King Errant Part 25

The tiny little figure, slim and graceful, which now stood beside the fat one, apparently made a court salutation beneath her thick veil, and a bird-like voice said, with a laugh in every tone, "My cousin Babar, never having seen my smallness, Mother, cannot gauge it."

The young King returned the salute in his best manner. "If the gracious lady would allow me to judge," he began, when his Yenkam cut short his hardihood.

"Fie! no nonsense, children! Ma'asuma! Follow me. Thou must be presented at once to thy eldest aunt. I shall see thee, scapegrace!

doubtless, later on."

So, with a nod to Babar, bundled propriety moved off down the corridor.

Was it chance?--Was it really a trip over a tiresome veil...?

Anyhow Habee-ba-Begum had rounded a corner, and those two young things stood staring at each other as if they had never seen anything in the wide world before.

It was a real case of love at first sight.

As for him, he did not even realise what she was like. He only knew that she was beautiful exceedingly. And she knew he was a Prince indeed.

The mirth in their eyes died down. Then hers grew startled, his caught fire. So they stood; till suddenly hers flamed back into his, and with a low cry she huddled her draperies round her, turned, and fled after her mother.

Babar stood still as a stone. What had happened to him? He felt confused, lost, yet utterly, entirely, absurdly happy.

After a time he walked soberly downstairs feeling vaguely that the world was a new world, and that he must go and find himself.

Once in the street he went on walking blindly, on and on, till he found himself in desert places outside the town. Then, aimlessly, he turned back and walked as he had come, wandering through the city as though in search of mansions and gardens.

Yet all the while he felt as if he could neither sit nor go, neither stand nor walk.

He was literally obsessed by a pa.s.sion, pure in its very intensity; a pa.s.sion which at one and the same time made him long to be with its object, yet covered him with shame and confusion at the mere thought of her beauty.

He returned after long hours to Ali-Shir's palace, worn out in body, but yet more restless in mind. He had decided that this must be love--love at long last. In that case he must write verses, and began to catalogue the beauty of the face he had seen.

He remembered, now, that they were unusual; for little Cousin Ma'asuma had the rare distinction of fairish hair and blue eyes. A little flowerful face, merry, sparkling; rebellious curling hair flecked with red gold--a tint of rose and creamy _champak_--

All this he remembered dreamily as he laboured to fit together the fine mosaic of a Persian love ode.

"Impa.s.sioned loved one! fairest of the fair, The waving tendrils of thy bronze gold hair Spread round thy face each one a separate snare; Thine eyes are vi'lets, centred by black bees Who seek to drain their sweetness to the lees; Thine eyebrows arch--"

He got so far as this, then threw away his pen in disgust.

Anyone could write that sort of stuff. He had read pages of it in books: had sung such rhymes by the score. But that sort of thing had nothing to do with his great love for Ma'asuma and hers for him.

For she had loved him, of course. The reverse was incredible, absurd.

He turned round and buried his face in the downy cushions that had, as usual, been spread for him in his favourite corner of the colonnade.

He had had no dinner. He did not want any. He had refused his cousin's invitations with some excuse. He forgot what--it did not matter.

Nothing in the wide world mattered but his love for Ma'asuma and hers for him.

The moon was still bright. Not quite so bright as it had been that night, five days ago, when he had promised to marry someone else.

Babar sat up, leant his head on his hand and began to consider how matters stood. Oriental in mind, marriage was to him by no means synonymous with love. He could legitimately have four wives at a time.

If he liked. But honestly he felt he would rather not. Still--as nothing possibly could prevent his making Ma'asuma his wife--if the other nameless lady wanted to be his wife also, he would acquiesce. He would not go back from his promise. Only--what a pity he had called her his "Moon"! That name belonged to his love by right.

So, as he sat dreaming, a voice said with the nasal tw.a.n.g of the common folk--

"A letter for the Presence."

The coincidence of time and place startled him. He looked up half-expectant of that tall, slim, female figure. But this was a lad in the uniform of the Palace servants. A message mayhap from one of the Begums. He took it carelessly from an awkward brown hand and opened its seal.

A scent of fresh violets came to him as he did so.

And the letter?

It was written in the finest Babari hand--the hand he had invented!--with a delicacy, an accuracy at which even the inventor of it marvelled, and it contained but a quatrain; but such a quatrain!

Babar's scholastic appreciation of the form forced its way through his emotional delight at the words. Ali-Shir himself could not have written anything neater, more absolutely correct in prosody. And in such difficult metre too, with its enlay of rhymes.

"My heart has part in this thy smart.

Dear heart! have part in this my smart!

Our sighs do rise twin to the skies; Thy heart, my heart, are not apart."

And it was signed:

"Thy true friend Ma'asuma."

Yea! That was worth writing! That told the tale. Babar sprang to his feet. The whole world seemed filled with radiance. He and Ma'asuma were the only people in it.

But what should he answer? What should he write? Nothing but the truth--G.o.d's truth.

"I love thee. I love thee, Ma'asuma. I love thee."

In his haste, his br.i.m.m.i.n.g emotion, the words fell from his lips, as seizing pen and paper he set them down and signed them.

"Is that the answer?" asked the waiting lad as Babar held out the missive impatiently. "Am I to take that to my mistress?" A faint hesitancy over the latter words made the young man look at the boy--a dull, rather sullen face, but not ill-looking.

"Yes!" he replied joyously. "Take it to thy mistress. It is my answer, now and always!"

The lad _salaamed_ and went, leaving Babar in a heaven of perfect content.

Two days later, on Friday evening, however, he was waiting to fulfil his promise in Ali-Shir's tomb. Absolutely Oriental as his outlook was, so far as marriage was concerned, he yet wondered, vaguely, if he were fool or knave in acting as he did. For the path of true love, never very rough when Kings are concerned, had been made very smooth, indeed, for the two young people. Babar had sent his Akam to see his Yenkam and the whole affair had been settled in five minutes with enthusiasm. Even the preliminaries had been arranged. It being nigh December, Babar should return to Kabul and make preparations there, while Yenkam would complete hers at Herat, and with the first blink of returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate place. Meanwhile the young people, after Chagatai fashion, had been allowed to see each other and were in the seventh heaven of delight.

The betrothals were to be made public in a few days; though already Babar's conduct was suspicious. For he refrained from his cousin's convivial parties and mooned about in the gardens composing "Sonnets of the Heart," as he was pleased to call them, in his native Turkhi which gave him much more freedom than the severely technical Persian odes.

These he sent as written to his dearest dear, and they invariably brought back the most beautiful replies, more correct, if not quite as genuine in feeling, as his own effusions. He felt he was, indeed, in luck to find so peerless a maid, perfect in beauty and in intelligence. One of these compositions--the last--lay in his waist-wallet, as he waited in Ali-Shir's tomb. The moon had not yet risen, and all was dark. Yet he got up once or twice from the parapet rail on which he sat, and paced aimlessly up and down.

In truth he was restless; vaguely dissatisfied with himself. He was going to explain, of course--oh, yes! he would explain; but it might have been better to write. Yet how could he, knowing neither her name nor where she lived? He could have found out of course; but that might have been to put his paternal aunts on the scent. They were dear creatures, but dreadful scandalmongers. Besides he had so much to say.