by Jane Feather
“Until tonight, then.”
Kit walked back to the cantonment, acridly reflecting that it didn’t take much for him to revert. What point was there in holding to the truth against such blanket opposition? It wasn’t as if he had any power to alter the opinions of those who made the decisions. That had been demonstrated to him with painful and mortifying force. And how the hell did he think he was going to reclaim Annabel Spencer for her own people? Such arrant, prideful foolishness! He was no less ridiculous than those he ridiculed. Mount an attack on Akbar Khan’s fortress and carry off the lady across his saddle bow.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war … There was never knight like the young Lochinvar.
The refrain mocked his romantic imagery, although he supposed Sir Walter Scott had intended no mockery in the tale. Somehow, though, it didn’t sound convincing in this mountain-enclosed trap. The umbrella of cynicism went up, and he slid beneath it with barely a whimper of protest. It was comforting in its familiarity, and the barrier offered asylum from hard-edged self-knowledge.
“Oh, Lieutenant Ralston, I do believe you are looed again!” A girlish giggle accompanied the statement, and Kit looked absently at the cards in his hands and those on the table. His thoughts had been so far from Lady Sale’s drawing room and the loo table that he had failed to take the trick for the third time during this interminable evening. He shook his head irritably but attempted a light response.
“How foolish of me, Miss Drayton. I cannot imagine how I could have missed it.” He placed half a sovereign into the pool. Only limited loo was played at Lady Sale’s, for which, in his present state of abstraction, he could be thankful, he reflected caustically. With unlimited forfeits, he could lose a fortune if he continued in this fashion.
“I thought you were an accomplished card-player, Lieutenant,” Millie Drayton essayed, batting scanty eyelashes over nondescript eyes. “Your reputation is legendary.”
Kit decided abruptly that he could take no more of this fatuous simpering. He pushed back his chair. “I cannot imagine where you received such a false impression,” he said, making no attempt to disguise his weary boredom. “If you will excuse me … ” He bowed to the table at large, pretended not to see Millie Drayton’s expression of hurt bewilderment, and went off in search of his hostess. It wasn’t really the girl’s fault, of course. She was a product of her upbringing, carefully schooled to accomplish the one goal of her sex—a respectable marriage. And all eligible men were fair game. He had been dodging pursuit for the last eight years and had taken a degree of malicious pleasure in the hunt, but for some reason the exercise had lost its savor.
“Oh, Kit, are you really leaving so soon?” Lady Sale looked up from her embroidery in the circle of similarly occupied matrons. “I had thought you young people would enjoy a little dancing; just a set or two. I know Mrs. Bennet would be happy to play.” She nodded toward the drab wife of an elderly colonel, who hastened to assure her ladyship that she was entirely at the service of the young people. “Yes, of course you are,” her ladyship said briskly, it not having occurred to her that anyone might hold a differing opinion to her own. “I will instruct Ghulam Naabi to roll back the carpet.”
“I wish I could stay,” Kit lied smoothly, “but I have regimental duties, I fear.”
“At this time of night?”
“It is barely ten o’clock, ma’am,” Kit said. “I must receive my orders for the morning.”
“Oh, well, if you will not stay, you will not.” Lady Sale abandoned the lost cause, waving a dismissive hand at him.
Kit bowed over her hand and made his escape with heartfelt relief. The night air was sharply cold, the stars bright in the mountain sky, the ground scrunching frostily beneath his booted feet as he strode through the darkened cantonment, his thoughts centered on the prospect of brandy punch, macao, and the relaxing company of like-minded friends.
Burnes greeted him with exuberant enthusiasm, his scarlet complexion, bloodshot eyes, and thickened speech ample evidence of the way he was passing the evening. In the smoke-wreathed library at the back of the house were to be found six of Kit’s intimates, all in a state similar to their host’s, lounging with tunics unbuttoned and feet propped upon the hearth. They hailed Kit’s arrival with flattering pleasure.
“Haven’t seen you in days, m’dear fellow,” Captain Markham stated, bending over the punchbowl. “Thought you were supposed to be back from that patrol a week ago.” He ladled the steaming, fragrant liquid into a goblet and handed it to the newcomer.
“I was … Thanks, Bob.” Kit drank deeply. “That’s better. If that excuse for punch at Lady Sale’s had seen more than a whiff of a wine bottle, I’ll be damned.”
“What were you doin’ at that gathering?” demanded another, setting a taper to a small cheroot.
“Not your usual form of entertainment, doin’ the pretty with the matrons, is it?”
General laughter greeted this undeniable truth. Kit undid the top button of his tunic and flung himself onto a couch. “Lady Sale’s a friend of my mother. Couldn’t really say no.” He grimaced. “I was supposed to squire little Millie Drayton … insipid child that she is.”
Someone nodded in solemn agreement. Social obligations to friends of one’s mother really could not be avoided. “So what delayed you on patrol, Kit? Some delectable little Afghan filly?”
There was renewed laughter at this manifestly absurd sally; such entertainment would hardly be found during a routine patrol in the mountains.
Kit closed his eyes dreamily as the potent liquor warmed his belly, relaxed his toes, and created a gentle fuzziness in his brain. “No … not quite, but I’ve a tale to tell, my friends; one you’ll find hard to believe …”
The tale was a long time in the telling, since Kit omitted only the part about his night with Ayesha. His impressions of Akbar Khan, the buzkashi, and most of all his impassioned conviction that Annabel Spencer must be brought back to her own people were dwelled upon with a fervent intensity, made the more so as his glass was frequently replenished by an attentive host.
“Lord, that is a story,” Bob Markham breathed into the stunned silence. “An Englishwoman in Akbar Khan’s zenana! You quite sure, Kit? Hadn’t been dippin’ too deep, had you?”
“What on?” Kit’s scornful laughter cracked in the warm room. “Mussulman hospitality is conspicuously short of the demon drink. Besides, I wasn’t inclined to risk losing my wits,” he added. “Not in that company.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” muttered a bewhiskered lieutenant, peering into his goblet as if some answer might be found there. “It’s not right.” He looked up, twirling his moustaches restlessly. “What are we goin’ to do about it?”
“I wish I knew, Derek,” Kit said. “I’ve been racking my brains trying to devise some plan for winkling her out of there, but that fortress is sewn up tighter than a Christmas goose.” He did not add that the lady in question had refused point-blank any offer of rescue. In fact, any description of her at all had defeated him. She was so far outside the experience of anyone in this room; quite unlike any category of womanhood with which they were familiar.
“It’s always possible Akbar Khan will show himself,” Alexander Burnes said. “I don’t think he’s likely to remain holed up in the mountains for much longer. He’s just waiting for the right moment to strike.”
Kit nodded. “He’s not the man to play a waiting game longer than necessary.”
“If he leaves his fortress, then we could mount an attack and bring off the lady,” declared an immaculate young officer in the tones of one who has had an idea of surpassing brilliance.
No one took any notice of this clearly impractical suggestion. William Troughton was renowned for such schemes, particularly late at night. Receiving no response, the young officer lapsed once more into ruminative silence.
“Well,” pronounced Burnes, “I for one would like a hand of macao. I’ve a mind to recoup my losses of the last time.”
This
suggestion was received with favor, and the troublesome matter of an Englishwoman in the clutches of an Afghan rebel was forgotten for the time being by all except Lieutenant Ralston, who found his ability to concentrate on the cards unusually impaired.
Chapter Six
The hawk flew from Ayesha’s gauntleted wrist, soaring into the limitless depths of the sky, diminishing to a mere black speck against the white-capped mountain, blushed with the rising sun.
Ayesha gazed upward, striving to keep the bird in sight. At her side, no less anxious, the falconer stared, his eyes narrowed against the sun’s red glow as he waited in trepidation to see whether or not this latest pupil would prove a credit to the long and patient hours of his schooling.
“I’ve lost sight of her,” Ayesha said at last. “Can you still see her, Shir Muhammed?”
The falconer shook his head. “But she’ll be back.”
“I trust so.” Akbar Khan loosed the jesses on his own tiercel and tossed him upward. “I paid Badar Khan a good price for her.”
The falconer shifted uneasily in his saddle, wondering if his lord would demand repayment in some measure if he had loosed the falcon prematurely. One could never tell with Akbar Khan. He could as easily shrug off the loss as have the incompetent punished. He glanced at the shrouded figure of the woman at the khan’s side. Those jade eyes glimmered a message at him through the ru-band, and he felt a measure of reassurance. The hawk was hers, the gift of Akbar Khan, and she would have some say in the consequences attendant upon the bird’s loss.
“See, here she comes.” Ayesha pointed upward to where an indistinct blur gradually became defined. She held out her wrist, smiling as the hawk swooped down, a sparrow in the wickedly curved beak, to alight daintily, her claws gripping the leather gauntlet. “Shall I let her keep the sparrow, Shir Muhammed?”
“No, not the first time. Take it from her.” He opened the neck of the game bag at his saddle, and Ayesha pried the barely mutilated prey loose from the hawk’s beak and dropped it into the bag. She whispered to the magnificent creature as she refastened the jesses, scratching the proudly lifted neck.
“Isn’t she beautiful, Akbar Khan?”
He nodded, a shadow of a smile on the incisive mouth. “You’ll have little enough opportunity for hawking in Kabul, Ayesha. You’ll have to amuse yourself in the bazaars instead.”
It was typical of the man that he would spring this surprise upon her at such an unlikely moment. “I am to come with you, then?” She kept the excitement from her voice, continuing to caress the hawk on her wrist.
“I see no reason to deprive myself of your company,” he replied calmly. “I do not envisage any danger. But if you really dislike the idea, I daresay I will manage.” He was watching her closely, and she was again grateful for the concealment of the chadri.
“No,” she said carefully, “I do not dislike the idea. It has been two years since I was in any city, and I have a hankering for the bazaars.”
“We leave tomorrow.” He turned his attention to his own returning bird.
The newly trained hawk was to be flown only once that day, so Ayesha handed her over to Shir Muhammed and took a peregrine instead. In the absorbing business of flying the birds, she was able to control her bubbling speculation, apprehension, and excitement, but her heart was beating with a febrile speed. She had known Akbar Khan was to go to Kabul, where he intended to put spur to the insurgents at the very heart of the enemy camp. She knew that the British in the city were weakened by the absence of Sale’s forces, and by the settlement with the rebels they believed had been achieved by Macgregor. She knew quite well that no truce had been reached, and that the concessions made by the British had given the rebels everything they wanted whilst failing to guarantee anything in return. If the British believed otherwise, they were deluding themselves. Winter was coming fast now, and with its arrival Akbar Khan would strike the coup de grace.
In Kabul, pinned to await this coup de grace, was Christopher Ralston. Maybe, in the same city, she would lay eyes on him. To dwell on such a thought was as dangerous as it was forbidden, yet she could not help herself. Just as she could not help the thought that if she was at Akbar Khan’s side, she might wield some softening influence. He listened to her, although she was under no illusions as to the extent of her influence; it was unpredictable, but definitely limited.
The sun rose, spilling fire over the mountaintops, but it brought no consonant warmth. Ayesha shivered at the bite of a dawn wind stabbing through the gorge.
“Yes, it is perhaps time to return,” Akbar Khan said, as aware of the shiver as he was of the inner turmoil she thought so well-concealed. He wasn’t sure why he was taking her to Kabul, unless it was because he wished to see how she would behave in close proximity to the feringhee. She was different since that night with Christopher Ralston. The difference was indefinable, but none the less pronounced. Sometimes, he would shrug it off, accepting that when a woman shared a night of love with another man, there would be some effect. She would be changed in some way. And then he would wonder if the change ran deeper than he believed, and he would regret the impulse that had led him to press the experience upon her. It was not that she was in any way deficient in her attentions, in any way absentminded when he was with her, but he was now conscious of an inner spring that the girl he had educated in the ways of his people had not possessed … that the woman he possessed had never before evinced. And it disturbed him.
He turned his horse, his tiercel safely secured on his wrist. “Come, Ayesha. Shir Muhammed will secure the peregrine.” The Badakshani charger surged forward.
Ayesha nudged her mare into a gallop. The falconer and his attendants were more than capable of handling her two hawks, and Akbar Khan had clearly indicated that his interest in hawking had for the moment ceased. It was an abrupt change of mood, but that was not unusual.
Once back at the fortress, she slipped from her horse and waited for some indication of his further wishes, but he strode into the house without a word for her. Frowning, she turned aside, through the arched doorway leading to the zenana. She had done nothing to offend, so what had caused his discomposure?
Still puzzling, she pushed through the beaded curtain into the women’s apartments. Maybe he was preoccupied with Kabul and the shura he had convened with the other sirdars. It was bound to be a divisive council; they always were. There were too many leaders and too many agendas. Yes, that was the only possible explanation. She turned her attention to the morrow’s journey and the necessary arrangements, only to find that they had already been made in her absence.
Soraya had the pursed-mouth look she wore when matters in the zenana were not proceeding according to her preferred path. She did not care for travel, but if Ayesha was required to accompany the khan, then Soraya must go, too, in her capacity as chaperone and handmaid. She would not question the decisions of her lord, but neither would she master her irritation with those who had no redress against it.
Ayesha recognized the pattern and resigned herself to the general discomfort of disturbance in the accustomed calm waters of the zenana. She set herself to soothe Soraya’s exacerbated nerves and thus protect some of the younger members of this tight-knit community of women from undeserved sharpness.
They left the following dawn, a small party of warrior hillmen and four women. The women, Ayesha included, rode behind the men and were to all intents and purposes ignored by them. In defiance of custom, Akbar Khan generally kept Ayesha at his side on such journeyings, although her women would keep to the rear, and the lack of invitation on this occasion caused her further disquiet. She could not imagine why he should be annoyed with her; but if he was, why was she accompanying him to Kabul?
At noon, they came upon a chaie khana, and Soraya’s muttered grumbles ceased at the prospect of tea and rest. The mule she rode like a sack of potatoes appeared no less eager to be rid of his burden as they halted outside the teahouse. The men went into the little building, escorted by a w
izened and bowed old man who had appeared at their arrival. A shrouded woman darted out, beckoning to the female members of the party, and they followed her into a small, mud-floored room at the rear, where they would not disturb the men’s relaxation. Even had she been riding beside Akbar Khan, Ayesha would have been subject to the customary public segregation and discrimination, and was far too used to it to remark upon it. The samovar bubbled as merrily in the back room as it did in the front, and that was all that mattered.
But she did find it irksome throughout the long afternoon to be obliged to keep her spirited mare to the pace of the mules on which rode, or rather slumped, the other women. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of riding boldly up with Akbar Khan, but recognized ruefully that she did not dare. He might be amused by her boldness, but he could as easily be angered by it. Resigned, she let her mind wander and her horse amble.
“Ayesha? Ayesha!” At the imperative repetition of her name, her head jerked up and she came out of her reverie. Akbar Khan had halted just ahead and was summoning her. She urged the mare forward.
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t hear you.”
“So I noticed,” he observed. “You looked as if you were asleep.”
“At the pace I must maintain in order not to outstrip the mules, I may sleep quite safely.” She risked just a hint of acerbity.
The blue eyes narrowed, and he stroked his beard in silence for a moment. Then abruptly he laughed. “Come, if you wish to gallop, we will do so.” He was away along the narrow, treacherous mountain track before she could get her wits together. What an unfathomable man he was! She shrugged aside the puzzle, as always, and set her mare in exultant pursuit.
They had soon left their escort far behind, and Ayesha needed all her wits and skill to keep the mare from stumbling on the hazardous rocky path at the speed set by Akbar Khan. At times, the track wound along a dizzying edge over a deep gorge, and a wave of terror would flood her as she clung desperately to the plunging back of her horse, all the time recognizing that this crazy ride was decreed by Akbar Khan for some purpose of his own. It was a test of her courage and endurance, and she was determined that she would not fail to keep up with him; she would not stop until he did. He had challenged her in such fashion several times in the past, almost as if he wanted to see how different she was from a woman of his own race and culture. Such women endured slavery, brutality, and unremitting toil in silence, but it was the silence of a broken-spirited beast of burden, not the silence of courage. Courage was a masculine virtue, yet Akbar Khan would have his Englishwoman evince it in masculine trials. She thought sometimes that it excited him when he tested her in this way. When she passed the test, as she always did, a night of passionate ardor invariably followed. And sometimes she wondered what would result if she failed. Would he become bored with her? And if he did, what future did she have … a lifetime’s abandonment in a zenana?