Companions Of Paradise Part 3

"Then why did did you insist?" you insist?"

He made a tired gesture. "I do not know, Bhaji. I thought they needed me-"

Whatever Ha.s.san's secrets might be, they were doing him no good. "Speak of that day, my boy," Safiya Sultana ordered. "Tell me your story."

He sighed raggedly. "The Hazuri Bagh, where the battle took place," he began, describing from habit a place that Safiya, a lady in purdah purdah, had never seen, "is the rectangular walled garden lying between the entrance to the Badshahi Mosque and the main, Alamgiri Gate to the Citadel. It is a small garden, only about a hundred paces broad and fifty paces deep, filled with old trees and ruins, with a pavilion at its center. With its high, surrounding walls, it is a dangerous place for a battle.

"We knew the four a.s.sa.s.sins would arrive early, and hide in the garden, and so we went there the night before Sher Singh began his attack on the Citadel. At first light, as the fighting began, we paired off and began to search for them. Within an hour, three of the four were dead, killed by Zulmai, Habibullah, and Yusuf.

"I saw the battle with my own eyes," he added. "Sher Singh's cannon fired first, splintering the huge wooden doors of the Alamgiri Gate. Then his best Nihang soldiers tried to storm through, but the Rani's guns had been set up just inside the gate. When they fired, hundreds of Sher Singh's soldiers were killed instantly." He shuddered. "There were great billows of smoke. The timbers of the gate caught fire. Severed limbs and heads flew into the air and fell to the ground. It was deafening and horrible.

"Sher Singh fought on that morning, but he had lost control of his a.s.sault. When the defenders began to fire down into the garden from the surrounding wall, Sher's troops realized they were trapped. They panicked and ran, climbing over each other to get out through the side gate of the Bagh."

He fell silent.

Only two things disturbed Safiya Sultana's customary stout calm: lack of food and lack of sleep. Although she would never admit it, the difficult work of nursing Ha.s.san had nearly exhausted her strength.

"Go on," she urged, "tell the rest of it."

"We were now desperate to find the fourth sniper. Sher Singh had kept out of sight until then, but we knew he would want to see the disaster at first hand. At the exact moment that he appeared under the arches of the garden's pavilion, Yusuf and I found the last a.s.sa.s.sin. He was crouched behind a tree, a child too young to wear a turban, his musket pointed straight at Sher Singh."

He s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably on the edge of his bed. "We both raised our weapons, but Yusuf, may Allah bless him, must have wanted me to have the glory of saving Sher Singh's life. He held his fire and told me to shoot."

"And then?"

"I could not do it, Bhaji. The child was dressed in rotting rags. He was s.h.i.+vering with cold. I wondered what he had been offered to do this terrible thing. He was in my sights, an easy shot, but I was powerless to pull the trigger. I could not breathe. Yusuf repeated his order to shoot, but I could not move even one of my fingers.

"In the end, Yusuf killed the boy, but not before he got off a wild shot that wounded someone near Sher Singh. When the guards looked to see where the ball had come from, they must have seen us, not the dead child. Yusuf shouted, but it was too late. They all fired at once. I was knocked to the ground. From where I lay, I could see only Yusuf's foot, but even then I knew he was dead. Zulmai and Habibullah came running, and pulled me to safety. If they had not done so, a second volley from the guards would have killed me." He raked his fingers through his hair. "If I had been less of a coward, Yusuf would still be alive."

Safiya held out a hand. "There is no point in-"

"I am not a hero," he interrupted, "whatever they say in the bazaar. Of the four of us, I alone did nothing to stop the a.s.sa.s.sination. My only contribution was to get poor Yusuf killed."

"I did not know you could shoot," Safiya remarked, to divert him. "I thought you were all brocades and diplomacy."

"He taught me." Ha.s.san's voice broke. "We were fourteen." taught me." Ha.s.san's voice broke. "We were fourteen."

"And what happened after that?"

"I do not remember," he said curtly.

Safiya did not reply. Both of them knew well that Ha.s.san's story had not ended when his Afghan friends dragged him, shocked and bleeding, from the Hazuri Bagh. Both knew that, guessing where he lay wounded, his wife had rushed out into the dangerous city streets that night, and found him in a house by the Delhi Gate.

Without her, he would have died of infection as Sher Singh's soldiers rampaged through the streets outside.

For all his misplaced guilt and the loss of his burly, good-natured friend, Ha.s.san had been a fortunate man.

" Al-Hamdulillah Al-Hamdulillah, Allah be praised," Safiya murmured.

"I see no cowardice in your story," she went on in a normal tone. "You, a courtier with no history of soldiering, risked entering a battle to stop an a.s.sa.s.sination. When the moment came, you felt your opponent's humanity, and could not bear to take his life. Do not forget, Ha.s.san," she added, her deep voice echoing in the small bedchamber, "that you have served the Punjab and this city for seven years. I remember the day you went to join the great Faqeer Azizuddin at court.

"How many Punjabi Muslims have worked as you have, side by side with the Sikh and Hindu n.o.bles of the court, to bring peace and well-being to this kingdom? How many have negotiated with the Pashtuns in the north, the British in the south? How many have spent night after sleepless night struggling against the ill luck that has brought one wrong person after another to the throne since Maharajah Ranjit Singh's death?"

Ha.s.san made a small, disbelieving sound.

"You should have told me this story weeks ago. And now," she added, yawning, "I need my sleep. Your explanation of why you went to the Hazuri Bagh in the first place must wait until tomorrow. "

Ha.s.san drew in his breath. "Bhaji, I-"

"Not another word." So saying, Safiya Sultana stretched out on the groaning bed and closed her eyes. A moment later she began to snore.

"WHAT GIBBERISH are you talking, child?" Safiya demanded the following afternoon of the four-year-old in rumpled muslin clothes, who bounced beside her on the sheet-covered floor, babbling aloud in a foreign tongue. Around them in the upstairs ladies' sitting room, women fanned themselves and talked in low tones as they waited for the afternoon meal.

"An-nah taught it to me," Saboor said gravely. "It's called 'Hey, Diddle Diddle.' It is about a cat who plays a sarod sarod and a cow that jumps so-o-o high!" He flung his arms over his head. "And a small dog who-" and a cow that jumps so-o-o high!" He flung his arms over his head. "And a small dog who-"

"Enough, child!" Safiya rumbled. "I am too tired to listen to such nonsense. Ah," she glanced through the curtained doorway, "your father has come. See how well he is walking now."

Watching her nephew approach, Safiya rejoiced in Ha.s.san's improvement since the previous night. He had bathed. Someone had washed his hair and combed it back, so that it curled behind his ears. His beard was neatly trimmed. Dark circles still lay beneath his eyes, and his broad, fair-skinned face had thinned, making his broken nose more prominent than before, but in his fine, embroidered muslins, he looked almost like himself.

Allah be praised, his wounded thigh was no longer hugely swollen and inflamed, with pustules breaking out all over it. For the past week, he had been able to sleep on his back, not stretched out on his stomach. All that was needed now was for the open wound to finish closing safely. He had also begun to use his injured left hand.

It had taken all Safiya's healing arts to keep him alive after he had been brought into the haveli, sixteen hours after his battle. It had taken all the family's prayers to drive away the illnesses that had later threatened his life.

As Ha.s.san stepped out of a pair of embroidered slippers with upturned toes, Saboor ran to him. "Abba!" he cried, flinging his arms around his father's waist. "You are all dressed! You are wearing your nice shoes!"

"Yes, I am, my darling." Ha.s.san stroked his child's curls with a hand that would have been beautiful, had it not lost its middle finger.

Safiya's heart went out, as it always did, to the man she had adored from the moment he was born. Her twin brother's only child, Ha.s.san had been the one she turned to after cholera had killed her two little daughters and left her starving for a child to love. Only six years old then, and with a mother of his own, Ha.s.san had understood her need. For hours at a time during the first terrible days, he had sat beside her, one small hand resting on her knee.

Saboor, two years younger than his father had been then, already promised to be as loving as Ha.s.san.

She caught the scent of musk. Ha.s.san was wearing perfume. That, too, was a good sign. Of course if he were in the Maharajah's presence, he would also be wearing jewels: his heavy, waist-long pearl necklaces, kundan kundan earrings set with rubies and emeralds, enameled bracelets, gold rings... earrings set with rubies and emeralds, enameled bracelets, gold rings...

Jewels gave elegance and power to a man who knew how to wear them.

"You need feeding," she said gruffly, enjoying the perfume's forceful, heady sweetness. "You are a skeleton under those fancy clothes."

"Yes." Safiya's gap-toothed sister-in-law nodded vehemently. "He must have plenty of yakhni yakhni and meat dishes to strengthen him." and meat dishes to strengthen him."

"You are going to Peshawar when you are well again, are you not, Bhai Jan?" asked one of the children.

"I do not know, Mueen, I may go there, or to Multan, or somewhere else." Ha.s.san grimaced as he settled himself on the floor, his little son at his side. "But I will not go anywhere until I can ride again."

Saboor sat up. "When my Abba goes, I will share his saddle," he announced, his eyes bright. "We will ride and ride on his beautiful gray horse, and then we will send for An-nah, and she will live with us!"

Safiya saw Ha.s.san's fingers stiffen on the child's shoulder.

"Will you take me with you, Bhai Jan?" asked Mueen.

"I do not know, my dear." Ha.s.san smiled carefully. "I am not sure you should come with me. I will be traveling much of the time while I am there."

"But I can help you," the boy insisted. "I can carry your things."

"I'll carry Abba's things, too!" Saboor looked eagerly from face to face.

Ha.s.san did not reply.

Safiya, too, kept her silence. Keeping the peace in the restive Punjab was an unsafe and thankless enterprise, especially now, with so much turmoil at the Citadel. Wherever he went, Ha.s.san would have to deal with never-ending complaints about taxes and the unpaid soldiery. Dealing with angry landowners and villagers would mean taking an armed guard when he left Lah.o.r.e, not a pair of children.

Saboor peered eagerly at his father. "When will we see An-nah? Will we go to Kabul to bring her home? Will it be soon, Abba?"

Ha.s.san smiled vaguely. "I do not know yet, my darling."

"But I want to see An-nah now. now. I want to tell her-" I want to tell her-"

Unable to bear the pain on Ha.s.san's face, Safiya made a kissing sound. "Do not worry, my darling," she said in the singsong tone she reserved for pacifying children. "Inshallah "Inshallah, you will see your An-nah soon. Go to my room." She pointed to the verandah beyond the curtained doorway. "You will find a paper on my bed, with my newest poem written on it. Take it downstairs and show it to your grandfather."

Saboor's face had begun to crumple. "But, Bhaji, I-"

"Take him with you, Mueen," she said firmly.

As the child shuffled away, bent-shouldered, his cousin holding his hand, two or three of the ladies looked up from their conversations. Safiya's sister-in-law leaned forward eagerly, sucking on her teeth. "What did the child say?" she demanded. "Is Ha.s.san not not going to bring his wife back from Kabul?" going to bring his wife back from Kabul?"

Ignoring the questions, Safiya raised a hand. "Ha.s.san and I," she announced pointedly, "have an important matter to discuss."

As soon as the ladies had removed themselves disappointedly from earshot, Safiya turned to Ha.s.san. "And now," she said, tugging a bolster toward her, "you and I will finish our conversation of last night. Your ill-considered presence at the Hazuri Bagh had something to do with your wife Mariam, did it not?"

He looked at her hollowly. "It did, but, Bhaji, this is a very painful-"

"Out with it," she ordered. "For nine weeks you have had poison in your mind. You must tell me what it is."

He sighed. "Very well, then. I was not in my right mind when I insisted on joining Yusuf and the others. I was very angry with Mariam. Earlier that day, she had overheard me speaking to Yusuf about the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. Without waiting to discover the truth, she had made up her mind that I I was-" was-"

"Plotting to kill her uncle and aunt and her other English traveling companions at their camp in the Shalimar Garden." Safiya nodded. "Yes, I know all that. She told us herself. She has admitted her evil suspicions and recanted her accusations. I myself was horrified to learn how stupidly and badly she had treated you, but she was so remorseful that I forgave her.

"Of course," she added meaningfully, "it was not my forgiveness, or your father's, that she wanted most."

"She demanded to know whether I planned to kill her her, as well." Ha.s.san's eyes blazed. "How could Mariam have believed that of me, of us? How could she have uttered those ugly, hysterical words on the morning after-"

He dropped his gaze.

Safiya did not need to ask what he was referring to. The entire Waliullah household knew what had occurred between Ha.s.san and his beautiful, difficult wife on the night before her mad outburst. What a fool she had been to throw away her success "She accused me of only pretending to like her, of luring her into this house with lies." He opened his hands. "In my rage, I consented to the divorce she had asked for, and then I insisted on going with Yusuf to the Hazuri Bagh."

"And so Mariam is to blame for Yusuf's death?"

"No, Bhaji." He sighed again, heavily. "My anger is to blame, for I allowed it to impair my judgment."

Safiya nodded. "And what do you propose to do about her now? Do you still wish to divorce her?"

"I propose nothing." He reached with his good hand into a pocket in his clothes. Safiya heard the faint crackling of paper between his fingers.

She frowned. Perhaps Mariam's behavior had driven him past some invisible point. She had seen this happen with others in the past, over lesser matters. Once Ha.s.san turned his back on a person, that person was finished for him He took his hand from his pocket. "Mariam and her family will, Inshallah Inshallah, return from Kabul within a few months. The British will use their army to keep Shah Shuja on the throne there, but they will not need her uncle, who is a civil officer. When she returns, the future will be decided."

"And what of poor little Saboor, who waits for her?"

"Bhaji, I do not know. It pains me to see him longing for her so, when I-" His voice trailed away.

"You should act," Safiya decreed. "There is no sense in making the child wait. Whatever your decision, you might as well take it now.

"But before we speak any more of your marriage," she decided, "we must dispose of your remorse over Yusuf's loss. Whatever you may believe at this moment, neither you nor Mariam is to blame for what happened to him. It is time for you to hear the story of my mother's death. It has meaning in your case."

"As you well know," she began, "your father and I are twins. At the time of our birth, Wali came out at once, but I, who was second, hesitated. As the attending women tried to drag me out, one of them made an error that caused our mother to bleed severely. The most experienced women were called, but she died within hours.

"Your father and I were turned over to the family ladies. As you are aware, our older cousin, who later married your grandfather, treated us as her own children. But when we were a little more than three years old, I stopped eating. Our cousin used to follow me from room to room, trying to tempt me with milk and sweets, but I would not touch food. Wali was fat and healthy, but I became so weak that the ladies feared I would die."

"You were weak, Bhaji?" Ha.s.san stared. "Thin?" "Thin?"

"I was," Safiya intoned, "for I believed I had killed my mother. Because of that belief, I suffered from a stomach pain that stopped me from eating."

He drew in his breath.

"The story of our birth and her death had been told and retold in my hearing. Over and over again, people pointed to me. It was she It was she, they said, who caused her mother's death. who caused her mother's death. People can be cruel to children. I was not deaf; nor was I stupid. By the time I was three, I could no longer live with my agony. People can be cruel to children. I was not deaf; nor was I stupid. By the time I was three, I could no longer live with my agony.

"In despair," she continued, "our cousin sent me to your greatgrandfather, Sheikh Abd Dhul-Jalali Wal-Ikram. He, of course, used to sit, as your father does now, on a takht takht in the courtyard, surrounded by his followers. I vividly remember burying my face in my elder brother's shoulder as he carried me out into the courtyard, for I could not bear to see my grandfather's hatred." in the courtyard, surrounded by his followers. I vividly remember burying my face in my elder brother's shoulder as he carried me out into the courtyard, for I could not bear to see my grandfather's hatred."

She sighed at the memory. "His beard was pure white, and his mouth drooped on one side. I was too frightened to speak when I was handed to him, but he needed no words from me. He took me onto his lap and smiled with such luminous kindness that the pain in my stomach began to melt away. In that moment I understood that there was no blame on me for my mother's death.

"He recited something, then he blew into a tumbler of water and gave it to me to drink. I was told later that he had prayed all the previous night for me. That I cannot confirm, but to this day I remember the relief I felt the moment I was brought into his presence."

"And was that when you decided to become a Follower of the Path?"

Safiya nodded. "It was. But I have more to say. You, Ha.s.san, are suffering as I did then, from a grain of truth. In my case, while it was true that my stubborn refusal to be born had brought the careless midwife whose action killed my mother, it was she, not I, who made the fatal mistake. In your case, your anger drove you to the garden, and then your inability to shoot a child a.s.sa.s.sin began a chain of events that led to Yusuf's death. But it was the guards, not you, who killed him.

"We must not allow ourselves to be led into despair by a grain of truth, for a grain can become a boulder that crushes the soul. Perhaps you were foolish to go to the Hazuri Bagh, my dear," she added, "but the truth is that the bigger fool was Yusuf, may he rest in peace, for he allowed you to come with him and then, at the critical moment, asked you to do the impossible. After all, he had known you since childhood.

"As to your wife," she said after a moment's pause, "for all her outrageous behavior and her mistrust of you, she has saved both Saboor's life and your own. That is no small thing. Perhaps in the end you will reach some accommodation.

"It is clear that she does not fit into our household, but it also seems that she fits in no better with her own people. A person with no real home always thirsts to belong somewhere. I believe that with encouragement and training, she may learn to belong here."

He had watched her steadily throughout her story. Now he dropped his eyes. She watched his chest rising and falling beneath his long, embroidered s.h.i.+rt.

Irritated by his silence, Safiya pointed an upturned hand at his chest. "If you do not like your wife," she said crossly, "then why did you send her your gold medallion with the verses from Sura Nur carved into it? Why send her such a powerful token of your regard? And why have you never taken off the silver taweez taweez she took from her own neck and gave you when you lay wounded?" she took from her own neck and gave you when you lay wounded?"

"I do not know, Bhaji." He reached up and touched the small silver box on its black cord, then stared out through the curtained doorway, his gaze far away.

A moment later, his hand returned to his pocket where the hidden paper crinkled again.

It would be a pity if he did not forgive the girl. Saboor would certainly suffer without her, but so would Ha.s.san, wifeless for the second time in less than three years.