A Beggar at the Gate

by Thalassa Ali

  “No one knows,” the Political Agent replied in his high, nasal voice. “Of course one of my couriers came to me as soon as the accident occurred. In fact,” he added importantly, “the man killed a horse in his haste to bring me the news. But even I do not know for certain what happened to Prince Nau Nihal Singh. Those most easily blamed had relatives injured or killed in the accident. The stones that fell may have been dislodged by all the cannon fire after Maharajah Kharrak Singh died.” He shrugged, bird-like, inside his black frock coat.

  “And will there now be competition for the throne?” asked a baggage officer.

  “Oh, yes.” The Vulture leaned back in his seat and made a steeple of his fingers. “The mad Kharrak Singh's famously difficult widow, who somehow escaped dying on his funeral pyre, has suddenly claimed that her dead son's wife is expecting a child. Insisting that the unborn child will be male, the woman has named herself Regent until it comes of age, forcing the Sikh Council, which had already pronounced the young Maharajah's uncle Sher Singh to be the next Maharajah, to rescind its decision. Sher Singh, naturally, is infuriated.”

  “And what is he like?” asked another officer.

  “I have met Sher Singh twice. He is an entertaining, larger-than-life character: a heavy-drinking Punjabi who might be said to resemble Henry the Eighth. He is popular with the army, which apparently supports his claim to the throne.”

  “This seems a dangerous business,” observed Uncle Adrian. “The Sikh army under Sher Singh could be a formidable force.”

  “It would. I shouldn't be surprised,” the Vulture added carelessly, “if there were an explosion of violence between Sher Singh and the Regent Queen.”

  “But we had planned to stay three weeks in Lahore!” cried Lady Macnaghten. “Surely you do not mean there will be fighting whilst we're there?”

  “Oh, I very much doubt it will come to anything yet,” soothed the Vulture. “By the time that happens, Lady Macnaghten, you will already be in Kabul, giving your first ball. And unpleasant though the Queen may be,” he added with a smile, “she has been most charming to us. She has,” he said grandly, “offered us the Koh-i-noor diamond.”

  “Which diamond?” Lady Macnaghten leaned forward.

  “The diamond known as the Mountain of Light. It weighs twenty-nine carats, and is coveted by everyone who has ever seen it. Princes have fought over it for centuries.” The Vulture leaned back in his seat. “The Koh-i-noor is one of the great treasures of India.

  “I am also glad to say,” he went on, “that the Regent Queen has cooperated quite well with us in the matter of the Afghan tribesmen who come down through the Khyber Pass to attack and rob Englishmen traveling to Kabul without sufficient escort. Only a month ago, a Major Effington was robbed of his money, goods, and horse, and left for dead. I have persuaded the Rani to take strong action against this sort of behavior.”

  “And all of this is in exchange for what?” inquired Uncle Adrian, taking the words out of Mariana's mouth.

  “The Queen has somehow convinced herself that we are going to help her against Sher Singh.”

  Uncle Adrian's face had begun to redden. “And how has that occurred?”

  The Vulture shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “And what action does the Rani propose to take against the Afghans?”

  “Oh, nothing unusual,” the Vulture replied casually. “All Afghans who come into the Punjab are to register with the Sikh government. Those who do not will be subject to public floggings, being shot from cannon, that sort of thing. Some of them are useful to us, of course,” he added, as he stirred his coffee. “They bring intelligence and so on, but most Afghans are no more than savages.”

  Charles Mott set down his own cup with a little groan of boredom. Mariana inched her chair away from him. Why did the fool not listen to this important conversation? Who had appointed him an intelligence officer?

  “Whatever happens to the Sikhs and the Afghans,” Lady Macnaghten said, laying down her fan with a decisive little gesture, “I certainly hope we do not meet any savages on our way to Kabul.”

  January 3, 1841

  The forty courtiers had stood in the delicately mirrored pavilion for nearly an hour, listening to the demands of Kharrak Singh's widow. Water splashed in the sunny courtyard fountains outside as they tried to persuade her to share power with Prince Sher Singh, their eyes on the curtain that blocked off one end of the breezy, shadowed room.

  “I will never share this kingdom with the son of a clothes dyer!” The Rani's throaty voice erupted from behind the curtain while the courtiers shifted and sighed. “I am the daughter of military heroes. Everyone knows what Sher Singh's mother did behind Maharajah Ranjit Singh's back. Hah! My husband was mad, but at least he had royal blood—”

  “The Punjab should have one ruler, not two,” murmured a pearl-laden man in a gorgeous striped turban. “The Rani should leave the work of ruling to Sher Singh, and wait peacefully for her grandchild to be born. It is up to Fate to determine whether the child is male or female, whether the Rani will win or lose.”

  A tall Hindu leaned over, his emerald earrings swinging, his lips to the first man's ear. “Do not speak,” he cautioned in a whisper. “There is treachery here.”

  Faqeer Azizuddin, the Foreign Minister, found Hassan Ali Khan leaning against an inlaid pillar, his back to the sun, watching as the most influential men in the kingdom murmured among themselves. Catching Hassan's eye, the Faqeer nodded, his coarse beggar's robe wrapped carefully against the chill breeze that entered through the filigreed windows of the pavilion.

  “And you, little she-camel,” the Rani went on, now seeming to address someone who had joined her behind the curtain, “remove your face from my sight, you who have killed my son with your ill luck. Black was the day when I married my son to you! Who would want you, but for the child you are carrying?”

  As the sound of a girl's sobbing reached them, Hassan brushed a hand over his face. “How will the Punjab survive such base people? How can the kingdom have come to—”

  “And you, Dhian Singh,” the harsh female voice continued, “you who will not let me have the Koh-i-noor diamond—you may be Prime Minister now, but you have come up from nothing. You are a self-made upstart—”

  The Faqeer shook his head as he and Hassan started down the pavilion steps and into the courtyard. “She has gone too far,” he murmured.

  “Surely after this,” Hassan ventured when they were out of earshot, “the Prime Minister will abandon her side and join Sher Singh.”

  “My dear, I believe he already has,” replied the Faqeer.

  “Then she has no chance,” Hassan whispered as they crossed the courtyard. “Perhaps the Punjab, too, has no chance.”

  THE SHAIKH's family courtyard was a pleasant place to sit on winter mornings. Before the sun began its slow descent toward the roof of the upstairs ladies’ quarters, its rays fell kindly upon the courtyard, illuminating the haveli's frescoed walls and its single tree. When Hassan was not at the Citadel with the other courtiers, he and his childhood friend Yusuf Bhatti had the courtyard to themselves. In the hours before the usual crowd of respectful guests began to filter in through the gate to visit the Shaikh, the two men sat together on a string bed beside the tree, the sun on their shoulders, a bubbling hookah on the ground between them.

  They made an unlikely pair—Hassan tall and open-faced, whose fastidious style of dress made up for the asymmetry of his broken nose, and Yusuf thick-bodied and rough-looking, his heavy curved sword lying close at hand, the handle of a serviceable knife protruding from the sash about his waist.

  Today they were not alone. A while earlier as they sat peaceably passing the mouthpiece of the hookah back and forth, a servant had hurried from the outer courtyard.

  “The Afghan traders have come,” the man announced. “They are waiting outside.”

  Now, in place of the smoldering hookah, bundles, packets, and caged birds stood before the two men, while opposite them,
two traders sat cross-legged on another, newly arrived bed, a pair of decorated jezails slung across their backs.

  The elder of the two traders was a lean man with heavy eyebrows and startlingly pale eyes. He smiled, revealing an even row of white teeth as Hassan took a teapot from the tray beside him and filled his glass with cardamom-scented tea.

  “So, Zulmai,” Hassan said, “now that it is winter in Afghanistan, are you glad to be here in my Lahore, the City of Roses?”

  The trader shook his head. “You never tire of asking me that. You have no idea how I miss my country. ”

  “Yes indeed,” Hassan agreed. “It is terrible to be parted from that which we love most. Your sadness reminds me of my own anxiety for my son. I think often of that poem—

  From Canaan, Yusuf shall return, whose face

  A little time was hidden: grieve no more—”

  “Oh, grieve no more,” Zulmai added, picking up the verse,“In sorrow's dwelling place / The roses yet shall spring from the bare floor—”

  “Ah,” Hassan sighed, his eyes half-closed. “You Afghans truly appreciate poetry.”

  “Except for him.” Zulmai pointed to his young, fresh-faced assistant, who smiled broadly, his mouth stuffed with fruit. “Habibullah here knows of nothing but guns and horses. But what of you poetry-loving Punjabis? Like us, you recite Hafiz and Rumi at a moment's notice.”

  “We do, except for him.” Hassan nodded toward the hunched figure of his old friend Yusuf Bhatti. “Yusuf is at home only in the jungle, shooting pig. It might kill him to learn a line of poetry.”

  “Then why do we not leave those two to each other,” offered the trader, “and keep only ourselves as appreciators of poetry and such?”

  Yusuf let out a barking laugh. “Hah! You may be a poet, Zulmai, but you could never spend your days sniffing perfume and reciting verses. Look at yourself, with your knives and your two jezails strapped to your back. What are your weapons for, if not fighting?”

  Zulmai did not reply. Instead, the trader nodded to his assistant, who strode off through the low gate to fetch something more from the kneeling camel that waited by the elephant stables.

  “As always, I am happy to see your wares,” Hassan told Zulmai as they watched the boy reach into one of the camel's panniers. “One of my cousins is to have his first good shawl this year, my uncle is desperate for saffron, and I hope you have brought me the amber I asked for.”

  The Afghan reached silently into his clothes and withdrew a small, neatly stitched cloth packet and then a short, wicked-looking knife. He unsheathed the knife and sliced through the cloth wrapping, revealing a small cake of ground amber. This he handed to Hassan, who lifted it to his nose.

  “Beautiful,” breathed Hassan. “And now, Zulmai, you must not take my appreciation for foolishness. And do not let me forget that Faqeer Sahib wants his saffron.”

  The trader opened his hands. “The price,” he said, “we will discuss later. Look at these.”

  From another invisible pocket he produced a smaller packet. “Rubies,” he announced as he opened the last of its coverings. There on the white cotton cloth lay six dark red Jagdalak rubies, each the size of his little fingernail.

  He repocketed the stones and gestured toward the eastern end of the city. “I have forty good Turkoman ponies at the caravanserai, and a dozen beautiful Arabs. I had wanted to show the best of my Arabs to your young Maharajah, but now that he is dead, I will show them to Raja Dhian Singh or one of the other sirdars. Speaking of the Prime Minister, has he changed sides yet?” Zulmai rested his elbows on his knees, his pale eyes on Hassan's face. “I hear he has left the Rani and offered his allegiance to Prince Sher Singh. That will be bad news for her. After all, everyone knows of Raja Dhian Singh's great riches and heavy guns.”

  Hassan shrugged. “No one knows what these sirdars are up to.”

  “I also hear that the Rani is trying to buy the aid of the British. I understand she has promised them the Koh-i-noor diamond and all of Kashmir for their help, but that the Prime Minister has said—”

  “Look!” interrupted Hassan, his face brightening as Zulmai's assistant approached, a bundle of dusty woolen fabric in his arms. “These are wonderful old shawls,” he added, standing as the boy cut open the bundle and spread its contents on the string bed. “They are Moghul. How did you find them, Zulmai?”

  The Afghan shrugged. “Not everyone understands the value of his possessions. The British are everywhere,” he persisted. “They are building themselves houses near my Kabul. They intend to stay in Afghanistan.” He smiled. “They think they have conquered us.”

  “Those British want to take over the world,” added Yusuf harshly, as Hassan studied the shawls, each finely embroidered in rich, contradictory colors. “They are waiting for us Punjabis to stumble so they can come in here with their armies.”

  Hassan bent over the charpai, a yellow shawl with a swirling design in his hands. “No one likes the British,” he observed, without looking up. “In any case, their Political Agent will be here in five days. After that we will discover his designs for the Punjab.”

  Zulmai nodded. “Yes, and your wife and son are traveling in his party, is that not so?”

  Hassan stared at Zulmai, the shawl hanging from his hands. “And you, how do you know this?”

  Zulmai shrugged. “I only listen to bazaar gossip.”

  Later, as Zulmai's loaded camel rose awkwardly to its feet in the manner of its kind and followed Zulmai and Habibullah out of the haveli, Yusuf turned to Hassan.

  “Do you trust that man?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” replied Hassan as he stared after the two traders. “I have known Zulmai for fifteen years, but I have yet to divine what he is thinking. No, I do not trust him at all.”

  January 4, 1841

  An-nah, morning has come!” Heavy breathing in her ear and tugging on her quilts told Mariana that Saboor was awake. “Has it, darling?” she murmured as she reached out from the covers, her eyes still shut, to pull him to her, still warm from his own bed.

  “Will we ride today, An-nah?” he begged, as he did each morning. “I want to ride with you all the way to the next camp. I want to gallop so-o-o fast!”

  Sitting up beside her, he pumped his elbows to indicate speed.

  She yawned. “We shall see, my little cabbage.”

  Perhaps she would let him ride today, astride her lap in the sidesaddle, shrieking with excitement when she gave in and galloped a short distance for his pleasure, one arm wrapped tightly about his middle.

  She sat up and surveyed her tent with satisfaction. Fifteen feet square, it was the same size as the one she had occupied on her previous journey to the Punjab, but it was far more comfortable. In addition to the four-poster bed, the bedside table, and washstand, it boasted Miss Emily's small, elderly settee, which doubled as Saboor's bed, and an arrangement for sitting, native-fashion, on the floor. The floor arrangement pleased Mariana most, for with its thick, knotted carpet, its stuffed bolsters and its two tiny, carved tables, her tent had a definitely un-English look.

  “Come in,” she called, as a storm of coughing outside her tent heralded the arrival of Dittoo with her coffee tray.

  “We are nearly there,” Dittoo announced as he backed into the tent, the tray in his hands. “Ghulam Ali says we are only two marches from Lahore.”

  The evidence had been growing daily of their closeness to Lahore. Sikhs with long, wrapped beards and plain turbans had been evident in every village for a week, along with the usual Hindus and Muslims, but now the villages looked more prosperous, and the flat, dusty fields were full of half-grown wheat.

  There had been other changes in the past few days. Charles Mott seemed to have developed a strong attachment to the Vulture, and now hung on the Political Agent's every word. Several times, Mariana had seen him pull up a chair and join pre-dinner conversations between the Vulture and two of the army officers.

  She often wondered what the four men talked a
bout. I cannot help thinking, she had confided in a letter to her father, that they are plotting something.

  When he was not thus engrossed, Mott watched Mariana. She had caught him several times, gazing at her from a distance. At meals, she felt his covert attention on her, distracting her uncomfortably from her food.

  Aunt Claire, who had noticed this, gave him her small, fashionable smile at every opportunity.

  Mariana sighed into her coffee cup. She would not miss Charles Mott at all, when this journey came to an end.

  At six-fifteen Mariana sent a disappointed Saboor to travel on a donkey cart with Dittoo and emerged into the morning to find three saddled horses near her uncle's tent, attended by several dark-skinned grooms. She watched with pleasure as her slow-moving aunt emerged from her tent stuffed into a riding habit and top hat.

  “See, Aunt Claire,” Mariana asked happily, after her aunt had hoisted herself onto one of the mares, aided by a groom, “isn't it lovely to ride so early, while it is so cool and pleasant? I am certain you will enjoy it, and I am sure we shall find interesting villages and ruins on the way.”

  “The weather is the least of my concerns, Mariana,” her aunt called from her sidesaddle, her voice carrying over the shouts of coolies and the groans of camels, “and you may be sure that I shall not look at a single native ruin or village on the way. I am going straight from here to the dining tent, where I shall eat my breakfast in peace. What an hour to be on a horse!”

  By the time the three riders had set off, followed by the vanguard of the baggage train, Lady Macnaghten was already too far ahead of them to be seen, having ridden away earlier with the Vulture and one of the army officers. One lone European figure rode in front of Mariana and her family, his horse raising a dust cloud that obscured his identity.

  “Is that Mr. Mott?” Aunt Claire inquired, shading her eyes with a gloved hand.