1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
Long afterwards, from one of the Hazara slaves Ferad Shah brought
with him that night, Gul Begum heard of the fate from which she and
her companions had been spared by the timely intervention of the Bibi.
Ferad Shah awoke to find he had much to do, and therefore but little
time for rest and enjoyment. The Hazaras who were said to have so
imposed on the credulit y of the household did not at first cross his
mind, but when the y did he ordered them to be sent for.
“I’ll teach them to deceive me,” he said. “Ho! where are the dogs?
We’ll have some sport and see how they can run, these women.”
“You ordered them to jail,” his wife explained. “They have been sent
off long ago. It was not for me to keep them here when once you had
passed judgement on them.”
“Sent off long ago?” Ferad Shah exclaimed. “Why do you tell such
lies? I have not yet been forty-eight hours in the house. How can you
call that ‘long ago’?”
“I should have said immediately you gave the order,” his wife put in
gently. Before her lord she was a ver y different person from the wild
cat who had so impressed Gul Begum.
“What right had you to act without m y orders?” he asked again angrily,
disappointed at losing what he looked upon as sport.
“I understood I had your orders,” his wife replied with well-feigned
regret, and there the matter ended, for Gul Begum was by then in
Kabul.
Another wear y march had been accomplished, another act in her life
had been played, and she was in a crowded Kabul prison, but “no man’s
slave yet, thank God,” she said to herself again and again. That
degradation, however, was not spared her long.
A city merchant had an order for a slave, and his choice fell on Gul
Begum. The girl made what resistance she could, but of what avail was
struggling on her part? A heavy stick, the weight of which Gul Begum
did not forget for many a da y, was laid across her shoulders, and she
was led forth, a panting, slatternly, ill-looking girl. She had a great
scheme in view. She would make herself so objectionable to every one
who chose her as their slave that at length she would be treated as an
imbecile and so regain her liberty, but she told her plan to no one.
That same day her aunt, Shereen’s mother, was chosen by some one
else, but Halima and Shereen remained on still in the prison.
The new home in which Gul Begum found herself was in every wa y
very different from and, as regards wealth and luxur y, ver y inferior to
Ferad Shah’s. The bread brought ready baked in the bazaar was not