A Beggar at the Gate (13 page)

As light as air in her sidesaddle, Mariana had glanced back at Charles Mott, who was riding so far behind them that he had almost included himself in the baggage train.

What a difference it made to have allies….

January 11, 1841

W
hen the seventeenth-century Moghul Emperor Shahjahan visited his northern capital at Lahore, he had his tents set up at Shalimar, his pleasure-garden, whose name signifies Abode of Love.

Shalimar had suffered in the hundred and forty years since the fall of the Moghul Empire. The lovely old garden had been stripped of its marble, and the dainty
pietra dura
decorations had been knifed from the walls of its airy pavilions, but battered as it was, it was still undeniably beautiful. Its three terraced levels were still intact, as were nearly all of its pavilions. Water from Hansli Canal still filled the three great square pools, one to each level. All four hundred carved fountains still stood where Mulla Alaumulk Tuni, the garden's designer, had placed them three hundred years before.

Shalimar was at its best in January. Its formal areas boasted cypresses and blossoming fruit trees—mangoes, cherries, apricots, mulberries, and other varieties, although not the hundreds of trees that had once grown there. But for all the loveliness of its trees, the garden's great feature had always been its roses. Cultivated by the same tribe of gardeners for many generations, the roses were now on full display, dominating the garden with splashes of color, sweetening the breezes that ruffled the water in the pools.

On one side of the middle terrace, shaded by old mango trees, the tents of Mariana and her aunt and uncle overlooked both a lacy little building and Lady Macnaghten's grand quarters in the center of the middle pool, on an island pavilion reached by a marble causeway.

Unlike Charles Mott, whose tent stood across the water, together with those of the armed escort, the Vulture had placed his tent far away from everyone else's, near the entrance gate on the lowest terrace.

“I am pleased that Clerk has arranged for us to stay at Shalimar,” Uncle Adrian told Mariana as they stood surveying the garden, now dotted with their own tents, “although I cannot say I like the man. I find him much too sure of himself. He may be responsible for our political information, but I don't like him setting up his tent so far from everyone else, and conversing secretly with all those natives out of earshot.”

While Mariana and her uncle watched, a turbaned man left an expensive-looking horse near the main gate, then stood briefly outside the Vulture's tent before disappearing inside.

“I hope our government will not allow itself to be dragged into the quarrel between Prince Sher Singh and the Rani,” sighed Uncle Adrian, “and I certainly hope those two do not come to blows, as much as Clerk seems to desire it.”

He frowned, his eyes on the birds swooping between the mango trees. “But none of this is our concern. We shall soon be far away from here. My dear Mariana,” he added, noticing her stricken face, “you must not grieve over that child. You are doing the right thing.”

He glanced again toward the Vulture's tent. “Mr. Clerk has offered to accompany us to the Shaikh's house tomorrow. Although he did not need to make us wait a full week for our meeting with the Shaikh, I shall be glad of his assistance. He is experienced with upper-class natives, and will, I am sure, be most useful in explaining our position.”

Mariana stared over the garden wall. A smoky haze in the western sky hinted at the presence of the busy city of Lahore, and the comfortable old haveli inside its walls where the Shaikh and his family waited for her.

This was to be her last night with Saboor.

* * *

THE FOLLOWING morning, she tugged nervously at her boots. Within an hour she, her uncle, the Vulture, and an armed escort would set off to inform Shaikh Waliullah of the divorce.

The day had not begun well. First, Charles Mott, who had claimed illness and fever for the previous three days due to a severely infected finger, had appeared in the dining room for breakfast. Instead of ignoring her, he had offered her repellent, exaggerated politeness.

“No, thank you,” she had replied icily, avoiding his begging eyes after he complimented her unnecessarily on her blooming health and suggested she borrow his horse-grooms when she went for her daily ride. “I never take servants out with me, and in any case, I shall not be riding today.”

She sighed as she tightened her bootlaces. As if that were not enough, Dittoo had burst into sudden tears half an hour later, while dusting her bedside table.

“What will become of
me
after you and Saboor Baba return to your husband in the city?” he wailed. “Where will
I
go?”

While Saboor ran to offer him comfort, catching at his calloused hands, Mariana had glanced away from Dittoo's damp, tragic face, ashamed at having concealed the truth from both of them for so long, wondering how to tell them.

“Stop crying, Dittoo,” she snapped, unable to say the words aloud. “No one is sending you away. You will serve me as you always have.”

“But how can that be?” He stopped dusting the table and stood, his cheeks wet, Saboor's small hand in his. “How can I serve you after you have gone to live at—”

“Enough, Dittoo,” she added, and pushed past him out of the tent.

It was only later, while a shy young groom walked Saboor up and down under the trees on one of the mares, that she had told Dittoo the truth.

“I am not going to stay with Saboor at Qamar Haveli,” she had revealed, blurting out the words. “I am going to dissolve my marriage, leave Saboor with his family, and then go on to Afghanistan with my uncle and aunt.”

“But you must not do such a terrible thing.” His face had filled with dismay. “If you leave your husband and his family, if you leave Saboor, you will be
all alone!”

After his shocked protest, he had left her to watch the groom and the mare with Saboor on her back as they walked carefully along the margin of the central pool, their figures reflected brokenly in the rippling water.

Saboor now waited outside her tent, bathed and ready. Told that he would soon see his father, he had danced with excitement. For all his prescience at other times, he seemed not to have guessed that the price of regaining his home and family was to lose her forever.

She pushed the tiny buttons of her gown rapidly through their loops. It would be best for him to live at Qamar Haveli, of course it would. That venerable house was full of his own people, many of them children who had fussed adoringly over him when he was last there, taking turns carrying him up and down, shrieking with pleasure as they dragged him across the floor, their small hands under his arms.

He would forget her in time

An hour later Mariana sat up stiffly against the hard pillows in her palanquin, singing one of Saboor's bedtime songs, more to comfort herself than to entertain him.

After only one stanza, she fell silent. It was no use; he was too excited to listen.

“An-nah, open the side! I want to look out!” he cried, clambering over her in the cramped box, his elbow digging into her middle, his animated face inches from hers.

Outside, the bearers panted rhythmically as they ran, the sound of their breathing joined by the clopping of horses’ hooves: Uncle Adrian's, the Vulture's, and those of two officers of the armed guard. They seemed to be covering the three miles to the walled city at an unnatural speed, but it was only Mariana's dread of arrival that made it seem so.

Pushing down her sadness, she fumbled with the side panel and let Saboor put his head out through the opening.

Uncle Adrian believed the Waliullahs would be loath to part with her. “Remember, Mariana,” he had told her as they waited for her palanquin, “that the Shaikh may be very reluctant to give up a European daughter-in-law. As Mr. Clerk and I are experienced with natives and know exactly what to say, I advise you to remain silent. Do not interfere
in any way
with our negotiations.”

As they approached the walled city, she pulled Saboor inside and closed the panel against the stares of the men on the road, as remembered smells of cooking spices, sewage, and bitter charcoal floated into the palanquin.

“I'm going to see my Abba!” Saboor crowed as they passed under the Delhi Gate and into the crowded alleyways of the city.

While he bounced on Mariana's lap, she listened to the cries of hawkers and the voice of her
sirdar
bearer ordering passersby out of the way. “Move out, move out!” he called as the palanquin moved slowly along, its sides scraping against the edges of buildings and the bodies of pack animals.

The crowd thinned and the palanquin slowed. Mariana heard the sound of great doors thudding open, and horses’ hooves echoing in an entranceway.

They had arrived.

A short while later she heard a gate creaking open. She did not need to look out to know that they were now in the Shaikh's courtyard. Was the Shaikh waiting for them in the sunlight on his padded platform, surrounded by his usual silent crowd of followers?

No, of course not. The meeting would be held indoors. Knowing she was coming, the Shaikh would have arranged for her to be shielded from the eyes of men.

“Saboor has come,” said a voice. “Yes, he has come,” agreed another.

No one mentioned her.

The palanquin stopped. Saboor had started up before it was safely on the ground. “Hurry, An-nah. I want to get down!”

Mariana looked out. A temporary-looking canvas wall blocked her view of the neat courtyard where, two years earlier, the Shaikh had cured a showily dressed snakebite victim, then interviewed her in the starlight. Above her head, silent filigreed balconies looked down upon the courtyard and the palanquin in its temporary enclosure. Was Safiya Sultana, the Shaikh's poet sister, watching from behind the latticework shutters, while other ladies crowded about her, craning to see?

“A-jao,
Saboor,” male voices called enticingly from behind the canvas. “Come to us!”

Before she knew it, Saboor had scrambled over her lap and onto the ground. An instant later, he rounded the canvas screen and was gone.

It was too late to embrace him, too late to say good-bye. Before Mariana had time to cry out, her uncle appeared at her side.

“We must hurry,” he urged. “The Shaikh is inside.” He helped her to her feet, took her firmly by the elbow, and steered her toward the open doorway, tightening his grip when she turned, searching desperately over her shoulder for a last glimpse of Saboor.

Tribal rugs covered the floor of the cool, whitewashed room. Large bolsters in brightly embroidered covers lay along the walls. Three upright chairs stood together. At the room's end, in front of a filigreed window, the Shaikh rose to meet his guests.

He was exactly as Mariana remembered him: a wiry man with a wrinkled, animated face, whose tall, starched headdress rose above jutting ears. His gaze, as before, held a magnetic, suppressed power.

His feet were bare. Belatedly, she remembered that they should have left their shoes outside the door.

“
As-salaam-o-aleikum,
may peace be upon you.” The Shaikh gestured amicably toward the chairs, then seated himself on his dais, his feet close to his body, his clothes falling into graceful folds. Mariana sat, arranged her skirts, and pushed wandering curls under her bonnet. The Shaikh had not asked which of the two men was Mariana's uncle, but she had no doubt that he already knew.

“Welcome to this house,” he said in polite Urdu. “I trust your journey was not too difficult?”

His words were informal, as if meant for family members. Mariana glanced at her uncle and saw he had noticed the same thing.

“Our journey was quite pleasant,” Uncle Adrian replied gravely in his excellent Urdu, “and little Saboor seems to have enjoyed it. The child has been looking forward to meeting you and the rest of your family again, after all this time.”

The Shaikh inclined his head.

“But we have not come solely to meet you, Shaikh Sahib, although it has given us great pleasure to do so,” Uncle Adrian continued. “Other considerations have brought us to Lahore. We have come to ask for your indulgence in the matter of my niece.”

Why did Saboor not come to her? Mariana half-listened to her uncle, her senses tuned to the sounds in the courtyard.

“We have come to request that the marriage between your son Hassan and my niece Mariana be terminated.”

“Terminated?” Mariana could almost hear the Shaikh's eyebrows rise.

But where
was
Saboor? Surely this was not the end. Surely she would see him again, if only to say good-bye

“We understand,” the Vulture interpolated smoothly, “that
all
the requirements of the marriage have not been met. We therefore ask for the dissolution of the
contract,
not the marriage
itself,
since, technically, there
is
no marriage.”

Mariana froze. How mortifying that the Vulture knew her story….

“And, may I know,” the Shaikh inquired, “the reason for this request?”