King-Errant. Flora Annie Webster Steel
the Beau Brummel of his age.
"Look," nudged one young courtier to another enviously, "he hath a new knot to his kerchief. How, in God's name, think you, is it tied?"
The incomparable person paused for one second only; then in the most polished of voices he poured out a lengthy ode, deftly ringing the changes on the word "baz" (falcon) which in Persian has at least a dozen different meanings.
A ripple of laughter followed his somewhat forced allusions, and he sat down again amid a chorus of applause.
Babar stood dum-foundered, yet in every fibre of his body sympathetic. Here was something new indeed! A new world very different from the rough and tumble clash of arms and swords and polo sticks at Andijân; but a world where, mayhap, he might hold his own.
"Well done! Well done!" he cried with the rest, and his uncle the Sultan nodded approval at the lad.
"Sit ye down, sit ye down!" he said; "and, cupbearer! a beaker of Shirâz wine for the King of Ferghâna!"
For the life of him the boy could not refrain from one swift look at Kâsim's face, Kâsim who was all shocked propriety at such a violation of the rules both of Islâm and Ghengis Khân; but after that one scared glance dignity came back.
"Your Highness!" he said, with pomp, waving his hand towards one of the butting rams, "like my ancestor the Barbarian I drink water only."
A smile went round the assembly and young Babar felt a glow of pride that he had not fallen so far short in wit. Thereinafter he sat and listened with wide eyes. His uncle was certainly a lively, pleasant man; but his temper was a bit hasty and so were his words. Still, despite that and overfreedom with the wine cup, he evidently had a profound reverence for the faith, since at the proper hour he put on a small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and, having placed a plume on it, went in this style to prayers!
That night when Kâsim was snoring in the tent and the hundred-and-a-half or thereabouts of his followers were slumbering peacefully, full up of kid pullao, Babar lay awake. He was composing an ode for the first time in his life. It was a sorry composition of no value except that it filled him with desire to do better.
CHAPTER IV
In this world's inn, where sweetest song abounds
There is no prelude to one song that sounds;
The guests have quaffed their wine and passed away
Their cups were empty and they would not stay.
No sage, no stripling, not a hand but thine
Has held this goblet of poetic wine;
Rise, then, and sing! Thy fear behind thee cast
And, be it clear or dull, bring forth the wine thou hast.
Jami.
Babar could not tear himself away from his uncle's camp. He lingered on and on, watching the military operations with a more or less critical eye, but absorbing culture wholesale.
It was a revelation to him, meeting men to whom fighting was not the end and aim of life; and these Begs and nobles of his uncle's court, though they were all supposed to be engaged in warfare with Khosrau Shâh who was holding Hissâr over the river, for his nominee the nincompoop, had yet time for other things.
Ali-Shîr, for instance, was wise beyond belief in all ways. Incomparable man! So kind, so courteous. Babar profited by his guidance and encouragement in his efforts to civilise himself. Thus becoming--since there is not in history any man who was greater patron of talent than Ali-Shîr--one of that great company of poets, painters, professors, and musicians who owe everything to him, who, passing through this world single and unencumbered by wife or child, gave himself and his time up to the instruction of others.
So far, therefore, as the clash of intellect went, young Babar was satisfied. In regard to the clash of arms it was different. How such a mighty body of Mirzas, Begs, and chiefs, who, with their followers, if they were not double the number of the enemy over the water were at least one-and-a-half times that number, could content themselves with practical inaction passed his understanding.
When, too, they had such battering rams and catapults as positively made his mouth water! There was one of the latter which threw such a quantity of stones and with such accuracy that in half an hour--just before bedtime prayers--the enemy's fort was beautifully breached. But the night being deemed rather dark for assault and the troops preferring the safety and comfort of their trenches, no immediate attack was made; the result being that before morning the breach was repaired.
There was absolutely no real fine fighting, and at this rate his uncle, the Sultan, would doubtless spend the whole winter on the banks of the Amu river, and when spring came, patch up some sort of a peace from fear of the floods which always came down with the melting snow.
"That is his way," asserted Kâsim with a shrug of his shoulders. "He leads his army forth with pomp and state, and in himself is no mean general; but ever it comes to naught. It is so, always, when folk take to rhyming couplets, and putting spices to their food. Give me orders that hang together, and plain roast venison."
But all the while the honest man was stuffing his mouth full of lamb and pistachio nuts, and Babar smiled. Still he felt that, so far as the art of war went, he might go back to little Andijân without fear of leaving behind him any knowledge worth the learning. It was otherwise with the culture, and he flung himself with characteristic vitality into music lessons, and dancing lessons, elocution lessons and deportment lessons, until as he entered the court audience no one could have told that but a few weeks before, he had been as rough and as uncouth as old Kâsim, who stoutly refused veneer.
"What I am, God made me," he would say, "and if folk like it not let them leave. I budge not."
To which uncompromising independence, one pair of hands--delicate, long-fingered, ivory hands--gave fluttering applause. They belonged to a young man who, almost at first sight, impressed young Babar more than anyone he had seen in all his life. He was a helpless cripple who yet took his part in life like any other man. Every evening his spangled litter would be brought into the big audience tent and set down just below the King's. For Mirza Gharib-Beg (who styled himself Poverty-prince in allusion to the meaning of his name--poor) was the King's son by a low-born woman who had been passionately loved. So, despite the fact that he had been born misshapen, ugly, and that ill-health had always been his, Poverty-prince still had a hold on his father's affection. And no wonder; since, though his form was not prepossessing he had a fine genius, and though his constitution was feeble, he had a powerful mind. There was nothing, it seemed to Babar, that he could not do. He could rhyme with Ali-Shîr, play the guitar with Abdulla-Marwârid and paint with Bahzâd. What is more, he could talk mysticism far better than Kamâl-ud-din, with his wagging black beard, who pretended to raptures and ecstasies and had written a portentously dull book about Sufism which he called "The Assembly of Lovers"--portentously dull and also profane--which was inexcusable.
But when Poverty-prince spoke of roses and nightingales and even of the red wine cup, he took you into another world; and he evidently believed what he said, whereas Kâmal-ud-din was all pose.
Yet the next instant the thin ugly face would show almost impish in its amusement and its owner would burst out with some sally that would set them all a-laughing; and him a-coughing for the change of air which was to have done him good was doing him harm; though he would not admit it.
"Wherefore should I?" he laughed gaily in some anxious face. "A man is as ill as he thinks himself--he is all things that he believes himself to be. So I am strong, and well, and young, and deeply enamoured of a beauteous lady. She is called Feramors--a pretty name," and he would catch up a lute over which his thin, long, ivory hands would flutter like butterflies and sing:
"Say! is it Love or Death, O Feramors!