A Prince of Dreamers Part 1

A Prince of Dreamers.

by Flora Annie Steel.

PREFACE

"The fiction which resembles truth is better than the truth which is dissevered from the imagination," said the Persian poet Nizami, in the year 1250.

It remains true, however, to-day. So I give no excuse for this book.

It is not one which will appeal to the man in the street. Nevertheless I make the attempt to give the character and the times of the Prince of Dreamers with a glad heart. It is as well that the twentieth century of the West should know something of the sixteenth century in the East.

So many of my _dramatis personae_ once lived in the flesh and spoke many of the words imputed to them in the following pages, that it will be shorter to designate those who are purely imaginary puppets.

To begin with Mirza Ibrahim and Khodadad. For obvious reasons it is always safer in historical novels to draw the out-and-out villains with imagination. The death of the latter, however, together with the curious privileges of the Tarkhans are part of the truth which is stranger than fiction.

For atma Devi I have also no warranty; Indian history does not concern itself with womenkind. But dear Auntie Rosebody's Memoirs[1] have supplied me with my sketch of the Beneficent Ladies, while, of course, the story of Mihr-un-nissa, who in long after-years did, under the name of Nurjahan, become Prince Salim's wife, and, as such, did undoubtedly add to the honour and glory of his reign as Jahangir, is purely historical; even to the chance meeting in the Paradise Bazaar.

[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Gulbadan Begum.]

Payandar Khan, the Wayfarer, is so far possible that the heir to the throne of Sinde, who bore that name, suddenly lost his senses in consequence of some direful tragedy, disappeared into the desert, and was no more heard of. The crediting of him with hypnotic powers is offered as an explanation of many marvels which are constantly cropping up in Indian story and legend.

It has been suggested to me that for those to whom the word Mogul is mixed up with tobacconists' shops and packs of cards, a brief outline of the dynasty called by that name might be advisable.

It was founded, then, by one Babar, poet, knight-errant, perfect lover, who is, without doubt, the most charming figure in all history.

He sacrificed his life in 1540 for his son Humayon, that most unfortunate of kingly adventurers from whose opium-soddened hands the thirteen-year-old boy, Akbar, took an uncertain sceptre. In him the glory of the Moguls culminated. After him three more kings were worthy of the t.i.tle "Great," and then by slow degrees the dynasty dwindled down to one Bahadur Shah, a feeble old man, who after defying us at Delhi, died miserably in exile.

Akbar was cotemporary of Queen Elizabeth, and his rightful place is among the great company of dreamers--Shakespeare, Raphael, Drake, Galileo, Michelangelo, Cervantes, and half a hundred others--who in the sixteenth century arose (and G.o.d alone knows why or whence) to place the whole world, spiritual and temporal, under the sway of imagination for the time.

I have chosen as my period in Akbar's life that time of glorious peace before the abandonment of the City of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri, which he had built to commemorate the birth of his son.

The reason for this abandonment is unknown, though scarcity of water was certainly one of the factors in it.

One thing is clear, the step must have meant much to Akbar; must have involved the giving up of many cherished dreams. And it is equally clear that his whole policy changed from the day he left what was the embodiment of his own personal pride, his own personal outlook on the future. Evidently he felt himself faced by some necessity for supreme choice, and having made it, he kept to the course he had chosen undeviatingly.

I have presumed to find this necessity in the bitter disappointment caused to him by his sons.

This at any rate is history, and with a man of Akbar's temperament it is impossible to overestimate the effect of knowing that his natural heirs were unworthy, incapable indeed, of carrying on his Dream of Empire.

Whether the diamond which plays its part in these pages is the one now called the Koh-i-nur, or whether it was the stone afterward known as the Great Mogul, or whether it was yet a third one, who can say? The history of Oriental gems is often too mysterious even for fiction. But there is a legend that Akbar possessed such a lucky stone, and it is certain that William Leedes remained to cut gems in the Imperial Court when his companions John Newbery and Ralph Fitch left it.

Finally, if competent critics feel inclined to cavil at the extraordinary aloofness of Akbar from his surroundings, I can only bid them remember that he was literally centuries ahead of his time, and a.s.sert that in this very aloofness lies the only claim of any soul to be remembered above its fellows.

The two friends whom he chose to be friends--out of the millions of men he governed--fittingly go down with him through those centuries, a trio; Akbar the dreamer, Birbal the doubter, Abulfazl the doer, who between them made of the Great Mogul a king of kings.

A PRINCE OF DREAMS

A PRINCE OF DREAMS

CHAPTER I

_What know ye of the wearer, ye who know the dress right well?

'Tis the letter-writer only, can the letter's purport tell_.

--Sa'adi.

"Hush! The King listens!"

The sudden sonorous voice of the court-usher echoed over the crowd and there was instant silence.

The mult.i.tude sank, seated on the ground where it had been standing, and so disclosed to view the rose-red palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, the City of Victory, rising from the rose-set gardens where the silvery fountains sprang from the rose-red earth into the deep blue of the sky.

Akbar the King showed also, seated on a low, marble, cushion-covered pedestal beneath a group of palms.

He was a man between the forties and the fifties with no trace of the pa.s.sing years in form or feature, save in the transverse lines of thought upon his forehead. For the rest, his handsome aquiline face with its dreamy yet fireful eyes and firm mouth, held just the promise of contradiction which is often the attribute of genius.

So, as he sate listening, a woman sang.

She stood tall, supple, looking in the intensity of her crimson-scarlet dress, like a pomegranate blossom, almost like a blood-stain amongst the white robes of her fellow musicians. The face of one of these, fine, careworn, stood out clear-cut as a cameo against the glowing colour of her drapery, and the arched bow of his _rebeck_ swayed rhythmic ally as the high fretful notes followed the trilling turns of her voice:

Gladness is Gain, because Annoy has fled Sadness is Pain, because some Joy is dead Light wins its Halo from the Gloom of night Night spins its Shadow at the Loom of light.

The Twain are one, the One is twain Naught lives alone in joy or pain Except the King! Akbar the King is One!

Birth sends us Death, and flings us back to Earth Earth lends us Breath, and brings us fresh to Birth Love gives delight----

"Hush! The King wearies!"