Hart of Empire (31 page)

'Then that's what they shall have, Angrez, mark my words. Already the countryside is ungovernable for your people, and each day the armed opposition will grow. Unless, that is, you and Ilderim can recover the cloak.'

George's jaw fell. 'You
know
about the cloak?'

'Of course. Ilderim explained. Afghan families have no secrets.'

'Did he tell you that the princess took the cloak from us at the point of a gun?'

'I told you, I know everything.'

'So you agree with Ilderim that the princess has probably gone north?'

'I suspect she planned this all along. She has many relatives and supporters among the Kohistan tribes, and is probably making her own play for leadership of the uprising.'

'You think she intends to fight the British?'

'I'm sure of it. How else can she hope to gain popular support for her rule?'

Suddenly all became clear to George. He remembered the words of Pir Ali:
You must never forget, Hart Sahib, that the cloak means power.
Sher Afzul was right, he decided. The princess had taken the cloak because she wanted to rule in her own right. And while the revelation made her betrayal a little easier to take, George was not optimistic about her chances of success. 'From what I've seen of your people, Sher Afzul, I find it hard to believe they'll accept a female ruler. Would you?'

'It depends, Angrez. All most of us want is a ruler who is strong, just and only a little rapacious. That seems as much as we Afghans can hope for, and if Princess Yasmin is all of those things then I, for one, would back her at the
loya jirga
we tribal chiefs attend to approve a new amir. Whether the mullahs and the more traditional chiefs would ever consent to be ruled by a woman is another matter. I doubt it.'

'So do I. But are you saying, Sher Afzul, that you'd support a war against the British?'

'Of course, if your people intend to stay in Afghanistan. I have nothing against you, Angrez, but it's the patriotic duty of every Afghan to repel the foreign invader. I would not fight for the mullahs and the extremists, but I would take sides with a strong moderate like Sher Ali, our former amir, or even Princess Yasmin if she proves her worth.'

'I understand. And may I point out that Roberts and his kind are not my people, as you put it. I was sent here to prevent the Indian government from provoking an all-out war that would give it the excuse to annex Afghanistan, and that is still my aim.'

'Then we see eye to eye, Angrez.'

'So it seems. But do you really believe there's still a chance we can stop the war by recovering the cloak?'

'Yes, Angrez, I do. The mullahs and the extremists will fight with or without the cloak. But many moderate Afghans will only join a
jihad
if they believe it's legitimate. The cloak gives it that legitimacy.'

'But did you not say a moment ago you would join a
jihad
?'

'Not a
jihad
. I would fight to free my country. There's a difference. Put it like this, Angrez. If the Ghazni mullah succeeds in raising a national
jihad
, the Angrez troops at Kabul will be slaughtered and your government will have no choice but to return to avenge them, never to leave. Then even I would be forced to fight, and I'd most likely die. But if the rising is local, it will be defeated. Then there is still some hope that your government will see sense and, with its honour intact, withdraw its troops and leave us to our own devices.'

'Good Lord,' said George, impressed, 'you'd put a philosopher to shame with your sophistry. But even if you're right, and we can still make a difference by recovering the cloak, we've first got to find it. And then there's the issue of time. We're more than three weeks behind the princess, who must have reached her destination long ago. She may, at this very moment, be marching south at the head of a huge army.'

'True, Angrez, she may indeed. But never forget it takes many weeks for a man to gather an army, and for a woman even longer, so you and Ilderim may yet be in time.'

'I hope you're right,' said George, thinking it over. The odds, he knew, were stacked against them. It would be hard enough finding the cloak, let alone stealing it from the princess and her armed adherents. But he had to try or his mission would fail and Afghanistan would suffer. There was also the small matter of forfeiting the two-thousand-pound bonus he desperately needed to save the family home.

'I've made up my mind,' said George, after a long pause. 'We'll leave as soon as Ilderim returns.'

'Leave for where,
huzoor
?'

George turned to see Ilderim's smiling face and huge frame, covered with dust from his ride, taking up most of the doorway. 'You're back,' he said lamely, incapable of doing justice to the pleasure he felt at the sight of his comrade in arms.

'Yes,
huzoor
.'

'And your father is well?'

'He is,
huzoor
, as are you, I see.'

'Much better.'

'I'm glad. But you haven't answered my question. Where are we going?'

George rolled his eyes. 'Why, to Kohistan, of course. Where else?'

Chapter 18

Near Gulbahar, Kohistan, winter 1879

'Wait here,
huzoor
,' instructed Ilderim, 'while I ride into the town and make enquiries. It will be better for both of us if I go alone.'

'Very well,' replied George, blowing into his hands to warm them. 'But don't be too long. It looks like snow again and we need to find shelter before dark.'

They had left Sher Afzul's fort two days earlier and, resolved to give the British at Kabul a wide berth, had passed to the west of the city through the fertile pastures and shady orchards of the Chardeh valley, rejoining the main route north at Karez Mir. Another day's hard ride had brought them close to Gulbahar where the Shamali plains rose to meet the foothills of the Hindu Kush, the towering range of mountains that divides northern from southern Afghanistan, which the proponents of the Forward policy in Simla had long hoped to acquire as the 'scientific' northern frontier of British India. And George could see why. The most prominent of the snow-capped peaks in the distance rose to a height of twenty thousand feet, and even the smaller ones seemed to form an unbroken wall of jagged ridges and deep ravines. There were, moreover, only a limited number of passes over the natural barrier, easy to control and blocked in winter.

As Ilderim continued down the snow-covered hill to Gulbahar, a small town of flat-roofed houses at the head of the Panjshir valley, George dismounted and led his horse off the road into a forest of conifers and weeping spruce. About fifty yards in he came upon a small clearing where he knee-haltered his horse and sat down on a rock with his carbine to wait. But after half an hour, with the chill seeping into his bones, he rose to stretch his legs and ease the ache in his recently healed calf. The clearing was too small for any proper exercise, so he shouldered his carbine and struck off into the trees in an easterly direction, away from the main road, and soon came upon a forest track that led gently downhill. He followed it for about four hundred yards and was about to turn back when he heard the faint sound of raised voices. They seemed to be coming from further down the path. George walked towards them, hugging the treeline, until he came to the edge of the forest where he stopped, open-mouthed.

Directly below him, strung out along a fast-flowing river at the foot of the valley, was a huge tented encampment with a brushwood enclosure for hundreds of horses. Near the centre of the camp was a large bonfire and round it sat a vast crowd of Afghan tribesmen, listening to and occasionally heckling a man who was addressing them. They were too far away for George to hear what was being said, or to recognize faces, and he was again on the point of retracing his steps when he saw a second figure rise from the edge of the crowd and join the original speaker by the fire. Two things caught George's attention: from her gait and outline, the new speaker was almost certainly a woman; and she was wearing a heavy red cloak with tan sleeves, the jewels of its clasp sparkling at her throat.

'It can't be,' muttered George. But he knew it was. He had found Yasmin and the cloak.

For a moment he stared transfixed, his heart pounding at his first sight of the woman who had drawn him into her web only to betray him. He didn't feel anger, just sadness, and a determination to hear from her lips the answer to the question: why? Yet he forced himself to put all personal feelings aside and to concentrate on the matter in hand, which was how to steal the cloak from under the noses of a band of armed and dangerous Afghans. He knew he couldn't do it alone, and was about to return to the clearing to wait for Ilderim when a strong hand gripped his right arm, causing him to start. His spirits sank as he imagined an Afghan sentry had sneaked up on him. But when he swung round he found Ilderim, finger to his lips.

'How did you find me?' whispered George.

Ilderim snorted. 'It wasn't difficult,
huzoor
. You left tracks in the snow a child could have followed. What's down there?'

'It looks to be some sort of tribal gathering. A man was speaking, now a woman. I think she's Princess Yasmin, and she's wearing a red cloak with tan sleeves. It must be the Prophet's Cloak.'

'It is,
huzoor
. I heard talk in the bazaar at Gulbahar of a big meeting of Kohistani chiefs and their men by the Panjshir river. This is surely it. So if that Hell-cursed bitch is here, wearing the cloak, she must be trying to win them over. But why?'

'To march on Kabul. She's making her play for the throne, and her means to that end is to defeat Roberts in battle. I'm sure of it.'

Ilderim frowned. 'No Afghan will follow a woman into battle.'

'Are you certain about that?'

'I am.'

'We'll soon find out. But first we need to get closer to the camp so we can hear what they're saying. Luckily the light's fading,' said George, as he eyed the sun setting to the west, 'and we should be able to cross the fields below without being seen. We'll make for that orchard just above the camp.'

'We can do that,
huzoor
, but what hope have we of stealing the cloak with so many men against us?'

'Not much, it's true. But we did it once and we can do it again. I say we wait until they've all gone to sleep, then sneak in and take it. The princess will have it with her. We need to find out which is her tent. Keep close,' said George, unslinging his carbine before setting off from the wood in a stooped trot.

The camp lay six hundred yards below them, across two maize fields separated by an irrigation ditch. On the far side of the second field was the orchard of walnut trees that George had identified as the ideal place to lie up. After a nervous minute or two spent crossing open ground in the half-light, with Ilderim cursing silently as he slipped a foot into the icy water of the irrigation ditch, they reached it unobserved. Now just eighty yards from the camp, and even less from the crowd round the fire on a plateau just above the tents, they crawled on their bellies to the bottom of the orchard where a small mound provided a convenient rest for their carbines. All eyes in the crowd, meanwhile, were on the woman speaking.

Beneath the cloak she was dressed in the same green tightly fitting jacket and white jodhpurs that she had worn on the night they had taken the cloak from the mullah. She was also veiled, presumably as a sop to the conservative Kohistani tribesmen, but her clothes, flashing eyes and extravagant hand gestures left George in no doubt that she was Princess Yasmin. Her words provided the confirmation. 'I won't deny,' she cried, straining to make herself heard at the back of the gathering stretched out before her, 'that the shame my brother has brought on his family, and on Afghanistan, by throwing off his dynastic responsibilities is a stain that cannot easily be wiped clean. But with Allah's help, and your assistance, I will try. I know there are many here who would question my right to rule . . .'

Whistles sounded from one or two in the crowd.