by Jane Feather
“Good-bye, Annabel Spencer,” Kit said.
“Good-bye, Christopher Ralston.” She did not look at him. “May your God go with you.”
She did not look at him, but she felt every yard of the distance growing between them like a gaping abyss. She had had to answer as she had in order to save them both. By offering her that spurious choice, Akbar Khan had been putting her to the test. He would never have forgiven her defection. And if Kit had possessed her, this time on his own terms, the sirdar would have decided that the guest had violated the laws of hospitality and had thus freed the host from the obligations of hospitality.
Kit and his men would have died with the stealthy knife in the back, and no one would have been any the wiser. If only she had had more time to teach him the ways of these people. There were so many traps for the unknowing.
“Return to the zenana, Ayesha.” The curt instruction broke into this frustrating reflection.
She had presumably played her part in Akbar Khan’s sport with the Englishman, a sport that had not gone entirely according to the Afghan’s design. “As you wish.” She set her horse toward the fortress, her own escort forming around her, and rode back to the whispering, cloistered world of the zenana.
Chapter Five
“You have most flagrantly exceeded your orders, Lieutenant,” General Elphinstone quavered from the depths of his armchair, where he sat swathed in blankets, a deathly pale figure, so frail it seemed a puff of wind would blow him away.
“I had hoped, sir, I would be excused, since I bring valuable information,” Kit said, standing rigidly at attention since he had not been invited to stand at ease.
“Can’t imagine what you think’s valuable about a piece of scare-mongering, Ralston,” snapped Sir William Macnaghten, Envoy of the East India Company’s Civil Service and political advisor to the general. He swung away from the window, where he had been in morose contemplation of the autumnal garden outside Elphinstone’s headquarter’s bungalow in the British cantonment. “You spend two days with that rebel Akbar Khan, and all you can say is that he’s a well-armed savage with a force of equally savage tribesmen. Damn it, man, he’s no match for our forces. Colonel Monteath will have ’em by the heels in no time. He’s gone to free the passes, clear the communication lines, and we’ll have the news of his success any day now. You mark my words.”
The surge of anger he felt at this blindness surprised Kit. He thought he was inured to the idiocy, and he thought he had been a deal more explicit than Macnaghten so contemptuously implied. “With all due respect, Sir William, I believe Akbar Khan to be an opponent to be reckoned with. I do not think he will be easily defeated. When someone is driven by such a fierce—”
“Oh, be quiet, man!” Macnaghten interrupted irascibly. “What kind of croaker are you, for God’s sake?”
Kit flushed angrily. “I am neither a coward nor an alarmist, sir. But I am capable of using my eyes and ears and drawing conclusions from what I see and hear. Akbar Khan knows that Sir Robert Sale’s brigade is to return to India, and that they intend to deal with the Ghilzais en route. He knows that you and General Elphinstone are intending to accompany them.” Here Kit paused. It was manifestly absurd to think of Elphinstone accompanying a fighting force in fighting fettle.
“Sale has already left,” Elphinstone twittered feebly. “He has taken his brigade to assist Monteath in freeing the Khyber route.” He plucked restlessly at his blanket. “It’s to be hoped he clears the passes quickly, that I may get away; for if anything were to turn up, I am unfit for it, done up in body and mind.
This was the man who was to maintain British supremacy in Afghanistan! Kit fought to keep the mingled compassion and disgust from his expression, Elphinstone had not always been such a pitiable reed; the fault surely lay with Lord Aukland, the governor of India, who had appointed this broken, debilitated creature to the most arduous command at his disposal.
“So your omnipotent Akbar Khan does not know everything,” Macnaghten declared with an air of triumph, seemingly oblivious of the general’s last pathetic plea. “I take it mighty ill in you, Ralston, an officer in Her Imperial Majesty’s cavalry, that you should run squealing at the bragging of a brigand.”
Kit heard Ayesha’s mocking laugh; heard the intensity of her conviction that the British would never leave Afghanistan alive; heard both and understood them as never before. And he wished with a passion fiercer than he had ever experienced that he could hear them again, and this time he would feel no need to deny the truths, no obligation to pay lip service to this lunacy.
Stiffly, he saluted, making no attempt to defend himself against the charges of this overstuffed civil servant. “Am I dismissed, General?”
“Yes … yes,” said Elphinstone, waving irritably toward the door. “Off you go, Lieutenant, and resume your normal duties. Lady Sale is giving a soiree this evening, I understand. Take her my respects and ask if there’s anything the mess can provide. Wonderful woman … wonderful woman.”
“Oh, indeed, General Elphinstone,” concurred Macnaghten. “Not a woman to be daunted. Her husband’s fighting the damned Ghilzais and she keeps the flag flying … tends his vegetable garden, won’t hear a word of despondency.” He directed a look of derision at the hapless lieutenant.
Kit saluted again, turned smartly on his heel, and left the fetid room, where the smell of sickness seemed catastrophically mingled with the dank odor of suicidal delusion and inevitable disaster.
He strode through the cantonment, bitterly contemplating the role he played in this absurdity. On the general’s staff, his main task seemed to be running Elphinstone’s social errands for him. “A personable young man,” the general had called him when he had first reported for duty—personable enough, presumably, to be preserved from the rough and tumble of soldiering and usefully employed as the general’s courier and social secretary. Kit was not unaware that his impeccable lineage, his previous service in the elite dragoons, and his possession of a not inconsiderable fortune were also considered powerful qualifications for the job. They had also been powerful qualifications for his position in London society, a position he had cast away in such cavalier fashion. It wasn’t as if the woman had been worth such a grandiose gesture … but even as he thought that, he could see Lucy’s china-blue eyes, her golden curls, her innocent dependence upon him, this godlike creature who had entered her life, transformed her drab future. He had owed her his protection, but perhaps in less flamboyant fashion.
Christopher Ralston swore viciously under his breath, putting the pointless self-recrimination behind him. A series of errors had led him to this doomed situation and futile employment, but they had been his own errors. He could do worse than live with them. Again, the image of Ayesha-Annabel intruded. If anyone was an example of making the most of fate, she was. She had carved out a life and a place for herself in that utterly foreign society; so much so that she would not contemplate returning to the life she would have led if destiny had not intervened.
But she had to return! Her opinions and attitudes were informed by the people with whom she had lived since she was just a child. She had to learn the other viewpoint, accept who and what she really was. This one thing he knew: he was not leaving Afghanistan without her.
Such a goal could compensate for his present ineffectual, supremely unimportant position in the scheme of things. He approached Lady Sale’s bungalow with something resembling a spring in his step.
“Why, Christopher, this is a pleasure. I had thought you on some mission.” Lady Sale straightened from the parterre where she was dead-heading rose bushes and greeted him cheerfully. “You find me in my dirt, I am afraid.” She came down the driveway toward him, wiping her hands on her apron. “But there is always so much to do in a garden. I promised my husband I would ensure his kitchen garden was kept in order while he was away, and I have barely had time for my own flower parterres.” She gestured at the neatly turned earth behind her. “Not that I expect to see the fruits
of this work. I shall be on the road to India as soon as the passes are cleared … within the week, I should imagine.”
“Indeed, ma’am.” Christopher bowed. “Kabul will be the poorer.”
“You always had a smooth tongue, Kit,” her ladyship declared. “Even as a child.” She shook her head. “But come and see Robert’s artichokes. And the cauliflowers are better than they’ve ever been.”
Christopher dutifully followed her to the rear of the bungalow, where he admired the rows of vegetables so diligently planted by Sir Robert Sale when he was not out fighting the Afghans. “You are leaving Kabul before your husband then, ma’am?” he inquired as they went into the house.
“It seems I must. He is busy dealing with this latest Ghilzai outbreak. Such a nuisance … the mails are just not getting through with this blocking of the passes.” She rang a bell in the hall. “So uncivilized of them, don’t you think?”
“Most,” Kit agreed dryly.
“Ghulam Naabi, tea, please.” Lady Sale gave the order to the white-coated servant who appeared in answer to the bell, and sailed into the drawing room. “I am having a soiree this evening, Christopher. Someone has to do something to keep people’s spirits up. A loo table, some music … probably a little tame for you,” she added with a quirked eyebrow, “but it wouldn’t do you any harm to spend an exemplary evening for once. I feel I owe it to your mother to keep an eye on you. Poor Letty,” she murmured in a disconcertingly loud afterthought.
The days when his beleaguered mama had expected her friends to keep an eye on her errant son had long passed, Kit reflected with an inner smile. Not that it had done much good. The reports so faithfully presented by a series of interested matrons had merely driven his peaceable and slightly scatty mother further into herself, and his irascible father had declared for the thousandth time that his only son was no son of his … until he’d arrive on the doorstep in need of a little rustication and his scandalous exploits on the town would be forgotten.
“I am charged with General Elphinstone’s respects, ma’am,” he said, as if he had not heard her. “Also, if there is anything you need from the mess for the soiree, then we will be happy to supply it.”
“Well, how very thoughtful of the general,” Lady Sale declared, turning to the samovar, carefully placed on a side table by the servant. “Tea, Christopher?”
Since anything stronger was clearly not on offer, he accepted politely and sat down, prepared to spend the obligatory half hour of a morning visit.
“You will come this evening, Kit, won’t you? I would like you to squire Millie Drayton. She’s quite a taking little thing, but very shy. The Draytons arrived in Kabul last month, and Millie is much in need of diversion.”
Kit thought of his night with Ayesha. And he thought of Millie Drayton. The contrast was so absurd he felt about to burst into a most unseemly and quite unexplainable fit of laughter. “I had planned—” he began tentatively.
“An evening of debauchery and idleness,” interrupted her ladyship briskly. “I am not in the least surprised. But you could surely do a favor for one of your mother’s oldest friends?”
Kit could only accede gracefully. He had known the old battleax since he was still in petticoats, and there was something about her that he could not help but admire, a certain indomitable side to her nature. He found he did not really resent her comments and interference, and resigned himself to an evening of crashing boredom in the company of the simpering and ingenuous Millie Drayton.
He made his escape as soon as he decently could, walking briskly through the chilly, early October air. He glanced up at the looming mountains ringing this city, perched a mile high in the most inhospitable terrain. Within a couple of weeks, those mountains would be snow-covered, and soon the flat plain around Kabul would be buried beneath drifts, the canal and the Kabul river icebound. The cantonment stood just outside the city itself, and again he became overwhelmingly conscious of how defenseless it was. Apart from the barracks, the mess, and the cavalry riding school, it was a mere suburban huddle of bungalows, each with its little garden, with no walls or fortresses, and separated by the canal and the river from the plain, the mountains, and their passes to safety; the canal and the river each crossed by a single, vulnerable bridge.
In the city itself, the massive fort of Balla Hissar, occupied by the puppet Shah Soojah, and a substantial force of British troops, dominated the landscape. It would surely make better sense to move the entire British contingent—troops and families—out of the cantonments and into the safety of the fort, Kit reflected. But to do that would be to admit to the possibility of danger from these rebellious savages, and such an admission was quite impermissable, an example of croaking. His lip curled as he directed his steps toward the city. His restlessness would not permit a return to his own bungalow, and he decided to wander the bazaars to get some sense of the atmosphere.
It was not a reassuring exercise. Even with only a word or two of Pushtu, he had no difficulty understanding the menace in the glares, the whispers, the occasional shouted insults. Women in their dark chadris flitted from stall to stall, but when they saw the infidel in his pristine uniform, they ducked into side streets or under awnings, pushed out of sight by their glowering menfolk. There were women, of course, in the bazaars who would not hide from him; women who for a certain number of rupees would be more than willing to show themselves. Kit knew where to find them, had done so in the company of his friends often enough, but he had no stomach for the thought now. Something had happened to him in the last three days. He wasn’t sure quite what it was as yet, but he seemed to see the world around him with a new pair of eyes, sharper somehow, yet less cynical; as if he saw truth and reality without the overlay of boredom and indifference.
A loud hail from across the street intruded on his musing. He looked over and saw Sir Alexander Burnes gesticulating. Burnes was Macnaghten’s chief lieutenant. Unlike the other British, he eschewed the cantonments and lived in the British residency in Kabul itself, a house opposite the British Treasury. He maintained he preferred the company of Afghans, hostile or no, to the tedium of the social round in the cantonments. Kit was in sympathy with this, although he found the man a tedious companion. Weak and vacillating, he complained endlessly of his anomalous position, subordinate to a man who would give him no specific duties and treated him with utter contempt. There was certainly no love lost between Burnes and Macnaghten, a fact which did not aid the smooth running of the political office in Kabul.
“Morning, Burnes.” Kit crossed the street.
“Heard the news?” Burnes took his elbow, turning him away from the bazaar, dropping his voice although it was unlikely any of their fellow pedestrians would be able to understand them.
“I doubt it,” Kit said. “I have had a most unpleasant interview with Macnaghten and Elphinstone, and a wearisome half hour with Lady Sale, but no news was imparted on either occasion.”
“Chewed you out, did they?” Burnes said sympathetically. “Well, I shouldn’t take much notice of the old man. He doesn’t know what he’s saying most of the time.”
“Sir William does, however,” Kit said with a grimace.
Burnes offered a barnyard expletive. “He may know what he’s saying, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Take this latest business.”
They had reached the residency, set behind high stone walls and heavy iron gates. Nothing further was said until they were indoors, out of earshot of the sepoy guards and Burnes’s household servants. Since this was a household where the samovar made infrequent appearances, Kit thankfully accepted a large brandy and took an appreciative sip.
“News has just reached us that Monteath has been routed by the Ghilzai at Tezeen,” Burnes said without preamble.
Kit whistled softly. “And what of Sale?”
“Went to Monteath’s support, and his advance guard ran from a Ghilzai skirmish.” Burnes sounded as if this grim news afforded him some satisfaction. “Macnaghten’s sending hi
m an order to return to Kabul.”
“Without clearing the passes,” Kit mused.
“Oh, I gather Macgregor, the political officer with Monteath, has negotiated a settlement with the tribes … a return of the subsidies in exchange for clearing the passes.”
Kit frowned. “You think they’ll honor it?”
“Macnaghten says so,” Burnes pronounced. “According to Sir William, a stable settlement has now been achieved.”
Kit thought of Akbar Khan’s declaration that there would be no concessions as long as an alien yoke lay upon the land. He remembered the buzkashi. He remembered Ayesha’s cold, pragmatic conviction. And he shook his head.
Burnes chuckled. “Not croakin’, are you, Ralston?”
“I fail to see why a refusal to subscribe to this cloud-cuckoo-land should be considered croaking,” Kit snapped, putting his empty glass on the table. “Thanks for the brandy, Burnes.” He stood up, straightening his tunic. “Are you attending Lady Sale’s soiree this evening?”
Burnes offered another colorful expletive. “Catch me at that insipidity,” he declared. “No, got other plans.” His eyes narrowed lasciviously. “Care to join me, Ralston? Found a couple of fillies in the bazaar … by God, do they know some tricks!”
“No,” Kit said shortly. “I’m promised to Lady Sale.”
“Not like you to play the courtier,” Burnes observed. “Turning prudish on us, are you?”
Kit laughed, but it sounded hollow even to his ears. “You should know better than that, Burnes.”
“Aye, I should.” He accompanied his guest to the front door. “Well, when you decide you’ve paid your debt to society, come and join us. It’s going to be a long night, and you owe me a chance to recoup my losses of the other evening.”
“Two hundred guineas, as I recall,” Kit said, slipping into the old rhythms without volition. “A mere trifle! But if you’re setting up the macao tables, then I’ll be along.”
