The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [483]
It was barely two years, yet there were grey hairs in Zarin's beard that had not been there before. And new lines too – one a long, puckered scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth, barely missing his right eye: the mark of a slashing stroke from a tulwar, received, among other wounds, during the attack on Sipri. He had been promoted to Risaldar after that action, and bore in addition to the scar the indefinable stamp that authority and responsibility give to those upon whom they fall.
In Ash the change was less obvious, and possibly someone less well acquainted with him would have missed it, but to Zarin it was striking. His face no longer wore the strained, restless, reckless look that Zarin had found so disturbing at their last meeting, and though it was thinner than ever, the eyes under the black brows were quiet and contented. ‘He has found happiness,’ thought Zarin with foreboding. ‘This alters everything.’
They looked long and searchingly at each other, and a stranger seeing them would have said that they were saying farewell rather than greeting each other after a long absence – and in a sense would have been right, for both were realizing a little sadly, that someone they had once known had gone for ever. Then Ash smiled, and the brief moment of regret vanished. They embraced in the old manner, and Zarin took down the lamp and led the way to a room where cold food had been set ready, and they ate and talked. And talked…
Ash learned that Koda Dad had not been too well of late, but that Zarin had sent him word of Ash's arrival and was sure that if he felt well enough to travel he would set out for Attock immediately. Hamilton-Sahib had been away on leave, and Gul Baz was not (as Ash had supposed) waiting on the river bank for the boat, but somewhere in the vicinity of Abbottabad where he had gone in search of the Sahib, who was reported to be on his way back from the Kangan Valley.
‘He said you had given him a letter for Hamilton-Sahib and told him to give it into the Sahib's own hand,’ said Zarin. ‘So, finding him gone, he took it upon himself to go to Abbottabad. He must have met with some delay on the road. Or perhaps Hamilton-Sahib has not yet reached there and Gul Baz has gone on a little way, knowing that I would be here to meet you. I have sent the gate-keeper to watch for the boat and see that your gear is brought up.’
There had been a good deal of regimental and Frontier gossip to catch up on, for Ash had received no news since Wally's last letter, which had been written nearly three months ago, and Zarin had also talked at length of the prospects of war with Afghanistan. But Ash did not touch upon his own doings, or make any mention of Anjuli; and Zarin was careful to ask no questions. That subject could wait until such time as Ashok felt able to discuss it, which would probably be after a good night's rest – something he was unlikely to have had in the raging heat of the Indus gorges.
Ash had indeed slept well that night, and during the following day he had told the whole story of the past months, from the time of Gobind and Manilal's sudden appearance in Ahmadabad to the day when Anjuli had become his wife in a brief ceremony on board the Morala, together with a short sketch of the events of three years ago that had led up to it: first to Zarin and later, of necessity, to Fatima Begum, both of whom had been deeply interested.
Zarin had, to some extent, been forewarned; Gul Baz having told him that the woman for whom the Sahib requested Fatima Begum's hospitality was a high-born Hindu widow who he had brought with him from the south, and with whom he had been through some sort of ceremony that purported to make them man and wife (though as this had resembled no form of Shadi that Gul Baz had ever heard of, there being no priest and the