The Weeping Ash

by Joan Aiken

  Soon they were able to see that the girl had, in fact, been splendidly equipped; she must be a considerable heiress, it was plain. Her shaggy, wiry black stallion came thundering down to the river and splashed across at a fording place where the water was only knee deep. The girl herself was equally handsome—straight-featured and haughty, fair-haired; she wore red breeches and tunic, a leather belt, and a high fur cap with a heron plume on it. Scylla could not help envying her wild freedom as she gave the travelers a swift, incurious glance before setting her steed at the opposite bank, scrambling up, then making off at a gallop around the curve of the hillside, her bent bow held easily in one hand as she grasped the reins with the other.

  “Oh, I do wish that she will manage to get home with her bow,” Scylla could not help exclaiming.

  “We shall never know,” the colonel observed rather dampeningly in a tone of indifference.

  But he was wrong. When, later on that afternoon, the travelers disembarked at a riverside village in order to purchase milk for the baby, and eggs, vegetables, and preserved apricots for themselves, they were given a chance to see the end of the race.

  In a whirling cloud of dust the main party of the suitors came pelting down the mountain and into the village, laughing, joking, and shooting their guns into the air. Although they were the losers, it was plain that they took their defeat philosophically and in sporting spirit. After their arrival perhaps half an hour elapsed, during which the entire population of the place had time to assemble excitedly at the end of the dusty street, in the shade of a big walnut tree, looking up the mountain slope in the direction from which the party of disappointed wooers had returned. It was plain that many jokes were flying about and expectation had reached a high pitch. At last a shout went up as two riders were seen in the distance coming slowly down the hill. Musicians struck up a tremendous rowdy din, blowing on horn trumpets and beating huge kettledrums. Children danced exuberantly around the walnut tree. As the riders drew nearer it could be seen that the girl no longer carried her bow; the heron plume on her fur cap had been broken short; her clothes were dusty and bedraggled and her expression somewhat abashed; however, her suitor made up for her downcast looks by his air of joy and triumph. Girls ran out to fling wreaths of flowers over the pair, more and more blank cartridges were fired off. The girl rode soberly to join her parents, while the lucky suitor suddenly let out a tremendous yell of triumph and urged his tired horse into a gallop once more, performing a wild figure eight over the open fields outside the village, waving the girl’s bow above his head.

  “He is a handsome fellow,” Miss Musson observed comfortably when he reentered the village. “I daresay she will do very well with him.”

  And indeed when the bridegroom trotted up to pay his respects to the girl’s parents, it became plain that he was perhaps, after all, the girl’s own choice, for the looks they exchanged were very frank and comradely. He was a big bronzed fellow with dark red hair and beard. The girl’s family greeted him in a friendly manner, and small horn cups of fermented liquor began to be passed about; the strangers, as a matter of course, were offered some of the beverage.

  “Koumiss,” Cameron murmured in Scylla’s ear. “Made from fermented milk. You must drink a little for politeness, but do not take much; it is very strong.”

  “I assure you I am not in the least tempted to take much,” she whispered back, pulling a wry face after tasting it.

  Now a great cake of pulverized mulberries was brought out, and a bonfire kindled outside the village, on which two sheep were set to roast; it was plain that the scene was set for a night of celebration, and Miss Musson suggested prudently that this might be a time for the strangers to withdraw.

  “Not without giving offense,” Cameron warned her.

  But at this moment there came an interruption. Dusk had begun to fall while they watched the bridegroom’s exultant ride, and in the twilight another party of riders had entered the village almost unobserved amid the general festivity. Now, however, two men in long woolen cloaks and fur caps came up to Cameron and greeted him with polite formality, informing him that they came from the Bair Mir Murad Beg and would be glad to escort him and his party to the latter’s castello.

  “The Bai is awaiting you impatiently, Arb Shah; he longs to embrace his friend again.”

  “We shall be honored to accept your escort and will accompany you without delay,” Cameron replied promptly. They were speaking in the Kafir language, but Scylla, who had picked up a word here and there, managed to grasp the purport of this exchange.

  “Oh, may we not stay and watch the festivities?” she said, rather disappointed.

  “Better not, my dear; I daresay they may become somewhat rowdy,” Miss Musson murmured. “And the village people will quite understand our reason for leaving; the Bai is their overlord, it seems. Rob will not wish to offend him by delay in accepting his hospitality.”

  So, somewhat regretfully on the part of Cal and Scylla, and leaving their raft in the care of the bride’s father, who proved to be the village khan, or headman, they mounted the shaggy Kazak ponies provided by their host, crossed the river at a ford, and set out up the opposite mountainside at a steady trot.

  For Scylla the ride seemed to go on interminably. She became desperately tired; she had been sleeping poorly of late, perhaps due to their sedentary mode of travel; she would lie awake in the skin tent listening to Miss Musson’s peaceful breathing, sometimes wriggling her head outside to look at the great piercing stars of Asia; she found herself, these days, increasingly troubled by doubts and unanswered questions: What would she and Cal do when they reached England? What would Miss Musson do, would she accompany them to their cousins’ house, or would she wish to return to her brother in Boston? And—even more of an unknown factor—what were Cameron’s plans? Did he propose to return to Ziatur? To Kafiristan? Or would he set off to explore some as yet unvisited region of the earth?

  This affliction of the spirits, she acknowledged to herself, had become even worse as a result of watching the village wedding. To see the triumphant wooer and his bride toasting each other out of horn mugs had awakened in Scylla a wild contrariety of feelings: firstly an exhilarated kind of envious happiness, so that she felt she would have liked to remain there, join their party, talk to them, become, if it were possible, their friend, sister, and confidante; secondly, under this lighter mood, a darker one, a depression so deep that she felt she wanted to find some dark corner, crawl into it, and lie down there and die.

  Her pony stumbled, and she clutched at the reins, realizing that she had been half asleep.

  “Hold up, son of Shaitan!”

  “Miss Paget tired,” remarked the Therbah, who had changed places with Cameron in the procession, and he kindly took the reins from her and led her pony for the rest of the way.

  It was too dark, when they arrived, to gain much impression of the Bai’s fortress from outside—save that it seemed to be perched extremely high up, since they had been climbing steadily all the way; they passed through the gateway into a walled courtyard. Here they thankfully slid from their steeds, which were led away.

  The party of travelers was then divided, the females being politely escorted to a chamber lit by flickering rushlights where a couple of servant women invited them to take off their clothes and enjoy a bath. A large earthenware tub of warm water stood steaming before a fire of yak’s dung, and the prospect of a real wash in hot water was so enticing that they had no hesitation in complying. They rubbed each other’s backs to alleviate the stiffness brought on by riding, while the slave women admiringly tended little Chet.

  By Ziatur palace standards the amenities of the castle were primitive enough, it seemed—their room had sheepskins for carpets, and a few stools and cushions formed the only furniture—but in comparison with their recent lodgings it was unbelievably comfortable. The women—who had braided hair hanging to their waists and
wore loose trousers and wool vests—brought similar clothing, but of rather finer quality, for their guests.

  Scylla’s costume was particularly handsome—dark brown raw silk trousers, a velvet vest embroidered with tiny chips of turquoise over a loose silk shirt, and a pair of gold-studded sandals. The women clucked disapprovingly over the shortness of her curls but brushed them out until they crowned her head like a nimbus.

  “You look exactly like a cherub, my dear,” said Miss Musson, laughing, as she slipped on her own fine wool vest embroidered with silver thread, and, over all, the chadar which she preferred because, she said, it was easier to watch people through the eyeholes without giving offense.

  One of the women then beckoned them to follow her. None of the servants spoke Urdu or Punjabi, and their language seemed to be a mix of Kafir and some hill dialect; Scylla could make nothing of it, and even Miss Musson was driven to communicate by smiles and gestures.

  “I wonder if they have purdah quarters in this castle?” the latter murmured as they followed their guide. “I believe Rob said they do not; that the women move freely among the men.”

  So it proved; for when they had followed down a drafty, dusty stone passage and a flight of worn stone steps they emerged into what was evidently the main hall of the castle, where there were a great many people, seated or moving about, both men and women.

  The walls were of rough, undressed stone, but the stone floor was covered with numerous rugs, and dung fires burned in braziers, giving a smoky light. On a carpeted dais at one end they could see both Cameron and Cal, handsomely dressed, seated cross-legged on either side of a man whom Scylla guessed to be the Bai Mir Murad, and thither the two ladies were led, picking their way between the people squatting all over the floor, amid a murmur of interest and admiration.

  Noticing this, the Bai looked up and saw them. His eyes lit up, and, addressing some remark to Cameron, he rose to his feet and stepped down from the dais to greet them. Scylla had time to notice that Cameron looked exceedingly startled by whatever had been said to him; next, that Mir Murad was quite a short man, only a head taller than herself, with piercing deep-set Tatar eyes under hooded lids, and a thin, hooked nose above luxuriant gray beard and mustaches—he looked like a fierce little old eagle, she thought—when he reached her and took her hand. Scylla was about to make him a curtsy, as she had been accustomed to do in the presence of the Maharajah, when he startled her nearly out of her wits by throwing his arms around her and giving her a vigorous hug. A roar of laughter went up from the assembled guests or members of the household. Scylla’s reactions were somewhat confused—her main impressions were an overpowering smell of garlic and snuff and the sensation of his bristly mustaches against her cheek—when she heard Cal’s indignant shout and the sudden clash of steel.

  Instinctively and rather indignantly recoiling from the Bai’s embrace, she saw that Cal had started to his feet and sprung forward. His way had instantly been barred by two stalwarts in conical caps, who had crossed their short swords in his path; but now Cameron had also jumped up, had addressed one short, imperious command to Cal which stopped the latter where he stood, and was now addressing himself to the Bai in a hasty, urgent, but respectful undertone. As Cameron talked, Mir Murad’s aquiline features displayed a series of rapid changes of expression: astonishment, rage, quickly reined in—chagrin, incredulity—and finally a kind of rueful resigned disappointment, a rather touchingly childish regret.

  Cameron took six paces forward to Scylla, and said rapidly in her ear:

  “It was a misunderstanding—a most unfortunate misunderstanding, which I deeply regret. The Bai had—had apprehended that you were a—a slave, a gift brought here as a token of my esteem.”

  The Bai had his hand on Cameron’s shoulder and made some brief remark. Cameron interpreted.

  “He asks your pardon for what has occurred.—And for heaven’s sake, Miss Paget,” Cameron went on rapidly, “don’t get into a missish flutter, don’t make a big issue of it; don’t take offense, I beg! Or a most awkward situation might be precipitated—we should all be in the suds.” And, to the irate-looking Cal, he added urgently, “Devil take it, boy, sit down! Do not be making a cake of yourself or you are liable to have us all cut in pieces. Murad’s attendants act first and ask questions later.”

  Reluctantly, Cal sat down, and Scylla called to him as gaily as she could:

  “Nothing to worry about, love! It was just a foolish mistake.”

  Laughing, she swept a curtsy to the Bai and said to him in Punjabi:

  “Your Excellency, nobody could regret the misunderstanding more than I! And I am indeed greatly honored that you could even think that I might—might have had the happiness to become a member of your household. Alas! My destiny must be far otherwise. I am obliged to journey to Ingrezi to rejoin my father’s family there.”

  The Bai listened intently, his eyes narrowed. As Scylla had hoped, he evidently spoke enough Punjabi to understand what she had said, though Cameron made a brief translation into the Kafir language, which caused him to nod thoughtfully. The mixture of arrogant displeasure and childish disappointment left his face and he suddenly smiled—a smile that made Scylla begin to understand why his wives were so attached to him, for it had great and unexpected charm. The hooded eyes twinkled, the stern mouth relaxed, the curved nose came down, and he surprised Scylla by turning to her and exclaiming in careful English:

  “What-a-pity! What-a-pity!”

  She smiled back at him and, obedient to a warning gesture from Cameron, stepped away to join Miss Musson, who was with a group of ladies seated beside the dais. These greeted the two strangers with smiles and soft hand clapping; they were evidently the wives of the Bai and their attendants.

  “What an unlucky misapprehension!” Miss Musson whispered. “But never mind, my dear; it certainly was not your fault. I daresay Rob has brought slaves to Mir Murad before! It was too bad that we had not some handsome gift to bring with us; I know Rob brought a couple of ibex horns, but I daresay the Bai is used to his visitors bringing him gold dust and Persian greyhounds and lion skins. Never mind! Perhaps we can cure him of a quinsy or some such thing. Meanwhile this looks like a very excellent repast.”

  The feast that followed, served on trays, was indeed sumptuous compared with their recent diet: kebabs and pillaos, sweet, spiced, and salty, fresh cheese curds, and fat, snow-preserved wild mutton dressed with onions and walnuts. These things were eaten from huge copper trays, with horn spoons, and after it they drank ferociously acid wine of Chitral from tiny horn cups.

  After the feast the ladies withdrew, and Scylla and Miss Musson thought it prudent to accompany them.

  Cal crossed the floor to speak to Scylla when he saw her stand up.

  “Are you sleeping with Miss Musson?” he demanded, and when she nodded, warned her, “Bar your door! I don’t trust that old potentate!”

  “Oh, Cal, do not be foolish. I am sure he is the soul of honor! And I daresay Cameron has told him that I am a highborn English noblewoman on my way to contract a matrimonial alliance with the Duke of Cumberland. I am sure you need feel no apprehension. In any case I very much doubt if it is possible to bar doors in this castle.”

  “I am going to give you my pistol,” he said, and, as she demurred, “No, no, I shall not rest easy unless you have it. Hide it in your sleeve.”

  “I am sure you need not be uneasy,” she said, but he slipped it under her jacket and she was obliged to take it.

  “If you have occasion to use it—do not forget that it throws to the left!—I hope we need not remain here long,” Cal muttered. “I do not like this place. However in one way it is just as well we came, for Mir Murad has a cousin in Jellalabad, and he has heard that there are spies from Ziatur there, looking out for four Angrezi and a baby—Mihal has sent his assassins there before us, and all our long, roundabout journey would have been to no avail; if we had
gone there, we must have been discovered and murdered.”

  “What must we do, then?” she said, dismayed. “Can we avoid Jellalabad?”

  “Oh yes; Rob thinks it possible to make our way overland to Kabul from here. It will take longer than if we followed the caravan route, but it can be done. And Mihal’s bravos will hardly travel as far as Kabul. By the by, I have discovered something about Rob that will surprise you—when he was here before, he had a wife and child!”

  “What?”

  “Thought that would startle you! One of the first things the old Bai said to him—‘Alas, Arb Shah, I fear this place must bring back sorrowful memories of your wife and child.’ It seems that ten years or so ago Rob was married to a Kafir princess—some niece or cousin of Mir Murad.”

  “Good God,” Scylla murmured. This news was to her far more startling than the tidings of Prince Mihal’s murderous plans. “I wonder what happened to her?”

  “Something sad. So far as I could make out from what the old fellow was saying, she and the child came to an untimely end while Cameron was away leading the Bai’s army in a local war.”

  “Poor man! Oh, poor man! No wonder he has been looking so haggard lately. And I said—oh, what a stupid, unfeeling shrew I have been.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t put yourself in a pucker. I’ve a notion he don’t pay much regard to what you say to him. Mind what I said, now, Scylla! Keep a sharp lookout. I believe the Bai still has his eye on you. From the look of him, I would say he is an old tartar, a real rakehell.”

  “Cal! Hush!”

  But it was true, Scylla noticed, as she kissed her brother good night and turned to leave, that the Bai was still observing her; she caught a sudden piercing flash from his deep, hooded eye.

  That, and a memory of the wild girl with her slung bow and her heron plume, were the last images that floated through her consciousness before she fell asleep.