Companions of Paradise (28 page)

She raised her chin and regarded her ragged lieutenant. “Yes,” she replied. “I will marry you.”

“Thank you.” Fitzgerald nodded seriously, as if she had done him a service, then held out his good hand for her to take.

She smiled grimly as she trudged back to her quarters, thinking of the two people who would most have enjoyed that moment.

Unfortunately neither Aunt Claire nor Lady Macnaghten was able to celebrate it.

December 26, 1841

T
he following morning, as Mariana huddled alone before the sitting room fire, wondering whether she should tell Aunt Claire of her engagement or keep it to herself, someone knocked on the door.

“Your Munshi Sahib has come,” called Dittoo's muffled voice.

Mariana jumped to her feet.

A moment later, supported by a solicitous Nur Rahman, the old man stood in front of her, wrapped incongruously in a yellow satin rezai, his golden qaraquli hat pulled low on his forehead.

He seemed to have grown smaller since she had seen him last.

She pointed to the straight-backed chair she had been sitting on. “Please sit down, Munshi Sahib.”

Why on earth, she wondered, as he shuffled over to the fire and lowered himself onto the chair, had he left his bed in this weather to come all the way from the city to visit her?

He looked like a wizened king, with his golden rezai, and the boy crouched at his feet, pressing his legs rhythmically with both hands. His shallow coughing filled the little room.

It was the first time he had sat down in Mariana's presence.

“I have come, Bibi,” he wheezed, “to learn whether Haji Khan's durood has borne fruit. Have you seen, heard, or smelled anything unusual while you were reciting?”

She nodded, remembering her vision for the first time in days.

“And may I know what you have seen?”

Looking into his calm, rheumy eyes, she forgot her fears and misery. She even forgot her horrid breakfast of black tea and dried mulberries.

Leaving out no detail, she described the rolling desert landscape of her dream, the camel bells signaling the presence of other travelers, the fresh breeze and the heavy, fecund moon that had seemed to promise her every happiness.

She told him of the peace she felt even now, as she spoke of it.

“But what does it mean, Munshi Sahib?” she asked, leaning toward him, her kingly little interpreter of dreams. “Does it contain the answer to the question I brought to Haji Khan three months ago?”

He regarded her for a moment, then signaled to Nur Rahman that he wanted to rise.

“It means, Bibi,” he said mildly, as he prepared to leave her, “that you should not have made the promise that you made yesterday.”

His words fell on her like a blow. “Why?” she breathed.

“You will see for yourself,” he replied.

Then, wrapped in his golden quilt, he made his dignified way to the door.

A HUNDRED miles away, Hassan and Zulmai stopped to water their animals at the silver river that wound toward them between flat, stony banks.

Ghulam Ali bowed his muffled head against the wind and turned to signal to the animal drivers that straggled behind them.

Each morning for the past ten days, before the sun appeared over the tops of the mountains, the travelers had offered their prayers on the cold ground and taken a few swallows of water before folding their tents and starting off.

Each day they had made between eight and ten miles.

Today, having traversed four miles of rough terrain along a vague track, every member of the kafila, including Ghulam Ali, was yawning and famished.

A little distance away, Hassan, dressed in embroidered sheepskins and an Afghan-style turban, clucked solicitously as he guided his silver mare down a shale slope to the river's edge, while the two dozen Turi tribesmen they had recruited from local villages stepped forward to fetch water for their tea.

They had come a long way from Peshawar, but even so, they had covered only half of the distance to Kabul, and the worst part of their journey still lay ahead.

Hurrying had been impossible. Throughout the long, uncomfortable journey from Kohat to Thal, as they struggled over bare, uneven ground cut by deep ravines, Hassan had worn a concentrated look, as if he had put everything but this one, vital journey out of his mind.

Near Hangu they had met a rich caravan from the north, bringing horses with thick coats, and a hundred big Bukhara camels loaded with Russian fabric, dried apricots, and pistachio nuts.

The leader of the caravan had shrugged when Hassan asked him for news of Shah Shuja and the British.

“The British are finished,” he said. “Their main water supply was cut off long ago. Akbar Khan and his men have stopped them from buying food from the villages. For weeks now, anyone who strays more than a few yards from their cantonment has been shot.

“Many of their officers have been killed, including their two leaders. As for Shah Shuja,” the man added, “it is only a matter of time before he, too, dies.”

Hassan's fist had opened and closed on his knee. “Have the British talked of leaving Kabul?”

The leader smiled. “Talk is all they do. These British do not fight. They cower, starving, behind their walls, sending message after message to Sirdar Akbar Khan. But he will not easily let them go after they knocked his father from the throne.”

At Thal, Hassan and Zulmai had turned northwest, and started up the long, fertile Kurrum River valley, passing nomad family groups bringing their flocks down from the north, their camels festooned with cooking pots, live chickens, and tent hangings.

Now, as they let the animals drink, a group of such nomads walked by with their swaying camels, whose ankle bells chinked with every step.

“Ho,” called the headman, “where are you going?”

“To Kabul,” Hassan replied.

“What takes you to Kabul in this bitter weather,” he asked, “when the scent of blood is in the air?”

“Family business,” Hassan replied shortly.

The headman looked him over. “For all your Afghan dress,” he observed, “I see that you are Indian. Keep in mind that death awaits the infidel British and their Indian lackeys.”

When Hassan did not answer him, the headman shrugged and continued on his way.

The valley floor in front of them rose and fell in waves, with steep ascents and sudden descents. The road ahead had been cut into steep, curving hillsides in places. In others it ran along the gray shingle of the riverbed, with its ribbon of silver water. At Shinak Kili, distant mountains, now rose-colored, now magenta, frowned from the distance, and groups of villages beckoned, their haze of smoke promising warmth and company.

Ahead of them, a narrow, camel-neck of a road wound its way to the Shuturgarden Pass and the last leg of their journey.

Two days later, hunched against the cold, they followed a frozen riverbed through the high, winding Shuturgarden's most dangerous defile, a claustrophobic six-mile stretch between smooth rock walls so high that sunlight did not reach the stony riverbed below.

Of the pack animals, the stubborn, scrambling yabus fared best on the icy, uneven track. The mules were not as lucky.

“Undo its load!” Hassan shouted, as Ghulam Ali and three other men ran, their shoes slipping, to haul a downed mule to its feet. “See if it has broken its bones!”

The animal had caught a forefoot between the stones, and fallen onto its side, crushing some of the chickens tied to its back. As Ghulam Ali struggled with stiff fingers to release its load, several dead chickens, open boxes of tea leaves, and a stream of cooking oil lay in a messy heap at his feet.

With a wheezing cry, the mule got up, and stood on three legs, a twisted forefoot dangling off the ground.

“Shoot it,” Zulmai ordered. “We will eat the dead chickens tonight. The rest of the load, except for the live birds, must be left behind.”

This was the rule of the kafila. For each dead pack animal, a load would be abandoned. With each fallen hill pony or mule, something they needed would be lost: quilts, perhaps, or tents, rice, fodder, or tea.

The men would protect their own mounts to the last, and their weapons to the death.

Half the mules were gone. Five had already been shot, and a stealthy night raid by Ali Khel tribesmen two days before had cost the kafila twelve more, together with most of Hassan's elaborate furnishings.

“I suppose,” Hassan offered ruefully that evening, as he and Zulmai ate chicken beside the fire in their tent, “that my stolen furnishings are serving some Afghan family well.”

“It is lucky you did not keep your jewels and perfumes with those things,” Zulmai replied. “Some tribesman would be wearing them all by now. In any case,” he added as he wiped his fingers on the tail of his shirt, “most of your wealth is in that horse of yours.”

Later, Hassan tilted his chin toward the ragged escort they had acquired the day before. “These new guards of ours,” he murmured, “they are Ghilzais, are they not?”

Zulmai nodded.

“Then they will know what is happening in Kabul.”

“Yes, they will. Many of their people will have gone there to fight the British. Shall I ask them for news?”

Hassan shook his head. “They cannot tell me of my family, and I cannot bear to hear them boast of their success.”

“WHY ARE you so worried, Saboor?” Safiya Sultana demanded that afternoon, as they rode home from Sialkot in her family's roomy old palanquin. “Your Abba has already gone to fetch Mariam from Kabul. Why are you so afraid?”

She peered into her great-nephew's tear-filled eyes. “Have you had another dream,
jan?”
she asked, over the steady “hah-hah” of the palanquin bearers. “Have you seen something that has frightened you?”

But the child could only make the same sound that he had made for the past hour of their journey home from Sialkot: a small, helpless “o-o-oh” that seemed to come from the depths of his heart.

“I do not know what to do with him,” Safiya Sultana confided to her brother after their arrival at Qamar Haveli. “I fear he has seen something too disturbing to speak aloud.”

The Shaikh gave her a sharp look. “Allah forbid, is it possible that Mariam has died?”

“I do not believe so. If that were true, Saboor would be suffering even more than he is now.”

“Send him to me after he has eaten,” the Shaikh offered. “I will give him a verse to recite.”

Safiya brightened. “A verse?”

“I am thinking of a small portion of the Qur'an, from Sura Inshirah,
Expansion:

His sister nodded.

Later that afternoon, as she sat before a tray of goat's liver, spiced
dal
, and two thick rounds of potato-stuffed bread, Safiya Sultana considered the English girl's plight.

The news trickling down through the passes from Afghanistan worsened each day. The whole country, it seemed, had taken up arms against the British.

Safiya did not know much about Afghan war-making but she knew two things: first, that no Afghan would deliberately shoot a woman in battle, and second, that besieging a fort and starving out its inhabitants was one of their most commonplace strategies.

Her mouth full, she glanced uncomfortably at the loaded dishes before her. Starvation was a fate Safiya Sultana could not bear to imagine.

What then of Mariam? The poor girl must be in a terrible state in that besieged fort. If she were not rescued soon, she might well perish from hunger or cold, or untreated illness.

Safiya looked down at the child who coughed sadly beside her, wrapped in her old brown shawl. It was no surprise that his little face had thinned from anxiety.

It must be terrible to see life, with all its sorrows, as clearly as he did

She held out a bit of fried bread. “Eat one more bite,” she commanded, “and then go downstairs and sit in the sun with your grandfather. He has a verse from the Qur'an Sharif for you to recite. And do not forget,” she added, after he swallowed her offering and stood up, “that Inshallah, your Abba will soon be fetching An-nah home.”

Saboor's anguished look told her she would have been wiser to say nothing.

As a little maidservant took away the tray, Safiya tried to picture Hassan as he traveled toward Kabul, but having never seen even the great Badshahi Mosque that adorned the western edge of her own walled city, she could not imagine his surroundings, or the circumstances of his journey.

She signaled the little maidservant to bring the ewer and carved copper basin, then held out her greasy right hand and nodded.

She sighed as the girl poured a thin stream of rose-scented water over her hand. As much as she wanted Hassan to forgive his wife and himself, in this emergency no one's feelings mattered.

Downstairs in the family courtyard, Shaikh Waliullah studied the child beside him.

“What have you dreamed, my darling?” he asked. “What have you seen that has frightened you?”

He took the little boy's chin in his hand, his light, pleasant voice at odds with the power of his gaze.

“Stories.” Saboor squeezed his eyes shut.

“And are they sad, your stories?”

The soft face crumpled. “They are very sad,” the child wailed. “I hate the stories, but they keep coming back.”

“Can you tell me what they are?”

Tears smeared Saboor's face. He shook his head.