A Beggar at the Gate (21 page)

A
s she lay in a shadowed corner of Mariam Bibi's bedchamber, Akhtar tried to push away her disappointment at the evening's failure.

It was Hassan Sahib, and not she, who should have been here.

She pulled her quilt over her shoulders as silently as she could, knowing how little she was wanted. Of course Mariam Bibi's objections to sharing her bedroom with a servant had fallen upon deaf ears. “No one sleeps alone in this house,” Safiya had decreed after the evening meal. “Since Saboor has gone to his cousins’ room tonight, Akhtar will stay with you.”

The whole household had waited breathlessly for this evening. Akhtar, of course, had received her own instructions immediately after Mariam's arrival at Qamar Haveli.

“Each of us must do her part by encouraging Mariam Bibi to remain with us,” Safiya Sultana had told Akhtar in the passageway, after calling her out of the sitting room. “It is you who will relax her. You will oil her and paint her with henna. It is you who will make her feel beautiful for my nephew. That is your duty. And stop pretending you do not understand what I mean,” she added, giving Akhtar a pointed look. “I saw you listening when Hassan Sahib told me of the British plan to dissolve his marriage.”

This morning, watching Mariam emerge shakily from her interview with Hassan, old Firoz had insisted that the moment had come, that the foreign lady was ripe for passion.

“Do you see that faraway look on her face?” she had whispered to Akhtar, pointing a gnarled finger at Mariam's back as the latter moved away. “She cannot help loving my Hassan, so tall, so handsome, the light of my eyes since his birth!”

Akhtar closed her eyes. Her task this afternoon had been so simple. She had needed only to take Mariam Bibi's best feature and make the very best of it. That feature, Akhtar knew, was her smile. Mariam had smiled only once during her stay, but in that moment Akhtar, who had previously thought Hassan Ali's wife awkwardly plain, had suddenly understood her beauty. Wide, feminine, and full of mischief, that smile had lent her face a joyful translucence, as if it were unexpectedly lit from within.

Akhtar's duty, then, had been to make Mariam Bibi happy enough to smile for her husband.

As she mixed rose water with powdered almonds and spices, she had concluded that the tiring arts she had learned from Firoz had brought her to this one great moment. Certain of her coming success, she had imagined Hassan Ali Khan arriving at the top of the stairs, and Mariam waiting for him in the sitting room, a queen among the other ladies. She pictured him sitting down beside his aunt, his eyes lowered to conceal his joy at the loveliness of his wife.

The dreams she had reported to Safiya Sultana, Akhtar had told herself, would be nothing compared to the honor of delivering Mariam Bibi to her husband, beautiful, smiling, and ready for his embraces.

She yawned, exhausted from the efforts of the day. Instructed by old Firoz, she had not only done her work, she had also talked, persuading Mariam of the advantages of remaining at Qamar Haveli. While washing Mariam's hair, she had told her of Safiya Sultana's greatness. She had related the stories she had heard of Safiya's wisdom, of her far-reaching knowledge, of her ability to help those in distress who were brought into her presence, and even some who were not. While scrubbing and painting Mariam's feet, she had described her own arrival at the haveli and the many kindnesses she had received. While removing the hair from Mariam's legs, she had recited one of Safiya's poems.

But there had been other information to convey. Nudged by Firoz, Akhtar had hinted at the pleasures this marriage offered Mariam, the passion Hassan Ali would surely ignite in her when they were alone, so different, Firoz had assured Akhtar, from the torments of her own experience.

Perhaps Mariam had not understood Akhtar's suggestions, for she had closed her eyes and turned her head away. But Firoz, who had taken the sheets from Mariam's marriage bed two years earlier, had whispered that Akhtar must go on with her counseling, for Bibi was still a virgin and needed her advice.

“It was not my Hassan Ali's doing that there was no blood on those sheets,” the old woman had declared later, glancing over her shoulder to make sure they were not overheard. “He would never leave his bride unsatisfied. But,” she had added with a shrug, “the foreigner was alone then, with no family members to encourage her, as our brides are encouraged. Perhaps she panicked. Perhaps he was kind. Inshallah,” she had added fiercely, “such a disaster will not take place again.”

But nothing had happened as it should have. First Mariam Bibi had allowed the removal of only part of her body hair, and not even the most important part. What, Akhtar had fretted as she put away her threads and her pastes, would old Firoz say if she knew? What would Hassan Ali think when he discovered his wife's unremoved pubic hair?

Second and worse, it seemed that the lady was still bent on divorce. When Akhtar had taken one of Mariam's slim hands to decorate it with fine henna arabesques, Mariam had jerked it away. “Not my hands,” she had said sharply, as if Akhtar's beautiful work were somehow distasteful or wrong. “My countrymen do not understand these things. You may decorate my feet as much as you like, since you have already mixed the paste. They will not show when I return to Shalimar.”

Return to Shalimar.
Mariam's tone had been firm when she said those words, but Akhtar had noted with relief that her eyes had wavered.

“Do not worry, child,” Firoz had assured Akhtar over the afternoon meal. “My Hassan Ali will change Mariam's mind for her. All will be well when he arrives this evening and they see each other by lamplight. Yes, indeed,” she had added, nodding emphatically. “The evening will tell.”

But Hassan had not come, and the awakening desire Akhtar had carefully nurtured all day would have to be revived before he came again.

Akhtar shifted miserably under her quilt. Near to weeping with disappointment, she had put away Mariam's lovely gold clothes and taken from the small trunk the garment that Mariam insisted upon wearing to bed: a voluminous embroidered dress that fell from her shoulders to her feet.

Mariam now sat, her back against the wall, reading a letter by the light of a small oil lamp, the paper smoothed out on her upraised knees. Like her clothes, the letter in Mariam's hands looked foreign. How, Akhtar wondered, could Bibi be looking at those strange markings with such perfect, worried understanding?

Curtain rings clicked quietly.

On the bed, Mariam looked up, startled, the paper fluttering in her hands as Hassan closed the curtain behind him and entered her room, bringing with him the heady scent of pure amber.

Akhtar held her breath. Intent upon his wife, Hassan had not seen her or sensed her presence. She rose silently upon one elbow.

“I am late,” he said simply, then sat on the edge of the bed, the lamp's flame casting a warm light on his clothes. Her letter on her knees, Mariam Bibi watched him warily, her loosened hair falling over her shoulders in auburn waves.

“You missed dinner,” she said, a little tremulously.

Had Hassan known Akhtar was present, he would not then have reached forward, gold gleaming dully on one wrist, and laid his hands on his wife's feet.

Mariam Bibi resisted him at first. She pressed herself against the wall behind her as he ran his fingers over the contours of her carefully painted toes, her high arches and her narrow ankles, bereft now of their fine hair.

“Oh, sacred bird,”
he murmured, his eyes on hers,
“Be my guide in the way of my desires, For the journey I propose is a long one, And I am new to traveling.”

“New?” Bibi breathed. “But you have already—”

“For all that you behave like one,” he interrupted softly, “you are no spy.”

Ashamed to have seen Hassan Ali Khan lean forward and cover his wife's mouth with his own, Akhtar rose silently, her back turned to protect the lady's self-respect, but as she padded barefoot toward the doorway, she heard him sigh.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced over her shoulder.

Mariam Bibi's eyes had lost their focus. Her mouth began to open as Hassan put his hands on her knees, and pushed them a little way apart.

It was a small gesture: a suggestion, not a command, but it was enough. As Akhtar moved the curtain carefully aside and slipped from the room, she knew that Mariam Bibi had abandoned the world and entered the dwelling-place of the senses.

Akhtar spent the rest of the night in the passageway. It was cold there, and she caught a chill without the quilt she had abandoned in the corner of the bedchamber, but the sounds she had hoped for came from behind the curtain, whispers, rustling, then a small sob. There had also, as she had feared, been a gasp of surprise from Hassan, but to her relief, it had been followed by muffled laughter.

She smiled to herself as she shivered on the tiled floor. She would forget neither this moment of triumph, nor the verse Hassan had murmured to his wife as she listened, an ear to the closed curtain.

Tomorrow morning when the dawn prayer was finished and she gave Safiya Sultana the good news, she would finally lay her treasure at the king's door.

January 15, 1841

M
ariana awoke to the sound of the call to prayer. Her eyes half-open, she watched the door curtain sway to a stop, then hang silently on its rings.

He was gone.

Akhtar's corner, of course, was empty. The second bed had not been slept in. Its padded quilt was still covered, as it had been last night, with carefully arranged packets of clothing from Mariana's native trousseau.

The events of last night had really happened. Smears of dried blood marked the bedsheet. Mariana's nightdress, too, was stained. Her unused bolster had fallen to the floor. She closed her eyes, remembering the pillow she had slept on: warm, human, a man's chest. Beneath the amber he wore, Hassan's skin had smelled hot, as if it had been scorched.

That scent had both terrified and exhilarated her.

Seeing the intensity on his face, she had drawn back at first, remembering with fear the look in Charles Mott's eyes and the painful grip of his fingers. But Hassan had been different. He had murmured poetry when he bent forward, his hands on her knees, his eyes on hers.

“Forgive me,” he had breathed into her ear when, at last, he had hurt her.

Later, speechless at what she had done, Mariana had fingered the oblong medallion Hassan wore on a gold chain, trying to read its tiny letters by the lamp's flame.

“That is Arabic, from the Qur'an,” he had said, stroking her cheek, his eyes glowing in the lamplight. “A jeweler made it for my grandfather, who gave it to me when I was born. The verses on it are from Sura Nur.”

Unexpected as they had seemed, the events of last night now felt inevitable.

She drew her shawl closer over her shoulders. She now had no choice but to stay at Qamar Haveli. She would help to secure the house against invasion, and then she would live out her life there, never needing to part with Saboor again, learning from Safiya Sultana by day, and from Hassan by night, just as Akhtar had told her in that irritatingly suggestive tone.

But first, although Hassan had forbidden her to do it, she must go to Shalimar and tell Aunt Claire and Uncle Adrian of her decision. She shivered, picturing her aunt's desperate tears, Lady Macnaghten's arch, horrified stare, the Vulture's dismissal, Charles Mott's sneer.

They would never forgive her, but she was different now, with her body tired and sore, and the imprint of Hassan's kisses on her mouth. Across the room, her beautiful yellow
jamawar
lay folded on her trunk. He had bought it for her himself

She no longer cared what they said at Shalimar.

Someone must have reported the stains on her sheets while Mariana was out of the bedchamber, for when she entered the sitting room an hour later, bathed and blushing, the younger women stared, the older ones cooed and smiled, while Safiya offered her a satisfied nod.

Mariana took her usual place beneath the window, but this time, instead of sitting stiff-backed on the floor, she rested an elbow on one of the bolsters. She sighed with pleasure when Saboor came to lie across her lap. Why should she not give in to it all? Why should she try to remain an Englishwoman in this atmosphere where women spent their days in perfect intimacy? Why pretend she did not eagerly await Hassan's return tonight?

SHE HAD thought there would be work to do in the house, and she had been correct. After threading a mountain of small turnips onto strings for drying and filling a row of earthen pickling jars alternately with salt and tiny yellow limes, she and the other women had watched Safiya resolve a dispute between a neighborhood woman and her very angry sister-in-law over a copper cooking pot.

Then it had been time for Safiya to teach her how to eat rice properly with the fingers.

After the dishes had been removed, as Mariana rested, sharing the room contentedly with a nursing mother and a group of little girls, a familiar voice floated in through the window above her head.

“But Yusuf,” the voice said, “I do not see how they can succeed.”

Anxious to hear Hassan's voice again, she got quickly to her feet and pressed herself against the shutters. Invisible through the filigreed wood, he must have been out of sight below her window, speaking to a heavyset man whom she could see, and whom she vaguely recognized.

“First,” Hassan continued, so close by that she could hear the intake of his breath, “they must get into the garden, which will, of course, be under armed guard. Second, each of them must get a clear shot, in spite of the confusion and the intervening trees.”

A garden? Clear shots? Mariana tried to unlock the shutters, but they creaked too loudly. The girls across the room looked up.

“But they are Afghans, my dear fellow.” The other man sounded impatient. “They will enter by stealth. Their marksmanship will pose no problem, even if they have to fire at night. All they will need is time to make themselves ready. What I want to know is where they are to be positioned.”

“Zulmai says they are to conceal themselves near the center pavilion. Their orders will be to shoot on sight.”

“All five?”

“Yes, all five.”

“I do not see any difficulty with the plan, Hassan. Unless the man is warned, he will never expect assassins. His attention, and everyone else's, will be diverted by the assault on the Citadel. If you ask me, the assassination will be accomplished in ten minutes.”

The man.
Did they mean the Vulture? Mariana counted silently. There were five English people at the Shalimar Garden: Uncle Adrian and Aunt Claire, the Vulture, Charles Mott, and Lady Macnaghten, whose tent was at the center pavilion….

“And what of your wife?” the man named Yusuf asked Hassan. “After all, she may have been—”

“I am keeping her here.” Hassan dropped his voice. “She is to know nothing about this. Hai Allah, Yusuf,” he added bitterly, “I cannot tell you how I hate these British.”

Trembling, Mariana crept away from the window and started for her room.

The natives are not to be trusted at this perilous time,
the Vulture's letter had said. She flung herself onto her bed, her thoughts racing. Was that why Hassan had come to her last night: to seduce her into trusting him, to persuade her to stay voluntarily at Qamar Haveli so she would not be at Shalimar when the assassins came?

How long would he keep her a prisoner after he had murdered Uncle Adrian and the others? Surely, after he tired of her, he would kill her as well. He would never risk her escaping and telling the British authorities what he had done. Surely the murder of senior British officials by a member of the Sikh court would spark terrible reprisals

Now she understood the Vulture's need for information. How could she have doubted the man, when he was only trying to save all their lives?

She raked back her hair. What had she revealed when she had spoken to Hassan of his intrigues?

She must warn the Vulture. She must write to him and persuade Ghulam Ali to deliver her letter to Shalimar. But no—Hassan had forbidden her to communicate with anyone there. Her request for paper and pen would certainly be denied.

Very well then, she would tear off a scrap of her nightgown, then cut herself and write the message in her own blood. Perhaps that would make up for the other message that was already written on the sheets, on her gown

She froze. Hassan stood in the room. He smiled. “You look nice in those clothes. Red suits you well.”

She should have returned his smile and pretended nothing was wrong, but she could not. Instead she shrank from him, her arms raised, as he approached her.

His smile vanished. “What is it?” he asked, moving closer. “Has someone hurt you?”

“You
have hurt me,” she whispered savagely, anger and fright blotting out her self-control. “How could you have done that to me last night, when all along you were planning to kill the English people at Shalimar? How can you talk of my clothes while you are sending marksmen to kill my poor old aunt and my uncle who is ill?

“I was so wrong about you.” Her voice broke. “Why did I not see the danger in your father's insistence that I come to stay here, in your aunt Safiya's refusal to speak of the divorce, in the servant woman's sly suggestions? Why did I let myself believe that you loved—”

“Be quiet!”

A hand raised, he stood over her, his eyes flat and expressionless. He was much taller than she was, and she had no weapon….

“Trust,” he said in the level tone that he had used yesterday, “was the one gift I wanted from you. I looked for no dowry from your family, no jewels, no lands. I entrusted my son to you. You kept him for two years. In all that time, did I demand to know where he was or how you treated him? Did I imagine, for one moment, that you meant him harm?”

“But I was worthy of your trust.” Distraught as she was, Mariana refused to drop her eyes from his. “I love Saboor, but you hate my people. You said so, just now, outside the window. Not only do you hate them, you are going to have them murdered. And what of me, your English wife? Am I to be your prisoner now, or will you kill me as well?”

“I am Punjabi,” he snapped. “I do what is best for the Punjab. You should have thought of that before you agreed to marry me.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what all this is about. You do not know what evil is being planned at Shalimar, and I will not tell you. I have had enough of you. You do not behave decently, you shout, you fight, you interfere, you have even been sent to spy on me. You may have your divorce,” he added coldly, waving a dismissive hand. “I will tell my aunt. Your
iddat
begins tomorrow.”

Without looking at her again, he turned, crossed the room, jerked the door curtain aside, and left her.