A Prince of Dreamers Part 16

Birbal's whole expression changed. "Not at the All-Embracing One, for sure; but for the little bra.s.s G.o.d-lings."

Todar Mull edged away nervously. "Let be--let be! Rajah Sahib. Each for his own belief, and the Almighty's curse lodge on the hindmost, so it be not me! Now go I to the statistic makers; for see you, without figures man is lost in this world."

They parted company, and Birbal looked after the retreating Finance Minister with a frown.

What was the use of it all! Was it not better far to eat, to drink, knowing that to-morrow one must die? So his thoughts turned, as they always did, to the present; to the one portion of time which even Fate could not filch from a living man. The advent of the Syedan of Barha meant, doubtless, appeal to the King. An appeal to which the King must not, of course, listen. As to that, Abulfazl must be seen, and at once.

He found him in the royal storehouses, his yellow-brown eyes clear with pride as he pointed out the system on which they were worked to the three Englishmen who stood, centring, with the curious half-contemptuous gaze of another world, the leisured bustle in the wide courtyards.

"His Majesty," explained Abulfazl grandiloquently, "having acquainted himself with the theory and practice of every manufacture, is thus able to distinguish between good and bad work. So, the intrinsic value of each article being settled by the State in reference to a certain fixed standard, neither worthy labour nor true art can fall into discredit."

Ralph Fitch looked queerly at the carts unlading and lading, at the groups of experts settling true values, at the artificers waiting patiently for the verdict; certain, if their work were up to the standard, of immediate sale.

"And what of the merchants?" he asked sharply. "Where does their profit----?"

"Their profit is settled also," interrupted the Diwan with simple pride, "and they are content." His voice took on sternness as he added, "They have, indeed, no choice; since all articles unstamped by the testing houses are liable to confiscation, and the possessors thereof to fine."

"Cheer thee up, Ralph," laughed John Newbery into his companion's appalled face as they moved on to a new court, "and thank heaven we be not thus tied by the ap.r.o.n strings! Though, by our Lady, this King Echebar has a trick o' keeping cables taut which would make me almost wish to enter his service would he but command some adventure to the Poles."

William Leedes looked up quickly. "Nay," he said, "before G.o.d I would rather quit this land and leave it--as it is."

He paused, for John Newbery's attention had pa.s.sed as his roving eyes settled themselves surprised, yet approvingly, on the long lines of light which followed the rows on rows of steel lance heads, swords, and matchlocks lining the walls of the vast armoury into which they entered. It was full to the brim with every conceivable instrument of war, many of them strange to Western eyes. But Abulfazl gave no time for inspection. With the brief explanation, "The Most-Excellent is yonder at work," he pa.s.sed through one of the wide arches fitted with ma.s.sive doors which were now set open to the sunlight, and joined a group of men who stood in the courtyard beyond.

A sharp report, followed by the whistling ping of a bullet as it struck a target outlined on the farther wall, cut the hot air keenly, and Akbar, who had been kneeling for better aim, stood up rubbing his shoulder. He was dressed in a white overall, not unsmirched with grease, and his grizzled hair showed free of covering.

"It hits hard enough behind anyhow, sir smith," he said good-humouredly to a swarthy half-naked workman who looked down the still smoking barrel of the newly tried gun with a doubtful air. "Nay!

'tis not the grooving. That idea holds good. It is something in the chamber. Bring it this evening to the Palace, and we will see to it.

Hast aught else for trial?"

The next instant, after one careless salute to the newcomers he was deep in the mechanism of a complicated gun, and his face lit up as he looked. "See you," he went on--apparently as much for himself as for those others who, left behind by his imaginings, stood patient, half-comprehending--"if this moving wheel duly loaded, could fit the one barrel what need for more? The twin cannon fired by one match which we made last year works well, but this will be better--if it can be compa.s.sed." And then suddenly as his hands fingered ratchet wheel and eccentric, bolt and socket with sure practical touch, his eyes grew full of dreams.

"Lo! we work in the dark," he murmured, "since none know why the bullet curves, and so the worst may do as well, nay better than the best. 'Twas an old matchlock s.n.a.t.c.hed from a sleepy sentry which gave me empire."

He paused, back in thought to that false dawn before the trenches at Chitore when, going his rounds after his wont, alone and in darkness, he had seen upon the ramparts of the besieged town the figure of his foe also going his rounds, but by the light of lanterns.

It had been a long shot, but in the dawn Chitore was his, and he was Emperor of India. Yet, once again, almost overmastering regret came over him for the past horrors of that sun-bright dawn. The awful onslaught of saffron-robed heroes, doomed to desperate death, which he had seen against the rolling clouds of dense white smoke that rose from the very bowels of the earth, where, in dark caves, the Rajput women were burning--self-immolated!

Then as he stood there fingering the outcome of his uncontrollable desire for success, all his victories seemed to slip from him for the moment; he remembered--as, nearly two thousand years before him another great King of India had remembered--nothing but his regret. At the moment he, also, could have inscribed an edict for all time setting forth his sorrow for "the hundreds of thousands of G.o.d's creatures needlessly slain." But the next instant the mood pa.s.sed and he turned with almost insolent regality to the English adventurers.

"Yet tell your queen, sir travellers," he said, "that Akbar holds the best gun to be the best key to empire."

John Newbery looked at Ralph Fitch, who bowed his answer:

"Most Excellent, we will give the message without fail."

As they pa.s.sed on, Birbal paused a moment beside Abulfazl to whisper in his ear:

"The Barha hawks are in. Hast news of them?"

The Diwan nodded: "The King sees them at audience to-day to consider----"

Birbal interrupted with a bitter laugh: "Before G.o.d, Abul," he said, with his habitual shrug of the shoulders, "when the Most-Excellent thinks of himself as Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith, he is too excellent for this world. Better sure a little injustice than that the King should back on himself. It is not time for weakness.

What does he say?"

"'The Law-maker cannot break the law,'" replied the Diwan softly, and in his voice there was a touch both of irritation and of pride.

So in the sunshine the eyes of those two followed the King who dreamt such strange new dreams of duty and responsibility toward his subjects.

CHAPTER VII

_What makes a monarch? Not his throne, his crown, But man to work his will, to tremble at his frown_.

--Sa'adi.

The city was astir, sleepily astir. In the blind tortuous alleys where the hot May sun struggled in vain to shine, shut out on every side by the high tenement houses hiving swarms of men, women and children, rumour spread like mushroom sp.a.w.n in the dark; spread aimlessly, idly, sending its filaments at random, here, there, everywhere, ready at a moment's notice to shoot up into some fantastic mushroom growth. Even in Agra itself, connected with Fatehpur Sikri by that twenty-mile-long ribbon of shop-edged road, the talk was all of what was about to happen in Akbar's City of Victory. The King had accepted the appeal of Jamal-ud-din Syed concerning his marriage, and had appointed the next Friday audience for the hearing of proof concerning the same; so much was certain. But would he really go back on his own order?

Could a King possibly own himself in the wrong? If he did, what became of his claim to divine guidance, and how could folk in the future live content on his judgment? Had a body ever heard of the Learned-in-the-Law eating their own words? No! they stuck to them; in that way lay safety, confidence, authority.

And what was this still more vague rumour concerning the King's Luck, the diamond which had of a surety been his talisman these many years?

Was it really to be given to the foreigner to hack and hew?

This was a question which disturbed more than the populace, which brought anxiety to the most highly cultured mind in Fatehpur Sikri.

"If it be true," said the Right Reverend Vicar of Christ, Father Ricci, head of the Portuguese Mission in Goa, who had come up to Agra on one of his periodical visits to the little colony of Christians to whom Akbar gave patronage and protection, "if indeed this diamond, whose worth is the ransom of a world, be given into these Englishmen's hands, it is time we bestirred ourselves, son Rudolfo; and thou must press the King yet once again for some speedy answer on his politics."

Padre Rudolfo, the Jesuit who for long years had lived at court, hoping against hope for the King's definite conversion to Christianity, spending himself body and soul in good works, good example, sighed uneasily.

"Sure, my father, the grace of G.o.d must work in the end--and Akbar is so close to the Kingdom! In tolerance alone----"

Father Ricci interrupted him sharply:

"It is anathema! He tolerates all faiths, all things, even these new Englishmen who at best are heretics."

"One at least is good Catholic," interrupted Padre Rudolfo mildly. "He was at the Ma.s.s in the Palace Chapel this morning."

The Superior of his order frowned. "See you, then, that he remains within the influence of Holy Church. These Englishmen must gain no foothold here. As for the King, I will write from Goa threatening your removal--for surely he hath great regard for you, as you for him. Yet I say to you that despite his good qualities, his justice, his forgiveness until seventy times seven, Akbar is a stumbling block in our way. Prince Salim might serve our purpose better--our purpose, which is Christ's," he added hastily as if to rectify any possible confusion of meaning. Yet the meaning _was_ confused, for the world holds few stories more strangely complex than the tale of the Jesuits'

struggle between greed of gold and greed of souls, which for close on a century found arena in the court of the Great Moguls. Tragic it is at times, at others comic, yet pathetic throughout in the certainty that greed of gold must eventually prevail against the greed of souls.

Padre Rudolfo sighed again. Long living within reach of Akbar's atmosphere had made him in his turn tolerant and there was always hope; hope that his prayers, his penances, his sleepless nights might at last count for righteousness in the King's long record of hesitation. And yet in his heart of hearts Rudolfo Acquaviva knew that there was no hope, was conscious even of a vague content that there was none; for in the Father's house were there not many mansions, and what was man that he should dictate to G.o.d what gave the right of entry to them?

So from the highest to the lowest the pa.s.sing days brought a sense of strain. To atma Devi, however, in her secluded sun-saturated roof, the general unrest did not penetrate to add to the dull distress of her own disturbed mind.

For the joy which had come to her from even the half-jesting recognition of her hereditary claim, had pa.s.sed before the slow a.s.surance that, as woman, she was helpless to support her role of champion, before the certainty which grew with the pa.s.sing days, that the King had no need of her.

She had discarded her poppy-petal red petticoat for the white robe of the Charan, and with the silver hauberk fitting loosely to her tall slenderness, her long hair unbound circled with a silver fillet, would stand for hours, her hands clasped over the silver-hilted sword, looking out over the low parapet wall across the blue distance. That limited vision of hers held all her world; for the years had obliterated memory of the far-off Central Indian home whence she had been brought while still almost an infant by her father. But one or two scenes of that childish life which had been pa.s.sed beyond her present outlook remained with her, clear yet dreamlike. The most distinct of these being her surpa.s.sing affection for Siyala, who was now Siyah Yamin. As she thought of this a dull vague wonder possessed her as to what purpose Fate could have had in making their two lives so dissimilar--the one s.e.xless by virtue of her widowhood, the other s.e.xual beyond even womanhood.