The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [308]
A moment later he bent again – though this time so slightly that it was more a brief inclination of the head than a bow – and those behind him saw a woman's hands lift a second garland high in order to clear the osprey plume on his gold turban. The hands were decked with jewels and the palms and finger nails had been tinted with henna and touched with gold leaf. But they were still square and capable – still unmistakably the hands of a little unloved girl who had been known as Kairi-Bai – and glimpsing them, Ash knew that he would, after all, be able to watch her go though the marriage rites and see her leave for her husband's house without flinching, because nothing that was to come could possibly hurt worse than that brief sight of Juli's hands…
With the garlanding over, the band struck up once more and the groom and guests entered the Pearl Palace to be feasted, the barat being fed before the brides' party, while all those for whom there was no room indoors filed out to take their places in the gaily decorated shamianahs where more bands played and servants hurried to and fro laden with dishes.
By now the sun was low and presently the evening breeze arose and blew gently across the lake, its breath bringing a welcome coolness to the park, though inside the Pearl Palace the air remained stifling, and now that the rich odour of food mingled with the scent of flowers and perfume the atmosphere was rapidly becoming unbreathable. Ash, however, was not called upon to endure it, this being one part of the ceremonies that he asked to be excused from attending, in order to save Kaka-ji the embarrassment of having to tell him what he already knew: that the Rana's caste forbade him from sitting down to eat with a foreigner.
Leaving the palace by a side door he walked back to his own quarters in one of the guest-houses, to eat his evening meal alone and to watch the sun go down behind the hills beyond the city and the stars come out one by one in a sky that darkened swiftly from dusty green to midnight blue: and not only stars, for tonight as the dusk deepened a myriad pin-points of light flowered on the walls and rooftops and window-sills of Bhithor as the Rana's subjects lit thousands upon thousands of chirags – the little earthenware saucers filled with oil, in which a wisp of twisted cotton serves as a wick, that all over India are used for illuminations during times of festivity.
The park too was alive with lights that swayed and flickered or burned bright according to the whims of the breeze, and the Pearl Palace itself was outlined in twinkling gold, so that it shimmered against the night sky like some enchanted castle in a fairy tale. Even the forts had been decked with chirags, and presently the sky above the city began to blossom with showers of red and green and purple stars, as fireworks streaked upward to burst and blaze and fade slowly away on the darkness.
Ash watched them from the verandah outside his room, and wished that the Rana's caste had also prevented him from permitting a foreigner to be present during the actual marriage ceremony. But it seemed this was not so: and in any case, it would have been impossible to avoid attending, as apart from the fact that Kaka-ji and Mulraj had been particularly insistent that the Sahib should be present at the ceremony, the instructions issued to him in Rawalpindi had expressly stated that Captain Pelham-Martyn was