Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga by Ellis Peters Page A

never troubled their dreams. She was in the street, melting into the shelter of the trees, alone in the faintly lambent darkness.
    She thought of the receding red turban, and the fine thread of melody whistled across the evening air to her, like an omen; it no longer troubled her, it was inevitably right now, at this hour. The early morning, and the guests – the guest! – departing…
     
    At the last moment she thought better of taking a rickshaw from the end of the carriage drive, though there were two standing there. She crossed the road, instead, and circled round them, keeping in the shelter of the trees; for when enquiries began to be made about her departure, these would surely be the first people to be questioned. Close to the southern end of Janpath was Claridge’s Hotel, and there would just as surely be a taxi or two waiting there.
    There was one car, the Sikh driver asleep behind the wheel, and one cycle-rickshaw, with a lean brown boy curled up in a blanket inside the high, shell-shaped carriage. Anjli chose the rickshaw. It would take longer to get her out to the edge of town, but it would pass silently everywhere, and not be noticed. It would be cheaper, too, and she might yet need her money. Who knew how far she would have to travel to find her father, even if Arjun Baba could tell her the way?
    The boy awoke in a flash, uncurling long, thin limbs like a startled spider, and baring white teeth in a nervous grin.
    ‘Will you take me,’ said Anjli, low-voiced, ‘to the new school in Rabindar Nagar?’ She could have given the number of the house and been dropped at the door, but the hunt for her, if pursued devotedly enough, might even turn up this boy; and besides, if her father’s secret was so urgent, she did not want any witnesses.
    The boy bowed and nodded her into the carriage, and pushed his cycle off silently into the roadway. It was a long drive, she knew, perhaps a little over two miles, but she was a lightweight, and the bicycle was new and well-kept; it would still be practically dark when they arrived. The shapes of New Delhi flowed past her mutely in the dimness, trees and buildings, occasionally a glimpse of a man stumbling to work, still half-sleeping, sometimes the smoky glimmer of little lanterns attached to the shacks where vegetable-sellers slept beside their stalls, waiting to unload the goods brought in at dawn. The stars were still visible, silver sewn into velvet. Now they were out of the city and cruising along the airy terrace of the Ridge for a while, where the air was sharp and bitterly cold, dry and penetrating as the sands from which it blew. And now the first small white villas, making pale patterns against the smoke-coloured earth that would be tawny by day.
    The boy halted obediently at the shiny new gates of the school, and asked no questions. Probably he had no English, for he said not a word throughout the transaction, though he must have understood enough to bring her where she wished to be. When she opened her bag they needed no words. He had already summed up her appearance, her clothing and her innocence, perhaps even over-estimating the innocence. He smiled at her beguilingly, and deprecatingly raised two fingers. He thought she didn’t know exactly how many new pice per mile he was supposed to charge; but her mind was on other things, and in any case her mood was that of one turning her back upon the world’s goods. She gave him his two rupees, and it was a good investment, for he promptly mounted his cycle and rode away before she could change her mind. So he never saw which way she turned from the school.
    Only a hundred yards to go now. It was still almost fully dark, only the faintest of pallors showed along the horizon, transforming the sky into an inverted bowl of black rice-grain porcelain with a thin golden rim. She saw the shape of Satyavan’s house rise along the sky-line ahead, the only one with that little princely pavilion on the roof; she wondered