1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
“I can do nothing till Ferad Shah comes home,” she said, “but he is
probably coming here this evening.” Gul Begum’s heart gave a great
throb of pain and anxiet y, almost of hopelessness. “He has heard of
your arrival, and I have had instructions from him this morning that
you are to be properly clothed, and got ready generally to receive him
to-morrow. So you see it would be quite impossible for me to get rid of
you; besides the old door-keeper would not let you through.”
The girl smiled, a little danced in her eyes. “Bibi, let me manage that
door-keeper,” she said. “I think I could persuade him.”
The older woman looked at her, saw the triumph, the light in her eyes,
and seemed about to change her mind. She felt the power of this
woman.
“I do not believe what you have told me,” she said. “It is all made up, a
lie-“
Gul Begum interrupted her. “Bibi, what I have told you is to my
disadvantage, not yours. I am young, I am handsome, why should I not
marry happily and be head of my husband’s house? I am your junior by
many years.”
The elder woman turned round and addressed her anxiously: “But
instead of that, you ask for obscurity and probable ill-treatment amo ng
the servants?”
“That is so,” the girl said, and sighed. “I ask to go to some household
where I can work, and where I shall attract no notice. Does that look as
though I had lied?”
The lad y looked at her again. “Well, you are a strange girl, but it
would suit me well enough, I daresay, for you to go and do as you seem
to wish, but first you must wait for Ferad Shah’s orders. I cannot act in
this matter without them. It is out of the question.”
“Then, Bibi, do this,” Gul Begum replied. “Send all of us like common
labourers to weed in the big garden and remove the stones. Tell Ferad
Shah you find we have tried to deceive both him and you as to our
former position; that we are mere nobodies, and that awaiting his
return you have sent us to our proper place – to the garden to work
among the ordinary labourers. I can make myself look so different to
what I do now that you even would not know me. Then when you have
told him that we are low born, and useless, and all the rest that I have
told you, he will son send us off. He will not want for extra useless
mouths to feed.”
“Do you realise what you are asking for?” the lad y went on, surprised.
“I don’t think you can have considered what your fate will be. If Ferad
Shah sends you awa y (and you will probably all get the stick before