Part 3 (1/2)
Who was he, really? The old man never allowed idle conversation during their meetings. When she asked where in India he had been born, he replied that she would be able to answer that question for herself when she became familiar with the various people of India. When she asked about his family, he had said that his family was of no consequence to her study of languages. When she inquired how he had come, genielike, to be in Simla where Uncle Adrian encountered him, he had said nothing at all.
She turned back to her desk and picked up the paper again. She, Mariana Givens, was about to translate a poem that looked like this, into English into English.
She yawned, stretching her arms over her head, then brought them sharply down, too late to prevent the tartan gown from tearing past repair.
Bother! She had meant to ask Muns.h.i.+ Sahib about the madman's message-”The path you will take,” he had told her, ”requires courage- courage-”
After the poisoned milk had done its work in the Maharajah's Citadel, word of Mumtaz Bano's death spread swiftly into the old city that pressed against the Citadel's walls, speeding from mouth to mouth through cobbled lanes until it reached Qamar Haveli, home to three generations of Shaikh Waliullah's immediate family and a score of his more distant relations.
Wailing arose at once in the upstairs ladies' quarters of the house, while downstairs the high carved doors swung open to admit the first somber-faced male visitors into the inner courtyards. As the day progressed, servants from neighboring houses crisscrossed the narrow streets, carrying vessels of food to the haveli haveli's back entrance, observing the tradition that no food is cooked in a house of mourning. Incense, painful to all, heavy in its a.s.sociations, made its way on the breeze over the roofs of nearby houses.
”Shaikh Waliullah's daughter-in-law has died,” the incense proclaimed, with more finality than any human voice. ”Mumtaz Bano, mother of the Maharajah's hostage child, is dead.”
As the tall haveli doors opened, a horseman rode out, his weapons rattling at his sides, his horse's hooves echoing in the brick entranceway. Head down, he rode along curving lanes until he reached one of the twelve gates leading out of Lah.o.r.e City. Seeing him pa.s.s under the Kashmiri Gate, an ironmonger called out, ”G.o.dspeed, O messenger of the Shaikh!” From his saddle Yusuf Bhatti saluted, but gave no reply.
He rode north, taking the ancient road leading to Peshawar, then to the Khyber Pa.s.s, then to Afghanistan, three hundred miles beyond. He rode wearily, coughing at the dust that rose from underfoot, his shoulders hunched beneath the burden of the news he carried. In three hours he stopped only twice, to ask for water at the villages he pa.s.sed. As he traveled, he scanned the crowded highway for a familiar figure riding south.
Near Gujranwala, Yusuf Bhatti found the man he sought. Pa.s.sing through a roadside village, he caught sight of Mumtaz Bano's husband mounting his horse near a fruit vendor's stall, an orange in his hand, his neat beard and long embroidered coat tarnished with the dust of hard travel.
His jaw tightening, Yusuf spurred his horse.
Ha.s.san Ali Khan's clever, good-natured face lit with pleasure as he leaned from his saddle to embrace his closest friend. ”Yusuf, may you have a long life!” he cried. ”I was thinking of you just now. What a journey this has-”
When Yusuf pulled mutely back, Ha.s.san's smile faded. He drew himself up and sat warily, his horse moving restlessly beneath him, his eyes locked on his friend's face.
Yusuf dropped his eyes.
After a moment Ha.s.san Ali Khan's shoulders sagged. He took a ragged breath. ”Is it my father?” he asked.
”No, it is not Lala-Ji.” Yusuf raised his head and looked into Ha.s.san's face. ”It is not your father,” he said, his eyes filling. ”It is your wife.”
”What? When?” Ha.s.san's voice sounded like dry leaves.
Yusuf looked away and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ”This morning.”
A pair of donkeys pulling a cart loaded with bricks minced past, sidestepping the two riders. Seeing one man's gray face and the other man's tears, their driver spoke aloud to no one in particular. ”So,” he said, ”in this world, ill news comes to both great and small.”
A pa.s.sing merchant grunted his agreement.
”How?” Ha.s.san had squeezed his eyes shut.
Yusuf hesitated, then told him the truth. ”They are saying she choked on some food. We do not like the story.”
”We do not like the story?” The reins shook in Ha.s.san's fingers. ”Do they think someone has killed killed her? her? Killed Killed my Mumtaz Bano?” my Mumtaz Bano?”
”We have no proof,” he said, ”but we think there was jealousy in the Jasmine Tower. One of the wives-”
”What of Saboor?” Ha.s.san interrupted. ”Where is my son?”
”Saboor is still at the Citadel.” Yusuf spoke gruffiy to cover the additional pain he knew this news would cause. ”The people there have refused to release him without the Maharajah's permission, and the Maharajah has already gone south to meet the British. Those at the Citadel say they have sent a message to his camp.”
”I know the court people. They will never dare give this news to the Maharajah, for fear of being blamed.” Ha.s.san brushed his fingers across his face. ”My baby is alone there. Oh, Allah!”
Yusuf's sword clanked as he leaned toward his friend. ”I will ride to the Maharajah's camp myself. I will leave now. I will ask for Saboor to be sent home.”
Ha.s.san raised his head and looked into the distance. ”Home,” he repeated. ”Oh, Yusuf, why did I take Saboor to see the Maharajah last year? Why was I so proud of my son that I ignored the risk?”
”Why blame yourself?” Yusuf asked. ”None of this tragedy is your doing. How could you have foreseen the Maharajah's pa.s.sion for Saboor, or that he would order him to live at the Citadel?”
”That moment has never left me. I see it daily: Saboor on the Maharajah's lap, turning his head to look at the bright colors and the jewelry, the old Maharajah peering at him out of his one good eye, stroking him and crooning to him. 'This baby has a light in his heart,' the Maharajah said to everyone, 'a bright, sweet light. This child will stay with me and bring me health and good fortune.' My Saboor was only six months old.”
He sighed. ”My poor Mumtaz Bano-forced to leave us and live with the Maharajah's wives. They terrified her, with their falseness and their cruel ways. Now they have killed her. I failed her, Yusuf, I failed them both.” He dropped his head into his hands.
Yusuf sat silently. Poor Ha.s.san. Over the past year he had tried many times, with increasing desperation, to retrieve his wife and son from the Jasmine Tower. Ha.s.san was a skilled courtier and well connected, but the Maharajah, as his health weakened, had refused to give up Saboor. Instead, he had clung to the child as if to life itself.
”Saboor and the Koh-i-noor diamond are my most treasured belongings,” the Maharajah had said countless times.
Yusuf reached for his friend's shoulder, but Ha.s.san straightened with an impatient jerk, and reached for his horse's reins.
”We must hurry home to Lah.o.r.e,” he said. ”We must not miss Mumtaz's burial.”
THEY had been riding in silence for nearly an hour. Yusuf s.h.i.+fted in the saddle. What was Ha.s.san feeling? What did he see at this terrible time? Did the villages in the distance s.h.i.+mmer before his eyes? Did the road rise and fall like a live thing before him? Aching to embrace his grieving friend, Yusuf glanced sideways, but saw only Ha.s.san's shuttered face.
Saboor must be miserable at the Citadel, although that particular misery would most likely end soon, when the order came for him to join the royal camp sixty miles south of Lah.o.r.e. But who knew what would happen to the child there, alone and unprotected?
Yusuf slapped at a fiy. If Ha.s.san's father, with all his spiritual abilities, had been powerless to protect his own daughter-in-law, it was doubtful that he could help his grandson. People were saying that Shaikh Waliullah should have saved Ha.s.san's wife with magic. People talked all kinds of nonsense. Like the Maharajah, they too claimed Ha.s.san's baby son had powers, that five minutes of Saboor's infant company could lift a man's darkest mood.
Ha.s.san's grim voice broke the long silence between them. ”I hate the Maharajah,” he said quietly. His eyes were half-closed, his face wan above his beard.
Yusuf stared at his hands. A great soldier and statesman, Maharajah Ranjit Singh was loved by most, if not all, of his subjects. A soldier himself, Yusuf had admired the old one-eyed Maharajah all his life.
”I have told no one, not even you, Yusuf, what I have suffered over this past year,” Ha.s.san went on, keeping his voice low, even though the road was nearly deserted. ”I have worked for the Maharajah, traveled to distant cities for him, collected his taxes, argued with his enemies; and all this time I, myself, have hated him more than all his enemies together.” His fist tightened on his knee. ”All this time I have thought that if I said it aloud, if I let myself speak my hatred, I would go mad. He has torn my very soul from me, but I cannot fight him for fear of causing my family more harm. Today that harm has come, in spite of all my inner struggle.” He looked hollow-eyed at his friend. ”Allah help me, Yusuf, I never thought I could feel such hatred toward anyone.”
Yusuf tugged on one of his ears, then the other. ”In that case, Ha.s.san,” he said, ”G.o.d help us both.”
Two hours later they reached Lah.o.r.e.
It is sympathy that breaks reserve. At the first sorrowful greeting from a gentle-eyed Hindu blacksmith near the Masti Gate, Ha.s.san's face crumpled. Yusuf urged his own horse ahead, allowing Ha.s.san to follow him, however blindly, to his father's house.
At the periphery of the city, they pa.s.sed rope makers and coppersmiths. Nearer to the center, they made their way past cloth sellers, acknowledging as they pa.s.sed the grave salutes of all who knew their story. They maneuvered their horses through the congested streets, past spice sellers and goldsmiths, diamond merchants and weavers of the softest silk. At length they reached Wazir Khan's Mosque, home to the most precious of goods: incense, perfumes, and illuminated books.
Opposite the mosque stood the Waliullah family's ancestral home.
The tall doors of the haveli stood open. Male members of the Shaikh's family stood outside greeting visitors. All were ushered inside, each visitor directed, either to the Shaikh's presence or to the main courtyard, depending upon his degree of intimacy with the family. Palanquins with tightly closed side doors pa.s.sed through on their way to the ladies' quarters. A crowd of onlookers craned to see each new arrival.
”Stand back,” cried a voice from the crowd, as the two hors.e.m.e.n approached the gate. ”Ha.s.san Sahib has come!”