The moghul, p.63
The Moghul, page 63
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The dark sky had begun to show pale in the east, heralding thefirst traces of day. Hawksworth stood in the shadows of his tent, atthe edge of the vast Imperial camp, and pulled his frayed leatherjerkin tighter against the cold. He watched as the elephants filedpast, bulky silhouettes against the dawn. They were being led from thetemporary stables on the hill behind him toward the valley below, wherecauldrons of water were being stoked for their morning bath. Heatingthe water for the elephant baths had become routine during the reign ofAkman, who had noticed his elephants shivering from their baths onchilly mornings and decreed their bath water warmed henceforth.
As he watched the line of giant animals winding their way through thecamp, waving their trunks in the morning air, he realized they were notdocile female _zenana _elephants, but male war elephants, first andsecond rank.
First-ranked war elephants, called "full blood," were selected fromyoung males who had demonstrated the endurance and even temperessential in battle; those granted Second Rank, called "tiger-seizing,"were slightly smaller, but with the same temperament and strength. Eachelephant had five keepers and was placed under the training of aspecial military superintendent--whose responsibility was to school theanimal in boldness amid artillery fire. The keepers were monitoredmonthly by Imperial inspectors, who fined them a month's wages if theirelephant had noticeably lost weight. Should an elephant lose a tuskthrough its keepers' inattention to an infection, they were fined oneeighth the value of the animal, and if an elephant died in their care,they received a penalty of three months' wages and a year's suspension.But the position of elephant keeper was a coveted place of greatresponsibility. A well-trained war elephant could be valued at ahundred thousand rupees, a full _lakh_, and experienced commanders hadbeen known to declare one good elephant worth five hundred horses in abattle.
Hawksworth studied the elephants, admiring their disciplined stride andeasy footing, and wondered again why the army had stationed its stablesso near the Imperial camp. Did Arangbar somehow feel he neededprotection?
"They're magnificent, don't you think?" Shirin emerged from her tent tojoin him, absently running her hand across the back of his jerkin. Ithad been six days since they had left Agra, and it seemed to Hawksworthshe had grown more beautiful each day, more loving each night. Thenightmare of the past weeks had already faded to a distant memory. Shewas fully dressed now, with a transparent scarf pinned to her dark hairby a band of pearls, thick gold bracelets, flowered trousers beneath atranslucent skirt, and dark _kohl _highlighting her eyes and eyebrows.He watched, enthralled as she pulled a light cloak over her shoulders."Especially in the morning. They say Akman used to train his royalelephants to dance to music, and to shoot a bow."
"I don't think I'll ever get used to elephants." Hawksworth admired hera moment longer in the dawn light, then looked back at the immenseforms lumbering past, trying to push aside the uneasy feeling theirpresence gave him. "You'd be very amused to hear what people in Londonthink they're like. Nobody there has ever seen an elephant, but thereare lots of fables about them. It's said elephants won't ford a clearstream during the day, because they're afraid of their reflection, sothey only cross streams at night."
Shirin laughed out loud and reached to kiss him quickly on the cheek."I never know whether to believe your stories of England."
"I swear it."
"And the horse-drawn coaches you told me about. Describe one again."
"It has four wheels, instead of two like your carts have, and it reallyis pulled by horses, usually two but sometimes four. It's enclosed andinside there are seats and cushions . . . almost like a palanquin."
"Does that mean your king's _zenana _women all ride in these strangecoaches, instead of on elephants?"
"In the first place, King James has no _zenana_. I don't think he'dknow what to do with that many women. And there are absolutely noelephants in England. Not even one."
"Can you possibly understand how hard it is for me to imagine a placewithout elephants and _zenanas_?" She looked at him and smiled. "And nocamels either?"
"No camels. But we have lots of stories about camels too. Tell me, isit true that if you're poisoned, you can be put inside a newly slaincamel and it will draw out the poison?"
Shirin laughed again and looked up the hill toward the stables, wherepack camels were being fed and massaged with sesame oil. The bells ontheir chest ropes sounded lightly as their keepers began harnessingthem, in strings of five. Hawksworth turned to watch as the men beganfitting two of the camels to carry a _mihaffa_, a wooden turretsuspended between them by heavy wooden poles. All the camels weregroaning pitifully and biting at their keepers, their customaryresponse to the prospect of work.
"That sounds like some tale you'd hear in the bazaar. Why should a deadcamel draw out poison?" She turned back to Hawksworth. "Sometimes youmake the English sound awfully naive. Tell me what it's really likethere."
"It is truly beautiful. The fairest land there is, especially in thelate spring and early summer, when it's green and cool." Hawksworthwatched the sun emerge from behind a distant hill, beginning to blazesavagely against the parched winter landscape almost the moment itappeared. Thoughts of England suddenly made him long for shade, and hetook Shirin's arm, leading her around the side of their rise and backinto the morning cool. Ahead of them lay yet another bleak valley,rocky and sere. "I sometimes wonder how you can survive here in summer.It was already autumn when I made landfall and the heat was stillunbearable."
"Late spring is even worse than summer. At least in summer there'srain. But we're accustomed to the heat. We say no _feringhi _ever getsused to it. I don't think anyone from your England could ever reallylove or understand India."
"Don't give up hope yet. I'm starting to like it." He took her chin inhis hand and carefully studied her face with a scrutinizing frown, hiseyes playing critically from her eyes to her mouth to her vaguelyaquiline Persian nose. "What part do I like best?" He laughed andkissed the tip of her nose. "I think it's the diamond you wear in yourleft nostril."
"All women wear those!" She bit at him. "So I have to also. But I'venever liked it. You'd better think of something else."
He slipped his arm around her and held her next to him, wondering if heshould tell her of his bargain with Arangbar--that she had been releasedonly because he had offered to take her from India forever. For amoment the temptation was powerful, but he resisted. Not yet. Don'tgive her a chance to turn headstrong and refuse.
"You know, I think you'd like England once you saw it. Even with noelephants, and no slaves to fan away the flies. We're not as primitiveas you seem to imagine. We have music, and if you'd learn our language,you might discover England has many fine poets."
"Like the one you once recited for me?" She turned to face him. "Whatwas his name?"
"That was John Donne. I hear he's a cleric now, so I doubt he's writinghis randy poems and songs any more. But there
are others. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, a staunch adventurer who writespassable verse, and there's also Ben Jonson, who writes poems, andplays also. In fact, lots of English plays are in verse."
"What do you mean by plays?"
"English plays. They're like nothing else in the world." He staredwistfully into the parched valley spread out before them. "Sometimes Ithink they're what I miss most about London when I'm away."
"Well, what are they?"
"They're stories that are acted out by players. In playhouses."
She laughed. "Then perhaps you should begin by explaining a playhouse."
"The best one is the Globe, which is just across the Thames fromLondon, in the Bankside edge of Southwark, near the bridge. It wasbuilt by some merchants and by an actor from Stratford-up-on-Avon, whoalso writes their plays. It's three stories high and circular, withhigh balconies. And there's a covered stage at one side, where theplayers perform."
"Do the women in these plays dance, like our _devadasis_?"
"Actually the players are all men. Sometimes they take the roles ofwomen, but I've never seen them dance all that much. There are playsabout famous English kings, and sometimes there are stories of thwartedlove, usually set in Italy. Plays are a new thing in England, andthere's nothing like them anywhere else."
Shirin settled against a boulder and watched the shadows cast by therising sun stretch out across the valley. She sat thoughtfully for amoment and then she laughed. "What would you say if I told you Indiahad dramas about kings and thwarted love over a thousand years ago?They were in Sanskrit, and they were written by men named Bhavabhutiand Bhasa and Kalidasa, whose lives are legends now. A pandit, that'sthe title Hindus give their scholars, once told me about a play calledThe Clay Cart. It was about a poor king who fell in love with a richcourtesan. But there are no plays here now, unless you count the dancedramas they have in the south. Sanskrit is a dead language, and Muslimsdon't really care for plays."
"I'll wager you'd like the plays in London. They're exciting, andsometimes the poetry can be very moving."
"What's it like to go to see one?"
"First, on the day a play is performed they fly a big white banner ofsilk from a staff atop the Globe, and you can see it all over London.The admission is only a penny for old plays and two pence for new ones.That's all you ever have to pay if you're willing to stand in the pit.If you want to pay a little more, you can get a seat in the galleriesaround the side, up out of the dust and chips, and for a little extrayou can get a cushion for the seat. Or for sixpence you can enterdirectly through the stage door and sit in a stall at the side of thestage. Just before the play begins there's a trumpet fanfare-- likeArangbar has when he enters the _Diwan-i-Am_--and the doorkeepers passthrough the galleries to collect the money."
"What do they do with it?"
"They put it into a locked box," Hawksworth grinned, "which wags havetaken to calling the box office, because they're so officious about it.But the money's perfectly safe. Plays are in the afternoon, whilethere's daylight."
"But aren't they performed inside this building?" Shirin seemed to beonly half listening.
"The Globe has an open roof except over the stage. But if it gets toodull on winter afternoons, they light the stage with torches of burningpitch or tar."
"Who exactly goes to these playhouses?"
"Everyone. Except maybe the Puritans. Anybody can afford a penny. Andthe Globe is not that far from the Southwark bear gardens, so a lot ofpeople come after they've been to see bearbaiting. The pit is usuallyfull of rowdy tradesmen, who stand around the stage and turn the airblue with tobacco smoke."
"So high-caste women and women from good families wouldn't go."
"Of course women go." Hawksworth tried unsuccessfully to suppress asmile. "There are gallants in London who'll tell you the Globe is theperfect place to spot a comely wench, or even a woman of fashionlooking for some sport while her husband's drunk at a gaming house."
"I don't believe such things happen."
"Well that's the way it is in England." Hawksworth settled against theboulder. "You have to understand women there don't let themselves belocked up and hidden behind veils. So if a cavalier spies a comelywoman at the Globe, he'll find a way to praise her dress, or herfigure, and then he'll offer to sit next to her, you know, just to makesure some rude fellow doesn't trod on the hem of her petticoats withmuddy boots, and no chips fall in her lap. Then after the play begins,he'll buy her a bag of roasted chestnuts, or maybe some oranges fromone of the orange-wenches walking through the galleries. And if shecarries on with him a bit, he'll offer to squire her home."
"I suppose you've done just that?" She examined him in dismay.
Hawksworth shifted, avoiding her gaze. "I've mainly heard of it."
"Well, I don't enjoy hearing about it. What about the honor of thesewomen's families? They sound reprehensible, with less dignity than_nautch _girls."
"Oh no, they're very different." He turned with a wink and tweaked herear. "They don't dance."
"That's even worse. At least most _nautch _girls have some training."
"You already think English women are wicked, and you've never even metone. That's not fair. But I think you'd come to love England. If wewere in London now, right this minute, we could hire one of thosecoaches you don't believe exist . . . a coach with two horses and acoachman cost scarcely more than ten shillings a day, if prices haven'tgone up . . . and ride out to a country inn. Just outside London thecountry is as green as Nadir Sharif's palace garden, with fields andhedgerows that look like a great patchwork coverlet sewed by somesotted alewife." Hawksworth's chest tightened with homesickness. "Ifyou want to look like an Englishwoman, you could powder your breastswith white lead, and rouge your nipples, and maybe paste some beautystars on your cheeks. I'll dine you on goose and veal and capon andnappy English ale. And English mutton dripping with more fat than anylamb you'll taste in Agra."
Shirin studied him silently for a moment. "You love to talk of England,don't you? But I'd rather you talked about India. I want you to stay.Why would you ever want to leave?"
"I'm trying to tell you you'd love England if you gave yourself achance. I'll have the _firman _soon, and when I return the East IndiaCompany will . . ."
"Arangbar will never sign a _firman _for the English king to trade.Don't you realize Queen Janahara will never allow it?"
"Right now I'm less worried about the queen than about Jadar. I thinkhe wants to stop the _firman _too, why I don't know, but he's succeededso far. He almost stopped it permanently with his false rumor about thefleet. He did it deliberately to raise Arangbar's hopes and thendisappoint him, with the blame falling on me. Who knows what he'llthink to do next?"
"You're so wrong about him. That had nothing to do with you. Don't youunderstand why he had to do that? You never once asked me."
Hawksworth stared at her. "Tell me why."
"To divert the Portuguese fleet. It's so obvious. He somehow discoveredQueen Janahara had paid the Portuguese Viceroy to ship cannons to MalikAmbar. If the Marathas had gotten cannon, they could have defendedAhmadnagar forever. So he tricked the Portuguese into searching for theEnglish fleet that wasn't there. The Portuguese are a lot more worriedabout their trade monopoly than about what happens to Prince Jadar. Heknew they would be."
"I know you support him, but for my money he's still a certifiedbastard." Hawksworth studied her for a moment, wondering whether tobelieve her words. If it were actually true it would all make sense,would fill out a bizarre tapestry of palace deception. But in the endhis ruse had done Jadar no good. "And for all his scheming, he wasstill defeated in the south. I hear the rumors too." Hawksworth roseand took Shirin's arm. She started to reply, then stopped herself.They began to walk slowly back toward his tent. "So he deceivedeveryone to no purpose."
As they rounded the curve of the slope and emerged into the sunshine,Hawksworth noted that some of the war elephants had already been ledback to their stables and were being harnessed. He looked across thevalley toward the tents of the Imperial army and thought he sensed agrowing urgency in the air, as though men and horse were being quietlymobilized to move out.
"But don't you realize? The prince is not retreating." Shirin finallyseized his arm and stopped him. "No one here yet realizes that MalikAmbar has . . ." Her voice trailed off as she looked ahead. A group ofRajput officers was loitering, aimlessly, near the entrance to hertent. "I wish I could tell you now what's happening." Her voice grewquieter. "Just be ready to ride."
Hawksworth stared at her, uncomprehending. "Ride where?" He reached totouch her hand, but she glanced at the Rajputs and quickly pulled itaway. "I don't want to ride anywhere. I want to tell you more aboutEngland. Don't you think you'd like to see it someday?"
"I don't know. Perhaps." She shifted her gaze away from the Rajputs.For an instant Hawksworth thought he saw her make a quick movement withher hands urging them to leave. Or had she? They casually moved on downthe hill, their rhino-hide shields swinging loosely from their shoulderstraps. "After . . . after things are settled."
"After what? After Arangbar signs the _firman_?"
"I can't seem to make you understand." She turned to face him squarely."About Prince Jadar. Even if you got a _firman _it would soon beworthless."
"I understand this much. If he's thinking to challenge Arangbar, andthe queen, then he's God's own fool. Haven't you seen the armytraveling with us? It's three times the size of Jadar's." He turned andcontinued to walk. "His Imperial Majesty may be a sot, but he's in noperil from young Prince Jadar."
As they approached the entrance to his tent, she paused for a moment tolook at him, her eyes a mixture of longing and apprehension.
"I can't stay now. Not today." She kissed him quickly and before hecould speak she was moving rapidly down the hill, in the direction theRajputs had gone.
