The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [297]
‘So you do mean us to move?’ said Mulraj. ‘When?’
‘Now. At once. While they in the palace are still afraid that I may have spoken no more than the truth. We must be out of this valley and beyond the reach of those forts before the sun rises again.’
‘But will that not be too great a risk?’ demurred Kaka-ji, alarmed. ‘What if they should fire upon us when they see us preparing to leave?’
‘They will not do so while there is the least doubt in their minds as to how the Government may react; which is why we must not lose a moment, but move immediately, while they are still debating it. If there is a risk, it is one that we must take because there is nothing else we can do except give in and let the Rana have everything he asks. And that I will not consider. We march within the hour.’
‘It will not be easy to move by night,’ observed Mulraj, squinting at the setting sun. ‘There is no moon.’
‘All the better. To fire in the darkness at a moving target will not be easy either; also it might mean the destruction of much treasure – and perhaps of the brides also. Besides, in this heat a night march will at least be cooler than moving by day.’
By the time they reached the camp half the valley was in shadow and the wind had fallen with the approach of sunset. Cooking fires were already being lighted and smoke hung in the still air like a long scarf of grey gauze, spanning the valley floor and touching the flanks of the hills that hemmed it in on either side. Sunlight still lay along the heights, and its rays seemed to be concentrated on the sandstone walls of the nearest fort, turning them to burnished gold and striking blinding glints from bronze cannon and the barrels of muskets.
The opposite fort was only a dark violet shape against the evening sky, but its crouching bulk was no less menacing, and Ash felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked up at it. Supposing… just supposing he was wrong, and that his bluff had not deceived the Rana? Well, it was too late to worry about that now; and as he had told Kaka-ji, they would soon find out. He gave orders for the camp to be struck, and went off to change his uniform for clothing more suited to the work that lay ahead.
With less than an hour-and-a-half of daylight left, few men had found time for an evening meal, and those who had, had eaten it standing, the threat presented by the manning of the forts having been clear to all of them. They were as eager to quit the valley as Ash himself, and not only had no one queried the order to march or raised any objection on the score of short notice and the difficulties involved, but every man, woman and child had set to with feverish speed and worked with such a will that dusk had barely fallen when the first laden cart moved off towards the gorge, preceded by a picked band of cavalry.
By midnight the tail-end of the long column marched out, leaving the cooking fires still burning, as Ash had given orders that the fires were to be left to die out untouched so that watchers in the forts would be uncertain as to how many men had moved, and how many remained behind. The marchers themselves had been forbidden to carry lights, and seen from above and by starlight, they would be almost invisible, for as they plodded forward, the dust that rose up under their feet and made the going a torment served to screen them from view more effectively than anything else could have done, and made it difficult to guess at the numbers involved.
To Ash, riding in the thick of the press, the noise of their progress seemed appallingly loud; for though no one spoke except to give an order or urge on a reluctant animal – and then only in an undertone – there were many other sounds that could not be avoided: the creak of wheels and the crack of whips, the tread of innumerable feet, the click of hooves and the jingle