King-Errant

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

CHAPTER IV

Noisy the Tavern where Life's wine has sped
From variant cup to fuddle variant Head;
Love peeps through crannied Door; each Drinker straight
Flings cup aside to follow Her instead.

Ebd-ul-Hamîd.

There was not much time for thought in Herât. Early in the morning Babar was astir to ride out with Yusuf to some of the sights, and find the first collation of the day spread in some suitable place.

Then on his return there was the State visit to the Court, where with pomp and circumstance he took his place as King of Kâbul.

After that, each day had its entertainment at some new palace of delight, and sometimes after dinner had been served, the party would be carried off by one of the guests to a further and more intimate circle of amusement.

Once this was done by no less a person than Khadîjah-Begum herself. She took a few of the young princes to the King's Pleasure House, a delightful little edifice of two storeys high which stood in the midst of a still more delightful garden. The upper storey was simply perfect! Four little apartments at the four corners, each with a wide balcony, and between them and enclosed by them, one large central arched Hall. Every portion of this upper storey was covered with frescoes representing the battles of Babar's grandfather Sultan Abusa'id.

And it was all so charmingly arranged. Carpets and hangings everywhere; especially in the balcony where the party assembled and where Babar as the guest of the evening was placed above his hosts. These little attentions always flattered Babar and he never failed to notice them. So the entertainment began with a cup of welcome which was charged and drunk by the host in chief. Then the cupbearers began to fill up the cup of the others with pure wine which everyone, including Khadîjah-Begum, quaffed as if it had been the water of life! Only the tall good-looking young King refused, even when, the party waxing warm, and the spirit mounting to their heads, they took a fancy to make the young abstainer drink also.

The night was fine, the moonlight streamed in upon fruit and flowers. Jelâl the flute player fluted to perfection, and Bechâb on the harp might have wiled doves from their nests. Then Hâfiz sang well in the Herâti style, low, delicate, equable. Everything tempted to pleasure and Babar sat with a half-frown on his kindly face watching the others get lordily drunk.

Then mercifully a false note was struck by one of his own following. Jahângir Mirza, who was far gone, insisted that his favourite singer of Samarkand should delight the company. And the man sang (as he always did) in a loud harsh voice and out of tune; altogether a dreadful, disagreeable performance. So disagreeable that the Khorasân Princes, though far too polite to stop it out of respect to Babar, had to yawn and furtively protect their ears. This, and the reflection that if he was to yield and taste wine it would be more courteous to do so when he was the guest of the eldest of the Princes, and not of the younger, decided him not to give way; at that party at any rate.

But he was no wet blanket; for after a time, having had enough of the Pleasure-House, they repaired to the new Winter-Palace, where Yusuf, being by this time extremely drunk, rose and, for a marvel, danced remarkably well; possibly because he was a musical man. Here they all got very merry and friendly. Babar was presented more or less ceremoniously with a corselet, a sword, a belt, and a whitish Tipchak horse, and someone sang a Turkhi song well. On the other hand while the party was hot with wine two slaves again performed indecent scurvy tricks. But this time Babar did not leave. He remained to the bitter end when the party broke up at such an untimely hour that Babar thought it best to stay where he was; the others doubtless, being too drunk to move.

Perhaps it was this experience, coming in such close contrast to the marvellous peace of that moonlight night when, as if in a dream, he had handfasted a nameless woman, that made Babar listen to old Kâsim's horror-struck remonstrances concerning his young master's failing adherence to orthodoxy in the matter of wine.

The rigid old Mahomedan was fairly scandalised, and made such a fuss that the Khorasân Prime-Minister intervened, and took his young masters to task so severely that they wholly laid aside any idea of urging their cousin further to drink.

Rather perhaps to that cousin's private regret. It seemed a thousand pities to leave Herât without having tasted all Life's pleasures; all, that is, that were not indecent or scurvy. And a man could be drunk and yet remain a gentleman.

Still, when the elder prince did give the promised party, at which Babar had promised himself he would for once drink wine, he still refrained, though he fretted because his nobles thought it necessary only to drink by stealth, hiding their goblets and taking draughts in great dread. It was so foolish; when they knew he was never one to object to the following of common usage, if so be the follower could reconcile it to his own conscience.

He was altogether a trifle hoity-toity at this supper party; for a whole goose, after Herâti fashion, being set down before him, he did not touch it; and, on his host's asking if he did not like it, said frankly, that being accustomed to the unrefined habit of having his food served in gobbets, he did not know how to carve it.

Whereupon his host obligingly sent for the goose, cut it up, and placed it himself before his guest. Badia-zamân was, of course, unequalled in such attentions, and life was very delightful; yet still Babar's thoughts began to turn to the next Friday, and after that to Kâbul. His future life seemed more settled than it had ever been before.

But Fate had a surprise in store for him, as he found out one afternoon, when, after his usual kindly custom, he had gone to pay a duty visit to his paternal aunts. Running down the narrow stairs which led to Payandâ-Begum's upper storey, he came full tilt on two veiled women coming up. The stair was but shoulder wide; no room to pass, even had the first figure not been so appallingly stout. Impossible to pass, rude to turn one's back on those who were evidently of the circle of distinction--

Nor could he, King of Kâbul, retreat step by step like a lackey. He stood for a second gracious, debonnair; then with a merry "Your pardon, mother," wedged his arms tight between those narrow walls, so swung himself back. And there, in two such bounds, he was up the six steps and at the top of the stair.

"Have a care, nephew," shrieked a fat, familiar voice from the first bundle. "Thou wilt fall and crush thy Yenkâm!"

"My bridesmaid!" cried Babar joyously, repeating the pet nickname. "Say not so! When didst thou come?" And he was down the stairs again to embrace a favourite aunt he had not seen for years, and help her mount the remaining steps.

So, still panting, the elderly matron unwound her veil and stood revealed; fat indeed.

"Lo! Yenkâm," said Babar, his eyes twinkling. "Had I fallen, I should have fallen--soft."

"Fie on thee, scapegrace! God send thee not a skinny old age," retorted Habee-ba-Begum good humouredly. "But what of thy cousin Ma'asuma here? Ma'asuma that is like the fairy princess, weighing but five flowers--have a care of thy veil, child!"

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 Yenkâm 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 passion, pure in its very intensity; a passion 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-Shîr'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.

"Impassioned 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 twang 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-Shîr 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--God's truth.

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

In his haste, his brimming 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-Shîr'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 Akâm to see his Yenkâm 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 Kâbul and make preparations there, while Yenkâm would complete hers at Herât, and with the first blink of returning spring, the marriage should take place at some intermediate place. Meanwhile the young people, after Chagatâi 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-Shîr'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. A personal explanation would be easier; less abrupt, kinder. Not that he meant to back out--far from it. He was ready to be a good, just, generous husband; unless of course, the nameless one preferred not to take second place, as she must do. There was no helping that. It was not his fault. Love had come ...

He paced quicker as he remembered the words which had so touched him-- "And God the Father may send a father's love to the mother of his son." Well! God send He might; though that would be a different sort of love altogether from this absorbing passion. Anyhow he could do no more. A Kâzi, able if necessary to perform the marriage ceremony, was within call. He, himself, was ready. All that was wanting was the lady. Surely she was late in coming.

A rustle made him start and listen; but it was only the doves in the orange trees.

No one! No one!

The moon rose after a time over the garden and flooded the terraces with such silvern brilliance that the very pebbles on the path showed distinct.

But no one came--no one!

Could she have heard?

Impossible; it was still a Court secret, and she was a religious recluse--so far as he knew.

Besides; even if she had changed her mind, she might have come--or sent a message.

So, at last, in rather an ill humour he went back to the Palace and dismissed the waiting Kâzi with a handsome fee.

There was one more Friday ere he left Herât; and, feeling ill-used, sore, yet in a way mightily relieved, he waited in Ali-Shîr's tomb for another hour or so. No one should say he had failed in his part of the bargain! He was quite ready. Besides he had told the woman plainly that he was not in love with her; so she had no right to feel aggrieved. If she did.

But that could scarcely be. Every good Mussulmân knew she had no claim to a whole man--though little Ma'asuma had every bit of him. Yea! every bit. So it was as well, doubtless, that no one came.

And as he went back to the palace his only regret was that he should have called the nameless one "My moon."

The title belonged to his love, of right; but she would, she could never bear it because of the nameless one who had changed her mind--apparently; but she had not sent back his ring!