A Prince of Dreamers Part 17

atma's was a limited mind: her soul groped blindly in the dark, yet found what it sought and held fast to it.

So she waited as patiently as she could, hoping for some means of vindicating her claim to the Charan's place, forgetting not one jot or t.i.ttle of the many ceremonials of her race. Even if nothing else came of the King's grace save the permission to challenge the world on his behalf from her secluded silence, that in itself was gain. In one heart, surely, his honour would be held sacred utterly.

She had a quaint companion in her solitude, the _rebeck_ player's child Zarifa. For on the morning after atma had taken Birbal to see the musician asleep, with the young girl's flower-face upon his bosom, he had appeared in atma Devi's roof, bearing the light burden of the crippled child in his arms, and begged asylum for her during the s.p.a.ce of an hour while he went on an errand. But days had pa.s.sed without his return; so the child had stayed on. Helpless utterly, sustaining life apparently by a mere sup of milk, a mouthful or two of fruit, and sleeping away all the hours of fierce daylight, at dawn and at dusk the soul hidden in the racked, deformed body seemed to be set free from its bonds, and the child would lie with wide-open soft l.u.s.trous eyes, smiling and singing to herself. And atma Devi as she sate listening would feel peace and content steal over her restlessness, so that as often as not, as the shadows crept over the roof, and the daylight died, the rising moon would find both the child and the woman asleep; Zarifa in the dark shelter of the slip of a room--whence she seldom stirred since the light seemed to scourge her--atma crouching in the corner beside the little lamp which burned ever before the death-dagger of her race.

Birbal, coming at dawn in search, once more, of the _rebeck_ player, roused atma from such a sleep, and entering while--after unbarring the door at his pa.s.sword "From the King"--she stood rubbing her eyes, was met by such a strong perfume of roses that he turned quickly on her:

"So he is here!" he cried; then looked curiously at her, at the little slip of room. "Within, I suppose," he added, pa.s.sing to its entrance.

But atma barred the way.

"It is the child, my lord," she said quickly, "the musician left her with me when he went away. And she is so timid, the very face of a strange man is like a strong light upon her--it scorches and shrivels."

Birbal laughed shortly. He was of the world and knew its evil ways.

"So does love," he replied mockingly. "Nay! I find no fault with thee, widow, but call him out--I would see him."

atma flushed darkly. "My lord cannot see him; he is not here."

"Nor the child neither? Am I not even to have sight of her pretty face to attest truth?" asked Birbal.

The woman met his jeering smile with a peremptory gesture. "Let my lord sit silent yonder on the parapet," she said, in a voice of command, "and from the darkness he shall hear."

So, closing the door behind her, she called softly, "Sing to me, my bird," and stood listening.

Birbal, idly kicking his heels as he sate, looked over the wall down the sheer drop of a hundred feet or more which ended in the red rock. Just below him, br.i.m.m.i.n.g up to the very wall lay the tank which Akbar had lately made as a reservoir for the lower part of the town.

Half-hidden in morning mist it reflected the morning sky here and there as the vapour, parting, left its surface clear. And behind the rising mist? Did it reflect nothing but the shifting gray curves above it, or did the cool depths of rock below have their chance to shine mirrored on the water?

Bah! who could tell!

The little roof lay still in the first sunlight. A few pigeons wheeling about overhead sent shifting shadows to chase each other on the purple bricks of wall and floor, and in the topmost branch of the peepul tree whose roots throve beside the tank below, a white-throat was singing its little limited song. So, suddenly, there rose on the cool air of dawn another limited little voice.

Rose leaves wither away so fast?

Is the sun's kiss cold? Is the summer past?

Whither away like shallops at sea With torn pink sails and never a mast Whither away so fast?

Sun kisses are warm, and the summers last But the shadows are calling us dim and vast So we set our sails like shallops at sea And drift away without rudder or mast To the dark that will last For eternity!

Birbal, artist to his finger tips shivered slightly; atma, standing, her hands clasped over the old silver-hilted sword, gave a soft sigh.

To both of them the creeping step of the Dark that will last for Eternity, seemed to invade the present, claiming all things.

All things save Love, that essence of the Rose of Life.

"Only the dust of the rose-leaf remains to the heart of the seller of perfumes."

The mystical meaning of the Sufi saying came home for once to Birbal.

As usual, he resented the intrusion and stood up ready to go, prepared to jest.

"Farewell, then, widow! G.o.d send thee a lover if thou hast not one, since even Charanship to Kings is not sufficient for a woman! Now, wert thou but man thou mightst be true.----"

It was as if the dam of the lake below had suddenly given way, letting loose a flood over the land, and he raised his arm in unconscious self-defence as, like a tornado, atma swept upon him, flourishing the sword.

"Lo! Maheshwar Rao, Brahmin, Bhat-bandi!" she cried, giving him all his racial t.i.tles, "have a care what thou sayest! Yea! since the long-dead day when Shiv-jee created us from the sweat-drops of his G.o.dly brow, and jealous Parvati his wife--womanhood incarnate--exiled us from Paradise because we sang his praises overloud--ever since then we Charans have been true, whether G.o.d makes us man or woman! Dost deny it? Then by the long discipleship of thy upstart race--formed by Parvati to sing her trivial worth--to mine, I do command thee to remember that I am champion to the King. Dost hear, Maheshwar Rao?

Does Akbar need aught? Stands his honour firm? Lo! if thou speakest not, I die!"

The sword's point clattered on the brick roof, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the death dagger of her race from its altar and stood ready to strike.

"Nay! sister," replied Birbal coolly, for the very heat of her harangue had given him time for calm. "There is no need to die--yet."

Here, in a flash, a sudden thought came to him and he settled himself back on the parapet with a faint laugh. Set a thief to catch a thief, a woman to catch a woman! The intensity on this one's face might be useful to him. Having long since const.i.tuted himself the eyes and ears, as it were, of Akbar's empire, he had countless emissaries, endless spies, everywhere; but he had not yet employed a woman. It could do no harm to try one where all the cunning of man had failed.

"Sit thee down, sister," he said, after a moment's thought, "and I will tell thee wherein thou canst serve the King's need. Thou knowest Siyah Yamin----"

"What! hath the King need of _her?_" asked atma incredulously.

Birbal laughed shortly. "Nay, no one hath need of her; so she must die."

The face opposite his paled. "Wherefore?" she asked briefly.

"Because she may be the undoing of empire," he replied. "Hearken, so thou mayest understand."

"Siyah Yamin," she echoed in a puzzled voice when he had told her of the Syed's appeal and the certainty that the courtesan would swear to having read the Kalma and thus prove the legality of her marriage.

"Nay! she cannot swear!"

"Not if a bowstring find her throat first," retorted Birbal viciously; "naught else will stop a woman's tongue, especially if marriage be the subject. Therefore she must be found and--and--lost again! She is in the city; that we know. Where, no one can compa.s.s. If thou couldst find out----"

"There is no need," said atma slowly; "she--she will not swear!"

Birbal was on his feet with a laugh. "A woman will swear anything for one she loves or hates, and Siyah Yamin hates the King. Whether she love Jamal-ud-din is another matter. So fare thee well, atma Devi championess of Kings. Lo! I have given thee thy Charan chance. As for the _rebeck_ player--I shall find him yet!"

After Birbal left, atma sate thinking. There was something which she remembered about Siyala, which little Siyala, the darling of the G.o.ds, must remember also.

Or would she pretend to forget it? If she did, then she, atma, must speak, must protest, if needs be die to witness to it.

Then, if she died it would be death to Siyah Yamin who was Siyala, sister of the veil.

atma roused herself and stood listening. A faint sound of slumbering breath drawn evenly met her ear as she paused at the door of the slip of a room where Zarifa lay hidden. The child was asleep and could be left for an hour or two at any rate.

Hastily discarding her Charan's dress she put on the poppy-petalled red skirt and veil of the mad singer, so catching up her hourgla.s.s drum pa.s.sed into the street. Her cry,

"_May the G.o.ds pity us, dreamers who dream of their G.o.dhead_"

echoing out into the closed courtyards as she hurried down the narrow alley.

"List! that is atma back again," yawned a woman sleepily sitting down to the mill-wheel beside the piled basket of wheat which was to serve for the family breakfast. "I deemed she had been dead these days past.

But I will get her to tell me my fortune. What she told Gobind Sahai's wife hath come true. She hath twin sons, and praise be to the G.o.ds!

her husband is not suspicious."