_Beauty is no bond maiden; Lot it holds
The veil which hides it from all earthly lovers
But to holy-hearted noble-souled
Unveils and all its loveliness discovers_.
There was another, and very different tinkle of soft laughter, a
rustle of silks and satins which in their stirring gave out
multi-scented perfumes of orange and rose, musk, and ambergris; for
Auntie Rosebody was in full swing of one of her recitals, and all the
harem knew that they were as good as cornelian-water for raising the
spirits.
Not that spirits required raising on this day of days, on which
the accession of the Most Auspicious, the Most Excellent, the
King-of-Kings was commemorated! Pleasurable excitement simmered
through the whole women's apartments. For weeks past, preparations for
the feast had been going on, and to-day would bring full fruition to
all their labours. Dressed in their best, the harem waited for the
ceremonials to begin.
"Ha! la! la!" went on Aunt Rosebody, enjoying her own tale of past
glories. "That was a feasting, for sure A Mystic Palace, and three
Houses; one of dominion, one of good fortune, one of pleasure. So my
brother Jahanbani-jinat Ashyani--on whom be peace--chose pleasure. And
he took three plates full of gold coins. 'There is no need to count,'
said he, 'let each lady take a fistful.' So we scattered them in the
empty tank, and the guests scrambled for them.
"Then the King, my brother, seeing this, said to our Dearest
Lady"--here the little speaker's little hands fluttered faintly as if
in blessing--"on whom be God's uttermost peace for ever, 'If you
permit, why not let the water in?' At first 'Dearest Lady,' out of the
gentleness of her heart said no, but afterward she climbed out and
sate on the top steps! Ha! la! la! la! It was like the Day of
Resurrection! When the water came, everyone tumbled about and got so
excited, but the King called 'No harm done! Come out and eat aniseed
candy!' So to end my story everyone came out, everyone ate candy, and
none got cold! _Bis-millah!_"
The little lady hitched her veil straight--it had fallen from her
abundant gray hair during her vivacious gesticulations--and beamed
round on the audience seated about her on cushions.
"_Bis-millah!_" echoed their laughing voices. To look at Aunt Rosebody
was enough for laughter. Despite her years, nothing damped the keen
enjoyment of life which was hers by right of descent. Her nephew Akbar
had it at times also; but the cares of life crept in at others. Not so
with Aunt Rosebody. Even her recent pilgrimage to Mekka had not aged
her, though Salima Begum her daughter looked years older, and _her_
daughter the little "Mother of Plumpness" had come out of the five
years journeying quite thin.
But one thing disturbed Auntie Rosebody's equanimity, and that was the
misdeeds of her darling grand-nephew, the Heir Apparent. These she
would weep over, scold over, and finally condone.
So the smiles died from her puckered face as Lady Hamida Begum, the
boy's grandmother, swept into the arcade her face pale with proud
vexation.
"Say not so! sister-in-law!" exclaimed the little lady, tears in her
voice already. "Say not he hath been drunk again? Oh! my life! What is
to be done?"
Lady Hamida set her lips. "It is true," she replied, "and my son--his
father--is deeply angered. And what wonder, though in truth"--she
sighed--"this setting aside of all loose livers in Satanstown----"
"Oh! 'tis a premium on discovery," moaned Aunt Rosebody. "Why cannot
my nephew let folk go to the devil discreetly, and none be the wiser
save Providence? Oh! my life! what is to be done?"
"Pray for him," suggested Salima Begum nervously.
"Yes! Pray for him!" assented an older Salima who, being related in
cross-road fashion to half the harem had lost all individuality.
"Prayers!" whimpered the little lady wrathfully. "Have I not already
given up my pilgrimage to the scapegrace, and if that avails not, what
are prayers? How was it, know you, Hamida?"
"The tale is not for virtuous ears," replied the Lady Hamida icily.
"It is sufficient that my grandson has once more been brought home in
a state unbecoming the heir to my son."
"Tra-a-a!" said an elderly woman dryly, as she looked up from the
_tarikh_ or numerical hemstitch she was laboriously composing in a
corner. Then she took a pinch of scented snuff and removed her
spectacles; for Rakiya Begum, as the political wife of Akbar's
boyhood, was titular head of the Mahommedan harem as the mother of the
Heir-Apparent was head of the Hindu.
"With due deference," she went on composedly, "it is in the blood. His
great-grandfather----"
Aunt Rosebody caught her up fiercely. "But never clown-drunk
like this boy! When my father of blessed memory was drunk, he
was as the Archangel Gabriel,--of the most entertaining--the most
exhilarating--And he gave it up! Does he not say in his blessed book
of memoirs: 'Being now thirty-nine and having vowed to abandon wine in
my fortieth year, I therefore drank to excess.' What would you more?
And his recantation! 'Gentlemen of the army! Those who sit down to the
feast of life must end by drinking the cup of death!' It stirs one
like the Day of Resurrection! But this boy--'tis all his Hindu
mother's fault."
"And his grandfather took opium," continued Rakiya, relentlessly.
Lady Hamida looked up with chill dignity. "Let the earth of the grave
cover the dead, daughter-in-law. What my husband did is known to me
better than to you."
Rakiya Begum put the spectacles on her pinched nose once more.
"I offer excuse," she replied ceremoniously. "I was but going to
remark that both blessed saints, despite these habits, were good
enough kings. It is the unprecedented abstemiousness of the present
Lord of the Universe, who looks neither at wine nor women, which
throws the Prince's indiscretions into relief."
Her words brought solace. After all who could expect a boy of eighteen
to be Akbar?--who, in truth, scarcely slept or ate. And this brought
the remembrance that if Salim was sick--as he invariably was after a
drinking bout--the pile of good dishes which the Beneficent Ladies had
been preparing these many days back against this feast might as well
not have been made! The thought was depressing.
"I wonder," sighed Aunt Rosebody, "what 'Dearest Lady' would have
advised."
A hush fell over the company. It seemed as though the sweet wise
presence of a dead woman filled the room. A dead woman who even in
life had earned for herself that title, who lives under it still in
the pages of her niece's memoirs.
"She would have counselled patience as ever," answered the Lady
Haimda. "Lo! Elder-Sister-Rose! Such tangled skeins can be but
disentangled by Time. I remember when my marriage----" She broke off
and was silent. Elder-Sister-Rose might know the story, might even
remember for her memoirs the very words of the pitiful little tale of
girlish refusal overborne; but these others? No! sufficient for them
the fact that the unwelcome marriage had made her mother to the
King-of-Kings.
"It must not spoil the day anyhow," summed up Aunt Rosebody at last,
decisively drying her eyes, "and by and by, perhaps, when his mother
hath done giving the boy Hindu medicines--in truth, though I admit my
nephew is right in deeming the idolaters fellow mortals, their drugs
are detestable--we may have a chance with a cooling sherbet such as my
father--on whom be peace--ever loved after a carouse. Meanwhile is
everything ready for the weighing?"
"All things," replied Lady Hamida proudly. "My son shall lack for
nothing."
"Then the poor will at least benefit, God be praised!" said Rakiya
Begum tartly as she rose. "Though this weighing of the Sacred
Personality is a heathenish custom unsanctioned by our Holy Book; but
what with his Majesty's divine faith, what with the shaving of beards,
the keeping of dogs, and mixed marriages, a pious Musulmani such as I,
had best take off her spectacles lest she see too much."
She took them off with a flourish and a loud _Sobhan-ullah!_ which
echoed militantly through the wide arcaded room.
Then she prepared to put on her _burka_ veil; for trumpets were
sounding outside that it was time for the Beneficent Ladies to take up
their secluded coign of vantage in order to see the coming show.
"There is no need for all-over-dresses," suggested Lady Hamida gently.
"My son hath arranged seclusion in a new fashion."
"I offer excuse!" replied Rakiya with a sniff, "but my honourable
veiling is of the old fashion."
With that she led the way in her ghostly goggle-eyed wrapper.
Such tinkling of jewels! Such perfume from stirred scent-sodden silks!
Such hurried needless mufflings with diaphanous veilings! Such final
eagerness of outlook, when they could peep through the latticing, see
the throne almost within touch of them, and--curving from it in a vast
semicircle of which it was the centre--see the packed rows on rows of
nobles glittering with jewels awaiting the coming of the King. So
entrancing was the sight that the due and stately greeting of the
rival women who trooped to their places from the Hindu harem, lacked
something of lengthy dignity, and there was a general sigh of content
as every eye settled down to a peephole.
"Look!" chattered even silent Salima. "Yonder is Sher Afkan new back
from the Deccan war! A goodly man, and betrothed, they say, to Ghiass
Beg, the Treasurer's daughter--a little witch for beauty. They call
her Queen of Women--Mihr-un-nissa--and she not twelve years old!"
"See, Amma-jan!" whispered little Umm Kulsum, the "Mother of
Plumpness," "that is Budaoni beside the Makhdum--O God of the Prophet,
may the Holy One's blessing rest on me!"
"Yonder is Faiz, the poet--oh fie! He hath his dog with him--the
unclean beast," giggled another.
"Aye! Abulfazl, his brother, will likely come with the King; they say
his stomach grows bigger every day trying to swallow what his Majesty
will not eat."
Rakiya Begum gave a cackling laugh. "Stomach or no stomach, he is the
wonder of the age. He hath approved this concealed one's verses."
"Mine also," bridled Aunt Rosebody. "He hath asked and used my memory
in his history. But wherefore delays the King? The show is like a
peacock's tail without an eye, and he away."
It was an apt simile. The almost inconceivable magnificence of the
scene made the eye wander. The acres on acres of gorgeous pavilion
flashing with silver-gilt columns, glowing with silken Khorasan
carpetings, filled to the roofing with tier on tier of grandees of the
empire ablaze with jewels, multi-coloured as a flowerful parterre--all
this needed centralising, seemed incoherent without a figure on the
throne. The very curve of waiting elephants--a solid wall of gold
trappings encrusted with gems which stretched on and on beyond the
pavilion on either side like some huge bow--seemed as if it might have
gone over the horizon, but for the tight-packed bowstring of the
populace blocking the distant view from sight with myriads of eager
watching eyes.
Suddenly a great blare of sound!
At last--at last! The Royal _nakarah_ at last! And see! sweeping round
ahead of a scintillating knot of horsemen, banners, lances--one man!
The King! The King!
A low moaning surge of sound came from the packed humanity for an
instant. The next it was lost in the wild shrieking bellow which
seemed to crack the skies as two thousand elephants threw up their
trunks head-high and let loose their leviathan throats.
An imperial salute indeed! One that never grows stale, and the thrill
of it paled Akbar's cheek as, with the shining sun, standard of the
Rajputs on one hand, the glorious green banner of Islam on the other,
he rode forward to take the throne which he had wrung alike from
Hindus and Mahommedans.
Of what was he thinking, as grave, courteous, he returned the
obeisances of all? He was thinking with a passion of regret in his
heart of a lad of eighteen found drunk in Siyah Yamin's Paradise.
And now, seated on the throne, his figure, clad in simple white
muslin--with the milky sheen of a rope of pearls, and the dull
white gleam of the diamond he always wore in his turban--its only
ornament--seemed to centre the magificence in curious contrast.
"The King--may he live for ever!--looks well enough," commented Rakiya
Begum, charily concealing her pride, "but why doth he not wear a gold
coat like his fathers? These innovations will surely lead him to
hell."
"_Sobhan-ullah!_" assented Salima nervously.
They were such simple, straightforward Beneficent Ladies with their
high features, high courage, high sense of duty, of family, of
tradition, all swathed and hidden away in scent-sodden silks and
satins. They formed as it were a masked battery of pure benevolence
behind the throne, unseen, but felt; for Akbar gave a glance round to
where he knew his mother must be sitting ere, facing his empire for a
second or two in silence, he rose and stepped forward to the great
silver-gilt steel-yard which stood in front of the dais.
A blare of _nakarahs_ sounded the advance, and Aunt Rosebody from her
peephole said in an agonised whisper: "God send everything be ready!"
"Even the Mystic Palace, O Khanzada Gulbadan Khanum! was not more
prepared!" replied Lady Hamida, "Eunuchs! take out the gold!"
Then, as the slaves staggered forth under their burden, she sate
clasping little Umm Kulsum's hand murmuring softly, "He did not weigh
so heavy--once!"
She was back in memory to the terrified travail of long years ago in
the wilderness when, as a queen flying from her enemies, she had first
wept at the rough looks of the hastily summoned village midwife, then
hugged her for very joy when the boy-baby was put into her young arms.
The "Mother of Plumpness" nestled closer to her in the sheer sympathy
which she had, and to spare, for all comers. Her round bright eyes,
indeed, had already sought and found the posy of violets which the
King wore half-hidden by the rope of pearls around his neck. She grew
them in her garden, so that the Most Excellent might ever wear the
flower he loved so well; that his grandfather Babar had loved so well
also.
Akbar, meanwhile, seated in the scales awaited the great platter of
gold, and a sigh of relief rose from behind the lattice as the
steel-yard, recovering from the impact, oscillated, then settled to
fair equipoise.
The gold, anyhow, was of the right weight!
"Give it to the poor!" said the King and the taut bowstring of the
populace gave out a surging thrill.
"The ornaments next!" whispered Aunt Rosebody feverishly, and held her
breath as with due decorum the second huge tray was hefted to the
scale.
What had happened? Was there a faint unevenness in the swing? Would
there be the least deficiency?
Ere the question, rising in ten thousand minds, could be formulated
fairly, it was settled by one small hand which flashed through the
latticing, and a scarce-heard chink told that a little gold bracelet
had fallen just where it should fall.
Akbar holding to the gilded chains as the balance steadied to
level rest, did not smile. He only threw back at the lattice one
all-comprehending remark of superhuman gravity.
"Thanks! most reverend aunt!"
Gulbadan Begum fell from her peephole with a little shriek of outrage,
and the remaining ten weighings, and the distribution of chicken, and
sheep, and goats, one of each for each year of the Most Auspicious
reign, had all been set aside for the poor ere she had recovered her
composure.
"Now is there peace, as the squirrel said when he had pulled the sting
out of the wasp," she remarked, hurriedly fanning herself with the
plaited edge of her tinsel-set veil, "but 'twas like the Day of
Resurrection!" This being her favourite standard for a disconcerting
event.
"Who flings, finds as he flings!" remarked Rakiya Begum with much
acerbity, "and if women learn men's tricks they must expect scandal.
'Tis the fault of ill-regulated youth!"
"Ill-regulated?" burst out Aunt Rosebody in instant wrath. "My
father--on whom be peace--loved to see his girls--but there! No
quarreling on this great day! Here come the elephants!"
They came, heading the review. Close on two thousand of them, three
abreast, moving like a wall, only their slow shifting pads showing
beneath their fringed war-armour. And as each trio passed, up went the
snaky trunks, and from between curved tusks a bellowing trumpet
shrieked out.
"Not to-day, Guj-muktar!" called the King appeasingly as one mighty
beast paused; and the wise monster passed on shaking its huge head as
if to rid himself of an unwelcome burden; for Guj-muktar was Akbar's
favourite mount, and objected strongly to a strange driver.
Then came the camels all scarlet and gold, with swinging tassels,
their riders bent almost double in sitting the long stilted stride.
Then the horses neighing, prancing, curvetting, led by gorgeous grooms
waving long yak's-tails. Next the hounds, lean, hungry-looking, pacing
beside their keepers, followed by the hawks quaintly hooded and
leashed, their bells jingling, looking like stuffed birds, so still
were they upon the falconers' wrists.
Finally--quaintest sight of all to the three Englishmen who seated
beside Padre Rudolfo the Jesuit, watched the scene with wide eyes--the
hunting leopards, their cat-like faces shifting and peering, their
dog-like limbs sinewy and sinuous, their long slender tails swaying at
the tip with rhythmical feline regularity.
"Samand!"
The King's voice echoed softly through the hot air. There was a
spotted, painted flash in the sunlight as a leash was slipped, and a
great creature was purring at Akbar's feet like a huge cat and rubbing
its back against the throne. The King's hand went down to it, and its
head continued the rubbing with still louder purrs.
"Lo! It is not meet," remarked Rakiya Begum with dissatisfaction. "The
Most Auspicious is no better than a _mahout_ or a hunter."
"He cannot help the beasts loving him," spoke up little Umm Kulsum
hotly.
"I offer excuse," snapped the head of the harem. "He need not love
them in return. Come, ladies! All is over save the soldiery, and they
are of no interest to virtuous women."
She gathered up her flock austerely, the Lady Hamida and Auntie
Rosebody lingering to discuss Prince Salim's absence from the
assemblage.
"He was not there! I looked even in the backmost row," declared the
little lady in a flutter. "What thinkest thou, Hamida? Can he be in
prison!"
"More likely sick in his mother's hands," replied Hamida coldly. "She
was not with us either, and, didst see? They were feeding Prince
Danyal with sweeties all the time!"
"Trash!" ejaculated Aunt Rosebody vehemently. "What can they do but
drink with sugar in their mouth from morn till eve? If they would but
give the lad over to me----"
Here she gave a little shriek of relief, for there, as she entered the
arcaded reception room, was the scapegrace seated sulkily among
cushions.
"Thou--thou evil one!" she began in shrill tones which yet suggested
endless excuses. "So thou hast been overtaken _again_, and in a public
place! Why canst thou not be as thy great-grandfather was in his
cups--but that is not edifying for the young. Ah! Salim! Salim! How
came it about, sweetheart?"
"'Twas the meddler Birbal--may God scorch him," growled Salim sulkily.
"He came after his cub--else Khodadad had stuffed the guards full of
gold."
"Khodadad! Lo! Tarkhan though he be, he should die for high treason.
And where was it?--What? thou wilt not say. Go! Umm Kulsum and thou
also Khadija--go to the threading the beads. Thou _shalt_ tell me,
boy. Whisper it--What! Siyah Yamin's! And thou new-betrothed! Oh! had
but thy father settled thee with a true bride of my race she would
have kept--or killed thee!" She gave a little shriek. "What!
Jamal-ud-din--the scorpion! saith he hath married her--the piece!
Shame! Shame!"
Then she suddenly put her head on one side and regarded her
grand-nephew distastefully. "Lo! Salim thou growest too fat. Wine and
women will kill thee, and 'tis well that Birbal--mind you I say naught
for him or against him, though he hath made me laugh often enough."
"He shall laugh on the wrong side ere long," cried Salim savagely.
"Aye! he shall learn not to jest at me."
The lively little face grew keen. "At thee? What said he? Come,
sweetheart, let me hear. I will decide if there be wit in it."
"Wit!" echoed the Prince angrily. "No wit, but insult for which he
shall pay. Look you, when the Hindu infidel interfered with sermons I
bid him silence. 'Am I not King?' said I (as I shall be), 'and the
Shadow-of-God?' 'No,' says he with that cursed bow of his, 'thou art
drunk, boy, and the substance of a fool.'"
Aunt Rosebody attempted gravity; then her laughter brimmed over, and
the whole room giggled in response, including the bead-threading
girls.
"Oh! my life," the little lady was beginning when one of the women
guards entered hurriedly, crying, "The King! honourable ladies, the
King!"
He was amongst them almost before the circle of fond relatives about
the young Prince had time to rise, so hiding him from view. For an
instant Akbar stood to make his courtly greeting, then, seeing his
mother's pale face light up, he flung his turban with its royal
heron's plume aside--his shoes he had already left at the door--and so
passing quickly to Hamida's side took both her hands and raised them
to his head.
"Mother! I thank thee--for all!"
Her fingers even in his strong grip lingered there lovingly as if she
felt the child's curls still; then she said with a quiver in her
voice:
"It was nothing, son--the good wishes were more weighty than the
gold."
He gave her hands a little squeeze ere he released them.
"Than the jewels, mayhap!"--here he turned with a mischievous smile to
Aunt Rosebody who stood divided between joy at seeing him, and dread
lest he should see Salim. "For _them_ I have to thank my aunt----"
"How dost know it was I?" she challenged furiously.
He looked at her with immense gravity.
"First," he said, "'twas the smallest hand in India! Next, no other
woman could shy so straight. When one has played ball, polo, God knows
what, in one's youth----"
"Calumnies! Calumnies!" interrupted Aunt Rosebody, her face puckering
with amusement. "The Most Excellent's remark was truly scandalous!"
The word was unfortunate; it roused memories.
"There be worse scandals than that to the King's honour this day," he
said, his face clouding. "Know then, Beneficent Ladies, that the son I
have forgiven--how many times? sure it comes nigh to the Padre's
seventy times seven--has been found drunk again in a common stew. And
he is coward too; he hath not dared to face his father----"
He paused, his anger turning to ice, for Prince Salim--to do him
justice no coward--took heart of grace, and rose above the shelter of
the women-folk, who seeing themselves no longer needed stood back,
leaving the father and son face to face.
They were a great contrast. Both tall and strong; but the one all
curves and softness, the other lean, sinewy.
"I was ill," began the Prince sullenly, when Akbar interrupted him
with a contemptuous laugh.
"Ill? Hast not even a body for drunkenness? Go thy way, boy, if thou
wilt. I have other strings to my bow."
"My son!" appealed Lady Hamida who, knowing the King's temper, knew
that once lost it might carry much with it, "the boy has come to
us----"
"And what does he here amongst virtuous women, madam, and how came
they to admit him?" asked Akbar sternly. "Did I, son and nephew, even
in the hottest hours of youth inure them to such insult? Go, boy! Go
with Jamal-ud-din, the exile, and his paramour. I have other sons!"
A blank horror settled down on the Beneficent Ladies. Never had things
come to such a pitch before, and some of the younger women sobbed
audibly. Only little Auntie Rosebody, with the courage of despair
stood looking first at the father then at the son, regret, anger,
irritation, showing in her small puckered face.
"Oh! my life! Oh! nephew Jalal-ud-din Mahomed Akbar," she cried at
last. "Look at him--oh! look at him! He is a fat-tailed sheep and thou
art a hunting leopard! How can he race with thee? Give him time,
nephew, give him time!"
Something in Salim's sheepish attitude appealed to the King's sense of
humour, a suspicion of a smile showed about his mouth.
"At his age, madam," he began sternly, the memory of his strenuous
youth rushing in upon him. Why! at eighteen, dissatisfied with his
agents of Empire he had dismissed them, and taken the whole conduct of
affairs upon his own shoulders. At eighteen he had begun to dream. At
eighteen his mind was busy with the problem of how to unite a
conquered India; how to efface from it all memory of coercion, and
make it look to him and his, not as to ephemeral conquerors but as
God's viceregents, the upholders of justice, mercy, toleration, and
freedom. At eighteen----
Suddenly he flung his right hand out in a hopeless gesture of
finality. What use were dreams, even the dreaming of a King, if they
were only to last for one poor mortal life?
"There is no end to the dreaming of Kings." Bah! The woman had lied.
There was an end! An end to all things.
But the worst of his passion was over. He turned yet once more to his
son and forgave him yet once again.