Part 14 (1/2)

The quiet man got to his feet and stepped outside. Mariana heard the heavy outer door creak, and then a sudden torrent of noise as if a river of rage were streaming past them in the street.

The door creaked again, then thudded shut. The guest reappeared and stepped over the threshold. ”These visitors should be escorted from the city as soon as it is safe,” he said, gesturing toward Mariana and the others.

Haji Khan nodded and turned his white eyes to Yar Mohammad. ”Leave the horse here,” he ordered, ”and follow Nadir. He will take you to safety.”

Yar Mohammad unfolded himself from the floor.

Mariana hesitated for a moment before Haji Khan's string bed. ”I will do it,” she half-whispered. ”I will recite the durood properly.”

He nodded. ”Go,” he commanded.

She, Yar Mohammad, Nur Rahman, and the man called Nadir stood in the courtyard, listening to the crowd rush by outside. As it pa.s.sed, voices rose above the general din. Their tone caused a chill to run down Mariana's spine.

”Aminullah Khan says there is a great treasure to be looted from the house across the street,” crowed one male voice.

”We will take it,” shouted another, ”but not until we have finished the infidel Eskander Burnes.”

Aminullah Khan. The sick old man Burnes had laughed about only ten days ago... The sick old man Burnes had laughed about only ten days ago...

After the sound had faded in the crooked street, the guest stepped outside, followed by Yar Mohammad, then Mariana and Nur Rahman. As the elderly guard swung the heavy doors shut behind them, Haji Khan's caged nightingale gave out a series of lovely, bubbling cries.

The quiet stranger walked in front with a rapid, rolling stride, his jezail slung across one shoulder. He did not look back. Yar Mohammad walked beside him, the long knife he had taken from his clothes ready in his hand. Mariana followed them, together with Nur Rahman, who for once seemed to have nothing to say.

Burnes's house must have been nearby, for Mariana heard the shouts of the gathering mob echoing behind her as she crept along the margin of the narrow street, her stiff new slippers with their upward-pointing toes biting into her feet. Groups of men strode past her, hurrying to join the others, faces intent, weapons resting on their shoulders.

The city bazaars were eerily silent as they pa.s.sed. No wood sellers chopped their wares in the Chob Faros.h.i.+ as they pa.s.sed. No tinsmiths filled the air with rhythmic hammering. Even the Char Chatta shops were shuttered. As she tried to ignore the blisters growing on her feet, Mariana calculated how long it would take them to reach the cantonment.

Tonight she would recite the words on Haji Khan's little roll of paper. She had given him her word.

”I HAVE done nothing to harm you! Nothing!” Nothing!” Alexander Burnes shouted to the crowd. Below him, between the posts that held up his carved balcony, heavy thudding indicated that the mob was now forcing the door to his house. ”Do not shoot,” he cautioned the guards who stood, muskets loaded, on the rooftop. Alexander Burnes shouted to the crowd. Below him, between the posts that held up his carved balcony, heavy thudding indicated that the mob was now forcing the door to his house. ”Do not shoot,” he cautioned the guards who stood, muskets loaded, on the rooftop.

Beside him, his a.s.sistant surveyed the crowd with a practiced eye. ”There were three hundred an hour ago,” said Major William Broadfoot. ”Now I would say there are ten times that many. They are packed into the road here, and I suspect there are more, out of sight around the corners.”

Burnes had begun to perspire. ”What of the back of the house?”

His companion shrugged.

”William,” Burnes said somberly, ”I should have listened to the warnings. I am to be sacrificed to these savages, but you have no part in this.”

”It is my duty, sir,” Broadfoot a.s.sured him. ”Do not worry. Reinforcements will be here soon. It is already two hours since we sent your letter to the cantonment.”

Before he could say more, the first shots ricocheted off the wall behind them. He pushed Burnes through the open shutters. ”Get inside, sir,” he ordered, then turned his attention, and his musket, to the crowd. ”Open fire!” he called to the guard on the roof.

He killed six Afghans before he dropped to the balcony floor, shot mercifully through the heart.

One by one, the six guards fell.

The mob burst into the wide courtyard, and set the stables, then the house, ablaze. Inside the burning house, Burnes put on his Afghan costume with shaking hands.

”Hurry,” said the Kashmiri who had come to suggest he escape by the back door.

”I am am hurrying,” Burnes panted as he wound on his lucky turban, the one he had always worn on his woman-hunting forays. hurrying,” Burnes panted as he wound on his lucky turban, the one he had always worn on his woman-hunting forays.

They opened the back door only enough to let them squeeze outside and into the crowd that stood shoulder to shoulder, s.h.i.+fting impatiently. The crowd smelled of sweat, unwashed clothing, and l.u.s.t for blood.

The door shut behind them.

Someone turned and looked into Burnes's face. He dropped his head, hoping...

”He is here, I have him!” The Kashmiri raised his voice. ”Here is Eskandar Burnes!”

Before Sir Alexander Burnes, British Resident at Kabul, had time to protest the Kashmiri's betrayal, before he had time to pray, the mob had fallen upon him.

There was no room for jezails in the narrow street, so they used knives: heavy pointed churas with long, straight blades for thrusting; ivory-handled kukri kukri knives with downward-curving blades, heavy enough to slash a man in half; beautifully weighted Persian daggers with decorated hilts, Indian knives with downward-curving blades, heavy enough to slash a man in half; beautifully weighted Persian daggers with decorated hilts, Indian katars katars for tiger hunting, with wedge-shaped blades and strange handles, damascened for tiger hunting, with wedge-shaped blades and strange handles, damascened khanjars khanjars and and jam-biyas jam-biyas, whose upward-curving blades were sharpened on both edges.

When at last the crowd turned away, satisfied with its work, Sir Alexander Burnes, British Resident at Kabul, was no more than a scattered collection of body parts and blood-soaked rags.

”The British will come, now,” spectators muttered as the jubilant crowd marched, shouting, through the city. ”They will come with their great, damaging guns. They will come.” They will come.”

They must get clear of the city, Mariana told herself as she toiled painfully past the wall of a large formal garden. Word of the attack on Burnes must have reached the cantonment hours ago. The British rescue party would already be on the march, bent on saving him, or avenging his death.

They would kill any armed man they encountered inside the city gates: the quiet stranger who strode ahead of Mariana, his jezail slung across his back, and Yar Mohammad, too, whose long knife was visible among his clothes. She and Nur Rahman would not be safe, either. Mariana had seen the indiscriminate violence of soldiers before.

The rescue force, with its destructive guns and eager, red-coated soldiers, would exact b.l.o.o.d.y retribution from anyone they found near Burnes's house, and would also do terrible damage to the whole surrounding neighborhood, whose houses would be full of frightened women and children.

G.o.d forbid they should harm Haji Khan's house or injure him....

It was clear that the mob would not be stopped in time. Mariana had seen that truth on Haji Khan's blind face, and in the impa.s.sive demeanor of the man who now led her to safety. She had seen it in the triumphant smiles on the men who had pa.s.sed them in the city, on their way to join the attack.

At this very moment, Burnes was either dead or dying.

What would happen next?

When an Afghan is insulted, or even imagines an insult, he will kill to preserve his honor, Muns.h.i.+ Sahib had told her. The British, for their own reasons, had looked the other way over the recent affronts they had suffered, but now they must act.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

May G.o.d save me, her muns.h.i.+ had quoted, from the vengeance of the Afghan. from the vengeance of the Afghan. May G.o.d now save the innocent of this city from the punishment of the British and their army. May G.o.d now save the innocent of this city from the punishment of the British and their army.

What did the silent man in front of her think of the British? Perhaps he believed them inferior to himself and his kind. Perhaps he saw their refusal to punish without proof of guilt as indecision, their efforts at diplomacy as lack of self-respect. If he himself were a Ghilzai, he might have reason to believe the British lacked honor. After all, Macnaghten had broken his word over their payments.

And the British, too, had their stubborn pride.

Mere children, Macnaghten had called the Afghans.

Cowards, the military officers had sneered, who run from our guns. who run from our guns.