A Singular Hostage Read online

  To the memory of

  Sayed Akhlaque Husain Tauhidi,

  who showed me the Path to Peace through scattered pearls

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Among those who helped me with this book were Arthur Edelstein, who taught me to write fiction and my writing group, who made wonderful suggestions and bore with me every step of the way. My friend and agent Jill Kneerim, editor Danelle McCafferty, Peter Scholl, Lois Ames, and Bill Bell were the first to take the book seriously. Gillo Afridi, Tony Mahmood, Samina Quraeshi, and many other friends in the U.S., India, and Pakistan also offered me advice and encouragement. Kate Miciak, my meticulous editor at Bantam Dell, held my feet to the fire. I cannot praise or thank her enough. I also thank Sophie and Toby, my closest allies of all.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  This story takes place in the north of India, now Pakistan, in 1838–1839, the first year of Queen Victoria's reign. By that year, Britain, through its proxy, the Honorable East India Company, controlled most of the Indian subcontinent. To the north, the Great Game—the nineteenth-century struggle between Britain and Russia for control of Central Asia—was gathering speed.

  By 1838, the British feared a Russian threat to their Indian territories. Determined to outwit the Russians by gaining political control of Afghanistan, Lord Auckland sent his armies to Kabul on a military adventure later known as the First Afghan War.

  Before launching his Afghan Campaign, Auckland took the extraordinary step of traveling twelve hundred miles across India to enlist the aid of the dying one-eyed Maharajah Ranjit Singh of the Punjab, whose independent military state lay between the British territories and Afghanistan. That year-long journey—on which Lord Auckland was accompanied by his two spinster sisters, his entire government, and a ten-thousand-man army—culminated in the great durbar, or state meeting, at Firozpur, on the border between Britishcontrolled India and the Punjab.

  A treaty between the two was essential to the British campaign. Maharajah Ranjit Singh knew this and delayed signing the treaty for a month, forcing Auckland to send his troops across the mountain passes into Afghanistan in deep winter.

  This story takes place during that month.

  • • •

  LORD Auckland, his sisters, his political secretary, and his chief of protocol are real historical figures, as are Maharajah Ranjit Singh and his Chief Minister. The durbar took place much as I have described it, and the subsequent movements of the British camp are generally accurate.

  Mariana Givens, Harry Fitzgerald, the baby Saboor and his family, and Saat Kaur, the Maharajah's youngest wife, are products of my imagination.

  At 2:00 A.M., Shaikh Waliullah Karakoyia opened his eyes. Years of offering his prayers at the ppointed hours had given him a delicate sense of the passage of time. Sometimes he allowed himself to imagine that, should he be sent to the windowless dungeons of the Lahore Citadel, whose walls shut out the call to prayer, he would still know when to wash himself and stand before his God.

  He shivered and reached for his shawl. Moonlight filtered its way through the latticework balcony outside and fell like coins on the prayer rug that lay ready, pointing west to Mecca, its corner turned back to avert evil. Wooden curtain rings clicked softly as he padded through a doorway to the little table that held his water vessel and brass basin. The water was cold as he washed for the postmidnight prayer, a prayer optional to all save those schooled in the mystical traditions of Islam.

  “God is great,” he murmured, as he dried his face.

  Facing the wall so that no creature might come between him and God, the Shaikh stood straight, his hands folded, his eyes half-closed.

  “In the name of Allah Most Gracious, Most Merciful:

  Praise be to Allah, Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds;

  Most Gracious, Most Merciful,

  Master of the Day of Judgment.

  Thee alone we worship, Thee alone we ask for help.

  Guide us to the straight path: the path of those whom Thou

  hast favored;

  Not of those who have earned Thy wrath, nor of those who

  have gone astray.”

  As he recited, he abandoned himself to his dreams: mind pictures so dazzling that he found them difficult to describe, even to the most advanced members of the mystic brotherhood he had led for more than twenty-five years.

  Eyes on the mat before him, the Shaikh moved through the slow dance of his prayer. He bent, straightened, and bowed, his forehead to the tiles beneath the threads of his prayer mat, as his fellow Muslims had done for thirteen hundred years, the venerable Arabic coming in whispered cadences in the moonlight.

  BY sunrise, the rain that had poured in torrents before dawn had nearly ceased, leaving only a faint light to shine on the Shaikh's house and on the cobbled square upon which it stood.

  The light strengthened and found its way into the narrow lanes and bazaars of Lahore City. It spread over the wet pavilions and courtyards of Maharajah Ranjit Singh's Citadel, the great marble fort that shared with the city the protection of its ancient fortified wall.

  In an octagonal tower set into the Citadel's northwest corner, the Maharajah's youngest hostage was refusing a cup of milk.

  Saboor would not drink from the cup the servant girl held out invitingly. Compressing his lips, he turned his head away.

  “Oh, Saboor Baba,” the girl crooned, looking about her cautiously as she held out the cup, “drink this, it is sweet.”

  “No,” said the child firmly, and trotted away, his little shoulders bouncing. Reaching the safety of the bed where his mother sat loosening her hair, he crouched beside her and followed the servant with round, anxious eyes.

  “What is the matter, my darling?” His mother pursed her lips and made a kissing sound. “Why don't you want your milk? You love your milk.” Cocking her head, Mumtaz Bano studied Saboor and smiled. Auburn hair cascaded over her shoulder and lay in a shining coil in her lap.

  “Oh, Reshma, is Saboor not the sweetest baby in all of Lahore?” she asked in her child's voice.

  “Yes, Bibi,” murmured the servant girl, her head swaying in agreement. The cup she held trembled, making little waves in the milk.

  But Saboor would not have his milk. He crawled beneath the bed, his bare feet disappearing from view. There he sat, obstinately refusing his breakfast.

  “Well, then, your ammi will have to drink it instead,” his mother said. “Ammi loves warm sweet milk.”

  Mumtaz Bano reached for the cup, heavy embroidered silk falling back from a delicate wrist. The servant, her eyes widening, tried to take it back. “No, Bibi. This milk is for Saboor,” she protested, but Mumtaz Bano would have it. She made a polite but commanding gesture.

  As his mother took the cup from Reshma's fingers, Saboor crawled hurriedly from his hiding place, his mouth open, his breathing rapid. At the edge of the bed he dragged himself upright at his mother's knee, his face fiushed, in time to see her lift the cup to her mouth and swallow.

  For a moment there was silence. Then Saboor began to scream.

  “What is the matter, my darling?” Mumtaz Bano asked, reaching out and stroking Saboor's face with her free hand, but he could not answer. He could only scream and shake his head back and forth, his mouth stretched open as far as it would go, his eyes screwed shut. The servant girl stood immobile, her hands pressed over her ears to shut out the child's voice. Then, mumbling an excuse, she snatched him up and fied.

  Without stopping outside the door for her slippers, Reshma fiew, the child shrieking on her hip, past other rooms whose languid occupants scarcely looked up. Breathing hard, she climbed a fiight of stone stairs to the outer door and ran out across a damp courtyard to the ladies' garden.

  They were alone. A
nearby fountain burbled. Reshma set Saboor down on its cold marble edge, then wiped tears and mucus from his face. The grinding, desperate sound of his screams told her that his heart was breaking.

  “Why do you cry?” she asked him, her voice trembling. “Nothing has happened. Nothing.”

  Guards shared a water pipe near the tower door. Shielded from their eyes by a cypress tree, Reshma tugged her unclean veil over her head and crouched beside the child, willing him to fall silent. Now, her terrible work gone all wrong, she could only wait until Saboor's mother fell, unknowing, into deadly sleep. Later, when the body was discovered and Reshma questioned, she would swear that she and the child had been outdoors all along.

  Saboor's mouth was still stretched wide, although he gave only a single, drawn-out cry. Reshma reached toward him, then drew her hand away.

  Today's evil had begun a year ago, with jealousy and whispers, after the old Maharajah ordered Saboor and his mother to the Citadel from their home in Shaikh Waliullah's house half a mile away. Only Saboor's presence, the Maharajah had insisted, would protect him from illness and death. Saboor was, after all, the grandson of Shaikh Waliullah, a man whose mysterious abilities were known to all.

  A myna bird shrieked in the cypress tree overhead. Reshma wrapped her fingers around her knees. Saboor's mother, whom Reshma had once envied for her beauty and her station, now lay mortally poisoned in her bedchamber. If Saboor had been helpless to save her, what use was he to the Maharajah?

  Reshma looked down at the child. If he did possess special powers as people claimed, they had done him no good: they had only brought him to his present exile among the Maharajah's many queens, and the loss of his pretty mother.

  He was quiet now. Reshma lifted him to her lap where he lay hiccuping and listless, refusing to meet her gaze. She bit her lip. What would the Maharajah do when he learned of Mumtaz Bano's death? Aware of the jealousies swirling within his household, would he guess the truth: that the poisoned cup had been meant not for the mother but for her child, his favorite, his tiny magician, his pearl of pearls?

  Reshma looked past the tree at the guards who now dozed beneath a portico, their forearms shading their eyes. The Maharajah, at least, was far away, encamped on his border with his bejeweled court, awaiting his meeting with the English people. It was his youngest queen whom Reshma feared more, Saat Kaur, whose own infant son had failed to attract the Maharajah's love. The queen waited in a downstairs room for the screams that would herald Saboor's death. How was Reshma to explain her failure?

  She wiped Saboor's wet face with a corner of her veil. How different he looked now, his brightness gone, his soft, questioning look replaced by blank exhaustion. Before today, save for the old Maharajah with his constant demands, Saboor's sole companion had been his lonely young mother. Alone and friendless now, how would he survive?

  Reshma closed her eyes against her tears, but they seeped from beneath her lids and trickled down her cheeks. Why had she, who had never deliberately caused harm, consented to be the bearer of the poisoned cup? Was it her terror of the young Queen's rages? Had her own deprivation, her bondage, made her hard?

  “Forgive me, Saboor,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”

  A new fear clutched at her. Saboor had refused his milk. He had crawled as fast as he could from beneath the bed when his mother had taken the cup. Had he been trying to stop Mumtaz Bano from drinking the poison? Had he known?

  She glanced at the silent child. It could not be possible. Saboor

  Baba, after all, was only one and a half years old.

  As a watery light filtered into her tent, Mariana Givens awoke with a start. Overhead, rain whispered against canvas.

  She sat up and pushed her hair from her face. Why had she awakened so suddenly? Had an unusual sound, a voice, come from outside?

  As she reached for her boots, a familiar scuffiing at her doorway signaled the arrival of Dittoo with her coffee. She dropped the boots, fiung herself down impatiently, and dragged the covers to her chin. Feigning sleep was the only way she could prevent Dittoo from talking to her. Even among Indian servants, Dittoo could win a prize for talking.

  She breathed evenly, watching through her lashes as he pushed his way inside, past the heavy blind that served as a door, bringing with him a wave of damp chill and the scent of cooking fires. His bare feet on the striped rug made wet sounds that grew louder as he advanced toward her bed, wheezing a little, the tray rattling in his hands.

  She forced herself not to wince as the tray clanked noisily onto her bedside table. Above her, Dittoo cleared his throat. Mariana had thought of asking the advice of the Governor-General's two sisters regarding Dittoo's habit of standing over her while she was in bed, but had refrained, knowing they would only insist that he be sent immediately away. Whatever the sisters might think, Mariana was certain Dittoo's behavior had nothing to do with her being twenty and unmarried.

  When he turned, she opened her eyes and watched him shuffie toward the door, his shoulders stooped under their usual invisible burden, then remembered what had awakened her. It had been the silence outside her tent. Where were the coolies who daily dismantled the red canvas boundary wall in her corner of the state residence compound? Where were the shouts of the men, the grunts of their pack animals?

  Her tent fioor was wet, the air damp and cool. She remembered the sound of rain pounding on the roof in the night. That was it, the rain!

  “Dittoo,” she called after him, making a mental note never to do it again, “are we traveling today?”

  He swung back, beaming. “That is what I wanted to tell you, Memsahib. They do not know as yet. Everything depends upon the big elephant. I heard them saying—”

  “Thank you, Dittoo,” she said, and waved him away.

  The blind closed behind him. Mariana sat up. She scooped up her boots and banged them upside down against the side of her bed, then looked down, as she always did, to see if some interesting creature had tumbled out of one of them.

  The red wall outside her tent would be taken down only if the camp's biggest baggage elephant proved able to carry his load. If she hurried, she might see the elephant for herself.

  Hopping first on one foot and then the other, she fought her way into her boots, shrieking at the cold water that squirted up through the holes in the striped cotton rug under her feet. After fiinging off her nightdress and grappling with her stays, she buttoned herself into her favorite tartan gown, pushed a handful of brown curls inside her matching tartan bonnet, and tied its ribbons carelessly under her chin. She ignored the ewer and basin waiting on their stand. There was no time to wash her face: she had an elephant to visit.

  Leaving her coffee steaming untasted, she hurried across the soaking rug, Miss Emily's voice sounding in her ears. “How many times must I warn you, my dear,” Miss Emily had said only yesterday afternoon while regarding Mariana severely over her reading spectacles, “that you must not forget your position. Never allow a native to see you confused, upset, or less than perfectly dressed.”

  Mariana took an impatient breath and stepped out into a misty early morning.

  Her tent was well located. Tucked sideways into a front corner of the Governor-General's own residence compound, it had a clear view of the residence tents and a good, if distant, view of the principal gate, a folded entrance in the red canvas wall that enclosed the entire compound. Intriguing sounds often drifted into her tent from the other side of the wall, causing Mariana to spend much time imagining the various origins of the people and animals passing by on the avenue outside.

  Smooth, shiny mud marred only by Dittoo's footprints covered the distance from her modest doorway to the compound's center. There, arranged in a square, the three riotously patterned tents of Lord Auckland and his two unmarried sisters, and a dining tent large enough to seat twenty, billowed wetly in the dawn breeze.

  Beside Mariana's tent, the red canvas wall stretched away toward the guarded gate. Holding her skirts away from the mud, she h
urried along the wall.

  She should have waited in her tent until the march. That was the rule for ladies traveling in camps. If there was no march, a lady waited until nine o'clock before going across to the dining tent for breakfast. She then returned to her tent to read or write letters until lunch. After lunch, she paid calls, in this case upon Miss Emily or Miss Emily's younger sister, Fanny, in their tents. Before dinner, she went out for a ride. Mariana knew these rules because Miss Emily had repeated them to her countless times.

  But Mariana would not shut herself away behind canvas. Ladylike idleness would certainly drive her mad. Besides, she would miss everything, and it was her duty to learn all about the camp, and about India. If she did not, her twice-weekly letters to Papa would never be good enough.

  She risked a glance toward the residence tents. There was no sign of activity: no tattletale ladies' maid carried things across the compound, no English-speaking native manservant stood watching her. If she could get past the gate, then across the avenue and back again without being seen, she would be safe from Miss Emily's glares at breakfast.

  She followed the wall, avoiding the stout guy ropes pegged to the ground every eight feet. The wet ropes and the gusting wind reminded her of the dream from which she had awakened. In her dream she had shivered in the prow of an unfamiliar ship as it sailed headlong through a dense fog toward a destination she could not guess.

  It seemed odd to dream of a ship as she lay in a tent on the flat plain of northwestern India, a thousand miles from the sea, but odd as it seemed, the dream had come twice, perhaps three times, before.

  Beside her, the ruddy canvas was stained with rain. High, grimly heavy, designed to keep out thieves, to Mariana's eye the red wall blocked out too much of the excitement of living in a traveling camp. Even the Eden sisters felt the same. “It would be almost worth the horror of discovering a knife-wielding savage under one's bed to be able to see more of the avenue from our tents,” Miss Emily had remarked only last week as she, Miss Fanny, and Mariana negotiated the entrance.