The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [274]
The honoured guests accepted the apologies and permitted themselves to be escorted in state through a maze of narrow streets towards the city palace, where the Rana awaited them.
Ash had not forgotten the Gulkote of his childhood, and he had, at one time or another, seen many Indian cities. But none of them had been in the least like this one. The streets and bazaars of Gulkote had been clamorous and colourful, and as crowded with people and full of life as the teeming rabbit-warren that was Peshawar, or the old walled cities of Delhi and Lahore with their shops and street-merchants and jostling, chattering citizens. But Bhithor was like something out of another age. An older and more dangerous age, full of menace and mystery. Its pale sandstone walls had an oddly bleached look, as though the burning suns of centuries had drained them of colour, while the sharp-edged shadows were grey rather than blue or black. The planless labyrinth of streets, and the blank and virtually windowless faces of the houses that hemmed them in gave Ash an uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia. It seemed impossible that sunlight could ever penetrate into those narrow, man-made canyons, or the winds blow through them, or that ordinary people could live behind those barred doors and closely shuttered windows. Yet he was aware of eyes peering down through those shutters – women's eyes, presumably, for all over India the upper storeys of houses are woman's territory.
There were surprisingly few women in the shadowed streets however, and those few kept their faces hidden, holding their cotton head-cloths close so that once again nothing could be seen but eyes; wary and suspicious eyes. And though they wore the traditional dress of Rajputana, full-skirted and boldly patterned in black, their preferences seemed to be for such colours as rust-red, ochre and burnt orange, and Ash saw none of the vivid blues and greens that flaunted so gaily through the bazaars and by-ways of neighbouring states. As for the men, a number of these too gave the impression of being veiled, since even here in the city streets there were many who kept one end of their turbans wrapped about the lower part of their faces; and judging by their narrow gaze, a European was a novelty in Bhithor – and not a popular one, either.
The citizens stared at Ash as though he were some form of freak, and the expressions of those whose faces were uncovered betrayed more hostility than interest. It was, he thought, as though he were a dog walking down an alley full of cats, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle in animal response to that silent antipathy – the enmity of closed minds towards all that is strange or new.
‘One would think, to look at them, that we have come here for some evil purpose instead of for a wedding,’ muttered Mulraj under his breath. ‘This is an ill place, and one does not need to be told that they worship the Drinker-of-Blood. Phew! Look there -’
He jerked his head in the direction of a shrine to Kali, who is also Sitala the goddess of smallpox, that stood at the junction of two streets; and as they rode past it Ash caught a glimpse of the frightful goddess in whose honour the Thugs had strangled thousands of victims, and whose temples had benefited by a tithe of their loot. The nightmare deity, with her multiplicity of arms, her glaring eyeballs, protruding tongue and long necklace of human skulls, is worshipped throughout India as the wife of Shiva the Destroyer. A singularly appropriate patroness, thought Ash, for this sinister city.
A strong stench of corruption and