A Singular Hostage Part 29

He did not look like the Shaikh at all.

His eyes remained closed. Barely breathing, Mariana crept to the other bed. She lay down silently, arranged the quilt over herself, then leaned over to turn out the lamp.

The bed beside her shifted and groaned. She froze, her arm still extended, praying he was only turning in his sleep.

He was not asleep. His eyes met hers as he pushed himself up and sat on the edge of his bed.

Without speaking, he got to his feet. As he padded toward her, she twisted away from him and rolled her carefully prepared and perfumed body into a ball on the far side of the bed, her eyes screwed shut, her fist in her mouth. Her ragged breathing seemed to fill the room.

There was no sound from outside.

His weight came down beside her. "Show me your face," he said.

When she did not move, he took her by her shoulder and turned her to him.

She could only look up, her body clenched against invasion, too terrified even to blink.

He studied her, his fingers still on her shoulder, his eyelids drooping just as Saboor's did when he was sleepy. "They were correct," he said. "You do not look foreign."

His eyes were ringed with dark smudges as they had been when she had first seen him. Now, his expression altered. His breathing gathered speed. His eyes on her mouth, he leaned over her, then pulled back when she fiinched away, her eyes wide.

"So," he told her softly, "you are afraid of me."

He took his hand from her shoulder and turned away. "There is no need for fear," he said in a m.u.f.fied voice, his back to her. "You rescued my son. I am in your debt."

He stood. "Sleep, Bibi," he said softly, as he returned to his own bed. "Go to sleep."

Mariana swam to consciousness through a thick mist. As the events of the previous night returned, she lay still, holding her breath, and listened. Was he still there, in the other bed?

Silence.

She opened her eyes and put a hand to her neck. Forgotten when she took off her other jewelry, her choker now hung loose, its scratchy cord wrapped about her throat, its pearl-and-emerald beads entangled in her hair.

Daylight filtered into the room through closed shutters. On the trunk in the corner, her fringed veil and the rest of her jewels lay where she had dropped them. Her tissue dress had fallen from the trunk and lay on the fioor, its pearl embroidery gleaming in the striped light from the window.

She turned her head cautiously. The bed next to hers stood unoccupied, its sheets wrinkled, its quilt thrown aside.

She drew up her knees, enjoying the cool air on her face, and the warmth beneath her covers. Last night, when Ha.s.san had left her to sleep, she had been too exhausted to feel the relief that now bathed her from head to foot. What luck! She was safe and unharmed. Mr. Macnaghten was coming today. She was nearly free.

Someone pushed the door curtain aside. A small girl stepped shyly into the room, a neatly folded set of clothes in her hands.

Rose petals, crushed to a deep purple, marked the fioor tiles, Mariana's pillow, the sheets of both beds. The girl looked at them, and then at Mariana, a question in her eyes.

Unable to think of anything to say, Mariana smiled.

"Come, Bhabi Bhabi," the child piped, beaming in return. "I will show you where to bathe." She held out the russet-colored package and a soft-looking shawl of the same color. "You will wear these to meet the ladies. They are waiting for you in the big room." Her face sobered. "Of course, you must understand that our house is still in mourning for poor Mumtaz Bha-" She pressed her lips together. "I should not be speaking to you, a bride, of these things," she added.

Mariana began to untangle her choker. "I would rather wear my own clothes. Please ask someone to bring my own things from the Citadel. They are my best clothes, you see."

Yes, her chemise, her stays, her stockings, her blue-and-white silk gown. Wearing them again, she would feel entirely herself. She must look like an Englishwoman again when she met Mr. Macnaghten.

The child was a birdlike creature whose thick, glossy braid fell below her waist. "Bhabi, your own things have not come from the Citadel."

Mariana waved a hand. What did it matter? Her clothes were the least of her worries. In the past three days she had lost more than a borrowed gown and her good set of stays.

"Safiya Bhaji had these clothes made for you," volunteered the child. "It will make her happy to see you wearing them." She held out a silk drawstring pouch. "And see, she has sent you a beautiful gold necklace."

Safiya Sultana. Mariana turned the intricate necklace over in her hands. Did the Shaikh's sister know what had happened-or not happened-the previous night?

MARIANA shivered as she poured steaming water over her shoulders with a vessel that looked like a teapot. Last night, when he leaned over her, Ha.s.san's skin had smelled hot beneath the attar of sandalwood he wore, as if it had been scorched.

She put down the teapot. He would surely have felt it within his rights to do whatever he wished with her last night, but he had not. He had given her one considering glance, and then left her alone. She would always remember that kindness, and the sweet, burnt scent of his skin.

A short while later, she balanced nervously in the doorway of the big room, removing her new embroidered slippers with their upwardcurling toes. She blushed as she added them to a pile beside the door.

How odd to feel self-conscious over something that had not not happened. happened.

Safiya Sultana beckoned, pointing to an unoccupied place beside her on the cloth-covered fioor.

The women whispered as Mariana made her way through them and crouched down beside the Shaikh's sister. A familiar-looking gaptoothed aunt patted her knee. On Safiya Sultana's other side, a very old lady smiled into the air.

Mariana's new clothes felt alien and voluptuous. Without stays and petticoats, her body felt unfettered and exposed. She reached up to touch the unfamiliar smoothness of her hair, now hanging down her back in a silken plait, so unlike her own fiyaway hair that it could have belonged to another girl entirely. Her oiled and hairless skin had a smooth, indecent texture.

There were children in the room. She looked for Saboor, and saw him near a doorway with a group of other children, too far away to notice her. His bubbling laughter reached her as a girl of six or seven, eyes alight, dragged him across the fioor, her hands under his arms.

"An-nah!" He had seen her. He bounced, shouting in the little girl's arms, reaching out for Mariana. "An-nah!"

The room stilled.

How sweet it felt to hold Saboor again! She kissed the top of his head and breathed his baby scent greedily as he reached up to play with the gold b.u.t.tons on her long silk shirt.

A collective sigh gusted about her.

Safiya Sultana sniffed. Was she weeping? Still rocking Saboor, Mariana glanced up to see Safiya wipe her eyes with her white cotton veil.

Her sigh filled the room. "These are painful times," the Shaikh's sister p.r.o.nounced in her baritone voice. "Painful times. We all remember that when our dear Mumtaz Bano died, her child was left alone among strangers at the Citadel, his life in danger."

She looked at Mariana. "We also remember that, after this brave young foreigner saved Saboor, my brother, seeing her courage and her love for our child, determined it is the will of Allah that she remain beside Saboor, to protect him from harm, and to help us raise him to his manhood." She paused, clearing her throat. "It is for this reason that we have joined her in marriage to Ha.s.san."

We have joined her in marriage. have joined her in marriage.

The Shaikh's proposal had been genuine! Mariana loosened her hands on Saboor's body and turned away to face the wall as nausea rose from her belly to her throat. Moran Bibi had been right. Miss Emily had been right. The proposal had had been genuine, and she had accepted it in front of a hundred people, including Harry Fitzgerald, her blue-coated Fitzgerald who had kissed her and made her happy. been genuine, and she had accepted it in front of a hundred people, including Harry Fitzgerald, her blue-coated Fitzgerald who had kissed her and made her happy.

She had done all of this to herself.

A worried voice spoke beside her. "Is the bride ill?"

The bride. Fighting back tears, Mariana watched Saboor scramble away. How would she ever face Mr. Macnaghten and the British camp? How would she ever convince them that she had honestly believed her marriage was a sham? And what of her family? What of poor Mama and Papa who still waited at home for news of her engagement to an Englishman? ...

"Allah alone," Safiya Sultana was saying, "knows the pain and confusion it has caused us to have our dear Mumtaz Bano's death followed so quickly by Ha.s.san's marriage to this foreigner. We all suffer for Mumtaz's mother."

A little distance away, a small woman in white clothes rocked silently.

Mariana swallowed hard. These These people did not want her. How could they? Of all of them, the only one who really wanted her was Saboor. people did not want her. How could they? Of all of them, the only one who really wanted her was Saboor.

He was now in the arms of his fat cousin, who held him away from a dozen small, reaching arms. His eyes on Mariana, Saboor wriggled to get down, then hurried over to her and sat, with a sweet little thump, on her lap.

She wrapped her arms gratefully around his body and pressed her cheek against his head. If only she could take him away from here, they would be so happy alone together....

Safiya Sultana sighed again. "But we must remember how greatly Ha.s.san's new wife loves our Saboor. Her affection for him is plain to see. We have noticed her face soften as he approaches her; we have seen it fill with light. It gives us comfort to see her love for our motherless child. We all know of women who feign love for a widower's children in order to gain entry into his family. We pity the motherless child who must endure the hatred of his father's second wife."

Mariana sniffed, wishing she had a handkerchief. She had certainly never wanted to "gain entry" into this native family.

"Perhaps," said one lady softly, nodding at the woman who sat trembling with age at Safiya Sultana's stout side, "this foreigner will love Saboor as Bhaji Tehmina loved Safiya and Waliullah when they were orphaned as babies. Such love is rare indeed."

Lured by beckoning children, Saboor slipped away again. Mariana wrapped her arms about her legs and stared through the window at a cloudy sky, imagining herself back at the British camp. She pictured the camp preparing for the return journey to Calcutta, its bustling activity so different from the stillness of this room in the Shaikh's house.

Mr. Macnaghten would arrive soon to call upon the Shaikh. There was no need to fear that she would miss him-he would be clearly visible, sitting beside the Shaikh's platform in the courtyard, and the ladies would rush to the windows to see the foreign gentleman. She would go down to meet him, and once there, would insist that he take her back to the British camp. By the evening, disgraced or not, she would be in her own tent, standing over her trunks before she dressed for dinner, telling Dittoo which of her gowns to pack.

The ladies had fallen into contemplative silence. Outside, rain had begun to fall, splashing onto the windowsills, drumming on the flat, tiled roof over their heads.

The honor guard would have left already to join the march to Kabul. Fitzgerald must hate her now.

Mariana smoothed her silk shirt over one knee. What if something happened to Mr. Macnaghten and he never came? She shivered. What if he did come, but she was somehow prevented from leaving with him? Would the British then simply leave her behind? No, surely not. They would not abandon her here forever, never again to eat her own food, or hear the familiar cadence of her own language.

But they had left her at the Citadel and gone away.

If only she knew her future!

But someone here in the haveli knew her future. How could she have forgotten? Whatever her feelings about his marriage proposal, Mariana was convinced the old Shaikh possessed profound knowledge. When his eyes had met hers through the reed screen last evening, they had seemed to hold some promise she did not understand.

She leaned toward Safiya Sultana. "May I please," she said as sweetly as she could, "offer my salaams to Shaikh Waliullah?"

"What?" Safiya Sultana looked startled. "Why, daughter, you cannot see him today. He is not at home until the afternoon, and then he will have visitors."

"Nani, Nani!" All the ladies looked up as a tall boy with the callow beginnings of a mustache rushed into the room and stood, breathing hard in the doorway, his eyes drifting to Mariana and Saboor.

"Armed men have come from the Citadel!" he reported anxiously, jumbling his words. "They are waiting in the courtyard. They say they have come to take Saboor and the European lady away with them. You are to have their clothes packed. They say Saboor and the lady are to live at the Citadel forever, as guests of the Maharajah!"

Mariana felt the blood leave her face.

A question hung in the air. The boy answered it before it could be asked. "There are no men in the house, save Uncle Bilal, Allahyar, and me."

A woman shook her head. "Only Safiya's grandchild, a servant, and Bilal, the impractical one, the dreamer, the teller of tales. This is not good, not good at all."

The children playing on the fioor gaped at the tall boy, their chattering abruptly stilled. The little girl who had been reciting nonsense rhymes to Saboor stopped speaking and looked up.

A woman spoke from the corner of the room. "It is wrong," she protested loudly, "for them to take the child away. How can he go to the Citadel? He is not the Maharajah's slave!"

Safiya Sultana turned a silencing glare upon the woman. "Yahya, my darling," she told the boy over the patter of the rain, "go downstairs. Tell the Maharajah's men that it will take a little time to make Saboor and the lady ready. Tell them also that Saboor has a fever. Tell them we have had a case of smallpox among the stable hands."

The boy hesitated. "But Nani-"

Anxious voices whispered around Mariana. "Why can we not hide them?" "There are so many hiding places in this house." "My children know them all. Surely we can-"

Safiya Sultana nodded sharply. "Go, Yahya."

All eyes were upon the boy. He fiushed, then turned stiffiy away. Without looking back, he crossed the rain-spattered veranda and clattered down the stairs.

Safiya Sultana surveyed the room calmly, her eyes resting on the only woman in the room who was dressed like a servant. "Bina," she ordered, her expression daring anyone to speak, "bring us fruit."

After the old maidservant had pushed her feet into her shoes and shuffied away, Safiya Sultana cleared her throat. "Spies," she said harshly. "There are spies in this house." She raised a hand, subduing the shocked cries that followed.

Mariana looked from face to face. Spies Spies?

"We do not know how many of our servants have been turned against us," Safiya went on, "but we must not blame them too much. They may have been tempted with gold, or they may fear for themselves or their families. But we do know that, among our staff, there will always be some who can be trusted, even with our lives.

"Now," she said, "we have only a few precious moments to save Saboor. Under no circ.u.mstances can we allow him to fall again into the hands of the court. The Maharajah, as we have all heard, may die at any moment. Should he die, Saboor's life will be worth less than a cowrie sh.e.l.l."

Blood thudded in Mariana's temples. She looked for Saboor, and saw him in the arms of a spindly girl who watched Safiya Sultana, her mouth open.

Safiya searched the faces around her. "When Mumtaz Bano died," she continued, "we ourselves could not help Saboor. We could only wait here, praying with all our strength for his safe return. We did not know from which quarter help might come. Now, when he is once more in terrible danger, our circ.u.mstances are different. This time, with help from Allah Most Gracious, we ourselves will save him."

A dubious sigh blew through the room.

"This time we have among us," Safiya went on, drawing her audience with her, "our bride, the young Angrezi Angrezi woman who, disregarding the peril to herself, took Saboor from his servant's arms at the Golden Temple, and with her own hands brought him safely home to us." woman who, disregarding the peril to herself, took Saboor from his servant's arms at the Golden Temple, and with her own hands brought him safely home to us."

Heads swung in agreement. A shy-looking girl nearby met Mariana's eyes for the first time.

Safiya's pudgy finger poked the air. "She alone among all of us is able to leave this house in the necessary manner. Our bride has experience of the world outside, while we have only knowledge. She will do the needful-will you not, daughter?"

This last was not really a question; it was a deep-voiced command. Still, Safiya had left the way open for Mariana to refuse. Her thoughts galloped. Leave the house in the necessary manner Leave the house in the necessary manner. What did Safiya mean? Having never seen the street outside, she could not know how many men pa.s.sed hourly before the haveli's great carved doors. If a pa.s.serby had seen the Maharajah's men enter, an interested crowd, three or four deep, must already have collected there.

Mariana wiped damp palms on her knees. She and Saboor would never leave the haveli unnoticed.

What would happen to them if they were caught? She did not need to ask. She knew enough of the Jasmine Tower. No one would protect Saboor from the wrath of the jealous queens. No one would save her from the wrath of the Maharajah.

Rain entered a corner of a nearby window and trickled down the wall. Safiya Sultana waited, her eyes on Mariana's face.

Saboor watched her from across the room with the same round, expectant gaze that had melted her heart outside the Golden Temple. Had it only been eleven days before? That gaze had made her feel capable of anything.

"Yes," she replied, for the second time since yesterday. "I will." She breathed in. "I will do whatever you need."