A Singular Hostage Part 14

"What can I do," the man murmured, "I who am only a servant? How can I save him?" He blinked and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "The cooks make him the best food, others make him playthings, but all he wants is his family. The Maharajah gives him jewels, but what does poor Baba care for such gifts?" He met her eyes and his gaze was urgent. "Baba's grandfather, Shaikh Waliullah, is a n.o.ble man, Memsahib. He once saved my brother's life. Take the child from this place before he dies. Carry him with you when you leave here, Memsahib. Send him to Shaikh Waliullah in Lah.o.r.e. It is Baba's only hope."

n.o.ble. "There are n.o.ble men of all religions in India," her munshi had said. She would like to meet this Shaikh. But how many children in India were lost, how many were beaten? Was this baby not one of a hundred thousand small victims of India's poverty and odd customs?

The baby's eyes were squeezed tightly shut. He stirred on the servant's shoulder. Mariana dragged her eyes from him. She should never have shown interest. "I am very sorry," she whispered firmly, "but I cannot help you. How can I steal a child from Maharajah Ranjit Singh?" She gathered her skirts. "Stand aside, and let me pa.s.s."

She stepped around the servant and child and started toward the altar. The priest had begun to read from the book, his voice a high, hypnotic singsong. Miss f.a.n.n.y motioned for her to hurry.

The servant's voice followed her. "Allah will aid you, Memsahib. Allah Most Gracious will aid you."

She looked back to see him wipe his eyes with a brown finger. On his shoulder, the child still slept. She paused irresolutely, then moved away toward the altar.

THE visit to the temple had concluded. The ladies returned, smiling, from the altar. The gentlemen rose from their seats on the carpeted fioor.

The Maharajah unfolded himself from his cushion, and, taking the Governor-General's hand, helped him to rise. "It is getting dark," he announced, still holding Lord Auckland's hand. "We will have a fireworks display." He looked about him, his single eye alight. "Where is my baba?"

Mariana shivered and looked away as the bearded servant stepped forward and gave the sleeping baby into the Maharajah's hands.

Wrapping themselves against the chill, the Maharajah and his guests filed out of the inlaid doorway. At the far end of the causeway they climbed a narrow stair to a group of balconies, where they looked back at the temple in its square lake of water.

The setting sun smudged the western sky over the city of Amritsar. From where she stood, Mariana could see torches moving below her. Lamplight glowed in the windows of adjacent houses.

The first explosion made her gasp. It rocked the air before her and rang in her ears. A great spray of sparks lit up the golden dome of the temple, its decorated outer walls, and the waters of the great tank in which it stood. As rocket after rocket went off, the temple became a fairy palace, now blindingly bright, now bathed in shadow, lit from every angle by sudden fiares and showers of sparks.

"Look, my pearl," an old man's voice observed between explosions, "you can see the fish swimming in the waters of the tank."

Mariana turned. On the next balcony the Maharajah stood among his bejeweled chiefs, enjoying the show as if he had never seen fireworks before, the baby twisting in his arms. The child, his face puckered around the thumb in his mouth, looked as if he were trying to burrow his way into the Maharajah's chest. There was no sign of the servant. The Maharajah laughed, throwing his head back. Against the old man's chest, the baby turned and looked directly into Mariana's face.

His body stilled. His eyes wide, he stared at her, unblinking, his gaze heavy, full of expectation.

Uncomfortable, she looked away. When she looked again, the baby still stared, seemingly oblivious to the deafening sounds and the cascades of light around them. He seemed to be drinking in her features, his mouth working around his thumb. Baby Freddie sucked his thumb too; but Freddie had been round and pink when she last saw him, with fair hair that stood out in a pale halo about his head, not at all like this brown baby in his strange, shiny clothes. Baby Freddie had never looked at her as this tiny stranger did now, as if she were the most important person in all the world.

His eyes locked on hers, the child rested his head on the Maharajah's shoulder.

"Are you all right, my dear?" Miss Emily inquired. "What are you looking at?"

Mariana shivered. "Nothing, Miss Emily."

The child had been asleep when his odd little servant had stepped out of the shadows and begged for her help. Why, then, did he look at her now with such keen recognition?

It was too late to save him. Rescue, difficult enough in the temple, was now impossible. She could not reach across the s.p.a.ce between her balcony and the Maharajah's, and s.n.a.t.c.h the baby from the old man's grasp. She kept her eyes on the shimmering waters of the tank, knowing the child had not taken his eyes from her.

The child's fate was none of her concern. How many times had she been warned against entangling herself in the affairs of the natives? This time, she would heed the advice she'd been given. After all, even if the Maharajah were selfishly keeping the baby from his family, he was clearly fond of the poor thing. Surely he would see to it that someone kissed the baby tonight, that someone kept him warm in the cold night air. She wrapped her own shawl tightly about her. That expectant little face, she feared, would haunt her for the rest of her days.

With one last waterfall of light, the fireworks ended. As the crowd began to shuffie down the staircase, Mariana lost sight of the Maharajah. She turned to descend the stairs, relieved to be free of the baby's stare; but a high, despairing wail arose from the direction of the city gate, and she knew instinctively that it came from him. She followed the Eden ladies helplessly down the stairway as the child's cry lifted over the noise of the crowd and filled her ears.

They moved slowly by torchlight toward the rows of waiting palanquins. In front of her, Mr. Macnaghten spoke in a low tone to Major Byrne.

"-tomorrow morning," he was saying. "I cannot persuade him to meet the Maharajah more than once a day, but he must must do so. We cannot be certain of the Maharajah's continued good health." His voice dropped to an indecipherable hiss. do so. We cannot be certain of the Maharajah's continued good health." His voice dropped to an indecipherable hiss.

Major Byrne patted Mr. Macnaghten's shoulder. "Of course, William," he soothed, then strode off to hail a junior officer, while Mr. Macnaghten's fingers knotted and twisted behind his back.

Alongside Mariana, two British officers helped a third, who staggered between them, his head drooping as if he were about to faint.

She quickened her steps. There was her palanquin, waiting on the ground, her bearers, anonymous in their shawls, crouched beside it.

As she sat, preparing to swing her legs into the curtained box, a small bearded man dashed toward her through the crowd, his head turning as if he were searching for someone, a tiny excited child in his arms. The servant's laboring breath was visible in the cold air, his neatly wrapped turban askew on his head. The baby in his arms rode his servant like a king on his way into battle, his fists pounding the man's shoulder, urging him on.

Child, servant, and young woman saw one another in the same moment.

Mariana's mouth fell open. The running man turned and came straight for her, his lips moving as if he were talking to himself, but before he reached her side, the baby in his arms lunged dangerously toward her. Without thinking, she reached up to prevent him from falling. She gathered him onto her lap and looked up, ready to scold the servant for his presumption. But where the little man had stood, there was only empty s.p.a.ce.

Holding the baby, she stood up and searched about her, but there was no trace of the servant among the noisy throng of British of?cers and Sikh sirdars. His goal apparently accomplished, the small concave-looking man with the spa.r.s.e beard had vanished into the crowd.

The child in her arms smelled faintly sour. Her nose wrinkling, she held him away from her. In his outlandish clothes, with black powder ringing his eyes, he seemed unpleasantly foreign. Moments ago she had wanted a second chance to rescue him, but now that the chance had come, she did not want it, or him. Foreign or not, he relaxed his dirty little body in her arms and raised solemn, expectant eyes to hers over the thumb in his mouth.

Her arms tightened around him. "You need a bath," she said.

He needed a bath, and he needed to get warm. Beneath his rich satins, the baby's skin felt clammy; his curled feet were icy. Why was there no woolly shawl for him? Why had his comfort been forgotten when evening closed in? What was it in those dark, tired eyes, Mariana wondered, as she tugged her shawl about them both, that promised her unlooked-for joy, that made her feel powerful and good?

Men swarmed past them. Palanquins edged through the crowd, their bearers shouting to clear the way. A spear-carrying Sikh, a precious Kashmir shawl tied carelessly about his waist, pushed by on a nervous horse, too close for safety, his gold-studded bridle gleaming in the torchlight.

Anyone she asked would say it was her duty to stop a British of?cer or one of the Sikh courtiers and hand the baby over, explaining that she had no right to him, that he belonged to the Maharajah. It was wrong, they would agree, to take away someone else's child.

The White Rabbit and two other aides-de-camp pa.s.sed by, talking among themselves. Debating no longer, Mariana ducked her head and bundled the child into her palanquin, praying that they would not see, but they did not seem even to notice her. Without looking in her direction, they pa.s.sed, still talking, out of sight.

Even Mariana's own bearers appeared not to have seen anything unusual. As she climbed into the box after the baby, they glanced at her as incuriously as ever, before getting languidly to their feet.

Everyone was leaving. Lord Auckland's elegant palki had pa.s.sed by before the servant and the child appeared. A troop of hors.e.m.e.n trotted away into the dark, followed by a crowd of servants on foot carrying banners and fans on long sticks.

Only one palanquin, a tall one of colored gla.s.s, remained, fifty yards away, surrounded by gesticulating natives.

"Go," Mariana ordered her bearers as she wrapped the baby up to his eyes in her best blue shawl.

Who, exactly, was this little creature? She had not paid proper attention to the name his servant had given her in the temple, the name of the child's grandfather. But, even if she had bothered to listen, what was the likelihood of finding the man? The walled city must house ten thousand grandfathers with names like Wali Mohammad, or Wasif or Waheed.

"I have saved you from the Maharajah," she whispered as she tucked the child into the crook of her arm, "but I don't even know your name."

If he understood her words, he did not seem to care. He lay curled against her, his eyes locked on her face beneath the circular cap that had, by some miracle, remained on his head during the confusion.

She must decide what to do. She banged on the roof, urging the bearers to hurry.

The journey seemed to take forever. For an hour, as they covered the distance to the English camp, Mariana lay on one elbow, her hand inches from the baby's face, ready to clap over his mouth if he should cry out and betray them. Torchbearers galloped beside her, their open fiames throwing an eerie, wavering light against the curtains. Harsh, rhythmic breathing of the bearers told her another palanquin was close by. She hoped that nearby palanquin did not contain Major Byrne. Only yesterday, she had heard him savage one of his subordinates over a bra.s.s uniform b.u.t.ton. She tried not to imagine what he would say if he found her with the Maharajah's little hostage.

The child snuggled closer. Had Had anyone seen her take him? anyone seen her take him?

It must be a serious crime to steal a Maharajah's hostage. What would happen if she were caught? Needles of fear p.r.i.c.ked her unpleasantly.

She squirmed in the cramped s.p.a.ce. Very well. If she were were caught, humiliating as that would be, she would caught, humiliating as that would be, she would not not apologize. If he did not belong to her, he did not belong to the Maharajah, either, and the Maharajah had obviously not cared for him properly. She touched the baby's cheek with one finger. How was it possible that in all that seething camp, only one servant had thought of his welfare, or noticed his misery? apologize. If he did not belong to her, he did not belong to the Maharajah, either, and the Maharajah had obviously not cared for him properly. She touched the baby's cheek with one finger. How was it possible that in all that seething camp, only one servant had thought of his welfare, or noticed his misery?

At last, the familiar sounds of the avenue at night reached her through the curtains. Minutes later, her bearers slowed their pace. When they set the palanquin down, Mariana struggled awkwardly out of the box in the darkness, the swaddled child in her arms. Bent double so her bearers would not see, she dashed into her tent, letting out her breath only after the reed curtain fiapped safely shut behind her.

Dittoo had left a lighted oil lamp on the bedside table. She carried the baby to the bed, tucked him carefully between two cushions, and was reaching to pick up the lamp when she thought of something.

She ran back to the door and pushed the curtain aside. "Munnoo," she called.

In the starlight, a figure detached itself from the group of retreating bearers and turned back. "Go and find Dittoo," she ordered. "I need him at once."

She returned inside, and holding the lamp aloft, bent over the child on the bed. The lamp carved great shadows on the tent walls, and gleamed on the tawny satin of her gown and on the baby's face. His skin, she decided, was the shade of her milky morning coffee, but with a touch of gold. Curving lashes shadowed cheeks that should have been plumper than they were.

She had seen native children rushing about naked in the villages the camp had pa.s.sed, but she realized with a pang as she studied her tiny guest that she knew absolutely nothing about a native child's life. What did he do all day? What toys did he have? Did he wear leading strings when he was taken out into the garden?

One thing was certain. As soon as the bathwater came, she would wipe away the black powder that circled his eyes.

She tugged off her straw bonnet and shook out her hair until it fell from its pins and lay tangled on her shoulders, then sat down beside him on the bed.

"Well, you odd little thing," she said, a hand on the baby's body, "what should we do now?"

Still wrapped in her shawl he sighed, his eyelids fiuttering.

When had he last eaten? "You need your supper," she said decisively. "Where is that silly Dittoo?"

There was nothing to eat in the tent, but her jug of water stood on the bedside table. She poured some into her tumbler, and, holding the baby carefully upright, put the tumbler to his mouth. Suddenly animated, he leaned eagerly forward, his eyes wide, and took it in great panting gulps. They hadn't given him anything to drink! Her hand holding the gla.s.s shook with anger.

When he would drink no more, she set the gla.s.s down and studied him. What if he were really ill? She pushed away the memory of another helpless native creature and another water gla.s.s.

She tucked his arms into the shawl and got to her feet, leaving him on the bed. At the doorway, she lifted the blind aside and looked out. All she could see in the starlight was the familiar expanse of clay stretching from her tent to the red compound wall, and the distant tents of Lord Auckland and his sisters.

Where was Dittoo?

He was an irritating servant-he talked on and on, dusting her tiny bedside table when she wanted most to be left alone, fussing over things that did not matter and forgetting those that did, but he was warmhearted. Now, alone with her stolen baby, Mariana could scarcely wait to hear his shuffiing footsteps rounding the side of her tent.

The child lay still, his face framed by blue fringe. As she watched, he tried to free his arms, but could not, for the shawl was wrapped too tightly about his body. Whimpering, he fought with the entrapping fabric, his eyes filling with tears. As Mariana fiew toward him, his embroidered cap came loose and rolled away, exposing his head. It was bald, save for a fine, newly sprouting crop of jet black hair.

At the sight of that round, shaven skull, Mariana felt herself instantly transported to another time and place. In his illness, his own head shaven, Ambrose, too, had whimpered helplessly: Ambrose who had adored her, whom she had loved more than anyone in the world.

She dragged the baby's small, hurt body onto her lap and tore away the shawl. "There, there," she whispered, rocking him, her face against his, as she had rocked Ambrose when he was a baby. "Don't cry, my darling, my lambkin."

She had feared he would give the same high-pitched wail that had carried to her over the crowd earlier that evening, but instead he hiccuped and put his thumb into his mouth.

"Oh," she cried, relieved, "you only wanted to suck your thumb!"

Like dew, tears clung to his lashes and lay on his cheeks. She touched his face. When he was better, would he fiap his hands when he laughed, as Ambrose had done? Would he run to her, shrieking with pleasure, when she held out her arms? Would he die?

As her own past sorrows welled up and spilled from her eyes, b.u.mbling sounds came from outside her door. Help, if only in the form of Dittoo, had come at last.

In the mysterious way that news travels, word of the baby's disappearance had reached the English camp even before the young lady translator's palanquin had pa.s.sed by the saluting sentry and into the Governor-General's compound. Within half an hour the news had made its appearance at cooking fires in all quarters of the camp.

When a water carrier arrived at the row of fires along the back wall of the compound, Dittoo and three friends had already finished their evening meal. The youngest of the four men was on his feet before the fire, a slim silhouette in motion, his feet stamping, his arms over his head. He sang as he danced, a light melody full of trills and catches. The bhisti watched, nodding.

"Look, Sonu," said Guggan, the eldest of the four, by way of greeting, pointing to a comfortable place by the fire, "Mohan thinks that's the way a dancing girl moves her arms." He gestured, palm up, at the swaying figure before them. "Look at him. Dittoo here says no real nach nach girl would-" girl would-"

"Of course this is right." Mohan went on dancing, his fingers extended to resemble lotus buds. "Who was it that stood with his eye to a crack in the durbar tent while a whole troop of girls entertained the Governor-General and the Maharajah? You wouldn't know, Guggan," he added, "you were too lazy to leave the fire."

Sonu shook his head skeptically. "I can tell you one thing, Mohan," he offered, "you may know how to sing, but you cannot dance. But," he added, turning to his friends, "I have not come to your fire to talk of dancing girls. I have come to tell you some big news. The Maharajah's favorite hostage has disappeared."

He bent closer to the fire. "The hostage is a baby boy with magical powers."

Mohan's song stopped. All four servants fixed their eyes on the water carrier.

"The child's grandfather is Shaikh Waliullah of Lah.o.r.e, a man of great powers," he continued a little grandly. "That is how the child came by his abilities. He is said to bring good fortune wherever he goes. The Maharajah keeps him because of this." He found a stick and poked the fiames. "In fact, the Maharajah never lets him out of his sight. He calls the child his 'Pearl of Pearls.'"

His audience exchanged glances.

"This evening, the Maharajah made a great display of fireworks to entertain the British sahibs. Afterward, when it was time to return to camp in his palanquin of colored gla.s.s, he sent for his little hostage to accompany him. The servant came, bringing the child. The servant had almost reached the palanquin when suddenly, just like that, the baby vanished from his arms and into the air." Sonu the water carrier paused dramatically. "Everyone saw it happen.

"Now," he continued as he stirred the embers, "with the child disappeared, everyone fears some terrible calamity will befall the kingdom. That is why the Maharajah is offering a great reward for news of the baby's whereabouts."

His stick had caught fire. He brought its end to his lips and blew it out. "No one knows why the child disappeared. He was given everything, jewels, everything."

As the friends considered this point, the voice of the sirdar bearer came from the direction of the tents with an unwelcome message. "Dittoo, Memsahib is calling you."

Four faces bunched in disappointment.

"The boy has powers," Sita said thoughtfully. He picked at his teeth with a twig.

"Perhaps this disappearance is too great a feat for a child so small," Sonu offered. "In that case, it was his grandfather who caused the child to disappear."

All four servants nodded. "Yes," they agreed, "it was the grandfather."

Munnoo appeared from the shadows and stood impatiently over them. "What are you doing, Dittoo? Memsahib is calling."

"In any case, it is said that every person in the city, down to the humblest sweeper, is searching for the child," Sonu concluded, as Dittoo gathered himself and stood. "He will be known by his clothing, for it is red satin, embroidered with silver thread. He wears an embroidered cap, and a string of emeralds and pearls about his neck that reaches to his waist."

The men's speculations followed Dittoo as he stumbled away toward the cold English tents.

AS much as he liked to keep his distance from the Europeans he served, Dittoo made a point of talking to his memsahib.

He had made the decision to share his wisdom on his first meeting with her. Recruited at the last moment from his lowly post at Government House to serve a young memsahib on the journey to Lah.o.r.e, he had put on his cleanest clothes and followed a lofty serving man of the Governor-General to a neat cottage on one of the better roads in Simla.

On their arrival, the serving man had left him standing in a heavy rain, not on the porch but under a tree, where he waited, shouted at by monkeys, with water soaking into his clothes, until an Englishwoman emerged from the house, a blue umbrella over her head, and approached him. The Englishwoman looked him up and down in a pointed, catlike way from beneath the rim of her umbrella, then, to his surprise, greeted him properly in his own language. At that moment, it had come to Dittoo that, unlike other foreigners, this person might be able to learn something about real life.

From the first days of his service, he talked whenever he was in Memsahib's presence, giving advice, imparting knowledge. Soon after they left Simla, he told her that there would be no orange ice at lunch, because no one had covered the shallow earthen dishes in which ice was made overnight, leaving the ice to be licked, or worse, by dogs or other animals. Another morning, he warned her that breakfast would be cold because one of the under-cooks had stabbed another with a bread knife, demonstrating the perils of borrowing money. His memsahib showed little interest in his stories. Sometimes, he suspected, she pretended sleep in order to avoid him, but he went on talking, sure of his mission.

He must do without his friends and Sonu's exciting story, but at least he would have the satisfaction of teaching Memsahib something tonight. Confident of her interest in his news, he crossed the compound and approached her tent. "Memsahib," he began, even before he had finished scuffing off his shoes outside the door, "a most strange thing has happened!"