A Singular Hostage, page 33
Miss Fanny spoke from close by. “A stout woman is coming this way. Who is she?”
“I don't know,” Mariana replied crossly, wishing they would all go away.
Bodies moved on the platform, making room for the new arrival, who promptly wedged herself into the too-small space beside Mariana.
It was not a queen. “Peace, daughter,” intoned a baritone voice. Thick fingers grasped the fringed crimson veil and raised it. Mariana glanced upward—into the satisfied face of Safiya Sultana.
“You are pretty, as I knew you would be,” said the Shaikh's sister, dropping the veil.
Pretty she might be, married she might be, at least according to them, but Mariana had made up her mind that as soon as she was safely out of the Citadel, this Oriental charade must end. Her mother had never mentioned blood when she gave her terse, ugly description of the origin of babies. Mariana had no intention of performing any wifely duty with the Shaikh's son, far less whatever grisly ritual they had in mind for her. She would make that clear to Safiya Sultana this very instant.
As she opened her mouth to speak, Moran spoke beside her. “We should let the foreigners see the bride.”
Moran was there! Mariana closed her mouth again, unwilling to risk the scorn her announcement was certain to provoke from the queen. Her announcement to the Shaikh's sister would have to wait.
Someone lifted her veil again. Their black-bonneted heads together, Miss Emily and Miss Fanny stared at her through a tunnel of crimson and gold tissue, their mouths forming perfect O's of mute surprise.
Mariana gazed steadily back. She would never speak to them again, never.
Safiya Sultana's stout body shifted against hers. When Mariana had brought Saboor to the haveli, the Shaikh's sister had not hurt or humiliated her but had only thanked her for the service she had performed. Safiya Sultana, at least, appeared to be kind and sensible, although Mariana could not guess what cruelties she might offer a family bride.
“We will complete the formalities and take you home as soon as possible, daughter,” Safiya Sultana said, wheezing a little. “It is not our intention to spend time here. These men can have their drinking party without us.”
“The bridegroom is coming,” someone announced.
Everyone seemed to have gone away, save the Eden ladies and Safiya Sultana. In the middle of a tired yawn, Mariana sensed an abrupt change in the atmosphere around her.
“Most extraordinary,” Miss Emily's voice declared. “How can he see through that great tangle of beads and pearls?”
As someone sat down beside Mariana, Safiya Sultana began to recite something in a quiet singsong. “Now the bride and groom must see each another,” the Shaikh's sister said, when she had finished.
Miss Fanny gave a muffied sound as Mariana's veil was lifted again, this time all the way back, freeing her face.
Someone thrust a looking glass with an intricately carved silver border before her. Leaning forward, she saw herself and gaped, astonished at her refiection.
Rimmed with black surma, the eyes that stared back at her were shapely and strange. Between unfamiliar arched eyebrows, a gold pendant set with jewels rested on her forehead, its pearl rope hidden in her hair. Her hair, no longer brown but a rich auburn, curled softly on her shoulders, interlaced with strings of pearls. A wide ring of fine gold wire circled through her nose, its pearl and ruby beads touching her lips.
Was this creature really her? She made an experimental face and put out her tongue, just as the mirror was tilted to one side, and she saw not herself but a pair of shocked brown eyes. Holding his own ropes of gold and pearl aside, the man in the headdress looked briefiy into her face before someone dropped her veil.
“May Allah Most Gracious bless you both and give you long life,” intoned Safiya Sultana.
• • •
AN hour later, stiff with apprehension, Mariana sat upstairs at Qamar Haveli, surrounded by the Shaikh's family women. The Waliullah ladies, so benign when she last had seen them, now seemed like a crowd of vultures, staring, waiting.
“That is not the same girl who brought Saboor,” pronounced an old woman, dropping Mariana's now damp veil over her face again. “The queens have sent someone else.”
“Of course it is the same girl,” said two other women at the same time. “Look at her nose, her skin.”
The veil was pulled away again. “So it is,” agreed the old lady, peering closely at Mariana. “For all their malice, they know how to prepare a bride. I would never have believed she could look so lovely. That girl was as plain as a cooking pot.”
Half an hour ago at the Citadel, Miss Emily's voice had cut through the noise of the crowd as she and Miss Fanny were led away to their palanquins at the end of the evening.
“What an extraordinary transformation, Fanny,” she had said, her voice fioating back over the marble courtyard. “I find it astonishing that an ordinary-looking English girl could be made to look so exactly like a native. A white native, I mean, of course. What a pity the bridegroom was invisible under all those—”
“Yes, and I thought she made a very pretty native.”
“Really, Fanny.”
Mariana shifted. What were these women waiting for? Whatever it was, it must be even more horrible and disgusting than what Mama had described.
Her body felt clammy. She clutched her knees to her chest. Here in this upstairs room there were no eunuch guards, no armed men at the door. She imagined herself running through darkened streets in her bride's clothes, looking for the way to the British camp at Shalimar….
Safiya Sultana sat in her accustomed place against the wall. Determined to finally tell Safiya of her refusal to continue this charade of a marriage, Mariana crawled to her side, dragging heavy embroidery and fringes behind her.
“I must speak to you,” she began as the other women murmured in surprise. “I must tell you that—”
Safiya frowned. “Not now, daughter. It is time for you to leave.”
“No, please, I must tell you now—”
Before Mariana could finish speaking, Safiya Sultana nodded to a group of young girls, who got to their feet and came toward them, holding their hands out to Mariana. How innocent they all seemed, these Waliullah females, the girls blushing, Safiya Sultana nodding contentedly to herself against the wall.
The only choice left was to fight, but Mariana had no more strength to protest or to struggle against restraining brown hands. Defeated at last, she got to her feet meekly and let the girls lead her to a corner room at the end of a veranda.
Inside were two string beds, both turned down, their sheets sprinkled liberally with red rose petals. An oil lamp glowed on a carved table. By its light, Mariana watched the girls run away, looking back over their shoulders, giggling through their fingers.
She sat down. The oil lamp looked like a reasonably dangerous weapon, but of course, it was lit and would start a fire if she tried to use it. Who would enter the room and advance upon her? What would they do to her?
There was a sound at the door. Ostrichlike, Mariana tugged her veil hastily down and peered through its fringe to see the curtain move aside and a figure in white pause before entering the room.
The bed creaked as the figure sat beside her. She did not turn her head. She could scarcely breathe. Attar of sandalwood scented the air. Where had she smelled that before?
“You didn't look foreign when I saw you, but then I couldn't see much in the mirror.”
His voice was pleasant, like the Shaikh's, but without infiection, as if he were simply stating a fact. Beside her, a hand moved on his knee. It was a beautiful hand, perfectly shaped, with curved fingers. The hand lifted, pointing to a corner of the room.
“You should take off those heavy things and your jewelry,” he said. “Put them on the trunk over there.”
No longer burdened by her elaborate clothes, she might be able to put up some real resistance. In the corner, her back to him, she removed her nose ring and tugged, grimacing, at the pearl strands in her hair. Were they to be alone? How long could she avoid looking at him?
“I am glad to lie down,” he said. “I have ridden forty miles today, from Kasur.”
She dropped her veil and her pearl-embroidered dress onto the trunk. Still wearing her scarlet tunic and trousers, she steeled herself and turned. The Shaikh's son lay full length on one of the beds, his eyes closed, his hands behind his head, his lips parted under a full mustache. His beard was thick and neatly trimmed.
It was the tall man in the embroidered coat whom she had followed from the durbar tent a month ago, the same man who had later appeared, weeping, beside her near the howitzers, who had even then worn attar of sandalwood.
He did not look like the Shaikh at all.
His eyes remained closed. Barely breathing, Mariana crept to the other bed. She lay down silently, arranged the quilt over herself, then leaned over to turn out the lamp.
The bed beside her shifted and groaned. She froze, her arm still extended, praying he was only turning in his sleep.
He was not asleep. His eyes met hers as he pushed himself up and sat on the edge of his bed.
Without speaking, he got to his feet. As he padded toward her, she twisted away from him and rolled her carefully prepared and perfumed body into a ball on the far side of the bed, her eyes screwed shut, her fist in her mouth. Her ragged breathing seemed to fill the room.
There was no sound from outside.
His weight came down beside her. “Show me your face,” he said.
When she did not move, he took her by her shoulder and turned her to him.
She could only look up, her body clenched against invasion, too terrified even to blink.
He studied her, his fingers still on her shoulder, his eyelids drooping just as Saboor's did when he was sleepy. “They were correct,” he said. “You do not look foreign.”
His eyes were ringed with dark smudges as they had been when she had first seen him. Now, his expression altered. His breathing gathered speed. His eyes on her mouth, he leaned over her, then pulled back when she fiinched away, her eyes wide.
“So,” he told her softly, “you are afraid of me.”
He took his hand from her shoulder and turned away. “There is no need for fear,” he said in a muffied voice, his back to her. “You rescued my son. I am in your debt.”
He stood. “Sleep, Bibi,” he said softly, as he returned to his own bed. “Go to sleep.”
Mariana swam to consciousness through a thick mist. As the events of the previous night returned, she lay still, holding her breath, and listened. Was he still there, in the other bed?
Silence.
She opened her eyes and put a hand to her neck. Forgotten when she took off her other jewelry, her choker now hung loose, its scratchy cord wrapped about her throat, its pearl-and-emerald beads entangled in her hair.
Daylight filtered into the room through closed shutters. On the trunk in the corner, her fringed veil and the rest of her jewels lay where she had dropped them. Her tissue dress had fallen from the trunk and lay on the fioor, its pearl embroidery gleaming in the striped light from the window.
She turned her head cautiously. The bed next to hers stood unoccupied, its sheets wrinkled, its quilt thrown aside.
She drew up her knees, enjoying the cool air on her face, and the warmth beneath her covers. Last night, when Hassan had left her to sleep, she had been too exhausted to feel the relief that now bathed her from head to foot. What luck! She was safe and unharmed. Mr. Macnaghten was coming today. She was nearly free.
Someone pushed the door curtain aside. A small girl stepped shyly into the room, a neatly folded set of clothes in her hands.
Rose petals, crushed to a deep purple, marked the fioor tiles, Mariana's pillow, the sheets of both beds. The girl looked at them, and then at Mariana, a question in her eyes.
Unable to think of anything to say, Mariana smiled.
“Come, Bhabi,” the child piped, beaming in return. “I will show you where to bathe.” She held out the russet-colored package and a soft-looking shawl of the same color. “You will wear these to meet the ladies. They are waiting for you in the big room.” Her face sobered. “Of course, you must understand that our house is still in mourning for poor Mumtaz Bha—” She pressed her lips together. “I should not be speaking to you, a bride, of these things,” she added.
Mariana began to untangle her choker. “I would rather wear my own clothes. Please ask someone to bring my own things from the Citadel. They are my best clothes, you see.”
Yes, her chemise, her stays, her stockings, her blue-and-white silk gown. Wearing them again, she would feel entirely herself. She must look like an Englishwoman again when she met Mr. Macnaghten.
The child was a birdlike creature whose thick, glossy braid fell below her waist. “Bhabi, your own things have not come from the Citadel.”
Mariana waved a hand. What did it matter? Her clothes were the least of her worries. In the past three days she had lost more than a borrowed gown and her good set of stays.
“Safiya Bhaji had these clothes made for you,” volunteered the child. “It will make her happy to see you wearing them.” She held out a silk drawstring pouch. “And see, she has sent you a beautiful gold necklace.”
Safiya Sultana. Mariana turned the intricate necklace over in her hands. Did the Shaikh's sister know what had happened—or not happened—the previous night?
MARIANA shivered as she poured steaming water over her shoulders with a vessel that looked like a teapot. Last night, when he leaned over her, Hassan's skin had smelled hot beneath the attar of sandalwood he wore, as if it had been scorched.
She put down the teapot. He would surely have felt it within his rights to do whatever he wished with her last night, but he had not. He had given her one considering glance, and then left her alone. She would always remember that kindness, and the sweet, burnt scent of his skin.
A short while later, she balanced nervously in the doorway of the big room, removing her new embroidered slippers with their upwardcurling toes. She blushed as she added them to a pile beside the door.
How odd to feel self-conscious over something that had not happened.
Safiya Sultana beckoned, pointing to an unoccupied place beside her on the cloth-covered fioor.
The women whispered as Mariana made her way through them and crouched down beside the Shaikh's sister. A familiar-looking gaptoothed aunt patted her knee. On Safiya Sultana's other side, a very old lady smiled into the air.
Mariana's new clothes felt alien and voluptuous. Without stays and petticoats, her body felt unfettered and exposed. She reached up to touch the unfamiliar smoothness of her hair, now hanging down her back in a silken plait, so unlike her own fiyaway hair that it could have belonged to another girl entirely. Her oiled and hairless skin had a smooth, indecent texture.
There were children in the room. She looked for Saboor, and saw him near a doorway with a group of other children, too far away to notice her. His bubbling laughter reached her as a girl of six or seven, eyes alight, dragged him across the fioor, her hands under his arms.
“An-nah!” He had seen her. He bounced, shouting in the little girl's arms, reaching out for Mariana. “An-nah!”
The room stilled.
How sweet it felt to hold Saboor again! She kissed the top of his head and breathed his baby scent greedily as he reached up to play with the gold buttons on her long silk shirt.
A collective sigh gusted about her.
Safiya Sultana sniffed. Was she weeping? Still rocking Saboor, Mariana glanced up to see Safiya wipe her eyes with her white cotton veil.
Her sigh filled the room. “These are painful times,” the Shaikh's sister pronounced in her baritone voice. “Painful times. We all remember that when our dear Mumtaz Bano died, her child was left alone among strangers at the Citadel, his life in danger.”
She looked at Mariana. “We also remember that, after this brave young foreigner saved Saboor, my brother, seeing her courage and her love for our child, determined it is the will of Allah that she remain beside Saboor, to protect him from harm, and to help us raise him to his manhood.” She paused, clearing her throat. “It is for this reason that we have joined her in marriage to Hassan.”
We have joined her in marriage.
The Shaikh's proposal had been genuine! Mariana loosened her hands on Saboor's body and turned away to face the wall as nausea rose from her belly to her throat. Moran Bibi had been right. Miss Emily had been right. The proposal had been genuine, and she had accepted it in front of a hundred people, including Harry Fitzgerald, her blue-coated Fitzgerald who had kissed her and made her happy.
She had done all of this to herself.
A worried voice spoke beside her. “Is the bride ill?”
The bride. Fighting back tears, Mariana watched Saboor scramble away. How would she ever face Mr. Macnaghten and the British camp? How would she ever convince them that she had honestly believed her marriage was a sham? And what of her family? What of poor Mama and Papa who still waited at home for news of her engagement to an Englishman? …
“Allah alone,” Safiya Sultana was saying, “knows the pain and confusion it has caused us to have our dear Mumtaz Bano's death followed so quickly by Hassan's marriage to this foreigner. We all suffer for Mumtaz's mother.”
A little distance away, a small woman in white clothes rocked silently.
Mariana swallowed hard. These people did not want her. How could they? Of all of them, the only one who really wanted her was Saboor.
He was now in the arms of his fat cousin, who held him away from a dozen small, reaching arms. His eyes on Mariana, Saboor wriggled to get down, then hurried over to her and sat, with a sweet little thump, on her lap.
She wrapped her arms gratefully around his body and pressed her cheek against his head. If only she could take him away from here, they would be so happy alone together….
Safiya Sultana sighed again. “But we must remember how greatly Hassan's new wife loves our Saboor. Her affection for him is plain to see. We have noticed her face soften as he approaches her; we have seen it fill with light. It gives us comfort to see her love for our motherless child. We all know of women who feign love for a widower's children in order to gain entry into his family. We pity the motherless child who must endure the hatred of his father's second wife.”
