King Errant Part 22

But Babar cut him short. He never would listen to suspicions of his own relations.

"I have done nothing," he said, with just that little touch of conscious virtue that in him was so translucent, so simple, though in one less artless it might have been offensive, "to provoke either of them to hostility; neither have they given me ground for dissatisfaction."

Kasim shrugged his shoulders and muttered under his breath that it would need the Day of Judgment to make some folk believe in sin, and applied himself to seeing that the garrison left was sufficient to keep order.

Babar himself was full of spirits. Apart from other considerations the prospect of, at last, seeing Herat, the most civilised city in Central Asia, filled him with keen interest. It was full, he knew, of poets, painters, philosophers, and its luxuries were things to speak of with bated breath. In addition, he had a pleasant remembrance of his Uncle Hussain. It was more than ten years since he had seen him over in the camp which had struck him, the hardy barbarian, with awe. Did the old man--old now with a vengeance since he had reigned a good fifty years--still keep b.u.t.ting rams and amuse himself with c.o.c.k fighting?

Above all, did he still on festival days put on that small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding over it in that style go to prayers? Babar wrote in his own hand--in the Babari writing which he had just invented and of which he was vastly proud--a letter to the kindly old man, telling him that he had set out from Kabul and hoped to be with him shortly. This he entrusted to an amba.s.sador who with the Dreamer-of-Dreams started express for Herat; he himself having a small job on hand by the way, in the punishment of some wandering tribes to the west.

It was not much of a task; but summer quarters in the hills had a fascination for Babar, and he remained on the top of one of the many ranges he had to cross; despatching Kasim-Beg meanwhile with a body of troops to scour the countryside for rebels.

There was a sense of freedom about the wide upland stretches of sweet gra.s.s, where flocks and herds grazed placidly, where flowers blossomed by the million, and the tall fir forests edged the downward slopes.

The whole world of blue waving hills touched the blue sky. One might be adrift on a huge raft in the River of Life. Babar would doff shoes and wander barefoot for hours, content with a chance shot after an escaping deer, or a chance following of his own vagrant thoughts. And these often fled in the direction of a House-of-Rest wherein dwelt a frightened girl. He could not help it. He was made sentimental to his heart's core. Remove the pressure of fine fighting, of ardent ambition, and there he was, ready to be touched by pity, love, admiration. And the thought of the woman to come was a perpetual stimulus to his imagination. The mere fact that he did not know her name was delightful; it took from the idea all trace of earth. And Babar, though the very reverse of ascetic in his tastes and pleasures, had ever been repulsed by sensuality. His was the Epicurean enjoyment of the spirit, as distinct from that of the mind, or that of the body.

So in his thoughts he called the woman he intended should be his wife "My moon," which is the eastern equivalent of "My queen"; and, in easy dilettante fas.h.i.+on wrote more than one ode to that luminary. Most of them were in Persian and contained exactly the proper number of feet, and rang the appointed interchanges of meaning and words with faultless accuracy. He was quite proud of them, and thought better of them than of the one in Turkhi; which, however, he set to music and sang, for his innate good taste was for ever breaking loose from scholastic tradition. He tw.a.n.ged the tune on a _cithara_ as he sat on a rock in the moonlight and felt quite light-hearted over his own unworthiness; it fitted so neatly into the rhyming fall ...

Moon of still night!

Whence the bright light that enfolds In its pure smile Earth's untold guile; that upholds Silver in glow, whiter than snow, this my hand Tuning thy praise?

Whence come thy rays?

From what land Bringest thou peace, thus to release, from its sin Stricken sad heart, wailing its part in Life's din?

Lo! from G.o.d's sun must thou have won thy kind light.

Though I am clay, watch me alway through the night.

I am of earth; thine is the birth- right divine.

Moon of my soul, thine is this whole heart of mine.

The distance from Kabul to Khorasan was over eight hundred miles; so with even every-day marching the journey would have taken some time, and Babar was in no particular hurry. Less so than ever when news came to him with the return of his amba.s.sador, that Sultan Hussain had suddenly died from an apoplectic seizure. At first Babar felt inclined to turn back. His uncle, he knew, had left his kingdom, in unheard of fas.h.i.+on, to his three legitimate sons, in defiance of the old saw about the ten dervishes, and Babar had too much experience to believe that such an arrangement could work satisfactorily. However he had other motives for advancing, and therefore he continued his route, and, pa.s.sing over the last range of high hills, found himself in the country where the advanced detachments of the Usbek force were already raiding. This in itself was an attraction, bringing as it did a chance of fine fighting. He found his cousins, the new Kings, encamped, ready to meet the advancing foe on the Murghab river; or rather he found two of them. The third, from private motives of pique had refused to join the confederacy. This appeared to Babar to be inexpressibly mean, when everyone else had united and were sparing no efforts to oppose an enemy so formidable as Shaibani. He could not understand how any reasonable man could pursue a line of conduct which must after his death, stain his fair fame. Surely everyone with the commonest grace would push forwards his career, so that, even if closed, it would conduct him to renown and glory, since fame is truly a second existence?

These sentiments, however, fine as they were, did not make much mark on the luxurious camp on the banks of the Murghab. His cousins received Babar fairly well, though their manners required some polis.h.i.+ng up by old Kasim-Beg's inflexible rules of etiquette. Of course, the fact that two of the younger and illegitimate princes did not come out as far as they ought to have done to welcome their Kingly cousin was objectionable; but that might be put down to delay in starting due to an over-night debauch, rather than to intentional slight. But when it came to the State reception in the Audience Tent, Kasim had to pluck at his young master's girdle and remind him with this jog, that he was to go no further, but to await his eldest cousin's advance. Which he did obediently, knowing that old Kasim held his King's honour as his own, and was keenly alive to his consequence.

But he, himself, was always forgetting these _convenances_, where he was concerned. If you really felt affectionate it was a nuisance having to wait, and bow, and sc.r.a.pe.

The State reception, however, went off very well and it was followed by a sort of entertainment at which wine was served in goblets of silver and gold, that were put down by the meat!

Fateful innovation which sent old Kasim back to his own camp hungry, in the highest of dudgeons.

"Had it been a drinking party, sire," he protested, "'twould have been my own fault for being there. But at an official dinner, 'twas scandalous. No faithful Mussulman could touch a morsel of food so defiled."

Babar, somewhat regretful at a rather abrupt departure, murmured an excuse to the effect briefly, of "_autres tempes, autres moeurs_"; whereat Kasim-Beg, a purist for the old ways, broke out hotly:

"Lo! sire! the Inst.i.tutions of Ghengis Khan have brought your Highness' family well through much trouble. Sacredly have they observed them in their parties, their courts, their festivals, their entertainments, their down sittings, their risings up, and it would ill become their descendant to flout them."

Babar flushed up; in his heart of hearts, he was not quite such an admirer of the old Turk. "Lo! the Inst.i.tutes are good enough," he said; "a man may well follow them; yet are they not of Divine authority, so that one be d.a.m.ned for disobeying them. Besides, see you, what hope would there be for the world if folk made no change? If a father has done wrong why should not a son change it to what is right?"

Old Kasim, munching away at the dry bread and pickles which was all his servants could produce, snorted. "'Tis the other way round most times; and see you, sire, I give those Kings your cousins one year, one little year, to hold Herat! Then the Kingdom of their father--G.o.d rest his soul since he had gleams of grace and once let one of his G.o.d-forgetting sons go before the magistrate--held--despite wine bibbing--for nigh fifty years, will have gone for ever."

"Aye," replied Barbar, thoughtfully. "I have noticed that myself. Some men drink with impunity. I wonder if 'twould hurt me?"

"G.o.d forbid! your Majesty!" said old Kasim with a tremble in his voice. "Shall all our care, mine and the saintly Kwaja who held you as a boy in his guardian care, be wasted? G.o.d forbid, say I."

But Babar said nothing; he knew that in his inmost heart he had had for years a great longing just to see what it was like to be drunk! It could scarcely hurt for once, and the land of inebriety could hardly be the arid desert it had been painted for him, or so many folk would not wander in it.

He was always open to reason on all points. Nevertheless he gave out solemnly that he drank no wine, and his cousins, being good hosts, refrained from pressing him to do so.

Badia-zaman, the elder of the three, doubtless thought little of him for the abstinence. To be young, good-looking, able to enjoy yourself in every way and yet not to take the best of Life, seemed to him sheer foolishness; and he showed his estimate in his manner, so that Babar came home from his second interview in a fume of anger.

"This shall not be!" he said hotly. "Kasim! send proper representations that young as I am, I am of high extraction. Twice have I by force regained my paternal Kingdom, Samarkand. To show want of respect to one who has done so much for his family by repelling the foreign invader is not commendable."

For a marvel the young King was on his dignity, much to old Kasim's joy. And with good result; for nothing more could have been desired at the next audience which Babar attended with his full retinue. And a fine figure he looked, dressed in the very latest fas.h.i.+on with a gold brocade coat, a flowered unders.h.i.+rt and white silk baggy trousers all lined with gold thread. His hair, too, was scented and curled and his turban tied with a difference. A very different person this from the ragged, out-at-elbow fugitive, or even the stern young soldier in his tarnished coat of mail, fighting for life against overwhelming odds.

He rather liked the change. It was a new experience to ruffle with gilded youth, and he ruffled fairly until his boon companions began to play indecent and scurvy tricks, when he left, disgusted for the time being. But the entertainments were wonderfully elegant. There was every sort of delicacy on the comestible trays, and _kababs_ of fowl and goose; indeed dishes of every sort and kind. The Prince-Kings vied with each other in the refinement of their luxuries, and certainly Badia-zaman's parties deserved to be celebrated; they were so fine, so easy, so unconstrained. On the other hand Mozuffar's entertainments were more amusing, especially when the wine began to take effect.

There was a man who danced excessively well; a dance of his own invention.

"Dance or no dance," grumbled old Kasim, "the Princes thy cousins have taken four months to reach this place. And now news comes that a plundering party of Usbeks is well within touch not more than forty miles off--and they dance! 'Twill be to another tune ere long."

"Mayhap they would let me go," said Babar eagerly, "'twould be a diversion."

So he was off to lay his proposition before his Cousins; but they, afraid of their own reputations, would not suffer him to move. The fact was, as he admitted to old Kasim privately, the Princes, though very accomplished at the social board or in the arrangements for a party of pleasure, and though they had a pleasing talent for conversation and society, yet possessed no knowledge whatever of the conduct of a campaign, and were perfect strangers to the arrangements for a battle, or the danger and spirit of a soldier's life.

This left nothing more to be said; especially as his hearer agreed with every word.

Early autumn, however, had pa.s.sed, and Shaibani, being a careful general, prepared to withdraw his forces against the winter's cold. This being so, there was no longer any reason--there had been but little before--for remaining in camp at the Murghab, and the Prince-Kings proposed a return to Herat and invited Babar to accompany them.

"Were I your Highness," said old Kasim st.u.r.dily, "I would not go. So far G.o.d in His mercy has kept virtue on the lips of the King, and kept wine away from them. But in that G.o.d-forsaken city of Herat who knows what might happen? They tell me even the women there are castaway, and that your uncle the late King's widow drinks like a fish--may G.o.d reward her!"

"I have never seen a woman drink wine," said Babar quite thoughtfully.

"Have you?"

Kasim looked at his young master critically.

"New things are not always good things, sire," he replied drily, "and, as was mentioned ere we set out from Kabul, G.o.d only knows what may happen there if we delay our return too long. Already have five months pa.s.sed and 'tis a fifty days' march homewards."

"Not if we take the high road," said Babar.

"The high road," echoed the old general; "that may be covered with snow any moment now."

"Yet will I chance my luck," returned Babar gaily. "See you, old friend, I have my reasons! I must see Herat--in the whole habitable world they say there is not such a city; besides ..."

He paused, for his was a truthful soul even to itself; and he knew that the past six weeks of jollity and convivial male merry-making had considerably dimmed his desire to do his duty and marry. Still he had promised himself he would try and seek out his Cousin Gharib's betrothed--for she had never been his wife--and he meant to do it.

Between whiles of course. For he must make the most of his time in Herat. Yes! it would be a pity to miss the chance of his life. To be in the most refined of cities which possessed every means of heightening pleasure and gaiety; in which all the incentives to, and apparatus for, enjoyment were combined into one vast invitation to indulgence, and _not_ to indulge, would be foolish. If he did not seize the present moment, even to the point of tasting wine, he was not likely to have such another.

And, certainly, wine seemed to raise the level of a man's mind. His cousins were but dullards out of their cups. And there was no need to exceed. To be dead-drunk was no pleasure to anyone.

CHAPTER III

The Load of Love, nor Earth nor Heav'n can bear, Yet thou, Improvident! wouldst lightly wear The lovers' yoke, give up the flaming sword, Fool! Love only can bear love! Beware! Beware!