Dear, the Sun that shines above theeSpends his gold to see thee, sweetLet me like those rays that love theeKiss the dust about thy feet.--Nizâmi.
Dear, the Sun that shines above theeSpends his gold to see thee, sweetLet me like those rays that love theeKiss the dust about thy feet.
--Nizâmi.
There was a faint half-kissing sound as of bare feet on a wet marble floor, and a running tinkle of light voices behind the heavy curtain which barred the archway to the inner bathroom; but in the little balconied alcove at the end of the vestibule, where Aunt Rosebody, attired in a vivid rose-coloured wadded silk dressing-gown, sate drying her gray hair in the wind, there was silence, almost sleep.
For the active little old lady still preferred a swim to paddling in scented waters, so she and Umm Kulsum the "Mother of Plumpness," both being of small size, were used to start earlier, in one dhooli, for their morning bathe in the women's screen at the big tank beneath Âtma Devi's house. Being of the frank old Chughtâi type, they were hail-fellow-well-met with the all and sundry who came down to fill their pots or wash on the steps; so nearly every day a gray head and a black one, both sleek from a dive under the screen arches, might be seen slipping sideways in the overhead stroke far beyond the women's limited range.
Now such exercise is fatiguing even when age is set aside so lightly as it was by Aunt Rosebody. Therefore the time of hair-drying was for her a time of repose also; the more so because Umm Kulsum always dried hers whilst picking her daily violet posy for the King. And the other ladies--heaven rest their souls and bodies!--always spent such an unconscionable time over their scented paddlings; while as for the dressings to come, when, fresh from their baths, they all sate in the balconied vestibule to be perfumed, and manicured and massaged--Why! what with the drinking of cool sherbets or hot tea, scented, almost colourless, tasteless, save for the cinnamon flavouring it, theseséancesseemed unending. They were, however, amusing enough, since this was a recognised time for morning callers; primed, of course, with the latest and most vivacious gossip. Nor were the visitors necessarily of the class which nowadays the East--without thereby in the least impugning their respectability--stigmatises as "street walkers"; since the laws governing seclusion are now far more strict than they were in Mogul times.
Besides, there were always the court ladies, and the wives of the Palace officials.
Always indeed! Aunt Rosebody broke off in the faintest of deep breathings, which even by discourtesy would hardly be called a snore, and remarked with drowsy captiousness, "What? again!" when the African slave girl--whom the dear old lady had imported from Mekka as part of her piety--ingeniously roused her slumbering mistress by actually touching her feet in the deep salaam which accompanied the announcement, "Bibi Azîzan, noble wife of my lord Ghiâss Beg, Treasurer, and her daughter Mihr-un-nissa crave audience."
Aunt Rosebody's beautiful wavy gray hair stirred like moon-ripples on water as she shook her head patiently.
"Let her come," she said resignedly, "the others cannot be long now, and, mayhap, if I let her tongue start fair at a gallop, I may finish forty winks ere it slackens to a trot."
Thereinafter, swaying with an odd sidelong waddle of the hips in the fashionable gait which was supposed to emulate the grace of a swan or a young elephant, there came over the marble inlaid floor strewn with silken carpets from Khotan, a truly marvellous figure. Being somewhat stout in the body--though the face, still charmingly pretty was curiously unmarred by fatness or flabbiness--the extremity of the modes in which the figure was dressed did not become the wearer. The graceful dual garment (almost diaphanous but for its exceeding fulness, cut to the ground at the sides, but literally yards long in front and behind) instead of, when swept back by the walk, clinging in soft folds from hip to ankle and lying on the ground behind in a billowing train with no wrong side, was ruckled about the fat legs, and huddled itself confusedly behind them, giving the appearance of a peg-top entangled in a handkerchief!
There was no lack of colour, or stitching, and sewings about the lady. From head to foot she stood confessed as one of the leaders of ladies' fashions, and the jewelled chatelaine at her waist heldkohlcaskets and rouge-pots, even an unmistakable powder box, while a large mirror set in pearls shone ring-fashion on her thumb.
She salaamed in the very latest court manner to Aunt Rosebody, and came up from the semi-prostration, breathless but complacent, to meet the little old lady's keen eyes fixed on her forehead whereon, just at the parting, was stuck a tiny, round, vermilion wafer.
"What is that?" asked Aunt Rosebody pointing an accusing finger at her. "Hast become a Hindu?"
Azîzan Begum tittered. "La! madam. 'Tis the very latest fashion! One cannot, with respect to oneself and others, appear without it, in----"
"In the Râjpût harem," interrupted the little lady, her tone rising ominously. "Well! 'tis not far distant, Azîz, if thou hast missed the way thither. Just through the door, down the steps, across the yard and thou wilt find plenty of redtikkas; but not here!"
"Madam! I protest," expostulated the poor fat fashionable; "I have no desire--and 'tis worn by everybody at court."
"It is not worn here," repeated Aunt Rosebody with cool dignity. "So if the desire to remain finds place in the respected and respectable lady's plans she--she can wash it off! Ooma! a basin of water. Let it be tepid lest the lady should receive a shock--and--and see it be duly scented with scent of flowers; something that will make the respected and respectable lady smell less like a civet cat! 'Tis pity, Azîz, thou dost not keep to rose-essence after taking the trouble to invent it!"
"I protest," murmured the Bibi, seeking support on the floor, and adjusting the set of her veil and her folds generally with the sort of reflex action which exists still in the women of her type--that is to say, hopelessly courtesan despite their excellent wifehood and motherhood-- "'Tis the very latest of my perfumes, and all the latest fashionables--"
The elder woman's face took on seriousness beneath its impatience. "I am not of the latest," she said, "though in truth I be later in life's journey than they. Yet even in my youth"--her sparkling bright eyes roved contemptuously over the other's dress--"I did not clothe myself after--after Satanstown! And thou growest old, Azîzan! Thou hast a daughter--but where is she?--did not they say she was with thee?"
"The child was beguiled bathward by Lady Umm Kulsum whom we met," bridled the Bibi.
"The child?" echoed Aunt Rosebody; "Lo! she will be giving thee dates ere long--ha--ha!"
She chuckled over her own little joke, for the giving of dates is the first step toward a wedding; but the Bibi tossed her head.
"She is but eight, and I protest is quite a babe--not one thought of marriage."
Auntie Rosebody leant back and yawned. "Eleven," she said calmly, "or twelve maybe. 'Tis thirteen since the ill-fated caravan left Persia, and on the way thy child was born. Strange, surely, that such close touch on death as must have been thine ere thou and her father could have left her--as thou didst--to die in the desert, should not have brought thee some sense in life! How about the betrothal to Sher Afkân?"
Bibi Azîzan gave an affected little scream.
"La! there 'tis! Did I not tell her father that if he would insist on sending the country-bumpkin a platter of welcome that the old tale would be revived. La! 'tis too vexing! I could cry; and my sweet poppet whom I long to keep always as my little babe, my perfect innocent! I protest, madam, I would kill any bridegroom."
"Oh fie! marmie!" came a laughing voice behind--"Not Prince Salîm, I will wager!"
Both women looked round with a start to see, holding back the wadded curtain, such a vision of youth and perfect loveliness as the world shows but seldom; yet once having shown does not let men forget. For this small slender Eastern maid, comparable at her eleven years to Western fourteen, was to take her place amongst the beauty which has swayed the destiny of empires.
As she stood backed by the soft embroideries of the curtain, the delicate outline of her still childish figure barely concealed by the silver tinsel veil Umm Kulsum had thrown over her in laughter at her utter nakedness as she had scrambled out of the bath, she showed at once innocent, yet full of guile. There was not one false note in the harmony of her beauty. The cupid's bow of her mouth was curved into a mischievous smile as she looked at her mother half-jibingly, and at Aunt Rosebody half-defiantly.
"Oh! my heart! Oh! what words!" gasped the former, having recourse to her vinaigrette, while the latter looked at her nodding her moonshiny head.
"So!" she said; "So, Azîzan! That lets the cat out of the cupboard!"
But there was no time for more, since through the upheld curtain trooped the bevy of bathers followed by their maids. Then arose such a chatter as to places and pillows, such giggles, such laughter, waxing loudest round Umm Kulsum who, ready dressed, caught the silver tissued maid-ling about the waist, and danced round with her, whirling through the room, feet flying, hair floating, until--quite breathless--she pulled her partner down right on Aunt Rosebody's rug.
The little old lady looked at the perfectly bewitching face, and a smile quivered about her mouth.
"What about the Prince Salîm, child?" she asked accusingly. "What about him?"
Mihr-un-nissa looked arch in return and positively made amoueof uncontrollable high spirits before she put on an air of immense and demure propriety.
"Nothing, gracious lady! Am I not betrothed to Sher Afkân Khân?"
Bibi Azîzan let loose an absolute shriek.
"Oh! my liver! Ah! ladies! Heard one ever the like? Mihr-un-nissa how darest thou?--it is not true--it is a lie!"
A curious expression of untamed obstinacy came to the girlish face and gave it a character beyond its years.
"Lo! Marmita!" she said lightly; "when thou and Afkân's mother have settled whether I be betrothed or no, there may be talk of truth. Till then I marry no one."
Bibi Azîzan subsided helplessly, limply, amongst her cushions. To say more might only induce theenfant terrible, of malicious intent, still further to reveal the family strife; so there was room for Umm Kulsum's tactful raillery.
"What! thou wilt be an old maid like me! And without even a pilgrimage to thy credit! Fie! Thou art too pretty for Jehannum!"
Mihr-un-nissa laughed scornfully. "I would rather Jehannum on my own feet than Paradise on a man's coat-tails. La! la! I hate men folk!"
There was a general gurgle of laughter. The girl's face grew crimson-dark; her eyes filled with tears, yet flashed also and she held her ground.
"'Tis true," she cried, stamping her bare foot with an almost soundless yet curiously imperative smack on the marble floor. "I hate them--they think of nothing but themselves--and--and women! And I hate women too--I want to be a Queen, and Iwillbe one!"
"Come hither, child, and let me look at thee," said Auntie Rosebody, suddenly holding out her hand. The supple young thing crossed to her proudly, and crouching low touched the small fine old fingers with her forehead.
"Thine eyes, child--thine eyes!" said the old woman. "Let me see thy fate in them."
So for an instant's space the great lustrous soft depths of Mihr-un-nissa's fathomless eyes were appraised.
"She might keep him--as he should be kept," murmured Auntie Rosebody to herself; but Mihr-un-nissa was thinking of the queenship.
"What does the Most Beneficent see?" she asked eagerly. "Shall I be Queen?--Queen myself I mean--real Queen?"
There was an instant's pause and in the silence which hung over the whole room the imperious young voice seemed to linger. Then Umm Kulsum, seeing a look of sudden recoil in Aunt Rosebody's face, laughed cheerfully.
"Ask the witch wives, Mihro, not us! Or stay! Lo Auntie! dost remember the red woman with her curious cry whom we saw at the tank steps but now, and bade come hither, since she claimed to be the royal bard? She is Brahmin and tells the stars, she said. Let us have her in if she is here and then Mihro can hear fortunes."
"La!" cried Bibi Azîzan catching at any side escape from what had gone before, "I can tell the ladies who the woman is. She is mad--quite mad--and----"
"The more suitable for this subject of Queenship," remarked Aunt Rosebody dryly, twisting her hair deftly to a topknot which greatly enhanced her dignity. "Ooma! see if one Âtma, singer of pedigrees, soothsayer, heaven knows what, waits without. If so, bid her enter. And bring me a violet sherbet such as my father--may peace be his always!--loved when he was aweary of fools; then Bibi Azîzan can have her say in peace!"
After which Parthian shot she sipped her sherbet in silence. She was inwardly amused at the cat which Mihr-un-nissa--an enchanting piece truly!--had so wilfully and deftly let out of the cupboard. In truth there was some excuse for such vaulting ambition in the child's extraordinary beauty. Pity she had not been a few years older--pity nephew Akbar would not put pleasure first and politics second in Salîm's marriage--pity! Ah! pity in so many things.
"May the Gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their Godhead!"
The old lady started at the quaintly apposite cry which seemed indeed to force the whole vestibule into a second's silence.
Âtma Devi stood at the far arches, her poppy-petal dress showing for an instant brilliant in the glimpse of sunlight let in by the upraisal of the curtain.
In truth her entry brought a new note to the chord of womanhood which vibrated in the atmosphere; a note that was foreign to its harmony. A quick sense of tragedy came to the comedy of laughing ladies. Something in Âtma's womanly face and figure that was in them also, disguised, tucked away, hidden out of sight but still recognisable made them recoil to silence. Perhaps it was the "Not womanhood" of the dark days before Sex shows itself--the Not-womanhood which, with the "Not-manhood," go to make up the Paradise Life in which there shall be neither male nor female.
Âtma felt the recoil herself as her dark eyes questioned the scene before them, challenging it in swift antagonism. For the past two days her thoughts had been concentrated on her search for some clue of Siyah Yamin. She had drifted about the bazaars, giving her curious cry, she had watched at street corners, and listened patiently through the hurly-burly of passing voices for some hint, some sound. Without avail; and time was running short; she would not have wasted one minute of it in obeying Aunt Rosebody's order to attend at the palace but for a dazed sense of duty. She, the King's Châran, must not neglect royal commands; even Siyah Yamin must give way to them.
Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin! Ye Gods! why had either of those two children who had played together, grown up to be women? Why should any woman-child grow up to be hampered by her sex, left helpless?
Âtma's thoughts as she stood mechanically shaking the hour-glass drum, paused; her eyes in the darkness to which they were becoming accustomed had found something which brought answer to her questioning.
It was Mihr-un-nissa, who, barely veiled by silver tissue, sate a little way apart from the others on a yellow silken rug; her slender arms were around her knees, her head was tilted back against the wall on which a flower garland of the inlaid mosaic seemed to frame her delicate face, as through half-closed lids she returned the singer's stare.
"Art thou a witch-wife?" asked the little maid suddenly, as if none but they two were in the room. "Lo! I am Mihr-un-nissa, Queen of Women. Tell me--shall I indeed be Queen not of them only, but of men also?"
The brushers and dressers paused in their avocations to look and listen. Something insistent, compellent, seemed to have come into the atmosphere. Even Auntie Rosebody paused in the sipping of her sherbet and waited for the answer to that still-childish voice.
And those two stared at each other, feeling vaguely akin; the woman who strove to forget her sex in a man's work, the girl who cherished it as a means of gaining a like power.
"I offer excuse for interference," came Râkiya Begum's rasping voice, "but soothsaying except by reference to the Holy Book----"
"'Tis but for fun, Most Noble," pleaded Umm Kulsum, who was invariably the smoother of difficulties, "and they did it at the Holy City, for I paid seven goldenashrafeesto a woman with a crystal who told me naught that I did not know before."
The little ripple of surrounding laughter did not soften Râkiya Begum's sternness.
"A crystal," she said severely, taking a pinch of snuff, "is different. That hath, as all know, its gift of God in certain hands; but the looking at grains of rice and the counting of pease-pods is irreligious, and most derogatory to true believers. Therefore in the absence of our Lady Hamida----"
The acerbity of this allusion to an occasionally divided headship in the harem was interrupted hastily by a twitter from the elder Salîma who addressed her daughter nervously.
"In truth dear heart, Ummu, 'twere better not mayhap--the woman is Hindu."
Mihr-un-nissa, her head still tilted back against the garlanded wall, looked through her lashes, and her cupid's bow of a mouth smiled bewilderingly.
"I mind not that one fly's weight," she remarked cheerfully, casually, as if her likings or dislikings were the only question at issue, "Come good red woman, begin! My fortune, please!"
Âtma hesitated. Here was a household divided against itself, and beyond Auntie Rosebody and Umm Kulsum, whose status she knew, she was unaware of the position of the scented, languidly laughing ladies around her. Yet a false step might be fatal to future right of entry. It was a time for swift, decisive action.
"I tell no fortunes," she replied. "I look only in the magic mirror after the fashion that a pious pilgrim of Mahomed taught my father, and if God sends a vision, I see!"
It was a fortunate hit. Râkiya Begum sate stiff with excitement. "Not the magic mirror of ink, such as is used in Room? Lo! ladies! this is a chance indeed! and I, at the moment, in one of my-poor verses was using it as an allegory for the vast enlargement of the mind by literature! Good woman! Let us see the process without delay. What dost require?"
Âtma's native wit was equal to the occasion. "A drop of ink from the inkpot of the poetess must bring visions," she replied readily, and Khânum Râkiya Begum smiled her approval. So the inkpot came and Âtma, her full red skirts billowing about her, sank to the ground opposite Mihr-un-nissa whose bare limbs, the colour of freshly garnered wheat overlaid with a faint tinsel sheen, showed almost white in contrast with the intensity of the scarlet. Then holding the inkpot high in her right hand the Châran began to sing softly:
Drop, ink! and hide my fleshCover my worldly waysThen let God's Light afreshMirror God's praiseDrop ink! Drop deepCover in SleepMy Night of Nights and bring the Day of Days.
Drop, ink! and hide my fleshCover my worldly waysThen let God's Light afreshMirror God's praiseDrop ink! Drop deepCover in SleepMy Night of Nights and bring the Day of Days.
A little pool of ink lay, with curved surface like a dewdrop, on her left palm as the song ceased.
"If the gracious child will almost touch the mirror with her left forefinger and complete the circle of magic by touching my right arm with her right hand," she suggested in a mysterious monotonous voice.
For answer Mihr-un-nissa's firm little fingers closed round her wrist tightly. "Aye! it shall not stir," she said coolly. "I want to know for certain--no clouds and waves and mists--I want to know. Dost hear?"
Childishly imperative her eyes questioned Âtma's. "Nay!" replied the latter, feeling in a measure at bay. "The gracious maid must close her eyes. I, Âtma, will look alone into the mirror and see--if God wills--the fortune of the Princess."
Aunt Rosebody's laugh came sudden, sarcastic.
"Not Princess yet, woman! Not as yet," she continued, turning to Bibi Azîzan, "even in the inmost heart of the house of Ghiâss Beg, the Lord Treasurer."
"I protest," began the fat fashionable one feebly.
Âtma gave a swift glance round at the speakers and the little pool of ink in her palm wavered despite Mihr-un-nissa's almost fierce grip.
"How now, slave?" cried the latter; "I said no wavering."
"There shall be none, Highness," replied Âtma bending her brows over her task again. But the mention of Ghiâss Beg's name had brought back the thought of Siyah Yamin. For the only clue of any sort which the two days of search had given to Âtma was a possible connection between the Lord High Treasurer's House and that of the Syeds of Bârha.
They were distantly related by marriage. It was the faintest of clues but the thought of it filled Âtma's mind in an instant with a pressing desire.
Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin! She must be found! Time was passing! The very next morning the Audience would be held.
Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin----
"I see naught," she went on monotonously, forcing herself to words foreign to her thoughts--"I see, I see--what do I see? A crowd of banners waving. 'Tis a marriage procession! And lo! the bridegroom--Ohé! like the young Krishn for beauty--tall, slim, and fair."
"Thou liest," came Mihr-un-nissa's voice full of passion. "Thou dost not see it. Thou dost not----"
As she spoke she flung up the wrist she held so roughly that the ink drops spurted over Âtma's scarlet dress; then, with a sudden bound, she stood confronting her, a tornado in silver tissue. "Lo! I was looking too, and I saw no crowd, no banners, no bridegroom. All I saw was Siyah Yamin playing on the lute as she played last night when----"
She broke off with a sudden dismay, then laughing round defiantly to her mother went on recklessly:
"There! I have let that musk-rat go! but I did see her, Marmita, just as she sate last night when you and she----"
Bibi Azîzan's shriek drowned the rest.
Then came Auntie Rosebody's voice of horror; "Siyah Yamin! At--at thy house, Azîzan! This passes indeed! Go, woman, and venture hither no more!"
"I offer excuse," remarked Râkiya Begum who had risen and come forward in sedate annoyance. Her stiff brocaded petticoat looked almost regal, but her thin angular body still suffered from lack of attire, and her veillessness showed her scanty hair screwed back tightly, ready for subsequent additions. Withal she had a certain dignity of thin, harsh, high features and scraggy uprightness. "That question, Khânzada Gulbadan Kkânum is, as the lawyers have it,sub-judice. To-morrow the King decides."
"Decides!" echoed Auntie Rosebody wrathfully. "And if he does decide!--what then? You can't beat a drum with one hand, and all the other five fingers are in the butter! No! No! Marry her fifty times, Siyah YaminisSiyah Yamin. You can't hide an elephant under a hencoop. So there! That's my say!"
Râkiya Begum took a pinch of snuff. "And I say nothing. A wise man learns to shave upon strangers."
Meanwhile Mihr-un-nissa, her swift anger passing into amused wonder, stood looking at the ink spots on the scarlet dress, until suddenly her cupid's-bow mouth curved itself into a smile.
"'Twas thy fault," she said nodding her head. "Thou must have been thinking of her, for I saw her clear; but see--that for thy spoilt dress!"
She tore off a gold bangle from her arm and held it out. They were standing close together, almost unobserved, the rest of the company being more interested in crowding about the discussion which still went on regarding Siyah Yamin.
"Why wilt not take it?" continued the little maiden stamping her foot, as Âtma Devi drew back.
"Because I want a bigger boon," she replied hurriedly, seizing her chance.
"A greater boon?" echoed Mihr-un-nissa curiously.
"Aye!" almost whispered Âtma Devi. "If the gracious child--in truth her head well deserves a crown--would take this in exchange for me," she hastily wrenched off a thin silver band-bracelet all too small for the matured wrist on which it was worn. "Take it to Siyah Yamin--it--it is hers. See! there is her name upon it."
She pointed to a word engraved on the bracelet. Mihr-un-nissa took it and stood holding it, her unfathomable eyes full of malicious contempt. "So! there is a mystery! La! I love mysteries--they are so easy to guess! Yea! I will give it--and find out! Is there any message?"
"None."
The childish face broke into almost sinister smiles. "Then the bracelet means the message! What is it? Come, or go? No matter! I will find out!"
She slipped the bracelet round her own slender wrist and turned away nonchalantly, a veritable Queen of Women.
Fling back thy veil, Beloved! Lo! how longShall it availTo hide thy womanish nature, and so wrongThy beauty frail.
Fling back thy veil, Beloved! Lo! how long
Shall it avail
To hide thy womanish nature, and so wrong
Thy beauty frail.
"Is it thou, Siyâla?"
Âtma holding the cresset high peered out into the darkness of the stair.
A tinkle of soft laughter came from the shadows. "So! thou hast not forgotten the old signal, Âto! yet it was years agone that I gave thee the bracelet, and thou gavest me thine. Still have I come for the sake of it! That is enough, Yasmeen! I stay here till an hour ere dawn; then fetch me."
The last was called in a low voice down the darkness and thereinafter followed the sound of retreating steps; yet still no figure showed in the circle of cresset light.
"Wilt not come in Siyâl?" said Âtma impatiently, "if by chance someone came and found us women----"
Another tinkle of laughter rose from the shadows and out of them stepped swaggering a slender youth, the very print and spit of fashion, made taller by a high-wound turban, his hand on the jewelled scimitar stuck in his tight-wound girdle.
"They would say that Âtma Devi had found a proper lover," laughed the masquerader. "La! Âtma, on my soul I do love thee!--thou art so monstrous serious, and thy large eyes have a fire in them. Be mine, sweet widow!"
"Peace, Siyâl! This is not time for jesting. Come in and let me shut the door. I have matters of privacy to say."
"Say on," retorted the other gaily, "but not here. And call me not Siyâl! I am thy true lover Sher-Khân. In truth, Âtma," here the voice changed to seriousness, "this disguise was necessary, seeing where I bide! In God's truth we bazaar women have to go for trickery to the chaste zenânas. I had but to tell Yasmeen I wished to go out and this"--she touched her costume--"was forthcominginstanter. Lo! I shall doubt every likely lad I see for the future as myself disguised!--who knows, indeed, but what I was born to be a man! Come sweetheart, I cannot talk here! Come with thy Sher-Khân."
She stepped forward and laid her hand on Âtma's wrist.
"Whither?" asked the latter, feeling as she looked at the feminine face set in masculine clothes the nameless charm of the woman in the man, the man in the woman. "And wherefore?"
The answer came short and sharp. "Because if I am missed they will seek me here first. Mihr-un-nissa knows, and she--she has no mercy when she feels power! We will go to my paradise. I have the key still. Lord! How I shall love it after this past fortnight of a virtuous cage! Lo! the dew of heaven is not a satisfying drink! So"--she snatched at the cresset, "follow me, sister--sweetheart--widow if thou wilt--woman any way! Bah! how dark it is--truly they say 'the torchbearer sees not his own steps.'"
Thus chattering in shrill whispers, she led the way. A key rattled in a lock; there were more stairs, then another door opened and they stood in Siyah Yamin's paradise.
A deserted paradise indeed! Dark, almost dreadful in its unseenness, with only a rustle as of dead, dried flowers and leaves coming to them with the faint breeze which blew in their faces from the darkness. A faint scent, as of withered blossoms came with it.
Siyah Yamin closed the door with a bang, burst into a perfect cascade of laughter, and then, out of sheer delight and devilry pirouetted and postured down the central walk singing as she danced aghazalfrom Hâfiz:
Love! Love! It is SpringBe thou of joyous heartTruly the birds will singRoses be blossomingThough we depart!This is our little day!This is the hour of playEre you and I be clayKiss me, my heart!Kiss me alway.
Love! Love! It is SpringBe thou of joyous heartTruly the birds will singRoses be blossomingThough we depart!This is our little day!This is the hour of playEre you and I be clayKiss me, my heart!Kiss me alway.
With the cresset in her hand, its lights and shades falling on the high turban with its waving green ends, on the effeminate embroideries of her dandified dress, and bringing out into filmy clouds the long floating coatee of gold-spangled white muslin worn as a loose overall, she seemed like the very Spirit of Sex, neither male nor female, careless of everything save reckless sensual pleasure.
So, suddenly, the lithe body stooped and from the cresset in her hand one of the many little oil lamplets edging the paths and encircling what had been flower beds ere neglect and noonday suns had left them shrivelled, flickered into flame; then another, and another, and another, as swaying, posturing, singing she danced on into the shadows leaving behind her a pathway as of stars.
Ere she reached the pavilion at the further end and sank breathless amongst its silken cushions, a dim radiance was suffused over the roof showing the withered roses, the trailing dead tendrils of the scented jasmine, the litter of spent blossoms, all the lees and dregs of a past pleasure. The very table, low to the ground, its mother-o'-pearl inlaying all dust-covered, still held a half emptied wine cup or two, a leaf plate of half-rotten fruit.
"Lo! Siyâla!" said Âtma, suddenly looking almost tenderly at her companion, as she lay, bathed in the rosy light of the hanging lamp she had lit, "what art thou in very truth? Sometimes thou seemest to me of the stars; at times thou art very earth."
The courtesan laughed. "I am Woman," she replied, flinging her high turban aside and drawing the loose fallen tresses of her hair through her fingers lazily, settling them in dainty fashion on her shoulders, "I wait as I have waited all the long ages for the Man! Lo! I am ready for his desire. I am the uttermost Nothingness which tempts Form. I am Mâya, illusion and delusion!"
Her voice full of music and charm fell on the ear drowsily.
"And thou, Âtma," she went on, "shall I tell thee what thou art? Thou art that which seeks not--which gives and takes nothing in return. Thou art salvation. Yet thou canst not save--the Woman is too strong for thee. Thou lovest the King!"
The blood flew to Âtma's face. "Thou liest!" she cried hotly.
Siyah Yamin's laugh filled the emptiness of the roof. "Thy denial proves it, sister! Were it not wiser to accept thy womanhood? Ohé! Âtma! there is joy in drawing the strength of a man through his lips!--in making him forget high thoughts--in dragging him down, down to the very depths of--of Nothingness!"
Her small bejewelled hand closed on the empty air; yet Âtma shivered: that emptiness seemed to hold so much. She sate down on the steps and resting her chin on her hand remained crouched in on herself, silent, looking out over the dead roses.
"Lo! here is wine!" came the gay voice. "Pledge me in it, Âtma! Does not Hâfiz say 'the cloister and the wine shop are not far apart?' No more is thy woman's love from my woman's love. Why shouldst thou try to make it man's love?"
My love is a burning fire,And aloe-wood is my heart,The censer is my desire,Oh me! how I shrivel and smart!Yet the flame mounts higher and higher:Oh! love depart!Make not a funeral pyreOf censer and heart.
My love is a burning fire,And aloe-wood is my heart,The censer is my desire,Oh me! how I shrivel and smart!Yet the flame mounts higher and higher:Oh! love depart!Make not a funeral pyreOf censer and heart.
The trivial song ceased. Siyâla slipping from her cushions had slidden toward Âtma, and now, her chin resting on the latter's broad shoulder, was looking up at the brave steady face with cajoling menace in her eyes.
"Why, and what willst thou, Âto? There is no third way. Woman must be as I--the eternal Nothingness which Something sought in the beginning; sought, tempted by the desire for Form; which men seek now tempted by the Woman Form they have made! Tempted by me, the courtesan, who drains the good from them and flings it sterile on the dust heap of the world! Or they must be as thou art not: instinct with Motherhood, draining the soul of man to hand it on in ceaseless conflict of sex, of Form and Matter through the ages. But thou, Âto? Thou wouldst be neither! Thou art mother of the past, not of the future. Thou wouldst stand aside and give the man part of thee--'tis in all women even in Siyah Yamin--thou wouldst give this man part which has come to thee through thy fathers, back all untouched by thy womanhood to the man thou lovest! Fool! There is no such love for us womenkind!"
"There thou tellest truth, Siyâl," said Âtma coldly. "It is not love. Did I not tell thee so? But I came not here for this. We must speak and speak quickly."
So the two women, half seen in the suffused light of the empty roof, sate talking while the little lamplets twinkled like stars, and every here and there one, growing short of oil, flickered and went out leaving a gap of darkness.
"Three!" counted the courtesan with a yawn as the mellow echoing notes of the city gongs chimed through the night. "'Tis time I were gone!"
She caught up her turban, coiled her long hair beneath it, thus stood transformed at once into effeminate manhood. "And Sher-Khân," she continued swaggering, "hath not had even one kiss--sweet widow!--the perfume of thy hair is wrapped round my living soul----"
"Peace, Siyâl," said Âtma, who risen, stood sombre, thoughtful. "Then I can do no more. I have warned thee. If thou swearest, I will speak."
"And I will deny--what then?"
"Then is my death----"
Siyah Yamin burst into a peal of laughter.
"Death! Trust the men folk--aye!--Trust the King to put a spoke in that wheel! A woman is a woman, and thou art too good looking! Lord! I shall laugh to see it, and thou so serious. Come! let us drink to our success before we go."
She seized an empty wine cup, then stood looking at it for a second, checked by the sight of it. It was a blown glass goblet damascened with gold. She held it to the light, her small child's face grown suddenly soft. "The cup of pleasure," she murmured to herself. "How long is it sincehegave it!" So, with a laugh, she filled it to the brim from a flagon that stood near.
"Thy health, Âto, and thy lover's!" she cried lightly. "Lo! he who gave the cup was mine once; but Siyah Yamin will never lack for men, since she is woman!"
She raised the cup to her lips but did not touch it, then, with a sudden gesture flung it far into the shadows. It fell with a crash beside a withered rose bush, and the red wine trickled through the dry earth to moisten the roots below.
"Come, Âtma." she continued. "Nay! leave the lights as they are. They will outlast the stars anyhow!"
A minute later Siyah Yamin's paradise held nothing but the twinkling lights flickering out one by one. Yet she was right. The rising sun found some of them burning bravely and the rose-shaded lamp in the pavilion shone persistently on the silken cushions as if seeking for some one; perhaps for her.
* * * * *
The palace was early astir that morning, and little knots of men waited gossiping in corridor and vestibule.
"It is not politic," sighed Abulfazl, "the common folk well ask who is God's vice-regent on earth if a King's order is no order."
'"Tis the devil's own foolery," spoke up Birbal roughly, bitterly, "the long beards wag loosely already, and if Akbar gives them a field they will take a barn."
And in truth a certain ill-defined smirk sate on the concealed lips of the learned doctors of the law who stood in a bevy near the door. To them even consideration of the vexed question was a distinct score. It was a confession that the usurper of their office did not know his business.
To the general public assembling in force it was an occasion for curiosity; for something new which might pave the way to almost anything. Only the Syeds, their hawk faces clustering close together, their hands clutching at their sword belts, seemed certain of the future.
A burst of the royal kettledrums in the distance echoed finally over a dense crowd, packing the wide arches of the huge Hall-of-Audience, and stretching beyond them into the paved courtyard.
"If he wear the Luck still, it will be something to go by," muttered a weak-looking courtier, who by his very dress--curiously nondescript--his shaven chin and high green turban showed a desire to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.
There were many such in Akbar's empire; men whose imaginations went so far with the King, yet whose hearts failed them before the strangeness of his dreams.
Another long, loud burst of wild music, and the King showed alone on the high raised dais, canopied and latticed at the sides with fretted marble, which opened at the back into the private passage reserved for Royal use only. By reason of the limited space in which he stood--the central archway rising but a few inches above his head--he looked larger, taller, broader than his wont, and as he glanced keenly over the packed multitude before him, he showed every inch a king. Yet he was conscious that he, alone of all his empire, saw strength, not weakness, in his readiness for reconsideration; that he, only, felt that the revocation of his order would be a greater display of kingly power than the original order itself.
Standing as he did in shadow, it took the crowd a silent second or two before it realised--what to it was a stupendous fact--that in this critical new departure of their King's he was prepared to defy Fate. He had deserted his luck. The tight wound turban of royalty did not show the dull glow of the great diamond.
A sort of shiver ran through the Hall, checked by the King's voice.
"Are the suitors and the witnesses in the case present?" he asked.
Abulfazl, stepping into the wide open square kept clear before the railed dais, replied in the affirmative.
"Then proceed."
The sing-song voice of the court reader filled the hushed air, but from outside, beyond the red-toothed arches, came the morning song of many birds. The sunlight filtered in with the song, making Akbar's attention wander. How trivial these petty questions of rights and wrongs seemed beside the great questions of Life in itself.
"Bring forward the woman. Let her swear that she is true and lawful wife."
The crowd swayed at the back. A domed red dhooli showed forcing its way to the front.
"Room! Room!" cried the ushers. "Room! Room! for the virtuous."
If it was virtuous, there was still something in the very fall of the swinging silk curtains, in the lift of the liveried bearers, which set men's pulses a-bounding. For it was Siyah Yamin's dhooli and she was inside. Would she unveil? Would they see her again, uttermost mistress of art, absolute owner of guile? A faint sigh of disappointment seemed to shudder through the crowd as, in obedience to order, the bearers set down the dhooli and removed the red domed cover, thus disclosing a muffled figure which rose and salaamed low toward Akbar. Something there was of ultimate grace in the salutation, which made remembrance still more clear, and sent a pang of resentment through many of those present that this perfection should no longer be public property. A cupola of chastity indeed! screened and guarded by veiled duennas! Not one in faith, but two! It was preposterous!--Siyah Yamin! the darling of the town!
"Woman!" came Akbar's voice, "wilt thou swear that thou art lawfully wedded to the exiled Jamâl-ud-din, Syed of Bârha?"
There was an instant's pause, then a gay clear voice with a bubble of laughter in it replied:
"Yea! I swear! even though Âtma---- Where art thou, sister? Disguised as yon duenna, I'll go bail!"
At her first word there was a faint scuffle, a flinging aside of aburka, a silver flash, and almost ere she ended the Châran's cry rang out