Seeing her intelligence clear as a sword of Azerbajan, her exalted
father resolved that his jewel should not be dulled by lack of polishing
and cutting, and he appointed the wise lady Miyabai to be her first
teacher. At the age of seven she knew the Koran by heart, and in her
honour a mighty feast was made for the army and for the poor. As she
grew, aged and saintly tutors were appointed, from whom she absorbed
Arabic, mathematics and astronomy, as a rose drinks rain. No subject
eluded her swift mind, no toil wearied her. Verses she wrote with
careless ease in the foreign tongue of Arabia, but hearing from an Arab
scholar that in a single line the exquisite skill betrayed an Indian
idiom, she discarded it instantly because she would have perfection and
wrote henceforward in her own tongue—Persian.
No pains were spared upon this jewel, for the Emperor desired that its
radiance should be splendid throughout Asia, yet her limit was drawn,
and sharply. For in her young pride of learning she began a commentary
on the holy Koran, and hearing this, he sternly forbade it. A woman
might do much in her own sphere, he wrote, but such a creature of dust
may not handle the Divine.
I, Abul Qasim, was with her when the imperial order reached her and saw
her take the fair manuscript and obediently tear it across, desiring
that the rent leaves be offered to the Shadow of God in token of
obedience. But those dark and dangerous eyes of hers were not obedient
beneath the veiling of silken lashes, and turning to me, to whom she
told her royal heart, she said;
“What the hand may not write the heart may think, and in the heart is no
Emperor. It is free,” and leaning from the marble casement she looked
down into the gliding river and said no more.
Yet the Emperor made amends, and noble, as far as his light led him. Not
for a woman the mysteries of the faith of Islam that he held of all
things the greatest, but, fired by the praises of her tutors, he sent
throughout India, Persia and Kashmir for poets worthy of this
poet-Princess and bid them come to Delhi and Agra and there dwell that a
fitting company be made for her.
So, veiled like the moon in clouds, curtained and attended, the Princess
Arjemand was permitted to be present at tournaments in the palace where
the weapons were the wit and beauty of words, when quotations and
questions were flung about as it might be handsful of stars, and a line
given be capped with some perfect finish of the moment’s prompting and
become a couplet unsurpassable, and very often it was the soft voice
from behind the golden veil that capped the wisest and completed the
most exquisite, and recited verses that brought exclamations from the
assembled poets.
“Not even Saadi (may Allah enlighten him!) nor Jalalu’d-din Rumi (may
his eyes be gladdened in Paradise) excelled this lady in the perfumed
honey of their words.” So with one voice they cried.
And this was not homage to the daughter of the Protector of the
Universe. No indeed! for death has not washed out her name with the cold
waters of oblivion and now that she is no more beautiful nor daughter of
the Emperor her verse is still repeated where the poets and saints meet
in concourse.
It will be seen that her life in the Begam Mahal (the Palace of the
Queens) must needs be lonely, for there was none among the princesses
who shared her pleasures, and their recreation in languidly watching the
dancers or buying jewels and embroideries and devouring sweetmeats
wearied her as sorely. But she had one friend, Imami, daughter of Arshad
Beg Khan, and this creature of mortality who writes these words was also
accounted her friend though unworthy to be the ground whereon she set
her little foot.
Day after day did the Lady Arjemand with Imami write and study, and the
librarians of the Emperor had little peace because of the demand of
these ladies for the glorious manuscripts and books collected by her
ancestors from all parts of the earth.
They sat and the walls echoed to the low note of her voice as she read
and recited and so beautiful were the tones of my Princess that I have
seen the water stand in the eyes of those who heard her recite her own
verses or those of the great Persians. It was a noble instrument ranging
from the deepest notes of passion to the keen cry of despair, and I
would listen unwearied while the day trod its blossomed way from dawn to
sunset in the Palace gardens. Great and wonderful was this new palace of
the Emperor with tall lilies inlaid in the pure marble in stones so
precious that they might have been the bosom adornments of some lesser
beauty. Palms in great vases brought by the merchants of Cathay made a
green shade and coolness for two fountains—the one of the pure waters
of the canal, the other of rose-water, and they plashed beside a
miniature lake of fretted marble rocks sunk in the floor where white
lotuses slept in the twilight of the calm retreat. Such was the chamber
of the daughter of the Padshah.
But of all the jewels the Princess was the glory.
Surely with small pains may the Great Mogul’s daughter be a beauty, but
had she been sold naked in the common market-place this lady had brought
a royal price.
Toorki and Persian and Indian blood mingled in her and each gave of its
best. The silken dark hair braided about her head was an imperial crown.
From the well-beloved lady who lies in the Taj Mahal (may Allah make
fragrant her memory), she had received eyes whose glance of slow
sweetness no man, not even the men of her own blood (excepting only her
stern father), could resist, and of her rose-red lips half sensuous,
half child-like, might it be said
“Their honey was set as a snare and my heart a wandering bee,
Clung and could not be satisfied, tasted and returned home never more.”
The imperial Mogul women were indeed the jewels of the world, because
the beauties of Asia were chosen to be their mothers. The net of the
Emperors swept wide, and I, who in virtue of my age and faithful service
have seen, testify that there was none like them, and the loveliest of
all was fit but to serve my Princess kneeling. Shall not the truth be
told? Of the soul within that delicious shrine her deeds must tell.
Now as I have written she sat with Imami by the little lake, and I in a
marble recess by one of the great latticed windows that looks down on
Jumna river and on the other side over the city of Shahjahanabad, new
and luminous in magnificence. In all the world else are no such palace
and city. At this moment she read aloud a letter from her father
Aurungzib concerning the memoirs of her ancestor the Emperor Babar who
founded their dynasty in India, a book written by his own hand and
religiously preserved in the Mogul archives, and she read it with anger
because when she demanded this book from the librarian, the Padshah
hearing wrote thus:
“Happy Daughter of Sovereignty. There is one manner of life for men, who
are the rulers, and for women, who are the slaves. It seems you go too
far. What has a daughter of our House to do with our ancestor
Zah-r-ud-din Muhammed Babar, the resident in Paradise? I have granted
much already. Plant not the herb of regret in the garden of affection.
He writes as a man for men. The request is refused. Recall the verse of
the poet:
“‘Ride slowly and humbly, and not in hurrying pride
For o’er the dusty bones of men, the creature of dust must ride.’
“What an Emperor writes is not suitable for the Princesses of his House.
His duty is rule; theirs, obedience.”
It was a discouragement but a command, and another had laid the finger
of obedience on the lips of silence, but, taking counsel with her heart,
this Princess did not so.
She called to me for her pen and wrote in answer:
“Exalted Emperor, Shahinshah, Shadow of God, King of the world, Refuge
of the needy, father of the body of this creature of mortality, be
pleased to hear this ignorant one’s supplication. Surely you have fed my
mind on the bee’s-bread of wisdom, and from your own royal lips have I
learnt that the words of our ancestor (upon whom be the Peace!) are full
of flavour and laughter, generous and kind, shining with honour and the
valour of our family. Now, since this is the root whence sprang your
auspicious Majesty’s rule, should not a humble daughter triumph in it?
True is it that I am your female slave, yet may this worthless body bear
one day a son to transmit your likeness to the prostrate ages, and since
we do not breed lions from lambs, his mother should carry the laughter
and fire of her race like a jewel in the mine of her soul. I make my
petition to the Padshah, the holiest of Emperors.”
“It will be granted me,” said the Princess reading these letters aloud
to Imami and to me, “because of that last word—the holiest. He values
that title more than to be called the Shahinshah. And with all my heart
I would it were otherwise.”
“And why, high Lady?” cried Imami in sheer astonishment. “Surely the
Padshah is a saint and his deeds and words will shine in Paradise. It is
blessed to be devout.”
“I know little of Paradise, but I know, and my father might know if he
studied the life of Akbar the Great, his great-grandfather, that to be
so bitter a saint in our Mohammedan faith that he insults and persecutes
every other is to break our dynasty to powder. Consider of it, Imami, as
I do. Have you read the Acts of Akbar Padshah the greatest sovereign
that ever reigned? Were I emperor in India thus and thus I would do.”
“Glory of Women, may your condescension increase! What did Akbar
Padshah?” said Imami, joining her hands, but I said nothing because I
knew.
“Though he was born Moslem yet he honoured all the Faiths, knowing in
his wisdom that the music is One and the dogmas but the foolish words
that man in his ignorance sets to it. All faiths are true, and none!”
The blood almost fell from my face as I heard her, because had these
words been carried to the Emperor not even her rank, not even her
daughterhood, could have saved the Princess. With Imami and me she was
safe, but in a palace a bird of the air may carry the matter.
“Yes!” she went on, laughing coldly, “Akbar Padshah had in all ways the
tastes of Solomon the Wise and his Begam Mahal (Palace of the Queens)
was a garden of beauty. But observe! The Queens were chosen from every
faith and each had the right to worship as she would. There were Indian
princesses who adored Shiva the Great God and Krishna the Beloved. There
was the Fair Persian who worshipped the Fire as Zoroaster taught, and
there were ladies of the faith of our Prophet more than can be counted.
Whereas in the zenana of my imperial father——”
She paused, and Imami continued with gravity that concealed a smile:
“The Begams recite the holy Koran all day, as becomes the ladies of the
Emperor who says that he sighs for the life of a faquir.”
“And would he had it!” cried the Princess with passion, “for every day
discontent grows among the Hindus that are taxed, beaten, and despised
only because they hold the faith of their fathers. Is there one of them
employed about the court or in the great offices? Not any. Whereas the
Emperor Akbar in his deep wisdom made them as one with ourselves and
thus built up a mighty Empire that my father with holy hands destroys
daily.”
“O Brilliant Lady, for the sake of the Prophet, be silent!” I said, for
indeed she terrified me by her insight. It is better for a woman that
she should not know, or, knowing, keep silence. “If these words were
carried to the Padshah——”
“I should at the least be imprisoned and never more see the light of
day— Well, one may be a devotee out of the Faith as in it, and like
Akbar Padshah, I am the devotee of Truth who shuts her fair eyes on no
faith that men hold in humbleness of heart. And were it policy only, is
it not madness to disgust and terrify the countless millions of the
Hindus upon whom our throne is carried? The end is sure.”
“What is the end?” asked Imami in a whisper.
“Misery for himself—though that matters little, for he will take it as
the robe of martyrdom from the hand of Allah, but ruin for the Mogul
Empire in India. O that I were a man!”
Her face lit up into such pride and valour as she spoke that I wished it
also, for I knew that her words were true as truth. But in India a woman
can do nothing. It is little wonder I trembled for my Princess.
A picture of her Imperial father lay on the low table at her elbow,
painted by a Persian artist of fame, and beautiful as a jewel in its
small brilliant colours, and looking upon it one might see the Kismet of
the Emperor in every feature. Eyes stern but sad, the narrow brows and
close lips of the man who sees not life as it is but as his own thought
of it, bounded by those high narrow brows that overweighted the lower
part. The head of the Emperor was surrounded like that of a saint with a
golden halo and his stern eyes were fixed on some vision invisible to
others. The jaw was weak but fine, and of all dangerous things on earth
beware the strength of a weak man in the grip of his belief. The
Princess looked at it, and then at me:
“The Emperor (may Allah enlarge his reign) should have lived in the time
of the Prophet and have been the Sword in his right hand. He is born
centuries too late. It is policy now that carries all before it. O could
I speak my mind to him, for my brothers dare not, but he and I are
worlds apart and in his presence I am silent.”
I sighed. Not his throne, nor his children, nor his women, nor aught on
earth weighed for one grain of sand against the Pearl of the Faith. True
is it that the Emperor Akbar followed the Vision also but with eyes how
wide and clear!—knowing this for certain, that mortal man _cannot_
know, that Truth is a bird flying in the skies and lets fall but a
feather to earth here and there. So he made for himself a faith that
held the quintessence of all the faiths, and had his sons been like to
him—but past is past. They were not, and they broke his great heart.
So I said, bowing very low:
“Princess, when the happy day comes that you must wed you shall make
your lord Lord of the World with your wisdom.”
She laughed, but bitterly.
“O, I have lovers! For one, Suleiman, my cousin, son of the brother whom
the Emperor slew because he stood too near the throne. By report I knew
what he was, but I saw him and spoke with him——”
“My Princess, and how?” I asked in great surprise, knowing that his
presence in the Begam Mahal would have been death.
She looked at me with large calm eyes.
“My faithful servant, have you come and gone so long about the Begam
Mahal and have not known that all things are possible? Prince Suleiman
was veiled like a woman, and like a woman he stood where you sit, and I
saw his face and we spoke together. Should not cousins meet who may be
man and wife? And I have loved his father, Prince Dara, very much, who
was learned and good.”
I trembled again when I heard, for had the Emperor guessed that she had
done this thing what hope for her? His three brothers had he
slaughtered, and the Prince Suleiman was doomed.
“And he saw your face, O Brilliant Lady?”
“No, and not for fear’s sake but because I liked him not at all. He said
‘O Envy of the Moon, lift up your veil that I may enjoy the marvel of
your beauty’ and I sang this verse I had made to my lute.”
She caught up her lute that lay beside her and sang,
“I will not lift my Veil,
For if I did, who knows?
The bulbul might forget the rose,
The Brahman worshipper
Adoring Lakshmi’s grace
Might turn, forsaking her,
To see my face;
My beauty might prevail.
Think how within the flower
Hidden as in a bower
Her fragrant soul must be,
And none can look on it.
So me the world shall see
Only within the verses I have writ.
I will not lift the Veil.
“And the fool caught me and would have torn it,” she added, “but Imami
restrained him, and he flung from us like a woman in temper as in dress.
A contemptible creature!”
“But Lady of Beauty, what had you against him?”
“Do I not know all that goes on in this city? Do I not know that Prince
Suleiman spends his days and nights in Shaitanpur (Devilsville, the
quarter of pleasure) and was I to show my face to a man reeking from the
embraces of the bazaar? No, I am Makhfi (the Hidden One) and hidden I
will remain for such as he. I will be no rival to Peri Mahal the dancer
and her like.”
And even as she ended a low voice at the curtain that veiled the
entrance asked for admission and when she granted it, the heavy silk was
drawn aside and a tall veiled woman entered. The Princess did not look
up but I saw Imami’s eyes fix as if startled.
“Her slave prays for a word with the Marvel of the Age whose mind is so
lovely that it outshines even her fair face and her face so beautiful,
that it is the lamp that permits the light of her soul to shine
through.”
“Warm for a woman!” said the Princess, and looked straight at the
new-comer who stood salaaming with the utmost humility. She added
impatiently:
“There is no need of this ceremony, lady. Remove your veil. The good
physician Abul Qasim is privileged to see the faces of all in the Begam
Mahal.”
In a flash the veil was torn off and a man’s face appeared beneath
it—young, bold, and handsome with the high features of the Imperial
House, a splendid dissolute young man with the down black on his upper
lip like the black astride the young swan’s bill. Prince Suleiman, the
son of Dara the Emperor’s brother.
“Ha, daughter of my uncle!” he cried,— “Did I not wager, did I not
swear, that I would see that hidden beauty and now I see it face to
face. Poets have sung it and painters praised it, but their words and
their colours were lies for they could not utter the truth. And having
seen I entreat for my father’s sake, for love’s sake, that it may be
mine.”
He made towards her eagerly, wholly disregarding Imami and me. I looked
to see her confused or angry, but she spoke with a most misleading calm.
“Exalted cousin, you have won your wager and your bride. If her embrace
is cold it is at least constant and——”
“Cold, with those burning lips of rose, those glowing eyes? O Loveliest,
Divinest, grant me one kiss for earnest if you would not have me die at
your feet.”
I saw her sign with her hand to Imami who glided away, flattening
herself against the wall as if terrified, then she spoke serenely.
“Exalted cousin, when were you last in Shaitanpur?”
It stopped him like a lightning flash. He stood arrested on the marble
before her face.
“I know nothing of Shaitanpur,” he said, breathless.
“No? Nor of the dancer Peri Mahal and her house with the courtyard of
roses, nor of the song she sings?”
Again she caught up her lute and sang in a low voice,
“Black bee, strong bee, the honey-eater,
Plunder my perfume, seek my heart
Cling to me, ravage me, make me sweeter,
Tear the leaves of the rose apart.”
He stared, his eyes slowly dilating. That the daughter of the Emperor
should sing the song of the bazaar—the song of the light women—! Then
it emboldened him. He threw himself forward to seize her hand.
“Maker of verses, this is a rose of your own garden. Till now I never
heard it, but it speaks of love. You shall not ask me twice. My rose, my
pearl, my star!—” He caught the hem of her veil. Now I knew well from
her eyes that he rushed on his fate, but it was written in the book of
his destiny and what is written who can avert?
She drew back a little and looked at him with soft eyes—wells of
delicious darkness, the swelling curves of her lovely form a temptation
for true believers, and her lips smiling a little as if from delight at
their own sweetness. And indeed her voice was gentle as moonbeams and as
caressing, as though she could sacrifice all to please the man whom she
exalted with the sight of her.
“Fortunate cousin, I am a weak woman. How dare I face the wrath of the
Emperor? He did not love your father. He does not love your father’s
son, yet if he did——”
She drooped her head a little as if with a soft shame that overwhelmed
her in the depths of modesty. O very woman, divine yet a child!— She
had turned wisdom into folly with a glance. And he trembling, and with
eyes fixed, stammered out:
“Alas, I have dreamed of your sweetness and what is the dream to the
truth? I am drowned in it. O give it to me; make it mine that in life
and death it may enfold me and that I may never again behold a lesser
light, having seen the ineffable.”
And he caught her hand passionately and drew her towards him, she
yielding gently and slowly, resisting a very little, and looking at him
as if with compassion.
And very softly in a voice like the breathing of a flute she said:
“O my cousin, how should we face the wrath of the Emperor?” as though
all her soul were in that question.
And he, kissing her hands with frenzy, said in broken words:
“Ah, Moon of my delight that knows no wane, let me but watch with you
through the starry hours of one night, and then, then if the Padshah’s
will be to slay me, I shall at least have lived.”
“And I also,” she said, looking down like the feminine incarnation of
modesty, so that enraptured he flung his arms about the yielding
softness of her most exquisite form and kissed her on the lips as a
thirsty man in the desert grasps the cup nor can sever his mouth from
it. And when he would permit her to speak she leaned her head backward
to gain space, and she said:
“What is my lord’s will with his slave? And in what shall I obey him?”
Now I, standing in the recess would have warned him, if I could, that
not thus—O not thus, does the proudest and wisest of women abandon
herself to such as he! For I had pity on his youth and the manly beauty
of him, and the Imperial blood that he shared with her. But who was this
creature of dust to obstruct the design of the Imperial Princess? And
indeed even I wavered and was uncertain that I guessed her meaning, with
such veiled submissive sweetness did she hold his hand in hers and touch
it to her lovely brows.
And trembling like a man in a fever, he replied.
“O darling little slave, since you give me the right to command what is
wholly mine, I say this— Let my slave, whose slave I am, expect me
to-night when the moonlight touches the western corner of the
Divan-i-Am, and I will come to this chamber of bliss, and my life, my
soul, are in the hand of my slave whose feet I kiss.”
And throwing himself on the marble like a worshipper he kissed the
flower-soft feet that showed like bare gold beneath the hem of her robe,
and so rising to his knee, looked up at her as an idolater at the
goddess vouchsafed to his eyes.
But she looked beyond him at the curtain that veiled the door. It lifted
to a hidden hand, and Imami stood there, ash-pale, in her hand a dish of
gold, and standing upon it a great goblet of jewelled glass with
pomegranate sherbet brimming in it rose-red and rose-petals floating on
the surface and beside it two cups of gold flashing with diamond sparks,
and on her knee she offered it to the Princess, who took the goblet and
a cup smiling.
“Fortunate cousin, since this is so, and I, my father’s best-beloved
child, will petition him to grant me my heart’s desire, let us drink the
cup of betrothal in the presence of the Hakim Abul Qasim and the lady
Imami. Heart of my heart, I pledge you!” and setting the blossom of her
lips to the jewelled rim she drank, and filled the other cup for him,
and still kneeling before her breathless with adoration, he took the cup
in both his hands, and I watched and could say no word because her
purpose was clear to me and I knew well that of all women on earth she
was the last to endure the insult of his presence. And Imami knelt by
the door,—her face like ivory against the heavy gold curtain. Now, as
he set his lips to the cup, suddenly Imami sprang to her feet and
tottered back against the sculptured marble and with scarce breath to
fill her voice——
“The Emperor comes,” she said, and fell again on her knees at the door,
hiding her face in her hands.
I saw the sickening terror that struck the colour from the cheeks and
lips of the lover. He knelt there with a glassy countenance like a man
in the clutch of a nightmare who cannot flee from the advancing
doom—his limbs weighted with lead, his heart with the pressure of an
exceeding horror. But Glory of Women caught him by the hand.
“Exalted cousin, there is but one way from these rooms, and the Emperor
closes it. Fly to the room beyond my bed-chamber, the room of the marble
bath, and hide where you can while I hold him in talk. Allah hafiz! (God
protect you!) Go!”
And she pushed him from her, and he fled. Then, most singular to see,
she composed her veil, glancing in the mirror set in silver that was the
gift of the Portuguese priests, and turned to the door, and as she did
so the curtain was lifted and Aurungzib Padshah entered and Imami
prostrated herself and I also, but the Princess Arjemand knelt.
Now I know not how this should be, but in a room where great events have
just happened it is as if the waves of passion beat about the walls and
waft the garments of those who have been present, and it seemed to my
guilty heart as though the very flowers enamelled on the marble cried
aloud,
“Majesty, there is a man—a man in hiding.”
And certainly the Padshah halted and looked with suspicion from one to
the other of us. He was ever a man of suspicion, unlike the easy humour
of his father Shah-Jahan, and the half drunken good-nature (shot with
frightful angers) of his grandfather Jahangir. Aurungzib Padshah was a
small man, dark exceedingly, with veiled eyes and shut lips, and never
have I seen him warmed by any emotion of love, pity, fear, but always
calm, cold, self-collected and austere. For it is well known that his
only care was religion, and to this he sacrificed his all.
So looking hard at the kneeling Glory of Women he said coldly,
“In the name of the most beneficent and merciful God, what is this
disturbance? Speak, exalted daughter, Princess of the family of
chastity. It is revealed to this suppliant at the throne of Allah that
there is a hidden thing in these chambers. Speak. What is it?”
And kneeling, my Princess answered.
“May joy attend my exalted father, the adorner of the gardens of
happiness, the decorator of the rose-parterre of enjoyment! There is but
one hidden thing in these chambers, and it is your unworthy daughter,
who is known by your august favour as Makhfi, the Hidden One.”
I saw the eyes of the Padshah fix on the golden dish that lay on the
marble with one cup emptied of the pomegranate sherbet and the other
half emptied, the sherbet running in a red stream like blood along the
marble.
“This was set down in haste!” he said through clipped lips.
“In haste, O Glory of Allah!” said the Princess with the wet beads
clamming the silken tendrils on her forehead. “I drank and was about to
drink the second when your auspicious feet blessed the threshold.”
“You are thirsty, happy daughter of sovereignty? Then drink the
remainder. You have my permission.”
I saw the gleam in either black eye of him as he spoke, watching her
sidelong. She lifted the cup to her lips with a hand that shook so that
it rattled against her teeth, though she struggled to command herself.
“No, do not drink, royal daughter. It is stale,” he said, still standing
and smiling coldly. And the Princess answered with quivering lips:
“Will not the Mirror of God be seated and partake of refreshment offered
by the hand of his slave?”
“Not of that cup and not until I have observed your embroideries and
manuscripts, daughter of high dignity,” the Padshah replied, and
followed by my Princess, Imami still kneeling by the door, and I by the
latticed marble window he walked about the hall and into the chambers
beyond, talking pleasantly to the Princess at his shoulder, and so
returning took his seat on the divan, and she served sherbets and fruits
on a golden dish to his Majesty.
He was later to attend the Am-Khas, the Hall of Audience, and was
attired kingly. His vest was of white and delicately flowered satin,
with heavy silk and gold embroidery. His cloth-of-gold turban was
aigretted with diamonds great as stars, with a topaz at the base that
shone like the sun. A chain of great pearls hung to his knees, and above
all these jewels was his cold repelling dignity as of a King too great
to be approached even by the favourite child of his pride, and all the
time he sat she knelt before him.
At length he spoke as if in meditation.
“Glory of Women, you have grown into beauty like that of the Maids of
Paradise. Your long lashes need no antimony, your eyes are winter stars,
and in that robe of gulnar (pomegranate blossom) you appear like that
princess who bewildered the senses of the mighty Suleiman. [I saw a
quiver pass over her features as she bowed her head beneath the weight
of praise.] Does not the rose long for the nightingale? Does not your
heart, exalted daughter, turn to love?”
And with her eyes on the ground, she answered.
“Exhibitor of Perfection, my heart is set on far other matters. If in
this land of good fortune I be remembered as a poet, I ask no more of
destiny save that the rank of the daughter of Emperors be attached to my
name for ever.”
And he.
“It is well. Yet marriage must be considered. Fortunate daughter, have
you bathed to-day?”
And she, deadly pale.
“Shadow of the benignity of the Creator, no.”
And with set lips he called to Imami by the door.
“Hasten, lady, and light the fire beneath the great vessel of water in
the bathing room of the Begam, and I will remain in discourse with her
until it is ready.”
And Imami casting a fearful glance on the kneeling Princess moved slowly
to the inner chamber, and it is the truth that my soul sickened within
me, for though I knew the young man worthless, and the son of a
dangerous father, yet who could bear this without terror of spirit? And
the Emperor, laying aside his awful Majesty, made his presence sweet as
sunshine in the great chamber of marble, saying:
“Exalted daughter, it is but seldom we have leisure to relax, and yet
the olfactory of my soul inhales with delight the ambergris-perfumed
breezes of affection and concord, and daily if it were possible would I
enjoy them. Yes, even when absent—
“‘I sit beside thee in thought, and my heart is at ease,
For that is a union not followed by separation’s pain.’
“It is in my mind to move with my ladies and the living family of
dignity and glory to reside for a time at Lahore, and we shall then be
more together, partaking of the irrigation of the rivers of affection.”
“Great father, you promise me a joy to increase health and exalt
happiness.”
She swayed as she knelt, and leaned against the divan with closed eyes.
“Exalted father, the perfume of flowers and of the rose-water fountain
have given me a faintness. May I retire for a moment with the hakim Abul
Qasim to my inner chamber lest I fall at your feet?”
“It is granted, Glory of Women, and the lady Imami shall recite to me
your latest verses until you return.”
I came forward making the salutation, and helped the Princess to rise,
she leaning on my aged arm, and the lady Imami took her place unrolling
a manuscript of verses splendid with Persian illuminations in blue and
gold. The Emperor composed himself to listen with pleasure, for it is
well known that all the sovereigns of that mighty line were skilled in
versifying and just critics of _ghazal_ and _suja_.
And as we moved forward, I supporting her, the Princess breathed in my
ear:
“I meant his death, but Allah knowing my heart knows I am innocent of
this hideous thing. O Abul Qasim, father of my soul, is there aid in
earth or heaven?”
But what could I say? Only the Great Physician of the Hidden Dispensary
could assist that unfortunate. And meanwhile the sweet voice of the lady
Imami read aloud the verses of the Princess.
“O love, I am thy thrall.
As on the tulip’s burning petal glows
A spot yet more intense, of deeper dye,
So in my heart a flower of passion blows,
See the dark stain of its intensity
Deeper than all.”
And then we lost the words as we moved into the inner chamber.
Now this inner chamber was all of pearl-pure marble, and in the midst a
deeply sunk bath of marble long and wide and with its walls decorated
with lotuses and their leaves, and a silver pipe led the water to this
from a mighty silver vessel six feet and more in height and of great
capacity, supported on a tripod of sculptured silver, and below it a
place for fire, enclosed and fed with sweet-scented woods and balls of
perfume made of rare gums. And, O Allah most Merciful, there the lady
Imami had kindled fire by command of the Emperor, and within might be
seen the brilliant blue flame licking up the perfumes and crawling like
snakes about the cedar wood below the vessel. And certainly I looked
that the Princess should do some desperate deed for the enlargement of
the man most miserable hidden within the vessel, and releasing her I
stood like a graven image of terror, expecting what she would do.
She laid her hand on the silver, and amid the crackling of the flames
she said in a clear small voice:
“You came unsought. You violated the secrecy of the Hidden One. What
then is your duty, exalted cousin?”
And from within he spoke in a voice—O Allah, most compassionate, grant
that I may never hear such again!—the one word:
“Silence.”
And she:
“It is true. Keep silence if you are my true lover, for the sake of my
honour. For if your voice is heard I am a dead woman. But I too will be
faithful to death.”
And he answered:
“On my head and eyes.”
And by her command I gave her water to drink and applied an essence to
her nostrils, and we left the room, pulling the heavy curtains before
it, and we returned to where the Padshah sat with the pale lady Imami
reading aloud and he smiling in calm content. Seeing us return, he
motioned my Princess to a seat on the divan saying:
“I would hear your verses of ‘The Lover.’
“What is the fate of a lover? It is to be crucified for the world’s
pleasure.”
And taking the manuscript from the hands of Imami she read aloud:
“Dust falls within the cup of Kaikobad
And King Jamshid,
Nor recks the world if they were sad or glad,
Or what they did.
“How many hearts, O Love, thy sword hath slain
And yet will slay!
They bless thee, nor to Allah they complain
At Judgment Day.”
And so read on steadfastly for the space of an hour, until the Padshah,
replete with the sweetness of the melody, rose from the divan, and said
graciously:
“May the tree of hereditary affection watered by this hour of converse
grow in leaf and fruit and overshadow us both in peace. Go now, exalted
daughter, and bathe your angelic person and rest with a soul sunned in
the favour of the Emperor.”
And he went, we attending him to the door of the secluded chambers, and
when we returned, the Princess lay in a dead faint on the divan, and the
fire beneath the great vessel of silver was red and silent, and within
was silence also.
The courage of Babar the gallant and Akbar the greatly dreaming was not
dead in their descendant and thus in a great self-sacrifice he became a
traveller on the road of non-existence, and I wept for him.
So the Court moved to Lahore.
But after this on my Princess came a change hard to be told.
She had despised the Prince alive. For his death she loved him, and with
a poet’s passion and tenderness mingled with a woman’s. Her sole relief
was in solitude, pouring forth the burning thoughts wherein the phoenix
of her soul was consumed in perfumed flame which will forever kindle the
heart of man to like ecstasies.
Great Princes sought her, among them Akil Khan, a most beautiful young
man, aglow with courage and splendour. He had seen her, dreaming on the
roof of her pavilion in the dawn, pensive and lovely, clothed in
dawn-colour, her long hair braided with pearls falling about her, and
mad with love, he sent her this one line, awaiting completion:
“A vision in crimson appears on the roof of the Palace.”
Kneeling, I implored her to give him some solace,
“For O, Light of my soul,” said I, “the years drift by like leaves, and
shall this miracle of beauty and of intelligence clear as diamonds lead
its graces to the grave and leave the world no copy? My Princess, my
Princess, have pity on your youth! True, the high Prince died a hero for
the sake of a lady’s honour, yet remember that until then the soul of
him was at home in Devilsville, and not in the rose-gardens of Allah.
You have mourned him long enough: awake now to joy.”
But she put it gently aside, saying:
“The soul washed in the lustration of death is pure. What is Shaitanpur
to him now? He has forgotten it. And shall I who accepted the sacrifice,
forget? O, that I had not failed in courage—that I had died with him!
Give me the paper of Akil Khan.”