The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [45]
Nowadays, whenever he visited the Queen's balcony, Ash made a point of taking a handful of grain or a few flowers to lay on the broken ledge as offerings to the Dur Khaima. The birds and squirrels appreciated the grain and in time became surprisingly tame, hopping and scampering over the boy's recumbent form as though he were part of the stonework, and demanding food with the persistence of professional mendicants.
‘Where have you been, piara?’ scolded Sita. ‘They have been looking for you, and I told them that you would surely be with the rascally Pathan and his hawks, or in the stables with his good-for-nothing son. Now that you are of the household of the prince it is not seemly that you should go running after such persons.’
‘The servants of the Yuveraj would seem to think I am your keeper,’ grumbled Koda Dad Khan. ‘They come here asking “Where is he? What is he doing? Why is he not here? ” ’
‘Where have you been?’ Lalji would demand petulantly: ‘Biju and Mohan have been searching everywhere for you. I won't have you going off like this. You are my servant. I wanted to play chaupur.’
Ash would apologize and say that he had been wandering in one of the gardens or down at the stables or the elephant lines, and then they would play chaupur and the matter would be forgotten – until the next time. The Hawa Mahal was so large that it was easy enough to get lost in it, and Lalji knew that the boy could never go outside it alone and would in the end be found. But he still liked to feel that Ashok was near by, for instinct told him that here was one person who could not be bribed or suborned into playing the traitor; though as there had been no more ‘accidents’, he was beginning to think that old Dunmaya's fears for his safety were largely imagination and that Biju Ram might be right when he said that no one, not even the Nautch-girl, would dare to harm him. If that were so, then there was no longer any reason to keep Ashok in attendance on him; particularly as he did not find the boy such an amusing companion as Pran or Mohan or Biju Ram, who, though probably untrustworthy and a full ten years older than himself (Biju Ram had turned twenty), were always ready to entertain him with amusingly scandalous stories of the Women's Quarters, or initiate him into various pleasurable vices. In fact if it were not for a strong feeling that Ashok was in some way a talisman against danger, he would have been tempted to dismiss him, because there was often something very like scorn in the younger boy's steady grey gaze, and his refusal to be amused by Biju's salacious wit or the entertaining cruelties of Punwa implied a criticism that was lowering to Lalji's self-esteem. Besides, he was becoming jealous of him.
It had started over Anjuli; though that had been a very minor irritation, for she was only a silly baby and a plain one at that. Had she been a pretty or engaging child he might have regarded her as a rival for his father's affections and hated her – as he hated the Nautch-girl and the Nautch-girls eldest son, his half-brother, Nandu – but as it was, he remembered the Feringhi-Rani's kindness to him, and repaid it by being kind to her daughter and tacitly confirming Ashok in the role of unofficial mentor, bear-leader and protector to that small unripe mango, ‘Kairi-Bai’. But he had been displeased when one of his equerries, Hira Lal, had taken a liking to the boy, and even more displeased