The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [165]
Her voice was still barely more than a whisper, but there was so much scorn in it that the blood came up into Ash's face and for a fraction of a second his fingers tightened cruelly about her wrist.
‘Why, you little bitch,’ said Ash softly and in English. He laughed, and releasing her, stepped back and said: ‘Yes, I am afraid. And if Your Highness is not, I can only say that you should be. Myself, I cannot believe that your brothers or your uncle would treat such an escapade lightly; or your bridegroom, either. They might consider that it in some way touches your honour, and as I confess I have no wish to get a knife between my ribs one of these nights, I would urge you again, with all respect, to go quickly.’
‘Not until you tell me what I wish to know,’ said Anjuli stubbornly. ‘I will stay here until you do, though as you well know, if I am found here it will go hard with me. Even my worst enemy could not wish me so much ill, and you have already saved my life. Only tell me what I ask and I will trouble you no more. I swear it.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because the thing you gave me tonight is the half of a luck-charm that once, very long ago, I myself gave to a friend; and when I saw it I –’ A movement behind her made her spin round: a patter and a rustle in the stillness. ‘There is someone there –!’
‘It is only a lakar bagha (hyena)’, said Ash.
The grotesque, shadowy creature that had been scavenging in the camp scuttled past and loped away across the plain, and the girl drew a deep, shuddering breath of relief and said haltingly: ‘I thought it was… I thought I had – been followed.’
‘So you are afraid after all,’ said Ash unkindly. ‘Well, if you wish to talk you had better come inside. It cannot be more dangerous than standing out here where anyone might see us.’
He stood back to let her enter the tent, and after a moment's hesitation she went in past him, and Ash closed the tent-flap and said: ‘Don't move. I'll light a lamp.’
She heard him groping in the darkness and then a match flared, and when the wick of the hurricane lamp was burning steadily, he pulled up a canvas chair for her and, without waiting to see if she took it, turned away to put on his dressing gown and slippers. ‘If we are going to be caught talking together at this hour of night,’ observed Ash, tying the cord about his waist, ‘it will look better if I am wearing a few more clothes. Won't you sit down? No? Then you won't mind if I do.’ He seated himself on the end of the camp bed and looked up at her, waiting.
The carriage-clock on the table behind him ticked audibly in a silence that he made no attempt to break, and a moth that had found its way in from the night began to flutter around and around the lamp, throwing whirling, wavering shadows across the walls of the tent.
‘I…’ began Anjuli, and paused, biting her lip in a way that was suddenly and sharply familiar to Ash. It was a trick she had as a child and his mother used to scold her for it, saying that it would spoil the shape of her mouth.
‘Go on,’ said Ash unhelpfully.
‘But I have already told you: I gave that charm to a friend many years ago, and I wish to know how you came by it because because I would like to know what became of my friend and his mother, and where they are now. Is that so hard to understand?’
‘No. But it is not enough. There must be more than that, or you would never have risked coming here. I want to know the whole. Also, before I answer your questions, I want to know whom you would tell.’
‘Whom I would tell? I do not understand.’
‘Don't you? Think – are there no others besides yourself who might also wish to know where this friend of yours is?’
Anjuli shook her head. ‘Not now. Once, perhaps; for there was an evil woman who wished him ill and would have killed him if she could. But she is dead now and cannot harm him; and I think she had forgotten about him long ago. As for his friends, except for myself they left Gulkote, and I do not