The moghul, p.52
The Moghul, page 52
Arangbar moved groggily through the arched corridor carrying a freshsilver cup of wine and quietly humming the motif of his favoriteHindustani raga. His afternoon nap in the _zenana _had been fitful,unusually so, and when he finally admitted to himself why, he haddismissed the two young women who waited to pleasure him, retrieved hisjeweled turban, and waved aside the attending eunuchs. He had announcedhe wanted to stroll among the fruit trees in the courtyard of theAnguri Bagh, which lay down the marble steps from the Khas Mahal, thebreezy upper pavilion of the _zenana_. But when he reached the trees,he had turned and slipped through his private doorway leading to thewomen's apartments in the lower level of the fort.
The _zenana _was quiet, even the eunuchs were dozing, and no onenoticed when he passed along the shadowed afternoon corridor toward thecircular staircase leading to the lower apartments. As he began todescend the curved stone steps, he felt his legs momentarily growunsteady, and he paused to rest against the hard polished wall,tightening his light brocade cloak against the cooler air and taking ashort sip of wine for warmth. Then he continued on, carefully feelingfor each step in the dim light of the overhead oil lamps.
He emerged on the next level and stopped to catch his breath on thebalcony that opened out over the Jamuna. This was the level where hehad built private apartments for his favorite women, and behind him wasthe large room, with a painted cupola ceiling high above a large rose-shaped marble fountain, which he had granted to one of his Hindu wives.(Now he could no longer recall precisely who she was; she had reachedthirty some time past and he had not summoned her to his couch in manyyears.) Since she was a devout Hindu, he had ordered it decorated withbrilliantly colored scenes from the Ramayana. The room itself wascooled by a high waterfall in the rear that murmured down an inclinedand striated marble slab. Stairways on either side of the room curvedaround to an overhead balcony, directly above where he now stood, whichwas the post where eunuchs waited when the women came to coolthemselves by the fountain.
The balcony where he now stood jutted out from the fort, supported bythick sandstone columns, and from his position he could look along theside of the fort and see the Jasmine Tower of Queen Janahara. When herealized he also could be seen, he instinctively stepped back into thecool corridor.
The women were inside their apartments, asleep, and the corridor emptyas he began to descend the circular stairs leading to the next levelbelow, the quarters for eunuchs and female servants. As he rounded thelast curve of the stair and emerged into the light, three eunuchsstared up in shock from their game of cards. It vaguely registered thatthey probably were gambling, which he had strictly prohibited in the_zenana_, but he decided to ignore it this afternoon.
The circular pasteboard cards of the eunuchs' scattered across thestone floor as they hurried to _teslim_. He paused to
drink again from the cup and absently studied the painted faces on thecards dropped by the eunuch nearest him. It was not a bad hand. Lyingon the marble were four high cards from the _bishbar_, powerful, suits--the lord of horses, the king of elephants, the king of infantry, andthe throned _wazir _of the fort--and three from the _kambar_, weaker,suits--the king of snakes, the king of divinities, and the thronedqueen. He stared for a moment at the king of elephants, the suit healways preferred to play, and wondered at the happenstance that theking had fallen beneath the queen, whose face covered his golden crown.He shrugged it away as coincidence and turned toward the stairs leadingto the next lower level.
Two more levels remained.
The air was increasingly musty now, noticeably smoky from the lamps,and he hurried on, reaching the next landing without stopping. Thewindows on this level had shrunk to only a few hand spans, and now theywere secured with heavy stone latticework. The eunuchs were arguing atthe other end of the corridor and failed even to notice him. He toldhimself to try to remember this, and drank again as he paused to listento the metrical splash of the Jamuna lapping against the outer wall.Then he stepped quietly down the last flight of stairs.
The final level. As he emerged into the corridor, two guarding eunuchswho had been dozing leaped to their feet and drew swords beforerecognizing him. Both fell on their face in _teslim_, their turbanstumbling across the stone floor.
Arangbar said nothing, merely pointed toward a doorway at the end ofthe corridor. The startled eunuchs strained against their fat as theylifted torches from the walls and then turned officiously to lead theway. As they walked, Arangbar paused to stare through an arched doorwayleading into a large domed room off the side of the hall. A dozeneunuchs were inside, some holding torches while others laced a whitecotton rope through a wooden pulley attached to the lower side of aheavy wooden beam that spanned the room, approximately ten feet abovethe floor.
The two eunuchs with Arangbar also stopped, wondering
if His Majesty had come to supervise the hanging that afternoon of thetwo _zenana _women who had been discovered in a flagrant sexual act inthe Shish Mahal, the mirrored _zenana _baths.
Arangbar studied the hanging room for a moment with glazed eyes, notremembering that he had sentenced the women that same morning, and thenwaved the guards on along the corridor, past the doors that secureddark cells. These were the cells used to confine women who had broken_zenana _regulations.
At the end of the corridor was a door wider than the others, and behindit was a special cell, with a window overlooking the Jamuna. He walkeddirectly to the door and drank again from his cup as he ordered itopened. The guards were there at once, keys jangling. The door wasmassive and thick, and it creaked heavily on its hinges as they pushedit slowly inward.
From the gloom came the unmistakable fragrance of musk and sandalwood.He inhaled it for a moment and it seemed to penetrate his memory,calling up long forgotten pleasures. Grasping the door for support, hemoved past the bowing guards and into the cell. There, standing by thesmall barred window, her face caught in a shaft of afternoon sun, wasShirin.
Her eyes were carefully darkened with kohl and her mouth red and fresh.She wore a gossamer scarf decorated with gold thread, and a thin skirtthat betrayed the curve of her thighs against the outline of herflowered trousers. The musty air of the room was immersed in herperfume, as though by her very being she would defy the walls of herprison. She looked just as he had remembered.
She turned and stared at him for a moment, seeming not to believe whatshe saw. Then her eyes hardened.
"Shall I _teslim _before my sentence?"
Arangbar said nothing as he examined her wordlessly, sipping slowlyfrom his almost-empty cup. Now more than ever he realized why she hadonce been his favorite. She could bring him to ecstasy, and then recitePersian poetry to him for hours. She had been exquisite.
"You're as beautiful as ever. Too beautiful. What do you expect me todo with you?"
"I expect that I will die, Your Majesty. That, I think, is the usualsentence for the women who disobey you."
"You could have stayed in Surat, where you were sent. Or gone on to Goawith the husband I gave you. But instead you returned here. Why?"Arangbar eased himself onto the stone bench beside the door.
"I don't think you would understand, Majesty."
"Did you come because of the Inglish _feringhi?_ I learned yesterdaythat you conspired to meet with him. It displeased me very much."
"He was not responsible, Majesty. I met with him because I chose to.But I came to Agra to be with Samad again." Her voice began to trembleslightly. "Samad is guilty of nothing, except defiance of the Shi'itemullahs. You know that as well as I. If you want to hear me beg forhim, I will."
Arangbar seemed not to notice the tear that stained the kohl beneathone eye. "It was a death sentence for you to disobey me and come back.Perhaps you actually want to die."
"Is there nothing you would die for, Majesty?"
Arangbar stared for a moment at the window, its hexagonal grillworkthrowing a pattern across his glazed eyes. He seemed to be searchingfor words. "Yes, perhaps I might die for India. Perhaps someday soon Iwill. But I would never die for the glory of Islam." His gaze came backto Shirin. "And certainly not for some half-naked Sufi mullah."
"Samad is not a mullah." By force of will she held any trace ofshrillness from her voice. "He is a Persian poet. One of the greatestever. You know that. He defies the Shi'ites because he will not bow totheir dogma."
"The Shi'ites want his head." Arangbar examined his empty cup andtossed it to the floor, listening as the silver rang hard against thestone. "It seems a small price for tranquility."
"Whose tranquility? Theirs?" The tears were gone now, her eyes againdefiant.
"Mine. Every day I'm flooded with petitions about this or that heresy.It wearies and consumes me. Samad ignored the laws of Islam, and he hasfollowers."
" You ignore the laws of Islam."
Arangbar laughed. "It's true. Between us, I despise the mullahs. Youknow I once told them I had decided to become a Christian, because Ienjoyed eating pork and the Prophet denied it to all men. The next daythey brought the Quran and declared although it was true pork wasdenied to men, the Prophet said nothing specifically about what a kingcould eat. So there was no need for me to become a Christian." Hepaused and sobered. "But Samad is not a king. He is a well-known Sufi.The mullahs claim that if he's dead, the inspiration for heresy willdie with him. They say his death will serve as an example. I hear thiseverywhere, even from Her Majesty."
"Her Majesty?" Shirin searched for his eyes as she spoke, but they wereshrouded in shadow. "Does she make laws for you now?"
"She disrupts my tranquility with all her talk about Islam andShi'ites. Perhaps it's age. She never used to talk about the Shi'ites.But now she wants to bring the Islam of Persia to India. She forbadeSunni mullahs even to attend the wedding. But if it pleases her, whatdoes it matter? I despise them all."
"But why Samad? Why sentence him to death?"
"Frankly I don't really care about this poet, either way. But he hasnot tried to help himself. When I allowed him to confront the mullahswho accused him, he refused to recite the Kalima, 'There is no God butAllah.'"
"What did he say?"
"Perhaps just to spite them, he would only recite the first phrase,'There is no God,' the negation. He refused to recite the rest, theaffirmation. He said he was still searching for truth. That when hefinally saw God he would recite the remainder; that to affirm Hisexistence without proof would be giving false evidence. I thought themullahs would strangle him on the spot." Arangbar laughed to himself ashe watched her turn again to the window. "You have to admit thatqualifies as blasphemy, by any measure. So if the mullahs want him sobadly, why not let them have him?"
"But Samad is a mystic, a pantheist." Shirin returned her eyes toArangbar. "For him God is everywhere, not just where the mullahs chooseto put Him. Do you remember those quatrains in his Rubaiyat that say,
