The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [251]
She had not written to him. There had been no need to, for she had sent him something that said more than the longest letter could have done. The half of the little mother-of-pearl fish that she had given him once before on the night that he had escaped from Gulkote.
Ash stood for a long time looking at it; not seeing it, because he was reliving that night. Remembering the silence and the fear and the whispering, urgent voices: seeing again the moonlight shimmering on the snow peaks of the Dur Khaima and flooding the Queen's balcony with a cold radiance that glinted on the pearl in Hira Lal's ear and turned to silver a little slip of carved shell that was Juli's most precious possession.
She had given it to him because he was her bracelet-brother, and to bring him luck; and because she loved him. And he had broken it in two and told her that they would each keep half, and that one day, when he came back, they would mend it and make it whole again. And now she sent him back his half, knowing that he would understand what she meant… that they themselves were still two halves of a whole, and that while they lived there would always be the hope that perhaps one day, far in the future and when their actions had ceased to be of any importance to anyone else, they might even be able to come together again. It was a tenuous hope at best; but to have any at all was like coming upon a spring of fresh water after wandering for days in a burning desert. And even if it were never realized, the piece of pearl-shell was in itself a tangible proof that Juli still loved him, and that she had forgiven him everything.
Ash touched it as gently as though it were a sentient thing, and saw it through a haze of tears. And it was only when his sight cleared that he realized that Juli had not sent him back the piece that he had originally possessed, but her own. The half that she had worn for so many years above her heart in the warm hollow between her breasts, and that still held the scent of her skin: a faint, faint fragrance of dried rose-petals. It was an additional message from her, as loving and as intimate as a kiss, and he held it to his cheek and was immeasurably comforted.
A discreet cough announced the return of Gul Baz and a khidmatgar with his evening meal, and Ash put the broken luck-charm in his pocket, hurriedly replaced the oranges, and went out to eat with a better appetite than he had shown for some time past.
Unless wind or weather prohibited it, he preferred to eat out of doors rather than in his tent, and this evening the table had been laid under a kikar tree whose yellow, mimosa-like blossoms diffused a dusty incense on the warm air and a film of pollen over table-cloth and dishes and Ash's dark head. The sky was still tinged with the sunset, but by the time the meal had been cleared away and the coffee drunk, it was full of stars; and Ash sat out under them, smoking a cigarette and thinking of Juli, and making a promise to her – and to himself. That he would never marry anyone else, and that even if he never saw her again he would always think of her as his wife, and in the words of the marriage service, ‘Cleave only unto her as long as ye both shall live’.
A lamp glowed in the tent behind him and he could hear Gul Baz moving about, laying out his night shirt; and struck by a sudden thought, he called out to him to ask Mahdoo for the small japanned tin box that ever since the theft of his rifle had been in the old man's charge. Mahdoo himself brought it and stayed awhile to smoke and talk, and when he had gone Ash carried it into the tent and put it on the table, and took the luck-charm out of his pocket.
The strand of silk that it had hung from had been removed in order to insert it into the orange, and he would have to find another, as even the finest chain would probably end by breaking the shell. There was nothing in the tent that would