A Singular Hostage Part 7

Your murs.h.i.+d. Yar Mohammad wanted to weep with relief, but there was more to be said. "Shaikh Sahib," he said, fidgeting where he sat, "I have seen something else."

He forced the words out quickly, afraid of another mistake. "Just now I saw myself standing in a barren place, the ceramic vial from my first vision in my hand. You, Shaikh Sahib, stood before me, watching as I reached to pull the cork from the vial."

"Is that all?" The Shaikh's voice seemed to tremble.

"Huzoor, that was all."

"So," Shafi Sahib put in quietly, "your work is about to begin."

Yar Mohammad's head suddenly felt as heavy as a cannonball. He clenched his teeth against a yawn he could not stop.

The Shaikh s.h.i.+fted on the carpet. "Although I am your murs.h.i.+d, you must understand that the gift you have received and the task you will perform are yours alone. It is you, and no one else, who will know when the time has come to act. We can only offer you our advice."

Our advice. So he was to have Shafi Sahib as well. Yar Mohammad could scarcely contain his joy. Shaikh Waliullah sat in silence, then turned toward the door. "Tariq," he called.

A servant boy pushed back the curtain.

"Call Allahyar."

"You will have your food downstairs," the Shaikh told Yar Mohammad briskly, as the same fiery-headed servant who had shown him upstairs reappeared in the doorway. "Allahyar here will show you where to sleep. Tomorrow, after your observances, you will take your horse and Shafi Sahib's, and return to the British camp. It is fortunate that the camp is now closer than it was when you set out on your journey to this house."

But what of- The Shaikh held up his hand, reading the question before it was formed. "Shafi Sahib has done enough horse riding. He will travel to your British camp in one of our palanquins.

"You have done good work already," he added, nodding to Yar Mohammad. "I expect that very soon you will find that there is more to do. In the meantime, follow the instructions of the madman on the road. Two horses at the British camp bear the five lucky signs you have described. One of these will, Inshallah, be given to a memsahib to ride. When that happens, relay the message to her. And stay in touch with Shafi Sahib. G.o.dspeed."

As he reached the door, Yar Mohammad looked back at the two men. Shaikh Waliullah and Shafi Sahib, their hands moving in arcs and arabesques, were already deep in a discussion of the Essence of Love.

The red-haired servant stole a curious glance at him as they descended the stone stairs toward the kitchens. "Shaikh Sahib gives no more than a few moments to any of his followers," he commented, as they reached the kitchen door where thick rounds of bread had been stacked high, fresh from the baker.

Yar Mohammad blinked. How long had he been in that room? "You see," he said politely, "due to unusual circ.u.mstances, I have not seen Shaikh Sahib for more than ten years. It took some time for me to tell him all that has happened."

The servant nodded dubiously. "I see."

Ather writing table, pen in hand, Mariana stared out through her doorway, watching camp servants as they hurried back and forth between the tents. A fiock of sheep pa.s.sed by on its way to the back of the compound, each animal decorated with vivid splotches of orange dye.

On the table lay a half-written letter to her father. "We have reached Firozpur at last," it said.

As only two days remain before the great procession that will begin the durbar, the camp is in a frenzy of activity, practicing intricate drills on the parade ground, beating the carpets, building places to sit. All the preparations seem to require shouting, and as many of them are carried out at night by torchlight, no one has slept properly for days. To think we used to complain about the servants' nightly coughing!

The state visit will last about seventeen days, with marches past, trick riding, dancing girls, and hundreds of wonderful elephants, all taking place in a spirit of vigorous compet.i.tion to see whether it is we or the Sikhs who are richer and grander.

A lizard clung to her tent pole, watching her. Where was Fitzgerald? Why had he let two precious days go by without coming to see her?

Apparently even the handsomest of our men will be no compet.i.tion for the Sikhs. They are said to be extraordinarily goodlooking and marvelously well dressed in exquisite shawls and Moghul jewelry. The only one of them who is neither handsome nor elaborately dressed is the Maharajah himself, a tiny little man who has only one eye, having lost the missing one in battle. He, apparently, wears only the simplest of clothes and very little jewelry, unless you count his enormous diamond, the Koh-inoor, or Mountain of Light. He is said to be a magnificent horseman who commands the absolute loyalty of his people. His army, after ours, is the best fighting force in India.

Speaking of someone who is no compet.i.tion for the Sikhs, fat Major Byrne has become frantic about the Maharajah's tents. We hear they are made of silk and cashmere, while our camp, after all its travels, is a sea of dilapidated, mud-covered canvas. Major Byrne was so nervous at lunch yesterday that he honked in front of everyone! But he says our gifts, at least, will be more dazzling than Ranjit Singh's.

Since Ranjit has a pa.s.sion for horses, the Major has ordered all our best ones to be kept aside to be preened and polished for the durbar. We are to ride only the ones that remain. As I am very far down the list, I am sure mine will be a thousand years old.

She put down her pen. It was no use. She was too distracted to write, even to Papa. The letter must wait. Since Fitzgerald had not come to her, she must go to Fitzgerald.

"Dittoo," she called. "I wish to ride."

Yesterday's ride had been an ordeal of nerves. Remembering the lunatic's bewildering appearance in front of her the day before, she had brought her grooms with her and had taken a different path, this one away from the army camp. Certain that she was being observed, she had hurried through her ride, starting at every sound, peering into each thorn bush. Then, returning to the safety of the compound, she had been so unwilling to fall again that she had walked her horse all the way to her tent. Worst of all, Harry Fitzgerald had appeared at neither lunch nor dinner.

She put away her half-written letter and closed her writing box. Everyone who rode a horse fell occasionally, even Lord Auckland, who had broken several ribs only two months ago. "The path you will take requires courage," the mad soothsayer had said. As for native fortunetellers, what could they they know of her future, of her feelings? know of her future, of her feelings?

"Remember who you are," Uncle Adrian had told her.

Of course, if the adventure with the lunatic had happened to someone else, she would have been panting to know every detail of the encounter, down to the ragged clothes he had been wearing when he lurched out of the thorn bush. It would seem exciting rather than unnerving, exotic rather than unsavory. It had, after all, been a very Indian Indian experience. But the effect was sometimes quite different, she decided, when the adventure happened to oneself. experience. But the effect was sometimes quite different, she decided, when the adventure happened to oneself.

Hearing a clopping sound outside, Mariana quickly tied on her riding hat and stepped into the sunlight, then stared in surprise. Instead of the usual half-grown boy, her favorite senior groom waited at her doorway, his bony face intent beneath a roughly tied turban, the reins of a little mare in his hand.

She had only ever seen him in the distance. She smiled, pleased that he had come.

He bent to greet her, a hand over his heart. "Peace," he said in a resonant voice.

The mare he had brought was old and her ribs jutted from her sides, but she had spirit. She pawed the ground with a frail whitestockinged foot when the groom handed Mariana the reins, and nudged his shoulder with a muzzle from which a white blaze rose and fiared between her eyes.

"Patience, my friend," the groom murmured.

As she arranged herself in the sidesaddle, Mariana felt the tall groom fix his attention on her. "There is a message for you, Memsahib," he said, glancing at her, then away. He s.h.i.+fted his weight as if reluctant to speak, his hands moving aimlessly in and out of invisible pockets in his clothes.

"The path you will take," he continued, "leads to peace. You must be careful, very careful."

Startled, she gaped at him. "My name is Yar Mohammad," he added. "I will send two men to accompany you on your ride."

Without seeming to hurry, he moved away before she had found her voice.

Mariana willed her hands to stop their trembling as she clucked to the mare and started for the gate, her thoughts whirling. What did these natives want from her?

Later, as she crossed the open stretch of ground between the government and army camps, she glanced over her shoulder. Who was sending her these messages? Were they watching her now?

At the army camp she avoided the stares of the British soldiers who sat outside their tents, waiting to be called for afternoon drill, and rode with determination toward the newly cleared parade ground, her pair of grooms trotting behind her.

WITH no idea how to find Fitzgerald in the huge, busy army camp, she followed the margin of the ground, uncertain of what to do next.

Fifty yards from her, native infantrymen marched up and down to shouted orders, their shabby red coats b.u.t.toned tightly over their chests, their faces sweating in the sun. A pair of elephants crossed the ground, each carrying half a dozen men.

In a veterinary tent at the far end, an Englishman in high boots swabbed the back of a handsome bay horse. As she rode past him, Mariana began to perspire. Perhaps Fitzgerald had not liked her as much as she had thought. Perhaps she had said something tactless at dinner that had driven him away, something she could not remember. Perhaps he was even now avoiding her, laughing with his friends, waiting until she had gone. She patted the little mare's neck with an absent hand. Mama and Aunt Rachel had warned her endlessly against tactlessness.

ABritish army captain pa.s.sed her, riding the other way. She returned his greeting with a stiff little nod. If anyone asked, she would say she had come simply to see the preparations for the campaign.

Someone was about to overtake her on the path. She turned in her saddle and saw Fitzgerald thundering toward her on a gray horse. Barely avoiding her grooms, he pulled up beside her, red-faced. "Forgive me, Miss Givens," he said, breathing hard, "I've only just learned that you are here."

He seemed genuinely upset. In her lap, Mariana's gloved hands loosened on the reins.

They rode side by side, his gray dwarfing her little mare. "I have hoped since our dinner that your ride would bring you here," he said. "I've been too desperately busy with my men to call on you. I cannot even come to meals."

They turned from the path and started across open country. One of his hands held the reins, the other rested on his thigh. His legs were long and muscular. "It's the drilling that takes so much time," he added, then turned to meet her eyes. "I hope you will come again."

Mariana pushed a curl under her riding hat. "Only if you promise to describe all your preparations for the campaign."

"I promise to shower you with every tedious detail." He gave her his protective smile.

Her dreams fulfilled, Mariana beamed beneath her veil.

"War lasts longer than we think," he said suddenly. "Look." He pointed to the horizon. "This country was reduced to emptiness by pillage a hundred years before Ranjit Singh came to power. It has never recovered. I believe that violence can soak into the soil and become a part of a place. I feel it here."

"You feel violence here here?" Mariana looked toward the placid scene where he pointed, with its distant mud villages and a single ragged man leading a black buffalo. The soothsayers had not mentioned violence, but they had mentioned courage. Of what future calamity had they tried to warn her?

They had reached a stand of feathery trees. Fitzgerald reined in his horse. "Shall we stop for a moment in the shade? I do not believe," he added, seeing her hesitate, "that anyone knows we are here. Besides, it's only for a little while."

Before she could make up her mind, he called to her grooms, "Leave us. Return to the horse lines."

"I am not sure you should ride alone with native menservants," Fitzgerald added seriously as they watched her escort trot away toward the government camp. "Men like those may not be safe."

She dismounted. "Men like my grooms?" she asked, as Fitzgerald tethered their horses. "Are those those poor underfed creatures your idea of a pillaging horde?" She sat on a stone under the trees and swept a spider from her skirts. "It would be worse to ride out with no escort at all," she added, thinking of the mad fortune-teller. "Besides, a senior groom has chosen them for me." poor underfed creatures your idea of a pillaging horde?" She sat on a stone under the trees and swept a spider from her skirts. "It would be worse to ride out with no escort at all," she added, thinking of the mad fortune-teller. "Besides, a senior groom has chosen them for me."

"Still," Fitzgerald said softly, as he came and sat beside her, "they are are native men. You should be careful." His voice sounded hoa.r.s.e, as if he needed something to drink. native men. You should be careful." His voice sounded hoa.r.s.e, as if he needed something to drink.

His face neared hers. "I wished to speak to you alone," he said, dropping his eyes, "because I must know ..."

Her hands were clasped together in her lap. Reaching out swiftly, he took them in his, his square fingers brus.h.i.+ng her thighs through the wool of her riding habit. "I should not say this, Miss Givens," he murmured, turning her fingers over in his, "but since dinner, I have thought of nothing but you."

As he spoke his eyes roamed over her face and the front of her body as they had two days ago. Unable to stop herself, she bent toward him, her eyelids drooping.

In an instant, he dropped her hands and raised the veil from her face. Gripping her shoulders, he pressed his mouth over hers.

He smelled of horses. The bite of his fingers into her shoulders and the moist pressure of his mouth swept her away from everything she knew. As she pressed toward him, one of his hands, then the other, slid behind her back. Heat rose from the center of her body and spread to her face.

"Oh, Mariana." His cheek to hers, he rocked from side to side, breathing rapidly, as if he had run up a fiight of stairs.

He had called her by her name. She wanted to reach up and touch his lips with her fingers.

An artillery shot crashed in the distance. Shouts closer by signaled that someone was approaching.

She started backward. What had she done? They would be seen coming out from the trees alone, without even her grooms for propriety! Pus.h.i.+ng him away, she jumped to her feet.

He, too, rose. "It's all right," he a.s.sured her as he untied the horses. "We can ride around the far side of these trees. No one will see us."

Afterward, they hardly spoke, but as they parted, he studied her again, his eyes luminous in his square face.

"Mariana," was all he said before he left her.

LATER, still rosy and breathless, she stood over her basin, splas.h.i.+ng water on her cheeks, remembering the exact moment when Fitzgerald's lips had met hers. Her riding habit lay in a black heap where she had dropped it when she changed into a fresh gown.

"Memsahib!" Dittoo cried, rus.h.i.+ng inside, shattering her reverie, "your clothes! If they lie on the fioor, a snake or a scorpion might get inside!"

What did she care for snakes and scorpions? Mariana groped blindly for her towel as Dittoo s.n.a.t.c.hed up her riding coat and shook it vigorously, thickening the air with dust.

"A snake, even a small one, can kill you with one bite, Memsahib," he prattled on, now shaking her skirt. "It can come into this tent through the tiniest hole. As for a scorpion, its sting can make the strongest man scream. That is why the other memsahib did not come with us to translate for the Governor Sahib's ladies. She was bitten by a scorpion that got inside her clothes."

Was she not to be allowed a moment's peace? Mariana fiung her towel onto the chair and pointed to the doorway. "Take those clothes outside, Dittoo!" she snapped.

Unperturbed, Dittoo gathered up her habit, then waved a careless hand. "You should be getting ready, Memsahib," he told her. "Your muns.h.i.+ sahib is coming this way."

If Muns.h.i.+ Sahib had been ill, he was now recovered. Her lesson! How could she have forgotten the poem he had given her, so full of feelings that mirrored her own? Mariana turned a softer eye on Dittoo.

"Ask him to wait a moment, until I am ready to receive him," she ordered.

She returned to her table, opened her writing box and took out the paper on which he had written the poem in Persian ten days ago, and the larger piece on which she had copied her translation. She smoothed them carefully out on the table.

"Are you quite well now, Muns.h.i.+ Sahib?" she inquired moments later, searching her teacher's face, noticing that he looked a little wan. Careful of the formality between them, she did not mention his new lamb's wool hat.

"I am quite well, Bibi," he replied, nodding gravely. "And now, let us see how you have translated our poem."

Mariana had worked on the poem until late the previous night, her lamp fiickering beside her, dreaming of Harry Fitzgerald as she chose her words. Now he had kissed her. Her voice trembling a little, she began to read.

"I, the candle, burn myself awayFor thee, the blazing morn, my heart's desire.Consumed by heat of longing for thy face,At thy first glance I perish in thy fire.Far distant yet close by, I die for thee,Whose radiant being lights my funeral pyre."

She looked up, delighted with her accomplishment.

For a time her muns.h.i.+ rocked silently on his heels, his eyes moving over the walls of her tent.

"Bibi," he said at last, poking a long finger at the paper in her hand, "you have taken words from the page I gave you and written your own poem. You have not translated that that poem," he added, gesturing toward the paper on the table. poem," he added, gesturing toward the paper on the table.

Mariana picked up the page decorated with his delicate Persian writing. "But Muns.h.i.+ Sahib, I have have translated it. There it is-' translated it. There it is-'Main shama jan gudazan-'"

"No, Bibi." He shook his head firmly. "The poem I gave you is about a candle and about the morning light, that is true, but it does not contain the sentiments you have expressed."

"Sentiments? But Muns.h.i.+ Sahib-"

"Moreover, fire does not appear in the original poem, and there is most a.s.suredly no mention of a funeral or a funeral pyre. I regret, Bibi, having given you this poem when you were not in a frame of mind to do a proper translation. It is my mistake. Do not concern yourself. We will not mention your poem again."

Her poem. poem. Her Her frame of mind. Suddenly hot, she looked away. frame of mind. Suddenly hot, she looked away.

What had she revealed? What had he guessed?

"I will now give you a better translation," he went on in a businesslike tone. "This one is not in poetic form, but it is, nonetheless, better."

His hands clasped behind him, he recited in his curiously accented English: "I am the self-consuming candle.Thou art the brilliant morn that draws the heart.I burn with desire to see thee,Yet I perish before thy glory.I am both close to thee and immeasurably far away.Separation from thee is like dying,Yet in thy presence I cannot survive."

Scarcely hearing him, Mariana stared at her hands. He knew. He read her so easily. He was worse than Miss Emily. "Oh, Muns.h.i.+ Sahib," she said, "I do not think I-"