A Singular Hostage Part 28

A loud gasp came from the pa.s.sageway.

It was the torturing Moran, now glittering with jewelry, layers of maroon silk rippling about her. Without pausing to acknowledge the English guests, she rushed forward and cast the yellow veil for a third time over Mariana's face.

"Shameless girl," she hissed. "The court solicitor is coming to hear your consent! How foolish you are to uncover yourself!"

She sat down on the platform, her jewelry clas.h.i.+ng. Beside the now-enshrouded Mariana, Miss Emily rustled and sniffed.

"I do not not wish to know what that rude woman was saying," Miss Emily declared, "and I shall be very glad when this absurd ceremony is finished." wish to know what that rude woman was saying," Miss Emily declared, "and I shall be very glad when this absurd ceremony is finished."

Mariana raised a corner of her veil and looked out. An elderly, bearded man in a knitted skullcap shuffied toward the ladies' enclosure, aided by a stocky person in plain-looking clothes.

Miss f.a.n.n.y nudged Mariana. "Is that square young man to be the bridegroom?" she whispered.

Mariana repressed a whimper. Bridegroom Bridegroom.

Another man followed the first two. He wore a tall headdress. Shaikh Waliullah. Mariana stiffened, despair welling inside her. Why had the Shaikh spoken of her courage, and of the love she felt for Saboor, then cheated her of her honor and her life?

The trio of men waited uncertainly before the wall of screens until two eunuchs appeared, carrying chairs.

"Ah," declared Moran, sighing gustily, as the three men seated themselves before the screen, "it is time."

Shaikh Waliullah raised his head. For a moment, although she knew he could not see her, Mariana felt his powerful gaze reach through the screen, and pierce her heart.

"This," murmured Miss Emily, "seems more a fancy-dress party than a wedding. I must say that if I had ears like open carriage doors, I should not have chosen a costume involving a foot-high tubular headdress."

Mariana dropped her veil into her lap and stopped her ears with her fingers.

Bodies s.h.i.+fted beside her. Something was being said. She pushed her fingers harder against her ears.

She took them away when an elbow dug into her side. "Answer him," hissed Moran.

"Is she present?" an old man's voice asked.

"Yes," Moran answered. "I, Moran Bibi, declare that she is present."

"And does Mariam Bibi," rasped the ancient voice, "give her free consent to marry Ha.s.san Ali Khan Karakoyia?"

Free consent?

"What are they asking?" inquired Miss f.a.n.n.y in her stage whisper.

"Speak," ordered Moran.

Mariana breathed in. "No," she said grimly and distinctly through her veil. "I do not not give my free consent." give my free consent."

"What does 'nay' mean?" Miss Emily demanded. "Are you saying, Mariana, that you refuse to marry the man?"

Miss f.a.n.n.y drew in a sharp breath. "I think she is very brave, after all the things these people have-"

"You will say yes." Menacing fingers pinched Mariana's arm.

Mariana blinked. On second thought, to refuse would be a mistake. Moran would only return her to the rooms downstairs and infiict more punishments upon her. But if she consented, she would leave for the Shaikh's house within hours. Had it not been her plan to escape the Citadel at any cost?

"I consent," she croaked.

"What did you say, Mariana?" asked Miss Emily and Miss f.a.n.n.y in unison.

Mariana did not reply.

Bent over in her greasy clothes, she half listened as instructions were given and prayers recited in drawn-out Arabic. When clas.h.i.+ng music started up in the courtyard, Moran tugged at Mariana's veil. "Tell your ladies to join the other English people," she commanded, "while we dress you in your wedding clothes."

Sick at heart, Mariana stumbled down the stairs again. What had the old man said? What was her husband's name?

BATHED at last, her hair dried, her eyes painted, and her skin ma.s.saged with almond oil, she stood drooping with fatigue. Moran, her own eyes ringed with dark circles of fatigue, tied the drawstring of Mariana's crimson wedding pajamas and tugged a matching brocade s.h.i.+rt over her head.

"There." Moran stood back. "Now we are nearly ready."

The watching women nodded.

"No, her hair is not right." The heavy-faced Charan chewed as she spoke. "Look. It is like a rat's nest."

A rat's nest! Would she ever recover from the insults of the past two days?

Moran lowered a crimson dress of fine embroidered tissue over Mariana's brocade s.h.i.+rt. "Why is everyone criticizing?" she muttered, as she broke the basting threads that had restrained a heavy, fringed veil into a neat square. "Pah! Do they all think I have never before dressed a bride?"

With a snap of thread, she freed the pearl-and-emerald choker from the velvet pillow. "Be still," she ordered, putting the necklace over Mariana's head and jerking the fastening cords tight.

After rummaging in a wooden jewelry casket, she pulled out a dozen straight ropes of pearls, each with a hook on one end and a large, l.u.s.trous pearl on the other.

"Here. These will help," she said as she tugged at Mariana's hair. "They will be our wedding present to you."

She stood back and narrowed her eyes. "You look all right." She nodded. "You make a nice bride. The clothes they sent are good enough. They are not very elaborate, but after all, they have had a death in the family."

What did Moran mean by "not very elaborate"? Mariana had never worn such fine clothes in all her life.

One piece of jewelry remained st.i.tched to the pillow. Moran pulled it loose and approached, her eyes on Mariana's nose.

Backing away, her hands before her face, Mariana shook her head. "No," she cried. "No!"

Moran let out a noisy sigh. "Can you not hear the sounds from upstairs?" She gestured impatiently toward the window, her many rings fias.h.i.+ng. "We must take you there now. There is no more time to waste." Gripping Mariana's chin, she tweaked out the neem twig and forced the gold nose ring through Mariana's nose with one decisive gesture. Her work accomplished, she stood back, her head c.o.c.ked.

"Now we are done," she said.

Mariana gazed at the brown tracery decorating her hands, as elaborate as the marble filigree of the window of the room in which she stood. She studied her four rings, two of rubies and pearls, two of emeralds and pearls, the enamel-work bangles on one wrist, the heavy gold circlets on the other, the seed pearls and gold thread decorating her sleeves. Other jewelry lay on her forehead. Her nose, having burned fiercely when the ring was first put in, now merely ached.

"Remember one thing, bleed heavily tonight," Moran advised carelessly as she unfolded the heavy fringed veil and draped it over Mariana's face. "Bleed as much as you can, all over the sheets. It makes the family happy."

ON her platform in the ladies' enclosure once more, Mariana drooped with exhaustion. She made no more attempts to see through her new red veil. Outside, musicians nearly drowned the noise of male conversation.

Miss f.a.n.n.y spoke from close by. "A stout woman is coming this way. Who is she?"

"I don't know," Mariana replied crossly, wis.h.i.+ng they would all go away.

Bodies moved on the platform, making room for the new arrival, who promptly wedged herself into the too-small s.p.a.ce beside Mariana.

It was not a queen. "Peace, daughter," intoned a baritone voice. Thick fingers grasped the fringed crimson veil and raised it. Mariana glanced upward-into the satisfied face of Safiya Sultana.

"You are pretty, as I knew you would be," said the Shaikh's sister, dropping the veil.

Pretty she might be, married she might be, at least according to them, but Mariana had made up her mind that as soon as she was safely out of the Citadel, this Oriental charade must end. Her mother had never mentioned blood when she gave her terse, ugly description of the origin of babies. Mariana had no intention of performing any wifely duty with the Shaikh's son, far less whatever grisly ritual they had in mind for her. She would make that clear to Safiya Sultana this very instant.

As she opened her mouth to speak, Moran spoke beside her. "We should let the foreigners see the bride."

Moran was there! Mariana closed her mouth again, unwilling to risk the scorn her announcement was certain to provoke from the queen. Her announcement to the Shaikh's sister would have to wait.

Someone lifted her veil again. Their black-bonneted heads together, Miss Emily and Miss f.a.n.n.y stared at her through a tunnel of crimson and gold tissue, their mouths forming perfect O's of mute surprise.

Mariana gazed steadily back. She would never speak to them again, never.

Safiya Sultana's stout body s.h.i.+fted against hers. When Mariana had brought Saboor to the haveli, the Shaikh's sister had not hurt or humiliated her but had only thanked her for the service she had performed. Safiya Sultana, at least, appeared to be kind and sensible, although Mariana could not guess what cruelties she she might offer a family bride. might offer a family bride.

"We will complete the formalities and take you home as soon as possible, daughter," Safiya Sultana said, wheezing a little. "It is not our intention to spend time here. These men can have their drinking party without us."

"The bridegroom is coming," someone announced.

Everyone seemed to have gone away, save the Eden ladies and Safiya Sultana. In the middle of a tired yawn, Mariana sensed an abrupt change in the atmosphere around her.

"Most extraordinary," Miss Emily's voice declared. "How can he see through that great tangle of beads and pearls?"

As someone sat down beside Mariana, Safiya Sultana began to recite something in a quiet singsong. "Now the bride and groom must see each another," the Shaikh's sister said, when she had finished.

Miss f.a.n.n.y gave a m.u.f.fied sound as Mariana's veil was lifted again, this time all the way back, freeing her face.

Someone thrust a looking gla.s.s with an intricately carved silver border before her. Leaning forward, she saw herself and gaped, astonished at her refiection.

Rimmed with black surma surma, the eyes that stared back at her were shapely and strange. Between unfamiliar arched eyebrows, a gold pendant set with jewels rested on her forehead, its pearl rope hidden in her hair. Her hair, no longer brown but a rich auburn, curled softly on her shoulders, interlaced with strings of pearls. A wide ring of fine gold wire circled through her nose, its pearl and ruby beads touching her lips.

Was this creature really her? She made an experimental face and put out her tongue, just as the mirror was tilted to one side, and she saw not herself but a pair of shocked brown eyes. Holding his own ropes of gold and pearl aside, the man in the headdress looked briefiy into her face before someone dropped her veil.

"May Allah Most Gracious bless you both and give you long life," intoned Safiya Sultana.

AN hour later, stiff with apprehension, Mariana sat upstairs at Qamar Haveli, surrounded by the Shaikh's family women. The Waliullah ladies, so benign when she last had seen them, now seemed like a crowd of vultures, staring, waiting.

"That is not the same girl who brought Saboor," p.r.o.nounced an old woman, dropping Mariana's now damp veil over her face again. "The queens have sent someone else."

"Of course it is the same girl," said two other women at the same time. "Look at her nose, her skin."

The veil was pulled away again. "So it is," agreed the old lady, peering closely at Mariana. "For all their malice, they know how to prepare a bride. I would never have believed she could look so lovely. That girl was as plain as a cooking pot."

Half an hour ago at the Citadel, Miss Emily's voice had cut through the noise of the crowd as she and Miss f.a.n.n.y were led away to their palanquins at the end of the evening.

"What an extraordinary transformation, f.a.n.n.y," she had said, her voice fioating back over the marble courtyard. "I find it astonis.h.i.+ng that an ordinary-looking English girl could be made to look so exactly like a native. A white native, I mean, of course. What a pity the bridegroom was invisible under all those-"

"Yes, and I thought she made a very pretty native."

"Really, f.a.n.n.y."

Mariana s.h.i.+fted. What were these women waiting for? Whatever it was, it must be even more horrible and disgusting than what Mama had described.

Her body felt clammy. She clutched her knees to her chest. Here in this upstairs room there were no eunuch guards, no armed men at the door. She imagined herself running through darkened streets in her bride's clothes, looking for the way to the British camp at Shalimar....

Safiya Sultana sat in her accustomed place against the wall. Determined to finally tell Safiya of her refusal to continue this charade of a marriage, Mariana crawled to her side, dragging heavy embroidery and fringes behind her.

"I must speak to you," she began as the other women murmured in surprise. "I must tell you that-"

Safiya frowned. "Not now, daughter. It is time for you to leave."

"No, please, I must tell you now-"

Before Mariana could finish speaking, Safiya Sultana nodded to a group of young girls, who got to their feet and came toward them, holding their hands out to Mariana. How innocent they all seemed, these Waliullah females, the girls blus.h.i.+ng, Safiya Sultana nodding contentedly to herself against the wall.

The only choice left was to fight, but Mariana had no more strength to protest or to struggle against restraining brown hands. Defeated at last, she got to her feet meekly and let the girls lead her to a corner room at the end of a veranda.

Inside were two string beds, both turned down, their sheets sprinkled liberally with red rose petals. An oil lamp glowed on a carved table. By its light, Mariana watched the girls run away, looking back over their shoulders, giggling through their fingers.

She sat down. The oil lamp looked like a reasonably dangerous weapon, but of course, it was lit and would start a fire if she tried to use it. Who would enter the room and advance upon her? What would they do to her?

There was a sound at the door. Ostrichlike, Mariana tugged her veil hastily down and peered through its fringe to see the curtain move aside and a figure in white pause before entering the room.

The bed creaked as the figure sat beside her. She did not turn her head. She could scarcely breathe. Attar of sandalwood scented the air. Where had she smelled that before?

"You didn't look foreign when I saw you, but then I couldn't see much in the mirror."

His voice was pleasant, like the Shaikh's, but without infiection, as if he were simply stating a fact. Beside her, a hand moved on his knee. It was a beautiful hand, perfectly shaped, with curved fingers. The hand lifted, pointing to a corner of the room.

"You should take off those heavy things and your jewelry," he said. "Put them on the trunk over there."

No longer burdened by her elaborate clothes, she might be able to put up some real resistance. In the corner, her back to him, she removed her nose ring and tugged, grimacing, at the pearl strands in her hair. Were they to be alone? How long could she avoid looking at him?

"I am glad to lie down," he said. "I have ridden forty miles today, from Kasur."

She dropped her veil and her pearl-embroidered dress onto the trunk. Still wearing her scarlet tunic and trousers, she steeled herself and turned. The Shaikh's son lay full length on one of the beds, his eyes closed, his hands behind his head, his lips parted under a full mustache. His beard was thick and neatly trimmed.

It was the tall man in the embroidered coat whom she had followed from the durbar tent a month ago, the same man who had later appeared, weeping, beside her near the howitzers, who had even then worn attar of sandalwood.