The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [248]
Anjuli could only nod wordlessly. She was too tired to speak – too tired to feel grateful for the way in which fate had played into her hands by letting her get caught in the storm with Ashok and then sending her uncle to save them both from scandal. Too tired even to think…
It was much lighter now, and presently, as the sun rose and a bright golden ray pierced between the embroidered curtains and lit up the dusty interior of the ruth, she fell asleep, and was still sleeping when they arrived at the camp.
Roused by Kaka-ji with the reassuring news that Shushila was safe, she stumbled out into the arms of Geeta and was instantly hurried off to bed.
25
The arrival of the ruth had created a small stir, but no more than that. For Ash had guessed right: the camp had been too badly hit for anyone to waste much thought on a single unusual incident when more than a hundred startling ones clamoured for attention.
Even the sudden and melodramatic return on the previous evening of Mulraj and the youngest bride had passed virtually unnoticed, for by then the whole camp was in a ferment and taking frantic measures to withstand the storm. Tent-pegs were being hammered home and guy-ropes tightened, and everything that was liable to be blown away was being battened down or otherwise secured. Syces, bullock-drivers and herdsmen were seeing to the safety of their animals, while the elephants had been hurried across the river and shackled to the stout trunks of a grove of palm trees in case they should grub up their pickets in panic and run amok through the camp.
Few people had leisure to spare even a glance for Mulraj and Shushila, galloping between the embattled tents only minutes before the storm whirled down upon the camp. And while it raged they could only crouch down under cover, with their mouths and noses bandaged against the dust, or struggle grimly to prevent their tents and carts and make-shift shelters from blowing away or being overturned.
When at last it was over, the havoc it had caused was so great that there was no time to think of anything but how to repair the damage, and the arrival of the brides' ruth shortly after sunrise, bearing the Rajkumari Anjuli and her uncle (who had been caught by the storm while out on the plain), had been greeted with relief, but aroused little curiosity. There were, as Ash had surmised, too many other things to think of, and his own arrival, jogging in slowly with the limping mare on a leading rein, had been unspectacular enough to attract no interest except among his own servants.
His tent was still standing, but unlike Anjuli, he had no sleep that day, because the damage to the camp was even worse than he had expected and it was clear that he and Mulraj, and every able-bodied man and woman in the place, were going to have their work cut out to repair it.
Considering the enormous number of men and animals in the bridal retinue, it was a matter for congratulation that only three people had lost their lives in the storm, and of the hundred or so who had been injured, most had received only minor cuts and bruises. The animals had suffered far more severely, for the majority had panicked in the choking dust, and the toll of broken necks and broken bones, and runaways who might or might not be recovered, was high.
Inspecting the incredible profusion of assorted debris, the snapped tent poles, torn canvas and tangled guy-ropes, and the endless drifts of dust and sand that had silted up against the sides of everything that had withstood the gale, Ash could only be grateful for the river, which although it had helped to deluge them with sand, would at least ensure that there was no shortage of water. To have had to contend with that