A Singular Hostage Part 8

"This," her teacher interrupted solemnly, "is not a simple poem. It does not concern itself with fires and burning. It concerns itself with the pain of separation. Its subject is the striving of the soul to reach G.o.d."

"Oh," she murmured uncomfortably.

"Yes," the munshi continued, "this poem describes the pain of longing. It says that the soul is a candle burning in the darkness, longing for the morning. But when the sun appears, the candle's light diminishes to nothing. Like a candle in sunlight, the soul becomes nothing in the presence of G.o.d. That is why the candle and the soul both fear that which they long for most.

"And that," he said, his old eyes on Mariana's face, "is what you are to learn from translating this poem."

Her munshi had a curious ability to focus Mariana's attention.

Against her will, his words reached her and dominated her thoughts, temporarily driving away even Fitzgerald's kiss.

She nodded. "The candle and the soul," she repeated, "both fear what they long for. That is sad but lovely, Munshi Sahib. But," she asked, needing suddenly to know, "to what religion do you belong, Munshi Sahib? Are you Hindu?"

"No, Bibi, I am not Hindu, although there are many n.o.ble and G.o.d-fearing Hindus in India. In fact, there are n.o.ble men of all religions in India. But I, myself, am Muslim." Her teacher smiled. "That much you may know of me."

When he had gone, Mariana read her own poem once more, then crossed out its original t.i.tle, Love's Candle Love's Candle, and replaced it with To H.F To H.F. After folding it carefully, she slipped it beneath the papers at the very bottom of her writing box.

She shivered. So much had happened today, but for all the beauty of Munshi's poem, for all the excitement of Fitzgerald's kiss, she could not forget the groom's eerie message. A groom, a madman, even Fitzgerald, had now warned her to be careful. But of what?

Quiet had settled over the Lah.o.r.e Citadel. The usual jostling throng of n.o.bles, traders, soldiers, and servants was missing from the outer courts, having gone to wait upon the Maharajah at his distant camp, leaving the fountains to play to an audience of sweepers who stood knee-deep in the water, their garments tied high, scrubbing slime from the waterways.

Only the Jasmine Tower, home to the Maharajah's thirty-seven queens, was as busy as usual. Throughout the afternoon, maidservants had covered and re-covered the distance from the kitchens to the tower, carrying the ladies' meal-twenty-one dishes of goat, fish from the Ravi River, quail, venison, duck, wild mushrooms, rice dishes cooked with saffron and scattered with almonds, rounds of bread, mountains of fruit. The eunuch guards lazed, waiting in the marble court, while servant children, their clothes the color of dust, watched from the shade of nearby porticos.

In the long room with the delicately fretted window at its end, the meal had finished. The silk squares still lay in a line on the carpet, but the dishes and platters that had covered them were now gone. Still sitting, the queens waited, greasy fingers held away from their clothes, for slave women to come and pour a stream of rose water over each pair of royal hands.

For the remainder of the afternoon, the ladies would rest. They dried their fingers, then moved, still chatting, to the cool walls to arrange themselves on bolsters and let the servants cover them with satin quilts. The ladies stretched, curled, and sighed, their bangles clashing musically in the perfumed air.

While the queens dozed, those servants who had not stayed to fan away the fiies s.n.a.t.c.hed their own sleep on reed mats thrown onto the bare tiles of the women's servant quarters. There they would lie until the sonorous voice of the court caller summoned them back to serve their queens.

They, too, had eaten. The eunuch guards, as always, had pounced on the leftover delicacies from the tower, leaving only morsels for the senior-most women servants, and nothing for the others but rice and boiled lentil mush.

After swallowing the last of her dry bread, Reshma had found a mat in the larger of the two women's quarters. She liked to sleep in a corner but, being young and unimportant, she rarely had her wish. Today, she was crowded into the middle of the room with a pair of feet inches from her face.

The afternoon was bright and not too hot for rest, and the morning's work had been easy. Preoccupied, Saat Kaur had not pestered Reshma to bring her this, no, bring her that, no, take it all away.

But Reshma had worries more serious than cracked looking gla.s.ses and misplaced lengths of brocade. She reached out with cautious fingers and felt for the small body that shared her mat. Yes, Saboor was still there. When she dared a hasty glance, she saw that his eyes were open, fixed on the cobwebs that clung to the rafters overhead.

He, who used to chatter to his mother every waking moment, had not spoken since excited voices from the ladies' tower had called them from their hiding place in the garden. The running servants had been too breathless to explain, but Reshma had not needed to be told of the horror that had occurred. Surrounded by panting women, she had carried Saboor down the stairway to the crowded room where his mother lay dead, and from that moment he had lapsed into a heavy, unbroken silence. His slight body in its starched cotton pajamas had also changed, its bright energy replaced by leaden sadness. Her arms had ached as she dragged him away from the sight of his mother.

Dead, the lady had seemed asleep. Only the liquid that had trickled from the corner of her mouth to stain the scarlet bedcovering hinted that something was amiss, that she would not at any moment sit up and reach for her tortoisesh.e.l.l comb with the pearls set into its frame. The silver cup, fallen from her fingers, had rolled away across the fioor. It was the cup that had betrayed the source of the poison.

Reshma raised her head and looked cautiously about before she rolled onto her back and turned her own eyes to the rafters. There never seemed to be a moment when she was not watched.

Without the Maharajah's protection, Saboor had suffered since his mother's death. His starched clothes were now limp and unclean; his head, shaven to thicken his curls, was scabby. He ate only the mouthfuls that Reshma saved from her own poor meals and fed him hastily, looking over her shoulder, afraid to be seen. He had endured blows.

Worst, in all that time, no one had embraced him. Before his mother's death, Saboor had never been more than an arm's length from someone who loved him, and now he had only Reshma to carry him here and there, and she did not dare to embrace him with kindness, or show her grief at what she had done. How could she, when all eyes were upon her, when Saat Kaur, frightening murderess that she was, had now offered a pair of ruby earrings to the first servant to see him dead?

All this was because the Maharajah was old and ailing. Some of the queens wanted to burn alive on his pyre after he died, but not Saat Kaur. Terrified for her life, she had tried to gain importance through her sickly little princeling, but it had been Saboor, not her own baby, who had won the Maharajah's love. For this, she had ordered Reshma to poison Saboor.

Saboor sighed. Reshma heard him, but did not move. Children were said to forget quickly. He should have forgotten his mother by now, but she knew with certainty that he had not. She knew that, since his mother's death, there had been no moment when he did not long to hear her voice, to feel her arms about him. Reshma squeezed her eyes shut against the panic that threatened her every waking moment.

She wished he would look at her. It would lighten her burden to feel he understood her efforts to help him, but even when she fed him, he looked into the distance, as if dreaming of some far-off place. When he swallowed the water she brought, he stared away from her, refusing to meet her sorrowful gaze. Was he thinking of the sweet sherbets his mother used to stir into his drinks?

Only one thing seemed to interest him: the queens of the Jasmine Tower. Whenever he came near them, he looked eagerly from face to face, lapsing after each search into a dark, disappointed sadness.

Now he sat day after day, alone in the shadow of a portico, watching the ladies in the garden. Every day he grew weaker.

Reshma sat up on her mat. "Come," she said loudly, keeping her voice careless. "You must come to the latrine before you soil yourself or me."

She stood and dragged the little boy to her hip. Her hands shook. She should call the sweeperess to do this, but the woman's hands stank, and she, the poorest of all the servants, who craved the earrings most, was the cruelest of all.

Avoiding the gaze of the other servants, Reshma carried Saboor away to the noisome cupboard behind a rotting wall.

As they returned, a eunuch appeared in the doorway.

He was no ordinary eunuch, but a functionary of the court. His tall, pear-shaped form was clothed in silk, not cotton. His turban was elaborately wrapped, and he wore a gold bangle on one wrist.

"The Maharajah," he announced languidly, "has called for the child Saboor to be sent to him at once. His best clothes are to be sent as well, the ones he wears at state functions."

The women servants stared. The eunuch scowled.

"Do not gape like a herd of camels. Go and fetch the child. He is to leave without delay. The Maharajah's own palanquin is waiting by the door. You," he added, pointing to one of the senior servants, "are to tell the senior queen of these instructions. And tell her that since there is no accommodation for ladies at the Maharajah's camp, the child's mother is to remain here until Saboor returns."

No one had told the Maharajah of Mumtaz Bano's death. A murmur ran through the group of women. Again, their eyes fixed on Reshma as a hollow voice echoed from the courtyard outside. "Reshma, Reshma, go to Rani Saat Kaur."

G.o.d help her, it was the caller. The little queen was awake.

Reshma seized Saboor, pushed through the crowd, and ran for the ladies' tower.

She carried him up the stone stairs to the dusty storeroom at the top of the tower, high above the room where the queens lay sleeping. There, breathing hard, she put him down and began to throw aside boxes of all sizes as she searched for the little basket where his mother had stored his embroidered court clothes.

"We must hurry, Saboor," she panted. "We must get you away before Saat Kaur learns you are going to the Maharajah." Her hands trembled as she worked. She imagined the young Queen, her face twisted with rage, appearing at the head of the stairs, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the little boy, and hurling him from a tower window. "Poor Saboor. Your light, if you have it, has brought you no luck."

Too weak to stand for long, Saboor had sat down, silent and dirt smeared, at the top of the stairs, his hands open at his sides.

"How little our lives matter, Saboor," Reshma said as she turned over tin trunks and leather boxes. "We are nothing to these important people. The queens have not even told the Maharajah that your mother is dead, although their silence may be due to fear. But if we hurry, we can at least save you from Rani Saat Kaur. Now you will go to the Maharajah, who will give you the best food. He will protect you from harm. This will be better, you will see. This will be better."

As Reshma found his basket and s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, the caller's distant voice found its way up the stone stairs.

"Reshma, oh, Reshma."

Saboor on her hip, Reshma clutched the basket with one thin arm and took the stairs two at a time down to the doorway where the palanquin waited.

Before she carried him out into the sunlight, the child turned his head and looked solemnly into her face for the first time since his mother's death. Reshma's eyes filled with tears.

IN the marble courtyard by the ladies' garden, there stood a magni?cent carved palanquin with its curtains closed, the long carrying poles protruding front and back from a curved roof. Twelve bearers in the scarlet uniform of the Maharajah's service stood ready, while mounted guards waited on impatient horses, the blades of their ceremonial spears fiashing in the sunlight. The eunuch leaned against a second, plainer palanquin, picking his teeth with his thumbnail. A little distance away, another group of bearers sat, watching silently.

Reshma bundled Saboor into the grand palanquin and pushed the basket of clothes in after him.

"Wait, stupid woman, daughter of an owl." The eunuch was beside her. "What is this nonsense? What filthy brat are you pa.s.sing off for the child Saboor? You will be punished for this."

"Reshma!" The caller's hollow voice had grown impatient. "You must go at once to Rani Saat."

Reshma's eyes jerked from the eunuch to the doorway. She stepped back from the palanquin. "That is is the child Saboor," she said. the child Saboor," she said.

"What?" he asked, his dusky voice high and startled.

"Please. His mother died ten days ago. Please take him away quickly."

The eunuch's eyes widened. "The mother is dead?" Recovering himself, he fiapped his fingers at the palanquins. "Never mind. This is no time to be concerning ourselves with details. We must hurry." He glanced at Reshma. "Women," he said, and spat upon the marble paving.

With a ceremonial groan, four bearers hoisted the Maharajah's palanquin to their shoulders. The head bearer gave a command, and all twelve men began to trot. In seconds, the palanquin with its relief bearers and mounted guards rounded the corner of the courtyard leading to the elephant stairs. Following closely, the eunuch's palanquin with its own complement of bearers and guards pa.s.sed out of Reshma's sight.

"May G.o.d forgive me for my crime," she whispered, when they had gone, "and give my Saboor a safe journey."

Turning away, she ran as fast as she could to Rani Saat Kaur's room.

SAATKaur's child was coughing when Reshma entered, a weak, unpleasant sound.

"Where have you been?" Saat Kaur snapped irritably from her bed. "Where is the brat Saboor?"

"He has gone, Bibi." Reshma's throat was dry. When she closed her mouth, grit from the storeroom cracked between her teeth. "The Maharajah has sent for him. He has gone in the Maharajah's own palki palki to the royal camp." to the royal camp."

Saat Kaur sat up, her eyes stretched wide. "In the Maharajah's own palki own palki?"

When Saat Kaur rose from the bed, Reshma stood motionless, although her heart beat thunderously and she longed to run. But where was there to run in this enclosed tower? An instant later, her head snapped sideways as Saat's open hand struck her, leaving a fiery imprint on her cheek.

This time one slap would not suffice. Panting with fury, Saat Kaur reached for her shoe.

Reshma sought to save herself from the next blow, but she was not quick enough. It fell sickeningly on her ear. She covered her head with her arms and hunched her shoulders against the blows that followed.

"For this," Saat Kaur gasped, out of breath from the work of beating her servant, "my father brought me at the age of eleven to run beside the Maharajah's palanquin so he would notice me? For this, I enticed the Maharajah to take me as his youngest wife?"

Reshma waited, whimpering, for Saat Kaur's arms to tire. Her own arms ached and burned. The blows to her body echoed in the small room. When at last they weakened, she ran for the doorway, but fingers grasped her braid and yanked her back.

The red of Saat Kaur's embroidered clothes signified joy. The Rani's eyes were swollen. The little queen had been weeping even before she heard the news of Saboor's departure. Now she reached out, her fingers bent into claws, her voice a coa.r.s.e whisper, while on the bed, her son began to wail fretfully.

"People will tell the Maharajah what I have done! What will become of me now?"

"No, Saat Bibi," Reshma protested, "he will not know, he-"

"Liar!" A sour smell rose from Saat Kaur's pretty body. She shook Reshma by her battered shoulders. "He will see the brat's condition. The others will tell him of the poison. They have guessed. I can feel it. Why did you not wash the cup Why did you not wash the cup?"

She let go of Reshma and clutched her own face. "What will save me from the pyre now? They would not burn the mother of a beloved son, but the Maharajah cares only for the brat Saboor. It should be my son, my son my son in that palki! This is your doing. I will kill you for this. I will kill you-" in that palki! This is your doing. I will kill you for this. I will kill you-"

She fiung herself onto the bed beside her wailing son. Reshma crawled to a corner and huddled there, her arms wrapped around her body. Helpless tears ran close upon one another along her nose and dripped onto the front of her long, worn shirt.

From the bed, Saat Kaur sighed. "Come here, Reshma," she commanded, rolling onto her stomach. "I want you to press my back."

Her body still trembled with shock and fright, but Reshma did as she was ordered. She bent over the bed, and pressed her hands rhythmically up and down the length of the little queen's back until Saat Kaur fell asleep.

The two palanquins had made good time along the road to the Maharajah's camp. In three hours, they had covered a little over twelve miles. The Maharajah's personal head bearer called a halt, and the running men and their escort left the road.

They set the palanquins down and squatted beside them while the armed guards tethered their mounts. The relief team would come soon. With luck, they would do eleven more miles before dark.

The bearers stretched. Since they had started their journey, there had been no sound from within the royal palanquin.

"We might as well be carrying an empty palki," remarked one man. He yawned. "I wish we had such small pa.s.sengers every time."

"His condition is bad," remarked another. "I will be surprised if he lives to finish the journey."

"The child's condition is no concern of yours." The eunuch pushed his way past the men who now sat grouped around the silent box. "Your only concern should be getting him to his destination the day after tomorrow morning. Show him to me."

A bearer held a ta.s.seled curtain aside. The eunuch put his head inside and withdrew it instantly. "He stinks," he cried, his face puckering. "He cannot have been bathed for days."

The bearers and the guardsmen peered into the palanquin. Saboor's stained shirt had lifted as he slept, exposing protruding ribs. His body and clothes smelled. He looked at the men with lightless eyes.

"This evil is the work of women," said one of the guards, shaking his head. "Who but a jealous woman would harm a lovely child such as this?"

"HAH, hah, hah." Two days later, breathing in harsh rhythm in the way of bearers, the final team was only five miles from the Maharajah's camp. They would arrive with time to spare.

The palanquins skirted a dead jackal on the road, scattering a fiock of carrion crows. Neeloo, the head bearer, turned to the man trotting beside him. "The child is too quiet. I am worried about his condition. He came with no food or drink for his journey. The previous bearers have fed him from their own meals, but he has not eaten since this morning."

"Where is his food?" asked Neeloo's companion. "Why is he traveling in the royal palanquin with nothing to eat or drink?"

"Perhaps he is dying," suggested another man.

Neeloo did not reply.

Small m.u.f.fied sounds now came from behind the closed curtains. Neeloo signaled for a stop, then squatted beside the royal palanquin and pulled apart the curtains. Saboor lay whimpering on the satin sheets, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

"What is this? Why have we stopped?" The eunuch climbed from his palki.

A hand on his tiny pa.s.senger, Neeloo looked up. "The child needs food."

"Food? Now? Do not be stupid. Move on."

Neeloo looked from the eunuch's retreating back to the baby, then pointed to a village near the road. "Gupta," he told a young bearer, "fetch some dung from there. We must make a fire and cook for the child."

The other bearers stared. They were Kahars from Farrukhabad. Hereditary palanquin bearers did not fetch dung from villages, and they never cooked or ate food during the day.