1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
A pin, had it fallen, would not have done so unheard, so intense was
the silence in that room, and each jeerer trembled lest his words should
be remembered and brought home to him. Thus does this man rule his
kingdom – partly by fear, but also by a love which attracts and
fascinates, almost awes.
After this the Chief Secretary adopted a new method of procedure. He
never omitted his weekly visit to his wife’s grave, but he was seldom at
home, and often stayed in court till twelve or two in the morning.
His little girl, not much more than three years old, whom he had begun
to teach in his spare hours just after his w ife’s death, missed him
sadly, and cried for her Agha. Another – a woman – missed him, but
said nothing. She was only a slave – what right had she to miss
anyone?
But this state of affairs was not to last long. Exhausted nature had her
way, and before long, the Chief Secretar y was at death’s door, and
because his skin was hot, his lips parched, and his head ached till it
almost seemed as if it would burst, the Hakims bled and starved him.
Then he became unco nscious, and spoke wildly, so he was bled again.
The ordinar y Hakim has only two potent remedies, and of these
bleeding is one. More often than not, the patients do not recover, but
the Chief Secretary was devotedly nursed. He did recover. One faithful
soul hardly left him da y or night. A sigh and she was by him, offering
iced milk, some refreshing sherbet, a cooling syrup; a moan of pain,
and she would take his poor aching head in her great tender hands, and
press and soothe it till he slept.
As he became conscious she kept more and more in the background.
“You are the head of the house,” she said to Sardaro, the children’s
nurse, a woman of the royal tribe sent specially by the Ameer for this
purpose, one day when her master was beginning to recover his wonted
health, “You must take Agha his food. It is not right that I should do
so, now he is better, that is your privilege.”
It was one of which the older woman showed herself in no wise anxious
to avail herself. Afghan women are not at all keen on availing
themselves of privileges when these entail service. It was hot, and she
was not actively inclined, but Gul Begum was firm. She feared she
might be censured for being officious – she could not have borne that.
“You have put no ice in m y water,” the sick man growled a few days
after the change had been made. “You have forgotten the salt,” he
sighed another.
On each occasion the woman retired and supplied the missing articles
without comment, but next day there would be the same omission
again, or else the food would be cold, or the cloth on which it was laid,
soiled.