The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [155]
A hurricane lamp with the wick turned low had been left hanging in Ash's tent, but he preferred to sit outside under the narrow awning, from where he could look out past the dense shadows of the banyan tree to the wide plain that lay beyond it, dim in the starlight. Mahdoo squatted comfortably on his hunkers while Ash, impeded by mess dress, had to content himself with a camp chair.
‘What is it that you would know, beta (son) ?’ inquired the old man, using the familiar address of long ago, which was something that he did very rarely in these days.
Ash did not reply to the question immediately, but was silent for a space, listening to the soothing bubble of the hookah and arranging his thoughts. At last he said slowly: ‘Firstly, I would know what connection there is between this Maharajah of Karidkote, whose sisters we take to their wedding and whose brother travels with us, and a certain Rajah of Gulkote. There must be one, I am sure of that.’
‘But of course,’ said Mahdoo, surprised. ‘They are one and the same. The territories of His Highness of Karidarra adjoined those of his cousin the Rajah of Gulkote, and when His Highness died, leaving no heir, the Rajah left for Calcutta to lay claim before the Lat-Sahib himself to the lands and titles of his cousin. There being no one nearer in blood, it was granted to him, and the two states were merged into one and re-named Karidkote. How is it that you did not know this?’
‘Because I am blind – and a fool!’ Ash's voice was barely more than a whisper, but it held a concentrated bitterness that startled Mahdoo. ‘I was angry because I knew that the Generals in Rawalpindi were only using this appointment as a pretext to send me further away from my friends and the Frontier, so I would not even take the trouble to ask questions, or to find out anything. Anything at all!’
‘But why should it matter to you who these princely folk are? What difference does it make?’ asked the old man, troubled by Ash's vehemence. Mahdoo had never been told the story of Gulkote. Colonel Anderson had advised against it on the grounds that the fewer people who knew that tale the better, as the boy's life might depend on his trail being lost. It was the one thing that Ash had been forbidden to mention before Ala Yar or Mahdoo, and he did not wish to go into it now. He said instead:
‘One should know all that one can about those under one's charge, for fear of… of giving offence through ignorance. But tonight I have been made to realize that I know nothing at all. Not even… When did the old Rajah die, Mahdoo? And who is this old man whom they say is his brother?’
‘The Rao-Sahib? He is a half-brother only: the elder son by some two years, though being the son of a concubine he could not inherit the gadi (throne), which went to a younger son whose mother was the Rani. But all the family have always held him in great affection and respect. As for the Rajah – the Maharajah – he died some three years ago, I think. It is his son, the brother of the Rajkumaries, who now sits on the gadi in his place.’
‘Lalji,’ said Ash in a whisper.
‘Who?’
‘The eldest son. That was his milk-name. But he would have been –’ Ash stopped, remembering suddenly that the District Officer had spoken of the Maharajah of Karidkote as only a boy and ‘not yet seventeen’.
‘Nay, nay. This is not the son of the first wife, but a younger one: the second son. The first one died of a fall some years before his father. It is said that he was playing with a monkey on the walls of the palace and fell and was killed. It was an accident,’ said Mahdoo; and added softly: ‘– or so they say.’
‘An accident,’ thought Ash. The same kind of accident that had so nearly happened before. Had it been Biju Ram who pushed him over to his death? Or Panwa, or… Poor Lalji! Ash shuddered, visualizing that last hideous moment of terror and the long, long fall onto the rocks below. Poor Lalji poor little Yuveraj. So they had done for him at last and the Nautch-girl had won. It was her son, Nandu, the spoilt brat who had been banished, shrieking,