Now she was to have her reward. With Bahadur on the gaddi, even though it would be six more years before he would rule alone, she would be secure. The maharaja’s mother commanded respect, whoever she was. Her son was twelve years old, after all. He had reached the age of the warrior. Time for Lal Bai to ease her vigilance. Time for Bahadur to repay his debt.
She rounded a corner with anticipation and stopped to stare, shielding her face from sight with a fold of her silken scarf. She was aware that her expression of envious longing would not be misinterpreted by any onlooker. Her slight body quivered with the intensity of her desire as she gazed. At her feet lay a swathe of gardens laid out in patterns as complex as the richest embroidery, a representation in flower and shrub of the four rivers of Paradise, but Lal Bai’s paradise was further off and of this world. She was looking beyond the garden, to the shore of the lake where, sheltered by the dark green canopy of a grove of neem trees, the white marble columns of an elegant small pavilion rose up, seemingly from the water itself. Balconied windows with fretted white screens overhung the lake. Lal Bai pictured herself there, breathing in the cool air rising off the water, watching the animals that crept down to drink at sunset, summoning with a clap of her hands her evening meal served on a gold thal.
Bahadur would give her the pavilion.
Lal Bai’s single exposed dark eye narrowed with determination. Yes, the Maharaja Bahadur would give his mother the pavilion.
When it had been cleansed of the presence of the widow, Shubhada.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Now — I’m your maiden aunt, venturing on a motor car ride for the first time. Just bear that in mind, will you?’ said Joe, preparing to climb into the forward passenger seat.
Stuart affected astonishment. ‘Naw! Don’t tell me you’re a flying virgin?’
‘Not quite that. I’ve been up a few times,’ said Joe with a grin. ‘But I should warn you that I had kedgeree for breakfast. And — I don’t need to remind you — you’re downwind of me!’
After the heart-stopping moment when the light craft tore itself away from the earth they sailed easily upwards. Joe cleared the dust stirred up by their take-off out of his nose and mouth, getting used to the noise of the engine, and began to settle into the flight. Soon he felt bold enough to lean over and take a look at the country below him. They flew straight and level for a while, building Joe’s confidence, then circled lazily over the unnaturally silent town surrounding the palace. The only activity Joe could see was taking place on the riverbank and he guessed this to be the burning ghat where the funeral pyre was being prepared.
From this height he suddenly saw that there were two Ranipurs. The ancient city and a modern one. Around the Old and New Palaces clustered a labyrinth of crooked streets which terminated in a large market place. High walls surrounding the old buildings were a clear demarcation between the old and the new. The new city was spread with lavish disregard for space over the plain beyond the river. Built on a grid system with wide avenues, it sprawled towards the desert, its uniform dull red sandstone building blocks relieved by patches of green turf and parks boasting artificial lakes, now, at the height of summer, very depleted. What could be the function of these apparently deserted buildings? Joe saw no signs of life in or around what he took to be public buildings — a school, a hospital perhaps. To the north a road set out boldly towards the desert but stopped after two miles, heaps of building material abandoned on either side of the road.
Their circles grew wider and Joe noted that there were no camel trains, no traffic of any kind making its way across the desert. Everyone was apparently obeying the mourning custom of staying within the city limits but, of course, Ali, with his inside knowledge, would have left early the previous day and had had time to fetch up in Surigargh already.
It was a shock to Joe to see clearly from this height how slender and fragile was the fringe of green crop land surrounding the city. From up here it seemed that the desert was laying siege to Ranipur, and even allowing for the fact that this was the dry season and the yearly monsoon rains could not be expected for another month or two, the desert, he would have said, had won. It spread, rippling below them into the far distance, the khaki wastes criss-crossed by silvery animal-trodden tracks. The Aravalli hills to the west stood, a barrier to the encroaching miles of fluid sand, but even they were under pressure. Great seas of sand had flooded through every gap in the hills, blown through by the winds wherever they found no obstacle.
The rivers and streams which must have poured from the hills into the kingdom in the wet season were no more than dry trackways marked along their length by the occasional well and punctuated by small settlements of round straw-topped herdsmen’s huts.
After half an hour of straight flight, Joe began to notice camel trains making their way south towards Ranipur and calculated that they must be approaching their objective. A few minutes more and he had his first glimpse of Surigargh. The four white minarets of a well caught his eye, the polished lime announcing the presence of water from a great distance. Other evidences of precious water came into view, the dull gleam of a reservoir hidden beneath a magnificent stone structure ornamented with arches and domes, flights of steps leading down on four sides to the water far below.
To his surprise this was no collection of mud huts. It had all the appearance of a fortified town. Stuart poked him in the back and jabbed a finger down to starboard. Joe noted the stone wall snaking its way up a ridge to a small fort with gun emplacements. As they flew over the town Joe guessed that there must be over a thousand houses, and huddled in the centre were one or two large buildings whose purpose puzzled him. From overhead they looked as substantial and as ugly as the fortress at Verdun. One or two were built around a single square, the largest and most central had four squares. Again Stuart indicated that this was of interest and yelled something unintelligible in his ear.
They circled round and prepared for landing. The landing strip Stuart had chosen was a stretch of unfinished tarmacked road which set out hopefully from the town and then finished abruptly, swallowed up into the sand about ten miles off. As they touched down, the plane taxied to a juddering halt and was instantly surrounded by a crowd of young boys, laughing, shouting and jostling to get close. Stuart leaped out, scanning the crowd, and shouted something in Hindi. They retreated a few inches and one stepped forward. He seemed to be known to Stuart and, with much nodding of heads and a quick exchange of cash from hand to hand, it appeared that a protection squad was in operation to keep an eye on the plane. Joe guessed it was not the first time they had done this.
Joe climbed with all the dignity he could muster from the plane and joined Stuart on the short stroll up the dusty road into the town.
‘Well, you can’t sneak in unnoticed in a plane,’ said Stuart. ‘The whole town knows we’ve arrived.’
People called out greetings from all sides, bands of small boys followed, chirruping, at their heels. They had to move carefully to avoid the equally inquisitive cows which wandered along the street, protected by their sanctity and free to nibble, unchallenged, at whatever took their fancy: succulent green vegetables at a market stall or the pith helmet of a visiting ferenghi. Troops of dark grey bristling pigs rooted in the dry monsoon ditches on either side of the road, recycling the town’s refuse, Joe supposed. Children lined up on platforms jutting out over the ditches, small brown bodies glistening as their older sisters sparingly poured water over them from copper jugs. Old men squatted in the shade of trees drinking tea and gaming, shrewd eyes following the two strangers as they walked on and up into the centre of the town.