A Singular Hostage Part 20

She sat up, slid aside the cane panels, and looked out.

To her right, the row of servants' campfires glowed, their fiames spent. Near them, wrapped forms lay motionless. Somewhere among them was Dittoo. To her left rose the deserted kitchen tent. Holding on tightly, she craned her head cautiously out of the palki to look ahead. Before her, where the cooks' entrance should have been, there was only blank red canvas. Where was the yawning entrance, wide enough to admit a bullock cart of foodstuffs?

They knew. Someone had discovered Saboor's whereabouts and laid a trap. That had been the reason for Yar Mohammad's haste. That had had been Major Byrne's voice on the avenue! been Major Byrne's voice on the avenue!

"Yar Mohammad," she whispered as loudly as she dared, and saw him instantly separate himself from the knot of bearers and approach the sleepy-looking coolies standing by the gate. She could not hear what was said; but over the murmuring of voices came the c.h.i.n.k of coin on coin, then the palki moved forward again. As it moved she heard the sc.r.a.ping of canvas along its sides.

"Have no fear, Memsahib," came his quiet voice beside her after they had cleared the gate. "You and Saboor Baba will soon be far from here."

Her heart thudded. She was was risking her life, as were Yar Mohammad and the other men. This must be like being in battle, except, of course, that she was unarmed. Curiously enough, she felt no fear. risking her life, as were Yar Mohammad and the other men. This must be like being in battle, except, of course, that she was unarmed. Curiously enough, she felt no fear.

She would tell her father the whole story of Saboor when she was out of the Punjab and it was safe to write without worrying that her letter would fall from the official mail pouch and into dangerous hands.

Papa would be proud of her.

"UTO. Get up." A soldier, his white cross-belts gleaming in the starlight, nudged his foot for a second time into Dittoo's ribs.

Dittoo opened his eyes. All around him and down the line of cold fires, men were sitting up, untangling themselves from shawls and sheets. Soldiers stood by, their weapons ready.

Beside him, Guggan grumbled. "All right, all right. I'm coming." Sita Ram cursed as he pushed his feet into his shoes.

Exchanging uneasy glances, the men stood. Prodded by the soldiers, they joined the servants straggling toward the front entrance of the compound, past the great tents of the English Governor-General and his sisters. Looking behind him, Dittoo saw guards arrive and stand at attention beside the closed kitchen entrance.

The groom Yar Mohammad had insisted that Memsahib and Baba leave tonight. He must have antic.i.p.ated this exercise, whatever it was. Dittoo yawned. Well, it did not matter. Even with an army to help them find Baba, the British were too late. Yes, indeed. He knew because he had forced himself to stay awake long enough to see the kitchen entrance closed, then reopened just enough to allow a palki carried by amateur bearers to slide through. Following Guggan, he joined the file of servants.

"The rice test. It is the rice test." The word, carried back from the front of the line, caused Dittoo to stumble. He knew of the test, of its infallibility, of the panic of the guilty party, waiting to be discovered, trying desperately to bring saliva to his mouth.

Was the rice test to do with Saboor Baba? Were they looking for those who had stolen him? He shuddered. Perhaps not. Perhaps it was something else, some diamonds missing from the English ladies' jewel boxes. His body relaxed, then stiffened. No, it must be Baba.

Memsahib had been certain his whereabouts would be discovered. She had been so frightened.

"They are looking for the Maharajah's hostage," said a voice behind him.

They would ask if he had seen the baba. His head jerking, he searched for a way to evade notice. There was none; they had seen to that. All along the column, red-coated Brahmin soldiers prodded the camp servants into line as if they were so many cattle.

There would be a terrible price to be paid for stealing the boy. The water carrier had told him that, merely for holding Saboor Baba at the moment when he disappeared, Baba's servant had paid with the loss of his nose. How much more had Dittoo done-hiding the child, feeding and clothing him, sleeping with him, rubbing him with mud to guard him from discovery?

He imagined with terror the heavy blow of the sword as it severed his nose from his face. He tried to walk forward normally, although his arms and legs felt as if they belonged to another man. He looked among the others in the line, hoping to distract himself with familiar faces. There was old Sirosh the tailor, bent double as always, helped along by his son-in-law. Ahead of them marched Jimmund, the servant of Miss Emily's little black dog, straight-backed, as tall as ever, as if even now he were walking a few paces behind Miss Emily, his canine charge under his arm. The fat dog boy, whose duties were less elegant, trailed miserably behind him.

"Keep moving," grunted a soldier.

Would he be put to death? Would they cut off his hands, his feet? Whip him in public?

"What is the matter with you?" whispered Mohan at his elbow. "You are walking like an Englishman."

The line of servants pushed its way through the folded front entrance and onto the avenue. There, by the light of dozens of torches, more soldiers waited, standing shoulder to shoulder, an impenetrable barrier to escape.

Dittoo kept his eyes down. If he were to look up and meet the eyes of the black-coated Englishmen who stood beside the wall, or those of the unfamiliar, turbaned courtiers beside him, there would be no need for the test.

They might torture him first, or question him first; or they might do both at once. What would he tell them about his memsahib? He had forgotten to wrap himself in his cotton sheet before joining the other servants, but there was no need. Sweat ran down his back and into the folds of his dhoti.

Why had she not protected him from this horror? Why had she run away, abandoned him, performed no magic to save him? Tears joined the sweat on his face and trickled into the stubble on his chin.

A soldier separated him from Guggan and Sita, motioning him to squat in the dust beside a boy who grinned happily as if they were playing a game. Alongside him, prodded and cursed by the soldiers, others folded themselves down, forming themselves into five parallel rows.

The fat, red-faced Major Byrne Sahib clapped his hands and coughed noisily. The murmuring along the rows instantly quieted. Beside him, his friend Macnaghten Sahib, the man with a mustache for eyebrows, also cleared his throat. The two Englishmen conferred for a moment.

"We are here," announced Macnaghten, "because we believe that, in the past few days, someone in this compound has committed a very serious crime." He stepped forward and paced, hands clasped behind his back, up and down between the first two rows. "This crime is so serious that it has been deemed necessary to perform the rice test in order to discover the ident.i.ty of the criminal."

Behind him, the two elegant strangers, one wearing a coa.r.s.e woolen robe, moved eagerly forward, scanning the faces of the squatting men.

The men near Dittoo began to talk among themselves. "Those men are from the Maharajah's household," declared one. "They have come to take the child thief away."

The soldiers shouted for silence.

"Each of you is to be given a small handful of rice." Macnaghten glared at the rows of men as if each one of them were guilty. "I will then ask all of you a question. The question is simple. It requires only a yes or no reply. When I have asked the question, I will come to each one of you to hear your answer. After giving your answer, you will put the rice into your mouth and chew it, then spit it into your hand and show it to me. Is that clear?"

He motioned to the soldiers, who began to move up and down the rows carrying trays on which rice lay in pale, ghostly piles.

Dittoo was too terrified to pray. He waited, frozen, as a soldier approached down the row, giving out handfuls of rice. Against the fiaring torches, the man's tall shako and tight-fitting uniform gave him the look of a creature from a nightmare.

"Hold out your hand." The man's voice was nasal and superior. Dittoo held out both his hands, willing them not to tremble. With a fiourish, the soldier scooped up a small amount of rice and poured it into Dittoo's open palms.

The giving out of the rice seemed to last all night. When at last it was done and the soldiers were shouting again for silence, Dittoo regretted his failure to enjoy the reprieve. Now it was too late for him. Macnaghten had begun to speak once more.

"Now, when I ask the question, you shall all listen carefully and be ready with your answer when I come to you." He raised a hand. "Many of you already know of this test. For those of you who do not, I can tell you this: It is a test of truthfulness. Whether you answer yes or no to my question, if you are lying, I shall know it at once if you are lying, I shall know it at once. A man who tells the truth will have water in his mouth. His chewed rice will be wet. But," he added over the murmuring of the crowd, "a man who lies will have a dry mouth. His rice, when he spits, will be powder. Therefore, do not lie. I repeat, do not lie do not lie. Any man who lies will be most severely punished. Is that clear? And now to the question. Silence Silence, do you hear? I require absolute silence absolute silence!"

Soldiers moved among the men, threatening them with raised fists.

The two courtiers had come to stand beside Macnaghten and Major Byrne, peering into the faces of the servants nearest them. The crowd subsided.

"Do you, or do you not," thundered Macnaghten, "know the whereabouts of the child Saboor, the infant hostage of Maharajah Ranjit Singh? Once again, do you know the whereabouts of the child Saboor do you know the whereabouts of the child Saboor?"

How could this be happening? Paralyzed, Dittoo squatted, the rice unnoticed in his hands. Leaning forward from another row, Guggan looked at him, his eyes wide. When Dittoo tried to shrug, Guggan turned hastily away. Dittoo's eyes fiooded. Even his friends must forsake him now. If they guessed at the real ident.i.ty of his foundling, they, too, would suffer. How could he have been so reckless? How could he have trusted Memsahib?

Macnaghten, Major Byrne at his heels, stepped into the first row. He moved deliberately, listening to each man's answer, watching him chew, then spit. Soldiers held torches aloft, illuminating each servant as he was questioned.

They arrived at Dittoo's row and approached at a measured pace, the courtiers behind them, a soldier on either side, ready to seize the liar, the criminal, Dittoo himself. Dittoo tried to lick his lips, but his tongue had become as parched as old leather.

What was the question? Did he, Dittoo, know the whereabouts of the baby Saboor? Of course he knew Baba's whereabouts, for was the child not at this very moment on the road between this camp and Lah.o.r.e City in the company of Mariana Memsahib?

If he were to answer yes, he would not be punished for lying, but he would certainly be punished for the part he had played in hiding the baba inside the red compound. And what of the oath he had made to himself? What would his loyalty, even his soul, be worth if he were to betray Memsahib and Saboor Baba? Perhaps it did not matter. Was Memsahib not, after all, a sorceress, capable of escaping any trap, of disappearing, if need be, into the air? Yes, indeed, and it was he, Dittoo, an ordinary man, who had been left to face this terrible decision. Snuffiing, he wiped his eyes, then licked his fingers. All the water he needed inside his mouth was streaming down his cheeks.

Beside him the boy replied in the negative, chewed his rice, then, making a face, spat a slimy white blob into the dust.

It was Dittoo's turn.

He took a shallow breath. Yes, he knew the answer, but then again, perhaps he did not, for exactly where Memsahib and Saboor Baba were on the road to Lah.o.r.e, he could not say. In fact, as he himself had never taken the road from Amritsar to Lah.o.r.e, he did not have the smallest idea where they were.

"Well?" asked Macnaghten.

"Well?" echoed Major Byrne.

A perfumed breeze seemed to pa.s.s by, carrying away Dittoo's terror, drying his tears and the sweat on his face, allowing him to breathe deeply again as saliva rushed into his mouth and lay in a sweet pool under his tongue.

"No, Sahib," he replied firmly, "I do not know the whereabouts of the child Saboor."

The rice he chewed and spat out in a great glorious wet gob was filled with dust and other things, perhaps the bodies of dead insects, but never in all his life had Dittoo tasted anything as delicious as that little handful of rice.

Thepalanquin'slurching progress along the dark road to Lah.o.r.e seemed to go on forever. Inside, fighting nausea and unable to shut out the groans, cries, and occasional curses which punctuated each sway and jolt of the box, Mariana held Saboor against her and clung to what handholds she could find, grateful that the child, at least, managed to sleep through their ordeal.

Surely this nightmare journey would soon end. She could not guess how far her false bearers had carried her, but they must by now have covered most of the three miles to their meeting point with Saboor's family palanquin. Reaching cautiously past Saboor, she slid open a side panel.

From inside, it had seemed that they were racing along the road. Now she saw with distress that they were scarcely moving forward. The bearers seemed to be putting all their energy into moving the box sideways and bouncing it up and down.

It would do no good to scold them-they seemed miserable themselves-but she was exhausted and her head throbbed so much that she felt it would burst, and she was about to lose Saboor forever. She slid the door shut and, without caring whether the men outside heard or not, she wept with great, noisy, gulping sobs.

AT last, with a great chorus of groans, the men dropped her palanquin to the dust. Looking dizzily out, Mariana saw another palanquin standing beside the road. A group of efficient-looking men in real bearers' clothing waited beside it.

As she started toward the second palki she caught Yar Mohammad's eye and acknowledged his apologetic salute with a wave of her hand.

She pushed Saboor into the new palanquin, and crawled in after him. Within minutes, soothed by the rocking of Shaikh Waliullah's commodious old palki, she had fallen into exhausted sleep.

Sleeping, she missed hearing the lies the Shaikh's sirdar bearer told the guards at the Delhi Gate and the sound of the iron-studded door as it creaked reluctantly open, admitting the palanquin and its twelveman team into the curving lanes of the walled city. She missed the groan of the Shaikh's own haveli doors as they swung wide to allow the palki inside, and the whispers of waiting servants as the palki was carried past two courtyards, past windows where lamplight gleamed and figures moved quietly behind latticed shutters.

She woke only when the palanquin stopped moving. Women's voices, hushed and excited, surrounded her as she pushed open a panel and looked out.

The palki had been set down beside a shrouded doorway. Behind curtains, lamplight moved and fiickered. A slim hand reached for hers and helped her to stand.

The instant Mariana was on her feet, a dozen children darted past her skirts and fiocked excitedly about the palanquin where Saboor still slept, thrusting their heads inside, all talking at once.

"Shireen-Jan is the eldest. She should carry him."

"But I am his reeeeeal cousin. I should do it."

"Be quiet, you'll wake him!"

What were children doing up at such an hour? There was no time to wonder, for she was being shown up a narrow fiight of stone steps by two female servants with lamps. The girl who had helped her up now led her by the hand, while other women crowded the stairway, pointing and whispering as she climbed away from the excited little voices at the foot of the stairs.

The stair opened into a pa.s.sageway. To the right, a heap of shoes lay beside a curtained doorway. The girl scuffed off a pair of embroidered slippers and glanced meaningfully at Mariana's feet. Remembering that Munshi Sahib never wore shoes indoors, Mariana removed her boots and found herself swept through the doorway and into a room crowded with women.

Oil lamps set into niches in the walls cast a golden light over the faces of a score of women who sat like nesting birds on a whitesheeted fioor. Long shirts and fine, soft-looking shawls shrouded their bodies and hair. Toes peeped from beneath the hems of their loose trousers. Twenty pairs of eyes fastened on Mariana's gown with its tightly fitted bodice, billowing sleeves, and its six yards of wide, gathered skirts, so different from their own loose, vertical clothing.

The only native women Mariana had seen before had been dancing girls or peasants, their faces either painted and worldly or seamed with hardship. These were different. Shaikh Waliullah's family women were instantly recognizable as ladies of quality. While most had large features, a few of the faces turned to Mariana with open-eyed curiosity were delicate and fair.

Mariana's young woman guide let go of her hand and hastened away to sit among a group of girls her own age. All stared at Mariana before leaning together, their foreheads almost touching, to whisper among themselves.

Loosened veiling on some of the ladies' heads revealed hair parted smoothly in the center, hanging in a single plait.

Why were they all awake at such a late hour? A hand to her own hair, Mariana realized she had lost a great many pins. Curls swept across her face and brushed the back of her neck. Twenty pairs of brown eyes watched her over bent knees, past shoulders. What must she look like?

Across the room, a stout woman in white signaled to Mariana. "Peace," she said, in a baritone voice. She waved a hand, indicating the roomful of ladies. "We have been waiting for you. I am Safiya Sultana, the sister of Shaikh Waliullah." She pointed to an empty place on the fioor beside her.

Mariana blushed as the woman studied her. Safiya Sultana's face could have belonged to a man. "So you are Mariam," the woman said.

Mariam?

"Hai, the poor thing," said a sympathetic voice, "traveling alone in the night."

Mariana arranged herself as best she could at Safiya's side, crossing her legs, feeling the bite of her stays against her ribs.

Safiya Sultana glanced toward the door at the sound of the children racing upstairs. "And you have brought my brother's grandchild, Saboor?"

There was no time for Mariana to reply, for at that moment the door curtain was jerked aside and a fat girl entered triumphantly, puffing with exertion, Saboor in her arms. His creased face lay on a plump shoulder, his legs dangled below her knees. He was still sleeping. The other children crowded about, touching him, arguing in whispers, while the roomful of ladies sighed and swayed in their places on the fioor.

"Ah, my Saboor has come, he has come!" Burying her face in her shawl, one of the women began to weep loudly.

Her Saboor? Mariana stared at the woman. Saboor? Mariana stared at the woman.

"That is his grandmother," Safiya Sultana rumbled, nodding with approval. "She has waited a long time for his return."

The ladies' silent attention turned back to Mariana, who gazed at them avidly in return, memorizing each face, and each fold of their clothing. Few European women had visited a house like this, she knew. There was so much to see besides the ladies: the beamed ceiling of the room, the carpeted fioor covered in white cotton sheeting.

What did they keep in that painted cupboard in the corner?

By the window, someone gasped aloud. A birdlike woman pointed through filigreed shutters toward the courtyard below. "Someone has come, someone has come!"

Had they been followed from the English camp? Mariana barely breathed while the women around her fiuttered.

Safiya Sultana raised a hand for calm. "We'll see what it is," she declared, pushing herself to her feet. "We'll see."

Too impatient to wait, Mariana followed her to the window. Other women crowded her, hemming her in, bracing their hands on her shoulders, trying to see what was happening in the courtyard.

At first Mariana shrank from the crowding bodies; but then, unable to avoid them, she relaxed experimentally. An old, gap-toothed lady in the crowd smiled and patted her arm.

A crowd had gathered in the courtyard below. Servants stood about, the fiames from their torches illuminating the haveli's frescoed walls. At a shouted command, someone opened a low gate between the courtyards and armed men entered on foot, followed by a horse carrying two riders.

As soon as the horse was inside the little gate, the guards reached up and lowered one of the riders from the saddle. As they stretched him out in the dust, Mariana saw salmon-colored satin gleam in the torchlight. Elsewhere in the courtyard, men rushed to and fro. A man carrying a string bed darted out of a doorway and set the bed down opposite Mariana's window. In the shadow of a portico beside the string bed, an unoccupied platform waited.

From what Mariana could see, the haveli was not a single house but a three-storied building surrounding both this small busy courtyard and another, perhaps larger one, beyond the low gate. Several doors opened onto the small courtyard. Was all this part of the Shaikh's house? Were they really inside the walled city? She craned to see upward. Men had gathered on a roof opposite her window. They bent over the parapet, watching the scene in the courtyard from above.

"Ah," said Safiya Sultana, patting Mariana's arm, "it is only a case of snakebite. It has nothing to do with Saboor or with you, my dear." With a satisfied sound, she started away from the window.