The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [406]
Ash turned away from the window and said: ‘Cheer up. If the Hakim-Sahib is right, this will be the last night you will have to spend here, and by this time tomorrow you will be twenty koss away and asleep under the stars, with old Bukta to keep watch.’
‘And you?’ said Sarji. He had found the matches and lit a second oil lamp, and now he held it up so that the light shone on Ash's face. ‘Where will you be?’
‘I? Oh, I shall be alseep too. What else?’ said Ash, and laughed. He had not laughed like that – or at all – for many days, and it took Sarji aback, for it appeared completely unforced. A gay, relaxed sound; and a reassuring one.
‘I'm glad you can still laugh,’ observed Sarji. ‘Though I do not know why you should do so. The gods know there is little enough to laugh at.’
‘If you really want to know,’ said Ash, ‘I laugh because I have given up. I have “thrown in the towel”, as my countrymen say. I admit myself defeated, and it's a relief to know where I stand and to see the future with a clear eye. They say drowning is quite pleasant once you stop struggling, and that is what I have done. To change the subject, have we anything to eat here? I'm starving.’
‘I too,’ laughed Sarji, his attention instantly diverted by the thought of food – they had not eaten since morning, and then only sparsely; anxiety is not conducive to good appetite and both men had passed a restless night. ‘There should be a chuppatti or two and some pekoras. That is, if the rats have not got them.’
The rats had not, but the ants had shown more enterprise. What little was left went out of the window, and as Ash refused to patronize one of the eating-houses in the city on the grounds that all would be grossly overcrowded that night and he did not feel equal to waiting for hours on the chance of getting a vacant place, Sarji went off to buy what they needed from a food stall, leaving with a lighter heart and in better spirits than he would have thought possible half an hour ago.
He was relieved beyond measure that his friend should at last come to his senses and see the futility of trying to battle against impossible odds. For to Sarji, Ash's sudden return to normality, and the fact that he could laugh again – and feel hungry – proved that he had indeed made up his mind and was no longer tortured by indecision or torn this way and that between fear and hope and doubts. Now they need not even stay until the Rana died, for as they could not prevent what would follow, there was no point in their remaining in Bhithor one moment longer than necessary.
They would leave at dawn as soon as the gates were open, and Ashok would have no reason to blame himself. He had done all he could and it was not his fault that he could not achieve the impossible. If there was blame let it rest on the shoulders of the Government, who had been warned and refused to take action; and on the Diwan and his fellow-councillors, together with the priests and people of ‘Bhithor, who intended to turn the clock back and practise the old customs of an age that was already over. This time tomorrow he and Ashok and Bukta – and perhaps the Hakim and his servant too – would be safe among the hills. And if they made good time and moved by night (for now there would be a moon to help them) another two days should see them across the border and back once more in Gujerat.
‘I will make a thank-offering to my temple in gratitude for my safe return: the price, in silver, of the best horse in my stud,’ vowed Sarji. ‘And once I am free of this ill-omened place I will never again set foot in it – or in Rajasthan either if I can help it.’
He brought hot food from a cook-shop. Steaming rice and fire-hot vegetable curry, dal, pekoras, and half-a-dozen freshly made chuppattis. And from a sweet-stall in another part of the bazaar, halwa-sharin made in the Persian manner with honey and nuts, and an anna's worth of crisp, sticky jellabies.
It had been a slow