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By Root 2675 0

they had waited for hours; and again, on an equally memorable occasion, in the courtyard of Shah Jehan's great mosque in Delhi, where the crowd had been so great that two men had fallen from the gateway and been killed, and Ash had demanded explanations. But in the present instance, the question of predestination versus free-will was of purely academic interest; the fact remained that he had failed to notice the storm, and because the cave in which they had taken refuge had been very large and dark and full of noises, he had been seized by panic at the thought of Juli lost in it – breaking her neck by falling into some hideous underground cavern, or treading on a cobra in the dark.

Had he kept his head he would almost certainly have succeeded in keeping his good resolutions as well. In which case the two of them would have sat out the storm without touching each other, and set off for the camp the moment they heard the wind drop. Yet if they had done so they would have missed Kaka-ji and the ruth, and returned, innocent, to find themselves the centre of a major scandal and facing serious charges.

In the event, they had no idea of how long the storm lasted or when the wind dropped. It could have been an hour, or two hours, or ten. They had lost all count of time, and even the silence and the fact that they could hear each other's smallest whisper did not remind them of its passing.

‘I never meant this to happen,’ murmured Ash; which was true enough. But if there had been any hope at all of his making a last effort to avoid it, it was lost when Juli, found at last, had flung her arms about his neck and clung to him. And then he had kissed her –

There was nothing of tenderness in that kiss. It was hard and violent, but though it bruised her lips and took the breath from her body, she did not draw back from it but clung closer, and the moment was almost one of desperation, as though they strove against each other as enemies, intent on inflicting pain and careless of receiving it.

The brief frenzy ended, and Juli's taut body relaxed as the panic ebbed away from her, leaving her soft and supple in his arms. Desperation died and gave place to a slow delight that burned its way through every vein and nerve and fibre. Her tears were salt on Ash's tongue, and he could feel the ripple of her hair all about him: long, silky strands that smelt of roses and slid over his skin like a cloak of feathers, or caught and clung to him as though they had a life of their own. Her lips were no longer tense with terror, but warm and eager and sweet beyond relief, and he kissed them again and again until at last they opened under his own, and he felt her whole body shiver with desire.

He would have lifted her then and laid her down on the floor of the cave, but even as his arm tightened, he checked himself and broke off that kiss to ask what seemed, in the circumstances, a superfluous question. Yet he too had been panic-stricken in the inky darkness, and knowing that Juli had been equally frantic, he had to be sure that her passionate response to his kisses was not merely an emotional reaction from terror. Therefore he spoke harshly, forcing himself to say the words, because he was suddenly afraid of how she might reply. ‘Juli, do you love me?’

The cave, and caves beyond the cave, repeated it after him, again and again: do you love me?… you love me… love me… And Anjuli laughed very softly – but so lovingly that his heart seemed to turn over – and answered against his ear, too low for the echo to catch her voice: ‘How can you ask me that when you know I have loved you all my life? Yes, always! From the very beginning.’

Ash's hands went up to grip her smooth shoulders, and he shook her roughly and said: ‘As a brother. But that is no use to me. I want a lover – a wife. I want all of you – for my own, for always. Do you love me like that? Do you, Juli?’

She leaned her cheek against his left hand, rubbing it caressingly as it held her shoulder, and said slowly, as though she were reciting a poem or repeating a profession of faith: ‘I love you.