Companions of Paradise (32 page)

She did, however, take great notice of the next course, a dish of sweet rice pudding sprinkled with pistachio nuts.

THE FOLLOWING morning, as her aunt snored beside her, Mariana was awoken by an insistent voice outside her door.

“Mairmuna!” called a young female voice. “Mairmuna.”

Mariana dressed, and pulled aside the curtain. A child stood outside, pointing toward the main courtyard. Mariana nodded.

“Get up, Aunt Claire,” she said urgently, shaking the bundle of rezais on the other bed. “We must prepare to leave for India.”

Aunt Claire sat up blinking, the lace nightcap she had salvaged from the cantonment still squarely on her head. “Where is Adrian?” she asked sharply. “Where is your uncle? I do not like him going off and leaving us. Where is my tea?”

“We will see Uncle Adrian soon,” Mariana replied, busying herself with her boots. “Where is your poshteen?”

An hour later, after a hasty breakfast, Zahida put on her chaderi and escorted Mariana and her aunt to the main courtyard.

All around them was confusion. Aminullah Khan stood near the fort's main entrance, conferring with his henchman. Other armed men milled about. Camels knelt side by side, their necks stretched out, groaning and complaining while men loaded sacks of Aunt Claire's household belongings onto their backs.

Two of the camels had been dressed in colorful hangings. They knelt, apart from the others, waiting to be mounted.

“We will get a new one when we reach India.” Uncle Adrian gestured toward Aunt Claire's palanquin, now abandoned on its side in a corner. “The bearers cannot carry you through the snow. Half of them are ill already. You
will
ride a camel, and that is that.

“And put on the chaderi that woman has given you,” he added. “It is only good manners to do so. After all, these desperadoes may be saving your life.”

He reached up and put a cautious hand to the folds of his borrowed turban.

Dittoo appeared before Mariana. “Bibi,” he cried, wringing his hands, “please forgive me. They would not let me bring your morning tea. They would not even tell me where to find you. Poor Adil has been so upset…”

Already wan and bony, he looked as if he was about to weep.

“It does not matter, Dittoo,” she shouted above the din in the courtyard. “Afghans always keep men and women apart.”

“But your tea, your clothes, the dusting! Memsahib's things!”

Aminullah Khan appeared, with his supporters. “Well, well,” he said heartily, “I see that all is ready. After you join the camp I have arranged for you, I shall accompany you as far as the Sher Darwaza pass. After that, my people will escort you all the way to Dera Ghazi Khan…”

Mariana's uncle acknowledged Aminullah's remark with a careful nod.

An hour later, Aunt Claire let out a piercing scream as her camel lurched to its feet.

“If
I survive this journey,” she confided as she and Mariana swayed, side by side, toward the fort's main entrance, “I solemnly promise
never
to leave my bed again.”

The double doors of the fort stood wide, revealing a cold, sunlit landscape beyond. Aminullah Khan rode out first on his bay stallion, followed by Mariana's uncle and a few of his men. Next came the two heavily guarded camels, the gaggle of Indian servants, on foot and with their own protecting tribesmen, and the line of baggage animals.

The kafila turned and followed a trampled path through the snow toward the Bala Hisar, the city, and the great caravanserai to the west of Kabul, where their escort waited.

As Mariana rode out through the gate, a small figure flew toward her across the snow. She raised the flap of her chaderi in order to see who it was, but she already knew.

“Munshi Sahib sent me,” Nur Rahman panted as he jogged along beside her camel, his balled-up chaderi beneath his arm. “He told me there was something I had to do for you, Khanum. I wept and kissed his hands, but he insisted I leave him. I would do anything for him,” he added, “and so I have come.”

His fringed eyes darkened. “He told me that, Allah willing, I will receive a great reward.” But when he said it, tears stood in his eyes.

AS HASSAN rode toward the city for the third time, a caravan came toward him, traveling in the opposite direction.

Strongly guarded, its pace set by camels, the kafila moved at a dignified speed, taking up the width of the road. Two of the camels carried heavily shrouded female figures.

His eyes carefully averted from the women, Hassan guided Ghyr Khush off the road. As he did so, one of them turned, saw him, and cried out.

January 4, 1842

N
ur Rahman!” Her heart thundering, Mariana searched over her shoulder for the dancing boy among the file of servants and guards behind her. “Nur Rahman!” she shouted, not caring who was listening.

“Behind us,” she gasped, when he arrived at her side. “A man on a gray horse!”

She reached under her chaderi and tore Hassan's gold medallion and chain from her neck. “Give him these,” she ordered breathlessly, dropping them into his outstretched hand. “Tell him a lady wishes to see him.”

“Which man?” the boy asked, his face bunching in confusion. “Who?”

“He is wearing a poshteen and a brown turban made from a shawl,” she half shouted. “He is on a gray horse. His name is Hassan.
Hurry!”

The boy nodded, pocketed the bauble, and ran.

Stiff with anxiety, Mariana swayed on her camel, hating the lengthening distance between her and Hassan, wishing she could use her sudden, fierce energy to speed Nur Rahman on his way as he raced back the way they had come, past the guards and the pack animals, along the narrow, trampled track leading to the city.

Had the boy understood her? Had she described Hassan sufficiently?

If there were more than one gray horse on the road, would Nur Rahman give the medallion to the wrong man?

What would she do if Hassan disappeared, unfound, into the city?

What if the man she had seen was not Hassan?

“Whatever is the matter, Mariana?” inquired her aunt from atop the other camel. “Why were you shouting at the top of your voice?”

NUR RAHMAN ran heavily, the cold air burning his lungs, his poshteen weighing on his shoulders.

Why, he wondered, had the English lady ordered him to stop a stranger on the road and offer him the fine gift that now lay in his pocket?

She might have gone mad, of course, but whatever illness had unexpectedly overtaken her mind, it was clear that at this moment she wanted desperately to meet that mysterious man on his gray horse.

But powerful as her desire might be, it was no greater than Nur Rahman's need to live. When the road cleared for a moment, he stopped, looked about him carefully, then took his blue chaderi from beneath his arm and threw it hastily over his head and shoulders.

He peered ahead of him, through his disguise. Whoever this stranger was, he had ridden away as soon as the lady saw him, for there were no gray horses anywhere nearby.

Of several riders in the distance, only one, who rode apart from the others, seemed to be on a pale-colored mount.

His eyes on that faraway figure, Nur Rahman trotted along the road, the chaderi catching at his legs, his breath rasping in his ears.

A group of horsemen rode toward him, obscuring his view. Moments after they passed, others came from behind and did the same.

When they moved away, Nur Rahman stared at the road ahead.

The rider had disappeared.

Afraid to turn back, Nur Rahman ran on, sweating beneath his chaderi, aware of people's curiosity at the sight of a woman alone, praying that no one would stop and question him, that no one would offer him help.

He stopped for tea near the Pul-e-Khishti and drank rapidly, hidden in a doorway. He would wait for the man here, he decided, for sooner or later, everyone in Kabul passed over the bridge.

“Oh, Allah,” he whispered, “please let the lady's stranger return on his gray horse before it is too late.”

Tomorrow she would march with Aminullah's kafila. He had promised Munshi Sahib not to leave her…

Two hours later, he still waited in his doorway, his feet numb, his eyes on the traffic crossing the bridge. On the right bank of the Kabul River, the sellers of silver ornaments had boarded up their shops. Oil lamps and fires lit the approaching night. Groups of armed men talked among themselves as they crossed the river and moved in groups toward the cantonment.

As the sunset call to prayer rang out, Nur Rahman looked up, and sucked in his breath. Twenty yards away, a man in a brown-shawl turban rode through the fading light, across the teeming bridge.

There was something about him…

But what was the color of his horse?

The crowd parted. A proud, silver-gray horse's head appeared, then vanished again.

Nur Rahman leapt to his feet and began to run.

He forced himself through the crowd, ignoring the surprised glances as he elbowed his way past loaded coolies and gangs of small boys, struggling all the while to keep his eye on his quarry.

Across the bridge at last, he peered eagerly into the crowd.

The man and his horse had vanished into the city.

Sagging with exhaustion and disappointment, Nur Rahman turned into the Char Chatta Bazaar and followed it to its end, ignoring the smell of kababs cooking over hot coals and the lamplight that changed the bazaar into a tunnel of mysteries as the afternoon faded.

After two more turns, he was deep in the labyrinth of the old city, hurrying past its closed-up shops, avoiding puddles of dirty, melted snow, grateful to have come so far without drawing attention.

He stopped at last, raised his closed fists, and pounded on a high wooden door with a heavy lintel. After the bolt groaned and the door creaked open, he stepped over the threshold and into Haji Khan's courtyard, then stood still.

Tethered to the courtyard's lone tree stood a silver-gray horse.

The boy gestured silently toward Haji Khan's room. The old gatekeeper nodded.

Haji Khan's chamber looked the same as it had when Nur Rahman had left it that morning, down to the nightingale in its cage on a low table beside the blind man's platform.

The room was warmed by a small brazier of well-burnt coals that did little to dispel the chill. Nur Rahman could see his breath as he crouched beside the door.

A dozen men sat facing Haji Khan, their backs to him. Seven of them wore turbans. Munshi Sahib, of course, wore his golden qaraquli hat.

Only one man wore a brown turban fashioned from an expensive Kashmir shawl.

“After I found I could not enter the cantonment,” he was saying, “I spoke to hawkers of food along the road. None of them had seen a lady of her description leave its gates.”

He sounded worn and disappointed. Nur Rahman held his breath and leaned forward.

“They did not see her, my dear Hassan,” Munshi Sahib replied gently, “because she was wearing a chaderi when she left the British fort. She is now under the protection of Aminullah Khan. It was only yesterday that we learned of her escape.”

My dear Hassan?
Nur Rahman craned to see the man's face. He seemed to know everyone…

“A brave, resourceful action.” A white-bearded man nodded approvingly. “An action worthy of our own women.”

The man called Hassan hunched his shoulders. “But has he taken her out of Kabul?” he asked tensely. “Does anyone know where she is?”

Nur Rahman could wait no longer. “May peace be upon you, Haji Khan,” he interrupted.

Everyone turned to look at him. All but one man registered surprise at the sight of him in his chaderi. From his place on the carpet, Munshi Sahib lifted an encouraging hand.

The blind man raised his chin. “And peace upon you, my child,” he returned. “On what errand have you come?”

“I am searching,” Nur Rahman announced, already certain what the reply would be, “for the owner of the gray horse that is tethered outside.”

The man in the brown turban frowned. “The horse is mine,” he said.

The boy reached into his pocket and withdrew the gold medallion on its delicate chain. “In that case,” he said, savoring the drama of the moment, “I have something to give you.”

THAT EVENING, in General Elphinstone's drawing room, Brigadier Shelton glared at his Commander in Chief. “Of
course
we can trust Akbar Khan,” he barked. “He has signed the treaty with us, hasn't he? He has promised us safe passage to Peshawar, hasn't he? What else could we possibly ask for?”

Charles Mott squared his shoulders. “And in return,” he observed, “we have promised him all our treasure, and seven of our guns. I call that a very generous offer to the man who murdered my uncle.”

“What right have you to call it anything,” snapped Shelton, “when your own superior has
run away?”

“He has
not
run away, Brigadier.” Mott lifted his chin. “As I have already reported, he has been detained by the same chief who abducted his niece.”

He dropped his gaze from Shelton's.

Shelton shrugged an armless shoulder. “I could not care less about either of them, Mr. Mott. In any case, Akbar has told us a dozen times that he had nothing to do with the Envoy's murder. He has wept over it for hours.”

“He may have wept,” General Elphinstone said weakly from his place beside the fire, “but nonetheless, I fear he has been false to us. One of our officers has been warned that ten thousand tribesmen are already waiting for our column at Khurd-Kabul, and another ten thousand at Surkhab.”

“And all in spite of Akbar's promise of protection and plenty of food for the journey?” Shelton insisted, his voice rising.

“I call that a clever move, not a promise,” Mott replied doggedly. “Now, if we attempt to protect ourselves or provide our own food, it will show our lack of faith in him. If we do nothing, we may find he has deceived us.”

“A clever move, you call it?” sneered the brigadier.

“I do, since I am the intelligence officer in this room.”

“There is another point to be made,” Lady Sale's son-in-law put in, his scarred face contracting painfully as he spoke. “The entrance to the cantonment is too narrow for our force to move out with the proper speed. I suggest we throw down our eastern rampart and create a forty-foot breach in the wall.”

“But,” objected General Elphinstone, “if we open such a large breach, then who is to defend it?”

“No one
can
defend it!” shouted Shelton. “We cannot defend the smallest thing! Was I the only witness to the plundering of our camels and
dhoolies
this morning, as they returned from leaving our wounded at the Bala Hisar? Did I alone see our drivers and bearers stripped of all their clothes and forced to run for their lives, naked, across the snow?”

The general sighed. “I do not know why no one ever fights these people off when they attack us. Have we no sentries, no proper guard?

“I have received another letter from Shah Shuja, begging us not to desert him,” he added mournfully. “I wish I had any idea what to do now.”