Part 31 (1/2)
”Of that I am not certain,” Shafi Sahib had replied. ”But, Yar Mohammad,” he added, smiling, ”it is you, not I, who received the little vial. If it is His will, Allah Most Gracious will keep you safe.”
A crowd began to collect in the rain as the hors.e.m.e.n pounded upon the carved door of Qamar Haveli.
Tightness in Yar Mohammad's chest told him that this was indeed the emergency of his dream. These men had certainly come in search of the child Saboor, intending to take him as a hostage to the Citadel. They also must intend to take Memsahib, as she was now the child's stepmother. Why else would an elegant palanquin with a team of bearers have followed the hors.e.m.e.n inside?
The hors.e.m.e.n had carried swords and matchlocks. Armed with only his curved kukri knife, he would be useless.
The crowd at the door grew larger. Raised voices argued over the family's response to this new crisis. Would the Shaikh perform magic again? Would the Maharajah punish him? As he listened, coils of terror wrapped themselves about Yar Mohammad's heart. What unknown, dangerous work had been entrusted to him? What if, unsure of his mission, he made a mistake so terrible that he endangered them all?
Coolies pa.s.sed his doorway, bent beneath heavy loads of charcoal and rags. Horses trotted by, their riders wrapped in dripping shawls. A picture rose in Yar Mohammad's clouded mind of Shaikh Waliullah and Shafi Sahib seated side by side in the upstairs room at Qamar Haveli. ”You and no one else,” the Shaikh had told him, while Shafi Sahib nodded his agreement, ”will know when the time has come to act.”
Yar Mohammad stepped onto the wet stones and started toward the Delhi Gate. He would go back to Shalimar, to Shafi Sahib. Some day, perhaps, he would be braver, would know how and when to act, but this time he needed advice.
He had not taken three steps before a familiar-looking red-haired man hurried past him, followed by a stumbling figure in a stained burqa. The red-haired man's eyes s.h.i.+fted from side to side as he walked, as if he were afraid of being observed. On his wet shoulder lay a sleeping baby.
The man was Allahyar, the servant who had conducted Yar Mohammad to meet the Shaikh and Shafi Sahib, a day that still rang in Yar Mohammad's memory. The sleeping baby was, without question, Saboor Baba. And, if he were not mistaken about her manner of walking, the struggling figure in the filthy burqa was the English memsahib.
As she hastened past him toward the great stone gateway, the woman lifted the edge of her burqa away from a pair of ruined slippers. Oh, yes, it was Memsahib. No woman of the city would reveal her ankles thus. He must warn her not to give herself away! Uncertain no more, he fixed his eyes on her back and lengthened his stride.
Men and animals crowded the street near the old public bath, blocking his way. Afraid he might lose sight of the odd trio, he elbowed other men aside, bruising his s.h.i.+n on a fruit seller's stall, jostling a blind man's hand from his guide's shoulder. Then, he was through the gate and past the heaving crowd at the entrance to the caravanserai, the rest house of travelers. The crowd thinned, and there they were again, the redheaded man, the lady, and the dozing child.
As he drew breath to call out to Allahyar, Yar Mohammad found himself fiung abruptly aside by an outstretched arm as a wide old palanquin drove past, its bearers shouting warnings as they ran. Recovering his balance, he looked ahead in time to see it halt and Memsahib's burqa-clad figure climb inside. As he began, panting, to close the distance between them, he saw Allahyar thrust the baby inside and slide the door shut.
Still running, he watched helplessly as the bearers lifted the poles to their shoulders and started off again in the direction of the Delhi road. Desperate, he searched the crowd for a sign of Allahyar, but the redheaded man had vanished. As the chill rain soaked through his thin clothes, Yar Mohammad began to trudge resolutely along the road behind the speeding palanquin, his shoulders hunched against the cold.
SO intent had Yar Mohammad been on following the three figures before him that he failed to notice two men who stood in the crowded shelter of the Delhi Gate, staring after Allahyar and his companions. He missed seeing a smartly dressed eunuch turn to a lanky, sallowfaced young man, and gesture with long arms toward the sleeping bundle on the man's shoulder.
”I know that child,” Gurbashan said excitedly, ignoring the water dripping from the end of his nose. ”I would know him anywhere.”
He put his mouth next to the young man's ear. ”It does not matter how he has come to be on the road in the company of servants,” he whispered. ”That is the child Saboor. I am telling you, it is he. How could I fail to know him after I spent four days taking him to the Maharajah's camp? I recognized him once before, whatever they may say, and I have now recognized him again.”
”Shall we follow them?” asked the young man dubiously, staring after the stumbling woman.
”No,” replied the eunuch. ”I know where they are going. Why give only information, when we can present Saboor himself to the Maharajah and get the full reward? I know exactly how to get the brat. Come with me.”
IT was late afternoon before the eunuch Gurbashan and the sallow young man had made inquiries at a certain narrow alley in the city. They now stood in a damp mist, by a low door, jostled by noisy strangers, waiting for the man they sought, while music fioated from the adjoining houses and the pungent smell of perfumes mixed with the wet filth of the street.
”I do not like this,” the young man said, his feet dancing nervously on the stones. ”I do not like this at all.”
”If you do not like it,” snapped Gurbashan, looking hastily behind him, ”then be gone. I will keep all the reward for myself.”
A narrow-faced man stood before them, studying them with lifeless eyes. Although he was not old, he had no front teeth. Behind him stood a boy whose face was round and ruddy beneath a layer of dirt. Both were dressed in rags. The narrow-faced man and the boy waited, saying nothing, gazing hungrily at the eunuch's clothes.
”I understand,” said Gurbashan, drawing himself up, ”that you are well versed in the stealing of children.”
The man offered no reply. The boy behind him stared.
”I want to know how good you are.” The eunuch lowered his eyes and poked the ground in front of him with a sandaled foot. ”We desire the services of someone who can do what we need.”
The man drew his lips back, revealing more toothless gums. His hair was matted and dusty. The ruddy-faced boy smirked.
”I have stolen more than thirty children,” the man replied. His lisping voice was as flat as his eyes. ”I sell them for labor, or I sell them, especially the girls, to these places.”
He tilted his head toward a row of open-windowed houses, the only ones in the city where women were not hidden but displayed.
”Some,” he added, ”I sell to the beggars.”
Perspiration gleamed on the sallow forehead of the eunuch's companion.
The dead-eyed man shrugged, palm up. ”Why is your friend so afraid? He is too old for my services. Besides, it is not I who deforms the children.” He pointed with his thumb at an impossibly twisted man lying in a doorway. ”It is others who break their bones to arouse the sympathy of the pious. They know how to-”
The eunuch hastily raised his hands. ”How do you work?”
”The work takes skill,” the man answered. ”I know how to enter a house silently, in the darkness. I can drug a child without killing it.” His half smile disappeared. ”The children I steal do not cry out.”
Gurbashan's companion gulped noisily. The eunuch scratched his head, his eyes on the cobblestones. After a time, he nodded. ”All right,” he agreed, ”but remember, if the baby is not delivered in perfect condition, you will get no money.”
”You told me you would frighten the child thieves with threats,” protested the sallow-faced youth as Gurbashan propelled him away, a long arm about his shoulders. ”You said you would warn them that they would be tortured to death by the Maharajah's soldiers if Saboor Baba died.”
”When did I say that? I never said such a thing,” snapped the eunuch, turning to look quickly behind him as they reached the alley's end and rounded the corner into a wide lane.
”WHAT?” Lord Auckland's face, refiected in the silver table ornaments, had turned crimson. ”You say the girl was not there when you called at the Shaikh's house? You say she had gone off without a word on some native errand, when she knew perfectly well that you were coming to fetch her?”
His jowls quivering, he glared at Macnaghten. ”They must have hidden her somewhere in the house. Why did you not protest, demand that they produce her? If she were not there, why did you not insist on having someone take you to her?”
Macnaghten speared a piece of fish with his fork before replying. ”Your lords.h.i.+p may have forgotten,” he said evenly, ”that natives of the Shaikh's cla.s.s seclude their women. It was, therefore, impossible for me to go to Miss Givens. It also seemed to me-although here I must rely on my experience with natives-that the Shaikh was telling the truth.”
It was true. As surprised as he had been at the girl's absence, he had not questioned the Shaikh's promise that Miss Givens would, G.o.d willing, present herself at the British camp four days from today. The man was clearly someone of importance among the natives. He had spoken with unmistakable authority.
”Shaikh Waliullah has given me his word that Miss Givens will call on you and your lady sisters four days from today when this camp reaches the city of Kasur.” Macnaghten watched Lord Auckland push potatoes angrily onto his fork. ”I therefore take full responsibility for her safe arrival, barring, of course, some unforeseen accident upon the road.” He raised his hands. ”I a.s.sume that she will then remain with the camp for the return journey to Calcutta.”
Aides murmured at the far end of the table. ”Four days from now,” observed Lord Auckland darkly, ”you will not be at this camp. You You will be partway to Kabul with the army.” will be partway to Kabul with the army.”
Macnaghten's appet.i.te left him. It was no use talking to Lord Auckland; the man was an a.s.s. He put down his knife and fork and refused the rest of the dishes. His toes wriggling inside his shoes, he waited for dinner to end.
SHAFI Sahib let out a gentle sigh. ”Yar Mohammad,” he repeated, ”you must take the road to Kasur.” The string bed creaked under him. ”I am certain that Memsahib has taken Saboor Baba to his father. She must have done so-there is no sign of her at this camp.”
Yar Mohammad said nothing. At a loss, unable to keep up with Memsahib's palanquin, the groom had followed the road as far as Shalimar, then stopped at the British camp, hoping to find her there. He had waited for hours, posting himself near the guarded entrance in the red wall. As night fell, he had gone to the back of the red compound and entered by the kitchen gate, to discover Dittoo sleeping by a cooking fire.
”No,” Dittoo had said, shaking his head, ”Memsahib has not returned.”
Yar Mohammad was weary. His head ached from trying to decide what to do.
”Go, brother,” Shafi Sahib told him. ”Go now. You must travel all night. With luck, you will find a bullock cart that will carry you. But you must go. Otherwise, you will not find them on the road tomorrow morning.”
In a corner room at the Citadel, the Maharajah leaned from his low bed and spat into a carved silver bowl.
He spoke with effort. ”What am I to believe, Aziz? Is Saboor at his house in the city, ill with smallpox as his family claims, or is he at the British camp, as the eunuch insists?”