – he raised a peremptory hand to forestall any argument, and having bundled his niece into the ruth, turned to address the driver: ‘Budoo, should anyone inquire, you will say that the Sahib returned with the Rajkumari only a moment or two after the dust overtook us, and that she took refuge in the ruth while we three men together lay beneath it. That is an order. And if I hear that there has been any talk to the contrary, I shall know who has spoken – and whom to punish. Is it understood?’
‘Hukum hai, Rao-Sahib,’ murmured the driver placidly, lifting a curved palm to his forehead in salute. He was an elderly man who had been promoted to his present employment after the original driver had drowned in the river, and having been in the service of the family for many years, he could be trusted to obey an order and keep his mouth shut.
‘And you, Sahib,’ said Kaka-ji authoritively, turning back to Ash, ‘you will take off those rags and wear my shirt in their stead. There are shawls in the ruth that will serve to cover me, but it is not fit that you should ride into the camp half-naked. The less talk we occasion the better, so do not argue with me.’
Ash had no intention of arguing, and the transfer having been accomplished, Kaka-ji joined his niece in the ruth and ordered the driver to proceed. The bullocks ceased chewing the cud and trotted obediently forward, while Ash took the mare on a leading-rein and followed behind, keeping well to one side and out of the dust; and as he listened to the rise and fall of Kaka-ji's voice re-telling the events of the past night to Juli, he realized that they were doubly fortunate, in that the old man was far more interested in his own experiences than in theirs.
Kaka-ji had accepted a brief and colourless account of their adventures without question, and embarked with enthusiasm on a description of his own trials, which had lost nothing in the telling. It seemed that neither he nor Mulraj, nor Shushila either, had noticed the approaching storm for some time; and when they did, it was only because Mulraj, like Ash, had happened to glance over his shoulder and seen that the sky behind them had become a dingy brown. The escort and the driver of the ruth were equally ignorant, for they were squatting in a shallow cleft among the rocks smoking and gossiping, facing an unclouded sky and well shielded from the wind and all view of the eastern horizon. At that time the storm was still some way off, but anyone could see that it was racing towards them with such alarming swiftness that if they hoped to get back to the camp before it struck, there was no time to be lost – and certainly no time to go chasing after the other two members of the riding party.
Kaka-ji had not actually said so in so many words, but it was perfectly clear to Ash that when the chips were down there was only one bride whose safety and well-being were vital to both Karidkote and Bhithor: young, lovely Shu-shu, whose beauty would compensate the Rana (together with that substantial bribe) for having to wed her plain, part-foreign half-sister as well. Neither Nandu nor the Rana was likely to lose much sleep over the loss of Kairi-Bai, but the loss of Shushila would spell disaster for them all, because even if Kairi-Bai survived, the Rana would never accept her in her sister's stead.
There would be no marriage, and the enormous sums that Nandu had spent on gifts and bribes and baksheesh, on clothes and jewels for his sisters' trousseaux and on the absurdly extravagant escort that he had sent to accompany them south would all have been wasted, and he would be mad with rage. Many heads would fall and both Mulraj and Kaka-ji knew it – and knew also that theirs would be among the first. With that ominous brown stain reaching up into the sky and spreading outward to span the horizon, there had been no time to waste in worrying over the whereabouts of Kairi-Bai and Pelham-Sahib, who would have to look after themselves. The important thing was to get Shushila back to the camp before the storm overtook them, for though she might just as easily come to harm in her own tent as out here among the rocks, at least if she did they would not be called upon to explain what she was doing there.
Mulraj had eyed the dust-cloud and made a swift calculation, and sacrificing convention and the proprieties, had taken Shushila up behind him and set off at full gallop, leaving Kaka-ji to follow with her riderless horse. The escort, still in ignorance of the approaching storm and seeing Mulraj racing towards them with the Rajkumari clinging to his waist like a monkey, had leapt up, expecting him to stop, and when he flashed past them, heading for the camp, they had barely waited for Kaka-ji's explanations before riding in pursuit, taking the waiting-woman with them.
Kaka-ji had not accompanied them. He had made them take Shushila's horse and his own, and had elected to stay behind with the ruth, whose driver, realizing that it could not possibly reach the camp ahead of the storm, was making hurried preparations to shelter his bullocks in a cleft among the rocks. ‘We will wait here for my niece and the Sahib, who will shortly return and be dismayed if they find us all gone,’ said Kaka-ji, peering anxiously in the direction of the hills. ‘It is not fitting that the Rajkumari should be seen to return alone on horseback, accompanied only by the Sahib, and they cannot be long.’
But the minutes had passed and there was still no sign of the missing riders. Old Budoo, the driver, had backed the ruth as far as it would go between the rocks, and unyoking his bullocks had edged them past and tethered them in the cramped space behind it, after which he pulled out the rugs, shawls and bolsters that had cushioned the Rajkumaries and their women against jolting, and fastened them to form a rough-and-ready screen against the dust and sand that was roaring down on them. The smell of it was already in the air and now they could hear it; but still Kaka-ji waited, hoping to see horses galloping towards him. It was only when the bow-wave of dust struck the far side of the hillock of rock where they refuged that he allowed Budoo to drag him into the ruth; and there, deafened and half stifled, the two old men had crouched together while the storm raged outside.
Kaka-ji's account of his own sufferings was vivid in the extreme, and he had enjoyed telling it. But he too was uncertain how long the storm had lasted, and when it had passed and all was quiet again, he and Budoo had both fallen asleep and had not woken until the sky was beginning to pale. They had intended, he said, to set out in search of his niece and the Sahib, for whose safety he entertained the gravest fears, imagining that they would have been caught out in the open with no form of shelter; but they had barely started when they had heard the Sahib shouting aloud.
He had seen no reason to doubt Ash's story and he had not thought to question his niece, for having experienced all the discomforts of the storm himself, he was convinced that nothing of an improper nature could possibly have occurred between them. Not even the lustiest of men and the most ardent of young women would be likely to think of such things – let alone put them into practice – while fighting for breath with a cloth over the head, and eyes, mouth and nostrils full of grit. In Kaka-ji's opinion, a dust-storm was a more efficient guarantee of proper behaviour than a dozen duennas, though this did not prevent him from impressing on Anjuli that she must on no account let anyone suspect that she had not spent the night in the ruth. Not even Shu-shu.
‘For you are shortly to be wedded,’ said Kaka-ji, ‘and it is most unseemly for a bride
to go apart with any man, even if he be a Sahib. There are too many loose-tongued people who delight in slander, and if evil things were to be whispered about you, both the Rana and your brother would be gravely displeased. Therefore you will say only that you reached the ruth just as the storm struck, and stayed in it all night. And I and the Sahib and old Budoo will say the same.’
Anjuli could only nod wordlessly. She was too tired to speak – too tired to feel grateful for the way in which fate had played into her hands by letting her get caught in the storm with Ashok and then sending her uncle to save them both from scandal. Too tired even to think…
It was much lighter now, and presently, as the sun rose and a bright golden ray pierced between the embroidered curtains and lit up the dusty interior of the ruth, she fell asleep, and was still sleeping when they arrived at the camp.
Roused by Kaka-ji with the reassuring news that Shushila was safe, she stumbled out into the arms of Geeta and was instantly hurried off to bed.
25
The arrival of the ruth had created a small stir, but no more than that. For Ash had guessed right: the camp had been too badly hit for anyone to waste much thought on a single unusual incident when more than a hundred startling ones clamoured for attention.
Even the sudden and melodramatic return on the previous evening of Mulraj and the youngest bride had passed virtually unnoticed, for by then the whole camp was in a ferment and taking frantic measures to withstand the storm. Tent-pegs were being hammered home and guy-ropes tightened, and everything that was liable to be blown away was being battened down or otherwise secured. Syces, bullock-drivers and herdsmen were seeing to the safety of their animals, while the elephants had been hurried across the river and shackled to the stout trunks of a grove of palm trees in case they should grub up their pickets in panic and run amok through the camp.
