Far Pavilions (119 page)

The man talked on and on, gossiping, speculating and commenting, and Ash nodded now and then, but after a time he ceased to listen. His mouth was dry and he wished he had thought to bring his water-bottle with him instead of leaving it strapped to Dagobaz's saddle. But one of the many things that he had learned during those years in Afghanistan, when he had been masquerading as a Pathan and had to keep the Moslem fast of Ramadan, was how to endure thirst. And as Ramadan lasts a month (during which time no food or water may be taken between dawn and sunset) when it falls in the hot weather it can be no mean test of endurance.

Juli too must be thirsty, thought Ash. It would be another torment to add to those she must suffer on that long, last walk in the dust and the sun between the peering, jostling crowds. And she must be so tired… so very tired… It was difficult to believe that soon he would actually see her again in the flesh: the real Juli, instead of the one he had only seen in his imagination for the past two years. Her sweet grave eyes and tender mouth; the wide tranquil brow and the faint hollows at her temples and below her cheek bones that he always longed to kiss. His heart turned over at the thought, and it seemed to him that to see her again, if only for a moment, was worth dying for…

He wondered what the time was. To judge by the sun it must be well past mid-day, so it could not be long now before the Rana's body was carried out of the Rung Mahal to begin its last, slow-paced journey from the city. And behind it would come Juli… Juli and Shushila, Ranis of Bhithor…

They would be dressed in all their wedding finery: Juli in yellow and gold and Shu-shu in scarlet. But this time their spangled saris would not be pulled forward over their faces, but thrown back, so that everyone could see them. The suttees. The holy ones…

Ash knew that in the past many widows had been given drugs in order that they should not shrink from their duty or make any attempt to avoid their fate, but he did not believe that Juli would go drugged to her death; though she could be trusted to see that Shu-shu did, and he could only hope that the drugs would be strong ones – potent enough to numb Shushila's senses and shut out reality, while still enabling her to walk. For they would be expected to walk. That was the custom.

He shut his eyes against the glaring sunlight, but found this time that he could no longer shut out thought. Pictures formed behind his closed eye-lids as though he were seeing lantern-slides flashed on a screen: Juli in her yellow and gold wedding-dress with her black hair rippling unbraided to her knees, supporting the dazed, ruby-decked figure of her little sister… The two of them moving out from the shadows of the Queen's Palace into the blazing afternoon, walking towards the Suttee Gate and pausing there to dip their hands into a bowl of red dye before pressing them against the stone sides of the archway, where the imprint of their palms and fingers would join those of many former queens of Bhithor who had in their turn passed through that cruel gate on their way to death.

Well, at least it would bear no more prints, thought Ash. And perhaps some time in the next century, fifty, sixty or a hundred years hence, when even such dark corners as this would probably have been tamed and become respectable and law-abiding – and dull – parties of earnest globe-trotters would come to stare at the archway and be told the tale of the Last Suttee. The very last in Bhithor. And of how an unknown madman…

Ash had not noticed when the gossiping voice at his elbow ceased, or when the deafening babble of the crowd began to die away until even the hucksters and the children stopped shouting and stood quiet to listen. It was the unexpected silence that broke his waking dream. The watchers had seen puffs of white smoke and bright flashes from the forts that overlooked the city, and now that silence had fallen, they could hear the boom of cannon. The forts were firing a salute as the dead Rana left his capital city for the last time.

A man in the crowd cried shrilly, ‘Hark! They come,’ and Ash heard a far-off sound, harsh, ululating and indescribably mournful – the screech of conch-shells blown by the Brahmins who walked at the head of the funeral cortège. As he listened there came another sound, equally far away, but as unmistakable: a great roar as thousands of voices greeted the appearance of the suttees with shouts of ‘
Khaman Kher! Khaman Kher!
– ‘Well done!’

The crowded terraces and the close-packed masses below stirred and swayed like a field of corn when a gust of wind blows over it, and the babble broke out again, less noisily than before, but so fraught with anticipation that the very air of the hot afternoon seemed to vibrate to the tension that gripped the waiting crowds.

The hum of voices drowned those distant sounds, making it impossible to hear them or to judge how long it would be before the cortège reached the grove. Half an hour, perhaps? The distance by road between the
Mori
Gate and the grove was less than a mile and a half, though the sound of the conches had not to travel so far, it being considerably less as the crow flies. But then Ash had no way of knowing how far the procession had come already. The trees and the
chattris,
the dust and the heat-haze made it impossible to see the road, and it might be nearer than he supposed.

The only thing that he could be sure of was that it would come very slowly, because of the crowds who would press forward to throw garlands upon the bier and make obeisance to the dead man's widows, struggling to touch the hems of their saris as they passed, begging for their prayers and stooping to kiss the ground they had trodden on… Yes, it would be a slow business. And even when the cortège reached the burning-ground there would still be plenty of time, for he had taken the trouble to learn all that he could of the rites that would be performed.

Tradition dictated that a suttee should wear her wedding-dress and also deck herself with her finest jewels; but not that it was necessary for her to take such valuable things into the flames. One must, after all, be practical. This meant that Juli would first strip off all her glittering ornaments. The rings, bracelets, earrings, pins and anklets, the necklaces and brooches that had been part of her dowry – all must be removed. After which she must wash her hands in Ganges water and walk three times round the pyre before she mounted it. There would be no need for haste and he would be able to choose his moment.

Only half an hour more… perhaps less. Yet all at once it seemed an eternity and he could not wait to have it over and be done with it. To be done with everything –!

And then, without warning, the incredible thing happened:

Someone clutched his arm, and supposing it to be his talkative neighbour he turned impatiently on him, and saw that the garrulous gentleman had been elbowed out of his place by one of the palace servants, and that it was this man who had hold of his arm. In the same moment it flashed across his mind that his purpose must have been discovered, and instinctively he tried to jerk free, but could not because of the wall at his back, and because the grip on his arm had tightened. Before he could move again, a familiar voice spoke urgently from behind the concealing folds of muslin that covered the lower part of the man's face: ‘It is I, Ashok. Come with me. Hurry.’

‘
Sarji!
What are you doing here? I told you –’

‘Be quiet,’ muttered Sarji, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder. ‘Do not talk. Only follow me.’

‘No.’ Ash tore at the clutching fingers and said in a furious undertone: ‘If you think you can stop me, you are wasting your time. Nothing and no one is going to stop me now. I meant every word I said, and I'm going to go through with it, so –’

‘But you cannot; she is here.
Here
– with the Hakim.’

‘Who is? If this is a trick to get me away…’ he stopped short because Sarji had thrust something into his hand. Something thin and small and hard. A broken sliver of mother-of-pearl carved in the semblance of a fish…

Ash stared down at it, dazed and disbelieving. And Sarji seized the opportunity to draw him away and drag him, unresisting, through the close-packed crowd that gave them right of way only because of the dress that Sarji wore: the famous saffron, scarlet and orange of a palace servant.

Behind the mass of spectators, a number of soldiers of the State Forces were keeping a path clear between the side exit from the terrace and the stairway leading up to the screened second storey of the central pavilion. But they too recognized the palace colours and let the two men through.

Sarji turned right, and without relaxing his grip on Ash's arm, made for a flight of stairs that plunged downward into shadow and ended at ground level in a short tunnel similar to that in which Dagobaz had been tethered. Only privileged spectators had been permitted to use this route, and there was no one on the stairs, the guards being outside the entrance – those below watching for the cortège and those on the terrace holding back the public. Half-way down there was a break in one wall where a low doorway led into a narrow, dog-leg passage that presumably came out by the central tank, and there was no one here either, for the same reason. Sarji plunged into it, and releasing Ash, loosened the wide end of the muslin turban that had been swathed across his face, and leant against the wall, breathing fast and unsteadily as though he had been running.

‘
Wah
!’ gasped Sarji, mopping the sweat from his face. ‘That was easier than I expected. Let us hope the rest will be.’ He stooped and picked up a bundle that lay on the floor. ‘Here, put these on quickly. You too must be one of the
nauker-log
from the Rung Mahal, and there is no time to waste.’

The bundle consisted of clothing similar to his own, and while Ash put them on, Sarji gave him a brief account of what had occurred, speaking in a disjointed and barely audible whisper.

He had, he said, been preparing to leave when Manilal arrived at the charcoal-seller's shop with news that upset all their plans. It seemed that the Senior Rani, realizing that she must die, had determined to use the considerable power and influence that she still possessed to save her half-sister Anjuli-Bai from sharing the same fate. This she had done.

On the previous night she had arranged to have her sister taken secretly from the Rung Mahal to a house outside the city, asking only that Anjuli-Bai should witness the final ceremonies; to which end a screened enclosure would be prepared for her use and she would be taken there on the day of the funeral by a picked band of guards and servants, all of whom had been selected because of their known loyalty to the Senior Rani. Word of all this had been brought that very morning by the serving-woman who had often acted as a go-between, and the Hakim had instantly sent Manilal to fetch the Sahib – only to find that the Sahib had already gone.

‘So we went back on foot to the Hakim's house,’ said Sarji, ‘and it was he who devised all this. He even had the clothing in readiness, because, he said, it occurred to him many moons ago that one day he might have to escape from Bhithor – and how better to do this than in the guise of one of the palace servants, who go everywhere without question? So he caused Manilal to buy cloth in the bazaar and to make two sets for their use, in case of need. And later, thinking that he might be able to take one or both of the Ranis with him, two more; and then a fifth and sixth, in case there should be more from Karidkote who would go. We put on those clothes and came here, no one preventing us and – are you ready? Good. See that the end of the turban does not slip down and betray you. Now follow me – and pray to your God that we are not questioned.’

They had not been. The affair had been absurdly easy, for the beauty of Gobind's scheme lay in the fact that the Rung Mahal and the various other royal palaces of Bhithor swarmed with servants; many more than could possibly have been necessary, and certainly too many for any one of them to know more than a third of the others by sight even when they were not on duty and able to leave their faces uncovered. Also on this occasion there was too much of interest going on for the guards on the terrace to notice that two men wearing the dress of royal servants had come up the stairs where only one had gone down.

After the semi-darkness of the passage below, the glare was so intense that Ash had to screw up his eyes against the sunlight as he followed Sarji into the lower storey of the main pavilion, where half-a-dozen members of the Rana's personal bodyguard had been posted to see that the public did not enter. But these too took no interest in a pair of palace servants, and Sarji walked boldly past them and up a curving stairway that led to the second storey, where purdah screens hung between the open archways.

Ash, a pace behind him, could hear him muttering beneath his breath, and realized that he was praying – presumably in thankfulness. Then they had reached the top and Sarji was holding aside a heavy curtain and motioning him to enter.

42

The make-shift room was cooler than might have been expected.

It was also very dark, for all but one of the split-cane
chiks
that enclosed it were lined with a coarse, brick-red cloth embroidered in black and yellow and sewn with little circles of looking-glass after the fashion of Rajputana. The single exception hung between the two centre pillars facing the burning-ground, its fragile slats letting in the only light and providing an excellent view to anyone looking out, while preventing anyone outside from seeing in.