The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [320]
He had never felt any great urge to return there, for he had always known that it would be unwise to do so while the Nautch-girl lived; and in any case his memories of the place were far from pleasant. His first years in the city had, indeed, been happy ones; but they had been overshadowed by the misery, fear and humiliation of the later ones in the Hawa Mahal, and though there had been compensations even there, in the main he remembered the Palace of the Winds as a prison from which he had escaped only just in time to save his life, and Gulkote as a place that he and Sita had fled from by night in terror of capture and death.
There was no longer anything left to draw him back there – apart from a cluster of snow peaks that he used to say his prayers to and the memory of a little girl whose devotion had consoled him in some small degree for the los's of his pet mongoose – and the prospect of returning, now of all times, had begun to fill him with something like panic. But as there was no way by which he could avoid doing so, he would have had to set his teeth and go through with it; and if Kaka-ji was right about the past being the last refuge of the defeated, then the sooner he faced it and stared it down the better.
By now the fertile plains were behind them and they were among the bad-lands: a rough and desolate region of boulders, ridges and ravines where little grew except camel-thorn and rank grasses. But ahead of them lay the foothills and behind the foothills were the mountains, no longer a dimly seen barrier along the horizon but near and blue and solid, towering above them; and sometimes the scorching, dust-laden air carried a clean smell of pine-needles, and in the early dawn, or towards evening, Ash could see the snow peaks of the Dar Khaima.
This was the country through which Sita had brought him after their escape from Delhi in the Black Year of the Mutiny. But in those days there had been no road, and Deenagunj (it had been Deena then) had consisted of half-a-dozen mud huts, huddled together on the only level spot between the plains and the river that formed the southern boundary of Gulkote. Yet despite its inhospitable surroundings, Deenagunj was now a thriving town, for when the territories of Gulkote and Karidarra had been amalgamated under the rule of Laiji's father, the Government had sent a British Resident to advise His Highness on matters of finance and policy, and followed this up by building a road through the bad-lands and a bridge of boats across the river. The Government's road-building had brought prosperity to the twenty-odd villagers of Deena, who had seen their tiny hamlet grow into a town of no mean size, and Ash, looking about him, was no longer surprised that he had failed, in the previous autumn, to recognize the frontiers of Gulkote when he rode along that wide and well-trodden road on his way to take over command of a bridal camp from a state whose name was unfamiliar to him for the mountains had been hidden by heaped haze and clouds.
Today, for the first time since leaving Bhithor, they had broken camp at dawn instead of sundown, and were riding by daylight. The thermometer still registered a temperature of 102° at noon, but the past night had been pleasantly cool, and now Deenagunj was almost within sight. They could have reached it before midnight, but by common consent they did not press on, but made camp as darkness fell, and slept for the first time in many days by starlight.
Rising with the dawn, rested and refreshed, they bathed and prayed and ate a frugal morning meal. After which they sent a messenger ahead to announce their arrival, and having dressed themselves in their best, as befitted the escort of a Maharajah, rode into Deenagunj at an easy pace, where they were met by the District Officer and a