King Errant Part 6

"Thou art welcome, nephew," said the old man whose long white beard contrasted with his gay-coloured, juvenile garments, that better matched the vivacity of the straight narrow eyes. The black astrachan cap perched on the reverend head, however, suited neither. "Sit ye down, boy, and watch my b.u.t.ting rams! Yonder is the Earth Trembler--peace be on my ancestor's grave ... and this is the Barbarian Ghengis--no offence meant to thine, young Chagatai! Three _tumans_ of gold, Muzaffar, he smashes the other's horn first b.u.t.t!"

The man he addressed, who had been, Heaven knows why, prime favourite for years, and showed his position by the most arrogant of airs, turned to his neighbour. "Not I; a certainty is no bet for me, though by our compact, Excellence, I would get my fair share of two-thirds back, if you won! But Berunduk Birlas here, having lost his best hawk after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose gold also."

Berunduk Birlas, the ablest man at the court, shook his head sadly.

"Of a truth, friend, my loss is great enough to content me. Had my sons died or broken their necks I could not grieve more than for my true falcon-jinny Brighteyes! No man could desire a more captivating beauty."

Sultan Hussain went off into a peal of laughter. "Li! where is Ali-Shir? Where is our poet? Brighteyes the captivating beauty who catches hairs, eh? There is a subject for word-play. Out with a _ghazel_ on the spot, friend Ali."

A thin, elegant-looking man with a pale, refined face, got up and made a perfect salute. From head to foot he was exquisite, the Beau Brummel of his age.

"Look," nudged one young courtier to another enviously, "he hath a new knot to his kerchief. How, in G.o.d's name, think you, is it tied?"

The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the changes on the word "_baz_" (falcon) which in Persian has at least a dozen different meanings.

A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he sat down again amid a chorus of applause.

Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic.

Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijan; but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.

"Well done! Well done!" he cried with the rest, and his uncle the Sultan nodded approval at the lad.

"Sit ye down, sit ye down!" he said; "and, cupbearer! a beaker of Shiraz wine for the King of Ferghana!"

For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at Kasim's face, Kasim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation of the rules both of Islam and Ghengis Khan; but after that one scared glance dignity came back.

"Your Highness!" he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of the b.u.t.ting rams, "like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only."

A smile went round the a.s.sembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still, despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!

That night when Kasim was snoring in the tent and the hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering peacefully, full up of kid _pullao_, Babar lay awake. He was composing an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.

CHAPTER IV

In this world's inn, where sweetest song abounds There is no prelude to one song that sounds; The guests have quaffed their wine and pa.s.sed away Their cups were empty and they would not stay.

No sage, no stripling, not a hand but thine Has held this goblet of poetic wine; Rise, then, and sing! Thy fear behind thee cast And, be it clear or dull, bring forth the wine thou hast.

_Jami_.

Babar could not tear himself away from his uncle's camp. He lingered on and on, watching the military operations with a more or less critical eye, but absorbing culture wholesale.

It was a revelation to him, meeting men to whom fighting was not the end and aim of life; and these Begs and n.o.bles of his uncle's court, though they were all supposed to be engaged in warfare with Khosrau Shah who was holding Hissar over the river, for his nominee the nincomp.o.o.p, had yet time for other things.

Ali-Shir, for instance, was wise beyond belief in all ways.

Incomparable man! So kind, so courteous. Babar profited by his guidance and encouragement in his efforts to civilise himself. Thus becoming--since there is not in history any man who was greater patron of talent than Ali-Shir--one of that great company of poets, painters, professors, and musicians who owe everything to him, who, pa.s.sing through this world single and unenc.u.mbered by wife or child, gave himself and his time up to the instruction of others.

So far, therefore, as the clash of intellect went, young Babar was satisfied. In regard to the clash of arms it was different. How such a mighty body of Mirzas, Begs, and chiefs, who, with their followers, if they were not double the number of the enemy over the water were _at least_ one-and-a-half times that number, could content themselves with practical inaction pa.s.sed his understanding.

When, too, they had such battering rams and catapults as positively made his mouth water! There was one of the latter which threw such a quant.i.ty of stones and with such accuracy that in half an hour--just before bedtime prayers--the enemy's fort was beautifully breached. But the night being deemed rather dark for a.s.sault and the troops preferring the safety and comfort of their trenches, no immediate attack was made; the result being that before morning the breach was repaired.

There was absolutely no real fine fighting, and at this rate his uncle, the Sultan, would doubtless spend the whole winter on the banks of the Amu river, and when spring came, patch up some sort of a peace from fear of the floods which always came down with the melting snow.

"That is his way," a.s.serted Kasim with a shrug of his shoulders. "He leads his army forth with pomp and state, and in himself is no mean general; but ever it comes to naught. It is so, always, when folk take to rhyming couplets, and putting spices to their food. Give me orders that hang together, and plain roast venison."

But all the while the honest man was stuffing his mouth full of lamb and pistachio nuts, and Babar smiled. Still he felt that, so far as the art of war went, he might go back to little Andijan without fear of leaving behind him any knowledge worth the learning. It was otherwise with the culture, and he flung himself with characteristic vitality into music lessons, and dancing lessons, elocution lessons and deportment lessons, until as he entered the court audience no one could have told that but a few weeks before, he had been as rough and as uncouth as old Kasim, who stoutly refused veneer.

"What I am, G.o.d made me," he would say, "and if folk like it not let them leave. I budge not."

To which uncompromising independence, one pair of hands--delicate, long-fingered, ivory hands--gave fluttering applause. They belonged to a young man who, almost at first sight, impressed young Babar more than anyone he had seen in all his life. He was a helpless cripple who yet took his part in life like any other man. Every evening his spangled litter would be brought into the big audience tent and set down just below the King's. For Mirza Gharib-Beg (who styled himself Poverty-prince in allusion to the meaning of his name--poor) was the King's son by a low-born woman who had been pa.s.sionately loved. So, despite the fact that he had been born misshapen, ugly, and that ill-health had always been his, Poverty-prince still had a hold on his father's affection. And no wonder; since, though his form was not prepossessing he had a fine genius, and though his const.i.tution was feeble, he had a powerful mind. There was nothing, it seemed to Babar, that he could not do. He could rhyme with Ali-Shir, play the guitar with Abdulla-Marwarid and paint with Bahzad. What is more, he could talk mysticism far better than Kamal-ud-din, with his wagging black beard, who pretended to raptures and ecstasies and had written a portentously dull book about Sufism which he called "The a.s.sembly of Lovers"--portentously dull and also profane--which was inexcusable.

But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently believed what he said, whereas Kamal-ud-din was all pose.

Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in its amus.e.m.e.nt and its owner would burst out with some sally that would set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would not admit it.

"Wherefore should I?" he laughed gaily in some anxious face. "A man is as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name," and he would catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter like b.u.t.terflies and sing:

"Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!

That hides behind thy bosom's pearly doors?

I care not, so I reach the heart within.

Oh! let me in; Open the closed doors, O Feramors!"

Truly he was a marvellous person! To Babar, boy as he was, the most marvellous thing in the camp. How could he, cripple, suffering, almost dying as he was, keep life at bay as it were? How could he sit so free of it? He, Babar, with his health and strength was not so independent, though he was more so than most, for, almost unconsciously, he set himself as free as he could from enc.u.mbrance even of thought.

He shrank even from so much as came to him from Gharib, and avoided his cousin in consequence, spending such time as he could spare from his numerous lessons, and the watch Kasim made him keep on military matters, in hunting amid the low hills.

But it was no use. That dark, curiously be-scented tent wherein the cripple lay laughing at life, had a strange attraction for him. He took to dropping into it on his way elsewhere, until old Kasim grew uneasy.

"He lays spells on you, my liege," he protested. "They tell me he can do it to all young folk--so have a care!"

"Smear my forehead with lamp-black against the evil eye; then shall I be safe," laughed the boy, and yet in his heart he felt the spell.

And, oddly enough, he liked it. He was fascinated by something in this distant, faraway cousin of his; so far-away that it scarcely seemed worth while calling him cousin. Yet, as grandmother Isan-daulet would say: "all men were descended from Adam!"

"Come in on thy return from the chase," said Poverty-prince one day when he had looked in on the scent sodden tent, a picture of youth and strength and health, in his fur _posteen_ and his high peaked cap.

"And bring thy bag with thee for this lifeless log to see. What shall it contain? _Imprimis_--a brace of chameleon birds. I love to see their iridescent necks and the six different colours between head and tail--mark you! how I remember thy description, cousin-ling?"

Babar blushed. "Thou said'st thou had never seen them," he began apologetically.

"Save through thine eyes and they are good enough for most folk. Be not ashamed, coz, of the gift G.o.d hath given thee. And thou shalt bring me a fat deer and some _kalidge_ pheasant--and, with luck, a c.o.c.k _minawul_. Then we will look at it with the same eyes--thou and I--" A wistfulness had crept into his voice, and he said no more.

But the curious thing was that the bag was ever just what Poverty-prince had predicted, neither more, nor less.

"Thou art a wizard, for sure," said Babar half seriously. "The thought of thy words makes my aim sure at times, and at another sets my bow arm a-quiver. Wert thou to say '_naught_,' I should return empty-handed."

"So be it," laughed the cripple. "Why should we kill G.o.d's pretty creatures?"