1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
many blows with a stout stick from his would -be employer, as the
reward of his impudence, and no one would have pitied him. Then even
out of the trifling sum these wretched labourers earned, there was a
certain proportion that went by right of custom to the man who called
them from the street corner where they stood waiting to be hired. There
was no fighting against that, of course, though it reduced the alread y
trifling amount received to a mere pittance.
Gul Begum saw much of this, and wished she had had her father by her
to talk it over with. Ah, how she missed her father, and how She longed
to get news of him! What had become of him that night after he had
slipped out of the house and away into the darkness and the storm? Had
he indeed escaped? and where was he now? Ah, how she longed to
know; and how did he fare? Who baked his bread for him? Who made
his tea? her special task; or did he get none at all?
When the storm blew bitter blasts straight from the Hindoo Kush, she
shivered in her bed, not so much with cold as with fear and grief. She
wondered what shelter he had found, her beloved father, how his
clothes were wearing, whether he had his sheepskins with him, and his
gaiters that she had made, and ever y trifling detail that in so many
cases occupies the whole of a woman’s thought.
In summer, to this free-born girl, matters were even worse. The su n
streamed down on the white mud, the mud that formed the roof, the
mud that formed the walls of the house, the mud in the quadrangle, and
scorched it through and through. Soon every green leaf dried up, and
was covered with a thick coating of dust, and ever ything in the cit y
became of one dead grey colour. The water in the canal that ran
through the quadrangle got low, and there was ver y considerable
difficult y in getting water for even the most necessar y purposes. The
Chief Secretar y hired a special man who was supposed to go down to
the river twice a day and fill the mussacks (skin water vessels), but
there was no one to see that he either went or returned punctually. The
master himself was at Durbar all day with his head servant, who waited
on him and did his most important messages, so there was no one at all
to see that the men at home did their work. As far as possible,
therefore, it was left undone, and the women confined within the four
walls of the harem were the people who suffered.
A dozen times a day Gul Begum would go down to the old door-keeper
with her complaints.
“For God’s sake tell that man to hurry up with the water. We have not
a drop to wash the cooking vessels in even, and if it is not here soon, it
won’t have had time to settle before Agha wants his drinking water.”
“Give him some sherbet then,” the old man would answer, with a smile.
“He won’t be able to tell whether that’s thick or clear, when the cyrup
is in it, and he’ll like it all the better.”