The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [65]
For the next two months they lived from hand to mouth, continually haunted by the fear of pursuit and never daring to stop in any place where they might attract attention. The larger towns seemed safer than small villages where strangers aroused comment, but work was not easy to find and the living was expensive. Their small hoard of money dwindled, and the close air of the crowded cities did not agree with Sita, who longed for the hills. She had never liked the plains, and now she was afraid of them; and then one evening, gossiping with a group of coolies outside a timber yard, Ash heard again the tale of a rich reward being offered for the capture of two thieves who had stolen a Rajah's jewels, and began to lose heart. Were they never to escape?
‘Let us go north again, to the hills,’ begged Sita. ‘We shall be safe among the hills; there are few roads and many hiding places there. But where can one hide in these flat lands where there are a hundred paths leading to every town?’
So once again they turned northwards, but on foot and very slowly. There was no money now for tongas or bullock carts, and little enough for food, and as they could not afford to pay for lodgings they slept in the streets of towns under trees in the open country: until there came a day when Sita could go no further…
They had spent the previous night in the shelter of an outcrop of rock on the banks of the Jhelum River, within sight of the Kashmir snows; and when the dawn broke over the dew-wet plain the long rampart of the mountains lay high above the morning mists, rose-flushed with the first rays of the coming day. In the clear air of the early morning they seemed no more than a few miles away and as though they could be reached in a mere day's march; but Sita, raising herself on her elbow to gaze longingly at them, knew at last that she would never reach them.
There had been nothing to eat that morning save a handful of parched grain, carefully hoarded against an emergency. Ash ground it between two stones and mixed it to a paste with water, but Sita could not swallow it, and when he wished to move on – their present refuge being too precarious – she shook her head.
‘I cannot, piara,’ whispered Sita. ‘I am too tired – too tired.’
‘I know, mother darling. I too. But we cannot stay here. It is too dangerous. There is no other cover near by, and if anyone should come this way we should be caught like rats in a trap. And – and I think they may come soon. I…’ He hesitated, reluctant to add to her trouble, but forced to it because she must understand that they dare not delay. ‘I did not tell you before, but yesterday I saw someone I knew in that serai where we stopped for a while. A man from Gulkote. That is why I would not let you stay there. We must walk down-stream and see if we can find a ford, or a boatman who will take us across, and then we can rest for a little. You can lean on me. It will only be a short way, mother dear.’
‘I cannot, Heart's-dearest. You must go alone. You will make better speed without me, and be safer too. They are hunting a woman and a boy travelling together, and I know that I should have parted from you long ago except – except that I could not endure to.’
‘That's silly. You know I wouldn't have gone,’ said Ash indignantly. ‘Who would have looked after you if I had? Mother, please get up. Please! We'll walk very slowly’.
He knelt beside her pulling at her cold hands and coaxing her. ‘You want to get to the mountains, don't you? Well, there they are – look, you can see them plain. You'll be better once you reach them. Your cough will go in the hill air and you'll feel well again, and then we'll look for our valley. You haven't forgotten the valley and the goat and