The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [40]
Janoo-Bai could not be sure that the child might not develop some of the beauty and charm that had once so captivated the Rajah, and she had no intention of letting him become either fond or proud of his daughter if she could help it; to which end she saw to it that the baby was banished to a distant wing of the palace and cared for by a handful of slovenly unpaid servants who pocketed the meagre household funds for their own use.
The Rajah seldom inquired after his daughter, and in time almost forgot that he had one. Janoo-Bai had assured him that the child was well cared for, and had added some disparaging comments on its lack of good looks, saying that it would make the arranging of a good marriage a difficult matter. ‘Such a small, sour-looking little thing,’ sighed Janoo-Bai with feigned sympathy, and she had nicknamed the child ‘Kairi’ – that being a small, unripe mango – and laughed with delight when the name was adopted by the palace.
‘Kairi-Bai’ preferred her half-brother's apartments to her own; they were brighter and better furnished, and besides he sometimes gave her sweets and let her play with his monkeys or the cockatoo and the tame gazelle. His servants too were less impatient with her than her own women, and she had taken a strong fancy to the youngest of them, Ashok, who had found her sobbing quietly in a corner of her brother's garden one day, having been bitten by one of the monkeys, whose tail she had pulled. Ash had taken her to Sita to be soothed and petted, and Sita had bandaged the wound, and having given her a piece of sugar-cane, told her the story of Rama, whose beautiful wife had been stolen by the Demon King of Lanka and rescued with the help of Hanuman, the Monkey God: ‘So you see, you must never pull a monkey's tail, because it not only hurts his feelings, but Hanuman would not like it. And now we will pick some marigolds and make a little wreath -see I will show you how – for you to take to his shrine to show him you are sorry. My son Ashok will take you there.’
The story and the construction of the wreath had successfully distracted the child's attention from her hurts, and she had gone off happily with Ash, holding confidingly to his hand, to make her apologies to Hanuman at the shrine near the elephant lines, where a plaster figure of the Monkey God danced in the gloom. After this she was often to be found in Sita's quarters, though it was not Sita but Ash to whom she attached herself, trotting about after him like some small persistent pariah puppy who has chosen its owner and cannot be snubbed or driven away. In fact, Ash did not try very hard to do either, for Sita told him that he must be especially kind to the forlorn little girl, not because she was a princess, or because she was motherless and neglected, but because she had been born on a day that was doubly auspicious for him: the anniversary of his own birth and the day of their arrival in Gulkote.
It was this more than anything else that made him feel in some way responsible for Kairi, and he resigned himself to being the object of her devotion and was the only person who did not address her by her nickname. He either called her ‘Juli’ (which was her own version of her given name, for she was still unable to get her tongue round all three syllables) or on rare occasions ‘Larla’, which means darling, and in general treated her with the tolerant affection he would have accorded to an importunate kitten, protecting her to the best of his ability from the teasing or insolence of the palace servants.
The Yuveraj's attendants had retaliated by jeering at him for being a nursemaid and calling