The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [600]
A cavernous yawn interrupted his train of thought and he laughed at himself and went to bed feeling enormously happy.
64
The sun was still well below the horizon when Sir Louis Cavagnari, always an early riser, left for his customary ride on the following morning, attended by his Afridi orderly Amal Din, his syce, four sowars of the Guides and half-a-dozen troopers of the Amir's cavalry.
The dâk-rider had left even earlier, carrying a telegram that would be transmitted from Ali Khel to Simla. And not long afterwards a procession of twenty-five grass-cutters, carrying ropes and sickles, had also left the citadel, shepherded by Kote-Daffadar Fatteh Mohammed and Sowars Akbar Shah and Narain Singh of the Guides, and accompanied by four Afghan troopers.
Wally and Ambrose Kelly had followed some twenty minutes later, just as Ash, who had arrived early that day because of the pay parade, was placing the pottery jar in position on his window-sill. He watched them ride away and wished that he could have gone with them. The air would be sharp and fresh in the open country, whereas it was already stale and warm in here, and would be even warmer in the large open space near the palace where the Ardal Regiment would soon be gathering to receive their pay, as that was not only a sun-trap, but an insalubrious one into the bargain, since all kinds of rubbish was thrown out there, and there were no trees to provide shade.
Ash sighed, envying Wally and his companions riding out to meet the sunrise through the dewy croplands along the river and among the groves of poplars, chenars and walnut trees that hid Ben-i-Hissar and the grassy sweep of the charman beyond. The cloudless sky was still pale with the opalescent paleness of dawn, and the land an indeterminate colour between dove-grey and sand, unmarked by shadows. But high above the neutral tinted ridges the hidden sun had already turned the snows to apricot. It was going to be a wonderful day: ‘a day for singing hymns’, as Wally would have said.
Remembering those tuneful mornings in Rawalpindi, Ash smiled to himself and began to hum ‘All things bright and beautiful’, only to check abruptly as he realized, with a queer stab of fear, that he was doing something that was so completely alien to the character of Syed Akbar, scribe, that if anyone had overheard it he would certainly have been betrayed.
For over a year now he had been careful – deadly careful – never to say or do anything that might arouse suspicion, until by now he had imagined that any chance of his doing so was too remote to be worth considering, and that to all intents and purposes he had become Syed Akbar. Yet now he realized that he had not; and suddenly, with that knowledge, came an intense longing to be rid of pretence and be himself – only himself. But which self? Who was he? Ashton…? Ashok…? Akbar…? Which? Which two could he discard? Or must he always be an amalgam of all three, joined together like… ‘like Siamese triplets,’ thought Ash wryly.
If so, was there anywhere in the world where he and Juli could live without having to remember and pretend? Where they need not act a part, as both were doing now; forced to be forever on their guard for fear of making some trivial slip that, by exposing them as impostors, could endanger their very lives? The sort of slip he had made just now, when he began to hum an English hymn. It was frightening to realize that he would have done so even if there had been someone else in the room, and that it was only sheer luck that had saved him from being overheard. The knowledge left him profoundly shaken, and when he turned from the window to collect the ledgers that the Munshi would need, he found that his hands were cold and not entirely steady.
The sun was up by the time Wally and his party reached the outskirts of Ben-i-Hissar, and avoiding the village and the croplands surrounding it, selected an area of the uncultivated charman where the grass-cutters could collect all they needed without infringing on the rights of the local peasantry.
‘By gum, what a day!’ breathed