The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [43]
Koda Dad was a Pathan who as a youth had left his native Border hills to wander among the northern fringes of the Punjab in search of his fortune. He had come by chance to Gulkote, where his skill at hawking had attracted the attention of the young Rajah, who had newly succeeded to the throne on the death of his father only two months previously. That had been more than thirty years ago, and except for occasional visits to his own Border-country, Koda Dad had never returned home. He had remained in Gulkote in the service of the Rajah, and as Mir Akhor was now a man of considerable reputation in the state. There was nothing that he did not know about horses, and it was said of him that he could speak their language and that even the wickedest and most intractable became docile when he spoke to it. He could shoot as well as he could ride, and as his knowledge of hawks and falconry equalled his knowledge of horses, the Rajah himself – no mean authority on both – asked his advice and invariably took it. After his first visit home he had returned with a wife who in due course presented him with three sons, and by now Koda Dad was the proud possessor of several grandsons and would occasionally talk to Ash of these paragons. ‘They are myself when I was young; or so says my mother, who sees them often; our home being in the Yusafzai country, which is not far from Hoti Mardan* where my son Awal Shah serves with his Regiment – as does my second son Afzal, also.’
Koda Dad's two eldest sons had taken service under the British in that same Corps of Guides that Ash's Uncle William had belonged to, and now only Zarin Khan, the youngest, still remained with his parents, though he too had set his heart on a military career.
Zarin was nearly six years older than Ash, and by Asian standards a grown man. But apart from the difference in height, the two were very alike in build and colouring, for Zarin, like many Pathans, was grey-eyed and fair-skinned. They might easily have been taken for brothers, and indeed Koda Dad treated them as such, addressing them both as ‘my son’ and cuffing them with equal impartiality when he considered that they deserved it: an attention that Ash regarded as an honour, for Koda Dad Khan was a re-incarnation of the friend and hero of his baby days – the shadowy but never-forgotten figure of Uncle Akbar, wise, kind and omniscient.
It was Koda Dad who taught Ash how to fly a hawk and train an unbroken colt, how to spear a tent-peg out of the ground at full gallop with the point of a lance, fire at a moving target and hit it nine times out of ten, and at a stationary one and never miss at all. It was also Koda Dad who lectured him on such matters as the wisdom of keeping his temper and the dangers of impulsiveness, and took him to task for acting or speaking before he thought – a case in point being his attack on the Yuveraj and his threat to leave the palace. ‘Had you held your tongue you might have left when you would, instead of getting yourself penned up in this manner,’ said Koda Dad severely.
Zarin too had been kind to the boy and treated him as a younger brother, cuffing and encouraging in turn, and best of all, Ash was occasionally permitted to accompany them outside the Hawa Mahal, which was almost as good as going alone, for though they too were instructed to see that he did not run away, their