The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [400]
‘I should have made straight for Ajmer,’ thought Ash. ‘I could have made them listen to me. I ought to have realized that this could happen… that telegrams might go astray or be read and pigeon-holed by some underling who didn't realize… I should never have… Juli, oh God, Juli, My dear love… It can't happen… there must be some way, something I can do. I cannot stand aside and let her die…’
He did not realize that he had spoken those last few words aloud until Sarji said: ‘Her? Do you think then that it is planned that only one will follow her husband's body to the burning ground, and the other be permitted to live?’
The blind look left Ash's eyes and two spots of colour showed darkly on his cheeks. He said confusedly: ‘No, I didn't mean… I suppose they will both go. But we must not let it come to that. I have been thinking –’
He propounded his plan and the two men listened to it: Gobind impassively and the more volatile Sarji occasionally nodding approval and some-times shaking his head. When he finished it was Sarji who spoke first: ‘It could succeed. But to win free of the palace would not be enough, as the city gates are closed and barred at nightfall. We should still be trapped, for even if we tied up every woman in the Zenana so that the alarm would not be given until after dawn, we could not ride out unseen and unremarked.’
Ash said: ‘We would have to leave the horses outside the walls, and as for getting out of the city, we can do that in the same way as we shall get out of the palace – over the wall with ropes; and if all goes well we should join Bukta and be out of the valley before the sky begins to lighten. I know it will be difficult and dangerous. I know there will be a great many risks and that things may go wrong. But it is a chance.’
‘It is not one that we can afford to take,’ said Gobind flatly.
‘But –’
‘No, Sahib. Let me speak. Perhaps I should have told you earlier that I can no longer return to the Rung Mahal. When I left today, it was for the last time.’
According to Gobind, the Rana's councillors had been urging him to adopt an heir ever since it was learned that the Senior Rani's child was another daughter, and when he had fallen ill they had redoubled their pleas, but to no avail. He would not believe that his sickness was mortal: he would recover and sire other children, sons who would grow up to be strong men – they would see. Meanwhile, as he had no near relations apart from a pair of sickly daughters (who had failed to give him grandsons and whose husbands he despised) he refused to jeopardize the future of his line by adopting some other man's brat. His mind was made up.
Nothing that anyone could say had changed that… until this morning. Today, some time during the small hours, he had recognized at last that he was dying; and appalled by the prospect of descending to that hell called Pât, to which men who have no son to light their pyre are doomed, he had agreed to adopt an heir – though not, as had been feared, a child from the family of the Diwan, or one or other of his current favourites.
His choice had fallen instead upon the youngest grandchild of a distant relative on his mother's side – that same semi-royal relative who had been sent to greet the brides from Karidkote on their arrival in Bhithor. The boy had been sent for in haste and such ceremonies as were necessary had been rushed through, because though the choice might be a disappointment to many, even those who had cherished hopes on behalf of their own sons preferred that it should be an unimportant six-year-old rather than the child of some rival. The Rana, in fact, had remained shrewd to the end; but the effort involved had drained the last of his strength, and the affair being concluded he had collapsed and passed