The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [336]
The sentry on duty at the bridge yawned largely and lit a cheap bazaar-made cigarette, and Ash's horse, taking exception to the sudden fizz and splutter of the sulphur match and the brief flare of light, threw up its head and began to snort and sidle. But Ash did not move. He waited until the two horsemen reached the far side, and as they breasted the rise of the road, saw the taller of the two lift a hand in farewell and the other check his mount to look back. At that range it was impossible to make out his features, but the moonlight was brilliant enough to show that familiar nod of admonition, and Ash smiled and held up both his hands in a gesture of acceptance. He saw Koda Dad nod again as though satisfied, and the next moment father and son rode on, and Ash watched them grow smaller and smaller until they reached a turn in the Peshawar road and were swallowed up by the shadow of the hillsides.
‘You do not go with your friends, then?’ asked the sentry idly.
For a moment it seemed as though Ash had not heard the question, and then he turned and said slowly: ‘No… no, I cannot go with them…’
‘Afsos,’ commiserated the sentry with easy sympathy, and yawned again. Ash bade him good-night, and mounting the restive horse, rode back alone to the Begum's house where he was to spend the remainder of the night and the best part of the following day.
The old lady had sent for him next morning and they had talked together for over an hour – or rather the Begum had talked while Ash, separated from her by the split-cane chik, had listened, and occasionally answered a question. The rest of the time he had been left very much to himself. For which he was grateful, as it gave him a much needed period of quiet in which to think over what Koda Dad had said on the subject of Anjuli; and when he left the Begum's house shortly after moonrise, he was in better spirits and a more equable frame of mind than he had enjoyed for some considerable time; and with a quieter heart. He did not press his horse, but took the sixty-odd miles at a leisurely pace, and having changed into his own clothes in a convenient cane-brake, arrived back at the rest-house by the Murree road well before the moon was down. The temperature in his room was well over a hundred and the punkah did not work, but he had spent the day there, and left on the following morning for the pines and the hill breezes of Murree.
Wally had joined him a day later, and the two had trekked into Kashmir by way of Domel and the Jhelum gorge, and spent a month camping and shooting among the mountains beyond Sopore. During which time Wally had grown a short-lived beard, and Ash an impressive cavalry moustache.
It had been a halcyon interlude, for the weather had been perfect, and there had been endless things to talk about and to discuss. But though Ash, while again omitting any reference to Juli, had told Wally in some detail about his visit to Fatima Begum's house, oddly enough (or perhaps understandably, considering how preoccupied he had been with his personal problems) he had not thought to mention Koda Dad's tale of trouble brewing beyond the Border. It had slipped his mind, for he had, in fact, not paid over-much attention to it: there was always trouble on the Frontier, and the affairs of Afghanistan did not interest him as much as his own.
Half-way through July the weather broke, and after enduring three days of pouring rain and impenetrable mist on a mountain side, the campers beat a hasty retreat to Srinagar, where they pitched their tents in a grove of chenar trees near the city, and made arrangements to return by tonga along the cart-road – the prospect