by Harold Lamb
“Can horsemen ride over the rock passes? Can horses find feed in the snow? Nay, have no fear—”
He sought to touch her hand.
“Fool!”
The woman rose swiftly. From under her veil she drew a long string of pearls, unwound from about her throat.
“You have an eye for spoil. Know you these royal jewels? Know you their owner?”
Alacha's olive face paled and his lips quivered. He stepped back, raising both hands to his forehead. For he had looked into the gateway of death, and his usually placid nerves failed him momentarily.
“Nur-Jahan!” he cried “Light of the World, queen-to-be of Jahangir! Pardon. How was I to know? Kulluh—I am your slave.” With a quick thought he drew his dagger and held its hilt toward her. “Slay me if I have displeased—”
She waved him back impatiently, smiling under her veil at the transparent attempt at heroics. Adjusting the splendid pearls once more about her throat, she made a sign for quiet.
“Jahangir knows not I have left the court. When I heard the news from Mongolia I hastened hither, for those at the court had no thought for the coming of the clans. Only Geron knows, and he is my faithful slave, for he came from my home in Persia.” Her voice softened at this, and Alacha breathed a sigh of relief. Nur-Jahan was unlike the women of India. Once a wanderer, daughter of a poor caravan-follower, her beauty and splendid intellect had made a name for her at the court of Akbar, father of Jahangir.
Her former husband, Sher Afghan, the Tiger Lord, had been slain by Jahangir's order—almost the first act of the young Mogul's reign. Nur-Jahan, formerly called Mir-un-nissa, alone of those at the court of Delhi was unafraid of Jahangir—had even received his wooing coldly.
Sorrow and the vicissitudes of life had left their stamp on the woman's soul, although her fairness seemed to have grown the greater for suffering. Her courage in holding up the mirror of truth to the eyes of the narrow-minded and short-tempered monarch had increased her influence over him. Fearless, prone to follow her own path, her wisdom overmatched the wits of the statesmen of the court.
Nur-Jahan was destined to be the greatest empress of India. And the love of the Mogul for her was the brightest spot in a dissolute life. Although the Taj Mahal was built as the tomb of another woman, Nur-Jahan, the Persian, was the fairest figure of the Mogul era.
And it was this love, headstrong and jealous, of Jahangir for the Persian that Alacha had feared.
“Tomorrow,” said Nur-Jahan, “we will send the girl with the message to Adbul Dost. Oh, Alacha, much have I risked in coming hither. The Mogul has greater foes near his side than the Afghans. He must not suffer a defeat on this border of his kingdom. Nay, now is the time for peace.”
With that she withdrew to a small tent on the outskirts of the camp that Geron had set up, and with her went Tala.
And the great Persian out of kindness to the maid gave her fresh garments of the Afghan fashion to replace her rags and ordered her to sleep at the foot of her own couch.
Now when the cry of the namaz gar went up and the manifold activity of the camp was stilled while ten thousand Muslims knelt in worship, Nur-Jahan crouched by the carpet that was her bed and prayed.
And when she ceased she heard without the tent the curious song of a minstrel to his love, low-toned and musical. Yet when she and Geron looked from the tent canopy they saw a slender beggar, wearing holy garments, sitting beneath the wide limbs of a plane tree, and looking up tranquilly into the evening
Alacha did not pray. He sat on the cushions where the fragrance of the attar of rose—Nur-Jahan's favorite perfume—still clung faintly, and in his soul was the poison of a temptation that twined into his thoughts and would not be dismissed.
“Jahangir knows not she has come hither,” he repeated under his breath.
He rested his handsome head on clenched hands, feeling again the fear that had gripped him when he thought of the Mogul.
“By the gods—whoever they be—she is fair. For a glimpse of her face I would hazard—much.”
And his new longing drove out the fear. His mind had ever dwelt on women. And Nur-Jahan, whose beauty pierced the veil that concealed it, had been in his tent, at his side.
“Aye, the Persian has risked much,” he communed with his thoughts. “Verily she has hazarded the favor of Jahangir to ride hither. Why? She came to me. Perchance she does not dislike me—”
Isolated from the court, monarch of a kingdom, Alacha had fed upon his own vanity. He had fashioned a shallow heaven out of his own desires.
“She seeks mercy for the Afghans—unknown to the Mogul. Is she the empress of the age, or—fool?”
While the shadows deepened in the tent, he sat in meditation. Impatiently he ordered away attendants who would have brought candles and the evening meal. He glanced from time to time across the space between the tents to where the silk curtains of Nur-Jahan's shelter glowed, shaking slightly in the cool, evening breeze.
“Geron knows.”
He rose to pace the carpets of his pavilion restlessly. Once be glanced up at the distant peaks of the Himalayas, where the snow summits loomed chilly and roseate with the afterglow of the sun, and thought amusedly that Nur-Jahan had come to the camp to make peace with Abdul Dost because she feared an army of horsemen might cross a half-thousand miles of those ravines.
This reflection encouraged him in a subtle fashion. No one would credit the warning of the Persian. That was well. If the campaign were ended at this stage there would be scant triumph for Alacha.
So it must not be ended.
He nodded to himself slowly, then started with a hissing breath of alarm as a dark figure crawled to his feet. It was a great, silent form, like an animal's.
“Mercy, lord. Do not turn the warmth of your favor from Hos-sein!”
The wrestler, stripped of his finery, with tattered tunic and baggy trousers water-soaked, rose to his knees. Light from a torch at the gate of the khanate—the strip of heavy calico, upon bamboo poles that encircled the tent—shone upon his white eyeballs rolling in a blood-stained face.
“Lord of the Northern World, Monarch of the Stars,” he chattered, his teeth unruly with the cold, “your slaves say that you cursed me because the Circassian dog tricked me. But I—”
“You would like revenge upon Ger—upon the blue-eyed Circassian?” observed Alacha thoughtfully.
“My lord, it is my prayer—”
“Come then.”
The Turkoman moved toward the gate of the khanate. Hossein followed, happy that Alacha had not struck him or sent him away. A defeated wrestler, cast off by his master, Hossein's fortunes would have sunk to the dust, and the prospect of further largesse and slaves been as naught.
At the gate Alacha dismissed the spearman who stood guard, and commanded the torch to be borne away. Leaning against the post of the barrier, he gazed silently over the encampment. An arrow's shot away glimmered the tent of Nur-Jahan in the shadows under the grove of plane trees.
The smoke of a thousand cooking fires was dwindling into the cold air of evening, and the sky overhead, shot with the brilliance of myriad stars, was curiously transparent. Somewhere behind the hills an invisible gateway was opening through which the light of a full moon—the harvest moon—was flooding.
But as yet the only illumination in the camp came from the moving torches, where men threaded their way between the tents, or a noble passed hither and yon with his retinue.
Flares reflected ruddily upon the standard of Paluwan Khan, among the dark lines of horses of the Punjabi cavalry. Voices echoed from the water tank, about which groups of footmen, armor and weapons put aside, gambled and sang.
As an undertone to this came the ceaseless mutter of camels, coughing and grunting over their fodder, and—at intervals—the bellowing call of an elephant.
“Soon, Hossein,” whispered the Slayer, “the moon will be up.”
“Aye, lord.”
“Before then—”
Alacha's
low voice dwindled into silence. His forehead was very hot, although the chill of evening had settled upon the earth. Restlessly his hands twitched at his throat. Every nerve seemed to be on fire.
What monumental folly had sent Nur-Jahan incognito to the camp and to him? Was she truly without a protector other than stout Geron? Was it all not the invisible working of fate?
Fate had been kind to Alacha. He was fast rising to greatness. A moment's boldness—
“My lord?” came the servile voice of Hossein, fawning.
Tomorrow—Alacha's racing thoughts resumed their trend— Nur-Jahan might reveal her identity to the other ameers. She might influence them to peace. Aye, she might well strip Alacha of his prestige by a single word whispered in her soft voice into the ear of Jahangir. Already she had hinted she thought Alacha unfaithful to his master.
In this she had wronged Alacha, who served Jahangir well, serving himself the while, as a clever man should. So the Turkoman reasoned with his thoughts. And there came into his mind unbidden the vision of the clear, brown eyes of the famous Persian, the alertness and vital energy of her figure, full-fledged in beauty.
“A jewel of paradise,” he breathed. “Aye, more splendid than the throne of the Mogul—”
“My lord?”
“Before the moon rises,” said Alacha slowly, harkening curiously to the sound of his own words, “go unseen to yonder tent.”
He pointed, and as he did so the glimmer faded from the silk.
“The Circassian lies there asleep, doubtless across the threshold. Note his position and keep watch. Remain there until I come.”
“Aye, lord.”
In the darkness Hossein smiled, seeing how his fortunes might be replenished. He bowed and slipped away along the dark stretch of the khanate, moving softly for all his bulk.
Alacha clapped his hands, and a servant ran from his pavilion to his side.
“Horses,” be commanded. “Two of the best. Have them brought to the outskirts of the grove—” again he pointed—“and tethered there. Do not abide by the horses, but return hither. Haste!”
Scarcely had the footsteps of the man, running barefoot, ceased, when Alacha turned aside and stalked rapidly through the tents toward the pavilion of Paluwan Khan.
By now Alacha knew that the northern Lord would be abed, on his cloak spread on the bare ground, half-unconscious from the effects of a drinking bout. And not otherwise did he find the khan.
Without returning the hurried salute of the guard at the pavilion door, the Turkoman leaned over the squat figure snoring on disordered garments and shook him by the shoulder.
A man awakened from sleep is bemused, and, if tired, angry. Having emptied many cups of rare wine of Kabul and Ferghana, Paluwan Khan first reached for his sword, then swore roundly.
“Hide of a dog—”
Alacha squatted close to him, speaking swiftly. A spy, he said, had come to the camp. A wandering Persian courtesan in the pay of their enemies had sought to beguile him—Alacha.
“Carcass of Satan!” observed Paluwan Khan drowsily. “Well she knew in what quarter to ply her arts! You have a dagger. Make an end of her and let me sleep.”
“She it was who rode up to us when the sun had crossed the midway,2 the mistress of the Circassian—”
“Geron? He is no traitor.”
Alacha's bright eyes narrowed. For a moment he had forgotten that Paluwan Khan knew the identity of the armorer. He smiled at the drowsy chieftain ironically.
“Ha, my lord! Think you the armorer of Jahangir would wander afield in rags like a stray beggar? Nay. I believe the two to be friends of the Mongol warrior who invaded the court of the King of Kings—”
“Say you so?”
Paluwan Khan had a blunt brain. Jahangir had once observed that while Alacha held too much pride in his brain-cup, Paluwan Khan held too many cups in his brain. Now he thought dully of the act of Nur-Jahan in befriending the Afghan girl, and swore drowsily.
“Send her then,” he growled, “to-or the Mogul. What affair
is it of mine?”
“She is quartered near to you,” responded Alacha quickly. “Grant me a following of four Punjabis—your men—and I will seek her out—”
“Aye,” muttered the khan. “Make an end, by Allah. It is written that the tongue of a woman is evil as the bite of a serpent. . .” He was already asleep. Alacha summoned the two spearmen who had heard the speech of the nobles, and called up two from the outer guard. With these Punjabis he hastened back to his tent, giving them whispered instructions on the way. From the tent they sought the grove of trees, under which shadows were just forming as moonlight swept the sky over the mountain peaks.
Came Hossein to his side with a sibilant word.
Laying aside their spears—clumsy weapons for hand-to-hand work—the four sturdy men of Paluwan Khan slipped to the door of the tent and disappeared within.
Alacha, who had been at some pains to have others than his own men attack Geron in case his plan should miscarry, moved nearer. He heard a low exclamation, the sound of a blow.
Dimly he made out struggling figures within the pavilion. Hos-sein with a grin of hate drew his dagger and stepped warily nearer. Then, running forward, he struck viciously at a man who grappled with two others.
Alacha saw the two draw back, saw the mottled moonlight glimmer on the light curls of Geron, who took an unsteady step forward, staring at the Slayer with wide eyes that saw naught but a red mist of pain.
1
The Mogul race of India.
2
The afternoon.
Geron gave a grunting cry and sank to the earth, clutching his throat. Pausing only long enough to make sure that Hossein had dealt the giant armorer a deadly blow, Alacha stepped over the prone form of a Punjabi and peered at the woman, who had risen from the couch.
Within the tent the moonlight took on a strange, silvery semblance, shot through with the black arms that were shadows from the branches of trees. It sparkled faintly on the jewels upon the hands of stately Nur-Jahan, and glowed with a flame-like radiance along the string of pearls at her smooth throat.
Swiftly she drew veil across her mouth.
“What means this? Where is Geron?”
“Slain by some Punjabi revelers. Oh khanum, there is peril for you here. Come!”
Alacha stepped toward her and grasped her wrist, his own hand far from steady. The woman's quick intuition warned her, and she drew away.
The man's arm closed about her throat; fingers pressed against her lips. Nur-Jahan thrust at him, her body tense with anger and fright. A quick word and Hossein came, gathering her in huge arms, lifting her to his stout shoulder. To the horses he carried her, being skilled in the handling of women, and laid her across the saddle-peak of one.
Alacha, breathing deeply, stared into the shadows in the tent-corners, moving silently about. His pulse was unruly, and he shivered more than once.
The Afghan girl, he knew, must be within the tent, and her mouth as well as Geron's must be sealed, for there was no way to know what Nur-Jahan had said to Tala in the earlier hours of the night.
Then did Alacha pause in his tracks, his dark head thrust forward between his slender shoulders, the fingers of a groping hand outstretched rigidly.
“Death of the gods!” he swore.
So near to him that his fingers almost touched her cheek he saw, not a tousled-haired, tattered Afghan girl, but a shapely maiden whose black ringlets hung down over her breast, whose garments were of fine silk and velvet, who wore across her throat a slim chain of bead-like black pearls.
The silver-like radiance from above touched her high forehead strongly. Her motionless eyes stared stolidly into his. It seemed to Alacha—such illusions being sometimes wrought by overstrained nerves—that the figure of the woman had stepped forward through the fabric of the tent.
In reality Tala, who had remained motionless, hoping to escape unseen, was half-paralyzed by the nearness of the Slayer and
by the menace of his silent search.
Yet Alacha saw only the likeness of a young girl, who had worn those same pearls and garments like to these—an Afghan girl who had slain herself while he held her upon his saddle.
“How came you here?” he muttered, feeling a chill course through his nerves. “What—”
Not until now had he seen Tala's face unveiled, nor did he know that she was sister to the woman he had caused to die. Instinctively, mastered by mounting fright, Tala raised her hand to her throat.
To Alacha the gesture was significant, menacing. He drew back a step; then, overcome by an impulse of fear, he turned and fled from the tent.
When the Punjabis, ordered by Alacha to search the tent, came to look for the woman he had seen, they saw naught but the empty recess of the pavilion and the deserted couch of Nur-Jahan. Tala had slipped under the tent wall and fled into the grove.
Presently Hossein moved away through the trees, with his prisoner in his arms. From the grove he struck into a winding path that led through the scattered bazaars of the camp followers, to the outer lines of the imperial forces and thence to a sheep-track up the hillside.
And after him, slipping from shadow to shadow, came two ponies, stolen from the mounts of the cavalry, and upon these rode Tala and Chan, the minstrel, wearing the garb of a begging kwajah.
“For,” Chan had whispered to Tala, “the Slayer said to Hossein that before long he would come to seek the woman, and it is my thought that he will come alone.”
“It is the will of God,” responded Tala.
At the council of the ameers the following morning Paluwan Khan smote impatiently with his scabbard upon the carpet before his feet, crying in a mighty voice:
“An end, say I. By the beard of Ali, we will bring these ill-omened ones to a battle. My horsemen have pushed them back and up the broad valley of Badakshan, and now they are at the last of their villages—the whole scum of the devil brood. Now they must fight or give up their lands—”