A Singular Hostage Part 31

"Of that I am not certain," Shafi Sahib had replied. "But, Yar Mohammad," he added, smiling, "it is you, not I, who received the little vial. If it is His will, Allah Most Gracious will keep you safe."

A crowd began to collect in the rain as the hors.e.m.e.n pounded upon the carved door of Qamar Haveli.

Tightness in Yar Mohammad's chest told him that this was indeed the emergency of his dream. These men had certainly come in search of the child Saboor, intending to take him as a hostage to the Citadel. They also must intend to take Memsahib, as she was now the child's stepmother. Why else would an elegant palanquin with a team of bearers have followed the hors.e.m.e.n inside?

The hors.e.m.e.n had carried swords and matchlocks. Armed with only his curved kukri knife, he would be useless.

The crowd at the door grew larger. Raised voices argued over the family's response to this new crisis. Would the Shaikh perform magic again? Would the Maharajah punish him? As he listened, coils of terror wrapped themselves about Yar Mohammad's heart. What unknown, dangerous work had been entrusted to him? What if, unsure of his mission, he made a mistake so terrible that he endangered them all?

Coolies pa.s.sed his doorway, bent beneath heavy loads of charcoal and rags. Horses trotted by, their riders wrapped in dripping shawls. A picture rose in Yar Mohammad's clouded mind of Shaikh Waliullah and Shafi Sahib seated side by side in the upstairs room at Qamar Haveli. "You and no one else," the Shaikh had told him, while Shafi Sahib nodded his agreement, "will know when the time has come to act."

Yar Mohammad stepped onto the wet stones and started toward the Delhi Gate. He would go back to Shalimar, to Shafi Sahib. Some day, perhaps, he would be braver, would know how and when to act, but this time he needed advice.

He had not taken three steps before a familiar-looking red-haired man hurried past him, followed by a stumbling figure in a stained burqa. The red-haired man's eyes s.h.i.+fted from side to side as he walked, as if he were afraid of being observed. On his wet shoulder lay a sleeping baby.

The man was Allahyar, the servant who had conducted Yar Mohammad to meet the Shaikh and Shafi Sahib, a day that still rang in Yar Mohammad's memory. The sleeping baby was, without question, Saboor Baba. And, if he were not mistaken about her manner of walking, the struggling figure in the filthy burqa was the English memsahib.

As she hastened past him toward the great stone gateway, the woman lifted the edge of her burqa away from a pair of ruined slippers. Oh, yes, it was Memsahib. No woman of the city would reveal her ankles thus. He must warn her not to give herself away! Uncertain no more, he fixed his eyes on her back and lengthened his stride.

Men and animals crowded the street near the old public bath, blocking his way. Afraid he might lose sight of the odd trio, he elbowed other men aside, bruising his s.h.i.+n on a fruit seller's stall, jostling a blind man's hand from his guide's shoulder. Then, he was through the gate and past the heaving crowd at the entrance to the caravanserai, the rest house of travelers. The crowd thinned, and there they were again, the redheaded man, the lady, and the dozing child.

As he drew breath to call out to Allahyar, Yar Mohammad found himself fiung abruptly aside by an outstretched arm as a wide old palanquin drove past, its bearers shouting warnings as they ran. Recovering his balance, he looked ahead in time to see it halt and Memsahib's burqa-clad figure climb inside. As he began, panting, to close the distance between them, he saw Allahyar thrust the baby inside and slide the door shut.

Still running, he watched helplessly as the bearers lifted the poles to their shoulders and started off again in the direction of the Delhi road. Desperate, he searched the crowd for a sign of Allahyar, but the redheaded man had vanished. As the chill rain soaked through his thin clothes, Yar Mohammad began to trudge resolutely along the road behind the speeding palanquin, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

SO intent had Yar Mohammad been on following the three figures before him that he failed to notice two men who stood in the crowded shelter of the Delhi Gate, staring after Allahyar and his companions. He missed seeing a smartly dressed eunuch turn to a lanky, sallowfaced young man, and gesture with long arms toward the sleeping bundle on the man's shoulder.

"I know that child," Gurbashan said excitedly, ignoring the water dripping from the end of his nose. "I would know him anywhere."

He put his mouth next to the young man's ear. "It does not matter how he has come to be on the road in the company of servants," he whispered. "That is the child Saboor. I am telling you, it is he. How could I fail to know him after I spent four days taking him to the Maharajah's camp? I recognized him once before, whatever they may say, and I have now recognized him again."

"Shall we follow them?" asked the young man dubiously, staring after the stumbling woman.

"No," replied the eunuch. "I know where they are going. Why give only information, when we can present Saboor himself to the Maharajah and get the full reward? I know exactly how to get the brat. Come with me."

IT was late afternoon before the eunuch Gurbashan and the sallow young man had made inquiries at a certain narrow alley in the city. They now stood in a damp mist, by a low door, jostled by noisy strangers, waiting for the man they sought, while music fioated from the adjoining houses and the pungent smell of perfumes mixed with the wet filth of the street.

"I do not like this," the young man said, his feet dancing nervously on the stones. "I do not like this at all."

"If you do not like it," snapped Gurbashan, looking hastily behind him, "then be gone. I will keep all the reward for myself."

A narrow-faced man stood before them, studying them with lifeless eyes. Although he was not old, he had no front teeth. Behind him stood a boy whose face was round and ruddy beneath a layer of dirt. Both were dressed in rags. The narrow-faced man and the boy waited, saying nothing, gazing hungrily at the eunuch's clothes.

"I understand," said Gurbashan, drawing himself up, "that you are well versed in the stealing of children."

The man offered no reply. The boy behind him stared.

"I want to know how good you are." The eunuch lowered his eyes and poked the ground in front of him with a sandaled foot. "We desire the services of someone who can do what we need."

The man drew his lips back, revealing more toothless gums. His hair was matted and dusty. The ruddy-faced boy smirked.

"I have stolen more than thirty children," the man replied. His lisping voice was as flat as his eyes. "I sell them for labor, or I sell them, especially the girls, to these places."

He tilted his head toward a row of open-windowed houses, the only ones in the city where women were not hidden but displayed.

"Some," he added, "I sell to the beggars."

Perspiration gleamed on the sallow forehead of the eunuch's companion.

The dead-eyed man shrugged, palm up. "Why is your friend so afraid? He is too old for my services. Besides, it is not I who deforms the children." He pointed with his thumb at an impossibly twisted man lying in a doorway. "It is others who break their bones to arouse the sympathy of the pious. They know how to-"

The eunuch hastily raised his hands. "How do you work?"

"The work takes skill," the man answered. "I know how to enter a house silently, in the darkness. I can drug a child without killing it." His half smile disappeared. "The children I steal do not cry out."

Gurbashan's companion gulped noisily. The eunuch scratched his head, his eyes on the cobblestones. After a time, he nodded. "All right," he agreed, "but remember, if the baby is not delivered in perfect condition, you will get no money."

"You told me you would frighten the child thieves with threats," protested the sallow-faced youth as Gurbashan propelled him away, a long arm about his shoulders. "You said you would warn them that they would be tortured to death by the Maharajah's soldiers if Saboor Baba died."

"When did I say that? I never said such a thing," snapped the eunuch, turning to look quickly behind him as they reached the alley's end and rounded the corner into a wide lane.

"WHAT?" Lord Auckland's face, refiected in the silver table ornaments, had turned crimson. "You say the girl was not there when you called at the Shaikh's house? You say she had gone off without a word on some native errand, when she knew perfectly well that you were coming to fetch her?"

His jowls quivering, he glared at Macnaghten. "They must have hidden her somewhere in the house. Why did you not protest, demand that they produce her? If she were not there, why did you not insist on having someone take you to her?"

Macnaghten speared a piece of fish with his fork before replying. "Your lords.h.i.+p may have forgotten," he said evenly, "that natives of the Shaikh's cla.s.s seclude their women. It was, therefore, impossible for me to go to Miss Givens. It also seemed to me-although here I must rely on my experience with natives-that the Shaikh was telling the truth."

It was true. As surprised as he had been at the girl's absence, he had not questioned the Shaikh's promise that Miss Givens would, G.o.d willing, present herself at the British camp four days from today. The man was clearly someone of importance among the natives. He had spoken with unmistakable authority.

"Shaikh Waliullah has given me his word that Miss Givens will call on you and your lady sisters four days from today when this camp reaches the city of Kasur." Macnaghten watched Lord Auckland push potatoes angrily onto his fork. "I therefore take full responsibility for her safe arrival, barring, of course, some unforeseen accident upon the road." He raised his hands. "I a.s.sume that she will then remain with the camp for the return journey to Calcutta."

Aides murmured at the far end of the table. "Four days from now," observed Lord Auckland darkly, "you will not be at this camp. You You will be partway to Kabul with the army." will be partway to Kabul with the army."

Macnaghten's appet.i.te left him. It was no use talking to Lord Auckland; the man was an a.s.s. He put down his knife and fork and refused the rest of the dishes. His toes wriggling inside his shoes, he waited for dinner to end.

SHAFI Sahib let out a gentle sigh. "Yar Mohammad," he repeated, "you must take the road to Kasur." The string bed creaked under him. "I am certain that Memsahib has taken Saboor Baba to his father. She must have done so-there is no sign of her at this camp."

Yar Mohammad said nothing. At a loss, unable to keep up with Memsahib's palanquin, the groom had followed the road as far as Shalimar, then stopped at the British camp, hoping to find her there. He had waited for hours, posting himself near the guarded entrance in the red wall. As night fell, he had gone to the back of the red compound and entered by the kitchen gate, to discover Dittoo sleeping by a cooking fire.

"No," Dittoo had said, shaking his head, "Memsahib has not returned."

Yar Mohammad was weary. His head ached from trying to decide what to do.

"Go, brother," Shafi Sahib told him. "Go now. You must travel all night. With luck, you will find a bullock cart that will carry you. But you must go. Otherwise, you will not find them on the road tomorrow morning."

In a corner room at the Citadel, the Maharajah leaned from his low bed and spat into a carved silver bowl.

He spoke with effort. "What am I to believe, Aziz? Is Saboor at his house in the city, ill with smallpox as his family claims, or is he at the British camp, as the eunuch insists?"

"Only Allah knows," replied the Chief Minister tenderly.

The Maharajah coughed weakly, his eye closed. Azizuddin drew closer to the bed.

"I hope he is not at his house," the Maharajah said. "If he is anywhere on the road or even at the British camp, Gurbashan's child stealers will be sure to find him."

"Child stealers?" The Chief Minister's neck went rigid. "You have allowed the eunuch to hire child stealers?"

"I am old, Aziz. I am weary of everything." The Maharajah s.h.i.+vered. "Today, I have not the heart even to tease the British. I need my Saboor."

"Ah, Maharaj," Aziz said softly, a hand on the bedcovers, "you are tired only because you are unwell. Why, only two days ago we were-"

"Leave it, Aziz," his king interrupted, turning his head away. "Without my Saboor, I will not live another three months."

After some time, the old man's labored breathing became regular. Aziz signaled for a servant to take his place beside the bed, then he stole quietly away.

"STOP, stop!" Mariana thumped with her fist on the roof over her head. She could wait no longer to relieve herself. "Get off, Saboor," she snapped, pus.h.i.+ng the little boy from her lap. "You are making Mariana feel worse.

"Oh, dear," she murmured as he crawled away, his face puckered into a baby glare. Feeling a pang of guilt at her impatience, she slid open the panel and looked out. They were pa.s.sing a place where thorn bushes grew thickly along the road. This was exactly what she needed. "Stop, I say," she repeated, pounding again. "Stop!"

She pushed a tangle of curls from her face. Yesterday, after their escape from Qamar Haveli, she had balled up her filthy burqa and hurled it from the moving palanquin. Since then, dressed in the rustcolored silks Safiya Sultana had given her, she had entertained Saboor in a creaking box with no view of the pa.s.sing landscape and no idea where they would finally stop. This was not at all like the long journey from Calcutta to Simla with Uncle Adrian and Aunt Claire. She missed Uncle Adrian's arrangements-tea and coffee, and regular opportunities for the ladies to retire discreetly into stands of bushes along the way.

Dear Uncle Adrian. So much had happened since she had last written him. How would her aunt and uncle respond when they learned the truth? She imagined Aunt Claire being carried insensible to her room, leaving Uncle Adrian to sit alone, shaking his head, Mariana's explanatory letter in his hand.

But for all its fright and discomfort, what a time this had been! Surely Uncle Adrian would understand the adventure of it. No Englishwoman could ever have been prepared for marriage by Indian queens, or seen a case of fatal snakebite being cured by a Shaikh. No one Mariana knew had stayed with natives while traveling in India, but she had. Last night, Safiya's female relatives had crowded around her in the large village house where she had been taken. Some had asked indecent, prying questions about her clothes and habits, and some had stared, veils drawn over their mouths and noses, as if she were some evil fairy. One narrow-eyed woman had even shooed her own children away, looking fearfully over her shoulder, as if Mariana's presence alone were enough to poison everyone in the house. How could Safiya Sultana be related to people like that?

The palanquin had stopped at last. She peered out again. Her bearers had understood her needs, and chosen well. It was a pity she had nothing to give the nameless sirdar bearer, for he had stopped in a neat clearing where upturned stones had been arranged near a heap of cold ashes. Surrounding the clearing, thorn trees and bushes offered her their protection.

"Go to the bearers, there's an angel," she said, patting Saboor on his back as he clambered after her out of the palki. "Take him to do soo-soo," she ordered, as she started for the bushes.

Like all the bearers along the route, the men had turned their backs the instant she emerged, but they welcomed Saboor when he danced over to where they had squatted down to rest. She stepped carefully, skirting the largest of the bushes, looking for a good hiding place.

The bearers' voices filtering through the bushes grew faint.

She crouched down gratefully. This evening, if all went well, she would arrive at Kasur. Once there she would ask the palanquin bearers to wait, she would kiss Saboor good-bye, and then hand him over to his father.

She s.h.i.+fted her feet among the leaves. There would be no need for conversation with Ha.s.san, or any long farewells. She would simply climb back into the palanquin and return to the British camp. Once there, she would somehow live without Saboor or Harry Fitzgerald.

The camp should not be difficult to find. After leaving Shalimar, it would, like her, have followed the road to Kasur. Moving over muchtraveled terrain with no rain since the downpour on the day of her escape with Saboor, it would most likely arrive there when she did, in three days' time. Only heaven knew what the British party would say to her when she reappeared, out of nowhere, four days late, having missed Mr. Macnaghten at the Shaikh's house.

A squirrel leaped from branch to branch above her head. It was too late to worry about what would be said to her when she rejoined the camp. Of course, the Shaikh's family expected her merely to call upon the Eden ladies in order to a.s.sure everyone of her good health, and then return to the haveli without Saboor. But once she was safely at camp, she had no intention of leaving again. Sixteen days of adventure were more than enough.

Not even Safiya Sultana could persuade Mariana to spend the rest of her days in a walled city house with a group of native ladies.

She smiled. Her departure from the haveli had not been graceful, but it had been effective. Yes, the queens, Shaikh Waliullah, Safiya Sultana, and the aunts were entirely behind her now.

Soon, even her lovely little Saboor would be only a memory. She sighed.

Ants marched past her, toward the carca.s.s of a beetle. What would a future palanquin ride be like without Saboor's edgy little self, all elbows and feet, scrambling over her, trying to open the panel, insisting that she bounce him on her lap?

As she half stood, fumbling with the rope of her Turkish trousers, shouting erupted from the clearing. Through the thicket, raised staccato voices reached her.

Something was wrong. She swiftly retraced her steps, her heartbeat quickening. Near the edge of the bushes, she stopped.

A man's voice spoke with gritty authority. "We want her gold. That is all."

Thieves! Where was Saboor? She leaned forward, desperately afraid to make a sound.

Another man spoke, closer by. He punctuated his words with hollow thumps, as if he were slapping the top of the palanquin with an open palm.

"We wish you no harm," he said, his voice a tenor whine. "We only want your money and your jewelry. If you throw them out of the palki, we will leave you in peace. Give us your gold. That is all we want, nothing more."

"You fool," barked the first voice, "she is not in the palki. You are talking to yourself, Suraj."

Mariana held her breath.

"Oh, Begum Sahib," the first man rasped, raising his voice, "come out of the bushes."

From his tone, it seemed he could see her, that he knew where she was. She strained her eyes through the undergrowth, but could see nothing. She stood still, all of her being focused on quieting her breathing.

"Come out. We will not harm you."

Sounds of scuffiing and grunting were followed by a sharp male cry. "If you come out now," the first man added, the roughness in his voice turning to poison, "we will not harm the child."

Saboor's wail started on a low note and rose swiftly to a high pitch, where it remained, drawn out, wavering like an infant version of the call to prayer.

Allah-hu-Akbar, G.o.d is Great. A th.o.r.n.y branch lay at Mariana's feet. It was too long. She jerked it from its place, braced her slippered foot against it, and with one sharp motion, snapped it in two. It was not much of a weapon, but it would have to do.

The branch over her head, she rushed, screaming, from her hiding place and into the open, as an agonized shriek from one of the thieves drowned out the sound of Saboor's wail.

The bearers huddled in a terrified circle on the ground, their arms protecting their heads. Beside the palanquin, his weapons clanking, a small man in dirty clothing had turned toward the sound of the cry, Saboor in his arms.

Two more thieves, one of them b.l.o.o.d.y and sobbing, backed away toward the road, fiailing their arms as if warding off an invisible demon. The injured one began to run jerkily, bent double, clutching at his leg. Shreds of red-stained cloth hung from his shoulder. Blood ran into the dust from behind his knee.

"Put the child down," shouted a voice Mariana knew well. "Put down the child and be gone! Sons of shame. Pigs! Dogs!"

The thieves did as they were told. The small man beside the palanquin dropped Saboor to the dirt and ran, his clothes fiuttering, across the clearing and onto the road without stopping to help his friends. The third man turned and followed him, dragging away their gabbling companion.

Mariana threw down her stick, knelt in the dust, and gathered Saboor, still howling, into her arms. When she looked up, the thieves had vanished. The bearers now gaped at someone sitting on one of the upturned stones, his head buried in his hands.

It was Yar Mohammad, of all people, the tall groom from the British camp. Beside him on the ground lay a heavy, wicked-looking knife, the blood on its downward-curving blade filmed with dust. He was weeping.

YAR Mohammad did not look up at the sound of approaching feet, but he saw before him the mud-stained slippers of the memsahib, guardian of Saboor, whom he had last seen clothed in a filthy burqa at the Delhi Gate days earlier, and who had just now run, wild faced and screaming, from the bushes, her veil fallen to her shoulders, a th.o.r.n.y branch in her hands. The slippers were pointed toward him. They waited.

He would not weep before a woman. Heavy with shame, his eyes on the ground, he got politely to his feet. Perhaps she would go away soon and leave him to his grief. He needed to forget the sickening feeling of the knife as it cut down through the fiesh of the brigand's shoulder, separating muscle from bone. The act had felt like an execution. Worse, in his horror, while sweeping his knife sideways and out of the way, he had cut again, this time slicing the tendons at the back of the man's leg.