1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
limited by the four sides of their master’s house. The only green that
refreshed their e yes was the jasmine bushes in the centre of the
quadrangle, and a wonderful pear-tree that grew in the wall of one of
the rooms, displacing the mud of which it was built, and making all
that side of the house damp.
The girls had now been slaves for four long years, and they were much
changed, but their altered circumstances had affected them differently.
How could it be otherwise? the y had accepted their lot so differently.
Shereen was a mere useless addition to the household to which she
belonged, showing no aptitude for sewing, and but little for tending the
children or nursing any one who happened to be ill. She lived wholly in
anticipation of the day that she felt sure was coming to her, the day
that Miriam had promised. Prosperity was to return to her. She was to
go back to her own people, she was to marry well and live comfortably
and happily ever afterwards. Why interest herself in a sphere which
was not her own, a mere transitory position which was to lead to
nothing, which would before long be wholly laid aside for ever? But
how long? that was the one question Shereen asked herself continually,
indeed, that was her one great interest in life. How soon was her luck
to turn? When was she to get her freedom and make this suitable
marriage?
With Gul Begum all was ver y different. She was no longer a Hazara in
thought or hope or aspiration. Had she, indeed, an aspiration at all? If
she had it was never formulated beyond the daily desire to see her
master partake of the food she plac ed before him with such care,
beyond the hope of his approval of some work she had undertaken,
beyond the longing to see the now almost settled melancholy of his
expression relieved for a few moments by a smile.
Her spirit, her pride, were still unbroken, but the old dreams had
vanished. She filled her thoughts and time with active work. She was a
slave only in name. The service she rendered was the service of the
free, willing, bountiful, at times even joyous. Her expression, too, had
changed. Her voice was softer, it was sweeter and more refined. She
lived ver y much apart from the other members of the household, who
generally, when not otherwise engaged, sat together in groups in the
children’s room, chatting, and either sewing or preparing fruit for
preserves, and sherbets or vegetables for pickles. More often still, they
squatted on their heels, in the shade in the summer, by the fire in the
winter, with their hands before them, doing absolutely nothing. Gul
Begum was generally with her master when he was in the house,
helping him to arrange his papers or to find some document that had
been mislaid by some of his careless messengers, waiting on him while
he ate, preparing his room for writing or for repose, spreading his
prayer-carpet or fetching the water for his ablutions. Then when he was
out there were his clothes to look to, and mend, and make, and air, and