A Prince of Dreamers Part 9

"My Prince," said Birbal, restraining his voice to respect, "this is no place for you--no place for the Heir to India--no place for one who will be King when his great father----"

Prince Salim dashed his cup down with a curse.

"Let be a shay! I tell you I am King here! Am I not King, and the Shadow of G.o.d? Am I not a shay?"

He looked round on his company triumphantly; but Birbal, utterly exasperated, bowed.

"No, my Prince," he replied politely, "thou art drunk, boy, and the substance of a fool!"

Siyah Yamin's tinkling laughter led the chorus of mirth in which for the time even Birbal's anger pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER IV

_Beauty is no bond maiden; Lot it holds The veil which hides it from all earthly lovers But to holy-hearted n.o.ble-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 G.o.d'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 cus.h.i.+ons.

"_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!" a.s.sented an older Salima who, being related in cross-road fas.h.i.+on 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 hemst.i.tch 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 t.i.tular 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 t.i.tle, 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, G.o.d 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 fas.h.i.+on."

"I offer excuse!" replied Rakiya with a sniff, "but my honourable veiling is of the old fas.h.i.+on."

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 m.u.f.flings 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 n.o.bles 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 Ghia.s.s 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 G.o.d of the Prophet, may the Holy One's blessing rest on me!"