The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [121]
In the event, Ash said nothing of having seen him out on the plain by night, and spoke instead of some trivial matter concerned with the riding school, before sending the man on his way. But the incident, now that it had been recalled, refused to be dismissed from his mind, and for some unknown reason it nagged at him with the persistence of a fly that keeps settling on the face of a drowsing man. Because of this he paid more attention to Sowar Dilasah Khan than he would otherwise have done, and decided that he did not like him. The man was a good soldier and a more than adequate horseman, and there was no fault to be found with him on that level. But there was something about him that Ash could only define as ‘shifty’. Something in his manner which was tinged with obsequiousness (a most uncharacteristic quality in a tribesman) and in the way his eyes slid away, avoiding a direct gaze.
‘I don't trust that fellow Dilasah,’ confessed Ash, discussing the troop with his Squadron Commander. ‘I've seen one or two horses with that sort of look in their eyes, and I wouldn't have one if it was being given away with a pound of tea.’
‘Dilasah? Oh, nonsense,’ said the Squadron Commander. ‘Why, what's he been up to?’
‘Nothing. It's just that… I don't know. He gives me an uncomfortable feeling between my shoulder blades, that's all. I saw him out on the plain one night –’
Ash described the incident and the Squadron Commander laughed and dismissed it with a shrug of the shoulders and an interpretation that was similar to Ash's original one: ‘Ten to one there's been a row between his lot and the next-door village, and they were merely warning him to watch out for himself next time he goes on leave, because his cousin Habib has just shot their headman's son, Ali, and Ali's relations will be gunning for all or any of Habib's. Bet you it's that.’
‘I thought so too at first, but it can't have been, because he went out to meet them. That means that it was all arranged beforehand. The meeting, I mean.’
‘Well, why not? They'd probably sent a message to say that they had news for him. If it was about a killing, they wouldn't have risked saying more than that.’
‘I expect you're right. All the same, I've a feeling we ought to watch that fellow.’
‘You do that,’ agreed the Squadron Commander cordially. His tone conveyed a distinct suggestion of ‘run away and play’ and Ash flushed and dropped the subject. But he did not forget it and he was sufficiently interested to ask Ala Yar to make a few inquiries into the history and background of Sowar Dilasah Khan.
‘There are five others of his clan in the rissala (cavalry),’ reported Ala Yar. ‘All proud, fierce men – Afridis who have joined the Guides for izzat (honour) and because they love a fight. And also perhaps because their clan is rent by many blood-feuds, and here they cannot be ambushed and shot down without warning. There are two of them in your own troop: Malik Shah and Lal Mast.’
‘I know that. And they are both good men – the best. I have been out on shikar with Malik half a dozen times, and as for Lal Mast -’
Ala Yar held up a hand: ‘Hear me out. I had not finished. Their clan is a small one and so they are all in some way tied by blood – third, fourth and it may be fifteenth cousins a dozen times removed. Yet it is a fact that not one of them has any liking for their kinsman, Dilasah. They say he is a cheat and sly; and like yourself, they distrust him.’
‘Why? In what way?’
‘Oh, for a dozen small things done in childhood. You know how it is with