A Singular Hostage Part 4

She had raised her voice. The other Queens nudged one another. "He is no child of ours," Saat Kaur added.

Reshma scrambled to her feet, tugging her veil forward to hide the pain on her face. She caught Saboor up and lifted him onto her hip. "Of course not, Bibi," she mumbled. "Of course we need not feed him."

She carried him away, out of sight of her mistress, away from the uncaring faces around the fountain. Once out of their sight, she buried her face in his small shoulder. A damp spot appeared on his s.h.i.+rt.

"Oh, Saboor," she whispered. "How can I leave you alone and attend only to Saat Kaur? How can I then atone for my crime? Who will care for you?" She looked anxiously over her shoulder. "Come, do not weep so. I will find you some dry chappatti while the queens amuse themselves in the garden."

The best horses in the British camp were to be found at the Governor-General's own horse lines. Separated by a hundred yards from the mounts of lesser camp members, the animals stood tethered in glossy rows, resting from the day's march, served only by the most experienced of the camp grooms. At the far end of the second row, Yar Mohammad, senior groom, straightened from inspecting a bruised leg on one of the mares and strode toward a nearby cooking fire to have his food.

As he squatted, warming his hands before the fiames, he had an acute sensation that something important was about to happen. He closed his eyes and found himself looking at a strange and vivid scene.

He saw a fire before him, much like the one whose warmth he could feel on his face, but the blaze in his vision gave off a great cloud of dust and smoke. For an instant he could see nothing more. Then, padding toward him out of the haze, came a lioness. She moved carefully, for she was carrying something heavy in her jaws. Once clear of the fire, she paused and looked about her as if to satisfy herself that she was safe, then deposited her burden on the ground.

Yar Mohammad now saw that the big cat had been carrying a baby, a boy the same age as his own youngest daughter. The boy's face was fair, broad, and sweet of expression.

He sat on the ground with the lioness, watchful, above him. After a moment her long body stiffened. In one swift motion, she picked up the child again and moved off, her tail twitching, his small body dangling from her careful jaws. An instant after she had carried him away, a dense new cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the place where they had been sitting.

Yar Mohammad opened his eyes. The campfire with its suspended cooking pots crackled before him. Men chatted idly, their hands outstretched to the fire's warmth, their bodies neatly folded like his, their feet flat on the ground, their arms resting on their knees. Yet, when he closed his eyes again, the cloud of dust and smoke appeared once more, and once more the tawny cat appeared, carrying the soft-eyed child.

Yar Mohammad lowered his head, allowing his turban to s.h.i.+eld his face from the eyes of the other grooms. The length of unst.i.tched homespun that served him as a shawl trailed on the ground beside him as he moved closer to the fire.

Remembered words came to him as clearly as if they had been spoken moments before. "If you see or hear something out of the ordinary, you must tell your murs.h.i.+d, murs.h.i.+d, your spiritual guide. These events often contain in them instructions, or important information. To reveal these things indiscriminately is wrong, but to conceal them from your spiritual teacher is also a grave mistake your spiritual guide. These events often contain in them instructions, or important information. To reveal these things indiscriminately is wrong, but to conceal them from your spiritual teacher is also a grave mistake."

For all that he remembered those instructions, Yar Mohammad could not obey them. The only spiritual teacher he knew, the very man who had once said those words to him, was out of reach, eighty miles away.

Yar Mohammad looked up and gazed into the distance. His lips tightened. By Allah, there was something he could do. He could tell the great man.

He did not know the great man's name; but three days earlier the mere sight of him, a Muslim stranger pa.s.sing on the avenue, had caused Yar Mohammad to stop so abruptly that the ladder-carrying carpenter walking behind him had very nearly knocked him down. The stranger's eyes had reminded Yar Mohammad so forcibly of that faraway spiritual teacher that his breath had caught in his throat.

He had met his teacher only once, but the meeting remained vivid in his memory. The man's eyes had been deep, filled with profound knowledge. He had radiated goodness and strength. He was Shaikh Waliullah, leader of the Karakoyia Brotherhood, one of the five hidden brotherhoods of India, whose members taught and practiced the mystical traditions of Islam. Something about this elderly stranger so closely resembled the Shaikh that Yar Mohammad had forgotten the oats he had come for, and had followed the stranger from place to place in the camp, watching him as he went about his business, marveling at the man's calming effect upon others, at the kindness with which he addressed a fruit seller, a scribe, children begging on the avenue. When the old man returned to his tent, Yar Mohammad had gone back to the horse lines, satisfied that this stranger, like Shaikh Waliullah, was well versed in the mysteries of the heart.

Yar Mohammad gathered his shawl around him and rose silently from the fire. Although he did not change his long, unhurried stride, he took the shortest route, down alleyways, between ramshackle tents, past small bazaars where men stood arguing over mounds of fruit, until he reached a neat tent whose door was at that moment being propped open by a small boy.

"Is the most respected sahib available?" he inquired.

Gesturing for him to wait, the boy vanished inside, but before Yar Mohammad could sit, the boy put his head out again, beckoning with a raised hand.

Standing shoeless and uncertain inside the doorway, Yar Mohammad saw that the tent was bare except for a single tin box that stood in one corner, and a string bed on which the great man sat writing on a paper with pen and ink. Looking up from his task, the old man pointed to the ground beside him.

Yar Mohammad felt once again that he was in the presence of no ordinary person. Although the man's face and dress were unremarkable, he exuded a calm that poured over Yar Mohammad like honey.

Yar Mohammad squatted down beside the bed and began to speak, describing without preamble his vision of the lioness and the child.

The old gentleman listened without comment, nodding from time to time. When Yar Mohammad finished speaking, the old man sat silently for some moments, his eyes closed. When at last he opened his eyes and spoke, his tone carried no trace of superiority. "You have done well to come to me at once with this information."

Yar Mohammad's heart swelled. The great man had spoken, not to his station as a groom but to his soul. It had been years since anyone had addressed him like that.

"This vision of yours contains a cloud of dust and smoke, signifying an emergency of some kind." The old man's face puckered in thought as he picked up a tasbih tasbih of black onyx beads from a square of cotton cloth beside him. "Although it concerns an emergency," he went on, his eyes traveling around the tent as he fingered the beads, "it does not appear to be a vision that gives instruction, but rather one that only conveys information. Now tell me why you have come to me with your story." of black onyx beads from a square of cotton cloth beside him. "Although it concerns an emergency," he went on, his eyes traveling around the tent as he fingered the beads, "it does not appear to be a vision that gives instruction, but rather one that only conveys information. Now tell me why you have come to me with your story."

Yar Mohammad, his eyes on the ground, considered his answer. "Seeing you walking on the avenue," he began carefully, "caused me to remember someone in Lah.o.r.e, whom I hold in great respect. I had hoped-"

"And what is the name of this gentleman?"

"His name, Sahib, is Shaikh Waliullah Karakoyia."

The old man nodded several times. After a moment he called the little servant boy. "Bring this man tea, Khalid," he instructed, then turned back to Yar Mohammad and regarded him seriously. "I know Shaikh Waliullah," he said, "very well." Yar Mohammad's heart quickened. "There is no question that this vision of yours is intended as a message to the Shaikh," the old man continued, nodding again. "Otherwise, why would you have been sent to recount it to me? You must, therefore," he added, his eyes returning to Yar Mohammad's face, "borrow from the lines a strong horse that will not be missed, depart at once, and ride north until you reach Firozpur on the banks of the Sutlej River. That will be a twenty-mile journey.

"See if the Maharajah's new bridge of boats is ready. Should you find the bridge unfinished, a barber named Kareem who lives near the great mosque will arrange for you to cross the river by ferry." He paused briefiy, his lips moving as he thumbed his beads one by one, then continued, nodding to himself. "Once you reach the far bank, you must ride without stopping the sixty miles to Lah.o.r.e City. There you must deliver the full story of your vision, with no omissions, to Shaikh Waliullah Karakoyia. Is that understood?"

Yar Mohammad nodded.

"Tell him," added the old man, "that I have sent you. My name is Shafiuddin."

He picked up his paper and pen. "And now," he said with a little nod, "Khalid will bring your tea outside. Drink it before you start."

Yar Mohammad found himself dismissed by a single, tidy motion of the old man's hand.

ASYar Mohammad finished the last of the tea the boy brought him, scenes rose before him of the triumph and shame of his other, longago meeting with the Shaikh Waliullah. Of course he and his first teacher, the good-natured Abdul Ras.h.i.+d, had both been young then. If he had known better, Abdul Ras.h.i.+d might have kept his imperfect knowledge to himself, and not tried to show his village cousin the profound mysteries of the Path, but he had tried to teach Yar Mohammad, and the knowledge he so generously shared had made Yar Mohammad the clumsy pract.i.tioner he was in that faraway time. Without Abdul Ras.h.i.+d, he would not have had the vision that sent the two men on the long journey to Lah.o.r.e from their mountain home six months after Yar Mohammad received his first lesson.

Yar Mohammad put down the teacup and stood, shaking out his clothes. He must start for Lah.o.r.e.

After pa.s.sing rows of tents, each with its group of string beds standing in the sun, Yar Mohammad caught the welcome smell of the horse lines. He walked by the pits where blacksmiths heated iron bars in trenches of fiery charcoal. Two sweating blacksmiths greeted him. He returned their greeting without looking up.

When that vision came so many years ago, he had been young. He had not yet understood the need for discretion in spiritual matters. Overcome with confusion and a sense of his own unworthiness, he had told his wife what he had seen. APersonage whose name he dared not utter, he told her, had appeared before him and handed him a ceramic vial that, it seemed, fitted warmly and perfectly into the palm of his hand. In her simplicity, his wife had run to her family with the news that her young husband had seen a vision of the Prophet Mohammad. Scandal and misery had followed. Some villagers, believing Yar Mohammad had developed great powers, had come to him expecting miracles and been disappointed. Others had called him a liar. In the end, he and Abdul Ras.h.i.+d had set out for Lah.o.r.e to discover the truth.

Seated on his padded platform, the Shaikh had heard their story. The Shaikh had then explained to them both, kindly but with greatfirmness, the importance of disclosing spiritual events only to the proper people. Finally, he had turned his powerful gaze onto Yar Mohammad's face.

"I believe," he had said, "that the meaning of your vision is that you have been given a gift. It is no small gift, Yar Mohammad. You may not yet know what it is, but when the time comes, you will know. Coming from such an august source, it is a tremendous gift indeed. You are a fortunate man."

Yar Mohammad had not tried to conceal the tears that ran down his face and dripped onto his clothes. From that instant on, although he had never failed to treat Abdul Ras.h.i.+d with affection and respect, tending him faithfully in his last illness, he had always regarded Shaikh Waliullah as his true murs.h.i.+d.

As he scanned the horse lines choosing his own mount, a horseman approached. Yar Mohammad noted with annoyance the animal's drooping head and uneven gait. The rider was a strong-looking man with burly shoulders, perhaps a well-to-do Kashmiri. Such a man should know better than to ride a horse to exhaustion. Approaching him, Yar Mohammad opened his mouth to point out the necessity of caring properly for one's mount, but the traveler addressed him first.

"I am looking for one Shafiuddin who is also known as Shafi Sahib," he said in a dry voice. His hair and his jutting beard were gray with dust. "I have important news," he added, dismounting stiffiy and rubbing his face absently with a thick hand.

Yar Mohammad studied the weary stranger who had asked for the great man. Should he point the way, and then, without further delay, follow his own instructions and mount quickly for the ride to Lah.o.r.e? Should he wait and take the man back the way he had come?

"I have ridden, with little rest, directly from Lah.o.r.e City." The stranger looked as if he might fall asleep where he stood.

No longer hesitating, Yar Mohammad reached for the man's reins. "Take this horse," he told another groom, nodding toward the rows of well-muscled animals. "Care for him as if he belonged to the Governor-General himself." He inclined his head toward the stranger. "Come with me, Huzoor. I will take you to Shafi Sahib."

Shortening his stride to accommodate the other man's tired legs, he walked back the way he had come.

When they reached the tent, the stranger nodded to Shafi Sahib's little servant boy. "My name is Yusuf Bhatti. Please tell your sahib that I have come from Lah.o.r.e, from the house of Shaikh Waliullah."

The Shaikh's house. As the man shouldered his way inside, Yar Mohammad followed, glancing cautiously toward the string bed as he lowered himself, uninvited, to the fioor near the tent's open entrance. He waited without moving, containing his excitement.

The visitor saluted the old man. The handle of a large dagger peered from his c.u.mmerbund. "Peace be upon you, sir," he offered.

Shafi Sahib replied serenely, his eyes on the newcomer's face.

"I have come with unfortunate news." The visitor glanced at his hands, then put them behind his back. "The daughter-in-law of Shaikh Waliullah Karakoyia of Lah.o.r.e has died."

The news fell on Yar Mohammad's chest like a heavy blow. The chill that followed told him there was more to this tragedy than he yet knew.

"Poor Waliullah, poor young Ha.s.san," Shafi Sahib said mildly, shaking his head. "May G.o.d rest her soul in peace, and grant them all patience."

The visitor lowered his gaze to the fioor. The old gentleman looked at him expectantly. "There is more," he said gently.

The man called Yusuf was perspiring. He sighed. "Unfortunately she did not die at home, but at the Citadel, where she and her son were being held hostage by the Maharajah. The child, who is only a baby, has not been returned from the court."

"Ah." The old gentleman stared thoughtfully in Yar Mohammad's direction, then his eyes returned to his visitor's face. "Is the Maharajah still at Lah.o.r.e?" he inquired.

"He has left Lah.o.r.e, sir. He is at his camp, preparing to meet the British officials."

"Then he may not yet know of this sad event. And you have come straight from Lah.o.r.e?"

Yusuf shook his head. "No, sir," he replied. "I stopped at the Maharajah's camp to ask for help in freeing the child."

"Ah." The old man tapped his fingers together. "Whom did you see there?"

"No one, sir. I was to meet Faqeer Azizuddin, but he was not there. He had gone away to Kasur."

"So you did not meet the Chief Minister. Did you ask anyone else for help regarding the child?"

"No, sir, those were not my instructions. I have not yet been able to help the family at all."

In the ensuing silence, Shafi Sahib closed his eyes. His lips moved silently. At length he spoke, but not to his visitor. "Go, Khalid," he said decisively to the servant boy who materialized out of the shadows, "and bring this man water and food. Bring him plenty of both. And then show him where to bathe. Yar Mohammad!"

He had not been wrong to intrude. Praise be to Allah!

"Arrange for provisions and for three horses. We will begin our journey as soon as this gentleman has rested and eaten."

Turning to his visitor, Shafi Sahib spoke with gentle authority. "I will leave you now. After a few hours, when you are ready, we will start for Lah.o.r.e."

Before his guest could offer polite protest, the old gentleman got up from the bed, and was out the door.

THE servant boy reappeared, carrying a bra.s.s basin and a water vessel. Yusuf grunted his thanks while the boy poured a stream of water over his outstretched hands.

A little later, the boy backed through the door with a loaded tray.

Yusuf glanced at the food in front of him. This was princely fare, not the simple meal of boiled lentils he had expected. A thick b.u.t.tery round of bread hung over the edges of a straw plate, its center laden with chunks of spiced meat. Oranges, guavas, and pomegranates rolled on the tray beside the bread. There was even an earthen dish of yogurt. Sighing with antic.i.p.atory pleasure, Yusuf tore off a piece of bread and used it to pick up a bit of meat. He ate rapidly, using only his right hand to serve himself, picking dexterously at the food with his fingers. For all the simple poverty of Shafi Sahib's tent, the old man had resources.

When Yusuf could eat no more, he washed his hands again. Leaving his weapons with the boy, he carried the string bed outside. There he lay down gratefully, one arm shading his eyes.

The sounds of the camp fiowed around him. He would now forget the privations of his journey south, his failure to find Faqeer Azizuddin on the way, his long night of traveling toward the British camp, partly on foot, leading his horse by instinct in the near blackness.

All that remained now was to ride north with Shafi Sahib to the Maharajah's camp. Inshallah Inshallah, G.o.d willing, the Chief Minister would be there. If anyone could help them free the baby, it would be Shaikh Waliullah's childhood friend who was also, by all accounts, the Maharajah's closest advisor. This duty done, Yusuf and Shafi Sahib would then travel with all speed for Lah.o.r.e.

He yawned. If this effort failed, he would do whatever was needed to restore Saboor to his father. If killing would bring Saboor back, Yusuf would kill. Why not? Yusuf, unlike Ha.s.san, was a fighter and a hunter. Ha.s.san had never fought as Yusuf had with the Maharajah's irregular cavalry, or traveled to the hills to hunt white leopard. He had never shot pigs in the forests near Chhangamanga.

Yusuf gave a curt, barking laugh. Ha.s.san, his clever, city-dwelling, silk-wearing friend, at a pig shoot? He would pay good money to see that.

He grunted. Would Ha.s.san kill for him? What did it matter? Ha.s.san was no soldier, but he was Yusuf's friend. Ha.s.san would certainly die for him.

Die for him-die for him. Yusuf fioated, weaponless, over the Citadel, the hostage child in his arms. Eunuchs on horses leaped into the air beneath him. Ha.s.san appeared, a great sword in his hand, and spurred his horse through the air to guard his son.

TWO hours later, his hair still wet from a bath, Yusuf sat watching from a fresh horse as Yar Mohammad helped Shafi Sahib into his saddle. There could be no mistaking the groom's solicitous manner, or his choice of an ancient mare for the old gentleman. If the old man had ever ridden a horse, it had not been for years. What had possessed him to come on this journey where haste meant everything?

Good manners did not allow Yusuf to show his feelings. Keeping his face still, he watched Shafi Sahib climb creakily into the saddle, then sit gripping its pommel while Yar Mohammad gathered up the reins, mounted his own horse, and led the mare with her elderly pa.s.senger away toward the avenue.

When the two men had pa.s.sed out of earshot, Yusuf allowed himself a snort of annoyance, then joined them, spurring his own gelding unkindly. The journey to the Maharajah's camp would now require frequent rests. Those twenty miles alone, accomplished by him in one night, would take them two days. The remainder of the distance to Lah.o.r.e might require as much as four infuriating days more.

The track they followed was deeply rutted from past rains. The clay under their horses' hooves had cracked into a crazy pattern as it dried. Dust hung in the stillness, coloring distant villages with soft hues. There was little vegetation, only an occasional spreading thorn tree. Here was a land good only for lizard hunters and cattle thieves.

Yar Mohammad rode beside him, leading Shafi Sahib's mare. A small ax was tied to his saddle. A heavy Gurkha knife hung from his waist. At least the man would prove useful if they were attacked. Moving so slowly, they made a perfect target.

"How," Shafi Sahib asked from behind them, "did Saboor come to be the Maharajah's hostage? Is there some dispute between the Waliullah family and the court?"

"No, sir." Yusuf slowed his horse, allowing Yar Mohammad to pull ahead. "It has to do with the child himself."

"Ah." The old man nodded, swaying in his saddle.

Yusuf slapped at a fiy. "You may already know that Ha.s.san is a.s.sistant to Faqeer Azizuddin, the Chief Minister. He was appointed to the post because of the friends.h.i.+p between the Faqeer and Shaikh Waliullah."

"Yes," replied Shafi Sahib. "I knew of that."

"After Saboor was born," Yusuf continued, "Ha.s.san went, as a courtesy, to show his son to the Maharajah. Unfortunately, the Maharajah fell in love with Saboor at first glance." He sighed. "Since that day, he has not been allowed to leave the Maharajah's side."

TWO hours later, Yusuf scanned the horizon, his shoulders hunched. After all this time, they were less than halfway to the Sutlej. Shafi Sahib had not spoken since they had pa.s.sed the last outlying sentry at the British camp. The time had come to decide on a plan of action.

"When we have crossed the river, shall we go straight to the Maharajah's camp?" Yusuf asked, turning politely in his saddle.

Shafi Sahib did not reply. Yusuf tried again. "Once we cross the river," he repeated more loudly, "we can inform Faqeer Azizuddin of the tragedy, and ask him to help us to free Waliullah Sahib's grandson."

Again there was silence. Had the old gentleman gone deaf? He had not, but when he spoke it was in a tone that put an end to any further conversation. "We shall see," Shafi Sahib replied, without infiection, as if to himself. He sat, bent forward on his mare, his knuckles pale on the pommel of his saddle, his eyes closed, his lips moving.

So be it. The old gentleman was dear to Shaikh Waliullah. That and his age made him the senior member of the party, the person whose wishes must be respected. But what had he meant by "we shall see"? Was it possible that he would refuse to let them stop at the Maharajah's camp? No, that was out of the question. The poor old man must be desperate to reach a tent and a cooking fire; he could scarcely sit straight on his horse.

Yusuf squinted into the northern distance, hoping for some sign of the green belt of trees that followed the riverbank, but saw only an empty plain dotted with mud villages. They should travel for another hour before resting and offering their prayers. He glanced backward again at a sudden noisy fit of coughing from Yar Mohammad to see the groom gesture with his eyes at Shafi Sahib. The old gentleman was swaying, gray faced, in his saddle.

Horrified, Yusuf pulled up. When had they last had water? What a careless fool he was!

They stopped in the shade of a tangle of thorn bushes whose branches swept the ground. It was not the old man's fault that he could hardly ride. He was poor. Poor men did not own horses, or even ride horses. Poor men walked walked. Yusuf tugged savagely at the water skin while Yar Mohammad helped Shafi Sahib to the ground.