A Prince of Dreamers Part 51

Birbal looked hurriedly round him. There was evident eagerness on the very faces where he expected to find it; aye! and there was antic.i.p.ation in many more. Then he glanced at the board, seeing in an instant that this move altered the whole defence: but even as he recognised this, and recognised that an answering change would make it strong as ever, the Charan's cry rang out.

"_Badshah's rukh_ takes _wazir_" (Queen).

Akbar had let the move slip--had evidently been in a dream, was still in one! Yet it would need skill now to extricate himself for by G.o.d!

he, himself, had not seen that before! It would be checkmate in two moves if the _rukh_ were moved. The only defence--what was the defence?

"_Wazir's rukh_ takes _peon_."

Inexorably the Court-herald's voice echoed through the arches and out into the garden. It was followed by a little tense murmur from the crowd.

Ye G.o.ds! what was the defence? _Ghorah_ to---- No! that was fatal. The king of course! The king one step backward and the game was won!

Would Akbar see it?

His attention had anyhow been aroused. He had leant forward, his elbow on his knee, his brows bent. The question was--_how much of his mind had been withdrawn from dreams_.

"He is not here!" murmured Abulfazl hurriedly, "but surely they cannot----"

"They can and dare all," interrupted Birbal "Oh! devils in h.e.l.l."

For clear from the King's lips came the words, "_Ghorah_ to----"

This time, however, that clang of steel on stone blurred the closing tones of the King's lips and the Charan's rose on it clear.

"_Badshah_ to his eighth."

Birbal gasped, the King started, the courtiers stirred swiftly. But Birbal's quick wit was the first to recover from surprise.

"Repeat the move, O Charan of Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, Emperor of India! It hath not been fully heard!"

Instantly the clang repeated itself, and the words followed high, strident, unmistakable.

"By the order of the King, _badshah_ to his eighth."

"But we protest," cried the Makhdum-ul'-Mulk, finding voice, and Akbar rising, looked angrily downward and prepared to speak.

"Great sire!" interrupted Birbal advancing on the very board itself--"we protest also against disorder. A Charan's voice duly challenged, is the voice of the King. Naught can alter it, save treachery. Where is the treachery here? He speaks that which he hears.

Question the woman. Ask her what she heard?"

A great wave of sudden curiosity swept over the King's mind. What would this woman say? So far Birbal was right. She could be punished for treachery--but----

"Speak, atma Devi, Charan of Kings. What didst thou hear?" His voice was strangely soft, but so clear that it could be heard by all.

There was not a quiver in the straight-held sword of steel, no tremor in the firm mouth that gave the answer.

"I heard what I spoke!"

There was an instant's pause; she sate motionless, her face impa.s.sive, the half-shut eyes gleaming coldly out at all the world. Then Birbal laughed, a quick cackling laugh.

"The move is played, messieurs! Answer, it if ye can!"

And then he looked admiringly across at atma Devi; in truth she was man indeed, in woman's--nay! by the G.o.ds! she was man altogether--a man amongst men; for that was checkmate--checkmate to the King's enemies.

CHAPTER XXV

_'Tis Eve O Sakil fill the wine cup high Be quick! the clouds delay not as they fly.

Ere yet this Fading World to Darkness goes My senses darken with thy wine of Rose, Till Fate makes flagons of my worthless clay.

Then fill my empty skull with wine I pray So neither Death nor Judgment shall be mine The Grave a br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup of Limpid Wine_.

--Sa'adi.[14]

[Footnote 14: Sir Edwin Arnold's translation.]

atma, back in the palace, was once more racking her mind what to do about her remaining responsibility, the diamond. So far Fate and the G.o.ds had guided her aright. She had managed to give the King timely warning that the little coward would claim his promise (better, sure, if she had burned!) then, having little time for thought, and knowing, in truth, that she had no chance of escaping unmolested through the strictly guarded entrances to the King's private apartments, she had returned by the swinging dhooli to her own, thus for the time keeping her method of escape secret from her gaolers. So, immediate urgency being over, she had set to work first to conceal what till then she had hidden in the dark braids of her hair; for she guessed at once, by the luxury with which she was surrounded, that tirewomen would appear in the morning, that every temptation would be plied to make her yield to Mirza Ibrahim's lawless desires. She smiled at the thought. Yea, let him come; but not till after she was prepared. So she deftly cut a snippet of brocade from a hanging, and greasing it in an oil lamp rolled the diamond and the Wayfarer's square stone together, so as to form a fine large packet, st.i.tched it together with gold thread she found ready on an embroidery frame, and hung it once more on the greasy black skein, telling herself none would interfere with so palpable a talisman. For the rest she had the Death-dagger of her race, which she hid until dressing-time was over in a woman's work-basket; though nothing, she told herself, would happen before her appearance at the Festival as Charan. So, seeing always but a short s.p.a.ce into the future, she lay down and slept.

When she had wakened, servants had been ready to fly in lawful command, to temporise soothingly with unlawful ones, and she had smiled grimly, telling herself they were afraid of her, and that when the end came, she need only fear the violence of poison.

But that again was not yet.

Even after the Festival was over, after she had lied so calmly to save the King's honour, she had hours to spare. The Mirza would need darkness for his proposals; so she had quite smilingly put on the gorgeous dress of a court lady which on her return from the Audience was all she had found in the place of her own old red garments. What did it matter? The steel hauberk of her father's, the circlet, and the sword were still hers. These she had wors.h.i.+pped, these would look down on her death for honour. So if her white robe trailed on the ground and was sewn with stars, if her jewelled bodice flashed under the light folds of a saffron pearl-set veil, what was that to her, the King's Charan, who carried a death-dagger in her waistband?

Nothing mattered so long as her hardly-thought-out project for the delivery of the King's diamond could be brought about. If the message could be sent--if old Deena the drum-banger would take it, then the jeweller might come disguised as a Sufi in the Preacher's dhooli, and she could fulfil her promise; she could give it into his very hands--yea even if she had to yield, before that, to the Lord Chamberlain's desires.

Even this supreme sacrifice she was prepared to make if they failed to send Deena, or if the Feringhi failed to come. For she must have time.

She leant listlessly on the steps below the cupola toying idly with a sc.r.a.p of silk-made writing paper and pen and ink. A slave-woman, gaoler, duenna--whom atma had sent from her very side on plea of chilliness, was standing a little way apart, making believe to drive away the sunset-time mosquitoes with a peac.o.c.k's feather fan; in reality watching every movement of her charge.

Would Deena come? She had sent for him calmly to drum to her rhythm of pedigrees. That was her right, and he was so far a hanger on of the Mirza's that they might count him of themselves; yet he might be true to her also.

"The drumbanger waits," said a eunuch at the door, and her heart leapt to her mouth.

"Lo 'tis luscious as honey to a bee; lascivious to the liver, as saffron pillau to the stomach!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old man admiringly, In truth atma looked superlatively handsome amid the fine feathers of silken carpets and satin cus.h.i.+ons.

"Thy liver, and thy stomach, sinner!" retorted atma carelessly, as she crumpled up the sc.r.a.p of paper and flung it into the lacquered pen-tray. "But come! to work! Since I am here as King's woman I may be called on any moment to sing in the harem; and I sing few women's songs: none of the modern style."

She broke into the high trilling commencement of a not over-respectable ballad of the bazaars.

Deena's wicked old face took on an air of outraged virtue, his hands refused to touch his drum.

"Nay! mistress most chaste," he protested in an injured tone, "salvation comes not that way to old Deena. He can get drumming and to spare of that sort elsewhere."