Bold Destiny

by Jane Feather

  She looked up at a great snow peak dwarfing the calm, indifferent mountain to which their village clung. A small ivory butterfly with gray wing markings danced against a clump of spring primulas. The delicate, tranquil evening light bathed the village, transmuting the ugliness and squalor, banishing the miseries of cruelty and poverty. It was a fine evening for a wedding.

  She picked a handful of white daisies, threading them into a coronet, remembering her girlhood when she had done this at the summer house in the mountains above Peshawar. Then she turned and made her way back to the village.

  There was considerable commotion, but it was not of the distressed variety. Lady Sale was vigorously giving orders, mostly to Kit who appeared not to be taking any notice. The padre was offering soothing murmurs. The rest of the community was expressing varying degrees of excitement.

  “But where is the bride?” Brigadier Shelton was heard to ask above the hubbub.

  “Here.” Annabel walked toward them, the crown of daisies wreathed into the bright burnished copper of her hair, released from its braid to cascade down her back.

  Wordlessly, Kit held out his hand to her and she stepped beside him, smiling.

  A curious hush fell abruptly over the group. The villagers came out of their huts to stare in fearful incomprehension at the strange antics of the infidels. The setting sun caught alight the dominating snow peak, spilling fire down the mountainside, setting the village awash with a gentle reflecting glow.

  The padre spoke clearly in the mountain stillness, the words redolent of promise and hope in a shared future. The celebrants made their responses with the same clarity, and if Annabel cast a swift invocation to Destiny, it was between themselves.

  That night, Christopher Ralston lay down decorously and legally beside his wife in a crowded, vermin-infested mud hut. Annabel, blessed with the ability to ignore such discomforts, fell asleep almost immediately, and Kit lay staring into the darkness. St. George’s, Hanover Square! The absurd comparison brought a hastily suppressed choke of laughter to his lips. Slipping an arm beneath the peacefully sleeping figure at his side, he rolled her into his embrace beneath the threadbare scrap of blanket they shared, and fell asleep, counting flea bites and his blessings.

  Two weeks later, Annabel came into the hut that served as a general common room. “It seems we are to be moved again,” she said matter-of-factly. “The guards have received a message from Akbar Khan. Apparently, he is gaining the ascendancy in Kabul and we’re to be taken closer to the city while he waits to see what the British generals at Jalalabad and Kandahar intend.”

  “Anything has to be better than this place,” Mrs. Armstrong declared for them all. “When are we to move?”

  “Within the hour,” Annabel said. “If we can be packed up by then.” The pleasantry was received with wryly appreciative smiles.

  “Shir Muhammed was talking about the fortress of Abdul Rahim,” she said. “It is about three miles outside Kabul, and if it is to be our destination, I can think of many worse places.”

  “Clean?” demanded Lady Sale.

  “And commodious,” replied Annabel with a twinkle. “With access to the river and pleasant gardens. I do not think Akbar Khan wishes you to be uncomfortable if he can avoid it.” She realized her slip too late to correct it unobtrusively so let it lie. You … us … me … it was still hard sometimes, and Kit seemed to understand. He was smiling at her in the special way, indicative of secret pleasure that he had developed since the wedding, as if he had pulled off a coup of some magnitude. It made her want to pat his head and kiss his eyelids as if he were a little boy who had won a prize.

  They set off again, thankful to be leaving Zandeh behind and hopeful that their new quarters would be an improvement. Strangely, they no longer thought of their captivity as temporary, the prospect of freedom the be-all and end-all of their existence. Their goals were simply the day-to-day ones of adequate and palatable food, the struggle against dirt and disease, the endless battle to maintain some standards of courtesy and conduct, setting an example to the children, some of whom were beginning to run wild.

  Much to Annabel’s amusement, Kit had taken one particularly obnoxious little boy under his wing. The child’s mother was ill, his father dead at Khoord Kabul, and sturdy little Edmund Marten had managed to alienate weary adults and fractious children alike. The more friendless he became, the more unpleasant he became.

  Finding him in the act of tormenting a fragile child with a particularly thorny piece of bramble, Kit had cuffed him soundly and carted him off, screaming ferociously, to the small area he and Annabel called home.

  “Someone has to take on the miserable little tyke,” he said, sounding somewhat apologetic, when Annabel had raised an inquiring eyebrow. “It doesn’t do any good to treat him like a pariah.”

  “No,” she agreed serenely, regarding the child who was kicking and spitting with what could only be called ingratitude against the hand that held him fast by the collar. “What do you suggest?”

  Kit looked at her and his lips twitched. “I have this horrible feeling that I might have turned out just like him, in similar circumstances.”

  “Oh, no, surely not,” she said in exaggerated disbelief. “You must have been angelic, with all those golden curls.”

  Kit looked rueful. “That was the trouble. I was spoiled rotten, and I dread to think what would have happened if the attention had been withdrawn as it was for this brat. Apart from anything else, I think he’s terrified. Stop bawling, Edmund, I can’t hear myself think.”

  To their amazement, Edmund’s bellowing ceased. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Since handkerchiefs were a long-forgotten commodity, no one made any objection. “You hit me,” he accused. “I’m going to tell my mother when she’s better.”

  Kit smiled. “Yes, so you shall. But you asked for it. Why don’t you come with me now and we’ll see if we can catch a fish in the stream?”

  “I’ll come too,” Annabel said.

  “Ladies don’t fish,” Edmund stated.

  “That’s how much you know, Master Edmund,” Annabel retorted.

  “Ladies don’t wear trousers, either,” he said.

  Annabel laughed. “Now there you may have a point. But who’s talking about ladies?”

  From that afternoon, they formed an unusual threesome. Edmund ate with them, slept in their corner, and followed Kit around like some small snub-nosed puppy. When he became disagreeable, Kit brushed him aside as if he were an irritating fly, and gradually the child became cheerful and confiding. Annabel was both intrigued and moved by this new side of Kit. He’d told her how children had always bored him, how the prospect of setting up his own nursery had filled him with gloomy trepidation, although he’d assumed at some point he’d have to fulfill the obligations of the son and heir. This Kit, she rather thought, would reveal some surprising talents in the realm of fatherhood … if such a realm lay in his destiny.

  Now, as they rode away from Zandeh, Edmund was riding with Kit, chattering with the single-minded egoism of an eight-year-old. Annabel listened with half an ear. She had the conviction that circumstances were going to change, but whether for the better or not she couldn’t sense. Some resolution of the conflict had to be in the offing. If Akbar Khan was truly gaining ground, then their imprisonment would probably be of short duration. If he was losing ground, then he would hold on to them to the bitter end. But bringing them to Kabul seemed to indicate the former situation. Maybe they would leave Afghanistan alive after all. And then what would she do? Mrs. Christopher Ralston at the vicarage garden party? Paying morning calls in her barouche? Attending soirees? Where did she belong? Until she discovered that, the sense of something still outstanding would not be laid to rest.

  “Deep and dismal thoughts?” Kit’s voice, light yet with a note of anxiety broke into her musings.

  “Not in the least,” she denied.

  “Liar,” he said.

  “Why’s Annabel lying?
” Edmund piped up with sudden interest.

  “I am not lying,” she said firmly. “I was just wondering what it will be like in the new place.”

  “Liar,” Kit mouthed.

  She didn’t bother to defend herself this time. Strictly speaking, she had been thinking of a new life in a new place.

  The sound of gunfire, the first they had heard since leaving the retreat at Khoord Kabul, reached the weary cortege as they came within sight of Kabul. Akbar Khan’s forces were firing at the Balla Hissar where Shah Soojah’s son, as his successor, was struggling to maintain a losing position.

  “It’s hard to believe that we’ve come full circle since January,” Kit commented. “I never expected to see those walls again.”

  So much death lay between the journey out and this return, Annabel thought. Perhaps they were destined to wander this land endlessly. But she only thought that when she was weary in spirit.

  The fort of Abdul Rahim was as she had promised. The zenana was given over to the prisoners, with its pretty private garden and series of comfortable, well-appointed chambers. They were allowed free access to the river, flowing behind the fortress, and after the exigencies of Budiabad and Zandeh, they seemed to be in paradise. Edmund’s mother began to recover her strength and the Ralstons found the child to be a less frequent third party, although Kit kept a vigilant eye on the boy and was quick to express his displeasure whenever Edmund showed a not unnatural inclination to take advantage of his mother’s convalescent frailty.

  On a hot August morning, Akbar Khan came to Abdul Rahim’s fort. Annabel was in the garden, teaching elementary Persian to a group of the older children, when Mohammed Shah Khan summoned her to the khan’s presence chamber.

  Her first thought was one of panic. What could he want with her? The manner in which he had discarded her surely prohibited any further congress between them. And then came the blinding illumination. It was this that remained outstanding: the sore, like a cut that would not heal, that had rubbed raw against any peace she might have found. Only Akbar Khan could close the wound … could set her both free and clear.

  How should she go to him? As Ayesha or as Annabel? It was Ayesha he had discarded, but he had never acknowledged Annabel. She felt Kit’s eyes on her. He stood behind Akbar Khan’s lieutenant, saying nothing, but his silence was more eloquent than any speech. She was married to him … Akbar Khan was nothing to her now … or was he?

  “You will give me a few minutes to prepare myself,” she said to Mohammed Shah Khan, rising from the stone bench and hurrying inside.

  Kit followed her into the cool, shuttered seclusion of the zenana. “Annabel, you are not obliged to obey that summons.”

  “You know that I am.” She had reached the room they shared with two other families. “We are still his prisoners.”

  “But he no longer has any claims upon you,” Kit said. He stood by the door, holding himself away from her, trying to keep from his face and voice his desperate longing that she would refuse to obey the call. “If he wishes to discuss the affairs of the hostages, then he should do so with Shelton.”

  She turned to face him. “Kit, I must go to him.” She spoke with difficulty, trying to say what she had to without its sounding threatening. “I do not think he has any further claims upon me, but I feel there is unfinished business between us. I must hear what he has to say.”

  “Very well. If you must, you must.” His voice sounded flat. “But you are my wife, and I claim the right to come with you.”

  A deep frown drew her eyebrows together. “That is absurd. Akbar Khan will not hurt me. What are you afraid of?”

  How could he tell her, when he didn’t really know how to say it to himself? He still wasn’t sure of her. He wasn’t confident that the chains that bound her to him were indissoluble. They hadn’t had sufficient time to discover, no time for private explorations and the intimate negotiations out of which grew shared and lasting goals and commitment. They didn’t know, for God’s sake, whether shared and lasting goals and commitment was even a realistic aim. And the chains that bound them had been forged in such a passionate inferno. Supposing the metal had cooled and weakened in the air of everyday?

  He turned back to the door. “You must do whatever you wish, Annabel.”

  “Yes, I think I must,” she said quietly. “May I borrow your cravat?”

  At that he swung around on her, his eyes as coldly piercing as the winter wind. “No, you may not! My wife will not go veiled before a tribal chieftain!”

  She bit her lip. “Kit, I wish simply to observe the courtesies. This is Akbar Khan’s land and his customs rule. I do not consider I have the right to offend against those customs. If the feringhee had accepted that in the first place, matters would be very different now.”

  “You go to Akbar Khan if you must, Annabel, but you go as a feringhee … as my wife … with your eyes raised and your head bare. You may be as polite as you please, but so help me you will stand up and be counted as one of us. If you do not, then there is nothing for you and me, and never can be.” The words sickened him, yet he knew they were true. He saw her face whiten at the ultimatum, shock springing into the deep green eyes. Without another word, he left her, the door swinging forlornly behind him.

  Annabel stood still for a long moment. If Akbar Khan still had a hold upon her soul, then it was time to find out … time to break it. The hold he had was based on the molding of the child growing to womanhood. There had been dependency and fear, and liking, also—a most powerful combination. But Kit was right. She must now stand up and be counted, face down the person created by that combination and allow Annabel to be herself … allow the essence to shine free and clear.

  She brushed her hair and walked back to the garden, where the lieutenant was waiting for her. “I am ready.”

  Kit stood in the shade of a juniper tree and watched her walk out of the garden, moving with that fluid grace he had loved from the first moment, her hair glowing unfettered in the sunlight, her back straight, her head up. Would he win?

  The lieutenant pushed open the door to the presence chamber, a comfortable room of silken carpets and tapestried walls and upholstered divans. Akbar Khan was sitting on a divan beneath the open window. The bright blue eyes missed none of the significance as she walked slowly across to him, her bare head high.

  “Mandeh nabashi, Akbar Khan.”

  “Salaamat bashi, Ayesha.”

  “You look unwell,” she said softly.

  “I am weary,” he replied. “But what of you? Are you managing to tread the wire, to belong in essence yet not to be of them?”

  “I am of them,” she said.

  “Ah.” He stroked his beard. “You have found happiness with Ralston, huzoor?”

  “In as far as it is possible to find happiness in such uncertainty,” she said truthfully, taking a seat on the ottoman at his feet as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as indeed it was.

  “The British are intending to march in strength on Kabul from Kandahar and Jalalabad,” he said. “This will be over soon. We have expelled Shah Soojah’s son from Kabul and the British puppets are no longer enthroned. I imagine there will be negotiations at Kabul … negotiations which will eventually lead to the departure of the British from this land.” A smile quirked his mouth. “I am certain they will wish to exact some retribution before conceding.”

  “What is to happen to us?”

  He shrugged. “I have no interest in harming any of them. Whether they will be rescued or surrendered remains to be seen.”

  “You say ‘they,’ ” she said hesitantly. “What of me?”

  “Ah, Ayesha, it is simply a case of old habits dying hard,” he said. “You do not belong with me. But I will tell you this.” Reaching down, he took her chin, turning her face toward him. “You will never truly belong to the feringhee, either.”

  “So I must find my own place.”

  He nodded. “ ‘Some little talk awhile of me and thee’ —”r />
  “ ‘And then no more of thee and me,’ ” she finished, rising gracefully. “Is this farewell?”

  “Yes, Ayesha. Remember the words of Khayyam. They will help you to find your own place.”

  She left him, a hard, sad knot in her throat, yet she knew that she was now free and clear, the past within her, intrinsic to who she was, yet in no way binding her.

  Instead of returning to the zenana, she went down to the river. It flowed over large stones gleaming whitely through the clear water. Golden buttercups glimmered in the thick moss on the sedge-lined bank. There was no one around, but she didn’t think she would care if there were. She unfastened her slippers and slipped out of her chalvar and tunic, then twisted her hair into a rough and heavy knot on top of her head before wading into the river.

  She had been expecting the cold. These waters flowed from the mountains, and not even the summer sun could do more than take the ice off the surface. Nevertheless, she yelped, and Kit, who had followed her at a discreet distance, chuckled involuntarily, despite the anxiety that had kept him in the shadows outside the presence chamber and that had driven him in her footsteps, afraid to confront her truth, yet knowing he must.

  He stood enjoying the sight as she waded thigh-deep in the water, holding her hands outstretched, summoning up the courage to take the plunge. Then she dived forward, a bare white arm cleaving the water cleanly, at the height of its arc catching the sunlight.

  It was how he had first seen her. He stepped over to the pile of clothes on the bank, his back to the water.

  The freezing clasp around his neck took him by surprise for all that he had been waiting for some reaction. “Do not move, feringhee,” she said in that fierce voice.

  With a swift movement, he swung his arms behind him and clamped her wet, naked, ice-cold body against his back. “This time you do not have a stiletto.” He chuckled, then shivered. “But I think you could probably freeze me to death! Are you mad, Annabel?” He released his grip and turned to face her.