Part 34 (2/2)

He must have died instantly.

Of all the British artillery officers, he alone had thought of those abandoned gunners, and come to their rescue.

He had offered her his hand and his heart.

She knelt at his side. ”Dear Allah,” she prayed through chattering teeth, ”take this good man's soul to Thy Paradise. And please,” she added, ”give him everything Nur Rahman has, but let him be with English people, if possible.”

She touched Harry Fitzgerald's stiff cheek, got to her feet, and started back toward Kabul.

No stragglers approached as she trudged along. Save for the dead, she was alone.

At a noise behind her, she turned and drew in a sharp, frightened breath.

She was far from alone. The hors.e.m.e.n had returned. They rode straight for her.

They would kill her now, of course. Nur Rahman had warned her. But what did it matter? Everyone who still lived would be dead soon. Ha.s.san would never find her here. It was too late for hope.

She did not have the fatalistic courage of the old sepoy. Bent double in her dirty chaderi, nauseous with fright, she waited for the hors.e.m.e.n to arrive, to slice her in half with their wicked, curving swords.

They pulled to a halt in front of her, blocking her way.

”You,” shouted a familiar, hollow voice.

It was Aminullah Khan, coming to punish her for spurning his asylum. She closed her eyes and waited for the bite of his sword.

”Are you my missing asylum-seeker?” he barked. ”Speak! Let me hear your voice.”

”I am,” she quavered.

”Hah!” He smiled harshly. ”I thought you wanted panah.”

He gestured with a slick, crimson blade at the carnage around them. ”So you have changed your mind. You have decided to die among these infidels after all.”

He leaned from his horse. ”You did not tell me you were married,” he barked. ”Where is the husband who has abandoned you to freeze here on this battlefield?”

”Why do you want to know?” Mariana's feet were like blocks of ice. Too hungry and too desperately tired to think, she lifted her chaderi from her face and looked Aminullah Khan in the eye. ”Why,” she asked resignedly, ”do you not kill me now?”

His chin lifted, as if she had struck him. His henchmen looked quickly away from them both.

”Kill you? Who do you think I am?” He smiled unpleasantly. ”You are my guest. Why do you suggest that I would kill you? I am no infidel, like your people.”

This last was too much to comprehend. Mariana took a step backward, her hands outstretched. ”Please do not tease me,” she begged, her knees buckling. ”Please.”

”Come.” He sheathed his dreadful sword, edged his horse toward her, and reached down. ”Get up,” he ordered. ”You asked panah, and you shall have it.”

Panah. There was no point in asking where he was taking her. After somehow forcing a heavy, numb leg across his horse's back, she noticed only that he and his henchmen had turned away from the city. As before, he galloped headlong, while she bounced behind him, half forgotten, terrified she would fall, her stiff fingers gripping his c.u.mmerbund. There was no point in asking where he was taking her. After somehow forcing a heavy, numb leg across his horse's back, she noticed only that he and his henchmen had turned away from the city. As before, he galloped headlong, while she bounced behind him, half forgotten, terrified she would fall, her stiff fingers gripping his c.u.mmerbund.

They stopped at a place she thought she remembered. There was something familiar in the shape of the sloping ground as they approached the small town ahead of them.

It was Butkhak, the last caravan stop before Kabul on the road from Peshawar, the place where she had seen her vision of the funeral march nearly a year ago.

How true that vision had been.

They clattered under a gate, wound through several streets, and stopped in front of a plain mud-brick house.

Aminullah dismounted, leaving Mariana on his saddle, and hammered on the door. A young boy answered his knock, started back in surprise, a hand over his heart, then disappeared inside, to be replaced by an old, bent man in a huge checkered turban.

Rapid words were exchanged. Aminullah beckoned to her.

As before, she was ushered inside by women, and taken to an empty upstairs room with a string bed in one corner.

A child brought her tea. Never had Mariana tasted anything as good.

Someone else brought her a quilt and a hard pillow. She pulled off her chaderi and sheepskin, rolled herself into the quilt, and fell deeply and instantly asleep.

The Waliullah ladies had recited without pause since the early morning. Now, with dinner on the way, they huddled on the sitting-room floor, some conversing in low tones, others resting beneath quilts on the bolsters that lay here and there on the sheeted floor. Occasionally, a man of the family put his head around the doorway, nodded, and then took his turn at the wheel.

Steps approached from the room where the uml was being performed. A young woman scuffed off her shoes, pushed aside the door curtain, and entered, heavy-eyed.

”It was difficult, Bhaji.” The girl sighed, as the women made room for her to sit beside Safiya. ”My mind kept wandering as I recited. I hope,” she added in a small voice, ”I did not make too many mistakes.”

”Have no fear, child,” Safiya rumbled, a hand on the girl's knee. ”You performed with pure intention, and your p.r.o.nunciation of the Sindhi was good.”

”How much longer will it take?” asked a young mother with an infant on her lap.

”It may be weeks before we learn of Mariam's condition, but Saboor may receive a sign before then.”

”But what if she has died?” The girl reached up and touched her ears to ward off evil.

”If, Allah forbid, Mariam has already died,” Safiya said carefully, ”then we will be told. But we will not consider such a possibility until we must. And now, Asma, go and rest. Lalaji is taking the next turn.”

As she spoke the curtain moved aside, and the Shaikh entered. He beckoned to his sister.

”How is Saboor?” he asked, when she had joined him. ”Has he seen anything new?”

His sister shook her head. ”Nothing that I know of, but at least he has fallen asleep.”

She gestured to a corner where Saboor lay wrapped in a quilt, his eyes shut, his lips parted.

The Shaikh nodded. ”I will go in, then. Who will come after me?”

”I will be sending Rehmana,” she replied.

The Shaikh's gap-toothed sister-in-law looked up, and nodded solemnly.

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