by Jane Feather
Kit saw her coming and wondered if he had slipped over the edge of sanity into the world of delusion. He tried to run, but his muscles were locked after the night’s intense cold, and he stumbled to his knees in the snow. Cursing, he dragged himself upright and limped over to the group shivering around the general.
“General, I bring an offer from Akbar Khan,” Ayesha said without preamble. She removed her veil and her eyes in love sought Kit’s. She smiled softly and his blood flowed warmly again and strength returned to muscle and sinew. He strode over to her, lifted his arms imperatively, and Annabel slipped off Charlie into his embrace.
“What is this?” demanded the general.
“My apologies, sir,” Kit said, although he could not stop smiling, like some half-witted buffoon, he thought joyfully as he held her in his arms and whispered in wonderment against her cheek. “I did not think I would ever see you again.”
“What is this offer?” Brigadier Shelton spoke brusquely.
Annabel turned, still in the circle of Kit’s arm. “Akbar Khan offers his protection to the ladies and children, on condition that their husbands accompany them into his camp.”
A babble of shocked protest ran around the group, all of them recognizing the cunning ploy that would rob the force of its senior officers. General Elphinstone sighed heavily. “Gentlemen … gentlemen … ” he said, “your protestations do you credit, but we cannot deprive the ladies of the slightest chance of succor. Take your families in honor and God go with you.”
“Akbar Khan also demands that Captain Ralston give himself up as hostage,” Annabel said quietly. She felt Kit stiffen beside her and looked up at him. “I do not know what he intends. It may be worse for you than remaining here … Worse for both of us,” she added, more to herself than to him. “But if you refuse, he may be avenged upon the other hostages.”
“Do you imagine I would not come?” His voice was suddenly sharp, anger flashing in the gray eyes, as if she had impugned his integrity. “What species of coward do you think I am, Annabel?”
“No coward,” she said. “I intended no insult. Suffering comes in some form with either choice.” She stepped out of his encircling arm. “Akbar Khan also pledges safe escort from the rear through the remaining passes to Jalalabad, General. But I do not know how much you may rely upon his word in that matter.”
“Or in any matter,” Shelton declared viciously but with absolute truth.
“What choice do we have?” Elphinstone asked. “We must accept his offer.”
“I will tell him.” She refastened her veil and it was Ayesha who turned again to Kit. “This was just a moment,” she said. “I do not know why he permitted it, but there will be no others. I belong to Akbar Khan again, and am isolated according to custom.” She spoke without expression, laying out the facts that they had faced the previous evening and that for one dizzying instant of delusion he had thought somehow commuted.
For a moment, he thought he would not be able to contain his pain, so deeply did it slice into his very core. He could not bear to touch her in farewell. He could find no words to express the inexpressible. So he walked away from her in his agony, leaving her to seek assistance in remounting from other hands.
When she attained the ridge again, she was conscious of a weariness that transcended the merely physical. When Akbar Khan told her softly that the matter lying between them would be dealt with when they reached the fortress of Budiabad, where he intended to house the hostages, she could summon no concern about her fate that would then be decided. He told her that except when they were riding, when she would keep at his side, she was to remain in the tent away from all eyes, just as if she were back in the zenana. In many ways, the order for seclusion brought relief. Alone with herself, she could perhaps find again the strength of acceptance that had served her so well in the past.
Fifty hostages followed Akbar Khan and the line of retreat. The sirdar kept his promise to provide a rear escort, but it was not a protective escort and the starved, frozen, despairing remnant of soldiers and those camp followers who had stayed with the retreat were attacked in every pass by Ghazi fanatics and vengeance-hungry hillmen.
Kit rode with his friends through the Tunghee Tariki gorge, where the majority of the main body of the column lay massacred; they rode on through the Tezeen ravine where bodies lay stripped, hacked to pieces, cut in two; and they rode through the valley and up the steep incline to the peak of Jugdulluk where the tribesmen had blocked the path with prickly brushwood and under a heedless moon had completed the destruction of the British retreat from Kabul. It was here that he saw the body of Harley, lying as he had fallen, sword in hand, beside him the twisted body of a brigadier at whose side he had fought.
One more death of a friend.
At Jugdulluk, the weary, blood-sickened hostages found Brigadier Shelton and General Elphinstone, now “guests” of Akbar Khan, forced to offer themselves as hostages after the massacre at Tezeen as the only chance of saving the remainder of the force … the force subsequently destroyed amongst the rocks of Jugdulluk. Only one military survivor of the retreat from Kabul reached Jalalabad to tell the tale.
The following day, Akbar Khan set off to the north with his flock of hostages to the Laghman valley and the fortress of Budiabad. Beside him rode the swathed figure of Ayesha, who had set eyes only on the British dead during this journey, the living being kept from her.
Chapter Twenty
The great gray fort of Budiabad sat in a mountain valley, overshadowed in the north by the massive peaks of the Hindu Kush. The hostages had not been told where they were being taken, once they had left the grisly remnants of the retreat behind. For four days, they had ridden through the snow, the ladies and invalids carried in camel-panniers, thankful simply for the cessation of murderous assaults and an adequate if not plentiful supply of food and water.
They were surrounded by an escort of impassive Ghilzai tribesmen, who led the camels, encouraging the beasts to maintain a considerable speed.
“I wonder why they’re in such a hurry?” Colin commented.
“I expect Annabel would know,” Kit replied, staring ahead as he always did these days, as if he could distinguish the slender figure amongst the sizable force of tribesmen riding with Akbar Khan in the distance. Charlie had been returned to him without a word spoken, and he had spent long enough with Annabel to understand the significance of the gesture. Akbar Khan looked after his own, and a feringhee horse was no suitable mount for one of his own. When they made camp, they were still surrounded by their escort, and any attempt to move out of the confines of their designated spot toward the huddle of black nomad tents where Akbar Khan and his entourage were housed brought harsh directives enforced with the threat of a khyber knife.
Colin glanced at his friend in silent sympathy. He knew the agony of frustration and anxiety Kit was suffering as his imagination ran riot with speculation on the form Akbar Khan’s vengeance would take upon the woman who had left him. For himself, Kit seemed not to care, even if he was to play prize in a buzkashi; after the horrors they had witnessed, the friends who had been so hideously slaughtered, such a fate seemed to have lost its sharp edge of atrocity. But Akbar Khan had been most lucid in his threat toward one of his own who defected. The penalty was immutable, he had said that day in Kabul, and Kit trembled for Annabel, even as he raged at his helplessness.
An unmistakable rustle of enthusiasm ran through their generally dour escort. One or two pointed with their whips and called out to their companions.
“It seems we’ve reached journey’s end,” Brigadier Shelton said, gesturing toward the edifice squatting on the plain, watchtowers standing sentinel on either side of the iron gateway.
“Friendly-looking place,” muttered Colin.
Ayesha would have agreed with the ironic sentiment had she been with them to hear it. She had been to Budiabad once before, when Akbar Khan was traveling the land raising an army in the very early days of the invasion. It was a
bleak spot, even in summer, and in the middle of January would be desolate in the extreme.
She cast a furtive glance at Akbar Khan riding beside her. He had said nothing substantive to her since they had left the Khoord Kabul, in general ignoring her as completely as she was ignored by his men. She was aware that this isolation was an indication of prisoner status. The prodigal’s return had not been accepted as ending the matter. Judgment would be made and sentence passed at some point. She could die in the stoning pit for her offense, if Akbar Khan decided she merited the full punishment decreed by Koranic law. And what of Kit? They could die in that manner together, if it was so decided. Or some other, more ingenious penalty could be planned for him.
They turned through the great iron gates into the central courtyard of the fort. Two shrouded women appeared from a low doorway in the north wall and hurried across to Ayesha. The reception did not surprise her. An alerting message would have been sent to the fort to ensure that her present irregular position without women attendants could be remedied without delay.
She slipped from the sturdy mare she had been given to replace Charlie and went with the women without so much as a covert glance of inquiry at the khan. What would happen would happen.
The hostages entered the fort an hour later. They were shown to an interconnecting group of five rooms on the ground floor of the fort. Five filthy, sparsely furnished rooms for fifty men, women, and children. There was a moment of utter despondency as they stared around at the quarters they were to occupy for an indefinite time. A child’s piercing wail was heard announcing it didn’t like this place. It was cold and dirty and there were creepy-crawlies everywhere, and why couldn’t they go home?
The wail served to galvanize the able-bodied amongst them. Rooms were allocated, leaders appointed, and a deputation gathered to make representation to their captor.
Kit was elected to the deputation, together with Major Pottinger, Mackenzie, and Lawrence. The general was now so physically enfeebled, the disintegration of his spirit finally completed by the mortification of being forced to abandon his command, that authority amongst the men by default devolved upon Brigadier Shelton. Amongst the women, Lady Sale, despite her wounded hand, took energetic control.
Kit silently debated turning down his election on the grounds that his inclusion in the party of hostages had had a personal component that might serve him ill as a negotiator for improved conditions, but decided that he must behave as if there were no woman between himself and Akbar Khan. There was nothing he could do to alter that situation until Akbar Khan revealed his hand. Until then he was simply another soldier torn in his innermost soul between a natural relief at his temporary safety and a deep self-disgust at the disgrace of imprisonment and the manner of their surrender.
Where in this grim prison was Annabel? Did she know where he was? Was she standing at some window somewhere, looking out, her heart as empty as his of all but loss?
As the deputation was escorted across the courtyard, his eyes searched the ungiving walls, the tiny blank windows, his nerve endings raw with tension as all his senses strained to catch a hint of something he could identify as an indication of her presence. They passed a group of black-clad women drawing water from a well. The women’s chatter ceased as the men went by and they turned their heads to the wall, away from the forbidden sight of feringhee men.
They walked through gloomy stone-floored corridors, all as much in need of a broom and water as the rooms allocated to the prisoners. He glimpsed inner courtyards, and in one women were hanging clothes upon a washing line. His heart lurched violently as he recognized the emerald-green tunic that went so well with the copper hair and the jade eyes. He felt the most absurd urge to snatch the garment from the line, to bury his nose in the soft linen to try to catch that elusive scent that was just Annabel, a melange of cinnamon and roses that in memory was driving him to distraction.
Akbar Khan received them in a winter-dark presence chamber, where candles of sheep fat gave off a noxious stench to mingle with the fumes of the dung fire. “Our accommodations are somewhat humble, I fear, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly. “If it had been possible, I would have housed you more comfortably in one of my other fortresses.” His eyes rested on Kit for a moment, “Captain Ralston will vouch for the comfort to be obtained there.”
“Indeed.” Kit bowed slightly. “Your hospitality, khan, was generous in the extreme.”
“Yes,” murmured the khan. “I begin to think it was.” He shuffled some papers on the broad plank table before saying, “You have some questions, gentlemen?”
“It is customary for prisoners of war to negotiate the terms and conditions of their imprisonment,” Pottinger said stiffly.
“I am willing to do all in my power to ensure your comfort,” Akbar Khan said with the appearance of utmost sincerity. “But I am constrained by the place.” He gestured expressively. “The fort has been neglected and is inhabited by the poorest of hillpeople during the winter. I daresay the standards of cleanliness are not what you are used to.”
“Vermin,” declared Colin succinctly. “The ladies are most uncomfortable.”
“But at least they are alive and sheltered,” the khan mused as if to himself. No one responded.
“Whatever you require to improve your circumstances I will be happy to furnish, if it is in my power to do so,” he suddenly said genially, as if the previous sotto voce comment had not been made. “You will wish to take exercise, I am certain, and should feel free to do so within the main courtyard.” He smiled the benign smile Kit had seen before. “I shall be leaving here myself quite soon, once I have attended to a small but irritating matter.” The heavy-lidded eyes narrowed, hiding their expression from his audience. He stroked his pointed beard. “Major Pottinger speaks some Pushtu, I understand. He will be able to make your needs understood in my absence, I trust … unless, perhaps, Ralston, huzoor, you have learned a little of the Afghan language in the last few weeks?”
Kit met the bright blue gaze with a cold clarity of his own. “I remember no occasion when it was necessary for me to speak any but the language of my birth, Akbar Khan.”
Reflectively, the sirdar nodded as if examining the gauntlet before deciding whether to pick it up or not. Then he smiled. “At some other time I should be most interested to hear your views on certain aspects of birth and adoption.”
“I would imagine they differ from yours.”
“I would imagine so,” he agreed with apparent affability. “If that is all, gentlemen—” An eyebrow lifted in query. “The guards will provide you with whatever you need to make your quarters more habitable.”
After diplomatic expressions of gratitude and disclaimer had been exchanged, the door closed on his visitors and Akbar Khan sat frowning, the geniality wiped clean from his face. Then he pushed back his chair with a harsh scrape on the stone floor and strode from the room.
The women’s apartments were situated on the north side of the courtyard, and like everywhere else in Budiabad were cold, dirty, and primitive. The women who occupied them were the slovenly, brutalized wives of the hill peasants, a far cry from Ayesha’s usual attendants. But Ayesha, according to instruction, was secured in a small room behind a locked door.
Akbar Khan stopped outside the door and softly moved aside the wooden shutter over a tiny aperture that permitted the occupant to be observed from the corridor. Ayesha was sitting on the floor before the fire, motionless, staring into the dully smoldering hearth. The candle flickered under a finger of wind probing into the room through the high, ill-fitting window slit. Despite her inhospitable surroundings, she was warmly dressed and furs were piled thickly upon the narrow cot against the far wall.
He stood watching her for a long time, trying to decide whether her mood was one of dejection, apprehension, or simply contemplation. She had ample reason to feel the first two, but he knew also how she drew strength from introspection and guessed she was seeking that resource as she prepared herself to fa
ce him when he decided to deal with the matter that loomed, waiting, barely mentioned yet of paramount consequence, between them.
Drawn to her without volition, he laid a hand on the latch, then abruptly withdrew it. Turning, he made his way back to his presence chamber. “Have Ayesha brought to me.”
The guards received the command in silence, and Akbar Khan sat down to wait.
When they brought her in, she was veiled, her eyes lowered. When she salaamed, her posture was neither abject nor defiant; she held herself as if she simply accepted the reality of her predicament. He dismissed the guards and sat regarding her in silence.
“I could not have done otherwise,” she said at last, her voice low but steady.
“You were held in the house of Christopher Ralston by force?”
She shook her head. “No, but I could not have done otherwise.”
“You know that the stones await the unfaithful?” he said softly. “I gave you ample opportunity to return to me, just as I told Christopher Ralston that if timely restitution were made, then I could be generous.”
“I knew those things … but I could not have done otherwise,” she repeated with the same steadfastness. “I could not untie the ‘master-knot of human fate.’ ”
“You misuse the poet, Ayesha. He was referring to the ultimate destiny of humankind, not the immediate fate of an individual.”
Her head bowed in acknowledgment, but she said, “Nevertheless, I thought it not inapposite.”
He said nothing for a minute, secretly enjoying her wit which he had fostered, as he had fostered the courage that enabled her to stand before him exhibiting no fear, despite the threatened sentence.
“Will you plead for mercy, Ayesha?”
She shook her head. “Not for myself. But for Christopher Ralston.” Gracefully, she slipped to her knees on the hard, cold stone. “I would petition for him.”
“He is a man. Can he not plead his own case?”
Her eyes lifted. “You will not permit him to do so, Akbar Khan, because he is a feringhee who has transgressed your laws. You would not consider him qualified to present a defense against a system of laws that he does not understand. He is condemned because he is an infidel.” She knew she was riding the edge of the ravine again, matching her courage against the standard Akbar Khan had set for her long ago. To show the slightest hesitation, the merest hint of a faint heart, would lose Akbar’s interest. And once that was lost, he would give not a straw for her fate … or that of Kit.