A Singular Hostage Part 32

The memsahib seated herself on a stone in front of him. Glancing at her, he saw that her face, still gray from fright, was now filling with curiosity. From her lap, Saboor Baba regarded him intently.

"You have done a brave thing, Yar Mohammad," she said in Urdu, frowning up at him, "but how have you come to be here? Why are you not at camp, at the horse lines?"

"I have followed you since yesterday," he said, then hesitated. "I thought I had lost you until I saw the palki, then the baba."

She looked puzzled. "Why have you followed us? How do you know Shaikh Waliullah's palanquin?"

How should he answer? He had walked most of the night and part of the morning, looking on the road for that very palki.

She pointed to the ground. "Sit," she said. "Speak."

He lowered himself to the ground and extended his arms over his knees.

He watched his fingers pick indecisively at one another. She was the Guardian. After what she had just done to save Saboor, he could have no doubt of that truth. Perhaps it was his duty to tell her of his dreams, of his wondrous meeting with the Shaikh.

He sighed. The story would take some time to tell, and he was not a teller of stories. "There is so much ..." he began.

"There is time," she said kindly. "Begin at the beginning."

He would not begin at the very beginning, for Shaikh Waliullah had forbidden him to speak of the vision in which he received into his hand the small ceramic vial.

"One morning at the British camp," he began, watching a beetle hurrying over a dried leaf, "I had a dream of smoke, and of a lioness...."

When he had finished, the Englishwoman stared off into the distance for a long time without speaking.

"A lioness," she said at last, her voice sounding far away. "Shafi Sahib, interpreter of dreams. That is why I felt I was being watched...." Her voice trailed off.

"Tell me one more thing," she said, sitting straighter. "Why were you weeping?"

Yar Mohammad bit his lip. "I did not mean to hurt the thief so badly." He glanced to where his kukri knife lay in the dust. "He will never walk again. If he had been a horse with that wound, I would have been forced to cut his throat."

THE British camp had done its traveling for the day. Hours ago, teams of coolies had erected the durbar tent and the red compound wall. Since then, the dead-eyed man and the dirty-faced boy had waited, squatting beside the avenue in the shade of the durbar tent, watching the folded entrance to the red compound.

The boy spat into the dust. "We should have made that eunuch come with us, Jagoo. He would easily recognize the child. How do we know we have not missed him?"

"Be quiet." Jagoo turned his flat gaze on the boy. "We haven't missed him. The eunuch swore that he is here. Stop giving advice and watch for that bent-over manservant the eunuch described. He will lead us to the brat."

Since yesterday, they had traveled with the camp, walking anonymously toward Kasur, lost among a crowd of laborers and baggage animals. As soon as the camp had been erected, they had posted themselves at the back of the compound and watched the kitchen entrance. They had seen not even a glimpse of the child.

"Perhaps he is ill," Jagoo had said. "Whoever has him is being careful, keeping him out of sight."

They had stolen their food by day and slept in the open at night, making their own small fire with pilfered charcoal. Now, as they waited by the durbar tent, interesting people pa.s.sed by them on the avenue. Some were children, ripe for stealing, but none answered the description of the child Saboor for whom the eunuch was willing to pay such a rich price.

"We have missed him," insisted the boy.

"You know nothing." Jagoo's voice was less certain than before.

The boy scratched himself. "I know something," he said as they watched a pa.s.sing bullock cart. "I know that Ha.s.san Ali Khan, the father of Saboor, has been sent out of Lah.o.r.e on the Maharajah's work. And I know where he is."

Jagoo stopped chewing his wad of betel and tobacco. "What is this? What have you not told me?"

"The child's father is at Kasur. Before we left the city, while you were asleep, people were talking outside our door. They said Ha.s.san Sahib, the son of Shaikh Waliullah, has gone to Kasur to get tax money for the Maharajah. He is not more than ten miles from here."

Jagoo's blow caught the boy cruelly on his temple, knocking him sideways against the canvas of the durbar tent.

"The eunuch is a fool," he rasped, as the boy crawled to his knees, a hand to his head, "and so are you!"

It was dark by the time Mariana's palanquin stopped outside the little walled city of Kasur. She half listened, yawning, while her bearers asked a pa.s.serby the direction of Ha.s.san's tents.

"An-nah!" Saboor murmured in her ear as he tugged at one of the enameled bangles on her wrist.

Soon she would be back at the British camp, back in familiar clothes, although nothing there would ever be the same as before.

How exciting, how filled with promise, even the dullest camp day had seemed only a short time ago! Now, after the scandal, even the White Rabbit would find it hard to take her part. Lord Auckland, she knew, was lost to her forever. She was not speaking to the Eden sisters. If she were lucky, Major Byrne and the doctor would ignore her. If she were unlucky, they would make unkind remarks. Mr. Macnaghten, thank goodness, had already left for Afghanistan. But there was no sense worrying about it. For all the unpleasantness it promised her, she could not deny that the British camp was where she belonged.

Now, at least, they would stop telling her to avoid the natives.

She could always count on Dittoo, Yar Mohammad, and Muns.h.i.+ Sahib. And there was another ray of hope. According to Yar Mohammad, the great Shafi Sahib was staying at the camp. It was maddening that the interpreter of dreams had been so nearby all along, attached somehow to the army or the government in the curious way of natives, and she had not known. Perhaps, if she asked him, he would interpret her dream of the guided s.h.i.+p. Perhaps he would give her hope for the bleak days to come.

"Come here, Saboor," she said, beckoning the child who had crawled to the foot of the palanquin. "See?"

When he crept back, she dropped her thin silk veil over his face, and then pulled it off in a quick gesture, watching his smile broaden, waiting for his bubbling laugh.

It was Shafi Sahib, of course, who had sent the message, delivered by Yar Mohammad, on the night she had first taken Saboor. "You have done well. Wait for your instructions. Tell no one what you have done." She tried to imagine his face. Did he, like Shaikh Waliullah, radiate a mysterious power?

According to Yar Mohammad, Shafi Sahib was a Punjabi, and the old Shaikh's childhood friend. It could be that he had already left the British camp, to spend time in Lah.o.r.e with the Shaikh. How disappointing that would be!

The palanquin began to move. Tired of her game, Saboor had climbed onto her lap in order to pull on her gold chain. Cooing to him, she unwound his fingers, remembering Shaikh Waliullah's house, and the view from the ladies' upper window. Perhaps, at this moment, the Shaikh and Shafi Sahib, both wearing tall headdresses, conversed in his courtyard by the painted portico, while the Shaikh's female relations sat together on the sheet-covered fioor of the upstairs room.

She sighed. The Shaikh's sister had been so strong, so motherly. Mariana would have liked, just once, to have wrapped her arms about Safiya Sultana's bulky form.

As for the Shaikh, she now understood that she was more to blame than he was for her reckless marriage to Ha.s.san. But even that did not matter now.

Perhaps it was a good thing that it would take months and months for the now army-less camp to return to Calcutta. She needed time to decide on her future. Tied to a native stranger, unable to marry, should she return to England and live quietly with her family? Or should she remain in Calcutta and brave the gossip, hoping to see Fitzgerald again, a man she could never wed?

The palanquin thumped to the ground.

With a little sigh, Mariana swung her feet out through the open panel, and stood, waiting while Saboor, who liked to do it himself, clambered out on his own.

The night was cold, the air sharp. Stars made a dazzling tapestry overhead. A large tent with a curving roof loomed before them. Outside, by a fiickering fire, two men leaned on bolsters, a smoking hookah between them. Seeing her, one of them stopped speaking in midsentence.

Servants of various sizes stood around her palanquin. As Mariana hoisted Saboor to her hip, all gaped in momentary astonishment, then spun about, turning their backs to her as men everywhere had done since she left Lah.o.r.e.

"Saboor Baba," she heard one of them murmur. "The memsahib has brought Saboor Baba."

Ordering her bearers to wait, she paused by the entrance, then, coughing to announce her presence, pushed aside the door hanging and entered.

The tent was vacant and icy cold. Sandalwood hung in the air, igniting her memory. She hesitated. Someone had followed her inside, a lamp glowing in his hand. She turned.

His eyes on the child in her arms, Ha.s.san Ali Khan put the lamp down and approached her, his hands extended to take Saboor, his face a mask of tenderness.

Saboor immediately wrapped his arms around his father's neck. Ha.s.san kissed him several times, then frowned at Mariana, one hand stroking his son's small back. "Why have you brought him here? What has happened?"

His gaze was as intense as it had been the night of their wedding. He was lighter skinned than she remembered. She saw that his nose was crooked, as if it had once been broken. She saw that his naked feet were long. They were not as beautiful as his hands.

"Four days ago, after you left the haveli," she answered, s.h.i.+vering from the cold, "armed men came from the Citadel to take Saboor away. To save him, your aunt Safiya had him lowered in a basket from an upper window."

A string bed stood in one corner of the tent. Ha.s.san sat Saboor on the bed, then bent over a trunk at its foot. He straightened, an embroidered woolen shawl in his hands. He held it out. "From a window? Then?"

On her shoulders, the shawl smelled of tobacco leaves. "The basket was lowered from a window to a sweetmeat shop, where your father's servant Allahyar picked him up. Pretending to be Allahyar's wife, I followed them through the Delhi Gate. Then your family's palanquin came and I got into it with Saboor."

He picked Saboor up again, and pointed to the bed. "Why don't you sit down?"

"No." She backed away. Let this moment be over quickly. Later there would be time to grieve for Saboor, to remember. "I must leave."

Ha.s.san, too, wore a shawl. Thrown over his long coat, it fell in elegant, finely embroidered folds over his shoulders and down his back. He jogged Saboor gently up and down, his cheek against his son's. "You should rest," he said, as if he had not heard her. "And I must ask you, what has happened to your burqa? Why was your veil not on your head, just now, when you got out of the palki?"

"My veil? My burqa?" She stared. What did her clothes matter?

His tone developed an unpleasant edge. "You were not properly concealed. My servants saw you. My friend saw you."

She had worn no burqa on the journey. That explained why the women had stared so, why the men had turned away from her. Palki bearers and servants had seen her without it. Safiya Sultana's friends, her relatives, her male male relatives had all seen her uncovered. relatives had all seen her uncovered.

It was too late to argue over customs. Besides, none of those people would see her again. "I fell down on my way out of the city," she said tersely. She reached under her borrowed shawl and pulled out her loosening braid. "The burqa was soaking wet and filthy. I threw it out of the palanquin."

Elongated by the lamplight, his shadow loomed over her. "You cannot walk about uncovered." He fixed his eyes on her as if he were teaching her something important. "You are my wife. If you behave like a foreigner, you bring shame on me, on my father, on my family."

"Shame? But I am am a-" a-"

"Foreigners allow their women to wear indecent clothes, like that thing you wore at the Maharajah's dinner when you made that shocking announcement before the court. People are still laughing...." His voice trailed off.

Mariana's cheeks warmed as she remembered the deep curtsy she had made to the Maharajah in her low-cut gown. "I do not care what people think of me," she snapped, putting out her chin. "I care only for Saboor."

All she wanted now was to be left alone. She stepped toward Ha.s.san, and touched Saboor's cheek. "Good-bye, my little lambkin," she murmured.

She had said the same words to her little brother when she kissed him for the last time. Like Saboor, Ambrose had been asleep, but his face had been dry and hot, not healthy and glowing like Saboor's. Forcing grief aside, she faced Ha.s.san.

Her tongue felt thick. She sniffed, wanting to wipe her nose on her veil, aware that her face was smudged with dust from the road. "I am leaving now," she said stiffiy. "You will not see me again."

As she started away, he took a step toward her and caught her arm. "It's night," he said brusquely, pulling her from the doorway with one hand. "You cannot travel now." He watched her over Saboor's head, as if uncertain of what she might do next. "Call on your people tomorrow on your way back to Lah.o.r.e."

"Lah.o.r.e? No!" Mariana tugged her arm away. Her braid had unraveled. She raked her hair back with her fingers. "I am not going back to Lah.o.r.e," she said loudly, glaring at him. "I am going to the British camp right now!"

"Do not attempt to leave this tent." His voice had become level, his eyes as unreadable as closed doors. "I am dismissing your bearers and setting a guard outside. You will go nowhere until tomorrow morning." He sighed, then lifted the door hanging. "A servant will bring you food and hot water."

"You cannot make me stay behind while my people return to Calcutta! You-"

The hanging closed behind him with a dusty thump.

The little lamp bathed the tent in a dim light. Mariana's very bones ached from four days of palanquin travel. Wrapped in Ha.s.san's shawl, she sat down on the bed.

How dare he criticize her and tell her what to do!

She had hoped to leave before there was time to feel the loss of Saboor, but now hurt overwhelmed her, reminding her of the agony she had suffered after little Ambrose's death. Why, knowing the risk, had she given her heart to a child who was not, and could never be, hers?

Voices murmured outside the tent. Ha.s.san must have taken Saboor outside to his friend. She would never let him hear her weep. She pushed a fist into her mouth and bit down on her knuckle, her face crumpling as Saboor's had done that first evening in her tent.

It was green in Suss.e.x. She would find things to do there. She would help Papa with his sermons, and visit Charlotte and Spencer and Baby Freddie. She would sketch or study singing, or the pianoforte. She would not even mind changing the fiowers or counting the silver. Half-married to someone she would never know, she would learn to live without a nice English husband or fair-haired babies of her own.

"Memsahib, Memsahib!" The hoa.r.s.e summons of a servant came from outside, accompanied by the sound of a tray being put down. "Your food has come!"

YUSUF Bhatti did not look up when Ha.s.san returned to the fire, his baby in his arms, nor did he mention the raised female voice that had come from Ha.s.san's tent. Poor fellow, married by his father's command to that odd foreigner who had already behaved so badly in front of the court. Everyone knew about the woman, about her speech to the Maharajah. How could she have done it?

Now she had shouted at Ha.s.san loudly enough to be heard by Yusuf, the guard, and all the servants.

When she had entered Ha.s.san's tent, her face uncovered, her veil falling, her body moving suggestively under her thin silks, Yusuf had looked away, mortified for his friend. Even now, he could not meet Ha.s.san's eyes.

But there was one thing he should say. As a friend, he must tell Ha.s.san what he had learned.

"Did you see the hill man waiting outside?" He gestured with his chin toward a long man who crouched silently by the doorway.

Ha.s.san, who had been murmuring to his son, raised his head.

"His name is Yar Mohammad. He is a groom at the British camp. He is acquainted with Shafi Sahib and with your father."

"He is?" Ha.s.san turned to look.

Yusuf pulled a bolster toward himself and leaned against it. "After Saboor and the foreign lady left your house four days ago, someone sent Yar Mohammad to protect them on the road. He says he followed the palanquin carrying Saboor and the-ah-lady all the way from Lah.o.r.e to Kasur."

His face averted, Ha.s.san leaned over the child in his lap and drew one finger along a pattern in the carpet.

Yusuf sucked in his breath. Ha.s.san must be thinking of the trail of shock and embarra.s.sment his foreign wife would have left behind on that journey. Why had he not thought to leave the woman out of the story until the end?

"On the road, Yar Mohammad heard shouts coming from a clearing," he continued. "He went to investigate, and found three armed brigands robbing your family's palanquin. One of them had laid hold of Saboor and was threatening to hurt him if the lady did not turn over her jewelry, but the lady was not in the palki, as he believed."

Ha.s.san's finger froze on the carpet.

Yusuf grunted in sympathy. "The other two thieves were standing with their backs to the road. Yar Mohammad ran up behind them and pulled a knife. As he was dealing with them, the lady charged, screaming, from the bushes, waving a th.o.r.n.y branch over her head. Without hesitating, she ran straight for the man who held Saboor."

Ha.s.san tightly wrapped both his arms around his son. He shook his head. "I am not surprised," he murmured.

When the food came, they ate without speaking while the child drowsed beside his father. Later, with the child asleep and Ha.s.san's eyes heavy, Yusuf signaled a servant to cover them with a quilt where they lay.