A Prince of Dreamers

Flora Annie Steel

• Publisher: Read & Co. Classics
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781528714365
• eBook ISBN: 9781528788724
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History

"A Prince of Dreamers" is a 1908 historical novel by Flora Annie Steel. Flora Annie Steel (1847 – 1929) was an English writer who notably lived in British India for 22 years and is best remembered for her books set or related to the sub-continent. Steel's historical novel "A Prince of Dreamers" offers the reader a glimpse into colonial India that is typical of her fiction, weaving a delicate story to the backdrop of British imperialism in an exotic land. An entertaining and insightful novel, "A Prince of Dreamers" is highly recommended for those with an interest in India's history and will not disappoint those who have read and enjoyed other works by this author. Also by this author: "Tales of the Punjab" (1894), "The Flower of Forgiveness" (1894), and "The Potter's Thumb" (1894). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

CHAPTER I

What know ye of the wearer,
Ye who know the dress right well?
'Tis the letter-writer only, can the letter's purport tell.

- Sa'adi.

"Hush! The King listens!"

The sudden sonorous voice of the court-usher echoed over the crowd and there was instant silence.

The multitude sank, seated on the ground where it had been standing, and so disclosed to view the rose-red palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, the City of Victory, rising from the rose-set gardens where the silvery fountains sprang from the rose-red earth into the deep blue of the sky.

Akbar the King showed also, seated on a low, marble, cushion-covered pedestal beneath a group of palms.

He was a man between the forties and the fifties with no trace of the passing years in form or feature, save in the transverse lines of thought upon his forehead. For the rest, his handsome aquiline face with its dreamy yet fireful eyes and firm mouth, held just the promise of contradiction which is often the attribute of genius.

So, as he sate listening, a woman sang.

She stood tall, supple, looking in the intensity of her crimson-scarlet dress, like a pomegranate blossom, almost like a blood-stain amongst the white robes of her fellow musicians. The face of one of these, fine, careworn, stood out clear-cut as a cameo against the glowing colour of her drapery, and the arched bow of his rebeck swayed rhythmic ally as the high fretful notes followed the trilling turns of her voice:

Gladness is Gain, because Annoy has fled
Sadness is Pain, because some Joy is dead
Light wins its Halo from the Gloom of night
Night spins its Shadow at the Loom of light.
The Twain are one, the One is twain
Naught lives alone in joy or pain
Except the King! Akbar the King is One!
Birth sends us Death, and flings us back to Earth
Earth lends us Breath, and brings us fresh to Birth
Love gives delight —

"Hush! The King wearies!"

Once again the sonorous voice of the court-usher following a faint uplift of the King's finger brought instant obedience. The singer was silent, the crowd remained expectant, while the hot afternoon sun blazed down on all things save the King, sheltered by the royal baldequin.

He raised his keen yet dreamy eyes and looked out almost wistfully to the far blue horizon of India, which from this rocky red ridge whereon he had built his City of Victory showed distant, unreal, a mere shadow on the inconceivable depth of the blue beyond.

Jalâl-ud-din Mahomed Akbar, Great Mogul, Emperor of India, Defender of the Faith, Head of Kingdoms Spiritual and Temporal! Aye, he thought, he was all that so far as the Shadow went. But in the Light? What of the Light beyond, wherein Someone — Something — sate enthroned, King-of-Kings, Lord-of-Lords? What was he there?

He rose suddenly, and the crowd rising also swept back from his path tumultuously, as the waters of the Red Sea swept back from the staff of Moses, to leave him free, unfettered.

There was no lack of power about him anyhow! He stepped forward, centring his world with the swing of an athlete — a swing which made the bearers of the royal baldequin jostle almost to a trot in their efforts to keep the Sacred Personality duly shaded; and then he paused to look thoughtfully into a pool that was fretted into ceaseless rippling laughter by the fine misty spray which was all that fell back from the clear, strong, skyward leap of the water in the central fountain. Was that typical of all men's efforts, he wondered? A skyward leap impelled by individual strength; and then dispersion? When he died — and death came early to his race — what then?

He stood absorbed while the crowd closed in behind the courtiers who circled round him at a respectful distance. Beyond them the fun of the fair commenced; bursts of laughter, a hum of high-pitched voices, the tinkling of wire-stringed fiddles, the occasional blare of a conch, with every now and again the insistent throbbing of a hand drum, and a trilling song —

"May the gods pity us, dreamers who dream of their godhead"

And over all the hot yellow sunshine of an April afternoon in Northern India.

"The King is in his mood again," remarked one of the courtiers vexedly. He was Mân Singh, the Râjpût generalissimo, son of the Râjah Bhagwân Singh who had been Akbar's first Hindoo adherent, who was still his close friend and soon to be his relative by marriage. The speaker was in the prime of life, and the damascened armour seen beneath a flimsy white muslin overcoat seemed to match his proud arrogance of bearing. The courtier to whom he spoke was of a very different mould; small, slender, dark, with the face of a mime full of the possibilities of tears and laughter, but full also of a supreme intelligence which held all other things in absolute thrall. He gave a quick glance of comprehension toward his master, then shrugged his shoulders lightly.

"He sighs for new worlds to conquer, Mirza-rajah," he replied, with a faint emphasis on the curious conglomerate title which was one of the King's quaint imaginative efforts after cohesion in his court of mixed Hindus and Mahommedans. "You Râjpût soldiers are too swift even for Akbar's dreams! With Bengal pacified, Guzerât gagged, Berhampur squashed and the Deccan disturbances decadent, His Majesty is — mayhap! — busy in contriving a new machine to turn swords into wedding presents."

He gave an almost sinister little bow at this allusion to the coming political marriage of the Heir-Apparent, Prince Salîm to Mân Singh's cousin; a match which set the adverse factions in the court by the ears.

Mân Singh laid his hand on his sword-hilt and frowned.

"If Birbal could speak without jesting 'twere well," he said, significantly. "Those bigoted fools" — he nodded toward a group of long-bearded Mahommedan preachers — "may howl about heretics if they choose, but we Râjpûts know not how to take this mixed marriage either; for in God's truth the Prince is not as the King, but an ill-doing lout of a lad — so ...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I
• CHAPTER II
• CHAPTER III
• CHAPTER IV
• CHAPTER V
• CHAPTER VI
• CHAPTER VII
• CHAPTER VIII
• CHAPTER IX
• CHAPTER X
• CHAPTER XI
• CHAPTER XII
• CHAPTER XIII
• CHAPTER XIV
• CHAPTER XV
• CHAPTER XVI
• CHAPTER XVII
• CHAPTER XVIII
• CHAPTER XIX
• CHAPTER XX
• CHAPTER XXI
• CHAPTER XXII
• CHAPTER XXIII
• CHAPTER XXIV
• CHAPTER XXV
• CHAPTER XXVI
• CHAPTER XXVII
• L'ENVOI