The Damascened Blade (22 page)

Iskander was eyeing her intently. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Yes indeed! It’s perfectly lovely!’ said Lily, anxious to give nothing away, but all the same she saw this as a land worth fighting for and if necessary worth dying for. The hillsides were dotted with houses large and small, many with watchtowers enclosed within defensive walls. Folded with such skill into the hills that Lily was not at first aware of it was a considerable village, itself within a defensive wall, surrounding an interior fortress, large and forbidding, the home of Iskander and the home of Zeman.

‘We will ride in,’ said Iskander. ‘You have to meet the tribal chieftain. His wife died last year so you will be received by his new wife, Halima Begum. Don’t be alarmed.’

‘Why should I be alarmed?’ said Lily automatically.

‘You would be forgiven if you were,’ said Iskander smiling. ‘It must be very strange to you.’

They rode through the guarded gates in the outer enceinte and across a stretch of open ground the size of a parade ground to reach the central fortress. Everywhere crowds of people stopped to smile and shout and wave at them. The business of a thriving village was being conducted here – market stalls lined the shaded part of the walls, animals were being led about, water jugs carried, and the enticing and unmistakable smell of a bakery wafted towards her. Metallic clashing and a blast of scorching air as they passed might have announced a blacksmith’s forge but the shining new rifles and gun parts stacked outside hinted at a more sinister activity. Small children, boys and girls, ran about barefoot in the dust dashing dangerously close to the horses’ hooves in their eagerness to get a close look at the visitors.

As they approached, the fortress itself presented a truly forbidding appearance. The encircling mud brick wall appeared to be about six feet thick and about thirty feet high. It was crenellated and without windows. Lily became aware of square watchtowers on the battlements and massive corner towers. The defences were manned and the sun picked up from time to time the reflection of a rifle barrel. The massive iron-studded gate was closed and Lily began to feel very small as they advanced towards it. It creaked gently open to reveal a courtyard where, flanked by armed tribesmen, a bearded man sat waiting for them, as one carved from the surrounding hills in silence and immobile, controlling with a sinewy hand a white-eyed black stallion.

‘That,’ said Iskander superfluously, ‘is our chief, Ramazad Khan.’

Without a word of command being spoken her horse and that of Rathmore were taken in hand and held back to the rear of the troop. The men dismounted. The Khan dismounted. Lily and Rathmore did the same and small boys ran forward to gather up the reins and lead the horses away. With his men formed up behind him Iskander Khan sank to his knees and kissed the hands of his chief. They spoke to each other in what Lily judged to be a formal greeting. She looked closely at the impressive figure who was Zeman’s father and wondered whether the news of his son’s death had reached him or whether it was going to be Iskander’s duty to reveal it now.

For the first time in her enforced flight Lily felt true fear. She realized that until this moment she had been placing faith in Iskander’s reassurances that women were not harmed by the Pathan. She had been cushioned from reality also by the sense of her own status. Her father was unimaginably rich. Rich enough to buy up this whole territory, she estimated. Rich enough to buy his daughter out of any scrape she got herself into. And suddenly, here, in the middle of this wild country which obeyed no laws that she had ever heard of, her fate depended on the whims of this chieftain. Iskander, she felt certain, would never harm her but here he was before her eyes making obeisance to this formidable man. And, quite clearly, Iskander’s continued protection must be dependent on the chief’s decisions. What had James said about him? She thought she had overheard him telling Joe that he was a malicious old brute who hated the British. Would he know the difference between British and American? Would he care? Lily thought that they were probably all ferenghi to him.

She looked at him again and decided that James was probably not exaggerating. The Khan was quite obviously the father of Zeman, the likeness was striking, but where Zeman had simply worn a moustache this man had a full and long black beard streaked with grey. The hook-nosed profile was as handsome but where Zeman’s eyes had been full of merriment and cynicism his father’s eye was cold. He was as tall as Iskander; his back was straight, his movements lithe. In fact, he was every last inch a chieftain, thought Lily. And when he found out who she was and, even more pertinently, who Rathmore was, she guessed there was going to be trouble. Lily began to wish Iskander had taken them off to Afghanistan. She thought they would have had a better chance of survival with the Amir who sounded really rather a jolly little feller if Grace was to be believed.

Now what was happening? The men, apart from two who remained one on either side of Rathmore, were dismissed at a signal from Iskander and went off into the village. She dreaded that Rathmore would try to assert himself and put the Khan in his place and tried to give him a warning look. Iskander spoke for a long time to his chief, answering questions put to him in a stiff voice from time to time. Such was the chief’s control of his emotions that Lily could not make out the exact moment when Iskander revealed to him that his son was dead. Finally, the old man turned a baleful glare on Rathmore who opened his mouth to speak and even managed a few words of the ‘I say, are you aware of who I am? . . . His Majesty’s Government . . . Certain reprisals . . .’ type and then, under the spell of the old man’s scorn, thought better of it and fell silent. The chief called forward one of his aides – an interpreter, Lily guessed – who gave him the gist of Rathmore’s pronouncements. Ramazad put a few questions to Rathmore, again pointedly not involving Iskander in the exchange, and then sent Rathmore off with an escort. He turned his attention to Lily and she stared straight back at him unabashed. Summoning up the little Pushtu she had persuaded Zeman to teach her, she greeted him in his own language. He looked at her in astonishment and snapped out a command to Iskander.

At once Iskander took charge of Lily. ‘Follow me, Miss Coblenz. I will take you to your quarters.’

He strode off across the central square and Lily trotted after him.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘Over there.’

He pointed to the far side of the square to a long two-storeyed building with a series of tall narrow windows running along it. Made of baked mud like the rest of the fort, it would have been ugly had its starkness not been relieved by a pretty balcony which ran the length of it and by the delicate tracery of the wooden screens which filled each window. Iskander waited at the closed door and very soon it was opened to them by a veiled woman. She greeted Iskander with great warmth, taking his hands in hers and drawing him inside. She slipped the gauzy rose-coloured veil from her face and looked at him with affection. A tall, light-skinned Pathan with green eyes and rich brown hair, she was beautiful and young and Lily, feeling travel-stained, small and awkward, wondered who she could possibly be.

The girl listened to Iskander explaining the appearance of the dusty little sparrow at his side, looking from one to the other in astonishment. Finally, ‘This is Halima Begum, the wife of our chief,’ he said. ‘Go with her, she will see to your needs.’ He turned on his heel and walked away, closing the heavy door behind him.

Halima Begum took Lily’s hand and spoke to her in a low, sweet voice and, to Lily’s surprise, in English. ‘How do you do, Lily? Please enter.’

Lily was relieved to be out of the sun and the dust but uneasy at the abrupt disappearance of Iskander who had been her lifeline for the past hours. Nervously she greeted Halima Begum and asked, ‘Is this the chief’s house?’

Halima hesitated for a moment and replied slowly, ‘All house here is chief’s house. This is harem house. You are in harem.’

Chapter Thirteen

James Lindsay set his binoculars down on the wall beside him and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing,’ he grumbled. ‘Blasted Powindah! Always glad to see them of course but I’d rather they hadn’t chosen this moment to build an impenetrable dust screen across the Khyber! God knows what’s happening behind it!’

‘What might be happening behind it?’ said Joe, staring northward.

‘Anything!’ said James. ‘Anything in the world. Anything or nothing. Let’s go out and meet them, Joe. Whatever else they operate – and sometimes it’s better not to enquire too closely – they operate a damn good news service. Not much happens,’ he pointed, ‘not much happens over there without their knowing about it. If Iskander and his mates are on the caravan road to Afghanistan – and that’s the
only
road to Afghanistan – they’ll know where they are and what they’re up to. Care to come? I’m turning out a Mounted Infantry detachment anyway and they can escort us. Probably quite unnecessary but, as I say, you never know what’s happening behind the dust. Come on, Joe! A breath of far from fresh air won’t do us any harm. I’ll just tell Eddy what we’re up to. Betty too. Not feeling too good, poor old thing. This bloody country! Knocks you to bits in the end, even the stoutest.’

At the head of an MI detachment of thirty Scouts James and Joe clattered out of the fort together and made their way into the gut of the Khyber Pass and here they drew aside, halted amongst the rocks and settled down to watch. As the haze of dust blowing ahead of the caravan grew thicker, the noises also began to reach them: a weird dissonance of shouting men, braying donkeys, tinkling camel bells, the whole pierced by an occasional peal of wild girlish laughter and all underpinned by the dull, ear-numbing, earth-drumming pounding of thousands of hooves and hundreds of feet. Overwhelmed, Joe stared and stared again.

‘Not quite what you were expecting?’ said James.

‘I’ll say not! I was expecting – oh, a single file of camels and a few gypsy tribesmen. Not this . . .’ His voice trailed away as his eyes took in the ancient and barbaric splendour of the advancing caravan.

‘It’s a whole people on the move. They’re thousands strong and they’ve been nomadic since history began. They’re tough too. They follow the Silk Route, coming down from Samarkand and Bokhara and Kabul, trading all the way. Everyone they pass knows the caravan is full of goods they want for themselves. Some try to take them by force not by haggling in the prescribed manner and usually they end up dead. The Powindah men are hard bargainers but they’re harder on anyone who tries to steal from them or defraud them. You never know quite who you’re going to meet as you emerge from that mountain hellhole – could be Alexander the Great and a squad of Macedonians in a bad temper, a band of Moghul warriors on the rampage or – like today – just a couple of admiring chaps bringing gifts.’ He held up a gilt-wrapped package of Gold Flake cigarettes. ‘The mounted fighting men come first, you’ll see, followed by the young men of the tribe, all armed to the teeth, on foot, then the main caravan with protective outriders and a final rearguard. Oh, and you’ll see dogs. They roam everywhere and are trained to tear bits off anyone who so much as looks at them, so don’t engage their attention. Ah – here they come!’

They waited to the side of the trail as the advance guard emerged from the dust cloud. First there came perhaps a hundred strong, well-dressed and well-mounted Powindahs. Tall, warlike, watchful, competent and completely unabashed: this was the series of Joe’s impressions of the colourful mob. But no – ‘mob’ was not quite right. Colourful army? ‘Yes,’ Joe decided. ‘More like an army.’

Their leader paused as he caught sight of James and escorted by three others drew aside to greet him. As far as Joe could tell the greeting was a formal one but by no means without humour and James replied in kind.

‘What’s he saying?’ said Joe, irritated as always not to understand.

The next part of the exchange was easier to follow as James with a smile and a bow handed over the package of cigarettes. With an exclamation of delight the chief was obviously thanking James and handing over, in turn, a small gift. Not such a small gift though, Joe thought, admiring the silver snuff box which made its way into James’s pocket. The formalities over, James then embarked on a long speech which included gestures towards himself, the MI troop and many gestures pointing towards the Khyber.

Joe watched the Powindah’s face carefully. The leathery features to be observed between grizzled beard and voluminous white turban were by no means inscrutable. Joe looked on, fascinated, as one expression melted into another, accompanied at times by deep sighs or hissing intake of breath as James’s story progressed. Finally when James fell silent on a question, the old man’s face grew grave and still. He thought deeply for a moment then called out a question to one of his lieutenants. Considering the response, he nodded and then began to speak. He spoke for quite a while, clearly and openly with gestures which conveyed to all around and to Joe the message that he could not be of any help. He had no answer to James’s questions. Joe was certain that he was lying.

With expressions of mutual regard, the meeting broke up and the four riders made their way back to the head of the column. As the contingent of young warriors on foot drew level with them, on a word from James the Scouts closed in and established themselves on either side of the track. A bearded Rissaldar began to address the advancing horde.

‘He’s saying,’ said James, ‘that they have to leave their arms at the little checkpoint we’ve set up at the next stream crossing. They’re not allowed to carry arms through into British India. They know this perfectly well. It happens every year. I never think it’s tactful to mention it in the presence of their leaders since they must find it somewhat galling and our convention is that they and we pretend it isn’t happening and leave it to the lower orders to sort it out amongst themselves. “Diplomacy Lindsay” they call me!’

‘No joy with the Malik, I gathered?’ said Joe.