A Prince of Dreamers Part 30

He was resting on cushions behind the shrine and the light from its little lamp showed him, long, lank, listless. But the wide eyes in which burnt the dull fires of the Dreamgiver, recognised the visitor, and the man who had been King of Malwa roused himself to give salutation with stately ceremonial courtesy, and motioned Birbal to a seat beside him. As the latter sank into the cushions they gave out a scent of roses, and swift memory--swiftest of all for perfumes--made him look round hastily; but the roof showed no sign of other living soul.

"It is good of my lord to come so far and so late," murmured Bayazid.

"In what can I help my Lord?" The words came drowsily. He seemed in danger of falling asleep once and for all.

"I came to see Payandar, King of Sinde," said Birbal sharply. If that did not rouse the besotted fool nothing else would. The result was, in its way, excellent. Bayazid sate up instantly and laid his hand on Birbal's arm.

"What of Payandar?" he queried, his face working. "What of the Master of Love? Does he indeed live, as some folk say?"

"That Bayazid should know, better than some folk," replied Birbal dryly, "since he was to have supped here to-night."

"To-night" echoed Bayazid. "Nay, not to-night, or she would have told me. She knows the Secret now!"

Birbal laughed lightly. "As we shall all know it--or not know it some day! As Payandar knows it also, since he died in the desert."

A sudden bitter exaltation came to the half-seen haggardness of the face, the voice rang almost militantly.

"Aye! in the desert, driven thither as we dreamers of love are driven ever, by l.u.s.t--man's l.u.s.t! Lo! thou knowest of my own seven happy years--of my songstress who sang of love--of the viper who slew her and slew the King in me. Ohi Rupmati, Rupmati! Were it not that thou comest to me ever in the song of birds, in the breeze of the night, in G.o.d's sunshine and in his flowers, I too would seek the desert and save myself from the deadly companionship of my kind. So I wait for thee and thy broken lute." He sank back into his cushions stilled by the very violence of his emotions; but after a while his voice went on more and more drowsily. "That the world knows. All know the tale of Bayazid and Rupmati. But who knows the story of Payandar? Shall I tell it as she told it me? How he loved a Rose in a garden of roses; naught but a gardener's daughter--and he a Prince of the Tarkhans. What do the Tarkhans know of Love? But he knew. He loved her--aye! though he was Heir. So, vile utterly, his father betrayed him. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d younger brother did the deed one night in the Garden of Roses, and when dawn came the Rosebud had been plucked, despoiled! He left Kingship, and died mad in the desert--so they say! But Love cannot die. Even in the Wilderness there is a Rose Garden ready for it. So he took the Rosebud thither, plucked, despoiled, soiled, bruised, and broken. And out of Death came Life. Out of l.u.s.t came Love, though the child was a crippled thing, despoiled, spoiled, bruised, and broken by its birth.

But Death came also to the Rosebud in the Rose Garden of Love, amidst the perfume of roses. Is it not even now in the air? Is not the darkness full of the Essence of Love. Ohi, Ohi Rupmati! let me hearken to thy broken lute."

Was it fancy, or mingled with the faint sighing of the night wind amongst many leaves, and the fainter rush of the sliding river was there a sound as of jangled music?

Birbal sate arrested for a second, then, seeing from the supineness of the figure beside him, that all hope of further speech with the drug-eater was over, rose impatiently and made his way downstairs, asking himself why he had come.

He paused astonished, however, to find the lower story no longer dark.

It was, on the contrary, brilliantly lit, servants were flitting about, and in the central room, whose twelve arches gave on surrounding arched aisles, which in their turn gave on overshadowing trees and river gleam, a supper cloth was laid for two.

And by all the G.o.ds! The figure which sate there holding a cup of wine in its raised right hand was the Sufi from Isphahan!

CHAPTER XIV

_Bring wine and I will read The riddle of this life of mine; The old stars' wizardry, the shine Of new moons wandering overhead: All this, I'll read with wine_.

--Hafiz.

For an instant Birbal was speechless, then he recovered himself.

"Who art thou, man of many faces?"

The question came peremptorily, the answer suavely.

"Thine host; for the rest, as thou art, a mere wayfarer on the limited path of life. Combining the two, this slave ventures to offer refreshment. Cupbearer! Wine of Shiraz, and scent the goblet's edge with rose.

Mechanically Birbal drained the beaker, and the good liquor tingling to his finger tips, he faced his familiar world again, incredulous as ever.

"So," he said, as following the Sufi's sign he seated himself among the cushions at the other side of the supper cloth. "It is, as I thought, the Wayfarer. How many disguises hast thou O Bairupiya?[12]

Musician? Envoy? Sufi?" then a thought struck him and he gave his little contemptuous jeering laugh, "mayhap King Payandar also--but that he is dead."

[Footnote 12: A tribe who have the gift of (to use theatrical parlance) "making up" to perfection.]

"Aye, dead!" a.s.sented the Sufi gravely, "and the dead being but the cast-off garments of the living, count not in disguise."

"But wherefore----" began Birbal.

His host smiled. "Let me quote the King of Poets to my lord--

"Ah, soul of a man live free Of the Wherefore, the How, For the pa.s.sing moments flee.

Drink deep of the wine cup now, Drink deep, for He who is Wise He hath the Seeing Eyes, He knows the Secret that lies In the Hows and the Whys.

"Cupbearer, yet another wine of Shiraz and scent the goblet's edge with the roses that grow beneath the vine."

The echo of the chanted song died away; then suddenly he reached out his thin brown hand--the index finger wore a ring set with a marvellous emerald, the surface of which was close covered with fine flowing hieroglyphics--and laid it on Birbal's in familiar grip.

The latter started, turned pale. "Thou art the devil,--juggler, with thy tricks!" he muttered faintly. "How didst learn the sign-manual of my race, secret, inviolate?"

The Sufi laughed. "There is no devilry to the Hindu in being the outcome of many incarnations. Mayhap in my past I have been Bhat-Bandi and my lord----" he paused. "What matters it? 'Tis but the trick of memory. Birbal forgets, this slave remembers. Aye, friend! 'tis but a trick indeed! I juggle with men's eyes, and they with their own senses."

He clapped his hands, gave a swift order in some unknown tongue, and as if by magic the servants disappeared, extinguishing the lights as they vanished, leaving those two alone in the rosy radiance of a lamp that swung above the supper table. Its downward light left their two faces in shadow.

"Listen, my lord!" said the Sufi rapidly. "I will waste no time in words. I am here at Akbar's court, a spy. Wherefore, or who my master is, seek not to know. Mayhap time will show. I spy on Prince Dalil of Sinde--dost know him? Khodadad Tarkhan, boon companion of the Heir-to-Empire. Start not! I watch him, I wait for him, not for myself only, but for Sinde--for that unhappy country which counts on Akbar's aid, aid which will not come if the a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger--if conspiracy--succeeds. Dost see? Dost understand? Lo! I am Sinde incarnate--waiting, watching."

He paused again and in the brief silence Birbal could hear a long sobbing breath. The lamp had grown dimmer, and to his half startled eyes its radiance seemed to leave the white-robed figure to chill shadow. He too caught in his breath as a thought came to him.

"But that Payandar is dead," he began whisperingly, "I should deem----"

"Aye, he is dead!" echoed the other, almost menacingly. "But though he died in the Desert--as thou hast heard from Bayazid--Love, Unconditioned, Ineffable----"

A sudden distaste to the man who spoke, to the whole tenor of his talk, boastful, as it were, of some hold on the Unseen not known of commoner clay, seized on Birbal.

"Keep that for the King, holy man!" he said decisively. "Birbal talks not till dawn of Wine-cups and Roses and the Beloved."

"Perhaps 'twere better if he did," replied the Sufi boldly. "Nathless I did not bring thee hither to talk of love, but to tell thee by my arts that the King's Luck is stolen."

The impulse to start, to rise, was strong for an instant; then memory came to calm the man of the world.

"Impossible" he said quietly. "I saw it to-day. It is in safe keeping--the worse luck perhaps."

A jibing laugh echoed through the arches.