The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [598]
Ash, leaving the citadel somewhat later than usual, passed him as the small party of Guides rode in through the Shah Shahie Gate. But Wally had not seen him. The sun was still above the horizon, but the Bala Hissar was in shadow, and the air under the dark arch of the gate was so thick with dust and smoke that Ash had walked by unnoticed. He heard Kelly say: ‘That's a bottle of hock you owe me, young Walter; and faith, it'll be welcome, for it's parched I am.’ And then they were out of sight.
Ash too was parched, for as ‘Syed Akbar’ he must keep the fast. Besides the day had been a long and tiring one for everyone in the Munshi's employ: one of the regiments stationed within the Bala Hissar, the Ardal Regiment, only recently arrived from Turkestan, had demanded three months' pay, and surprisingly been told that they would receive this on the following morning. The Munshi, among others, had been told to see to this, and Ash and his fellow likhni wallahs (writing fellows) had been hard at work all day compiling lists of names and ranks, together with the varying sums due to be paid in cash to each man, and the total sum that would have to be drawn from the Treasury.
Given reasonable notice the task would not have been arduous, but the shortness of time and the fact that it must be done fasting – and for the most part in a small, hot and airless room – made it an exhausting one. The normal mid-day rest had had to be dispensed with, and Ash was both tired and parched with thirst by the time the work was done and he was able to remove the blue and white jar from the window and return to the Sirdar's house and Anjuli. But despite his weariness he was conscious of an enormous sense of relief and a sudden flowering of hope and optimism.
The fact that the Ardal Regiment was to be paid showed that the Amir and his ministers had at last realized that a starving and mutinous army was far more dangerous to them than no army at all, and despite their protestations of penury, had decided to find the money before another regiment was driven to mutiny. It was a giant stride in the right direction and, to Ash, an excellent omen for the future.
He was pleased too about Wally, whose signal to him proved that their minds had been working on identical lines, which alone was almost as heartening as this Ardal business. It was good to know that they would be meeting soon, and that with the threat of insurrection that had menaced the foreigners in the citadel about to be removed, they would be able to talk of ‘pleasant things’ again.
The news that the regiments were to be paid had blown through Kabul like a fresh breeze, dispersing the tension and the sullen and barely restrained fury that had brooded there for so long, and Ash could sense the difference with every nerve in his body. As he drew back in the shadows under the Shah Shahie Gate to let Wally and Dr Kelly ride past, and heard Wally laugh in reply to the doctor's words, he caught the infection of the boy's high spirits and his own rose headily. Tiredness and thirst were suddenly forgotten, and walking on with a lighter step along the mud road below the outer wall of the citadel and through the narrow streets of the city, it seemed to him that for the first time in many months the evening air breathed of peace and quiet.
The Envoy and his secretary had returned from the partridge shoot in equally good spirits, the evening's sport having banished Sir Louis' ill-temper and made him forget for the time being his annoyance at the Amir's sudden cancellation of the autumn tour. He was an excellent shot, and the landowner who had organized the shoot had assured him that there would be many more game birds as soon as the weather became cooler. ‘If that is so,’ said Sir Louis at dinner that night, ‘we ought to be able to keep ourselves in duck and teal and roast goose for much of