The Mating of the Blades/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
Giving an intimate but not indelicate “close-up” of an Oriental princess with eyes as black as grief and lips crimson as a fresh sword wound. There is furthermore mysterious talk of the Mating of Blades.
“Heavenborn!” wheezed the Babu Chandra, squinting through opium-reddened eyes. “Seventy-seven times seventy-seven bundles of indignity, injustice, and evil abuse have been heaped upon my head! A scoundrel of unmentionable ancestry, limited understanding, degenerate soul, and most ungainly body has robbed me of my substance! I appeal to the Heavenborn, the Protector of the Weak and the Pitiful!”—and he bowed before the Princess Aziza Nurmahal, clasping his pudgy hands across his pudgy stomach.
She looked at him, undecided what to say. Then her eyes swept about the audience hall where the dignitaries of the palace, from the commander-in-chief to the executioner, were squatting on mats, attended by servants who fanned them with silver-handled yak tails. Directly at her feet crouched her old nurse, Ayesha Zemzem, a Bakhtiari hill woman from the western wilds; lean she was and angular and brown as a berry, with an uptilted chin that rose defiantly to meet the sardonic lower lip, an immense beak of a nose, and eyes sharp as needle points.
The princess sighed.
Seated in the glittering, chilly depth of the great peacock throne that spread above her tiny, oval face with a barbaric blaze of emeralds and pearls and rubies and star sapphires, with her narrow, diminutive hand nervously clutching a scepter topped by an immense blue diamond known as the “Sea of Light,” with that little soft vagueness about her cherry lips and her eyes like black wells beneath the hooded lids, she looked childish, appealing, rather pathetic. There is something sinister in the relentlessness in which inheritance may force people into a position they are not framed to fill, thrusting power into their hands and judgments into their mouths, whether they desire it or not.
Thus with Aziza Nurmahal.
The peacock throne and the autocratic power which it embodied were meant for men of crunching, clouting, merciless strength of mind and body; men like her father, who had ruled his turbulent subjects with an iron, rather saturnine hand and with the loyal help of his old prime minister, Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh.
But the former was dead while the latter had left the country on a mysterious mission a day after Hakem Ali, the court physician, had decided that there was no hope for his master's life. And already intrigue was raising its flat head, was whispering, craftily, crookedly, in palace and bazaar and behind the curtains of the harems.
It had begun with the Master of Horse, Tagi Khan, openly accusing Gulabian, the Armenian treasurer, of having embezzled twenty thousand gold coins, which he had spent upon a nautch girl from the south. The Armenian had given the reply discourteous by producing three witnesses who swore upon the Koran that the shoe pressed on the other foot, that it was Tagi Khan who had stolen the money and imported the nautch from Kashmere, and that the latter had merely asked the Armenian for protection because the other, in a drunken fit, had threatened to split her pretty little nose with a dagger. At once the palace had divided into camps. Lies and calumnies had run like powder under spark. The outer courtyard had witnessed a murderous encounter with bucklers and naked blades between the twin brothers, who were respectively governors of the eastern and the western marches. The princess, not knowing if she should believe the party of Tagi Khan or that of Gulabian, was being caught between the upper and nether millstone, and, finally, a few days earlier, Koom Khan, the commander-in-chief, had approached her with the arrogant suggestion that, since she seemed not strong enough to rule, she should appoint him Firman Firma—Decreer of Decrees—regent, in other words.
But her pride had rebelled. The ancient Gengizkhani blood had screamed in her veins. Cutting insults ringing in his ears, she had sent Koom Khan from her presence—and to-day, in all that motley assembly of courtiers, there was not one whom she dared trust.
“Heavenborn!” the Babu commenced again.
She bit her lip. She blushed.
“I—I …”
She stammered, slurred, stopped; and a faint, withering snicker ran from sneering lip to sneering lip. Beards dyed blue with indigo and red with henna wagged and mocked. Fingers ablaze with precious stones opened and shut like the sticks of a fan to show the futility of all created things, but chiefly of woman. The Sheik-ul-Islam chanted a sonorous “Alhamdulillah!” and lifted his hands to heaven in a Pharisee gesture, as if to ask Allah to grant him patience: all signs which encouraged the Babu Chandra who ordinarily, being a Babu, would have walked softly and talked yet more softly in a gathering of Moslems.
He unclasped his pudgy hands from across his stomach, and stood up straight. There was now neither whine nor whimper in his voice as, very much after the manner of a latter-day, berry brown Robespierre, he addressed the princess:
“I demand justice! Here, in thy town, O Aziza Nurmahal, was I drugged, by a shameless dancing girl and by one Bansi; may this and that and especially this happen to him! For a week every day they drugged my little pipe of opium which I am forced to smoke because my spleen is yellow with a very much devouring sickness. When finally I was myself again, I discovered that Bansi had stolen the key to my office”—which was the truth—“and also one hundred and seventy rupees, five annas in Indian money and sixteen golden Persian tomans”—which was a lie. “Furthermore, he has smashed all the so expensive instruments of the Anglo-Indian Cable Company of which I am the deservedly trusted servant. I demand justice, Heavenborn!”
Aziza Nurmahal knew exactly what her father would have done under the same circumstances: just a gesture and a word to the executioner to give “one hundred and fifteen sticks to this pig of an infidel Babu who dares raise his voice in the presence of his betters.” For he had been a rough man whose entire philosophy of government had been a rough fact reduced to yet rougher order and who had always surrendered completely to the gods of his enormous, pagan resolution. She, on the other hand, had been taken direct from the zenana to the throne room. She had not yet learned how to bury the poetry and the enthusiasms of her soft youth beneath the stony drag and smother of life.
She felt the contemptuous enmity of the crowd.
Again she stammered. Again there was a ripple of laughter and whispered, malign words; the Sheik-ul-Islam quoting with pontifical unction that power without wisdom was like a cloud without rain, Gulabian advancing artlessly that it is impossible to clap with one hand alone, and the governor of the eastern marches pleasantly completing the circle of Oriental metaphors by mentioning that some people were on horseback—while their brains walked on foot.
And then, suddenly, while the little princess eyes dimmed with welling tears, the old nurse rose and pointed a crooked, withered thumb at Chandra.
“Thou art a Babu,” she said in an even, passionless voice, “and tell me: who would believe a Babu—who would keep meat on trust with a jackal?”
The next moment, while the Babu collapsed into an obese heap, she faced the commander-in-chief, causing the laughter that had bubbled to his lips to choke out in a surprised, ludicrous ululation.
“And, as to thee, remember that the mules friendship is a kick—and that thou art a mule, while thou”—her inexorable thumb stabbing toward the governor of the eastern marches who was trying to hide behind his twin brother—“shouldst consider that, the dinner over, an ungrateful dog values not the spoon, that, with the Ameer dead, thou hast forgotten how he picked thee, a leprous and most disgusting child, from the fetid slime of the bazaar gutter and raised thee to a high seat of dignity!
“As to thee,” confronting the Armenian, “O thou cursed borrower of half-rupees, observe that a benefit conferred on an ingrate is a line written in water, while thou”—indicating the Sheik-ul-Islam—“wouldst do well to ponder over the Afghan saying that it is as impossible to make a priest speak the truth as to cover a kettledrum with the skin of a mouse!
“Away, all of ye! Out of the presence of the Heavenborn, O ye great cockroaches! Ye fathers of bad smells! Ye sons of noseless mothers! Out—spawn of much filth! Out—before I, a meek and defenseless woman …”
They did not wait to hear the rest of her threat. The Babu leading, the Sheik-ul-Islam bringing up the rear in undignified hurry, his sacerdotal robe standing out like a flag, they ran from the room, stumbling over each other, while Ayesha Zemzem, turning to console her mistress, found that the latter had burst into peals of laughter, rocking to and fro in an abandon of mirth.
“Ahee! Ahoo!” she laughed. “Did not the commander-in-chief tell me that Tamerlanistan needed a strong hand and a strong mind to rule my turbulent subjects? He was right—by Allah and by Allah! And it is thou who shalt be Firman Firma—Decreer of Decrees! It is thou who shalt be prime minister while Hajji Akhbar is away!”
And thus it happened that, a day or two later, in full durbar, the princess announced that a rough woman from the hills would hereafter be regent and that she should be addressed by the honorable title of Zil-i-Sultana, “Shadow of the Queen.” Nor, which is interesting to consider, was there very much surprise in the bazaars. For, since time immemorial, have the autocrats of Asia maintained the democratic principle that ability is the only qualification for the highest services; have they stooped among the crowd, clutched a common soldier, a slipper bearer, a tobacconist, a renegade, even a slave, and given him limitless power, absolutely disregarding all the barriers of birth and cultivation and asking of him nothing but success.
Thus it was Ayesha Zemzem who shared the princess' peacock throne when, shortly afterwards, Babu Chandra had been granted another audience.
This time he spoke softly. He did not mention the indignities which his fellow countryman had heaped upon him nor did he mention justice.
“Heavenborn,” he began; then, addressing the nurse who was looking upon him with a chilly, unpropitious eye, “and thou, O Shadow of the Heavenborn! I have the welfare of Tamerlanistan at heart …”
“Aughrr!” grunted Ayesha Zemzem, after the manner of an indignant camel. “I know, O baseborn! At seventeen per cent compound interest a minute, and a mortgage on the cow and the unborn calf!”
“No—no—by the Holy Trimurti!” stammered Babu Chandra. “I am a friend of this land—a friend of the Gengizkhani!”
“Right!” came the cutting rejoinder, “and it has indeed been said that he who has a Babu for a friend needs no enemy. Leave this room. We like not thy fat and indecent face.”
“But—” said the Babu.
“But—what, fat toad?”
“I came here on business!”
“Business? Dost thou want to buy or to sell?”
“Neither the one nor the other. I want to—give!”
For the first time, the princess opened her mouth.
“Give?” she asked, with a flash of even white teeth and a glint of merriment in her black eyes. “Who ever heard of a Bengali giving aught except false measure?”
“Rightly spoken!” chimed in the nurse. “Can a Babu be generous? Can a frog catch cold?”
But, nowise daunted by the avalanche of contumacious metaphors, Chandra continued that he had friends, rich and generous sahebs, who were anxious to pour gold into the land as one pours melted butter on rice.
“Millions and millions of golden tomans will they give to thee, O Aziza Nurmahal. They will irrigate the dry lands. They will bore for oil. They will develop coal and copper and ruby mines. They will cause the fruit orchards to yield ten times what they are yielding now. They will make all thy subjects rich and prosperous. All they want in return for such incredible generosity is”—he used the one English word known throughout Asia—“a concession!”
“Perhaps—” began the old nurse, an eager, greedy light in her eyes.
But the princess silenced her with a gesture and turned to Chandra.
“It is useless, O Babu-jee,” she said. “Often, during my father's life-time, didst thou approach him with the same words. I know. I was behind the zenana curtains, and listened. Thy countryman, the Babu Bansi, came to him with the same message …”
“Bansi is a liar! He is a …”
“Thou shouldst hear what he says about thee!” chuckled the nurse.
“Never mind,” the princess went on. “My father was always opposed to the sahebs and”—she, too, used the English word—“the concessions which they demand in payment of their shining generosity. He used to say that a concession means money—but that, never, never, does it mean happiness—to us, the people of Asia. For—and these, too, are my father's words—with every pound of gold do the sahebs bring three pounds of whiskey and strife and disease and unhappiness. I shall do as my father has done—until Hajji Akhbar Khan, Itizad el-Dowleh, returns from the far places. Then he, being wise and old and loyal, shall decide. The audience is ended, O Babu-jee!”
“If only the Hajji would return!” she said that night to her old nurse.
“If only he would return—soon, soon!” she sobbed, a week or two later, when news had come that the governor of the eastern marches had returned to his provincial capital and was suspected of intrigues with the Ameer of the Afghans, while his twin brother, the governor of the western marches, was said to be hand in glove with a band of Persian marauders who were plundering the caravans going to Tamerlanistan.
“If only he would return!”
The words choked in her throat, and Ayesha Zemzem folded her in her withered old arms.
“Do not give wings to grief, little piece of my soul,” she crooned. “It flies swiftly without them. Remember the words of the Koran that it is the dust and grime which purify the great soul. Remember, too, the ancient prophecy of thy clan!”
“Yes!” said the princess. “I remember.”
From a taboret, she took the straight, simple sword that had rested across the knees of the dead Ameer during the funeral procession. Her narrow, white hand gripped the hilt.
“The old prophecy!” she whispered. “Out of the West he will come to save Tamerlanistan! Twin brother to the Gengizkhani through the mating of blades!”
She stepped to the window and looked out to where, above a sunset of somber, crushed pink, the gathering night was wrapping palace and town in her trailing cloak of black, shot with golden stars.
“Out of the West!”
And it seemed as if the West had heard, was giving answer.
A whisper seemed to come from very far, from beyond the sunset, suffusing her soul with a great sorrow and, too, a great hope and promise.
And so she stood there for a long time, listening to the silent whisper, looking out into the West, until the sun died in a sickly haze of coppery brown—decayed, it seemed, like the sun on the Day of Judgment—and the moon came up, stabbed on the outer horns of the world, dispassionate, calm, indifferent to the heart of man.