A Beggar at the Gate

by Thalassa Ali

  “Then that will be Sher Singh's command post,” Yusuf decreed. “The assassins may not know of that underground room yet, but they will learn of it when they see men going up and down the stairs.”

  “And where will the snipers hide themselves?” Hassan leaned his arms on the parapet and stared down at the garden.

  “One may hide there.” Habibullah joined him and pointed toward an ancient tree whose gnarled roots offered enough cover for a prone man.

  “And another there.” Yusuf tipped his head toward a low, ruined wall.

  Zulmai shrugged. “It does not matter. There are a hundred places where a man might hide. Their orders are to conceal themselves and wait while the garden fills with soldiers and artillery. Then, during the heat of battle, when all is noisy and Sher Singh cannot resist showing himself and looking toward the gate, they will take their shots.

  “The Prince has been clever to be so vague as to the day and time of his attack,” he added. “The more uncertain he has been regarding the date, the more desperate the Political Agent has become.”

  Remembering the Englishman's letter, Yusuf met Hassan's eyes.

  The sky behind the four men had turned pink, but no muezzin summoned the faithful to their sunset prayers from a towering minaret of the Badshahi Mosque. Now converted to a Sikh powder magazine, the mosque kept its silence.

  Hassan sighed. “We can only pray that the assassins learn the time of the attack too late, or that Sher Singh's men catch them in time. In any case, Yusuf, we must be off to warn him.”

  “Tell me, Zulmai,” Yusuf inquired, as he descended the marble staircase, his weapons clanking at his side, “who besides us knows of this plot?”

  “People know of it,” replied Zulmai, “but none of them care. They are all Afghans. The Political Agent has paid them well to hold their tongues.”

  “So you learned all this from one of your countrymen, not from a higher source.” Yusuf's tone had roughened. “How can you be certain that it is true?”

  “I was not told of these plans by an Afghan. I learned what I have told you from the Political Agent himself.”

  Zulmai smiled as he stepped out into the sunlight. “He thinks,” he added softly, as he hitched his jezails higher on his shoulder, “that I am one of the five assassins.”

  “I AM told that Sher Singh has bought and paid for twenty-six thousand infantrymen from Mianmir and Begampura,” Hassan remarked as he and Yusuf sat in the courtyard of Qamar Haveli half an hour later. “They are to march sometime in the next two days, under cover of night.”

  “And his plan?”

  Hassan drew a circle with the toe of his shoe in the dust of the courtyard. “When they arrive,” he said, pointing toward the right side of the circle, “half of them will enter the city from the east, by the Delhi and Yakki gates.”

  “So near this house.” Yusuf blew out a long breath. “Are you worried?”

  “My father has refused to leave the haveli. I must therefore put my trust in Allah.

  “The rest of Sher Singh's army will come around to the Citadel side,” Hassan continued, pointing to the left side of his circle. “Of those, half will enter the city through the Taxali Gate, and the remainder will enter the Hazuri Bagh and prepare to blow in the Alamgiri Gate and take the Citadel by force.

  “I understand,” he added, “that Sher Singh's representative has been handing gold mohurs to the troops guarding all three city gates. Each one is to be opened at a signal, without a shot fired.” He shook his head. “So our army has sold its blood to the highest bidder.”

  “And Sher Singh will order the Rani to surrender after he has subdued the city.”

  “Yes, and of course she will refuse.”

  “Of course.”

  “It will be good riddance when she leaves,” barked Yusuf. “I never could stand what I heard about the woman. At least Sher Singh is a fighting man.”

  As Hassan nodded and got to his feet, a man approached them from across the courtyard.

  “Peace,” Ghulam Ali offered, his white beard jutting aggressively. “I have news for Hassan Sahib. I have come from the direction of Shalimar,” he continued, without waiting to be asked. “There were soldiers and artillery on the road. I asked where they were going, and they said they were on their way to Buddhu da Awa to join Prince Sher Singh's forces.”

  “And?” Hassan raised his eyebrows.

  “They told me they were marching on Lahore tonight.”

  Hassan nodded his thanks to the courier. “Wait for me, Yusuf,” he said, before striding quickly away toward his father's sitting room.

  A SHORT while later, Yusuf drummed his fingers on his knee as he and Hassan rode toward the Delhi Gate. “Let us hope Sher Singh has not left already. I do not want to chase him over the countryside in the dark. But then,” he shrugged, “if he is not at his camp, we can always send him a warning message.”

  “No, Yusuf.” Hassan shook his head. “It would be too risky to entrust such an important message to anyone else. There is treachery everywhere these days.”

  Yusuf thrust a meaty hand toward the crowd trying to get through the gate. “Look at these wretches, running away from the city. I hear that half of them have buried their valuables, not that it ever helps them.” He shook his head dolefully. “Whatever happens now, Punjabis will soon be killing each other.”

  White-uniformed infantry soldiers in black cross belts and silk turbans were in evidence everywhere, lounging in groups about shuttered bazaars, standing tensely in front of the tall city houses. Here at the gate, they waited, their hungry eyes scouring the crowd with its animals and heavy bundles of valuables.

  Hassan sighed. “And look at our soldiers. Who knows which side any of them has taken? Once they were our pride. Now they look like common criminals.”

  On horse- or elephant-back, in carts, or on foot with their possessions on their heads, wearing fine shawls or rags, the crowd streamed out through the gate, the men in dhotis or shalwars, and their women bare-faced or shrouded in burqas according to their faith, the children silent and staring.

  “Have you noticed,” Hassan asked as they rode under the gate's thick, pointed arch, “that no member of this crowd has looked back?”

  The two men followed the road to Shalimar. Clouds overhead obscured a half-moon, leaving only nearby villages to offer frail, glowing landmarks until their inhabitants fell asleep, and they, too, disappeared into the darkness.

  “The turnoff must be somewhere here,” Hassan muttered. “I have seen it a thousand times by daylight.”

  “Wait.” Yusuf held up a hand in the darkness. “Do you hear that sound? Something has disturbed the dogs in the village over there.” Without waiting for Hassan, he wheeled his mount and left the road.

  New sounds added themselves to the barking of the dogs: the clopping of hooves, the murmuring of men's voices, the tramp of marching feet. As the clouds parted overhead, allowing a thin light to fall upon the scene, a ghostly column of white-clad figures appeared, muskets on their shoulders. They marched rapidly along an invisible track at right angles to the main road, accompanied by two dozen men on horseback. As the file approached, more dogs added their voices to the first ones, signaling the presence of more invisible soldiers.

  While Hassan and Yusuf watched silently, the column gained the main road. They turned, four abreast, toward Lahore city.

  “At the rate they are traveling,” Yusuf murmured, “they will be outside the city in less than an hour.”

  After the column disappeared into the darkness, a file of camels strode into view, each camel carrying a soldier and a swivel gun. Behind them rolled fourteen horse-drawn artillery pieces.

  “Sher Singh's force. About five thousand men,” Yusuf muttered.

  “Then we must hurry.”

  But in that uncertain light they could not hurry. Instead, they let their horses pick their way over the path taken by the army until they came to the forbidding mound of brick and earth where Sher Sing
h had set up his court. After passing hundreds more milling soldiers and mounted officers, Hassan and Yusuf urged their horses up the broad stone steps leading to the summit and its ruined pavilion. There tents had been set up to accommodate the members of Sher Singh's temporary court. “No one is here,” a guard told the two men, looking up from his meal. “They left hours ago. No, I cannot say where they have gone, or when they will return.”

  “If Sher Singh is not with that column, we may not be able to find him,” Yusuf said thoughtfully as he and Hassan returned the way they had come. “In that case, we must collect Zulmai and his fat-faced friend from the caravanserai, and then you can go home to Qamar Haveli and leave us to deal with the assassins ourselves.”

  “I am not going home. I am coming with you.”

  “But you are not needed,” Yusuf countered flatly. “There will be only four assassins, and Zulmai is worth two men. He comes from a family of crack shots. His father killed a hundred ibex in his youth. He told us so himself. And we will have the advantage of surprise, at least at the beginning,” he went on, softening his tone. “Both Habibullah and I are used to these things. You, Hassan, are a courtier.”

  “I cannot ask the three of you to risk your lives while I sit safely in my house.”

  Why did the fellow sound so bitter? By the moon's uncertain light, Yusuf thought he saw fury on his old friend's face.

  “Something has happened,” he said sharply. “What is it?”

  “My wife has run away to Shalimar. She left this afternoon.”

  “But you said she wanted to divorce you. Why did she not follow the proper procedure?”

  “She has it in her head that you and I intend to kill her relatives and the British at Shalimar.”

  Yusuf groaned aloud.

  “She must have run away to warn them.” Hassan shook his head wearily. “You were right, Yusuf. I should have divorced her long ago.

  “I can shoot,” he added, turning in his saddle, his face unreadable in the dimness. “I would hate to kill, but I would do it for the Punjab. I have a musket at home. I even have a Khyber knife. Nothing,” he said fiercely, “will stop me from coming with you to the Hazuri Bagh.”

  “If that is truly your wish, my friend,” Yusuf replied, shaking his head, “then I can only pray that Allah Most Gracious sends us luck.”

  January 16, 1841

  As daylight filtered through the side panels of her palanquin, Mariana banged on its roof, urging her bearers to hurry, then sat back on her cushions and looked at her timepiece. It was a quarter to six.

  All night, she and her aunt had watched helplessly as her uncle thrashed under his quilts, his face damp and taut with agony. Once he had grasped Mariana's hand and tried, frantically, to tell her something, but his wife had leapt from her chair and forbidden him to speak. Once or twice he had gulped down the sweetened vinegar water. Otherwise, he had shown no improvement.

  It had been nearly daylight before Mariana had been allowed to leave them. She had rushed to her tent, shaken the dust from her native clothes, and put them on. Unable to wedge her bandaged feet into her ruined native slippers, she had laced them into her own English boots instead, snatched up a few shawls and Akhtar's filthy chador, and sent for her palanquin.

  The morning air felt misty and cold. The palki jogged along, its bearers breathing loudly in unison as they ran, while the lead bearer murmured the condition of the road to those running blindly behind him. Inside, Mariana shifted beneath the quilt and abandoned herself to the exciting memory of Hassan's weight upon her body.

  Once she reached Qamar Haveli, she would beg his forgiveness and promise never to leave again. She would admit her mistake. She would tell him that she trusted him absolutely, and swear that she would do whatever he asked if he would let her inhabit even a small corner of his life.

  He would not deny her that much. Surely, in time, he would stroke her face again while she turned his beautiful gold medallion over in her fingers. Surely, she would once again breathe in the burnt perfume of his skin

  The smell of frying, filth, and corrupted roses replaced the tang of dung fires that had scented the air since Shalimar. The shouts of agitated men and the braying of animals reached into her palki. She must be nearing the old caravanserai, and the Delhi Gate beyond.

  Shortly afterward, jolts and tremors told her that her bearers were having trouble with the crowd. The crush must be even greater than it had been the previous afternoon. Staccato voices shouted angrily nearby. Animal bodies scraped against the palanquin. Inside the tightly closed box, she reached for a handhold, hating her sudden fear and her inability to see out.

  “Hurry,” she ordered, banging on the roof with an anxious hand, willing them to get her out of this tumult and into the normal, busy lanes of the city, where she would be safe.

  “Move out!” her head bearer shouted. Scuffling erupted close by. An animal let out a mournful groan. Metal clashed against metal beside her.

  At last the palki moved forward with fewer jolts, as if the way had finally been cleared. Mariana's heart slowed. The echo of her bearers’ breathing told her that she was finally under the heavy stone archway of the Delhi Gate.

  She shifted against her cushions, relieved to be away from the mob, but why were the streets around her now so strangely silent? Where were the carts that should be rumbling past her? Where were the footfalls and voices of the busy inhabitants of the walled city?

  Without warning, her palanquin dropped to the ground.

  She opened the panel and saw she was only a hundred yards inside the Delhi Gate. Of its bazaar, with its colorful piles of spices and sacks of grains, there was no sign. All she saw were dull, faceless boards and padlocked doors. The street, as far as she could see in either direction, was deathly still.

  “What are you doing, Munnoo?” she called, leaning out of the palki. “Why have you stopped? This is not Qamar Haveli.”

  Her sirdar bearer turned to her, his proud, wizened face puckered with unfamiliar emotion. “We must go back,” he told her.

  “But you must take me to the haveli, Munnoo. We cannot simply turn—”

  “No, Memsahib.” He pointed to something Mariana could not see. “If you will not let us take you back to Shalimar,” he insisted, his voice suddenly wobbling with fright, “we will leave you here alone.”

  Leave her there? But only the most dishonorable palanquin bearers did such things. “Munnoo, you cannot possibly—”

  Before she had finished speaking, Munnoo and the other bearers sprinted away toward the Delhi Gate.

  A harsh voice came from above Mariana's head. “Do not stay in that palki, Bibi.”

  “What?” She put her head out of the box and craned upward, looking for the owner of the voice, but saw only silent, shuttered balconies.

  “I am up here,” the invisible speaker continued. “Take my advice and walk away. If the soldiers see you in it, they will think you are rich. If they believe you are hiding jewels, they will kill you.”

  “Soldiers?”

  “Sher Singh's men entered the city half an hour ago, let in by the Rani's traitorous soldiers. For now they have all gone to loot the Kashmiri Bazaar, but they will return. Go home, while you still can.”

  “Home? But—”

  “Listen.”

  Distant shouting and the popping of gunfire broke the eerie silence of the street.

  “Hurry!” commanded the invisible speaker.

  Numb with fright, Mariana gathered up her shawls and Akhtar's chador, put a booted foot out of her palki and stepped gingerly onto the cobblestones. She unfolded the chador with shaking fingers, and covered her head and body in its smelly folds.

  It was not far to the small square where the austere façade of Qamar Haveli stood at right angles to Wazir Khan's Mosque. If she walked quickly, she would be safely inside in no time.

  She had taken only a few steps when she started, gasping.

  The dead body of a middle-aged man lay in a broken hea
p near a flight of stairs, as if he had fallen from an upper window. If her palanquin had advanced only a few more paces, her bearers would have had to step around it. No wonder they had rushed headlong out of the city.

  But where was the dead man's family? Where were his mourners?

  Mariana already knew. They were inside, too terrified to show themselves on the same cobbled street where she stood out in the open, with nowhere to hide.

  Unseen eyes bored into her, as if the whole city were watching her through loopholes and latticework shutters. Truly frightened now, she hurried past the dead man, lifted the awkward folds of her chador, and ran toward the haveli.

  Qamar Haveli stood silently, its double, iron-studded doors tightly shut. No guard lounged outside to signal her arrival.

  Her heart thudding, she crept along the front of the haveli, then turned into the dark alley that ran along its side. Avoiding the open sewer that ran down one side of it, she hurried past shuttered doorways, looking for the entrance to the haveli's kitchen courtyard.

  The low wooden door was where she remembered it, set into a high, brick wall, but, like the haveli's front doors, it was tightly locked.

  She called out and knocked on the heavy planks. Raising her voice, she knocked harder. Finally she shouted until her throat ached and beat on the door until her hands were bruised.

  No one came.

  The gunfire seemed to be coming closer. Someone had turned into the alley.

  Heavy footfalls approached. Mariana pulled her chador closer over her face and pressed herself into a doorway.

  “This is the shortcut,” said a male voice.

  “Good,” replied another. “If we hurry, something will be left.”

  Two soldiers in dusty white uniforms rounded the corner of the haveli and strode toward her, muskets on their shoulders, curved tulwars clanking at their sides, taking up the width of the alley.

  The tall one saw her first. “What,” he asked his companion casually, “are women doing out-of-doors?”

  “Pah, what a filthy chador!” The smaller man made a face as he passed her. “She must smell as bad as that sewer.”