1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

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A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
“AGHA, we are free! Do you see that rock? That is the boundary line
between the Ameer’s territory and ours. We are no longer in
Afghanistan,” Gul Begum said suddenly. “We are free! Oh, Agha, we
are free.”
“You forget,” her companion replied, “it is all Afghanistan now – all
ruled by the same king, and by the same laws. All is changed since last
you passed that rock. All Hazara is now Afghanistan.”
The girl sighed, but sadness could find no long resting-place in those
glad eyes.
“That may be – I suppose it is so,” she said, “but there is a difference
somewhere, somehow. It ma y be in the air – it may be only in m y heart
– but I feel different. Ever since I saw that rock in the distance, the
word keeps ringing in my ears: Free – free – free.”
The Chief Secretary turned suddenly and looked at her.
“Oh, that is it, is it?” he said, a touch of something like sadness in his
voice. “You are free here, you are at home – you are no longer my
slave at all. You are your own mistress. Is that what you mean?”
“I mean nothing of the sort,” the girl replied, looking down. “I was
hardly thinking of m yself – certainly not of my own position as regards
you. I was only thinking that here in this country there is no king who
keeps his servants working day and night for him, and who, when they
are overworked and cannot accomplish the tasks that are set them,
blames and reproaches and imprisons them. Here you, Agha, are free
because you have no master. I have often thought, in Kabul, that
though you called yourself free, that yours, not ours, was the slaver y –
a far worse bondage than that of the lowliest menial in your own
household. Always working, alwa ys striving, never accomplishing,
never satisfying.”
“How do you know all this?” her master asked. “What makes you guess
these things, girl?”
“Agha, I know, because I feel,” and as she spoke she placed her hand
upon her heart. “I was once free, and I know what the joys of freedom
are; then I became a slave – your slave,” she said, lowering her voice,
and dwelling with a certain tender lingering on the last two words;
“and then I found that there is a joy in service as well as in freedom.
But to be happy one’s service must be recognised, must be appreciated,
or I, at least, could no longer serve.”
“Then you think I appreciated your services, Gul Begum?” her master
asked, looking at her more scrutinisingly than was his wont, and noting
how the wind had caught her cheeks and heightened her colour.