The current of a deed will work its wayThrough the wide world and cannot be resisted,'Twas seasonably done--the seed is sownAnd in due time will bear the fruit of discord.--Kalidasa.
The current of a deed will work its wayThrough the wide world and cannot be resisted,'Twas seasonably done--the seed is sownAnd in due time will bear the fruit of discord.
--Kalidasa.
The wide mosque lay empty save for a group of long-bearded doctors of the law, who, lingering after service was over, discussed as ever the unfailing topic of the King's innovations. Such purposeless innovations too! Leading to nothing, to absolute nescience; for what else was all this talk of freedom, of equality, of universal brotherhood? Were not kings, kings, and nobles, nobles, since the very beginning?
These reverend seigneurs surcharged with pride of race, the pride of the conqueror, fiercely fanatical in faith, felt resentfully that in religion, in manners, in morals, Akbar, their King, stood absolutely aloof from them.
Yet they, in their turn, stood as absolutely aloof from the real heart of India which beat placidly in the simple lives of the husbandmen toiling in the ample fields which, seen through the great Arch of Victory receded into a dim blue distance that lost itself in a dim blue sky. So each, the conqueror, the conquered, went on his way, while a man dreamt of blending the two into one.
"Yes! it is true," murmured Budaoni the historian regretfully; "from his earliest childhood his Majesty hath collected everything in all religions that is worth remembering, with a talent of selection peculiar to him, and a spirit of inquiry opposed to every principle of our Faith."
"Sobhan-ullah!" assented the Makhdûm-ul'-mulk, who had been the highest religious authority in the land until the King, with one sweep of his pen, had made himself the Head of the Church. A direful offence to the orthodox who refused assent to Akbar's reasoning that since there was but one law, the law of God, there could be but one authority; therefore the intervention of a priesthood between the people and God's vice-regent on earth was unnecessary, impolitic.
An old man, white-bearded, high-featured, murmured to himself, "Yet is he King indeed," then fell hurriedly to the telling of his beads; but Ghiâss Beg, the Lord High Treasurer--a stout, good-humoured looking man, whose fat paunch stood evidence for his love of good living--shook his head and sighed.
"It cometh of abstinence, see you," he mourned. "When the stomach is empty wind rises to the head. And, were it not for that damned sense of duty which leaveth the King neither by day nor by night, Akbar would give up food and sleep altogether. So far hath he wandered from the Sure Pivot of Life that the very question of dinner ariseth not in his mind; he eats but once a day, and leaveth off unsatisfied, nor is there even any fixed hour for this food. Sure! 'tis the life of a very dog."
"So he keep it, and his dogs, and his uncircumcised friends to himself," muttered a sour-visaged elder, "I quarrel not with his starvations. Belike they may bring the Heir-Apparent to his rights sooner, and that would be a glad day for Islâm."
The old man with the white beard who was telling his beads murmured once more under his breath: "Yet is he King indeed," and went on with his prayers still more hurriedly.
"Lo! mullah jee!" yawned another sour-visaged one, "Prince Salîm will be in the idolaters' toils ere then. With a Râjpût to wife there is small hope for a Ruler of the Faith."
In the hot sunshine where they sate whispering like sleepy snakes, ready, yet too lazy, to strike, a leisurely groan ran round the whole assembly. That the first wife--practically the only real wife--of the Heir-Apparent should be a Hindu was simply an outrage. It was bad enough that the King himself should have taken the Râjpût daughters and sisters of his conquered foes into his harem, in order--heaven save the mark!--to cement friendship between the races; but he, at least, had been first married in orthodox fashion to a daughter of Islâm. Could he not do even so much for his son?
Ghiâss Beg heaved another fat sigh and his face took on obstinacy.
"True," he assented, "and 'tis not that as fair a bride could not be found----"
"In the House of the Lord High Treasurer," interrupted a sneering voice. It came from Mirza Ibrahîm, who, at that moment, followed at a little distance by a posse of courtiers and others, came from the cloisters full upon the half-drowsy group of malcontents.
"God forbid!" gasped the horrified High Treasurer weakly. In his heart of hearts he had been thinking--and not for the first time--of his little daughter Mihrun-nissa, as a future Empress of India. But this was an outrage on decorum, an indignity! He began to splutter remonstrance.
"Prayers are over! Up with the carpet!" interrupted the Mirza irreverently. Whereupon the Makhdûm interfered with pompous frowns and craved to know what my Lord High Chamberlain meant by the unseemly remark.
"Nothing, Most Holy," replied the latter cheerfully, "save that if the pious deliberations of the wise are ended the ignorant have a point of law which they would fain lay before authority. Is it not so, oh, sahibân?"
He turned as he spoke to a little knot of curiously distinctive-looking men who, having separated themselves from the remainder of his following, stood together in the full blaze of sunlight. They were singularly alike. Small, fine-drawn, with watchful eyes, and a little stoop forward of the head, reminding one irresistibly of a bird of prey. In truth the Syeds of Bârha were wild hawks indeed; and to-day, still travel-stained with their quick march from their eyrie of a fortress far in the distant plains, they were ready to swoop fiercely on any cause of offence. For they were red-hot with anger at the exile of that ill-doing scion of their house Jamâl-ud-din. Not that they defended his choice of a wife--it was one which sooner or later might necessitate a sack, and the nearest river--but, if Siyah Yamin was the lad's wife, what right had even the Great Mogul to interfere?
They assented with a scowl; but Khodadâd (he who called himself by another name when he wrote to Sinde) smiled urbanely. He was evidently prepared to play the indispensable Eastern part of applauder and general backer-up.
"Even so, Most Holy!" he replied effusively, "a point of law which can only be settled by God's most chosen Judge, before whom even these lineal descendants of our Great Prophet bow humbly."[10]
The speech was full of malicious intent, purposely provocative, and succeeded in its purpose.
"Then let them go to the King," began the Makhdûm acrimoniously, when Ibrahîm cut him short, concealing a yawn as he sought a comfortable place for himself where his feet could be in sunshine, his head in shadow.
"Who hath usurped the Judge's seat? Nay! Most Holy! It is only time-servers and idolaters who yield such function to Akbar. We faithful ones and true----"
"Had best keep silence in a public place," put in Budaoni eyeing the other with a glassy stare. He himself might take his own part in discontent, but being, by virtue of his voice, precentor in the Court Mosque, he did not choose to encourage Ibrahîm, whose evil life was notorious. The latter smiled and skilfully drew another red-herring of provocation across the path.
"Public?" he echoed with a leer of malice. "Sure there is no more private place than the Court Mosque since the King started his Divine Faith! Hast heard, Most Holy, what the idolatrous pig Birbal jested last Friday when the King, for a marvel, put in an appearance at prayers--that he came not in order to listen to what you preached as of God, but to hush the slanders you borrowed of the Devil."
The Makhdûm spat solemnly, the senior canon let loose a thundering "God roast him," which echoed and re-echoed through the wide arches.
"Except," remarked Budaoni with a sneer, "when his Majesty reads prayers himself; then he comes to stutter!"
This allusion to the day not so far past when Akbar, assuming the Headship had--whether from nervousness or emotion history sayeth not--broken down in repeating thekutbacomposed for the occasion by Faiz, the poet-laureate, produced snorts and smiles of assent.
"Yes! yea!" assented the sour-visaged elder fiercely "he stuttered indeed--mayhap because the words were by Faiz, the dog poet--may God rot him for defiling His Holy Place."
The old man with the white beard looked up suddenly.
"Yet, sirs, was there ought wrong with the words?" he asked; so stretched out his lean old hand, and his wavering old voice rang out through the sunshine:
Lo! from Almighty God I take my KingshipBefore His Throne I bow and take my JudgeshipTake Strength from Strength and Wisdom from His WisenessRight from the Right, and Justice from His JusticePraising the King I praise God near and farGreat is His Power, Al-la-hu Akbar.
Lo! from Almighty God I take my KingshipBefore His Throne I bow and take my JudgeshipTake Strength from Strength and Wisdom from His WisenessRight from the Right, and Justice from His JusticePraising the King I praise God near and farGreat is His Power, Al-la-hu Akbar.
The echoes died away and there was silence. Then Ibrahîm indulging in a yawn of contempt for the digression his words had caused, said patronisingly, "The question we ask is not ofkutbas; it is of a marriage, most Enlightened-One."
But Budaoni's virulence was incorrigible. "His Majesty hath propounded not a few such problems to this poor court already," he remarked caustically; "doth he perchance propound another?"
This further allusion to the hot dispute between the King and the doctors concerning the legality of the former's political marriages with Râjpût princesses, would have met with equal favour, but for Ibrahîm's quick frown. To him, as chamberlain, the King's present austerities and general asceticism were a continual grievance.
"Thy wits must wander, Budaoni," he interrupted sharply, "or thou wouldst know the very name woman is at a discount at court! Mayhap the translation into civilised language of the Hindu Scriptures proves too much for thee!"
The historian scowled, for his task of translating religious books from the Sanskrit into Persian for the King's benefit was utterly abhorrent to his orthodoxy.
"And small wonder," he replied hotly. "These useless absurdities confound the eighteen worlds! Such injunctions! Such prohibitions! A whole page against the eating of turnips! May God forgive the enforced spoiling of orthodox pen, ink, and paper over such puerilities!"
It was the Syeds' turn to shift impatiently. "Good sir historian," said one, handling his sword as it lay on his knee, "we come not hither to discuss literature, but to ask an opinion. Hath the King right to exile a man for the marrying of a woman?"
"What man, and what woman?" asked the Makhdûm portentously. "On that hangs law. Hath the man already four wives?"
"The King hath nigher to forty," interrupted the incorrigible Budaoni.
"Peace, preacher!" reproved the great man, wagging his head. "Cloud not perspicacity with allusions. And the woman? Is she virgin, widow, or duly divorced?"
There was a general sort of chuckle from the hawks-brood.
"None of them i' faith," said the head of the clan at last, "'tis Siyah Yamin whom all know; but she hath said the Creed and the lad hath married her."
"By legal marriage?"
"How else?" asked the spokesman hotly. "We of Bârha, descended of the true Prophet--may His name be exalted--deal not with customs borrowed of the idolater."
"Then are they true wed, and none can dissolve the tie save the husband himself by----"
"Traa!" interrupted Ibrahîm impatiently, "that is for them to settle between them! These gentlemen desire to know by what right the King forbids this virtuous young man to bring his screened and lawful woman into the town? Such cupolas of chastity are beyond the power even of majesty; is it not so, most learned doctors?"
A little stir shifted through the assemblage; it sate up literally, metaphorically, keen for ground of offence against any of the King's decisions.
"Of a truth," pronounced the Makhdûm pompously, "he hath no right. By all the laws of Islâm a screened and lawful woman belongs only to her owner."
So in the sunshine the enmity of the Old against the New rose hot as the sunshine itself, and conspiracy sprang into being.
It was a good half-hour ere Mirza Ibrahîm summed up the situation in these words:
"We meet again then, in the Hall of Public Audience to-day, and demand revision of the sentence as being contrary to the Revealed Word; and if the King----"
Khodadâd broke in on him with a sudden laugh--"Nay! my idolatrous quarry will be Birbal! God and His Prophet! how I loathe the dog!" He paused, seeing the unwisdom of his confidences, for the Syeds of Bârha rose, to stand packed, fingering their swords.
"God's truth," said their leader, turning insolently to the speaker, "keep thy carrion to thyself, Tarkhân! We of Bârha mix not in court cabals--we be not buzzard-cocks to whom the smell of death brings but gluttony. No! if the King rescind not his order we fling our allegiance at his feet, we and our goodly following; so, escaping free of false law to our strongholds, there to defend ourselves against tyranny. But for quarry! Stab whom thou willst, Tarkhân, but reckon not on our knives."
Khodadâd, deprecating a scowl at his indiscretion from Mirza Ibrahîm, smiled lightly:
"Quarry for my craft is all I ask, though God knows His world would be better without the Hindu pig who, see you, comes yonder defiling the sanctuary and hatching new plots against our pockets, with the accurst Khattri, Tôdar Mull, the Finance Minister."
It was a deft distraction, for the constant cutting-down of perquisites and fees in Akbar's efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poor, was a continual source of irritation to the upper classes. But the Syeds of Bârha were large landowners, and they knew on which side their bread was buttered. So they salaamed respectfully to the two statesmen as they passed at a distance arm in arm, and the oldest of the little group said sharply, "Hindu or no, he hath his grip on the collector of taxes. So good luck go with him--aye! And with the King, too, in such matters. Save for this about Jamâl-ud-din we find no fault in him."
"Neither see I fault in him," came a sudden voice loud yet wavering. It came from the white-haired old man who had been telling his beads, and who now stood, his thin bent figure outlined against the distant blue of India that showed through the Arch of Victory.
"Neither see I fault," he repeated, his tone breaking in his vehemence. "God give him ever what he prays for--'a tranquil mind, an open brow, a just intent, a right principle, a wide capacity, a firm foot, a high spirit, a lofty soul, a right place, a shining countenance, and a smiling lip.' Of such are kings indeed!"
They looked at the old man in haughty scorn, as stumblingly, his old eyes half-blind with tears, he passed through the archway, so down the steps to disappear as it were in the heart of India widespread, remote, indefinite. But Budaoni murmured under his breath, "Lo! the glamour of the King is upon him. God knows one can scarce live in sight of him and not feel the very soul of one go out toward what lies beyond. Even I myself----" he paused and was silent, knowing that through all his diatribes, all his wanton misreadings of Akbar's character, ran admiration.
Meanwhile Tôdar Mull had in passing given a quick glance in return for the salutation which had come from the Syeds of Bârha.
"That bodes--what?" he had asked of Birbal, who had shrugged his shoulders and given a still keener glance at the group in the sunshine.
"Since Khodadâd is in it--mischief! Mirza Ibrahîm ever equals immorality, and the Syedân--I wist not they were here--bode--with Jamâl-ud-din and his chaste spouse in exile--marriage! As for the Learned of the Law, they contribute 'Mahommed is His Prophet.' The whole doubtless forming conspiracy--what else is there in the court with this accursed peace of Akbar's giving time for the cooking of cabals? Would to God----" He broke off, his mind besieged in a rush with the fierce regret which had been his ever since, but a few hours before he had heard the words of self-renunciation fall unconsciously from his master's lips. But--fate willing--there should be no more such talk! He, Birbal, would force on war; he would make Akbar, as unconsciously, play his part in common-sense, grasping Kingship. "Yea," he continued urbanely, "were it not that the poor, thriving, are content, thanks to Tôdar Mull's wise ruling----"
The Kattri's face, yellow of tint, fleshy of contour, seemed to take on bone and muscle, and his oiliness of manner roughened into swift decision. "Aye!" he returned, "they grow more content, poor souls, but, 'tis the King who starts me on the trail. I go even now to discuss a new idea of his with Abulfazl, whose head truly hath no peer for detail."
"Yea!" put in Birbal, "but the King's Diwan is even now using it in showing the details of the King's work to the Englishmen, while the Portuguese priests scowl at the intrusion of new claimants to commerce. Lo! I grow weary of these strangers. Why should Akbar make their way smooth?"
Tôdar Mull, his inherited aptitude for the problems of money showing in the eyes which were keen even for fractions in a man's character, looked at Birbal doubtfully.
"Wherefore not?" he asked. "Lo! I have had speech with these new men, and there is that of free-trading, unfettered by aught save gold or the lack of it, in them which compels approval. For see you, in the end gold is the essence of all things. I tell thee were it not for piety I myself would bow down to it and worship with a 'Hallowed be thy name.'"
Birbal's mimetic face became preternaturally grave, but there was a twinkle in his eye: "'Twould not"--he bowed courteously--"be so bulky a divinity as Tôdar Mull's present pantheon, which, if rumour says sooth, already runs to cart-loads."
The financier flushed. This allusion to his habit of carrying waggons-full of household gods about with him when on tour brought a quick reproach: "Jest not at the Gods, O! Brahmin-born," he said.
Birbal's whole expression changed. "Not at the All-Embracing One, for sure; but for the little brass god-lings."
Tôdar Mull edged away nervously. "Let be--let be! Râjah Sahib. Each for his own belief, and the Almighty's curse lodge on the hindmost, so it be not me! Now go I to the statistic makers; for see you, without figures man is lost in this world."
They parted company, and Birbal looked after the retreating Finance Minister with a frown.
What was the use of it all! Was it not better far to eat, to drink, knowing that to-morrow one must die? So his thoughts turned, as they always did, to the present; to the one portion of time which even Fate could not filch from a living man. The advent of the Syedân of Bârha meant, doubtless, appeal to the King. An appeal to which the King must not, of course, listen. As to that, Abulfazl must be seen, and at once.
He found him in the royal storehouses, his yellow-brown eyes clear with pride as he pointed out the system on which they were worked to the three Englishmen who stood, centring, with the curious half-contemptuous gaze of another world, the leisured bustle in the wide courtyards.
"His Majesty," explained Abulfazl grandiloquently, "having acquainted himself with the theory and practice of every manufacture, is thus able to distinguish between good and bad work. So, the intrinsic value of each article being settled by the State in reference to a certain fixed standard, neither worthy labour nor true art can fall into discredit."
Ralph Fitch looked queerly at the carts unlading and lading, at the groups of experts settling true values, at the artificers waiting patiently for the verdict; certain, if their work were up to the standard, of immediate sale.
"And what of the merchants?" he asked sharply. "Where does their profit----?"
"Their profit is settled also," interrupted the Diwan with simple pride, "and they are content." His voice took on sternness as he added, "They have, indeed, no choice; since all articles unstamped by the testing houses are liable to confiscation, and the possessors thereof to fine."
"Cheer thee up, Ralph," laughed John Newbery into his companion's appalled face as they moved on to a new court, "and thank heaven we be not thus tied by the apron strings! Though, by our Lady, this King Echebar has a trick o' keeping cables taut which would make me almost wish to enter his service would he but command some adventure to the Poles."
William Leedes looked up quickly. "Nay," he said, "before God I would rather quit this land and leave it--as it is."
He paused, for John Newbery's attention had passed as his roving eyes settled themselves surprised, yet approvingly, on the long lines of light which followed the rows on rows of steel lance heads, swords, and matchlocks lining the walls of the vast armoury into which they entered. It was full to the brim with every conceivable instrument of war, many of them strange to Western eyes. But Abulfazl gave no time for inspection. With the brief explanation, "The Most-Excellent is yonder at work," he passed through one of the wide arches fitted with massive doors which were now set open to the sunlight, and joined a group of men who stood in the courtyard beyond.
A sharp report, followed by the whistling ping of a bullet as it struck a target outlined on the farther wall, cut the hot air keenly, and Akbar, who had been kneeling for better aim, stood up rubbing his shoulder. He was dressed in a white overall, not unsmirched with grease, and his grizzled hair showed free of covering.
"It hits hard enough behind anyhow, sir smith," he said good-humouredly to a swarthy half-naked workman who looked down the still smoking barrel of the newly tried gun with a doubtful air. "Nay! 'tis not the grooving. That idea holds good. It is something in the chamber. Bring it this evening to the Palace, and we will see to it. Hast aught else for trial?"
The next instant, after one careless salute to the newcomers he was deep in the mechanism of a complicated gun, and his face lit up as he looked. "See you," he went on--apparently as much for himself as for those others who, left behind by his imaginings, stood patient, half-comprehending--"if this moving wheel duly loaded, could fit the one barrel what need for more? The twin cannon fired by one match which we made last year works well, but this will be better--if it can be compassed." And then suddenly as his hands fingered ratchet wheel and eccentric, bolt and socket with sure practical touch, his eyes grew full of dreams.
"Lo! we work in the dark," he murmured, "since none know why the bullet curves, and so the worst may do as well, nay better than the best. 'Twas an old matchlock snatched from a sleepy sentry which gave me empire."
He paused, back in thought to that false dawn before the trenches at Chitore when, going his rounds after his wont, alone and in darkness, he had seen upon the ramparts of the besieged town the figure of his foe also going his rounds, but by the light of lanterns.
It had been a long shot, but in the dawn Chitore was his, and he was Emperor of India. Yet, once again, almost overmastering regret came over him for the past horrors of that sun-bright dawn. The awful onslaught of saffron-robed heroes, doomed to desperate death, which he had seen against the rolling clouds of dense white smoke that rose from the very bowels of the earth, where, in dark caves, the Râjpût women were burning--self-immolated!
Then as he stood there fingering the outcome of his uncontrollable desire for success, all his victories seemed to slip from him for the moment; he remembered--as, nearly two thousand years before him another great King of India had remembered--nothing but his regret. At the moment he, also, could have inscribed an edict for all time setting forth his sorrow for "the hundreds of thousands of God's creatures needlessly slain." But the next instant the mood passed and he turned with almost insolent regality to the English adventurers.
"Yet tell your queen, sir travellers," he said, "that Akbar holds the best gun to be the best key to empire."
John Newbery looked at Ralph Fitch, who bowed his answer:
"Most Excellent, we will give the message without fail."
As they passed on, Birbal paused a moment beside Abulfazl to whisper in his ear:
"The Bârha hawks are in. Hast news of them?"
The Diwan nodded: "The King sees them at audience to-day to consider----"
Birbal interrupted with a bitter laugh: "Before God, Abul," he said, with his habitual shrug of the shoulders, "when the Most-Excellent thinks of himself as Head of the Church and Defender of the Faith, he is too excellent for this world. Better sure a little injustice than that the King should back on himself. It is not time for weakness. What does he say?"
"'The Law-maker cannot break the law,'" replied the Diwan softly, and in his voice there was a touch both of irritation and of pride.
So in the sunshine the eyes of those two followed the King who dreamt such strange new dreams of duty and responsibility toward his subjects.
What makes a monarch? Not his throne, his crown,But man to work his will, to tremble at his frown.--Sa'adi.
What makes a monarch? Not his throne, his crown,But man to work his will, to tremble at his frown.
--Sa'adi.
The city was astir, sleepily astir. In the blind tortuous alleys where the hot May sun struggled in vain to shine, shut out on every side by the high tenement houses hiving swarms of men, women and children, rumour spread like mushroom spawn in the dark; spread aimlessly, idly, sending its filaments at random, here, there, everywhere, ready at a moment's notice to shoot up into some fantastic mushroom growth. Even in Agra itself, connected with Fatehpur Sikri by that twenty-mile-long ribbon of shop-edged road, the talk was all of what was about to happen in Akbar's City of Victory. The King had accepted the appeal of Jamâl-ud-din Syed concerning his marriage, and had appointed the next Friday audience for the hearing of proof concerning the same; so much was certain. But would he really go back on his own order? Could a King possibly own himself in the wrong? If he did, what became of his claim to divine guidance, and how could folk in the future live content on his judgment? Had a body ever heard of the Learned-in-the-Law eating their own words? No! they stuck to them; in that way lay safety, confidence, authority.
And what was this still more vague rumour concerning the King's Luck, the diamond which had of a surety been his talisman these many years? Was it really to be given to the foreigner to hack and hew?
This was a question which disturbed more than the populace, which brought anxiety to the most highly cultured mind in Fatehpur Sikri.
"If it be true," said the Right Reverend Vicar of Christ, Father Ricci, head of the Portuguese Mission in Goa, who had come up to Agra on one of his periodical visits to the little colony of Christians to whom Akbar gave patronage and protection, "if indeed this diamond, whose worth is the ransom of a world, be given into these Englishmen's hands, it is time we bestirred ourselves, son Rudolfo; and thou must press the King yet once again for some speedy answer on his politics."
Pâdré Rudolfo, the Jesuit who for long years had lived at court, hoping against hope for the King's definite conversion to Christianity, spending himself body and soul in good works, good example, sighed uneasily.
"Sure, my father, the grace of God must work in the end--and Akbar is so close to the Kingdom! In tolerance alone----"
Father Ricci interrupted him sharply:
"It is anathema! He tolerates all faiths, all things, even these new Englishmen who at best are heretics."
"One at least is good Catholic," interrupted Pâdré Rudolfo mildly. "He was at the Mass in the Palace Chapel this morning."
The Superior of his order frowned. "See you, then, that he remains within the influence of Holy Church. These Englishmen must gain no foothold here. As for the King, I will write from Goa threatening your removal--for surely he hath great regard for you, as you for him. Yet I say to you that despite his good qualities, his justice, his forgiveness until seventy times seven, Akbar is a stumbling block in our way. Prince Salîm might serve our purpose better--our purpose, which is Christ's," he added hastily as if to rectify any possible confusion of meaning. Yet the meaningwasconfused, for the world holds few stories more strangely complex than the tale of the Jesuits' struggle between greed of gold and greed of souls, which for close on a century found arena in the court of the Great Moguls. Tragic it is at times, at others comic, yet pathetic throughout in the certainty that greed of gold must eventually prevail against the greed of souls.
Pâdré Rudolfo sighed again. Long living within reach of Akbar's atmosphere had made him in his turn tolerant and there was always hope; hope that his prayers, his penances, his sleepless nights might at last count for righteousness in the King's long record of hesitation. And yet in his heart of hearts Rudolfo Acquaviva knew that there was no hope, was conscious even of a vague content that there was none; for in the Father's house were there not many mansions, and what was man that he should dictate to God what gave the right of entry to them?
So from the highest to the lowest the passing days brought a sense of strain. To Âtma Devi, however, in her secluded sun-saturated roof, the general unrest did not penetrate to add to the dull distress of her own disturbed mind.
For the joy which had come to her from even the half-jesting recognition of her hereditary claim, had passed before the slow assurance that, as woman, she was helpless to support her rôle of champion, before the certainty which grew with the passing days, that the King had no need of her.
She had discarded her poppy-petal red petticoat for the white robe of the Châran, and with the silver hauberk fitting loosely to her tall slenderness, her long hair unbound circled with a silver fillet, would stand for hours, her hands clasped over the silver-hilted sword, looking out over the low parapet wall across the blue distance. That limited vision of hers held all her world; for the years had obliterated memory of the far-off Central Indian home whence she had been brought while still almost an infant by her father. But one or two scenes of that childish life which had been passed beyond her present outlook remained with her, clear yet dreamlike. The most distinct of these being her surpassing affection for Siyâla, who was now Siyah Yamin. As she thought of this a dull vague wonder possessed her as to what purpose Fate could have had in making their two lives so dissimilar--the one sexless by virtue of her widowhood, the other sexual beyond even womanhood.
Âtma's was a limited mind: her soul groped blindly in the dark, yet found what it sought and held fast to it.
So she waited as patiently as she could, hoping for some means of vindicating her claim to the Châran's place, forgetting not one jot or tittle of the many ceremonials of her race. Even if nothing else came of the King's grace save the permission to challenge the world on his behalf from her secluded silence, that in itself was gain. In one heart, surely, his honour would be held sacred utterly.
She had a quaint companion in her solitude, therebeckplayer's child Zarîfa. For on the morning after Âtma had taken Birbal to see the musician asleep, with the young girl's flower-face upon his bosom, he had appeared in Âtma Devi's roof, bearing the light burden of the crippled child in his arms, and begged asylum for her during the space of an hour while he went on an errand. But days had passed without his return; so the child had stayed on. Helpless utterly, sustaining life apparently by a mere sup of milk, a mouthful or two of fruit, and sleeping away all the hours of fierce daylight, at dawn and at dusk the soul hidden in the racked, deformed body seemed to be set free from its bonds, and the child would lie with wide-open soft lustrous eyes, smiling and singing to herself. And Âtma Devi as she sate listening would feel peace and content steal over her restlessness, so that as often as not, as the shadows crept over the roof, and the daylight died, the rising moon would find both the child and the woman asleep; Zarîfa in the dark shelter of the slip of a room--whence she seldom stirred since the light seemed to scourge her--Âtma crouching in the corner beside the little lamp which burned ever before the death-dagger of her race.
Birbal, coming at dawn in search, once more, of therebeckplayer, roused Âtma from such a sleep, and entering while--after unbarring the door at his password "From the King"--she stood rubbing her eyes, was met by such a strong perfume of roses that he turned quickly on her:
"So he is here!" he cried; then looked curiously at her, at the little slip of room. "Within, I suppose," he added, passing to its entrance. But Âtma barred the way.
"It is the child, my lord," she said quickly, "the musician left her with me when he went away. And she is so timid, the very face of a strange man is like a strong light upon her--it scorches and shrivels."
Birbal laughed shortly. He was of the world and knew its evil ways. "So does love," he replied mockingly. "Nay! I find no fault with thee, widow, but call him out--I would see him."
Âtma flushed darkly. "My lord cannot see him; he is not here."
"Nor the child neither? Am I not even to have sight of her pretty face to attest truth?" asked Birbal.
The woman met his jeering smile with a peremptory gesture. "Let my lord sit silent yonder on the parapet," she said, in a voice of command, "and from the darkness he shall hear."
So, closing the door behind her, she called softly, "Sing to me, my bird," and stood listening.
Birbal, idly kicking his heels as he sate, looked over the wall down the sheer drop of a hundred feet or more which ended in the red rock. Just below him, brimming up to the very wall lay the tank which Akbar had lately made as a reservoir for the lower part of the town. Half-hidden in morning mist it reflected the morning sky here and there as the vapour, parting, left its surface clear. And behind the rising mist? Did it reflect nothing but the shifting gray curves above it, or did the cool depths of rock below have their chance to shine mirrored on the water?
Bah! who could tell!
The little roof lay still in the first sunlight. A few pigeons wheeling about overhead sent shifting shadows to chase each other on the purple bricks of wall and floor, and in the topmost branch of the peepul tree whose roots throve beside the tank below, a white-throat was singing its little limited song. So, suddenly, there rose on the cool air of dawn another limited little voice.
Rose leaves wither away so fast?Is the sun's kiss cold? Is the summer past?Whither away like shallops at seaWith torn pink sails and never a mastWhither away so fast?Sun kisses are warm, and the summers lastBut the shadows are calling us dim and vastSo we set our sails like shallops at seaAnd drift away without rudder or mastTo the dark that will lastFor eternity!
Rose leaves wither away so fast?Is the sun's kiss cold? Is the summer past?Whither away like shallops at seaWith torn pink sails and never a mastWhither away so fast?
Sun kisses are warm, and the summers lastBut the shadows are calling us dim and vastSo we set our sails like shallops at seaAnd drift away without rudder or mast
To the dark that will lastFor eternity!
Birbal, artist to his finger tips shivered slightly; Âtma, standing, her hands clasped over the old silver-hilted sword, gave a soft sigh. To both of them the creeping step of the Dark that will last for Eternity, seemed to invade the present, claiming all things.
All things save Love, that essence of the Rose of Life.
"Only the dust of the rose-leaf remains to the heart of the seller of perfumes."
The mystical meaning of the Sufi saying came home for once to Birbal. As usual, he resented the intrusion and stood up ready to go, prepared to jest.
"Farewell, then, widow! God send thee a lover if thou hast not one, since even Châranship to Kings is not sufficient for a woman! Now, wert thou but man thou mightst be true.----"
It was as if the dam of the lake below had suddenly given way, letting loose a flood over the land, and he raised his arm in unconscious self-defence as, like a tornado, Âtma swept upon him, flourishing the sword.
"Lo! Maheshwar Rao, Brahmin, Bhât-bandi!" she cried, giving him all his racial titles, "have a care what thou sayest! Yea! since the long-dead day when Shiv-jee created us from the sweat-drops of his godly brow, and jealous Parvati his wife--womanhood incarnate--exiled us from Paradise because we sang his praises overloud--ever since then we Chârans have been true, whether God makes us man or woman! Dost deny it? Then by the long discipleship of thy upstart race--formed by Parvati to sing her trivial worth--to mine, I do command thee to remember that I am champion to the King. Dost hear, Maheshwar Rao? Does Akbar need aught? Stands his honour firm? Lo! if thou speakest not, I die!"
The sword's point clattered on the brick roof, she snatched the death dagger of her race from its altar and stood ready to strike.
"Nay! sister," replied Birbal coolly, for the very heat of her harangue had given him time for calm. "There is no need to die--yet." Here, in a flash, a sudden thought came to him and he settled himself back on the parapet with a faint laugh. Set a thief to catch a thief, a woman to catch a woman! The intensity on this one's face might be useful to him. Having long since constituted himself the eyes and ears, as it were, of Akbar's empire, he had countless emissaries, endless spies, everywhere; but he had not yet employed a woman. It could do no harm to try one where all the cunning of man had failed.
"Sit thee down, sister," he said, after a moment's thought, "and I will tell thee wherein thou canst serve the King's need. Thou knowest Siyah Yamin----"
"What! hath the King need ofher?" asked Âtma incredulously.
Birbal laughed shortly. "Nay, no one hath need of her; so she must die."
The face opposite his paled. "Wherefore?" she asked briefly.
"Because she may be the undoing of empire," he replied. "Hearken, so thou mayest understand."
"Siyah Yamin," she echoed in a puzzled voice when he had told her of the Syed's appeal and the certainty that the courtesan would swear to having read the Kalma and thus prove the legality of her marriage. "Nay! she cannot swear!"
"Not if a bowstring find her throat first," retorted Birbal viciously; "naught else will stop a woman's tongue, especially if marriage be the subject. Therefore she must be found and--and--lost again! She is in the city; that we know. Where, no one can compass. If thou couldst find out----"
"There is no need," said Âtma slowly; "she--she will not swear!"
Birbal was on his feet with a laugh. "A woman will swear anything for one she loves or hates, and Siyah Yamin hates the King. Whether she love Jamâl-ud-din is another matter. So fare thee well, Âtma Devi championess of Kings. Lo! I have given thee thy Châran chance. As for therebeckplayer--I shall find him yet!"
After Birbal left, Âtma sate thinking. There was something which she remembered about Siyâla, which little Siyâla, the darling of the Gods, must remember also.
Or would she pretend to forget it? If she did, then she, Âtma, must speak, must protest, if needs be die to witness to it.
Then, if she died it would be death to Siyah Yamin who was Siyâla, sister of the veil.
Âtma roused herself and stood listening. A faint sound of slumbering breath drawn evenly met her ear as she paused at the door of the slip of a room where Zarîfa lay hidden. The child was asleep and could be left for an hour or two at any rate.
Hastily discarding her Châran's dress she put on the poppy-petalled red skirt and veil of the mad singer, so catching up her hourglass drum passed into the street. Her cry,
"May the Gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their Godhead"
echoing out into the closed courtyards as she hurried down the narrow alley.
"List! that is Âtma back again," yawned a woman sleepily sitting down to the mill-wheel beside the piled basket of wheat which was to serve for the family breakfast. "I deemed she had been dead these days past. But I will get her to tell me my fortune. What she told Gobind Sâhâi's wife hath come true. She hath twin sons, and praise be to the gods! her husband is not suspicious."
The last item of information was evidently more racy than the first, and the women's voices gossiped over it rising above the hum of the mill wheel.
Âtma meanwhile had made her way straight to the bazaar. Here and there a figure huddled in a white shawl showed wandering outward, water-pot in hand, a seller of milk or two, a woman bearing a heaped basket of green-stuff passed inward, but for the most part the cavernous shops stood closed or empty, for it was yet early hours. A woman blew loudly at a pile of dried leaves under a toasting pan. The little spark left in the charcoal below showed red, then white, amid the gray ashes, and with a roaring crackle the flame leapt upward. A man guiltless of all clothing save a rag, pared his nails solemnly into the gutter. But in the house where Âtma entered all was silent. A medley of musical instruments lay piled on the floor, and in a corner, his head resting on his drum, snored Deena the drum-banger. Âtma passed over to him swiftly and woke him by a touch. The old man started to his feet with commendable activity; then was on the ground again in profuse salaam.
"Now am I saved from sin, mistress most chaste," he began vociferously. "Lo! since I ceased drumming to the deeds of dead kings, I have been a lost soul utterly. I have damned myself by giving time to profligate steps. I have sung lewd songs. But what will ye? A drum ever keeps bad company; being in sooth naught but the devil of a noise that groweth worse instead of better by being whacked----"
"Peace, fool!" said Âtma sternly, "I have need of thee. Where hast been of late?"
Deena sate down and began drumming softly with one finger, an insistent, devilish sort of drumming that seemed created to conceal something. Then he winked a wicked old eye.
"Hal-lal-lal-la-la!" he said gaily. "So old Deena is best gossip-maker to the town. Truly he hears much; for, see you, there is something that brings confidence to scandal in the continuous burring of a drum. It seems to cover all, so folk speak free; and an old ear listens. What dost desire to know, mistress most chaste?"
"Hast heard ought of Siyah Yamin?" asked Âtma readily.
Deena chuckled. "Other folks ask that, my lord Birbal to wit. Hol-lah! The whole town is agog to know news of God knows what--Siyah Yamin, the King's Luck----"
"What of the King's Luck?" interrupted Âtma Devi with a frown.
"Only that he hath given it away as a present to the Queen from over the Black Water of whom the new infidels talk," replied Deena with a yawn, for he had had a night of it at the Lord High Chamberlain's.
The frown deepened. "It is a lie!" she said peremptorily. "The King is no fool; his luck is with him ever. But see--take up thy drum and follow. To-day I will sing of dead kings and listen for the sake of a living one; so I need thy banging."
Deena rose with alacrity. "And my drum needs thee, mistress. 'Tis an evil instrument. But for its hindrance I could sing hymns"--he began one dolorously, then paused shaking his head. "Lo! it hath no discrimination--a holy psalm is even the same to it as a ribald rhyme. Yea! yea! I follow. I will drum to the herald of a live king and forget my sins."
So that day Âtma Devi, the mad singer, reappeared in the city, flitting hither and thither, chanting of dead kings, listening for the sake of a live one.
But she heard nothing; yet as the day drew down she realised that the need of news was urgent; for the whole town talked of Siyah Yamin and the King's Luck.
As she sate in the moonlight on her roof that night she told herself yet once again that if the worst came to the worst she could but die to attest the truth of what she remembered. But then the burden of disproof would be laid on the courtesan, and if she failed she too must die.
Poor little Siyâla! Better far if she could be warned; be persuaded not to affirm this marriage.
"At the tank steps at dawn to-morrow," said Âtma briefly, as late in the evening she parted with Deena at the foot of the stairs. She would do her utmost. Zarîfa could be put to sleep with a pellet of the Dream-compeller; so she would be free to spend every hour in search of Siyah Yamin.