CHAPTER VII
I am the dust beneath thy feet, my sweet;
Thou art the cloud that sprinkleth rain amain.
Lo! as green tongues of grasses spring to bring
Their thanks for moisture given to root and fruit,
So, all my being blossometh and saith
"Dear God be praised for Love of Thee and Me."
Mahâm had her work cut out for her. But she was a wise woman and from the first gauged Babar's volatile, kindly, affectionate nature to a nicety.
He had had a shock, and one with such fine-strung nerves as his required time for recovery. Therefore, with easy ability, she took the tiller ropes and steered his craft and hers through the troubled waters which instantly raged about him. She even, rather to their resentment, succeeded in pacifying Babar's step-grandmother and his paternal aunts as to her position (which she claimed at once) as Babar's wife. They had been betrothed for months, she told them; indeed for long years the intent to marry had been existent. So much so that they had her late husband Gharîb-Beg's hearty assent to their union. She had come from Khorasân at Ma'asuma Begum's earnest wish, and the marriage had taken place when it did--this she left hazy--entirely to please her when she was ill and ailing. Doubtless the dear little thing had had a prescience of her own death. Such angels of Paradise often had. She, Mahâm, could never hope to hold the same place in the King's affection; still it was lucky things had happened so, or the Most-Clement might have gone out of his mind with grief, deprived as he was in the wilds of Adinapur of the consolations of all his womenkind. And the gracious ladies knew how dependent he had always been on them, as well as on his deceased mother--on whom be God's peace--and his unfortunate sister. Besides, she could be useful in bringing up the King's little daughter.
"If thou wilt give him a son 'twould be to more purpose," quoth outspoken Shâh-Begum.
"God helping me, I will, madam," came the cool reply.
"She is well spoken," admitted the old lady grudgingly, after the interview was over.
"And of the inner circle. 'Deed! now that one comes to consider it," wept Babar's Yenkâm, "more suited for the work than my fairy, who was ever too lightsome for such task. And, look you! there be no question of evil eye or such things. She loved my Ma'asuma as herself, and was ever good to the child. It is doubtless God's will."
"Yea! Yea! God's will," snivelled fat, silly Princess Astonishing Beauty; but little Ak-Begum's keen eyes were soft.
"There is more in it than mayhap we know," she said softly. "And she hath a good, clever face. So God send our kind Babar peace."
Good wishes were well enough doubtless, but Mahâm felt that action must be taken; and at once. My lord the King must not be allowed to lounge at home, eating his heart out; and to this purpose she sent for old Kâsim and explained her views.
"Lady," he replied, "I would rather, in faith, have had my master free of all feminine wiles. The last seven months have passed without much glory, and my sword rusts in its scabbard. But this I will say, for a woman, the cupola of chastity shows much sense. The King would be best away from Kâbul."
"And from me," added Mahâm, coolly. "So look to it, Sir General, and take him--where thou canst."
As it so happened, the times fell in with her desire. The Timurid family was at its lowest ebb; Babar himself, being, for the moment the only member of it which had kept his kingdom independent; the rest having either succumbed utterly to the great Usbek-raider or become mere vassals to his power. Thus the King's position was weak, even if he had been himself. But Mahâm's clear eyes appraised her haggard young King as he went about grave, silent, doing everything by an effort. That was not the stuff for single handed combat against Fate. Then sorrow set his feet firmer than ever on the path of what he considered right; and this mood was not one in which to rely on those Moghul troops of his who were ever ready to take offence at strict discipline. No! he must be induced to divert attention from Kâbul by carrying war to some further field. The further the better, so long as it gave those same Moghul troops opportunity for legitimate raiding.
Babar himself never knew how much one woman's influence had to do with his resolution to march on Hindustân; even old Kâsim, though he had the key, did not realise how Mahâm managed to set aside his proposal of an attempt on Badakhshân in favour of the larger, more imaginative project; but it was done.
So one day Babar, sad-faced still, but with a certain spring in his walk came to say good-bye to his little daughter and to the woman who quietly, unobtrusively, had done so much for him.
"Yea!" she said smiling, "I will be Queen whilst thou art gone, Babar, never fear. Nor Shâh-Begum, nor Mihr-Nigar nor any other woman in the Palace shall give trouble, this time, I warrant me. And the child will thrive! Aye! it will thrive. So there is no gnawing thought at thy heart, remember--"
She paused for a second and something in her face made Babar say hastily:
"Nor in thine, I pray, kind wife."
"Nor in mine," she echoed with a brilliant smile. "And now, ere he go, I have something for my lord--a remembrance of someone he loved well and whom I--respected."
She put her hand in her bosom and drew out thence all warm and faintly scented a small crystal bowl.
Babar gave a cry of delight. "The Bowl! The Bowl! How didst find it? Did he give it thee? Did he really give it me?"
Her kind eyes smiled on him. "That I cannot say; and this is not the Bowl, but perchance a likeness of it. 'Twas the dear dead one, my lord, who told me the tale when thou didst tell it to her. So, knowing what sort the cup must be, since there is an old man in my native village who still can make them after a fashion, I sent to him pressingly for one. My lord will remember that 'twas in this village graveyard that the Crystal Bowl was found. Doubtless one of olden time. This is but a copy--and poor doubtless, since the old craftsman can scarce see--but it may serve to remind my lord--of many things."
"And much kindness--" said Babar gravely, and as he took the bowl he kissed the hand that held it out to him.
No! it was not the Bowl. It was but a dim likeness of it; but as he placed it in his bosom he felt vaguely that he had more than he deserved.
The next few months passed swiftly. Once in the saddle and out of Kâbul, Babar's spirits began to rise. But he soon found it inadvisable to pursue his intentions on India. The very idea of his absenting himself so far, roused the insolence of the wild border clans. Here was their opportunity, whilst the cat would be away, to resort to their favourite plunder. So it was mid-winter before it was possible for him to advance, and by that time the complexion of affairs had changed.
To begin with the Usbek-raider had retreated, patching up a sort of peace hurriedly, and returning westward over more important business. Then, whether by reason of Mahâm's firm hand or from mere ambition, old grandmother Shâh-Begum announced her intention of leaving Babar's protection, and going with her grandson to snatch at the sovereignty of Badakhshân. The crown had been hereditary in her family, she declared, for over 3,000 years and though as woman she could not claim it, she knew her grandson would not be rejected.
This intention, involving as it did a breaking up of conventional family life, brought back Babar in protest. The old lady had never been on the best of terms with him, she had once almost succeeded in her intrigues against him, but he had always treated her generously; and then, worse than her defection, was that of his own mother's sister who insisted on accompanying her.
It was intolerable! Babar went straight to his grandmother and argued with her; coming back irritated and annoyed by failure to make any impression on the old lady's obstinacy, to his own palace, where, without giving notice, he made his way alone to Mahâm's apartments.
As he entered her room he could see her reclining amongst cushions in the cupola'd balcony, his little sleeping daughter in her lap. She was crooning to it the lullaby which Turkhomân women sing sleepily during a night march. Her pose was exquisite; there was a look of almost motherhood in her face; he paused to listen as she sang:--
"Sleep, croodie! Talk with God!
Know not the path I've trod.
Dad knows not! Why shouldst thou!
Sleep, childie! Sleep just now.
Don't fear! I keep awake.
Heigh ho! My bones do ache.
Heigh ho! My horse does pull.
Can't it see river's full!
No pebbles in that bed,
Mine holds an hundred.
Dreams! Dreams! Who lies dead?
Someone in the river's bed.
Praise God! He rests his head.
Hush! Hush! I hear thee, sweet.
Mums arms around thee meet.
Praise God! The night's nigh past;
Darling sleeps at last! at last!"
The curious drowsiness of the rhythm held him almost silent for a while, so did a great surge of admiration for this self-restrained, kindly, capable woman who had taken her full position as his wife so firmly, without any feminine flutterings or sentimentalities. Truly that sort of thing was what he, with his volatile emotionality, needed to make him not only successful, but persistent.
"Mahâm," he said almost timorously, "I have come back to thee--and the child."
She gave a little cry, started to rise, then pointed to little Ma'asuma. "I should waken her!" she said in a low voice, "but welcome, thrice welcome is my lord--to me and to the child."
Her voice lingered over the words; her smile had a certain gravity in it.
"But thou," he said anxiously. "Hast not been well, wife? Thy face shows ill--why didst not write to me?"
"Because 'twas not worth while," she replied. "And I am most better. The spring comes and with it health. And I have had anxiety over thy grandmother. What said she?"
The deft turn succeeded. Babar gave vent to his dissatisfaction in no measured terms. "See you," he said, "Have I ever failed in my duty or service? When my mother and I had not even a single village nor a few jewels, I treated all my relations, male or female, as members of my family. I have made no difference between my maternal and my paternal connections. I say not this to appraise myself. I simply follow the scrupulous truth as everyone knows. And now, even my mother's sister desires to leave me! I am her nearest relation. It would be better, and more becoming for her to remain with me."
Mahâm's face showed whimsical smiles. "Not, my lord, unwillingly. God's earth holds not a more deadly poison to happiness than a discontented woman. So let them go; my lord has plenty of paternal aunts."
There was a certain patience in her tone! But Babar, still protesting, yielded; and set himself solemnly to settle the judicial as well as the executive system of his kingdom. It was about this time that he wrote his famous Essay-on-Jurisprudence which for many long years was to be a work of reference.
His enquiries took him out often into the out districts which, now that spring was advancing were excessively pleasant, abounding in tulips and indeed in all plants of every description. He began again to write poetry; pretty things still touched by profound, if somewhat scholastic, melancholy such as this--
"My heart's a rose full flaming,
Its petals opened wide,
To give her without shaming
Myself and all beside.
Ah me! in vain I lavished
My love on her dear heart,
An envious thorn has ravished
Her hand with deadly smart.
Her life-blood is a-falling
To dim my petals o'er.
Oh, Springtime! cease thy calling,
This rose will bloom no more."
He used to send them to Mahâm, who used to reply in her beautiful nastâlik hand that was always a joy to Babar's simple delight in anything and everything artistic. And he wrote, also, and told her of the thirty-five different kinds of tulips he had gathered, and of the inscriptions he caused to be cut on springs and rocks. And of a certainty when he visited, as he did, the Garden-of-Fidelity at Adinapur, he must have had much to tell her of a small flowerful grave there, where his sad heart was laid.
It was all very pathetic; sweetly pathetic. A noble young King, doing his duty bravely, though glad life was over for him forever.
Even the crystal cup which he carried in his bosom, and from which he drank ever the water of the cool mountain springs, brought him only modified comfort. Perhaps, because, from a sense of duty to himself, he would not allow it to bring more.
And then suddenly the whole wide world changed for him.
"Mahâm! My son!--my son!" was all that he could say when urgent summons brought him to a smiling mother and a new-born infant.
"He is like thee," she said, a tremor in her calm voice.
"God forbid!" interrupted the father hastily. "God send he be like thee--the best woman in the world--the best--the very best!"
Never were such rejoicings. The paternal aunts, who of late months had been let into the secret, were almost crazy with delight. And wherefore not? When a King has lived to be six-and-twenty without a son; when despite three marriages only two children have been borne to him, miserable little daughters, one dead, one but a few months old, it is time to be festive over a proper birth. And was there ever such a baby? So tall, so strong, so handsome and so altogether satisfactory. No wonder his father, who ever had a pretty wit, called him Humâyon. That might portend the phœnix, the bird of good omen, besides half-a-dozen other side meanings, each charming in its way.
But Babar, leaning over the happy mother said softly, "He shall be my protection in the future. Lo! Mahâm! I have put myself outside myself as they say in the child-stories of our youth. Who was't who put his life safe in a gold box? Well! my life is hid in my son's. So there, my wife, have a care of us both--for, verily in some ways, Mahâm, I need looking after like an infant."
The feast of nativity was a very splendid feast. Everyone who was Big, and everyone who was Not, brought their offerings. Bags on bags of silver money were piled up, until everyone was forced to confess that never before had they seen so much white money in one place.
And the entertainments! There were fireworks and marionettes and conjuring tricks. In fact a perfect fair for a whole week in the Great Four-square-Garden on the hill.
But the greatest amusement of all was one to which the Palace Ladies invited a select audience.
It was organised by the Fair Princess who had a genius that way, and its piece de resistance was a huge roc-egg brought in by fairies, which, cracking in most realistic fashion, disclosed the most magnificent phœnix that ever was seen, with feathers of every hue and plumes galore (it had, of course, a gold crown on its head) which monstrous bird being removed, like a tea cosy, appeared no less a personage than
"The Heir Apparent"
"Humâyon."
Endless was the laughter, the tears, the embracings, the gratulations.
But that evening as Mahâm and Babar sat hand in hand, looking at the sleeping infant, its mother cried suddenly--
"'Tis Ma'asuma's child also, thou must remember, husband. 'Twas for her sake I married thee."
"Not for mine own, one little bit, Mahâm?" he queried a trifle sadly. "Well! if that be so, I must be lover instead of husband for a time."