Flora Annie Webster Steel

Dear, the Sun that shines above thee
Spends his gold to see thee, sweet
Let me like those rays that love thee
Kiss the dust about thy feet.

--NizÂmi.

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 Âtma Devi's house. Being of the frank old ChughtÂi 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 massaged--Why! what with the drinking of cool sherbets or hot tea, scented, almost colourless, tasteless, save for the cinnamon flavouring it, these sÉances 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 class 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 AzÎzan, noble wife of my lord GhiÂss 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 fashionable 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 stitching, and sewings about the lady. From head to foot she stood confessed as one of the leaders of ladies' fashions, 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-fashion 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?"

AzÎzan Begum tittered. "La! madam. 'Tis the very latest fashion! One cannot, with respect to oneself and others, appear without it, in----"

"In the RÂjpÛt harem," interrupted the little lady, her tone rising ominously. "Well! 'tis not far distant, AzÎz, 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 fashionable; "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, AzÎz, 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 fashionables--"

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, AzÎzan! 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 AfkÂn?"

Bibi AzÎzan gave an affected little scream.

"La! there 'tis! Did I not tell her father that if he would insist on sending the country-bumpkin 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 SalÎm, I will wager!"

Both women looked round with a start to see, holding back the wadded curtain, such a vision of youth and perfect loveliness as the world shows but seldom; yet once having shown does not let men forget. For this small slender Eastern maid, comparable at her eleven years to Western fourteen, was to take her place amongst the beauty which has swayed the destiny of empires.

As she stood backed by the soft embroideries of the curtain, the delicate outline of her still childish figure barely concealed by the silver tinsel veil Umm Kulsum had thrown over her in laughter at her utter nakedness as she had scrambled out of the bath, she showed at once innocent, yet full of guile. There was not one false note in the harmony of her beauty. The cupid's bow of her mouth was curved into a mischievous smile as she looked at her mother half-jibingly, and at Aunt Rosebody half-defiantly.

"Oh! my heart! Oh! what words!" gasped the former, having recourse to her vinaigrette, while the latter looked at her nodding her moonshiny head.

"So!" she said; "So, AzÎzan! That lets the cat out of the cupboard!"

But there was no time for more, since through the upheld curtain trooped the bevy of bathers followed by their maids. Then arose such a chatter as to places and pillows, such giggles, such laughter, waxing loudest round Umm Kulsum who, ready dressed, caught the silver tissued maid-ling about the waist, and danced round with her, whirling through the room, feet flying, hair floating, until--quite breathless--she pulled her partner down right on Aunt Rosebody's rug.

The little old lady looked at the perfectly bewitching face, and a smile quivered about her mouth.

"What about the Prince SalÎm, child?" she asked accusingly. "What about him?"

Mihr-un-nissa looked arch in return and positively made a moue of uncontrollable high spirits before she put on an air of immense and demure propriety.

"Nothing, gracious lady! Am I not betrothed to Sher AfkÂn KhÂn?"

Bibi AzÎzan let loose an absolute shriek.

"Oh! my liver! Ah! ladies! Heard one ever the like? Mihr-un-nissa how darest thou?--it is not true--it is a lie!"

A curious expression of untamed obstinacy came to the girlish face and gave it a character beyond its years.

"Lo! Marmita!" she said lightly; "when thou and AfkÂn's mother have settled whether I be betrothed or no, there may be talk of truth. Till then I marry no one."

Bibi AzÎzan subsided helplessly, limply, amongst her cushions. To say more might only induce the enfant terrible, of malicious intent, still further to reveal the family strife; so there was room for Umm Kulsum's tactful raillery.

"What! thou wilt be an old maid like me! And without even a pilgrimage to thy credit! Fie! Thou art too pretty for Jehannum!"

Mihr-un-nissa laughed scornfully. "I would rather Jehannum on my own feet than Paradise on a man's coat-tails. La! la! I hate men folk!"

There was a general gurgle of laughter. The girl's face grew crimson-dark; her eyes filled with tears, yet flashed also and she held her ground.

"'Tis true," she cried, stamping her bare foot with an almost soundless yet curiously imperative smack on the marble floor. "I hate them--they think of nothing but themselves--and--and women! And I hate women too--I want to be a Queen, and I will be one!"

"Come hither, child, and let me look at thee," said Auntie Rosebody, suddenly holding out her hand. The supple young thing crossed to her proudly, and crouching low touched the small fine old fingers with her forehead.

"Thine eyes, child--thine eyes!" said the old woman. "Let me see thy fate in them."

So for an instant's space the great lustrous soft depths of Mihr-un-nissa's fathomless eyes were appraised.

"She might keep him--as he should be kept," murmured Auntie Rosebody to herself; but Mihr-un-nissa was thinking of the queenship.

"What does the Most Beneficent see?" she asked eagerly. "Shall I be Queen?--Queen myself I mean--real Queen?"

There was an instant's pause and in the silence which hung over the whole room the imperious young voice seemed to linger. Then Umm Kulsum, seeing a look of sudden recoil in Aunt Rosebody's face, laughed cheerfully.

"Ask the witch wives, Mihro, not us! Or stay! Lo Auntie! dost remember the red woman with her curious cry whom we saw at the tank steps but now, and bade come hither, since she claimed to be the royal bard? She is Brahmin and tells the stars, she said. Let us have her in if she is here and then Mihro can hear fortunes."

"La!" cried Bibi AzÎzan catching at any side escape from what had gone before, "I can tell the ladies who the woman is. She is mad--quite mad--and----"

"The more suitable for this subject of Queenship," remarked Aunt Rosebody dryly, twisting her hair deftly to a topknot which greatly enhanced her dignity. "Ooma! see if one Âtma, singer of pedigrees, soothsayer, heaven knows what, waits without. If so, bid her enter. And bring me a violet sherbet such as my father--may peace be his always!--loved when he was aweary of fools; then Bibi AzÎzan can have her say in peace!"

After which Parthian shot she sipped her sherbet in silence. She was inwardly amused at the cat which Mihr-un-nissa--an enchanting piece truly!--had so wilfully and deftly let out of the cupboard. In truth there was some excuse for such vaulting ambition in the child's extraordinary beauty. Pity she had not been a few years older--pity nephew Akbar would not put pleasure first and politics second in SalÎm's marriage--pity! Ah! pity in so many things.

"May the Gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their Godhead!"

The old lady started at the quaintly apposite cry which seemed indeed to force the whole vestibule into a second's silence.

Âtma Devi stood at the far arches, her poppy-petal dress showing for an instant brilliant in the glimpse of sunlight let in by the upraisal of the curtain.

In truth her entry brought a new note to the chord of womanhood which vibrated in the atmosphere; a note that was foreign to its harmony. A quick sense of tragedy came to the comedy of laughing ladies. Something in Âtma's womanly face and figure that was in them also, disguised, tucked away, hidden out of sight but still recognisable made them recoil to silence. Perhaps it was the "Not womanhood" of the dark days before Sex shows itself--the Not-womanhood which, with the "Not-manhood," go to make up the Paradise Life in which there shall be neither male nor female.

Âtma felt the recoil herself as her dark eyes questioned the scene before them, challenging it in swift antagonism. For the past two days her thoughts had been concentrated on her search for some clue of Siyah Yamin. She had drifted about the bazaars, giving her curious cry, she had watched at street corners, and listened patiently through the hurly-burly of passing voices for some hint, some sound. Without avail; and time was running short; she would not have wasted one minute of it in obeying Aunt Rosebody's order to attend at the palace but for a dazed sense of duty. She, the King's ChÂran, must not neglect royal commands; even Siyah Yamin must give way to them.

Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin! Ye Gods! why had either of those two children who had played together, grown up to be women? Why should any woman-child grow up to be hampered by her sex, left helpless?

Âtma's thoughts as she stood mechanically shaking the hour-glass drum, paused; her eyes in the darkness to which they were becoming accustomed had found something which brought answer to her questioning.

It was Mihr-un-nissa, who, barely veiled by silver tissue, sate a little way apart from the others on a yellow silken rug; her slender arms were around her knees, her head was tilted back against the wall on which a flower garland of the inlaid mosaic seemed to frame her delicate face, as through half-closed lids she returned the singer's stare.

"Art thou a witch-wife?" asked the little maid suddenly, as if none but they two were in the room. "Lo! I am Mihr-un-nissa, Queen of Women. Tell me--shall I indeed be Queen not of them only, but of men also?"

The brushers and dressers paused in their avocations to look and listen. Something insistent, compellent, seemed to have come into the atmosphere. Even Auntie Rosebody paused in the sipping of her sherbet and waited for the answer to that still-childish voice.

And those two stared at each other, feeling vaguely akin; the woman who strove to forget her sex in a man's work, the girl who cherished it as a means of gaining a like power.

"I offer excuse for interference," came RÂkiya Begum's rasping voice, "but soothsaying except by reference to the Holy Book----"

"'Tis but for fun, Most Noble," pleaded Umm Kulsum, who was invariably the smoother of difficulties, "and they did it at the Holy City, for I paid seven golden ashrafees to a woman with a crystal who told me naught that I did not know before."

The little ripple of surrounding laughter did not soften RÂkiya Begum's sternness.

"A crystal," she said severely, taking a pinch of snuff, "is different. That hath, as all know, its gift of God in certain hands; but the looking at grains of rice and the counting of pease-pods is irreligious, and most derogatory to true believers. Therefore in the absence of our Lady Hamida----"

The acerbity of this allusion to an occasionally divided headship in the harem was interrupted hastily by a twitter from the elder SalÎma who addressed her daughter nervously.

"In truth dear heart, Ummu, 'twere better not mayhap--the woman is Hindu."

Mihr-un-nissa, her head still tilted back against the garlanded wall, looked through her lashes, and her cupid's bow of a mouth smiled bewilderingly.

"I mind not that one fly's weight," she remarked cheerfully, casually, as if her likings or dislikings were the only question at issue, "Come good red woman, begin! My fortune, please!"

Âtma hesitated. Here was a household divided against itself, and beyond Auntie Rosebody and Umm Kulsum, whose status she knew, she was unaware of the position of the scented, languidly laughing ladies around her. Yet a false step might be fatal to future right of entry. It was a time for swift, decisive action.

"I tell no fortunes," she replied. "I look only in the magic mirror after the fashion that a pious pilgrim of Mahomed taught my father, and if God sends a vision, I see!"

It was a fortunate hit. RÂkiya Begum sate stiff with excitement. "Not the magic mirror of ink, such as is used in Room? Lo! ladies! this is a chance indeed! and I, at the moment, in one of my-poor verses was using it as an allegory for the vast enlargement of the mind by literature! Good woman! Let us see the process without delay. What dost require?"

Âtma's native wit was equal to the occasion. "A drop of ink from the inkpot of the poetess must bring visions," she replied readily, and KhÂnum RÂkiya Begum smiled her approval. So the inkpot came and Âtma, her full red skirts billowing about her, sank to the ground opposite Mihr-un-nissa whose bare limbs, the colour of freshly garnered wheat overlaid with a faint tinsel sheen, showed almost white in contrast with the intensity of the scarlet. Then holding the inkpot high in her right hand the ChÂran began to sing softly:

A little pool of ink lay, with curved surface like a dewdrop, on her left palm as the song ceased.

"If the gracious child will almost touch the mirror with her left forefinger and complete the circle of magic by touching my right arm with her right hand," she suggested in a mysterious monotonous voice.

For answer Mihr-un-nissa's firm little fingers closed round her wrist tightly. "Aye! it shall not stir," she said coolly. "I want to know for certain--no clouds and waves and mists--I want to know. Dost hear?"

Childishly imperative her eyes questioned Âtma's. "Nay!" replied the latter, feeling in a measure at bay. "The gracious maid must close her eyes. I, Âtma, will look alone into the mirror and see--if God wills--the fortune of the Princess."

Aunt Rosebody's laugh came sudden, sarcastic.

"Not Princess yet, woman! Not as yet," she continued, turning to Bibi AzÎzan, "even in the inmost heart of the house of GhiÂss Beg, the Lord Treasurer."

"I protest," began the fat fashionable one feebly.

Âtma gave a swift glance round at the speakers and the little pool of ink in her palm wavered despite Mihr-un-nissa's almost fierce grip.

"How now, slave?" cried the latter; "I said no wavering."

"There shall be none, Highness," replied Âtma bending her brows over her task again. But the mention of GhiÂss Beg's name had brought back the thought of Siyah Yamin. For the only clue of any sort which the two days of search had given to Âtma was a possible connection between the Lord High Treasurer's House and that of the Syeds of BÂrha.

They were distantly related by marriage. It was the faintest of clues but the thought of it filled Âtma's mind in an instant with a pressing desire.

Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin! She must be found! Time was passing! The very next morning the Audience would be held.

Siyah Yamin! Siyah Yamin----

"I see naught," she went on monotonously, forcing herself to words foreign to her thoughts--"I see, I see--what do I see? A crowd of banners waving. 'Tis a marriage procession! And lo! the bridegroom--OhÉ! like the young Krishn for beauty--tall, slim, and fair."

"Thou liest," came Mihr-un-nissa's voice full of passion. "Thou dost not see it. Thou dost not----"

As she spoke she flung up the wrist she held so roughly that the ink drops spurted over Âtma's scarlet dress; then, with a sudden bound, she stood confronting her, a tornado in silver tissue. "Lo! I was looking too, and I saw no crowd, no banners, no bridegroom. All I saw was Siyah Yamin playing on the lute as she played last night when----"

She broke off with a sudden dismay, then laughing round defiantly to her mother went on recklessly:

"There! I have let that musk-rat go! but I did see her, Marmita, just as she sate last night when you and she----"

Bibi AzÎzan's shriek drowned the rest.

Then came Auntie Rosebody's voice of horror; "Siyah Yamin! At--at thy house, AzÎzan! This passes indeed! Go, woman, and venture hither no more!"

"I offer excuse," remarked RÂkiya Begum who had risen and come forward in sedate annoyance. Her stiff brocaded petticoat looked almost regal, but her thin angular body still suffered from lack of attire, and her veillessness showed her scanty hair screwed back tightly, ready for subsequent additions. Withal she had a certain dignity of thin, harsh, high features and scraggy uprightness. "That question, KhÂnzada Gulbadan KkÂnum is, as the lawyers have it, sub-judice. To-morrow the King decides."

"Decides!" echoed Auntie Rosebody wrathfully. "And if he does decide!--what then? You can't beat a drum with one hand, and all the other five fingers are in the butter! No! No! Marry her fifty times, Siyah Yamin is Siyah Yamin. You can't hide an elephant under a hencoop. So there! That's my say!"

RÂkiya Begum took a pinch of snuff. "And I say nothing. A wise man learns to shave upon strangers."

Meanwhile Mihr-un-nissa, her swift anger passing into amused wonder, stood looking at the ink spots on the scarlet dress, until suddenly her cupid's-bow mouth curved itself into a smile.

"'Twas thy fault," she said nodding her head. "Thou must have been thinking of her, for I saw her clear; but see--that for thy spoilt dress!"

She tore off a gold bangle from her arm and held it out. They were standing close together, almost unobserved, the rest of the company being more interested in crowding about the discussion which still went on regarding Siyah Yamin.

"Why wilt not take it?" continued the little maiden stamping her foot, as Âtma Devi drew back.

"Because I want a bigger boon," she replied hurriedly, seizing her chance.

"A greater boon?" echoed Mihr-un-nissa curiously.

"Aye!" almost whispered Âtma Devi. "If the gracious child--in truth her head well deserves a crown--would take this in exchange for me," she hastily wrenched off a thin silver band-bracelet all too small for the matured wrist on which it was worn. "Take it to Siyah Yamin--it--it is hers. See! there is her name upon it."

She pointed to a word engraved on the bracelet. Mihr-un-nissa took it and stood holding it, her unfathomable eyes full of malicious contempt. "So! there is a mystery! La! I love mysteries--they are so easy to guess! Yea! I will give it--and find out! Is there any message?"

"None."

The childish face broke into almost sinister smiles. "Then the bracelet means the message! What is it? Come, or go? No matter! I will find out!"

She slipped the bracelet round her own slender wrist and turned away nonchalantly, a veritable Queen of Women.