A Prince of Dreamers Part 18

The last item of information was evidently more racy than the first, and the women's voices gossiped over it rising above the hum of the mill wheel.

atma meanwhile had made her way straight to the bazaar. Here and there a figure huddled in a white shawl showed wandering outward, water-pot in hand, a seller of milk or two, a woman bearing a heaped basket of green-stuff pa.s.sed inward, but for the most part the cavernous shops stood closed or empty, for it was yet early hours. A woman blew loudly at a pile of dried leaves under a toasting pan. The little spark left in the charcoal below showed red, then white, amid the gray ashes, and with a roaring crackle the flame leapt upward. A man guiltless of all clothing save a rag, pared his nails solemnly into the gutter. But in the house where atma entered all was silent. A medley of musical instruments lay piled on the floor, and in a corner, his head resting on his drum, snored Deena the drum-banger. atma pa.s.sed over to him swiftly and woke him by a touch. The old man started to his feet with commendable activity; then was on the ground again in profuse salaam.

"Now am I saved from sin, mistress most chaste," he began vociferously. "Lo! since I ceased drumming to the deeds of dead kings, I have been a lost soul utterly. I have d.a.m.ned myself by giving time to profligate steps. I have sung lewd songs. But what will ye? A drum ever keeps bad company; being in sooth naught but the devil of a noise that groweth worse instead of better by being whacked----"

"Peace, fool!" said atma sternly, "I have need of thee. Where hast been of late?"

Deena sate down and began drumming softly with one finger, an insistent, devilish sort of drumming that seemed created to conceal something. Then he winked a wicked old eye.

"Hal-lal-lal-la-la!" he said gaily. "So old Deena is best gossip-maker to the town. Truly he hears much; for, see you, there is something that brings confidence to scandal in the continuous burring of a drum.

It seems to cover all, so folk speak free; and an old ear listens.

What dost desire to know, mistress most chaste?"

"Hast heard ought of Siyah Yamin?" asked atma readily.

Deena chuckled. "Other folks ask that, my lord Birbal to wit. Hol-lah!

The whole town is agog to know news of G.o.d knows what--Siyah Yamin, the King's Luck----"

"What of the King's Luck?" interrupted atma Devi with a frown.

"Only that he hath given it away as a present to the Queen from over the Black Water of whom the new infidels talk," replied Deena with a yawn, for he had had a night of it at the Lord High Chamberlain's.

The frown deepened. "It is a lie!" she said peremptorily. "The King is no fool; his luck is with him ever. But see--take up thy drum and follow. To-day I will sing of dead kings and listen for the sake of a living one; so I need thy banging."

Deena rose with alacrity. "And my drum needs thee, mistress. 'Tis an evil instrument. But for its hindrance I could sing hymns"--he began one dolorously, then paused shaking his head. "Lo! it hath no discrimination--a holy psalm is even the same to it as a ribald rhyme.

Yea! yea! I follow. I will drum to the herald of a live king and forget my sins."

So that day atma Devi, the mad singer, reappeared in the city, flitting hither and thither, chanting of dead kings, listening for the sake of a live one.

But she heard nothing; yet as the day drew down she realised that the need of news was urgent; for the whole town talked of Siyah Yamin and the King's Luck.

As she sate in the moonlight on her roof that night she told herself yet once again that if the worst came to the worst she could but die to attest the truth of what she remembered. But then the burden of disproof would be laid on the courtesan, and if she failed she too must die.

Poor little Siyala! Better far if she could be warned; be persuaded not to affirm this marriage.

"At the tank steps at dawn to-morrow," said atma briefly, as late in the evening she parted with Deena at the foot of the stairs. She would do her utmost. Zarifa could be put to sleep with a pellet of the Dream-compeller; so she would be free to spend every hour in search of Siyah Yamin.

CHAPTER VIII

_Dear, the Sun that s.h.i.+nes above thee Spends his gold to see thee, sweet Let me like those rays that love thee Kiss the dust about thy feet_.

--Nizami.

There was a faint half-kissing sound as of bare feet on a wet marble floor, and a running tinkle of light voices behind the heavy curtain which barred the archway to the inner bathroom; but in the little balconied alcove at the end of the vestibule, where Aunt Rosebody, attired in a vivid rose-coloured wadded silk dressing-gown, sate drying her gray hair in the wind, there was silence, almost sleep.

For the active little old lady still preferred a swim to paddling in scented waters, so she and Umm Kulsum the "Mother of Plumpness," both being of small size, were used to start earlier, in one dhooli, for their morning bathe in the women's screen at the big tank beneath atma Devi's house. Being of the frank old Chughtai type, they were hail-fellow-well-met with the all and sundry who came down to fill their pots or wash on the steps; so nearly every day a gray head and a black one, both sleek from a dive under the screen arches, might be seen slipping sideways in the overhead stroke far beyond the women's limited range.

Now such exercise is fatiguing even when age is set aside so lightly as it was by Aunt Rosebody. Therefore the time of hair-drying was for her a time of repose also; the more so because Umm Kulsum always dried hers whilst picking her daily violet posy for the King. And the other ladies--heaven rest their souls and bodies!--always spent such an unconscionable time over their scented paddlings; while as for the dressings to come, when, fresh from their baths, they all sate in the balconied vestibule to be perfumed, and manicured and ma.s.saged--Why!

what with the drinking of cool sherbets or hot tea, scented, almost colourless, tasteless, save for the cinnamon flavouring it, these _seances_ seemed unending. They were, however, amusing enough, since this was a recognised time for morning callers; primed, of course, with the latest and most vivacious gossip. Nor were the visitors necessarily of the cla.s.s which nowadays the East--without thereby in the least impugning their respectability--stigmatises as "street walkers"; since the laws governing seclusion are now far more strict than they were in Mogul times.

Besides, there were always the court ladies, and the wives of the Palace officials.

Always indeed! Aunt Rosebody broke off in the faintest of deep breathings, which even by discourtesy would hardly be called a snore, and remarked with drowsy captiousness, "What? again!" when the African slave girl--whom the dear old lady had imported from Mekka as part of her piety--ingeniously roused her slumbering mistress by actually touching her feet in the deep salaam which accompanied the announcement, "Bibi Azizan, n.o.ble wife of my lord Ghia.s.s Beg, Treasurer, and her daughter Mihr-un-nissa crave audience."

Aunt Rosebody's beautiful wavy gray hair stirred like moon-ripples on water as she shook her head patiently.

"Let her come," she said resignedly, "the others cannot be long now, and, mayhap, if I let her tongue start fair at a gallop, I may finish forty winks ere it slackens to a trot."

Thereinafter, swaying with an odd sidelong waddle of the hips in the fas.h.i.+onable gait which was supposed to emulate the grace of a swan or a young elephant, there came over the marble inlaid floor strewn with silken carpets from Khotan, a truly marvellous figure. Being somewhat stout in the body--though the face, still charmingly pretty was curiously unmarred by fatness or flabbiness--the extremity of the modes in which the figure was dressed did not become the wearer. The graceful dual garment (almost diaphanous but for its exceeding fulness, cut to the ground at the sides, but literally yards long in front and behind) instead of, when swept back by the walk, clinging in soft folds from hip to ankle and lying on the ground behind in a billowing train with no wrong side, was ruckled about the fat legs, and huddled itself confusedly behind them, giving the appearance of a peg-top entangled in a handkerchief!

There was no lack of colour, or st.i.tching, and sewings about the lady.

From head to foot she stood confessed as one of the leaders of ladies'

fas.h.i.+ons, and the jewelled chatelaine at her waist held _kohl_ caskets and rouge-pots, even an unmistakable powder box, while a large mirror set in pearls shone ring-fas.h.i.+on on her thumb.

She salaamed in the very latest court manner to Aunt Rosebody, and came up from the semi-prostration, breathless but complacent, to meet the little old lady's keen eyes fixed on her forehead whereon, just at the parting, was stuck a tiny, round, vermilion wafer.

"What is that?" asked Aunt Rosebody pointing an accusing finger at her. "Hast become a Hindu?"

Azizan Begum t.i.ttered. "La! madam. 'Tis the very latest fas.h.i.+on! One cannot, with respect to oneself and others, appear without it, in----"

"In the Rajput harem," interrupted the little lady, her tone rising ominously. "Well! 'tis not far distant, Aziz, if thou hast missed the way thither. Just through the door, down the steps, across the yard and thou wilt find plenty of red _tikkas_; but not here!"

"Madam! I protest," expostulated the poor fat fas.h.i.+onable; "I have no desire--and 'tis worn by everybody at court."

"It is not worn here," repeated Aunt Rosebody with cool dignity. "So if the desire to remain finds place in the respected and respectable lady's plans she--she can wash it off! Ooma! a basin of water. Let it be tepid lest the lady should receive a shock--and--and see it be duly scented with scent of flowers; something that will make the respected and respectable lady smell less like a civet cat! 'Tis pity, Aziz, thou dost not keep to rose-essence after taking the trouble to invent it!"

"I protest," murmured the Bibi, seeking support on the floor, and adjusting the set of her veil and her folds generally with the sort of reflex action which exists still in the women of her type--that is to say, hopelessly courtesan despite their excellent wifehood and motherhood-- "'Tis the very latest of my perfumes, and all the latest fas.h.i.+onables--"

The elder woman's face took on seriousness beneath its impatience. "I am not of the latest," she said, "though in truth I be later in life's journey than they. Yet even in my youth"--her sparkling bright eyes roved contemptuously over the other's dress--"I did not clothe myself after--after Satanstown! And thou growest old, Azizan! Thou hast a daughter--but where is she?--did not they say she was with thee?"

"The child was beguiled bathward by Lady Umm Kulsum whom we met,"

bridled the Bibi.

"The child?" echoed Aunt Rosebody; "Lo! she will be giving thee dates ere long--ha--ha!"

She chuckled over her own little joke, for the giving of dates is the first step toward a wedding; but the Bibi tossed her head.

"She is but eight, and I protest is quite a babe--not one thought of marriage."

Auntie Rosebody leant back and yawned. "Eleven," she said calmly, "or twelve maybe. 'Tis thirteen since the ill-fated caravan left Persia, and on the way thy child was born. Strange, surely, that such close touch on death as must have been thine ere thou and her father could have left her--as thou didst--to die in the desert, should not have brought thee some sense in life! How about the betrothal to Sher Afkan?"

Bibi Azizan gave an affected little scream.

"La! there 'tis! Did I not tell her father that if he would insist on sending the country-b.u.mpkin a platter of welcome that the old tale would be revived. La! 'tis too vexing! I could cry; and my sweet poppet whom I long to keep always as my little babe, my perfect innocent! I protest, madam, I would kill any bridegroom."

"Oh fie! marmie!" came a laughing voice behind--"Not Prince Salim, I will wager!"