Desert Barbarian

CHAPTER FIVE

SOME weeks later Marie sat on an elaborately worked wicker chair watching a small boy in a white shirt and blue trousers frowning over the drawing he had made of an elephant.

'Should it have five legs?' she asked him lightly. 'Can you remember?'

Jeremy's brown eyes lifted abstractedly. 'It's blue,' he said. 'I haven't got any grey.'

'What about its legs?' she pressed.

He slowly counted them. 'That isn't a leg,' he told her scornfully. 'It's a tail.'

'Oh, sorry.' She got up and bent over the picture. 'It's very good,' she admitted. 'We must try to find some grey pencils next time we go to the market.'

His small face lit up. 'Can we go today? I like going down to the market. I like the candy man. I like that stuff he sells that's pink and sticky. It makes my teeth stick together.'

'Yes,' she said thoughtfull

y. 'But I'm not sure it's good for your teeth.'

'I like the man who sells crocodile eggs,' Jeremy went on ecstatically. 'What do you think people do with them?'

'I hate to think,' Marie murmured. 'It's nearly time for your lunch.'

'Not rice again,' he moaned. 'I wish I could have chips.'

'You know they don't have potatoes here,' she pointed out.

'I can wish, can't I?' His face was rebellious, the pink skin flushed, the brown eyes cross. 'I'm not very hungry, anyway.'

The heat was enervating for him, Marie thought. She always insisted that he took a nap in the afternoon, when the heat was at its worst, but Jeremy found it hard to sleep in the daytime and often got up again and played with his toys while she was not watching him.

She had made his acquaintance in England, before they left for Jedhpur, and they had become friends at once. Jeremy was a very friendly little boy, quite ac­customed to amusing himself, and always delighted to have company. On the long flight from England there had been no difficulty in keeping him amused. He sat drawing huge pictures of fluffy white clouds while he stared out of the window. Marie had been filled with trepidation that day, wondering if she had done the right thing, wondering if she would miss her parents while she was in India, wondering if she would ever be able to manage to look after the little boy.

They had driven from the tiny airstrip into the crowded capital of Jedhpur through narrow streets filled with people who had turned to stare at the black palace car. Few people in Lhalli had cars. They were still an exciting event and attracted a great deal of excited atten­tion. Jeremy had waved, mistakenly imagining all the interest to be in him, and the dark-eyed, white-clad people had sometimes waved back, amused by his smil­ing little face and bright eyes.

The car had taken them to the pink-washed palace first of all, driving through a large iron-bolted door held open by two turbanned sentries who saluted, to Jeremy's huge delight.

The palace was sheltered behind great walls behind which lay first the outer courtyard, filled, surprisingly, with goats and boys, who stared and gesticulated as the new arrivals left the car.

'Is it a school?' Jeremy had asked, baffled but en­chanted by the goats, with their belled necks and short horns.

'I expect those goats belong to the King,' his mother had said, shrugging.

They had been met at the arched door of the palace by a fierce, turbanned man in spotless white, his broad silk sash fringed where it fell along one hip. He had bowed, hands laid palm to palm,-making a courteous greeting. Then he had led them through a bewildering series of marble-floored corridors, their feet echoing as they walked in their Western shoes.

Everywhere they saw sentries and servants, the latter all clad in the same spotless white as the man who was guiding them.

They had waited in a small antechamber for ten minutes before the King arrived, wearing a blue tunic made of some glittering material, buttoned to the throat and falling to his hips, beneath which were white trou­sers. He had come in suddenly, smiling at them with friendly dark eyes.

'Mrs Cunningham… how delightful to see you! I hope you had a good flight? And this is your son.' Solemnly he extended a hand to Jeremy, who took it as solemnly.

'I am very glad to meet you,' the King said politely.

Jeremy looked pleased. 'Why are there goats in your courtyard?' he asked eagerly.

The King's round dark eyes smiled. 'Ah, that is be­cause they have come in to be milked,' he said. 'Then they will go back into the fields, up the hills where the grass is green.'

'There were boys too,' Jeremy pointed out.