The Weeping Ash

by Joan Aiken

  “But,” protested Scylla, “indeed, I am deeply grateful to the sahiba for this honor, but I intend no harm to her grandson, not the least in the world—why should the lady give her precious ring to me?”

  To this the old lady snapped out some impatient retort which Habiba interpreted.

  “She says do not interrupt, and that you are to have the ring; you must wear it always unless—until you can give it to a man whom you know that you can love until you die.”

  The ring was tarnished and heavy, wound with coarse black hairs, but it still sat loosely on Scylla’s middle finger; seeing which, Habiba pulled a handful of black sheep’s wool from a yak-hide sack and wound the circlet thickly with the wool until it became a better fit.

  Meanwhile Khalzada had rummaged in the chest again and came up with something that looked like a wizened thorn twig which had been dyed or dipped in red juice, and a little muslin bag of red powder. This she handed to Scylla, with a brief muttered injunction to Habiba—evidently directions as to the use of these articles—and then hobbled away back to Miss Musson in the outer room.

  “What are they for?” inquired Scylla, eyeing the twig mistrustfully—it had an ominous resemblance to implements of witchcraft which she had sometimes seen employed back in Ziatur.

  Carefully Habiba explained how the twig and the powder were to be used. “It is because our honored grandmother feels a kindness to you, lady. She wishes you to leave this place in peace, cherishing no resentment against us, and to reach the end of your journey in safety.”

  “Please tell the respected lady that I thank her with all my heart,” said Scylla. “Assure her that I wish no ill to any in this castle, particularly to her grandson—and in token of my good intentions I give her—”

  What offering would be suitable and appropriate, impressive enough to assure the old lady of her friendly feelings? Regretfully, but feeling that it was the only possible gift, Scylla slipped over her head the ribbon that supported her watch. The watch was an old silver one that had once belonged to her mother; it was prettily engraved with flowers on the back, and Miss Musson’s brother had had her own name, Scylla, inscribed on the case. It had never kept very good time, however, and since their adventure in the quicksand had stopped, once and for all. Since then it had undergone so many other mishaps, immersion in rivers, being knocked against trees, scraped on rock faces even glazed completely with ice in blizzards, that Scylla had not the least expectation of its ever telling the time again. She was sorry to part with it nonetheless.

  “Give Khalzada this charm,” she said, handing the watch on its draggled ribbon to Habiba.

  She had expected Khalzada to express a fair degree of gratification upon receipt of this handsome and interesting gift, but, rather to her chagrin, the old woman merely looked cursorily inside the case, which Habiba snapped open for her, then nodded, as if she had expected something of the sort, and continued a dialogue with Miss Musson which the two of them seemed to be conducting in a kind of sign language.

  Feeling slightly rebuffed, Scylla curtsied and, as Khalzada took no further notice of her, quitted the room and went down the dusty stairs again, to where she had left little Chet in the care of Sripana and the Bai’s third wife, who had several small children of her own. The two women greeted her kindly with the usual beaming smiles. They could not get over their admiration of her silvery, curling hair, and every time she entered a room some of the ladies would come up to stroke and smooth it with cries of wonder.

  Scylla, however, was in no mood for female gossip. Feeling sad, confused, and apprehensive after the strange interview with Khalzada, she picked up the baby and, shaking her head politely at the welcoming, cushion-patting gestures of the Bai’s ladies, strolled out into the castle courtyard to give Chet a little fresh air. She longed to get away from the castle, to be out on the mountainside; but, while Cal and Cameron could go galloping off over the wild-rose-and-juniper-studded hillsides at liberty with the Bai’s sons, she and Miss Musson had been given firmly to understand that females stayed within the castle walls, unless some suitably escorted woolgathering or herb-picking party should be arranged. Any female who strayed outside was rounded up and gently led back again.

  Today, however, there was plenty of action in the castle courtyard to entertain her. The Bai, it seemed, had not gone on the leopard hunt with his guests but had remained at home to receive tribute. Formally dressed in a leopard-skin mantle and a two-foot-high leopard-skin cap, he was seated on a throne of carved rock covered with a sheepskin. A procession filed past him in a ceremony which had evidently been going on for most of the day. Villagers approached one at a time, gave their names to the killadar, or steward, who stood at the Bai’s right side, and presented their rent offerings, which were received with lengthy debate and consideration. The payments offered were of every possible kind: skins full of butter, rangy goats, skinny fowls, carefully tied bundles of firewood or sacks of charcoal, sometimes a shaggy pony, fat sheeps’ tails which had been preserved in snow, packets of dried pepper, asafetida, very occasionally a few copper coins called zerubs, and one or two small lumps of turquoise. All these things were estimated by the killadar and his naib, or assistant; their value was calculated on a kind of abacus with brown clay beads strung on wires, a mark was made on a sheepskin, tally, and the tenants were informed whether the toll paid had been sufficient or whether there remained still more to pay.

  Toward the end of the procession came a bearded, fur-capped man whose face was vaguely familiar; cudgeling her brains, Scylla was trying to remember where she had seen him before when, following him with hands tied behind her, and pulled along by two of the Bai’s warriors, she was horrified to recognize the handsome scornful girl who had galloped her shaggy black horse across the river, who had worn her heron plume so proudly. She was the village bride—now dusty, disheveled, and tearstained; and the angry bearded man was her father, who addressed the Bai in a long, vehement harangue. The Bai appeared to listen to this dispassionately, then shook his head and made a dismissive, denying gesture with his right hand.

  Scylla noticed that Cameron’s Therbah servant had come quietly to stand by her, proof that the hunters must be on their way home, for the Therbah never stirred very far from his master’s side, though he manifested a certain fondness and respect for Scylla.

  “What are they saying, Therbah?” she whispered to him. “Can you understand what is happening?”

  The bride’s father now fell on his knees. He looked stricken to the heart. The girl still stood behind him held by her guards; she appeared to be almost in a state of trance, moving like a sleepwalker, hardly aware of her surroundings.

  The Therbah explained.

  “Bai, he say: no give permission for marriage. No bride price paid. Wife cost two horse, five cow, forty sheep, three hundred guest feast for seven day. Bai get half.”

  “And it wasn’t paid him? But surely”—Scylla was puzzled—“surely it is the husband’s duty to pay the bride price? Where is he?”

  She looked around for the handsome young man who had ridden that triumphant figure eight, firing his gun at the sky.

  “Bai angry. Husband was not a man of this region. Husband say, no duty pay Mir Murad bride price. And Mir Murad, he say, no bride price, no marriage.”

  The Bai now made another dismissive gesture, and the bearded father was hustled out of the courtyard, while his daughter was led toward the castle. To the last, the father still shouted, protested, and pleaded, as he was expelled from the gate; but the daughter seemed indifferent, almost calm; until suddenly, at the castle door, a kind of scuffle took place, in the course of which one of her guards dragged from her grasp a short straight knife which was tossed to the killadar’s assistant amid head shakings, shrugs, and looks of disapproval from the Bai’s retinue. At the loss of her knife, the girl’s mask of indifference broke up; she let out a desperate cry and began to struggle franti
cally with her captors, who, however, easily overpowered her and dragged her inside.

  Horrified by this scene, Scylla was wondering whether it would be of any avail to remonstrate or appeal to the Bai—when, perhaps fortunately, the gates opened again to admit the returned hunting party.

  One of the Bai’s sons proudly carried over his pommel the dangling body of a five-foot snow leopard, its beautiful silvery gray fur splashed with black rosettes, its jaws parted in the grinning rictus of death. Observing this, Mir Murad immediately clapped his hands, dismissing the last group of taxpaying vassals, and hurried to greet his sons and his guests, exclaiming over the dimensions of their prize and calling for koumiss in which to celebrate their triumph.

  Cal, seeing his sister, crossed the court and came to speak to her—they had hardly been able to exchange more than a couple of words all day—and Cameron followed after a few moments.

  Scylla at once began agitatedly pouring out to them the story of what had happened to the bride and asked Cameron if he could not intervene.

  “It is so dreadful! Poor girl, what had she done? It was not her fault! What will become of her, Colonel Cameron?”

  “I fear, Miss Paget,” he said reluctantly, “that in such cases—if the girl marries a man from another region, or if the father fails to pay his feudal lord the proper bride price—both of which faults seem to have been committed here—the usual penalty is for the girl herself to become the Bai’s property.”

  “Oh no! But what about her husband? What will he do?”

  The two men exchanged a grim look.

  “Now we know whose head it was,” Cal muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Scylla demanded.

  “No need to have said that, you young sapskull!” Cameron said in a sharp undertone.

  But Scylla, given a clue by the direction of their glances, had hurried to the gate. Outside, on a flattish area before the hillside fell away, the Bai’s warriors were accustomed to exercise their ponies daily in a kind of wild, disorganized polo game with no rules and any number of players, using a sheep’s head or blown-up yak’s bladder as a ball. Today, however, the object they were knocking about the stony ground was a human head; under the dust and filth Scylla had some difficulty in recognizing the features of the young bridegroom.

  For a moment, leaning against the stone gatepost, she turned sick and faint.

  Numbly, she allowed Cal to lead her toward the castle. He would have taken little Chet from her, but she hugged the baby tightly, murmuring:

  “No—no, let me hold him. Besides—they would all laugh—those men—if they saw you carrying a ch—carrying a child.” Her teeth began to chatter. She felt suddenly chilled to the bone.

  “No, I don’t think they’d laugh at me too much,” Cal said with a certain satisfaction in his tone, which his sister noticed, even in her state of distress.

  “What do you mean, Cal? Why not?”

  “Because it was my spear that killed the leopard!”

  She stared at him in amazement, thinking how much younger than herself he sometimes seemed, despite his gifts of intellect and poetic creativity—or perhaps because of them. Overflowing pride in his exploit could still occupy his mind at such a hideous moment. To be sure, it was a very astonishing feat for Cal to have killed the leopard—usually he was wholly uninterested in deeds of sportsmanship, especially if they involved killing something.

  “Do you think Sripana will come to hear about it?” he went on eagerly; and then she understood. Poor boy, he thought of himself as a knight-errant, performing feats of valor to impress his lady love.

  “I am sure she will. The Bai will probably give her the skin to make herself a cloak—he is so devoted to her, he is always giving her presents.” Cal’s face fell a little at this. Scylla went on, “Cal—if you killed the leopard, you will be in good standing with the Bai—he must be grateful to you! Do you not think you could ask him to allow that poor girl at least to return to her father’s household? I—I cannot bear to think of her being kept a prisoner here. Do! Pray try!”

  Cal’s face fell even more. He said doubtfully, “I am not sure if Rob would think that wise. He says that what he has done is quite within his rights as chieftain of the district. And nothing is going to bring back that girl’s husband, after all.” He added uncomfortably, “Perhaps she may prefer it here to her father’s household. I daresay the Bai is not such a bad old fellow. Or one of his sons may have her. She may settle down here tolerably well.”

  Scylla flashed him a glance of indignation, almost hatred.

  “How can you talk so? It is all very well for you.” Then, seeing his hurt look, she recollected herself and muttered, “Oh, I am sorry! But pray, Cal, do ask Colonel Cameron if nothing can be done. I cannot bear it—that girl’s look haunts me.”

  “Oh—very well,” he said. “I will ask Rob. But do not you be doing anything foolish, now, Scylla! Mind! You have seen what happens when the Bai is crossed.”

  He left her to return to the courtyard, and Scylla went on up to the room she shared with Miss Musson, feeling sick at heart. Mechanically she set about the task of washing and feeding little Chet; not until this was completed did her mind revert to the strange scene with Khalzada. Now the old woman’s words—“I see trouble for my grandson the Bai—he is hurt and suffers”—came back to her more forcefully. Vindictively, she thought, I wish I could hurt him. Why should he be permitted to abduct that poor girl and kill her husband?

  When Miss Musson reappeared, Scylla poured out the whole story. The older woman, too, was troubled but, like Cal, thought there was probably nothing to be done. “You must remember, my dear, that this is the custom of the country. The girl herself must have been aware of the risk when she plighted herself to an outlander. And, in her present circumstances, doubtless she has more resignation than you give her credit for.”

  Scylla doubted this. She remembered the desperate scream—the struggle over the knife at the castle door.

  “Oh, I wish we could leave this hateful place,” she muttered.

  “Well, very likely now the Bai has received his taxes, he can pay Rob what is owing, and we may take our departure,” Miss Musson said, but that only exacerbated Scylla’s distress.

  “We brought on that wretched girl’s tragedy! It was to collect money for our needs that the Bai summoned his vassals. It is blood money!”

  “Come, come, child!” said Miss Musson almost sternly. “There is no purpose in working yourself into high fidgets over the matter. Firstly, there is nothing to be done, and, secondly, the marriage would have been discovered sooner or later in any case. Now I do not want you worrying Colonel Cameron about this, pray! He has enough to concern him as it is, in getting us away from here without disturbing the Bai’s touchy notions of honor. And this castle has unhappy memories for him too, do not forget. So show a cheerful face at supper, if you please!”

  These were strong words from Miss Musson, who hardly ever found it necessary to reprove her wards, and Scylla took them to heart. This recalled to her mind, too, the story of Cameron’s tragedy, which she had been pondering, on and off, ever since Cal told it to her on the first evening. It was so strange—to think that he had been married here, that, ten years ago, he had lived with a wife and child in this very place. And they had somehow perished tragically. Would this be likely to make him sympathetic to that poor girl’s troubles? No; Scylla was inclined to think that it might make him less so; she could imagine him callously saying, “Why should her problems touch me? How are they worse than any other?” Before this afternoon Scylla had been feeling deeply for the colonel, wondering if every corner of the castle, every crag of the mountain, did not carry painful memories for him; she fancied that she detected in his face a careworn, grief-stricken expression which made her heart go out to him; but, now, that sympathy was quite quenched; she thought, Among these savage companions, he has
reverted to a savage himself. He is probably as ruthless and unfeeling as the Bai himself.

  Armed by these feelings of hostility, she washed and robed herself for the evening meal, which was to be yet another feast in celebration of the successful hunt and the equally successful tax levy. The Bai’s ladies were dressing themselves up in all their finery: long pleated skirts of shimmering, tissue-like material, and richly embroidered sleeveless jackets embroidered with tiny rubies and turquoises, thick with gold and silver thread; Miss Musson and Scylla were lent similar garments. Then, to Scylla’s horror, the captured bride was brought in, her clothes were removed, she, too, was washed, anointed, and carefully robed in a pleated silk skirt, full-sleeved tunic, and embroidered green velvet vest. To all this she submitted limply, apathetically; she seemed to be in a kind of stupor. The women were not unkind to her; they patted her gently, as they were used to do with Scylla and Miss Musson; carefully dressed her long, beautiful black hair in two great plaits, which they wound into a kind of chignon, leaving loose curling locks to hang in front and frame her face, the expression on which was rigid, the calm of despair. She stared straight ahead of her, ignoring her surroundings.

  “What can they have done with her?” murmured Scylla, appalled.

  Miss Musson put some questions to Habiba, who was carefully draping long chains of gold and amber around the girl’s neck. As she did so the girl raised her eyes and looked, briefly and incuriously, at Miss Musson and Scylla; then she dropped her head again, over the gaudy chains dangling on her breast. A horn mug of liquid was brought for her; with passive obedience she received and began to sip it.

  “Her name is Dizane,” Miss Musson returned to say. “And she is sixteen years old.”