The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [417]
The crowd pressed upon him from the left, but his back was against the wall of the pavilion, and the space between his knees and the edge of the parapet was too narrow to allow room for even the smallest child to squeeze in front of him. So far, this side of the terrace was still in shadow, and the stone at his back still retained some of the coolness of the previous night. Ash relaxed against it and felt curiously peaceful; and very sleepy, which was hardly surprising considering how poorly he had slept ever since Manilal's arrival in Ahmadabad, though in the present circumstances, with the prospect of eternal sleep a mere hour or so away, it seemed a little ridiculous.
Ridiculous or not, he must actually have dozed off; for aroused by the sudden impact of a solid body and a sharp pain in his left foot, he opened his eyes to find that the sun was directly overhead and the crowd were no longer facing away from him, but had turned and were staring up at the chattri.
On the terrace itself half-a-dozen helmeted members of the Rana's palace guard were laying about them with their staves in an attempt to clear the way to the stairway leading to the second storey, and as the crowd surged back before them, the stout gentleman on Ash's left had been forced to give ground and had jerked him into wakefulness by stepping on his toes.
‘Your pardon,’ gasped the stout one, recovering himself and struggling to remain upright. He appeared to be in imminent danger of falling backwards over the parapet to land on the heads of the citizens twenty feet below, and Ash put out a hand to steady him, and inquired what was happening.
‘It is some high-born women who have arrived to see the burning,’ explained the stranger breathlessly, replacing his turban which had fallen off in the struggle. ‘Doubtless the family of the Diwan. Or perhaps that of the heir? They will watch from above – from behind the chiks up there. Though the boy himself will walk in the procession and set light to the pyre. They say that his mother…’
The man talked on and on, gossiping, speculating and commenting, and Ash nodded now and then, but after a time he ceased to listen. His mouth was dry and he wished he had thought to bring his water-bottle with him instead of leaving it strapped to Dagobaz's saddle. But one of the many things that he had learned during those years in Afghanistan, when he had been masquerading as a Pathan and had to keep the Moslem fast of Ramadan, was how to endure thirst. And as Ramadan lasts a month (during which time no food or water may be taken between dawn and sunset) when it falls in the hot weather it can be no mean test of endurance.
Juli too must be thirsty, thought Ash. It would be another torment to add to those she must suffer on that long, last walk in the dust and the sun between the peering, jostling crowds. And she must be so tired… so very tired… It was difficult to believe that soon he would actually see her again in the flesh: the real Juli, instead of the one he had only seen in his imagination for the past two years. Her sweet grave eyes and tender mouth; the wide tranquil brow and the faint hollows at her temples and below her cheek bones that he always longed to kiss. His heart turned over at the thought, and it seemed to him that to see her again, if only for a moment, was worth dying for…
He wondered what the time was. To judge by the sun it must be well past mid-day, so it could not be long now before the Rana's body was carried out of the Rung Mahal to begin its last, slow-paced journey from the city. And behind it would come Juli… Juli and Shushila, Ranis of Bhithor…
They would be dressed in all their wedding finery: Juli in yellow and gold and Shu-shu in scarlet. But this time their spangled saris would not be pulled forward over their faces, but thrown back, so that everyone could see them. The suttees. The holy ones…
Ash knew that in the past many widows had been given