Daughter of Nomads (15 page)

22

Baltit Fort Kingdom of Hahayul

F
lanked by guards, Dagar Khan strode down the steps of his fort toward the parade ground. He glanced behind to make sure Pir Zal was following. He took a deep breath. Zal was a powerful seer and he owed him much, but it was like making a pact with a demon. Not that making a pact with darkness was a problem; he would get full control of the northern kingdoms and the Silk Route in any way he could. If it involved Zal's gifted methods, so be it.

‘Aha.' He reached the field where his cavalry were going through their paces. He smiled expansively at the warhorses walking, trotting, jumping, turning sharply and stopping. No other kingdom had horses like these.

His commander approached. ‘My lord.'

Dagar Khan glanced at him, but couldn't keep his gaze from the spectacle before him. ‘It's like these horses are dancing.'

‘Awa, my lord. These horses have been bred from Tham Ashraf's prize stock.'

Dagar Khan's smile disappeared. ‘I do not wish to hear about him. These horses are excellent because of my horsemanship and skill in breeding.'

‘Of course, my lord. You are the greatest ruler of all time.' He bowed and Dagar Khan frowned at him.

Just then a young soldier arrived, breathless. He stood to the left of the men.

‘Want do you want?' Dagar Khan demanded, still watching the parade ground.

‘I have a message, my lord. It just came.' He handed over a tiny rolled paper.

‘Pigeons,' Dagar Khan said as he unrolled it. ‘What would we do without them?' He glanced at Pir Zal who drew closer.

As Dagar Khan read, his face became enflamed. He uttered an oath and threw the paper to the ground. Pir Zal retrieved it and dismissed the youth.

‘It's from Muzahid Baig.' Dagar Khan paced, all interest in his cavalry gone. ‘He was to marry that girl – she could have been the one. But he let her slip through his fingers. Abducted!' He slammed his fist into his other hand. ‘He was to bring her here!'

Pir Zal rolled the piece of paper between his fingers, thinking. ‘Would a man like Muzahid Baig lose a girl?'

Dagar Khan whipped around to stare at him, his eyebrows raised, but the pir remained calm.

‘Perhaps he has kept her for himself?'

‘Muzahid would dare to betray me? Me, the Tham of Hahayul? I will have both their heads – Muzahid's and the girl's!'

23

Along the Kunhar River Kingdom of Kaghan First Moon of Autumn

T
he tribe decided to stay in Naran another week. For three of those days armed men rode by, kicking up dust and disturbing the sheep. Dogs barked incessantly as warriors walked onto the fields and inspected the sheep and goats, keeping a close eye on the women. Despite her nerves, Jahani found she fitted in well. In Sherwan, she was always thought of as tall, but with the nomads, she wasn't. Her skin tone was also similar. It was her first inkling of belonging.

Their similarities didn't extend to hair colour, though. Some of the older men had red beards, but Jahani realised that they were dyed with henna. And apart from the one little girl she saw, none of the women had her red hair. Kamilah said jokingly that Jahani's grandfather could have been an Angrez trader from the other side of the world.

When it was time to move on, Jahani watched what the other women did: dismantling and folding tents and bedding, then packing and arranging it on the ponies. Some women fastened cooking pots together so they could be roped onto donkeys.

Jahani was folding her sleeping mat when Neema slapped her over the head. Jahani swallowed her anger. Though she didn't understand Neema's scolding words, she understood she was doing something wrong. What was it? She watched the other women more closely. They wiped the mat and made sure it was clean and dry before rolling. She did the same.

When everything was packed and the fires kicked over, the nomads were ready to move on. With rising excitement Jahani helped Anjuli mount Chandi and took in the scene as the first flocks of sheep set off with Rahul and other men leading them. The braying and baaing of the animals, eager to travel to new pastures with their bells tinkling, was deafening. Dust rose into the air as they reached the track leading from the fields. She couldn't see Yazan, but she hoped he would follow as Azhar had surmised.

As Jahani coaxed Chandi forward, she looked back and saw Zarah and Baqir's white fort above the river in the distance. No one waved, no one knew she was leaving. More than anything, she hoped Hafeezah and Zarah knew that she was safe. Azhar's face rose in her mind; he had looked torn the night he left her with the nomads.

You are a shehzadi
, he had said. What did he mean by that? Many brothers called their sisters ‘princess' as a pet name. Perhaps that was all he meant.

As Jahani tore her gaze from the fort, she noticed a man on a rise to the east. It was too far away to see his face, but was that a carpet protruding from behind him? In a small way it comforted Jahani, thinking it could have been Azhar, and yet this made her feel more confused than ever.

That first day, Jahani and the nomads travelled until noon and they set up camp in a grassy area. The trees were pretty here, their green leaves changing into oranges and reds. The whole camp was shadowed by the mountains, cloaking them in safety. Jahani breathed in the cool air as she observed the nomads herding the animals into a field.

The women seemed to enjoy being on the move, but Jahani could only see the work involved in setting up home at every destination. The older children helped to put up tents and then minded the flocks, but when the younger children's jobs were done they played near the goats. Anjuli joined them. Jahani watched the children picking up stones and pebbles from the ground and drawing a grid in the dirt with a stick. They sat cross-legged around it.

‘I am the tiger,' said a boy as his stone jumped over one of Anjuli's.

‘Nay, you've eaten one of my goats,' Anjuli cried.

He growled and Anjuli laughed along with the others. Jahani grinned. This would have been her childhood if she'd stayed with the nomads. She returned to the women and helped them raise the tent.

Rahul found Jahani after his work was done with the sheep.

‘Why do you live like this,' she asked him. ‘I can see you have been educated and you speak many languages. Why not live in a village?'

Rahul stared at her in disbelief. ‘This is our way of life, free to roam with our animals. We enjoy travelling, being outside and not being confined by village walls. The mountains are our home.'

‘But in different places,' Jahani said.

‘This way we can live with dignity in the way our ancestors did, roving about in the mountains we love. Plus it is good for the flocks to eat from different pastures. In the summer, we often stay for some time in the Kingdom of Qashmir and especially near Naran. In the winter we travel south to the Punjab, and to Qandahar. My people have travelled as far as Persia, where our ancestors are from. We can trace our lineage to Ishmael, thousands of summers ago. Long before the Mughals came we ruled all of northern Hindustan.'

Jahani regarded him, amazed; in that moment he looked regal. She thought of how Sameela had put the nomads in the same class as the blind beggar they saw in the Sherwan bazaar. ‘Nomads are so poor, Jahani, that's why they have no home or land and why they have to keep travelling, to eat off other people's pastures,' she had said. But it wasn't true – they travelled by choice.

‘We have land in Qashmir and Qandahar that we return to.' He paused, then said, ‘We had land in Naran, too, but a war lord disputed our right to it. We had to give him a lot of money to appease him.' He frowned as if reliving that time. ‘I was just a boy of ten summers.' He glanced at Jahani. ‘Do you remember this?'

Jahani shook her head.

‘Do you remember me? Or Aunty?' He looked so earnest.

Tears welled in Jahani's eyes but she forced them back, blinking. How could she say that she didn't, and yet she felt drawn to him? He would misunderstand.

‘You were not so young,' Rahul said, filling the silence. ‘I can recall my third summer in the mountains.'

‘I cannot.' Jahani tried to say it without any emotion. She wished she could remember. Only in her dreams did she see the past.

Rahul grinned as his dog bounded up to Jahani. ‘Layla remembers you.'

Jahani bent to pat her. ‘She's that old?'

‘She was one of the pups bred in our camp. She hadn't had her first litter when I—' he flicked a cautious look at Jahani, ‘—when you used to play with her.'

Jahani scratched behind Layla's ears. ‘I do feel a connection to her.' Layla rolled over so Jahani could scratch her belly, too. Then she asked, ‘What happened when I was younger? Why did I not grow up here?' Jahani wanted to hear his version of what Zarah had told her.

‘It is not for me to say. That is your mother's role. Soon you will know our language again and speak as you did when a child. You learned it quickly.'

She frowned and was about to question him again when she heard her name: ‘Jahani!'

It was Yasmeen – her mother.

Rahul smiled at Jahani and his eyes softened. ‘Mothers must always be obeyed. Ao, Layla.'

Jahani watched Rahul stride away, his hair blowing in the breeze, Layla trotting at his side.

Yasmeen stood at the entrance to their tent. She beckoned Jahani inside to a makeshift loom. A few women were spinning wool on spindles. Six other women sat in a row in front of the loom. A foot's length of a rug was showing on it. The loom was in two parts and Jahani suspected that, when they travelled, the loom was dismantled with the rug still attached. Yasmeen motioned to her to sit by Anjuli and spoke words Jahani could not understand.

‘She will call you when it's your time to weave,' Anjuli interpreted. ‘They take it in turns.'

Anjuli was seated on a rug and another woman sat next to her, sewing a cap. Anjuli stitched a line of simple embroidery on an old piece of cloth.

‘See?' She held her cloth up for Jahani to see. ‘Aunty Saqeela showed me.'

Jahani knelt on the rug next to her. ‘It's lovely, Anjuli. She glanced at Saqeela, but the woman didn't look up from her work.

‘Aunty's a widow.'

‘How do you know?'

‘She told me. All of the ladies in this tent are unmarried or are widows like me.'

‘Pardon?' Jahani screwed up her face thinking she had misheard. ‘Did you just say “widow”?'

Anjuli nodded. ‘It is why my aunt wouldn't look after me. In my village I can never be married again.'

‘But you can have only seen ten summers!'

Anjuli shrugged. ‘I lived in my husband's home, waiting to grow up. I learned the way he liked his curries and chapattis cooked. His mother taught me how to look after him.'

Anjuli looked up, and Jahani was shocked at the knowledge in her eyes. ‘Were you truly his wife?'

She shook her head. ‘He was waiting for my first menses. Then there would be another ceremony.'

Jahani had heard of these customs. Some little girls weren't as fortunate as Anjuli. ‘And did your husband die in the fire?'

Anjuli nodded. ‘If everyone else hadn't died, I would have been sentenced to death on my husband's pyre. Even young widows like me aren't allowed to live if their husband is dead. We all die of fire in my village.'

She was so desolate that Jahani hugged her close.

Anjuli sighed. ‘I wish I could see Shaan again.'

Jahani had no words to say, so she watched Anjuli stitch. She was doing it well, so no doubt she'd been taught to sew in her village – probably by her grandmother. The stitches were like those on the little dress Hafeezah had given Jahani.

Anjuli glanced up and caught Jahani regarding her. ‘Do not be sad for me,' she said. ‘I am better off with you. Widows have no life where I come from. If by some miracle,' she bit her lip, ‘or calamity we do not die with our husbands, we have to live apart from the village unless a relative takes pity on us.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

Anjuli hesitated. ‘I thought you wouldn't let me stay either.'

The acceptance and inevitability in Anjuli's eyes tore at Jahani's heart and she cupped Anjuli's face in her hands. ‘We will not tell anyone you are a widow.' Though Jahani suspected widows were better looked after in the nomad camp. ‘From now on, Anjuli, you are my sister. Do you agree?'

Anjuli smiled. ‘Ji, it is very good. I have dreamed of being your sister.'

‘So be it.' Jahani watched Anjuli turn happily back to her stitching, and wondered about the power of dreams.

‘Jahani.' Yasmeen handed Jahani a ball of spun goat's yarn and patted the mat next to her in front of the loom.

Jahani moved beside Yasmeen, hoping she also could create something beautiful like Anjuli.

Yasmeen was eager for Jahani to start, but Jahani didn't know what to do. She watched a woman insert her ball of wool behind the vertical strings attached to the loom and bring it to the front again. So Jahani did the same. Then she tried to follow what the others did, but still she made so many mistakes that Yasmeen cuffed her across the head. It was gentle – not like Neema's slaps – but Jahani quickly tired of it.

Before long, another woman was yelling at Jahani, and then Yasmeen, in turn, scolded the woman. When Yasmeen turned her back, the woman pulled one of Jahani's plaits.

Jahani gasped.

Yasmeen spun round with narrowed eyes. Her gaze searched out the woman who had hurt Jahani. ‘Arifah!' she screeched. A torrent of words from both of them followed, but Arifah did not seem chastened. The look she cast at Jahani chilled her bones. And Jahani knew, without a doubt, that no woman but Yasmeen wanted her there.

She saw Anjuli watching, her mouth open.

‘What did they say, Anjuli?'

Anjuli shook her head, her face pale. ‘I didn't understand it all. They are just arguing about you, about how you can't do the work properly and how it will be ruined.'

Jahani searched her face – there was more, she could tell – but Anjuli wouldn't say another word.