King-Errant

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

CHAPTER VI

Blest is the soul that is lifted above
The paltry cares of Self's selfish love,
Which adds no weight to another's care
And gives no soul a burden to bear,
Which takes what comes as its part and lot,
Which laughs at trouble and worries not,
Which sleeps without malice or fraud in its breast
And rises pure from its daily rest.

Jâmi.

There was a sad meeting, naturally, with the womenfolk Babar had hoped to help, and who were--somewhat contemptuously--sent to him, unharmed, after a few days. Or perhaps that "divinity which doth hedge a king" or whatever it was, which all his life long ensured Babar's own safety, extended itself to those who were dear to him.

Anyhow they came, and fell with tears on the neck of their dethroned darling. Dearest-One, slim and tall, her face still showing the lines of conflicting anxieties, yet still sweet utterly, without trace of bitterness for her brother. The Khânum, too rejoiced at seeing her son alive and well to care so much about his loss of dignity. Old Isân-daulet, keener of look and sharper of tongue than ever, but with a world of sympathy in her stern eyes for the lad who had lost all save honour. For she realised that Babar had practically given up Kingship for the sake of his womenkind. He had had fair grip of Samarkand, and even with but a thousand devoted followers of his own to help him hold it, could, nay would have done so.

Babar, himself, did not attempt to deny his virtue. He never did; he was too frank to gloze over any of his actions, good or bad. He had done the right thing and he accepted the fact gravely; perhaps a trifle pompously; but that was his nature. In the same way, he could not fail to see, that what had placed him in the unfortunate position of having insufficient followers to hold both Samarkand and Andijân, was no error of judgment on his part, but simply his extreme and unusual justice in refusing to grind down the distressed inhabitants of the former city for the benefit of his soldiery. Could he only have shut his eyes to the usual undisciplined plunder his army would not have deserted wholesale.

He was not introspective, but he knew, vaguely, that he had, somehow, had no choice in the matter. He had been born with this strong sense of justice, so he could not help himself; therefore despite this recognition of his own virtue, it slipped from him like water off a duck's back leaving no self-conceit behind.

So he welcomed his loving women quite whole-heartedly, and then wept more profusely than ever at the difficulty of maintaining them in proper fashion. Not that they wanted this. The Khânum, gentle, kindly soul, was only too glad that her quite capable hands should do all things for her darling, Dearest-One brisked up with work that took her out of herself, and Isân-daulet had roughed it too much in her youth not to enjoy the familiarity of roughing it again. And life, even at Khojend, a miserable place in which a single nobleman would have found it difficult to support his family, was not without its interests. Of the rather more than two hundred, and considerably less than three hundred followers who chose exile with their young King, quite a number were men of good family, whose wives and children joined them.

There was, therefore, company of a sort. Then Babar, despite his tears, was not one to give in. Inspired as he was by an ambition for conquest and extensive dominions, he could not, on account of one or two paltry defeats, sit down and look idly about him.

So, at any rate, he told the three loving women with his usual serious pomp, when he sent a request for assistance to his uncle, the Khân of Moghulistân, and then set off to reconnoitre around Samarkand. He returned ere long disappointed; but was soon on the march again to see his uncle in person at Tashkend. In this he was encouraged by Isân-daulet who remembered her brother of old. "Lo! I know him. A good soul but a stupid. The brains of my father, Yunus, went in the female line. But if you beat his ears with words he will listen. And keep on the soft side of Shâh-Begum, my husband's widow--God rest his soul! Anyhow he is at peace from her! A clever woman, but like a camel in mud--slippery!"

And this expedition was so far successful that the young leader actually returned from it once more at the head of some seven or eight hundred horsemen. Rather a wild lot, mostly free-lance Moghuls eager for loot and violence. But it was better than nothing, though Khojend was not large enough to hold them, even for a night. Mercifully, however, there was an enemy's fort some forty miles off, so, taking scaling ladders with them, they rode on to it and carried the place by surprise. But even one day of Babar's strict discipline was more than enough for the wild men of the desert, and the very next morning the Moghul Begs represented that, having but a mere handful of men, no possible benefit could result to anyone from the keeping of one miserable castle; and so, there being truth in this remark, they rode off to their desert again unabashed, leaving Babar to return annoyed, but not despondent. For at this particular fortress there grew a particular melon, yellow in colour, with skin puckered like shagreen leather. A remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, with seeds about the size of those of an apple, and pulp four fingers thick, which everyone agreed was not to be equalled in that quarter.

It was as well, certainly, to have gained something if only a good melon, and the little party at Khojend feasted on it and thanked God they had their boy back again safe and sound.

The summer was passing to autumn when another fit of despondency came to young Babar in the news of his cousin Gharîb-Beg's death. The invalid had lingered far longer than had been expected, but still the certainty that he was gone brought grief; the more so because it re-aroused regret for the lost Crystal Bowl; regret which had almost been forgotten in the clash of arms of the last few months. But now he had time--only too much of it--for thoughts. Not given to mysticism in any form, he yet wondered vaguely if the Crystal Bowl had ever existed, or if the whole incident had not been part of the curious hold Poverty-prince had had upon his imagination; and not on his only, but on the imagination of all with whom the cripple had come in contact.

And now he was dead! Gone for ever, like so many friends in these last troublous times.

Babar, translucent as the crystal itself, gloomed under the shadow of his regrets till his mother began to fret with the fear of on-coming illness.

But Dearest-One knew her brother better. "He must get away from us all," she said. "Yea! even from old Kâsim and his warriors. Let him go to the White Mountains a-hunting for the winter."

But Babar would have none of it.

The White Mountains? Aye! they would be splendid--there were more bears there than in any other part of the country. Aye! and snow leopard too--the lad's eyes glistened as he admitted this--but he could not leave his women-folk again, and he ought not to leave those who, to their own cost, had chosen to stick by him.

"Then we will go also," said Dearest-One, nothing daunted. "We are not of towns more than thou art, and thou canst divide thy magnificent army!--take a hundred men with thee and leave an hundred to guard Khojend!"

Her sweet eyes smiled at him, and he agreed. No one in all his life had understood him like Dearest-One, he thought; there was perfect confidence between them, though, strangely enough, he had never yet given her the portrait he had found in the Garden-Palace--the portrait left by Baisanghâr in his flight.

Why had he not done so? He scarcely knew, except that he had felt shy of broaching a subject that seemed buried. 'Twas best not to rouse coiled snakes, and Baisanghâr, who had taken refuge in Bokhâra, had gone out of their lives altogether; out of his, Babar's, at any rate.

But everything seemed gone out of that; as the Turkhi couplet said:

"No home, no friends, no roof above my head;
Six feet of earth, no more, to make my bed."

The White Mountains, however--white indeed during winter with their snowy slopes invading all save the tiny cleft of the valley where the skin tents of the little party had been pitched--soon brought back content. It was as if the soft covering of snow had blotted out the past, and the winter slipped by, full up with trivial distractions.

Babar, returning long after dark to the encampment with half-a-dozen or so of bear-skins, forgot he was, or ever had been, King. And when early spring came on, and the bears were breeding, he took to hunting tulips instead. There were so many different kinds of them. Over thirty; and one yellow, double and sweet-scented like a rose. Dearest-One used to accompany him on these expeditions, for she was a real Moghul maiden, and the bright, cold winter had braced her up, until her cheeks glowed once more. Yet still Babar had never given her the portrait of herself, though he carried it with him more than once with that determination. Again, he scarcely knew why, except that it seemed to him the right thing to do. Why should she not have it?

But one day the brother and sister had wandered high over the melting snow slopes, where the flowers lay thick as a carpet. Blue spring gentian and clustered pink primrose, purple pansy, and deep brown nodding columbines above a mosaic of forget-me-not and yellow crowsfoot. Great sweeps and drifts of flowers where the snow-drifts ended, and beyond in the far, far distance, in a dip of the hills, a level line of clear cobalt-blue.

"Yonder lies Samarkand," said Babar, glooming in a second with the thought of past defeat; but his mind, ever vagrant, followed swiftly a line of new thought as he narrowed his long eyes to see better. "Had I the quaint contrivance at the Observatory there," he went on; "did I not tell thee of it?--no!--Well! 'twas a thing with curved glasses in a box and it made far-off things seem near--but blurred sometimes. Still had I it, I could mayhap see the Green-Palace. It stands high above the town."

Dearest-One, her hands clasped idly over her knees as she sat on a little peak of rock and ice that rose out of the flowers, was silent for a space; then she said dreamily:

"'Twas in the Green-Palace, was it not, where Kingship comes and goes, that Baisanghâr was to die that time he escaped?"

Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached, might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers reminded him of the Andijân meadows and they of the green enamel frame starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.

"I have something here," he said, fumbling in his fur coat, "that I have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--" So he began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.

The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.

"'Twas not meant for me," she said at last, and her tone was as ice--"And he prized it little, since he left it behind him."

Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle. One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid of exciting a storm of tears!

Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: "But thou hast not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic licence."

It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept the pathos of poor Baisanghâr's words from making full mark, which kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to laughter and smiles to tears.

Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red lips.

"Yea!" she said softly, "they are good verses; but he was ever a poet."

And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit up with passionate feeling. "Give it me back, brotherling! give it me back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among God's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is understanding!" Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now rang out joyous, triumphant. "Lo! the Heft-Aurang will look down on my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to him.... Ah! Baisanghâr! have patience, have patience! love will point the way!..."

She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue sunshiny sky on a cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers, tearless, radiant.

"Come, brother!" she said. "It grows late. Let us descend, they will be waiting."

But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the one before him transfigured by emotion.

"So that is love!" he said at last with a curious impersonality in his tone. "Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much difference between it and tears!"

So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never thought of her since; such things passed quickly from his boyish mind. But now the wonder came as to whether he would ever meet her. He might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.

But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope and he had to run to overtake her.

"Do I know?" she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time to recover her serenity. "Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharîb-Beg deserted--" she spoke with distinct blame--"was well within the circle of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage of Sheik Jâmi, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I shall live mine," she added with conviction.

"But thou art so young," protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new lead of thought.

Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. "Young! One year older than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharîb-Beg, remember, was but two years older." She paused, then added hurriedly: "Did I not tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?"

To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round the great, pine-log fire at night, Isân-daulet would call for a song; none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away from grace and were none the worse for it--not in this world at any rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kâzi was not there to lay down the law ...

"The Kâzi was a saint," interrupted Babar with certainty; "I know it; first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwâja had not a particle of either, which is also no mean proof of sanctity."

Old Isân-daulet chuckled. "Then are all my family canonised," she said, "and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling Turkhomân ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days."

But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp, and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of "Toktâmish Khân" still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to it:

The pale white willows grow in the sand,
Toktâmish Beg.
Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg
That thy bay steed stand.

Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand,
Toktâmish Khân.
Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jân
With thy jewelled hand?

The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet
Toktâmish Kull.
Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull
And thy breath so fleet?

Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing,
And Mir Jân's wife
Swore she would love me all my life
And gave me a ring.

Thy steed will find him a rider soon
And fair Narghiss
Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss
Ere another moon.

But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave
Toktâmish Khân;
Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn
And dig her a grave!

The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The Khânum, his mother, wept unobtrusively at the thought of what she would do if her young brave were to die. Old Isân-daulet beat time with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultâsh--the Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.

"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."

Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kâsim Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!

Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to shake off inaction.

"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight anywhere for Kingship again, though his heart sank at the futility of it all. Bokhâra, Samarkand, Hissâr, and half-a-dozen other chief-ships always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then, and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was not yet in the ascendant.

Isân-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to Moghulistân to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead husband. The Khânum went with her, and Dearest-One took the opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest. So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land of the Pamîrs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of his affairs.

And here, as winter passed to spring once more, a saintly Kwâja--also an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took his departure much affected.

"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman making his way rapidly up the valley.

A horseman!

Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his lean Turkhomân mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as still clung to him (Kâsim and Nevian-Gokultâsh of course amongst the number) was galloping for Marghinân (the place where they remove the stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past offences.

It was then sunset, and Marghinân lay more than a hundred miles away as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of; one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pass to sunset and sunset pass to night before they again drew rein in the grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a fort and scarce seen in the half light.

But the doubt was this:

They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering that they had no real warranty for so doing!

The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime. With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in his power?

So at least urged Nevian-Gokultâsh. Others joined in, and Babar, ever reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for consideration.

Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of grass between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing pros and cons wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall, straight, strong, commanding.

"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place of safety to which we could retreat. Having come so far we must proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens save by the will of God. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"

And forward it proved to be from that moment. Marghinân his, the country people, disgusted with the late usurpers, crowded round their old young King.

Of course Grandmother Isân-daulet was in at the finish with her horde of two thousand wild Moghul horsemen; who nevertheless did good, if barbarous, service at Âkshi, where treachery met with its just reward. For the Moghuls, stripping their horses, rode barebacked into the stream and sabred the escaping traitors in their boats.

So the peach trees had not shed their blossoms before, by the Grace of the most High (and many real fine fights) Babar recovered his paternal kingdom, of which he had been deprived for two years.

Two years!

He could hardly believe it as he rode through on the mantle of lambskins between the fort of Andijân and the river, where not so long ago he had been playing leap-frog when first King-ship came to him.

"Nevian-Gokultâsh!" he cried suddenly, "an thou lovest me! off from thy horse and give me a back like a kind soul. I must leap to my kingdom once more!"

He stood there laughing, the embodiment of boyish youth and energy; forgetful of past troubles, eager to enjoy life.

"Ul-la-la!" shouted some of the nobles catching the spirit of the thing and throwing themselves from their horses.

So leap Babar did, not over Nevian only, but over half-a-score or more of the friends of his adversity including Kâsim who nearly tumbled over with laughter and joy.

And the young King, as he once more cast himself face upwards on the soft furry little blobs of blossom amid a chorus of applause, felt that the whole world was splendid indeed.