Far Pavilions (80 page)

‘Done,’ returned Ash promptly. ‘You'll lose, because he'll have to take action on this.’

‘I shall win, because, my friend, your Government does not wish to quarrel with the princes. To do so might lead to bloodshed and armed rising, and that would mean the dispatching of regiments and the expenditure of much money.’

Unfortunately, Mulraj had been right – on both counts.

Ash had sent off a detailed report of the latest developments, and it was only after the best part of a week had passed without any sign of his messenger with the reply that stringent inquiries and a strongly worded protest to the Diwan revealed that the man had got no further than the far end of the gorge, where he had been stopped and subsequently held prisoner in the fort on a trumped-up charge. (He had, it seemed, ‘been mistaken for a notorious bandit' and the error was deeply regretted.) The second messenger did not go alone, but was accompanied by two armed troopers. They returned three days later, on foot, having been ambushed some twenty miles beyond the border by a party of dacoits who had stripped them of all they possessed, and taking their horses, left them naked, wounded and without food, to find their own way back.

Ash let it be known that he himself would be the next messenger, and that he would be taking an armed escort of over a dozen picked men of the Karidkote State Forces, all of them crack shots. And though he had not actually done this – being unwilling to leave the camp to its own devices with the Rana and his councillors in their present mood and tempers running high among their angry guests – he had made a pretence of doing so by riding with the original messenger and the escort until they were well outside Bhithor.

He did not see the warning sun signals that blinked frantically behind him from a high rooftop in the city and the outer walls of the two guardian forts. But Mulraj did, and he grinned as he watched them, for his spies had not been idle and the code was a very simple one – far more so than that complicated business of dots and dashes that the Sahib had called ‘Morse' and tried to expound to him. The Bhithories had more sense than to waste time over such things, and like the Red Indians confined themselves to essentials. Their code was a model of simplicity, consisting of a single sustained flash for ‘Enemy’ or, alternatively, three long ones for ‘Friend, do not molest’, followed by short ones to indicate the numbers involved, up to a score; and if in excess of that, by a flurry of flashes. The addition of a side-to-side movement meant that the man or men in question were mounted, and not on foot, while several wide circular sweeps ordered ‘stop them!’. To which the reply was seldom more than a single answering flash that could be translated as ‘Message received and understood’. There were no other signals, Bhithor having found these more than adequate.

Mulraj watched the agitated flashes that commanded ‘friends, do not molest’, and his grin turned to a laugh, for he knew that Ash intended to turn back as soon as the border had been safely crossed – being reasonably certain that this time no plans would have been made to waylay the party, as the Rana would never risk attacking a well-armed band of men commanded by the Sahib himself, and by the time it was discovered that the Sahib was no longer with them, it would be too late to arrange yet another unfortunate accident.

All this had wasted a good many days. But they had not been spent in idleness. Those who did not possess tents had busied themselves constructing grass huts that would protect them from the burning sun and the night dews, and though wood was far from plentiful in Bhithor, Mulraj – visualizing a lengthy stay and anxious for the horses now that the hot weather had begun – had set men to work felling the broom-stick palms and the scarlet dak trees, and presently a score of stoutly built sheds arose, well thatched with palm-fronds and bundles of reeds from the lake.

Ash and his
panchayat
, for their part, had paid repeated visits to the city palace, where they conferred endlessly with the Diwan and one or other of the senior ministers, and occasionally with the Rana himself, in an effort to break the deadlock by persuading him to honour his bond or at least moderate his demands. They had also given a number of banquets for him and his courtiers, councillors and officials, and once, when the Rana had sent word that he was unable to attend because of a painful attack of boils (an affliction he was prone to), they had proffered the services of Gobind, in the hope that Kaka-ji's invaluable Hakim might be able to relieve the pain and thereby earn his good will.

Gobind had in fact not only succeeded in doing this, but had actually effected a cure, which was something that the Rana's own hakims had signally failed to do. But though the grateful patient had rewarded him with a handful of gold mohurs and presented Kaka-ji with a large ruby set in a gold thumb-ring, his attitude towards the marriage settlements had remained unchanged. For all the results that Ash and his colleagues achieved they might just as well have addressed their arguments to the pillars of the
Diwan-i-Am
and given banquets for the local pigeons; and when at last the messenger and his escort returned with the Political Officer's long-awaited reply, it proved to be almost exactly what Mulraj had predicted.

The Political Officer confessed to being greatly disturbed by Captain Pelham-Martyn's communication. He, Major Spiller, could only suppose that Captain Pelham-Martyn had either misunderstood the Rana's proposals or been less than patient in his handling of the ruler and his ministers. He was reluctant to believe that the Rana intended any breach of faith, but on the other hand he admitted the possibility of there being faults on both sides – each had probably misunderstood the other. He advised Captain Pelham-Martyn not to rush his fences but to proceed with the greatest caution, and having stressed the necessity for exercising Tact, Courtesy, and Forbearance, ended by saying that he looked to the Captain to do everything in his power to avoid antagonizing a ruling prince who had always been a loyal supporter of the Raj, and therefore…

Ash handed Mulraj five rupees without comment.

The ball was back in his own court, and he realized that he would have to negotiate a settlement without any help from the Political Department – or not for the time being, at all events. If he did so successfully, well and good. If not, then he and he alone would be blamed for bungling it. In short, Captain Pelham-Martyn would be convicted of ‘failing to exercise tact, courtesy and forbearance’, while the authorities, provided with this useful whipping-boy, would still be able to remain on excellent terms with both Karidkote and Bhithor. It was not a cheerful prospect.

‘Heads, they win; tails, I lose,’ concluded Ash bitterly.

He spent another sleepless night (there had been too many of them of late) wondering how he could get a message to Juli, and why she had not sent one to him when she could not fail to know how anxious he must be on her behalf. Was it a good sign that she had not done so, or a bad one? If only he knew, it would make it easier for him to hold to his present course. But while he did not, there would always be the fear that if he continued to conduct negotiations with the patience and caution recommended by the Political Officer the delay might end by destroying Juli.

It was the time-factor that frightened him. By rights the wedding should have taken place within a few days of the brides' arrival in Bhithor, and it had obviously never occurred to Juli – any more than it had to him – that it might not. But already over three weeks had been wasted in fruitless talks, and by now it was almost two months since the night of the sandstorm. If her hopes had been fulfilled and she was pregnant, there would soon be very little chance of the child being accepted as a prematurely born offspring of the Rana's. And should there be any doubt at all on that score, both Juli and the child would die: that much was certain. It would be so easy. No one in authority would ask any questions, for death in childbed was all too common and the news that a junior Rani of Bhithor had died giving birth to a prematurely born infant would occasion no surprise. If only Juli would send him word. She
must
know by now – one way or another…

Ash did not close his eyes that night. He had watched the stars move slowly in their spheres and seen them pale in the yellow flush of another dawn, and when the sun was up he set out once more with Mulraj and the others for the city (it was the fourth time that week) to attend a meeting with the Diwan that proved no more fruitful than the preceding ones.

For the fourth successive time they were kept waiting in an ante-room for over an hour, and when they were eventually admitted, it was to no purpose. The situation remained at stalemate, because the Rana was confident that he held the upper hand and had no intention of retreating from what he plainly regarded as an impregnable position. On the contrary, there were signs that he might demand an even larger sum for marrying the ‘foreigner's daughter’, on the grounds that he would have to pay very highly to be ‘purified’ by the priests for taking such a woman to wife. The amount thus expended would, hinted the Diwan, be considerable, and in the circumstances the prospective bridegroom's demands could not be regarded as unreasonable.

Ash, replying on behalf of Karidkote, pointed out that all this had been discussed in full over a year ago. Nothing had been concealed, and the settlement that had been reached had been declared satisfactory by both sides. Were they then to conclude that the Rana's emissaries had not, after all, been empowered to speak for him? If so, why had they been sent? And if it was being claimed that they had exceeded their instructions, surely it would have been a simple matter for the Rana, on their return, to arrange for a
tar
(telegram) to be dispatched to Karidkote, breaking off the negotiations until someone more competent to carry out his wishes could be sent to re-open the discussions? – or at the very least, to halt the bridal train before they had travelled too far from the borders of their own state, instead of allowing them to complete the journey. Such conduct, implied Ash, was not compatible with either the dignity or the honour of a prince, and as the expense of the journey had been heavy, there could be no question of waiving the other half of the Princess Shushila's dowry, or of adding anything to the sum already paid on behalf of her half-sister, Anjuli-Bai.

The Diwan replied that he would relay these views to his master, and was sure that the matter would eventually be settled to everyone's satisfaction. And on that all-too-familiar note, the meeting ended.

‘I wonder how long they will keep it up?’ remarked Ash as they rode back to the camp.

Mulraj shrugged and said morosely: ‘Until we give in.’

‘Then it looks as though we are going to be here for a long time, because I-do not intend to be blackmailed, and the sooner they realize that the better.’

‘But what else can we do?’ wailed Kaka-ji. ‘Perhaps if we were to offer him-’

‘Not one anna,’ cut in Ash, brusquely interrupting the old man. ‘Not one pi. The Rana is going to pay all that he owes. And more – much more.’

Mulraj grinned and said:
‘Shabash,
Sahib. Bravely spoken! But may one ask how you mean to bring this about? It is not he, but we who are in a trap. And we cannot rush those forts, even by night.’

‘I don't intend to rush anything – least of all the forts.
Or
my fences,’ added Ash bitterly. ‘No one is going to be able to say that I have acted precipitately or been too impatient. I mean to give the Rana all the time he wants, and see whose patience wears out first: his or mine.
Or
Bhithor's.’

‘Bhithor's?’

‘Certainly. Are we not all guests of the state? And as such, why should we pay for our keep? That is surely the privilege of a host. Presently the shopkeepers and the farmers and the cowherds, and all those who supply us with food and fuel and fodder, will demand payment. And they will not get it from us, that I promise you. The Rana and his councillors will soon find that it is costing them far more to keep us here than they bargained for, and after a time they may decide that it would be cheaper to make concessions.’

Mulraj laughed for the first time in several weeks, and the faces of the others cleared.

‘
Arré
, that is true,’ said Mulraj. ‘I had not thought of it. Why, if we stay here long enough, those swindling sons of faithless mothers may even pay us to go away.’

‘Or take what they want by force?’ suggested Kaka-ji with a pessimistic nod in the direction of the nearest fort. ‘Ah yes, Sahib' – here he shook his head at Ash - ‘I know that you think otherwise, and I wish that I was of your mind. But I cannot feel sure that the Rana will abstain from using violence once he finds that he cannot get what he desires by more peaceful means.’

‘By blackmail and bluff, you mean,’ retorted Ash. ‘But bluff, my father, is a game that two can play at, which is something that these faithless apes have failed to take into account. Well, we will play it with them.’

He refused to be drawn further, for if the truth were known he had nothing in mind except a firm determination to resist the Rana's demands and see that he paid up to the last farthing. For the moment it behoved him to move cautiously, if only to show Major Spiller, the Political Officer, that he had done everything possible in the way of peaceful persuasion, and shown enough patience to arouse envy in Job. Once that point had been made, if the Rana continued to be intransigent then he, Ash, could hardly be blamed if he took more forceful measures to bring the bridegroom's party to their senses. But whatever happened, he must not lose his temper.

This last resolve came close to being broken two days later, when at yet another meeting in the Rung Mahal – convened to discuss ‘new proposals' -the Diwan (who had again kept them waiting) announced in a confidential manner and with a great show of regret that as a result of further discussions with the priests on the religious aspect of the Rana's proposed marriage to his bride's half-sister, it had, unhappily, become necessary to ask for still more money in return for this favour. He mentioned a sum that made the previous extortionate demand seem almost paltry by contrast…