Far Pavilions (18 page)

‘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 bring 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.

The great black pearl that hung from Hira Lal's ear glimmered faintly as its wearer moved, and as the moonlight fell on it, it glinted like a flake of opal – or a falling tear – and Ash stared at it fixedly, willing himself not to cry and wondering when, if ever, he would see it again…

Hira Lal said curtly: ‘Make haste, boy. It grows late, and you have no time to waste. Go now – and may the gods go with you.
Namaste
.’

‘I have let down the loop. Put your foot in it, so, and hold fast to the rope,’ directed Koda Dad. ‘And when you reach the rocks, be sure of your footing before you let go. From there your way will be more difficult, but if you move slowly and do not slip on the goat tracks you should do well enough. May the All-Merciful permit that you and your mother reach safety. Do not forget us. Farewell, my son.
Khuda Hafiz
!’ (God protect you!)

He embraced the boy, and Ash bent to touch his feet with quivering hands and then turned quickly away, making a pretence of adjusting the heavy bundle of clothing for fear that Koda Dad should see the tears in his eyes. Behind him he could hear Kairi sobbing in helpless, childish grief, and, peering downwards he was suddenly appalled by the drop below him and the steep fall of rocks and scrub that plummeted towards the plain.

‘Do not look down,’ warned Koda Dad. ‘Look up!’

Ash jerked his gaze from the gulf at his feet and saw, across the vast moon-washed spaces of the night, the Far Pavilions, their glittering peaks high and serene against the quiet sky. Fixing his gaze upon them he groped with one foot for the dangling loop, and grasping the rope, was lowered from the edge of the balcony, down and down, turning and swaying through dizzy space, while tears stung his eyes and Kairi called from above him in a sobbing whisper that was loud in the night silence: ‘Goodbye, Ashok. Goodbye. You will come back, won't you?
Khuda Hafiz!… Khuda Hafiz… Jeete Raho Jeete Raho
!
*
’

Her tears fell on his face as she leaned from the edge of the Queen's balcony, and at last his feet touched the rocks at the foot of the wall and he steadied himself, and releasing the rope, saw it drawn up again. For the last time he waved to the three friends who watched from above, and then turning away, scrambled down between the rocks and prickly thorn bushes in search of a faint track he had spied earlier that afternoon when plotting his route from the balcony.

6

The distance from the foot of the wall to the level ground was less than two hundred yards, but it took Ash the best part of an hour to traverse it. Once he had almost come to grief through losing his balance on a steep slope of shale, and it had taken him a long time to crawl back to firmer ground. But after that he had been more cautious, and at long last, scratched, bruised and breathless, with his clothes in tatters but his bundle still intact, he had reached the level ground.

Above him he could see the sheer cliff of the fortress wall and the dark bulk of the Peacock Tower. But the balcony was no longer visible, for it was lost in shadow; and he knew that no one would be there now. Perhaps no one would ever enter it again, unless Juli sometimes went there out of sentiment. But he did not think she would go there often; she was only a baby and in time she would forget, and the way to the balcony be lost – as it had been before he and Juli found it. Everything would change. Lalji would become a man and the
Nautch
-girl would grow old and fat, and lose her beauty and with it her power, Koda Dad would retire and a younger man become Master of Horse. Hira Lal too would grow old, and one day the old Rajah would die and Lalji would be ruler of Gulkote. Only the Dur Khaima would not change. The months, the years, the centuries would pass, and when the Palace of the Winds was no more, the Far Pavilions would still be there, unchanged and unchanging.

Ash knelt on the stony ground and bowed to them for the last time, bending until his forehead touched the dust, as Koda Dad bent when he prayed to Allah. Then, rising, he shouldered his bundle again and set off across the moonlit country towards the grove of
chenars
beyond the city.

Sita had not failed him: and neither had Hira Lal. A sturdy country-bred horse was tethered among the shadows where Sita waited anxiously, clutching a heavy bundle containing the food and clothing for the journey that she had purchased that afternoon in the bazaars. There was a man in charge of the horse, a stranger who gave no name but put a small packet into Ash's hand, saying that it was from Hira Lal.

‘He said you might need money and this should help you on your way. The mare is a better animal than she looks,’ added the stranger, tightening the girths. ‘She will cover many miles a day and you may keep her to a trot for two or three hours at a stretch, for she has drawn a
ghari
*
and does not tire easily. Your best road is that way -’ He pointed with a lean forefinger and then bent to draw a rough map in the moonlit patch of dust: ‘Thus. There is no bridge over the river, and the main ferry will be too dangerous, but there is a small one here – to the southward – that is used only by a few farming folk. But even after you have crossed, be careful, for Hira Lal says that the Rani may well pursue you beyond the borders of Gulkote. May the Gods protect you. Ride swiftly' – and as Ash gathered up the reins he sent the horse forward with a slap on its rump.

It was fortunate that Ash not only possessed a good eye for country but had, in the old days, ridden out so frequently on hunting and hawking expeditions with the Rajah, Lalji or Koda Dad. Otherwise he would certainly have lost his way a dozen times before the night was out. But even by moonlight he had been able to follow the route roughly laid out for him by the man who had waited for him among the
chenars
by Lal Beg's tomb, and when the sky lightened to the dawn he recognized a circle of rocks on a hillside from where he had once seen the Rajah shoot a leopard, and knew that he was on the right road.

The drama and excitement of the previous day had exhausted Sita, and she slept soundly, her head against Ash's shoulder, and tied to him by a length of
pagri
(turban) cloth that prevented her from falling. When at last she awoke, aroused by the early sunlight, they could glimpse the river at the far end of a little stony valley between the hills, and Sita had insisted that they eat their morning meal before approaching the ferry, for to appear too early and too eager would only arouse curiosity. ‘And because inquiries will soon be made as to all those who have passed this way, we will dress you as a woman, my son,’ said Sita. ‘Those who come seeking us will ask for a woman and a boy on foot, not two women on horseback.’

Draped in one of Sita's saris and decked with a few cheap brass ornaments, Ash made a very good girl, and Sita warned him to keep his head modestly bent and the sari pulled well forward to hide his face, and to leave the talking to her. The horse had been the only difficulty, for it did not fancy entering the leaky flat-bottomed boat that provided the sole means of crossing the river, and at first the ferryman had demanded an exorbitant sum for transporting it. But though Hira Lal's packet had proved to contain the sum of five rupees in copper and silver coins, Sita had no intention of wasting money and still less of owning to such wealth, and she haggled with the man until the matter had been settled to the satisfaction of both, and the horse coaxed on board.

‘Now we are safe,’ breathed Sita, looking back from the far bank. But Ash remembered the words of Koda Khan and the man in the
chenar
grove, and he knew that they had only won the first throw. The Rani would make others, using loaded dice; and realizing this, he turned north towards the inhospitable country where the foothills would soon be powdered with snow, instead of southward to the warm air and the lush croplands where, in the circumstances, they would be expected to go.

It seemed to him a very long time – a lifetime – since the day that they had arrived in Gulkote and imagined that here they would find peace and freedom and security. But there had been little freedom or peace in the Hawa Mahal, and no security, and now once again they were homeless and hunted and must search for a safe hiding place. There must be some place, somewhere, where people were not cruel and unjust and interfering – where they could live peacefully, minding their own business and being happy. ‘Somewhere where they won't bother about us, but just leave us alone,’ thought Ash desperately.

He had had less than three hours' sleep since Kairi had told him what she had overheard in the Rani's garden. He was eleven years old, and very tired.

The nights became colder as they journeyed north, and Sita's cough seemed to be a good deal worse. Though perhaps this was only because Ash was continually with her now, and so noticed it more. Mindful of Hira Lal's warning he had sold the horse as soon as they were well clear of the borders of Gulkote, because he knew that they would be less conspicuous if they travelled on foot. But no sooner had he done so than he regretted it, because Sita could only manage a very short distance each day, and sometimes they covered less than a mile.