The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [307]
The bridegroom had not come on horseback from the city. He had been carried instead, seated on a platform that was draped and canopied with pearl-fringed cloth-of-gold and borne by twelve gorgeously liveried retainers. His dress too was gold, as on the occasion of that first durbar so many weeks ago, but today it was even more splendid, for the brocaded achkan was sewn with jewels. There were more jewels on his turban: a great crescent of diamonds and emeralds pinned an aigrette to the gold tissue, and ropes of pear-shaped diamonds looped about it in the manner of tinsel on a Christmas tree. Jewels flashed on his fingers and blazed on the solid gold of his sword belt, while the sword itself – the sword that a bridegroom wears to symbolize his readiness to defend his bride against all enemies – had a hilt encrusted with diamonds and topped by a single emerald the size of a rupee.
A stranger seeing that glittering figure seated on a golden platform and surrounded by liveried attendants and the gorgeously dressed members of the barat might well have taken it to be some Eastern idol being carried in procession by its worshippers, an impression heightened by the fact that its face was concealed by strings of marigold and jasmine buds that hung down from the turban, so that only the glint of eyes from behind the veil showed that the bedizened object was alive.
The music stopped on a long wailing note, and Kaka-ji's family priest went out to recite Vedic hymns and invoke the blessing of the gods, before calling the bride's uncle forward for the milni, officially the ceremony of the introduction between the fathers of the bride and groom, but today (both fathers being dead) between Kaka-ji and one of the Rana's maternal uncles. The two old gentlemen embraced, and Jhoti, as the brides' brother, assisted the bridegroom to alight and conducted him and his friends into the covered courtyard where the brides' party waited to garland the guests and present gifts to their opposite numbers in the barat.
Despite his dazzling dress the Rana appeared far less imposing on foot. Not even the over-large turban with its tall aigrette could disguise his lack of inches, and Kaka-ji Rao – no giant – topped him by half a head. Nevertheless the faceless figure still managed to convey a disquieting sense of power. ‘And danger,’ thought Ash.
It was as though a tiger, full-fed and therefore temporarily harmless, had come padding unconcernedly through a field full of sheep and cows, and the impression was so strong that Ash could almost have sworn that the man gave off a special smell: an animal smell, rank and menacing. He felt the hair at the base of his scalp prickle as though it were lifting, and recalled in a sudden flash of memory a long-forgotten scene: moonlight and the black shadows of trees and jungle grass, and a warning shiver that seemed to run through the silence like a cat's-paw of wind flitting across an expanse of still water, felt but not heard, and someone – was it Uncle Akbar? – saying in a whisper that was barely more than a breath of sound: ‘Shere ahraha hai!’ (the tiger is coming).
The sweat that had soaked through his uniform was suddenly cold, and Ash shivered and heard his teeth chatter. Then the bridegroom had moved past him and was being escorted towards the arch below the balcony for the jai-mala, the garlanding of the groom by the bride.
The arch gave onto a narrow tunnel-like entrance hall where Shushila and her sister waited with the garlands that a bride must place round the groom's neck in