The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [35]
‘That is easily arranged. She can live here too and be a waiting-woman to my little sister, the princess. Are you fond of her, then?’
‘Of course,’ said Ash, astonished. ‘She is my mother.’
‘So. You are fortunate. I have no mother. She was the Rani, you know. The true Queen. But she died when I was born, so I do not remember her. Perhaps if she had not died… My sister Anjuli's mother died too, and they said that it was sorcery, or poison; but then she was a feringhi, and always sickly, so perhaps That One had no need to use spells or poison or to –’ He broke off, looking quickly over his shoulder and then rose abruptly and said ‘Come. Let us go out into the garden. There are too many ears here.’
He put the cockatoo back onto its perch and went out through a curtained doorway and past half-a-dozen salaaming retainers into a garden set about with walnut trees and fountains, where a little pavilion reflected itself in a pool full of lily pads and golden carp; Ash following at his heels. At the far side of the garden only a low stone parapet lay between the grass and a sheer drop of two hundred feet onto the floor of the plateau below, while on the other three sides rose the palace: tier upon tier of carved and fretted wood and stone, where a hundred windows looked down upon tree tops and city, and out towards the far horizon
Lalji sat down on the rim of the pool and began to throw pebbles at the carp, and presently he said: ‘Did you see who pushed the stone?’
‘What stone?’ asked Ash, surprised.
‘The one that would have fallen on me had you not checked my horse.’
‘Oh that. No one pushed it. It just fell.’
‘It was pushed,’ insisted Lalji in a harsh whisper. ‘Dunmaya, who is – who was my nurse, has always said that if That One bore a son she would find some way to make him the heir. And I – I am –’ He closed his lips together on the unspoken word, refusing to admit, even to another child, that he was afraid. But the word spoke itself in the quiver of his voice and the unsteadiness of the hands that flung pebbles into the quiet water, and Ash frowned, recalling the movement that had caught his eye before the coping stone slipped, and wondering for the first time why it should have slipped just then, and if it had indeed been a hand that thrust it down.
‘Biju Ram says that I am imagining things,’ confessed the Yuveraj in a small voice. ‘He says that no one would dare. Even That One would not. But when the stone fell I remembered what my nurse had said, and I thought… Dunmaya says that I must trust no one, but you saved me from the stone, and if you will stay with me perhaps I shall be safe.’
‘I don't understand,’ said Ash, puzzled. ‘Safe from what? You are the Yuveraj and you have servants and guards, and one day you will be Rajah.’
Lalji gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘That was true a little while ago. But now my father has another son. The child of That One – the Nautch-girl. Dunmaya says she will not rest until she has put him in my place, for she desires the gadi (throne) for her own son, and she holds my father in the hollow of her hand – so.’ He clenched his first until the knuckles showed white, and relaxing it, stared down at the pebble that he held, his small face drawn into harsh unchildlike lines. ‘I am his son. His eldest son. But he would do anything to please her, and -’
His voice trailed away and was lost in the soft splashing of the fountains. And quite suddenly Ash remembered another voice, someone he had almost forgotten, who had said to him long, long ago in another life and another tongue: ‘The worst thing in the world is injustice. That means being unfair, This was unfair, and so it must not be allowed. Something should be done about it.
‘All right. I'll stay,’ said Ash, heroically abandoning his happy-go-lucky life in the city and the pleasant future he had planned for himself as head-syce in charge of Duni Chand's horses. The careless years were over.
That evening he sent a message to Sita, who dug up the money and the small sealed