1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

109
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
prosperity,” she said. The lady was evidently pleased. Gul Begum’s
action denoted a certain amount of submission, which, from the
description she had received of her from the girls who had seen her,
was not what she had been prepared for. She had expected a haught y
beauty who was to take her place perhaps in the household, but she
found instead an undeniably good-looking girl with quite submissive
ways and proper manners.
“Sit down,” she said.
Gul Begum turned and glanced at her mother. “I ca nnot sit while my
mother stands,” she said.
“Is that your mother?” the lad y asked, surprised.
“Yes, she is m y mother,” the girl said simply, repeating her
interlocutor’s words according to the manners of polite societ y in
Afghanistan.
The lad y turned to the woman who sat next her and whispered quite
audibly, with a snigger: “Can you imagine that woman being motherin-law
to Ferad Shah?”
Gul Begum heard and flushed. “We are tired and travel-stained,” she
said, “and ma y not appear to be worthy of any position in your
household, but my aunt there is the wife of the chief of my country,
and my mother is the wife of his brother the Vizier.”
“It is well,” the lad y said haughtily, as though there had been nothing
to call forth such a remark on Gul Begum’s part. “It is well; are you
not satisfied with the treatment you have received since your arrival?”
“We are well, very well satisfied,” both Halima and her sister-in-law
said hurriedly. “We have received the greatest kindness since we came
here, and are most grateful to you for all you have ordered for our
comfort.”
“Why should you talk as though you had something to complain of?”
Halima went on, addressing her daughter rather angrily. She was indeed
well-satisfied with the good food and immunit y from work she had
enjoyed since her arrival, and feared any change would be for the
worse, not for the better.
“I had no intention of making any sort of complaint as to the treatment
we have received,” the girl said quietly, then remained silent, but the
flush did not soon die out of her cheeks, and she could not forget the
lad y’s words: “Can you imagine that woman being the mother-in-law of
Ferad Shah?” It could have but one meaning. Ferad Shah must intend to
make her, Gul Begum, his wife, and that the girl felt could never be,