King-Errant

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

CHAPTER VI

Yes! Love triumphant came, engrossing all
The fond luxuriant thoughts of youth and mind;
Then in soft converse did they pass the hours,
Their passion like the season fresh and fair.

Nizâmi.

The Judas trees were in full blossom. But a day or two before they had been dry branches, brown, wrinkled, to all appearances dead. Now, with a swiftness nigh miraculous they had flushed, every inch of finest twig, to rosy red under their mantle of sweet-scented bloom. The ground underneath them was already carpeted with fallen flowers, their five-petalled cups, like those of a regal geranium, still perfect utterly.

"'Tis like the blossoming of love in the heart, is it not, little one?" said Babar idly, as, lying amid the spent blossoms he raised one to perch it coquettishly on the goldy-brown curls that rested on his breast.

He had been married five months to little Cousin Ma'asuma but it seemed to him like five days. Aye! though happenings stern and sad had filled the interval, Kâsim had been right. Herât had been plundered by the arch-enemy Shaibâni. His cousins had fled, leaving wives and children to fall into the hands of the conquerors.

At another time Babar's hot anger might have led him to attempt reprisals, though he knew it would be but an attempt. But in these first months of marriage he could not find it in his heart to leave little Ma'asuma for any time--if, indeed she would have allowed him to do so. For small, young, delicate as she was, those violet eyes of hers could set hard as sapphires. Aye! and have a gleam in them too, like any gem.

The first time Babar saw it, he caught her in his arms and half smothered her with kisses until she bade him peremptorily put her down. And then they had both laughed, and Babar had vowed in his heart, that never had lover been so fortunate as he. His mistress was--what was she not? Briefly, she was all things to him. He had never been in love with a woman before, and his self-surrender was complete.

Small wonder, indeed, if it were; for there was something almost uncanny in the beauty of the face which looked up at him, love in its eyes.

"Put it on thine own rough head, man," she said superbly, "thou needest ornament more than I."

And it was true. From the tiny silvern and golden slipper she had kicked off, to the light, gold-spangled veil which just touched her curly head, she was ornament personified. The dainty heart-shaped opening of the violet-tinted gauze bodice she wore over a pale green corselet was all set with seed-pearls and turquoises, hung on cunning little silvern tendrils. And the corselet itself! all veined with golden threads and pale moonstones. So with the flimsy, full, almost transparent muslin petticoat, pale pale green, that lay in shrouding folds over the violet-tinted under garment. All edged and embroidered, all scent-sodden with the perfume of violets--his favourite flower then; to be his favourite flower till his death. Truly a marvellous small person from head to foot!

"Have a care, man," she said sternly, as he crushed her closer to him, "or we shall quarrel; and 'tis not good for me to quarrel--now."

He released her quickly, yet cautiously; gentle as he was, he was always forgetting, he told himself, that she was doubly precious to him--now.

"Lo! dear heart!" he said penitently, "we have not quarrelled these five days."

"Not since I was angry because the tire-woman overdyed my hands with henna," she replied mischievously. "And thou didst tell me there were worse evils for tears. As if I cared; so long as my hands were not pretty ... for thee." She held them up for him to admire. And they were pretty. Delicate, and curved, and pink, like rose-petals. He kissed them dutifully; so much he knew was expected of him, and he loved the task.

"And as penance for rudeness, man," she went on, her face all dimples, "thou wert to write me a love ode on the subject. Hast done it, sirrah?"

"That have I," assented her lover husband gladly. "Dost know, little one, I string more pearls now than ever; but thou--thou hast not written one line since we were married; yet thou hadst the prettiest art."

Ma'asuma lay back on her resting-place and laughed softly. "Someday, stupid, I will tell thee why. But now for thy verses."

Babar caught up his lute and sat tuning it, his eyes wandering away to the girdle of snows that clipped the blue hill-horizon. They were in the garden of the New Year; alone, save for that dear grave yonder where the jasmine flowers were drooping their scented waxen stars.

Dear mother! How glad she would have been to see Ma'asuma, to think of the grandson who was so soon to make life absolutely perfect. Yes! the cup of life, the Crystal Bowl could hold no more. He lost himself in dreams, to be roused by an impatient, "Well! I listen."

Then he turned and smiled at her as he began with exaggerated expression.

"Oh, fair impassioned, whom God hath fashioned
My love to be,
Thy hands so tender, thy fingers slender
Rosy I see.
Be they flower-tinted or blood-imprinted
From my poor heart?
Torn by thy smiling, tears and beguiling
Feminine art.
Yet, sweet calamity! dwell we in amity
Each perfect day.
Yea! in the bright time. Yea! in the night time,
Lovers alway."

"Sweet calamity!" she echoed, pouting her lips and trying hard to frown, as the song finished. "Couldst find no other title for thy lawful wife? And yet--" here smiles overcame her--"Lo! Babar! 'tis a beautiful name and I am thy sweet calamity alway, alway!" Then suddenly, to his dismay, she began to cry softly, the big tears running down her pretty cheeks in easy childish fashion. "Nay!" she went on, half-smiles again at his solicitude, "I am not ill,--there is naught wrong. 'Tis only that I am lonely when thou art doing King's work, which must be done. If only foster-sister would come, I should not be so frightened."

"But my Yenkâm, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar.

Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is now, dear heart! And foster-sister will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write to her, Babar?"

"But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!"

Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and drank milk out of one cup. That was when we first came to Khorasân, thy Yenkâm and I. And since then she--Babar!--Be not angry but I will tell thee--I meant to have told thee--I should have told thee before--"

The violet eyes showed trouble once more and Babar kissed them deliberately. "What, sweetheart?" he asked carelessly. He knew the gentle kindly heart too well to fear any revelation.

"Only it was she, not I, who wrote the verses--the verses I sent--I was too stupid. And she is clever--oh! so clever!"

Despite his certitude the young man looked startled. "So," he said at last, "Fortune hath not given me the grace of a poetess to wife. So be it. But who is this paragon?"

Ma'asuma, however, was too delighted at having got over her confession so happily to refrain from autocratic dignity.

"That I have said. She is foster-sister and of the circle of distinction. Thy Yenkâm can tell thee of genealogies; they tire my head. So write! Dost hear?"

Babar laughed. He loved to take orders from those sweet lips; besides a certain zest came with the idea of writing to an unknown poetess.

"Yea! I will write," he said meekly, "but I will have to regard zals and zes; for more elegant nastâlik saw I never than hers."

So the letter was written and despatched express to the care of his Yenkâm at Khorasân, and six weeks later little Ma'asuma sat beside her foster-sister in the summer house of the new Garden of Fidelity which Babar was laying out at Adinahpore, and whither he had taken his young wife whose daily increasing delicacy filled him with concern. Of all the gardens that Babar planted and watered, this was the one nearest his heart. In a most romantic situation, on the south side of, and overlooking the river, its groves of oranges and citrons grew untouched by hard winter frosts, while every flower, every tree of his beloved hill country flourished side by side with those of warm climates. Above it towered the White-Mountain and the Almond-Spring Pass, below it the valley debouched into wide fertility.

And Babar was hard at work, delving away himself like any Adam; making a four-square cross of marble reservoirs, through which the clear, hill stream might run, planting new flowers from here, there, everywhere. The tan of his sunburnt face and hands contrasted sadly with the sallowing skin of the girl-wife, who, despite his care, was sinking under her task of son-bearing.

"Then he knows not who I am," said the tall, slender woman on whose knee Ma'asuma was resting her pretty, weary head. "I deemed thou hadst told him, as we agreed." She spoke gravely and her level black brows were faintly knit. The rest of the face was richly beautiful in strong sweeping curves, but those level brows and the dark, thoughtful eyes beneath them held the attention. "Not that it matters," she added quickly, seeing tears ready to brim over the violets upturned to her. "After all, 'tis nothing to thy lord--or to any other man--whether I be widow to Mirza Gharîb Beg or no, so long as I be honourable woman. Therefore tell him not, now that I am here." And Babar coming in to see his wife found the veiled new-comer courteous in speech, charming in manner. Found also such favourable change in his darling's spirits, that a glow of comradeship for his aide rose up in his soft heart at once.

So they were very happy together, those three, and by degrees foster-sister's thick enshrouding veil was changed for a more filmy one and Babar could get a glimpse of those glorious eyes and see the little satirical smile about the strong curves of the mouth.

They reminded him vaguely, why he knew not, of his dead Cousin Gharîb; but he never spoke of this to Ma'asuma. With her burden of coming life it would be unlucky to speak of the dead. Thus a week or two went by, and all insensibly the man learnt to rely on the woman who shared with him the charge of the girl.

"The Most-Benevolent one is very good to my wife," he said suddenly one day, "and my gratitude can only lie in words."

The Most-Benevolent bowed gravely. "Thanks are not needed. Ma'asuma-Begum came into this dust-like one's life, when it was unhappy. She hath been God's best boon to me."

"And to me also," answered the young husband sadly. Do what he would he could not escape from fear, the shadow of impending evil seemed to darken his life. He had to brisk and hearken himself up to face the future; for perilous times were at hand. The fateful seventh month, so much dreaded by Indian midwives was beginning; but his Yenkâm would be with her daughter in a day or two, they would together take Ma'asuma back in her litter to Kâbul by easy stages, and all would, all must, go well.

It was one glorious morning in early August when this feeling of ill to come, made him catch up his lute to chase away thought by song. He had carried little Ma'asuma himself down to the tank half surrounded by burnished orange trees which was the very eye of the beauty of the garden. They had dismissed all attendants, bidding them leave behind them their trays of sherbet and sweetmeats. But not even the perfect loveliness of hill, and sky, and garden, not even the faint flush, as of returning health, on the invalid's face could charm the splendour of Life into Babar's soul. The Crystal Bowl seemed dull, opaque.

This must not be.

He set the strings of his lute a-twanging and began--

"Clear crystal bowl. Thy wine bubbles laugh--"

The figure seated by the tank side, its reflection in the water, rose suddenly as if startled, gathered its draperies round it, so, with face averted, strolled off into the garden.

"There!" came Ma'asuma's reproachful voice, "thou hast driven her away, stupid!"

The young man arrested in his song looked hurt. "But wherefore? 'Tis a good song."

"Good mayhap," came the thoughtless answer, "but, see you! It reminds her of Gharîb-Beg who wrote it."

"And wherefore not?" asked Babar swiftly.

Little Ma'asuma looked scared. "Lo! There I have told thee! and I said I would hold my tongue! Because, see you, Gharîb-Beg married and left her in the old days; whether rightly as some say, or foolishly, as others, I know not; but 'twas so. She was religious for long years and when I went to the school to learn the Holy Book, we became friends. And oh! Babar, thou wilt never know how good she was to me when I fell in love with my lord--and he with me." The roguish face, looking more like itself than he had seen it for months, nestled on to his shoulder.

He put his arm round the slender figure and drew it to him mechanically, grateful that her words had given him time to pull himself together.

Gharîb-Beg's wife! The woman he had called "Mahâm--his moon!"

"So." he said with an effort, "she was my cousin's wife; but wherefore ... was I not told?"

Ma'asuma pouted. "Because I did not at first. And then when she came, she would not have it--why I know not--save that mayhap, before the son was coming, I wanted thy praise for--for such things as verses. And now, my lord must say naught. Promise me he will not, or she will be vexed."

"I will not vex her," he said diplomatically, and changed the subject adroitly by picking up a tiny red-silk cap half embroidered with seed pearls on which his wife had been working, and which had fallen on the path.

"Lo!" he laughed, "is that the way to treat my son's head-dress!" And he held the ridiculous little object out on his forefinger and twirled it round. So the question passed. But he was of too frank a nature to palliate concealment and that night when the moon had risen, he found himself once more confronting a tall, slender figure that stood, aggressively this time, against a marble pillar. But there was no swinging lamp to cast a rose reflection between them.

"Yea! Zahir-ud-din Mahomed Babar," said the proud voice. "It is even as my lord hath divined. I knew. I was the lad who brought my lord his mistress's message--which I had written. It was to me that my lord gave his 'I love thee, ever, ever!' This being so, what else was there left to do, save what was done?"

The finality of her words struck Babar like a blow. He never minced matters even with himself.

"Naught," he said gloomily. "Naught." Then he added, "But now?"

The veiled figure caught him up quickly. "Now? She must not know; she must never know."

Babar stood still and leaning his head on his arm against the pilaster, looked out into the garden. It lay silvern, peaceful, a thing of perfect beauty, a place wherein no sinful man should walk or set foot. "Lo!" came the sweet voice. "I have kept--I will keep my lord's ring. It was not he who broke faith, but I."

"The Most-Noble is very good," he said simply and left her. There was no more to say.

Had there been more, there would have been little time for it.

A hasty twinkling light showed ere long adown the palace colonnade. Voices came in excited whispers. Her Highness, the Begum, was not well. God send it might be nothing; but 'twas the fateful month.

Fateful, indeed! All that night long Babar waited in a fever of anxiety, listening to the fitful wails, the thousand and one slight sounds of sudden, direful sickness. What were they doing to his Ma'asuma? his little Ma'asuma, his love, his heart's darling, his little one? Would he ever see her again?

The dawn came, and still he watched, still he waited. The birds in the bushes began to sing--to sing forsooth! while she lay in the shadow of death! Heartless! cruel! For she must die! so small, so slender, how could she stand out against those long hours of agony. Noon passed and still he waited, every nerve in his strong young body wearied by imagined pain.

It was not till sun-setting that a voice roused him as he sat crouched in on himself:

"My lord has a daughter."

He was on his feet in a second, setting the idea aside as trivial. What was son or daughter to him beside his dearest dear?

"She?" he asked breathlessly.

"My lord had best come and see," replied the kind, sympathetic voice; he recognised it faintly, but it made no impression on him.

The small room was hot and close; full of smoke also from a useless fire hastily lit up. And Ma'asuma lay covered by endless quilts. But it was Ma'asuma herself who lay there peaceful as if already dead; but her face was alight with feeble smiles. Only for a moment, however; then the curly, goldy-brown head turned restlessly on the pillow.

"I am sorry--" she murmured, "I--I wanted it to be a son, but--but--" the voice trailed away into weaker sobbing.

"Hush! silly one!" said Babar gently, his heart in his mouth as he noted her looks. "What God gives is best. If she is like thee she will be all I need."

A small trembling hand fluttered out to a corner of the coverlet. "Like me. I know not. Babar! What wilt thou call her, when I am gone?"

The words cut him like a knife, because he knew they were true; there was something which told him that the dearest thing on earth to him was fast slipping from his grasp. Yet the simplicity of his nature kept him calm.

"I will give her her mother's name," he said quietly.

Ma'asuma sighed with content and was silent for a space. Then after a while her voice, weaker than ever, rose again, a low, monotonous voice that told of ebbing strength.

"Babar! who will nurse my child? Give her not to strange women. Lo! I never loved strangers; nor dost thou, thou, dear heart. Foster-sister where art thou? Send the strangers away and the slaves, and come close. I want thee."

One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came that faint sigh of content.

"That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the folk I love in the world. That is right." For a moment she seemed to sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.

"Set the window wide. I would see the sunset," she said in quite a strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room she lay in it peacefully.

"Will it not mayhap hurt?" whispered the tall figure in white.

"She is past hurt," whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.

"Thy hand, my heart," came the voice feeble again, "and thine, sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that matters not. I am only--only the Kâzi." The ghost of a flickering smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the Mahomedan wedding service.

The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly at each other and instinctively drew apart.

Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. "Don't," she murmured. "It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--"

There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.

"Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife."

And swift on the words came a woman's voice, "Before God I take this man to be my husband, the father of our son."

A sigh of content seemed almost to end life, and there was silence for a space. But it was broken by a pitiful, helpless murmur, "The ring! I have forgotten the ring."

"I have it already, sweetheart," came the woman's voice, soft, calm, soothing. So they stood, till the chill little hands grew more chill in the warm clasps that held them; finally one withdrew itself slowly, slowly, and Babar was left alone with Death and Love.

The tall white figure fell on its knees and wept softly; but Babar stood still, stern, calm. What use to kiss unconscious lips? What use to strain at broken cords?

"She hath found freedom," he said after a time. Then he turned to the kneeling figure. "Mahâm," he said quietly. "Thou wilt see to little Ma'asuma for me, wilt thou not?"

It was sunrise when they laid to rest Babar's first and in a way, his only love. The birds were singing in the garden he had made so beautiful. The roses that decked the grave were full of scent. But Babar noticed none of these things, he moved about calm, self-controlled, conscious of but one thing, that he was glad he was not at Kâbul where he would have had wailing women and ceremonial condolences. Here, in the open, among the flowers, all was peace. He need not even realise that his dearest-dear was dead.

But he had overrated his emotional strength, or rather he had underrated it as he always did. All the day long, as he went about as usual, his face haggard, his manner courteous and gentle, a storm was brewing within, and when sunset came again, bringing the sadness of a dead day with it, the tempest burst.

Mahâm, her eyes red with weeping, was seated in the dusk of the little room where Ma'asuma had died, with the dead woman's babe on her lap when she looked up to see a tall, swaying figure standing at the door. A helpless, bewildered figure that stretched out bewildered hands to her.

"Mahâm! Mahâm!" it cried, "save me! Save me from myself."

She rose instantly, laid the sleeping infant on the bed, and went to him.

"Thou art tired," she said, as a mother might have said it. "Come hither and rest awhile, my lord. Sleep will bring peace."