• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2874 0

a certain window, or from the rooftops of the Queen's Palace – for again the stories are all different. There are those who whisper that she was pushed and others who hold that she was dead before she fell – strangled or poisoned, or killed by a blow on the head, and afterwards flung down from a high place so that it would appear, to be an accident. Yet no one has put forward a reason why these things should have been done, or by whom – or upon whose orders. Therefore it may be that they are nothing more than the invention of babblers and scandalmongers who like to pretend to more knowledge than their neighbours. But it is curious… Curious that there should still be so much talk when two of the women have been dead for well over a year, and the dai for close on one.’

That was all the news from Bhithor, and apart from the death of old Geeta, it was better news than Ash had expected. But Manilal was not too sure that he would be allowed to come to Ahmadabad a second time –

The men who had stopped and searched him had found nothing on him except two empty medicine bottles and some money. But they had questioned him exhaustively as to what messages his master had charged him to deliver, to which he had replied, gabbling parrot-wise: ‘I require six more bottles of the medicine that was formerly in the larger bottle and two more of that in the smaller, here is the money in payment.’ Adding that he meant also to buy on his own account some chickens, the Rao-Sahib being fond of eggs, and perhaps some melons and a certain kind of sweetmeat, and…

When they put a stop to this by twisting his arm and demanding to know what further messsges the Hakim had sent, he wept copiously (it was one of his accomplishments) and asked what other messages? His master had strictly instructed him to take these bottles to the dewai dukan in Ahmadabad, and to say to the shopkeeper: ‘I require five bottles of…’ or was it three bottles?… there now – they had muddled him with their questions and put it out of his head, and the Hakim would be angry.

In the end they had given up and released him, deciding that he was much too foolish to remember more than one thing at a time. ‘Also,’ said Manilal thoughtfully, ‘I do not think that the Rana any longer distrusts the Hakim-Sahib, whose skill and medicines have afforded him much relief, for when the Hakim-Sahib said that he required a further supply of a certain Angrezi dewai and desired that I, knowing the dewai shop, should be sent to fetch it, there was no objection; though at first they would have had me buy fifty or a hundred bottles, but the Hakim-Sahib said that long before a fraction of that number had been used, the rest would be bad. Even so, the eight will last a long time, so as my master has done as the Sahib suggested in the matter of pigeons, he has charged me to acquire a pair of birds from the Sahib's friend to take back with me.’

This last referred to one of the many plans that had been discussed during Gobind's short visit. Sarji kept carrier-pigeons, and Ash had suggested that he ask for one or two of the birds for Gobind to take with him to Bhithor.

Gobind had refused to do anything so foolish, pointing out that to do this would merely give rise to the suspicion that he intended to send messages to someone outside the state. But he had agreed that something might be made of the idea, and it had been decided that as soon as he was settled in Bhithor he would show a great interest in birds and collect as many as possible – including pigeons, of which there were always great numbers in any Indian city.

Once the people had become accustomed to the sight of the Hakim from Karidkote feeding parrots and putting up nesting boxes and dovecotes, he would see if it was possible to find some way of smuggling in a pair of Sarji's carrier-pigeons.

Manilal's arrival had now solved that particular problem. And as Gobind, on his part, had established a reputation as a bird-lover, it only remained for Ash to acquire the pigeons; though in view of what he had just heard, it seemed to him unnecessary,