King Errant Part 45

He looked quite crestfallen, so that the Fair-Princess, filled with pity, nudged him to say that if he sent her the flowers she would see to their being properly placed.

Whereat he was grateful and went off to his beloved gardens to choose what he wanted. Not roses or marigolds. Those were familiar. He must show his Dearest-dear, and little Gulbadan too, who was to come with this advance party, the beauties of Hindustan. They must be shown that there were some beauties! So he picked the red oleander he had found in the old gardens at Gwalior and the snowy gardenia. Then for scent there was the sweet panda.n.u.s. But his favourite of all, the scarlet hibiscus, could not be gathered till the very last, as it withered so soon. In a single hour its beauty would have gone; and Maham must see how cunningly the thing like a heart showed in the very middle of the broad flower. She must see the marvellous colour, deeper, richer, more beautiful than the pomegranate.

Then there were endless orders to give about fountains, and fireworks, and food. For everything of good in Hindustan must be laid at Maham's feet the moment she arrived.

After this there were papers to be signed, and letters to be sent out to various governors; for Babar had been many months away from his capital on a campaign in Bengal. Still, if Maham kept to her programme, he would have plenty of time for the fifty odd miles to Alighar if he rode fast; and she could hardly be due there for another twenty-four hours.

But he had reckoned without the loving heart on the other side. Maham, as eager as he for the joyful meeting, had pushed on, and reaching Alighar, had left little eight-year-old Gulbadan to follow at leisure in charge of her nurse, and had come on straight post-haste to Agra.

"Your Majesty!" faltered a breathless messenger, rus.h.i.+ng into the Presence unceremoniously--all Agra was on the _qui vive_, and this was no time for the delay of etiquette--"Her Highness is on the road--four miles out--I have just pa.s.sed Her--"

Babar stood up dazed. Maham! To fling his pen aside and start was instant. No time for a horse, not even for shoes. As he was, bareheaded, in his slipper shoon, he was out. In the dust under the stars he ran, and with G.o.d only knows what star-drift and dust-atoms in his brain. Earth there might have been, but of a surety there was heaven also.

Canopus of Victory shone to the South; the Warrior, perchance, showed to the North. But he saw neither. Venus shone like a young moon but cast no shadow on his path. And down the straight dusty road came a litter jingling as it jolted. He laughed aloud in his joy as he sprinted the last few yards.

"Maham! Maham!"

For the rest, what does it matter? Let those two keep it to themselves for all time and eternity.

"My lord! let me descend and walk, too," faltered Maham after a bit, but he shook his head lightly.

"Nay, my moon--that would delay us and thou must get home--_home?_--G.o.d! what delight! Now then, ye bearers, a good foot first, or the King will do gangleader and make the pace!"

His joyous threat roused instant laugh, and with a will, the tired men set off at an amble, chanting in time to their steps. At every minute n.o.bles, apprised of the unexpected arrival, came galloping up, to fall into the tail of the little procession after vain efforts to make the Emperor take their horses. But Babar would none of them. He wanted to hold his wife's hand as he strode beside her and hear her sweet familiar voice saying "Yea" and "Nay" to the torrent of his words.

They crossed the river, and were in _Hesht-Bis.h.i.+st_. That is all there is to say; that is all we know.

Except that ere the blessed night was over Babar wrote in his diary:

"Sunday. At midnight I met Maham again. It was an odd coincidence that she and I left to meet each other on the very same day."

After all there is no need for more. One can imagine Babar translucently, boyishly, content. One can imagine how fear at his altered looks gripped at his more than wife's heart, bringing with it a pa.s.sionate determination to stand between him and needless worry.

There was no chance of that for the present anyhow; all was pleasure and delight. Early in the morning little Gulbadan arrived in charge of the Wazir and his wife, who had been sent out to meet her. They came across her close to the Little-Garden, and, the child being hungry, they spread a carpet and gave her a hasty breakfast.

"There are many dishes," remarked the little lady superbly, and afterwards described the meal as having been drawn out to "fifty roast sheep, bread, sherbet and much fruit." For the dainty child of eight had inherited much of her father's gift of words. She was rather small for her age and extraordinarily self-possessed. With a vast discrimination in etiquette also, as befitted a Royal, or rather Imperial Princess.

"There is no need to rise for her," said the Wazir hastily, when his wife entered and little Gulbadan would have saluted her. "She is but your old serving woman."

This, however, did not suit the little lady who had also her father's gracious manners. And all the while she was bursting with impatience to see the man who her little life long had been held up to her as a model of all that was good, and kind, and brave. Five years is a long time when one can but count eight in all; and the child's recollection only carried her back vaguely to someone very tall and straight who used to hold her close so that she could feel something beating inside. Was it her father's heart or her own? That was not likely any more; for she was quite a big girl and her hair was plaited in virginal fas.h.i.+on.

Besides she had all her little bowings and genuflections ready. She rehea.r.s.ed them gravely in the litter as she went along to pay her respectful duty to royalty.

But after all they did not come into the meeting. She had not even time to fall at the Emperor's feet, for, in an instant, he had her in his arms.

"And then," as she told Maham afterwards in the seclusion of the women's apartments, "this little insignificant personage felt such happiness that greater could not be imagined."

Maham laughed. "Truly thou art a quaint little marionette, Gulbadan!

And what dost think of thy father?"

The little maiden pursed up her lips and sat quiet for a minute. Then she said firmly: "I think he is too beautiful to put into words."

Her father, however, did not share her opinion in regard to _her_ looks. He was never weary of praising them, and it was a pretty sight to see him holding her by the hand as he took her round to inspect all his new buildings and gardens. And nothing would serve him but that they must go out, both of them, and see Dholpur, which, in a vague way, might remind them of beloved Kabul. And from Dholpur they went to Sikri where they spent a happy month rowing about in the big tank.

Here little Gulbadan used to sit for hours at her father's feet while he wrote up his memoirs in the summer house of the great garden.

"Lo! little mouse," he would say, looking round to lay a kindly hand on her smooth head, "mayhap thou mayest write a book thyself some day; thou hast more brains than thy brothers." And he sighed; for of late Humayon had not been very satisfactory; nor, for the matter of that, were Kamran and Askari, his other two grown-up sons, exactly after his own heart.

Gulbadan shook her head gravely. "The Emperor speaks in ignorance of my brother Alwar," she said, not without hauteur, "but when my mother, Her Highness, Dildar-Begum arrives next week the Emperor will admit that his son is a rarity of the world, and a unique of the age."

Her dignity was supreme, and Babar laughed. "Nicer than Hindal, Gullu?" he asked, knowing her preference for the boy who had been brought up with her under Maham's care.

The child flushed up visibly, and tears stood in her eyes. "Lo!" she said, "Hindal is indeed my brother. Mayhap he is not clever; but I love him, I love him!"

The Emperor caught her in his arms and kissed her tears.

"So do I, sweetheart, so does everybody. Lo! I dare swear it! we all love each other, do we not?"

In truth it seemed like it. Babar's three wives were there after a time and yet none of them quarrelled; perhaps because no one in the wide world could have quarrelled with childless Mubarika, the Blessed-Damozel, and Dildar was too much occupied with little Alwar to think of anything else. He was, indeed, a marvellous child, of extraordinary beauty and brains. One of those children over whom old folk shake their heads and say: "He is not long for this world."

Though barely six he was, as his little sister had said, a unique of the age, and Babar, who had not seen him since he was a baby in arms, was almost pathetically proud of him.

His devotion, indeed, raised a suspicion of jealousy even in Maham's generous heart for her own son Humayon--and one evening as the husband and wife were sitting together in the open balcony of the Palace, she hinted that Humayon might have to play second fiddle in his father's graces.

Babar came over to her and laid his head--it was fast grizzling--on her lap in the old affectionate Turkhi fas.h.i.+on.

"Little mother!" he said, and there was a break in his voice, "say not stupidities. Lo! thou knowest, as I do, that life became doubly dear to me, when thou didst lay my first-born son in my arms. Thou knowest that I have done all these things--these many things for him--my heir."

There was a faint stir at the door, and Babar turned to look. Then with a bound he was on his feet.

"Humayon!" he cried joyously; "Humayon himself! Look! little mother!

thy son! thy son!"

And Humayon it was, unsent for, unexpected, but welcome as roses in May. The Emperor had not the heart to chide him for leaving his governors.h.i.+p, since his presence made the loving hearts of those two open like rosebuds, their eyes s.h.i.+ne like torches.

Never was such merry-making as they had that night. It was Babar's rule to keep open table every day, but on this occasion he gave a spread feast, and heaped every kind of distinction upon his handsome son. And in truth he deserved it, for his manners and his conversation had an inexpressible charm, he realised absolutely the ideal of perfect manhood.

So at least his parents agreed, as, after the state dinner was over, they sat, a family party, in the Gold-Scattering-Garden. There was a little tank there, cut out of solid red rock, which in his unregenerate days Babar had intended to fill with red wine. It was now br.i.m.m.i.n.g, in honour of this happy meeting of so many, with lemonade, and they sat and quaffed it by gobletfuls contentedly. And Alwar recited his set pieces, and Gulbadan did a stately Turkhi measure, and nothing would serve Maham but that my lord should sing her his latest love-song. She had not heard him sing for years, and though he had sent her and his sons plenty of didactic and pious songs of his composition and translation, he had included no love-songs. And he had had such an excellent touch with them in the old, old days.

Whereat Dildar giggled faintly, till Dearest-One, who, tall, pale, a childless widow now, had also come to see her brother, said softly:

"Aye! it was given him by the Good G.o.d who sends Love as His best gift to the World. Yea! Sing to us of Love--brotherling."

So he took the lute and sang sweetly enough, though his voice had lost its youthful ring.

"Ah! would I were the morning wind To braid her scented hair.

Ah! would I were the noonday sun To kiss her cheek so fair.

Ah! would I were the lamp at eve Where she her court doth keep.

Ah! would I were the happy moon To watch her in her sleep.

My heart is like a famished wolf That licks the frozen snow The while it tracks its quarry far Wherever it may go.