The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [458]
Five days later Ash returned to Ahmadabad, riding one of Sarji's horses and attended by one of the syces from Sarji's stables.
The syce had been entertained by Kulu Ram and others before taking the horse back with him later that day, and before he left he told his hosts, with a wealth of detail, the story of the death of his master, who had been tragically drowned while attempting to swim his horse across one of the many tidal rivers that ran into the Gulf of Kutch, and of how the Sahib's horse had also been drowned, and the Sahib himself only saved by a miracle. The tale had lost nothing in the telling, and Gul Baz had been able to report later that it had obviously not occurred to the teller – or to anyone else – to doubt it.
‘So that is another ditch safely crossed,’ said Gul Baz. ‘As for the other matter, that too was passed over in safety. No one has thought to question the identity of the one who returned here with me. Nor will they, for she keeps to her room, feigning poor health; which I think is in part true, for during her second night here she cried out in her sleep so loudly that I awoke and ran out to her hut, fearing that she had been discovered and was being abducted. But she said that it was only a dream and that –’ He broke off, seeing Ash's expression, and said: ‘Has this happened before, then?’
‘Yes. I should have thought of it, and warned you,’ said Ash, angry with himself for the omission. He himself had not been troubled by any further dreams of Shushila, but she continued to weigh on his conscience: her small, reproachful face was still apt to rise up before him at unexpected moments, and if this was so with him, how much worse must it be for Juli, who had loved her?
He asked if any of the other servants had been awakened, but Gul Baz did not think so. ‘For as you know, my quarter and the one that was Mahdoo-ji's stand apart from the others, and the hut in which the Rani-Sahiba lies is close behind it and thus well shielded from those that are occupied by the other servants. But on the next day I purchased opium and made a draught for her to take after sundown, since when she has slept soundly and made no further outcries in the night – which is as well, for the shikari spoke truth when he said that the Sahib might be spied upon.’
According to Gul Baz, on the previous day several strangers had come to the bungalow, one asking for work, another purporting to be a vendor of drugs and simples, and a third inquiring after an errant wife, who, so he said, was believed to have run off with the servant of some Sahib. This last one, on hearing that Pelham-Sahib had left for a shooting trip in Kathiawar earlier in the month and had not yet returned, had asked many questions…
‘All of which,’ said Gul Baz, ‘we answered. Sympathizing with him in his distress and telling him many things: though none, I fear, that were of help to him. As for the seller of drugs and such-like, by good fortune he was here again today when the Sahib returned, and he stayed to listen to all that the syce had to tell. Afterwards he packed up his wares and went away, saying that he had many other customers to attend to and could waste no more time here. I do not think he will return, for he has seen for himself that the Sahib came back alone, and learned from that syce, whose tongue wagged as freely as an old