CHAPTER IIIAHALYA
Short of breath, flushed of face, and discomposed in temper, the Ranee Ahalya entered her day-room after the brief interview with Ragunáth. As she appeared, a girl, who sat on some cushions at the side of the room, working at a piece of embroidery, rose and bowed, and then asked eagerly:
“Did he come?”
Ahalya flung herself down on the broad divan that ran across the end of the room under the screened windows. “Yes, he came,” she said, petulantly. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she added: “I hate him, Neila.”
“Did he—what did he say?” asked the handmaid, forgetting her work as she watched her mistress.
“I don’t know what he said. How should I? I did not think of him. But I think he dishonors the gods. They were all at sacrifice, and he stole away because he does not like Soma. Nor is it good,” she added, with a touch of sympathy.
“But he is a man, and should have a man’s tastes.”
Ahalya shrugged her shoulders, and the two of them were silent for a few minutes, Neila waitingpatiently for the mystery that she knew her lady would reveal—in time. Presently, indeed, the Ranee began to speak, in a low, reflective tone as if she were merely thinking aloud. “In all those months when my lord and the rest were away, fighting, I have thought many times of Ragunáth, who was kind to me at my first coming here. I thought I should be happy when he came again. I wanted him to come. And oh, Neila, thou knowest the days have been long and lonely, and I have been sick for Dhár and for my mother. My lord is very tender of me, and I know that he is good. But he is not young and beautiful to look on. His eyes are not bright nor do his lips smile when he sees me. And Ragunáth seemed younger and more in love with life. Last night, when I danced the poppy dance, it was for him. But, Neila, I have perceived that he is not a man. He makes me think of a snake, with his shiny eyes and his long, still hands. He does not burn with an honest fire.—Ugh, I hate him! So will I tell my lord.”
“Thou wilt not, Lady Ahalya! Thou darest not tell the Rajah you have seen this man! We should all be killed!” Neila sprang to her feet, her work dropping unheeded, while she stared at her mistress, who lay, hands clasped above her head, staring off into space, nor gave the slightest heed to her companion’s fear. Thus Neila presently returned to her place and took up her work again, not without anxiety in her eyes; for the service of the youngest wife of the Lord of Mandu was, to say the least, no monotonous life.Ahalya was as erratic and as reckless as an existence of stifled loneliness can make a young, brilliant, and impulsive nature. And this very careless openness, mingled as it was with a singularly pure and unsuspicious nature, had won a place for her with every one, from the King of Mandu down to the humblest eunuch of the zenana. She was even tolerated by Malati, the oldest wife, who had been born a Brahman. And than this nothing more can be said.
For some moments Ahalya continued to smile into space; which smile, considering her just-avowed aversion to Ragunáth, Neila was decidedly at a loss to interpret. Then Ahalya asked:
“Neila, have any of the slaves told thee anything concerning the captives brought home in the Rajah’s train?”
“Yes, Kasya spoke to me of one of them, who has been made the King’s cup-bearer. He presumes greatly on his station; for last night he would not even sleep in the slave-house, but lay on the divan in one of the Rajah’s antechambers, sleeping like a god. This man was a prince of his race:—At—Ak—I cannot remember—”
“Asra,” put in Ahalya, quietly.
“Asra! ’Tis that!”
Ahalya sat suddenly up and leaned forward a little. “Kasya told you this! Said he more? What will they do with him? Will he be ransomed?”
“The captive, madam?” Neila, so used to her mistress’s whims, was still surprised at this one. “Ido not know what they will do with him. Kasya did not tell me. He was offered on Indra’s altar to-day—being by birth Kshatriya, and the chief of the captives.”
“Yes. He is a prince. Neila, I have seen this man.”
“Seen him! Oh, Ranee, Ranee, be careful! Why, he is a slave! If he were seen speaking with thee—they would burn him!”
Ahalya laughed joyously. “None saw him but me. He came before Ragunáth. And, Neila, he told me a strange thing. He said: ‘I come from Yemen; and my race is the race of Asra, who must die if they cherish love!’ What could he mean by that? To die because one loved! I should not die, I think. Neila, Neila,hewas young, and his eyes shone. Neila! I am lonely! Go bring to me the young Bhavani. Say to him that I will tell him the tale he loves most to hear: of Prince Arjuna and the great bow and the beautiful Princess Draupadi.” Ahalya smiled. “Go tell him, Neila, and put away that endless work of thine.”
Obediently the girl rose, left her embroidery lying on the cushions, and went out of the room. When she was gone, Ahalya stretched herself still more lazily on her divan, closed her eyes to the light, and, as if she saw with her mind things more beautiful than real, smiled slightly, and began to sing the swaying melody of the poppy dance. About her was a perfect stillness. Not a sound, not so much as the tones ofwomen’s voices from the interior of the zenana, penetrated to her solitude. Perhaps her reverie was broken by the silence, but she only smiled the more; for it had come to be an uncanny habit with her to smile through her loneliest and saddest hours. Only at those rare times when joy or interest lifted her out of herself did her face show all the strength and purity of its melancholy beauty. Her heritage from her mother was a self-defence of constant concealment, and a kind of inward cynicism, which, never revealed on the surface, was nevertheless constantly nourished and strengthened by the many humiliations of her existence. Just now she was considering her performance of the evening before, and the results of it, when, after she had left the theatre, her lord had come to her in great anger, expecting tears, repentance, and abasement from her, and had got only petulance, rebellion, and remorseless laughter, so that finally, worked into a fierce rage, he had left her alone to wake to a realization of her offence. This realization had by no means come; and she fully expected the Rajah to appear before her that evening humbly craving favor; for experience had taught her that she need never be the first to surrender. Rai-Khizar-Pál loved her far more dearly than she, unhappy child, cared for him, grave, honorable, and just as he was; and it was to her carelessness of favor and the consummate skill with which she let that carelessness be known, that the Lady Ahalya owed the favoritism she enjoyed and the rooms she lived in.
These rooms were the choicest in the zenana. Theyconsisted of a tiny suite of three, opening from a passage that led directly into the main palace. The first of them was an antechamber, heavily spread with rugs, walled with carved wood brought from Ceylon, and lighted day and night by a single crimson lamp suspended from the ceiling. The second room, in which Ahalya now lay, was a light and pleasant place, its floors covered with silken rugs, the walls frescoed gayly with birds and flowers, the furniture and the thousand ornaments it contained all of the costliest variety, and, at the end farthest from the windows, a little shrine to Rahda, the Lady of Love. The last room, accessible only through the other two, was the sleeping-room, its walls hidden by silken hangings of pale purple and gold; its couch covered with cloth of gold; the chests to hold the Ranee’s garments, of precious woods inlaid with ivory and pearl, lined with sandal-wood; and teak-wood toiletstands displaying mirrors, brushes, perfumes, and cosmetics wherewith a woman might be beautified:—a heavily gilded room indeed, and one in which Ahalya spent little time.
Beyond these apartments of the favorite wife, across the whole length of this inner palace wing, stretched a long, narrow room, furnished with every luxury that Indian ingenuity could devise. This was the women’s day-room,—their common lounging-place,—where wife and slave met together in free converse. Around it were ranged the rooms of the other wives: Malati’s, where the young Bhavani, Rai-Khizar-Pál’s only son, the heir of Mandu, lodged with his mother; Bhimeg’sthe Kshatriya woman’s; and those of Chundoor, the despised Sudra wife. At the end of the wing, farthest from the palace, lived the women slaves; and beyond was a separate house for the eunuchs. Such was the zenana, in the days of Indian rule in Mandu: a place full of life and color and sound; of interminable jealousy, strife, and bitterness; a place which only one man ever entered; he on whom all these women must expend the human love and fidelity that lay seething in their hearts.
In the meantime, to Ahalya, waiting on her couch, came Neila, bringing with her a lad ten years old, shaggy-headed, with big, black eyes, and a sturdy figure, who went up and kissed the Ranee affectionately. His eyes were bright with excitement as he cried to her: “Alaha! Alaha!” (it was his name for her), “I have been riding to-day! Kasya put me upon a horse, and we went almost to the old temple and back. And—and I am to go every day now!” Trained studiously to the dignity of his birth, he gave little active sign of his pleasure; but his face expressed his delight, and Ahalya, more demonstrative than he, threw her arms about him and laughed in sympathy.
“Beautiful, Bhavani! Beautiful! Now thou wilt soon be given a bow; and then—”
“Then I shall really go and contend in the games before the beautiful Draupadi!”
“Yes. Shall we play it now? You will be Arjuna, and these cushions your horse. Pile them up! Pile them up!”
“Yes, and you are Draupadi, there on the divan, and I will ride before you and contend with—with—”
“Neila!” cried Ahalya: “Neila! Where are you? There,” as the girl came in at the door, “Neila, if you please, you are all the other princes contending for my hand in the royal games. You are four of the sons of Pandu, and the hundred sons of Hastinapura, and—”
“And I am to wrestle with you, and shoot you, and kill all of you, Neila! And it will be splendid!”
And, Neila smilingly consenting to the slaughter, the game began. For half an hour the contest raged fiercely; and finally Ahalya herself came down from her throne to be killed by the all-conquering one. But at last, when the little room looked as if a devastating army had passed through it, the sport came to an end, and Ahalya and the little boy sat down together to rest, while the untiring Neila began the task of setting things to rights. It was then that Ahalya’s turn came, and she lost no time in beginning:—
“Bhavani, hast seen thy father to-day?”
“Yes! Oh, yes! He left the Soma sacrifice to see me ride!”
“Was he—was he in a glad humor? Asked he of me?”
Neila paused in her labors to hear the answer to this question.
“He was very glad and gay. He gave me a piece of silver for sitting straight on my horse. But—dear ’Laha, I think he did not ask for you.”
“And said he naught of any one else?”
“Of whom? Oh, but he just talked about me, and my riding, and how in a few years I should go to war with him.”
Ahalya laughed, but not with her eyes. “Well, I am tired now. I am going to sleep, Bhavani. Therefore run away. See what a mess we have made of the room! Run away.”
“But—I may come again soon, to play Arjuna?”
“Oh, yes.”
“To-morrow?” wistfully.
“Yes. But go now, Bhavani.”
Obediently and reluctantly, Bhavani went.
When he was gone, Neila and Ahalya found themselves looking at each other intently. “He will surely come this evening,” said the slave. “He cannot stay away longer.”
Ahalya flushed and frowned. “I do not want him to come,” she said. “I am tired. I am going to sleep now. Do not wake me till the evening meal is ready.” And the Ranee forthwith disappeared into her bedroom, pulling the purple hangings across the doorway behind her so that Neila could not see, as she lay on her bed, whether she slept or not.
Rai-Khizar-Pál did not come that evening, nor the next day, nor the next. And by the third afternoon Ahalya was secretly very anxious. Nothing ever went unknown for twenty-four hours in the zenana: that place whose inmates had nothing to do all day long but discuss each other; and for two days now nothing had been talked of in the common day-room but thefavorite’s fall from favor. The Lord Rajah had been at home from his campaign nearly four days and had seen Ahalya in that time only once! Glory to Krishna! Who would get her place? On the afternoon of the fourth day Ahalya, braving the worst, appeared in the day-room. The chill of humiliation that met her was expected, but none the less hard to endure. Malati, when profoundly saluted, set the example for the room by barely noticing the Ranee. The very slave-girls laughed at her as she passed them; and only Chundoor, the Sudra woman, offered to make room for her. Ahalya, however, had not yet come to passing a whole morning with a person of low caste; nor yet was she to be driven from the day-room because Rai-Khizar-Pál was offended with her for the poppy dance. After her one bow to Malati, who, as oldest wife, was entitled to it, she walked once round the room, leisurely chose out a pile of cushions apart from the general groups, settled herself with inimitable, lazy grace, despatched one eunuch for sweetened rose-water, commanded another to fan her, gave orders to three or four more, and, when she had made herself important enough, caused Neila to bring in a tray of toilet articles and begin to shape and polish her nails. While Neila worked, she lay perfectly still, surveying the company near by in a supercilious manner, and giving her rivals ample opportunity to realize that, try as they would, not one of them could ever approach her in beauty, in grace, or in charm.
By this time the whole room was in a ferment ofdisdain and concealed envy. Suddenly, as if the excitement had not been already great enough for one morning, Rai-Khizar-Pál appeared on the threshold, and looked eagerly down the room. Every head was turned to him: Ahalya’s too, but leisurely, and with an indifference that was noticeable. Scarcely did she take the trouble to lift her eyelids, as the Rajah came slowly forward. Her husband’s eyes were busy, however, during his ceremonious progress; and he read a deal of history in that walk. It would have been impossible for him not to have made the comparison between Ahalya and those from whom she had so studiously withdrawn herself. Beside their dark, heavy, sensual faces, hers, in its clear-cut, Persian fairness, stood out as a rose among thistles, as gold beside brass. This morning, after three days without her, the Rajah appreciated her more keenly than usual; and, before her indifference, his displeasure melted like mist in the sun. Stopping to speak with no one else, he went to her, amid a sensible but scarcely audible murmur of disappointment. Ahalya looked up only when he bent over her; but she smiled at him for greeting, and he asked nothing better.
“My lotus-flower! My heart’s delight!” he said, gazing thirstily at her fair face. “Ahalya! Thou wilt dance no more nautch dances at the theatre?”
For a moment she seemed to hesitate. Then, because she had had enough of playing for the time, she answered, truthfully enough: “Nay, lord. I—am sorry that I danced the poppy dance.”
Rai-Khizar longed to take her in his arms; but this, in the face of all the zenana, even he scarcely ventured to do. So, bending low over her, he whispered:
“In two hours come to the marble bath, and we will eat together, alone, by the fountain there. Make thyself beautiful for me, rose of Iran!—my treasure!—my child!” Then, with the smile that he gave only to her, the Rajah turned away, and left the room without speaking to any other in it.
Ten minutes after he had gone Ahalya also departed, running the new gantlet of hurt and angry glances with less indifference than she had borne her humiliation an hour before. Her pride served her well in trouble; but ill-natured jealousy always cut her to the quick; and she had found but light armor against it.
Returning to her own room, she bathed, and let Neila dress her as the Rajah commanded. Her garments were silken tissues of palest pink, delicate as rose-petals. Her waist was girdled with gold and pearls; and her hair braided and bound up with golden threads. When Neila had finished her she was a picture, and she knew it, perhaps, though she took small delight in it; for the unexpressed thought in her heart was that she would have matched her raiment with her love; and Rai-Khizar-Pál she loved as a father, as a venerable and powerful man; her master, but never the lord of her heart.
The Rajah, however, was waiting her coming with very different feelings; for he loved Ahalya as most men love only in early youth. His delight in her wasout of all proportion to his reserved and conservative nature. On her he lavished the wealth of his treasury. For her he would have sacrificed, without a thought, every other woman in his zenana. And while her escapades and her insubordination never failed to startle and hurt him, they only served, in the end, to bind her more strongly to him by the chains of fascination and elusiveness.
The place where the two were to sup together was the Rajah’s favorite retreat:—an open-roofed, white-colonnaded room, in the centre of which was a broad, marble bathing-pool. Beside the water grew grasses and flowers, carefully tended; and near at hand, on the marble pavement, were piles of cushions, low stands, and all the articles of Oriental furniture necessary to a retreat where even slaves were not allowed to come without command. By night the marble terrace was lighted with lamps placed on stands; and now, in a soft glow of rosy light, beside an ebony table spread with choice dishes and rare wines, the Rajah lay, appreciating the change of this miniature fairy-land from the rough existence of camps and battle-fields; and waiting for that which should put a finishing touch to his deep content.
She came, the Ranee of his soul, unattended, her delicate garments floating about her like a cloud. At sight of her he exclaimed, and she went to him, smiling and holding out her hands, secretly desirous that he should not kiss her face. She had her wish. Scarcely daring to touch her in her delicacy, he put her off atarm’s length, and gazed at her in a kind of wonder that such a thing should be human.
“Beautiful one! My princess! Sit there and let me look at thee. Most exquisite one! Art thou too frail to eat?” He smiled at his fears, and began to lay before her the various dishes. “See, here are mangoes, and figs, and tamarinds, and little custard apples. And here is a kid cooked in sugar. And rice—and all these sauces. And there is a cup of the wine of Iran, from thy mother’s land, beautiful one.”
With his own hands he served her, talking inconsequently, content just to gaze upon her roseate presence. And Ahalya, who had been wont to enjoy this patent adoration, sat wondering at herself that it had become painful to her. She strove well to conceal her feeling, not knowing what to make of it. And she ate, smiled, and praised the food and wine, but could think of nothing else to say. She was dreading the time that was coming; but she could not put it off. When both had eaten enough, and when another jar of Persian wine had been opened for the Rajah’s use, and Ahalya had washed her hands in a silver basin filled with rose-water, Rai-Khizar lay back on his cushions, called the Ranee to his side, and began tenderly:
“Thou’rt glad, beloved of mine, that I am returned to Mandu?”
Ahalya sighed. “I am glad,” she answered. “Oh—the days have been dreary! The weeks would not pass. Loneliness hath killed my soul. Hath my lord ever dreamed of the sadness of women’s lives when they are left alone in the zenana?”
Rai-Khizar laughed, misunderstanding her words; but Ahalya flushed with anger that he mocked her earnestness. Seeing her expression, his changed at once. Laying one hand on hers, he said, gently:
“Thou hast been lonely, beautiful one? Tell me of it.”
“How can I tell thee, who hast not been a woman? There are we left, day after day, hating and hated by those with whom we live. And we must dress and powder and perfume, eat, drink, sew, and be content that we have beds to sleep on by night and a prison to house us by day. If I leave the palace and wander abroad in the fields, under the bright sun, the women chatter and the slaves stare, and bearers must be at my heels to carry me if I tire. I cannot sleep away my days. Rather I would live like the Vaisya women, who are free to labor, and laugh, and grow hungry and weary with their toil. The monotony, the idleness of my life, kills my soul! It is for this I danced the poppy dance. It is for this I sometimes sit for hours in the old, ruined temple of Surya, watching the monkeys play in the cotton trees. It is for this I shout and sing and tear to pieces my silken garments, and break the ivories you bring me from the south. For I am not of Hindoo blood. My mother came from free Iran, and I am also of that race. And here, in this sleepy indolence, I suffer—I stifle—I die! There! Is it enough? Have I told thee?”
She stopped, hot and eager with the feeling of her speech, to find Rai-Khizar staring at her with troubledeyes. He gave her a long and close scrutiny; and when he spoke it was only to say, in a quiet tone: “Thou wilt do well to crush this spirit, Ahalya. I cannot make thee a man;—nor would I if I could. Therefore, being a woman, thou must be protected as one. Speak of this no more. Nay, listen, and I will tell thee of our campaign, of the battle on the plain of Dhár, and of these men of the west that are worthy warriors. Thou knowest, Ahalya, that, hundreds of seasons ago, there came, over the snow-clad mountains of the north, a great host, led by one called Mahmoud of Ghazni. They came, in the name of their one God, to conquer our country; and though many hundreds of times Indians and Rajputs drove them back, they have persevered, and are now masters of the north and east. In Lahore, their kings have ruled for generations; and now a slave sits on the throne of the new Kingdom of Delhi.[2]And out of Delhi a fresh horde has come for the conquest of Malwa. Beyond the walls of Dhár we met them in battle; and, by Indra and Vishnu, we routed them well! I have brought back in my train the nephew of their leader; and I think it will be long ere Omar crosses the Vindhyas to get him back!”
“Thou hast brought home the nephew of their leader! What glory for thee! Is he to be ransomed?”
[2]Aybek, a slave of Mahommad-Ghori, founded the present Kingdom of Delhi.
[2]Aybek, a slave of Mahommad-Ghori, founded the present Kingdom of Delhi.
“No, by my life! I like the fellow, and I have made him my cup-bearer. He pleases me with his manner. He is like thee:—rebellious. Why, look you, on the first night of his captivity he slept in one of my rooms here—would not go into the house of slaves, and so put me to the blush for asking a prince to demean himself, that I have granted him a bed in one of the antechambers near my sleeping-room. Also, yesterday, at the noon meal, he ceased to fill my cup after the second jar was empty. I asked him why he failed in his duty, and he answered that he did not fail, but was, rather, careful of my welfare:—that the gods had made kings to be examples to their people; and that a drunken king bred drunkenness in his subjects!”
Ahalya’s eyes shone. “And thou—what didst thou, my lord?”
“I gave the fellow ten lashes for his impertinence. But I like him, and I shall keep him in my service.”
“Keep a prince for thy slave, lord?”
“Whoorroo, Ahalya! Thou hast his tongue to-night. Come; I am weary of talking. Dance for me—the poppy dance, if thou wilt, now we are alone.”
Ahalya rose submissively, and poised herself, while the Rajah lay back in deep comfort on his pillows. She was a beautiful dancer when she chose to dance; and she could hum her own music, beating the rhythm with her feet as she swayed slowly from one posture to another. But she did not dance the poppy dance to-night. She only made a series of tableaux that would have delighted the soul of an artist, and which fullysatisfied the eyes of the Rajah. Ahalya circled round him like some broad-winged bird, moving more and more lightly, becoming more and more cloudlike to his stilling senses. And presently when, out of her gauzy mist, the Ranee looked at him, she perceived that his eyes were closed and that his breath was coming deeply and regularly.
Ahalya experienced a sudden feeling of relief. He slept. His sleep would wear the night away. She was free to go. Joyously, softly, swiftly, she passed out of that room and the next; but in the antechamber beyond she paused. Three or four rooms and a passage lay between her and the zenana. These she appeared to be in no haste to traverse. Halting indecisively, she stood looking about her as if in search of something—or some one; and her brow was drawn in meditation. Then, all at once, she started, not in the direction of her apartments, but through another door that led off into a long range of rooms, little used, in one of which the captive slave of Rai-Khizar-Pál had had the audacity to sleep on the first night of his coming to Mandu; and the use of which the lenient Rajah had afterward granted him. As she continued on her way, Ahalya’s excitement and her speed increased until she was fairly running along, her eyes, meantime, swiftly examining each room as soon as she entered it. At last, when her breath had become panting, and her color unnaturally brilliant; when, as it would seem, she began to realize what she was doing, she reached, by her devious route, the antechamber to the zenana, where an eunuchstood on guard. And he stared in amazement at her flushed and frowning face as she hurried past him into her voluntary captivity.
It was as well that the Ranee Ahalya sought her sleep that night without having peered out of her screened windows into the inner court; for had she done so, she might have found by accident that which she had unsuccessfully sought. For, till a very late hour that night, Fidá, the slave, risking his life, crouched in the shadow of the fountain of that court, watching, with burning eyes, the glow of a single lamp that shone in the Lady Ahalya’s rooms: a lamp which, though he knew it not, was never extinguished. And so, when weariness finally overcame him, he crept away without learning whether or not the lady of his dreams was sleeping behind her imprisoning walls.