King-Errant

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

CHAPTER III

"Draw near, O Man! and lift thy dreamy eyes.
See! this the ball; this the arena too
Where, mounted on the steed of Love, the prize
Is to be won by him who--God in view--
Strikes skilfully.
The Goal is distant; narrow too the Field;
Yet strike with freedom. God will send the Ball
Thy hand as sped in faith, where it should fall.
Backwards and forward strike and if thou yield
Yield cheerfully."

Grandmother Isân-daulet proved true prophet. Ere forty days had passed from that patched up peace, another hasty messenger bearing a blue 'kerchief of death had arrived at Âkshi whither the court had gone to celebrate the late king's obsequies. Ahmed, the King of Samarkand had been seized with a burning fever and after six days had departed from this transitory world.

Babar was sorry. His uncle, he said, had been better than most. A plain, honest Turk not favoured by genius, who had never omitted the five daily prayers except when honestly drunk. And that was but seldom, seeing that when he did take to drinking wine, he drank without intermission for a month or six weeks at a stretch and thereinafter would be sober for a considerable time. So there had always been periods for piety.

The womenkind wept, of course, for blood feuds enhanced blood relationships when Death the peace bringer stepped in between the combatants. Besides, mourning was already afoot; so they could kill two birds with one stone. Even Fâtima Begum, the late King's first wife, who, losing her premier position through childlessness had retreated in a huff to a separate establishment, joined in the chorus of wailing. And she brought her belated son Jahângir--nigh three years younger than Babar--to take his rightful place in the palace; much to old Isân-daulet's indignation.

"Set her up, indeed," she said with a toss of her head, "her and her belated brat. Mark my words, had the child been lawful, 'twould have come betimes. But when 'tis hoighty-toighty and a separate house, only God knows to what an honest man may be made father."

Still the function was a function, and the ladies enjoyed all the ceremonies; for they were simple folk, content with little, and that little rough and rude, for all they were Queens and Princesses.

Babar, however, wearied of all save the giving of victuals to the poor. He loved to see joy at a portion of pillau and butter cakes. Indeed he surreptitiously ordered more sugar for the children's thick milk. It made him feel hungry, he said, to see them eat it. And there was no better enjoyment in the world than real hunger; provided always that food was in prospect. For he was tender-hearted over frail humanity. He could not see, for instance, why the Black-eyed Princess, his father's last and low-born wife who was, of course, quite beyond the circle of distinction, should not be allowed, if it pleased her, to discover a roundabout relationship to the family of Timur. It did not alter facts. But Isân-daulet sniffed.

"'Twill not alter her manners or her speech anyhow; though 'tis true in a way. We be all descended from Adam, as I tell her morn, noon, and night."

So Babar had to listen to the Black-eyed one's wails; which he did in kindly kingly fashion, for he liked the good-natured, stupid, pretty creature. He had, however, other things to think of. His Uncle Ahmed's death had vaguely disturbed him; for Uncle Ahmed left no male heirs; and the question of succession was a burning one, since, by all the laws of Moghulistân, Babar had a double claim to the throne through his maternal grandfather Yunus Khân.

"Of a surety," he said to Dearest-One who was ever confidante of his ambitions and innermost thoughts, "there is no doubt that, now, Uncle Mahmûd, as brother, succeeds of right. But at his death? Cousin Masaud and Cousin Baisanghâr are not so close to Yunus Khân as I. Then Masaud is a nincompoop, and Baisanghâr--" he paused.

"Well! what of Cousin Baisanghâr?" asked the girl hotly.

Babar whittled away with his knife at the arrow he was making--for he was ever useful with his hands--ere he replied slowly:

"Baisanghâr will never make a king. Wherefore I know not; but there it is. He is not fit for it."

Dearest-One was aflame in a second. "Not fit for it?" she echoed. "That is not true. He is as fit for it really as--as thou art, brother. Only he will belittle himself! He will talk of himself as a shadow--an unsubstantial shadow! It is not true, it is not right, it is not fair, and so I told him the other night."

Babar put down his knife and stared.

"Thou didst tell him so--but when?"

Dearest-One hung her head, though a faint smile showed on her face. She had given herself away; but she was not in the least afraid of her brother. Many youngsters of his age might, from their own experiences in love affairs, have been seriously disturbed at the idea of their sister speaking to a young man on a dark stair; but Babar was an innocent child. To him it would be but a slight breach of decorum. Yet something made her breath short as she replied coolly:

"I met him on the stairs. It was dark, so he could not see me, brother; and I spoke to him as--as a mother to her son." The head went down a little more over the last words; true as they were in one sense, she knew better in her heart-of-hearts.

"And he--what said he?" asked Babar alertly, taking his sister completely by surprise. With the memory of that cry "Beloved! beloved!" in her mind--it had lingered there day and night--she faltered.

"Dearest-One!" said the boy, grave, open-eyed, after a pause, "did he kiss thee?"

The girl looked up indignantly, a dark flush under her wheat-coloured skin. "Kiss me?" she echoed--"he did not even really touch me--"

And then, suddenly, she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. True--he had not touched her--he had shrunk from her eager body. Why? oh, why?--

Babar was full of concern. He laid down his knife and arrow, and went over to his sister. "Then there is nothing to weep about, see you," he said stoutly, "save lack of manners, and for that thou art sorry. Is it not so, dearest?"

The girl's sobs changed to a half-hysterical giggle. "So sorry--" she assented, "and thou wilt not tell Grandmother--"

"The prophet forbid!" cried her brother aghast; "I should never hear the last of it."

And Dearest-One's tears changed to real laughter.

"Brother," she cried, "thou art the dearest darling of all! I would do aught in the whole world for thee."

"Nay," replied Babar gravely, "that will I never ask of thee. My womenkind shall have no task to do that my hands cannot compass alone."

He felt virtuous as he spoke; rather uplifted, too, by that same virtue. He did not know what Fate held in store for him. He did not dream that he would have to ask of her the greatest sacrifice a woman can make, and that she would make it willingly.

Meanwhile it was gorgeous summer tide, and Hussan played forward in the King's game of polo, down in the river meadows. He was the best of forwards; the best of men consequently to the boy-King.

"Thou art a young fool, child!" said old Isân-daulet who never minced her words, "as thou wilt surely find out ere long unless God made thee stupid blind. Luckily mine eyes are open; so go thy way and knock balls about after the manner of men."

Thus it was early autumn ere Babar's eyes opened; but then what he saw made his young blood surge through him from head to foot. The meanness, the deceit of it! To conspire with the ambassador from wicked Uncle Mahmûd at Samarkand who had come ostensibly to present an offering of silver almonds and golden pistachio nuts, to depose him, Babar, and put "the brat" Jahângir on the throne. And all the while to be playing forward in the King's game! It was too much! It was not fair! It was emphatically not the game!

"Throw away bad butter while it's melted," said Isân-daulet firmly; "Send Kâsim-Beg and other trustworthy friends to strangle him with a bow string! Then wilt thou be quit of such devils' spawn."

But Babar was a sportsman. Even if it came to killing the forward in the King's game, he was not going to do it underhand. So he looked round the assembly of loyalists who had met to convince him in his grandmother's apartments in the stone fort, and said briefly: "To horse, gentlemen! I go to dismiss my Prime-minister from his appointment."

But that gentleman had already dismissed himself. When they arrived at the citadel, they found he had gone hunting; and from that expedition he never returned. Someone must have blabbed; for he had posted off to Samarkand, rather to the boy-King's relief. It would have been a terrible thing to imprison or blind the best forward in the kingdom.

And even when news came that the offender had paused by the way to make an attack on Âkshi, and in the consequent mêlée, having been wounded in the hinder parts by an arrow from his own men, had been unable to escape and so had fallen a victim to the loyalists the boy-King was glad that Providence had taken judgment from his hands. Hussan had but himself to thank. As the poet said:

"Who does an evil deed
But sows the seed
Of his own meed."

This was finely philosophic; but it did not quite comfort the philosopher. The first actual experience of ingratitude and disloyalty made its mark upon him and sobered him. He began to abstain from forbidden and dubious meats and but seldom omitted his midnight prayers.

Mercifully, however, the season for polo was past, and Nevian Gokultâsh was almost as good at leap-frog as the deceased statesman. Nevian Gokultâsh, who, as foster brother, was above the possibility of suspicion.

"Truly," said Babar one evening, throwing his arm round his playmate's neck affectionately, "rightly are thy kind named Gokultâsh--'heart of stone.' Thy love is founded on rock, whereas my brother by blood--" he broke off impatiently--"but there! 'tis not his fault--he is so young--two whole years younger than I."

Despite the good-natured excuse which in all his chequered life, ever came easily to Babar's kindly nature, he felt the first chill of the cold world at his heart. He found to his great irritation and annoyance, that his milieu was not nearly so reasonable as he was himself. It was the irritation and the annoyance which besets capability and vitality. Other folk had not nearly such good memories, were not half so nimble-minded, or straight-forward, as he expected.

When, for instance, he sent an envoy to a rebellious chief, in order to remonstrate with him, before proceeding to arms, the wrong-headed man, instead of returning a suitable answer, ordered the ambassador to be put to death.

Such, however, not being in the pleasures of God, the envoy managed to escape, and after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships, arrived naked and on foot, to pour the tale of his wrongs into Babar's indignant ears. Urged by wrath at such ill-manners, the boy-King proposed instant reprisals, and set off; but a heavy fall of snow on the encircling hills and a slight sprinkling on the clover meadows warned him that winter was approaching, and his nobles added their opinion, that it was no time in which to commence a campaign.

So he returned to Andijân and to a boy's life of study and sport. The saintly Kâzi was his tutor, and kept the boy to his Al-jabr (algebra) and Arabic, and abstruse dialectic dissertations on the nature of the Kosmos. There were not many books to be read in Andijân, but Babar knew them all. He had the Epic of Kings almost by heart, and used to regret there were not more details about the great Jamsheed with his wonderful divining cup; Jamsheed who reigned with might, whom the birds, and beasts, and fairies, and demons obeyed; Jamsheed of whom it was written "and the world was happier for his sake and he too was glad." That was something like a King!

And Babar learnt also, in a rude, unrefined way, all the accomplishments of a Turkhi nobleman. He could strum on the lute, bawl a song fairly, and play with singlestick to admiration. The latter was Kâsim's care; Kâsim who was the best swordsman in the kingdom and who used to quarrel with the Kâzi as to whether the young student's strongest point was fencing, or the fine nastalik hand-writing in which Babar excelled.

As for sport, the snow falling early brought the deer down to the valleys; and the undulating country about Andijân was always full of wild fowl, while pheasants by the score were to be shot in the skirts of the mountains.

The boy was growing fast and in his lambskin coat worn with the fleece inside, the soft tanned shammy leather without all encrusted by gold-silk embroidery to a supple strength that kept out both cold and sabre cuts, he looked quite a young man; and his high peaked cap of black astrachan to match the edgings of his coat and bound with crimson velvet suited his bright animated face.

Dearest-One admired him hugely.

"I would the court painter were not a fool," she said regretfully as he came in one day from the chase and held up for her inspection a cock minâwul pheasant all resplendent in its winter plumage. "But he cannot see. When he paints thee he makes thee all as one with Timur Shâh and Ghengis Khân--on whom be peace--but I want thee."

In truth it needed a better artist than Andijân held to do justice to the fire which always leapt to the boy's face when beauty such as the iridescent bird's struck a spark from his imagination and made the whole world blaze into sudden splendour.

"Baisanghâr might do it likely," replied Babar thoughtlessly; "he hath a quaint turn with his brush that is not as others; and he said he would love to paint thy portrait--" he broke off suddenly, aware that this was a subject which had better not have been introduced. But, indeed, there seemed a fate that he should always talk of Baisanghâr to his sister. Could it be her fault? He looked at her with boyish reproach, but the girl's face was lit up with smiles and dimples.

"Aye! he said that. Did he say more after I had gone? Tell me, brotherling."

But he walked off in dignified fashion with the cock pheasant. His sister thought too much of Baisanghâr. And it was time she married.

He talked to his mother quite seriously about it, and she met his anxiety by the calm remark:

"Why should she not marry Baisanghâr?"

Why not, indeed, now he came to think of it. Somehow it had not occurred to him before. But when he suggested it to his sister she met him with a storm of tears. She was never going to marry. She was going to be a sainted canoness and pray for her brother. Why could he not leave her alone; and Cousin Baisanghâr also, who apparently was of the same mind, since, though he was nigh nineteen, he had never taken a wife. And, if it came to weddings, was it not high time that he, Babar, King of Ferghâna, bethought himself of bringing his betrothed home? That would procure festivities enow, if that was what he was wanting.

From which deft shaft in the enemy's camp, Babar fled precipitately. The very idea irked him; he had no time for such nonsense. In fact he wearied even of the three loving women who insisted upon consulting him by day and by night.

But ere the winter was over yet another messenger of death arrived, and this one made the boy-King feel like a caged young eagle longing for his first flight.

Wicked Uncle Mahmûd after disgusting Samarkand for six months with his unbridled licentiousness and tyranny, until great and small, rich and poor, lifted up their heads to heaven in supplications for redress, and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza's head, had, by the judgment that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness, died miserably after an illness of six days.

The women wept, of course, though old Isân-daulet's tears were considerably tempered by smiles at her own prophetic powers. Had she not said that both the men who dared to attack the apple of her eye, young Babar, would suffer? And so they had. And now ...

The old lips pursed themselves and were silent. But the old thoughts were busy. Her grandson was, mayhap, over young to try his luck this year, yet for all that he was the rightful heir to the throne of Samarkand. In this way: Father Yunus Khân, Suzerain of all Moghulistân, had been suzerain also of Samarkand. None questioned that. Had not the triple marriage of Yunus Khân's three daughters with the King of Samarkand's three sons been arranged especially in order to put an end to the Khân of Moghulistân's undoubted claim, by joining the two families? Well, one of those marriages had produced no son. Mahmûd who had married the younger daughter, had but one son by her, a perfect child. But Babar, son of the eldest sister, was adolescent; therefore, by every right, every claim, he was the heir.

But she was a wise old woman. There was no use being in a hurry. Samarkand might as well seethe in its own sedition for awhile. By all accounts the Turkhâns were up in arms; and the Turkhâns were ticklish folk to deal with. Then Khosrau Shâh, the late King's prime-minister was an able man and might be trusted to fight for what he wanted. The time for intervention would be when the combatants had weakened each other.

And the shrewd old woman once more proved herself right. For Khosrau Shâh, having plumped for the nincompoop Masaud--doubtless because he knew that with a nonentity on the throne, his power would be absolute--the Turkhâns declared for Baisanghâr, sent for him express, and having driven out Khosrau, who had attempted to conceal his master's death until his plans were completed, placed the former on the throne.

And here another factor came in to the wary old woman's mind. What if her granddaughter were to marry Baisanghâr? Babar could lay claim to other kingdoms when he was fit to fight for them, and thus there would be a down-sitting for both her daughter's children. So, most of the affairs of importance at Andijân being conducted by her advice, Kâsim's swashbuckler instincts were held in check for the time. Something however must be done to occupy the lad meanwhile; and the news that his uncle by marriage and cousin by descent, Hussain, King of Khorasân, meditated an expedition against Hissâr, the neighbouring province, prompted the suggestion that the boy-King should take advantage of proximity to pay his respects and make acquaintance with the premier prince of the age.

Babar's imagination was aflame in an instant. Tales of the splendid court at Herât were broadcast in Asia. Folk said they had even spread to Europe--that dim unknown horizon to which the boy's thoughts often reverted. And Sultan Hussain was as his father and his elder brother. It was always wise to make the personal acquaintance of such; it dispelled misunderstanding on their part, and gained for yourself a nearer and better idea of their strength and weakness.

So one day at the beginning of winter, with stout Kâsim wrapped to the eyes in furs and a hundred-and-a-half or so of hardy troopers equipped for a mountain march, Babar started for the low passes by the White Hills to the valley of the Oxus river.

"Have a care of thy soul, my son," said the saintly Kwâja, "and remember what the poet sings:

"The soul is the only thing to prize;
Heed not the body: it is not wise.
The wiles of the Devil are millionfold,
And every spell is a fetter to hold.
Thou hast five robbers to keep at bay,
Hearing and sight, touch, taste and smell,
So chain them up and govern them well.
Some things are real and some but seem;
The mundane things of the world are a dream."

But Isân-daulet sniffed. "So be it that he keep the institutes of Ghengis Khân as his forebears did, he will do. They be enough for a brave man, and death or the bastinado sufficient punishment."

The Kwâja looked grave. "Yet be they not the law of Islâm, sister; and we, of the faith, are not heathens."

"Heathen or no!" retorted the old lady, "my grandson will do well if he touch Ghengis Khân's height." And she sniffed again.

Perhaps her words put it into the boy's head, but in this, his first flight beyond his hill-clipped kingdom his thoughts were with his great ancestors. He rather swaggered it in consequence round the camp fires at night, and was overbold in the chase; so that more than once on the higher hills Nevian-Gokultâsh had to pick him out of a snow-drift. But his dignity was always equal to the occasion, and when at last Sultan Hussain Mirza's camp showed in ordered array on the low ground beyond the passes, he took it as if he were quite accustomed to see the large pavilions, the rows on rows of orderly tents, the laagers of chained carts.

He held his head very high too, as he rode down the central alley, his pennant carried before him by two jostling troopers. The smart soldiers, lavish of buckles and broideries, who lounged about, smiled at the uncouth troop; but each and all had a need of praise for the boyish leader who sat his horse like a centaur and whose bright eyes seemed everywhere.

"He is a gay enough young cockerel," admitted a scented noble with a smile. "Let us see if his uncle will make him fight."

But even if Babar had been more pugnacious than he was, sheer astonishment at his first interview would have kept him quiescent. Even Kâsim-Beg, stickler as he was for etiquette, gave up the hopeless attempt at ceremonial.

"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 butting 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 Chagatâi! Three tumans of gold, Muzàffar, he smashes the other's horn first butt!"

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 Birlás here, having lost his best hawk after bustard to-day, is in a mood for tears, and would like to lose gold also."

Berunduk Birlás, 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-Shîr? 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 God'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 Andijân; 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 Shirâz wine for the King of Ferghâna!"

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

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

A smile went round the assembly 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 Kâsim 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.