1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

170
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
again,” but Gul Begum ran away up the stairs and on to the roof. Her
companions were too excited to let her off, however. All of them had
been promised something worth having, but so far Shereen was the
luckiest.
“You must come down, Gul Begum,” she said. “Good gracious!” the
girl retorted crossly, “what do you want with me? I want none of
Miriam’s fortunes, I want no husband.”
But they surrounded her and seized her, some half dozen of them, and
in no gentle fashio n either. The girl called out, “You’re hurting me. Let
me go. I won’t se Miriam. I hate the wretch.”
“Hush!” Sardaro called up, “be quiet. Are you mad, Gul Begum? Agha
is in the house and will hear you. What will he think of you?”
“Then tell these girls to let me be,” she shouted again.
Sardaro rushed up. “Take that and that and that, you bold, bad girl,”
she hissed below her breath, hitting her first on one side of the head
and then on the other, and finally kicking her all over as she lay
prostrate on the ground, held down by her companions.
Shereen had slipped downstairs and was bringing up old Miriam. She
was very inquisitive as to her cousin’s future and most anxious to hear
what the old woman had to say.
“Be off, old hag,” Gul Begum shouted when she saw her head appear in
the doorway, “be off, miserable liar, or I’ll throw you off this roof
down to the courtyard below. Don’t dare to come near me.”
“That’s right,” grinned the old woman, “hold her down, girls, hold her
down.” She was furious, and determined to get the better of her old
enemy.
“Now utter one sound,” Sardaro said, “and I’ll choke you,” and as she
spoke she put her two hands round the girl’s neck. It had struck her all
of a sudden that what old Miriam had suggested might indeed come to
pass. That the Vizier’s daughter, though a slave at the moment, might
find favour in the e yes of the master on whom she waited so faithfully,
and that she, with the others, might suddenly find themselves Gul
Begum’s servants. The idea was ver y displeasing to the elder woman,
and prompted her to be more violent than was her wont with those
under her.
In the meantime the other girls were arranging themselves so as best to
keep their companion pinned down to the roof, where she was
practically be yond earshot of their master so long as he remained in his
room at the other side of the house. A good deal of force and an
occasional downward pressure of Sardaro’s thumbs on the girl’s throat