Beneath a Marble Sky (36 page)

“Is it always so hot?” I asked, oiling his sword as he had earlier shown me.

He glanced about us. “No, my lady. When the rains come, they fall very hard.” He had stripped to the waist and the muscles of his torso rippled as he moved. I noticed that he had fashioned the brooch I gave him into a necklace. Mother’s face hung upon his chest. “You can drown in those rains,” he added.

Wiping sweat and grime from my brow, I tried to imagine him as a young boy in the harem. The day I had first seen him, Mother was attending to wounds on his feet, where shackles once bound him. “How was it, Nizam, serving my mother?”

He began to clean his gun, breaking it apart and wiping traces of dust and sand from its workings. “At first, I thought she was like all the others,” he replied. “But soon I saw she was different.”

“How so?”

“She was kind.” His hands slowed on the musket. He stopped cleaning it, his forefinger absently scratching at a gouge on the barrel. “She wanted me to be happy.”

“Do you miss her?”

He nodded and reassembled his musket. “Do you know, my lady, what we called you?”

Confused, I stopped working on his sword. “Called me?”

“So many questions you ask,” he said fondly. “Even as a young girl. And so the servants nicknamed you Little Squirrel, for such animals are always chattering to each other.”

“I was a rodent?”

Nizam chuckled. “It seems so.”

“Couldn’t you have called me something else? After all, tigers constantly growl at each other.”

“You were always Little Squirrel, my lady. It suited you well.”

I feigned displeasure with him, though he knew I jested. As he grinned, I recalled my childhood. Yes, I probably had acted like a rodent, but I was a child who forever sought to please her parents. And to do so, I had to be as interested in their worlds as they were in mine. “But, Nizam, do you miss her?”

“Much. Though I see her in you.”

“Her or a squirrel?”

“Both, I think.”

I grunted, then lay on my back. He checked the readiness of his bow, plucking its cord as if it were a sitar. Next he inspected his sword to ensure that I’d oiled it properly. “Nizam, would you answer a personal question?”

“Perhaps.”

“Have you ever loved a woman?” I asked, voicing what I had wondered for so many years.

As I might have expected, he didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he removed his sandals and sat beside me on the carpet. I knew he had brought this small luxury only for me and that he would sleep on the ground. “It’s not easy, my lady, for a man such as myself to love.”

At first, perhaps because he seemed so much a man to me, I misunderstood him. Then, sadly, I realized that he spoke of his maiming. I bit my lip at the thought. What could it be like for him, to know that he would never make love, nor be a father? “I don’t pretend to comprehend how difficult it must be for you,” I said. “But isn’t there a woman who’s stolen your heart?”

“There’s such a woman.”

I bolted upright, thrilled to have heard so. “But who? Who is she and how can I help?”

He smiled at my reaction. “I won’t tell you, for surely you’ll enjoy discovering her name.”

“Why, Nizam, how you toy with me! Just whisper her—”

He moved away from me and stretched out on a cotton blanket. “Rest, my lady. It will be a long night.”

I lay against the carpet, my mind spinning. I was wonderfully excited for him and hoped that I could somehow bring them together. As Father had helped me with Isa, I’d help Nizam with…

When I couldn’t guess the object of his endearment, I finally tried to sleep. Fitful dreams of Arjumand entertained me, and when I awoke, Nizam was boiling rice while the sun painted the horizon with its receding brushstrokes. We soon ate his rice, along with some dried fish. Then we broke camp and were again on our horses.

In the darkness I found it hard to discern the trail and hence dropped behind my friend, letting my horse follow his. The night was neither cool, nor hot. I could see why Nizam wanted to travel at such a time, for the blackness felt soothing and secretive. The trail was strangely comforting, and I felt more at ease here than I had on the boat. Perhaps my lack of disquiet was because I believed I drew nearer to Isa and Arjumand. Though unable to sense them, I was calmed by a growing conviction that they lived. Nizam thought they did and had repeatedly reinforced this notion the previous day. Each time I had asked him of them, he replied that I’d meet them soon enough.

A half-moon hung above us and we traveled under its stare. At one point we saw a group of burning torches approach from the south, and Nizam quickly led us off the trail. He pulled our mounts to the ground and we spied the distant silhouettes of twenty men on warhorses pass. Nizam didn’t know if they were Aurangzeb’s men or the Deccans. Neither group, however, was one we wanted to encounter.

After their torches had vanished we were again on the trail. We moved at a steady pace, pausing only twice during the night to change horses. I thought we’d sleep once the sun rose, but Nizam said not a word and continued onward. My thighs had long ago been chafed raw by the saddle and my buttocks were equally aflame. Yet I asked for no pause, though I desired a reprieve desperately, as each step of my mount sent a spasm of pain whipping through me. I tried to reposition myself on the saddle but found that every adjustment only served to assault another portion of flesh.

The merciless sun had almost reached its zenith when Nizam finally left the trail, heading for a trio of dead palm trees to the east. When we reached them he stepped off his horse and I stumbled from mine. My body throbbed and I shuffled toward the trees, where he tied our sheet. He attached it low on the trunks, perhaps making it harder to spot from the distant trail. I cared little for what he did or why he did it. I was too tired and scorched to think, and could only stare dumbly as he cut bushes with my dagger and piled them between the trail and us. After tethering the horses, he collapsed beside me. I said quick prayers for Isa, Arjumand and Father, then let sleep bear me away.

For the next ten days we traveled in such a manner—sleeping all afternoon and riding all night and morning. We talked infrequently. Nizam felt exposed on that trail and wanted to get into the southern mountains as quickly as possible. His fears were well-founded, for on five more occasions we came across war bands. Though they never carried torches, as they had that first night, Nizam always heard them approaching and led us off the trail before they passed.

We also skirted villages of mud-brick homes and decrepit inns, settlements that served as way stations for traders, nomads, scouts and bandits. Several dozen tethered camels usually surrounded the weather-beaten outposts, as did flocks of desert birds, which plucked ticks from the beasts’ coarse hides. Just beyond the settlements, villagers inevitably labored in dust-choked fields—driving thin oxen, reaping stunted crops. While men tilled soil, women cooked, worked looms and collected camel dung. Much dung was needed, for each village had a stone tower where dung was burned at night to beckon lost and distant travelers.

One morning we discovered the legacy of a battle. Strewn across the blood-soaked plains were hundreds of rotting corpses. The day was windless, and the stench of the dead was so thick that I thought it might rise up and knock me from my saddle. The decaying flesh reeked like the maggot-ridden, bloated carcass of a water buffalo. I couldn’t help but gag.

Most of the warriors were Deccans, though some of our men dotted the landscape. It was an odd place for a battle, as no fort stood nearby. Nizam guessed that the two forces had simply stumbled into each other during the night. Most of the men died from swordplay, further indicating that they met by surprise.

The carnage sickened me as much as it did when Aurangzeb’s army overran us. Birds of prey devoured the faces of men, while a smattering of Deccans, mostly old and young, stripped the corpses of anything valuable. They paid us little heed as we passed, for all were intent on looting friend and foe alike. They were a tired-looking people. Most went barefoot, and all were emaciated and clad in tattered clothes. Aurangzeb must be burning their food, I thought, with a surprising amount of guilt. Even if these people were our enemies, I didn’t see why children and grandparents had to starve.

We left the reeking death in our wake. Images of the mutilated bodies lingered in my mind, however. “Do you believe, Nizam,” I asked, spurring my horse until it trotted next to his, “that all the world is as violent as Hindustan?”

He kept his eyes on the trail, gazing for fresh hoofprints. “Impossible, my lady.”

I turned about in my saddle, and watched birds circle the dead. I was weary of such sights. “I don’t want to kill anyone to free Isa and Arjumand.”

“I know. But we may have to.”

“Have to what? Discover their whereabouts and liberate them with your blade?”

“I’ll free them in the night. By the time they’re missed we’ll be—”

“They might have a dozen guards, Nizam. What would happen if you killed a handful and then you died? Or if you were wounded?” He started to speak, but I cut him off. “No, there’s a better option, though also risky.”

He swatted at an immense fly. “What do you propose?”

“It’s simple. We’ll go to the Sultan of Bijapur and tell him who we are.”

“And he’ll slash our throats!”

“No, no, he won’t. For I’ll give him something in exchange for their freedom.”

“But we have nothing, my lady.”

“We have,” I corrected, “everything. For I can give him Aurangzeb, whom he must hate above all men.”

Nizam hacked, then spat out the dust that seemed to breed in our throats. “You’d betray your brother?”

“He is only a brother in blood. In all else he’s a foe. And I have never moved to hurt him. I could have killed him long ago, or watched him die.”

“But you will in Bijapur?”

“I’ve no choice,” I said, licking my cracked lips.

“Quiet,” Nizam hissed, staring behind us. Beneath the birds rose a cloud of dust, drawing swiftly in our direction. “Switch horses!” he shouted, leaping off his saddle.

I struggled to climb the fresher of our steeds. Nizam grabbed our most precious supplies, then struck the backsides of the riderless stallions, so that they ran toward the approaching force. “What are you—”

“With luck they’ll pursue the mounts,” he snapped, leaping onto his stallion. “Now ride! Ride hard!”

I charged ahead, holding my reins desperately. In a few heartbeats we galloped with frightening speed. The wind snatched my turban, and my hair streamed behind me. My saddle beat against my buttocks with the clap of a deerskin drum. Someone fired a musket.

“Faster!” Nizam roared.

Though fearful of being thrown from the horse, I spurred him harder. He neighed, accelerating. I glanced around and, to my awe, saw Nizam draw his bow and twist in his saddle. He launched an arrow, which disappeared into the cloud of men and horses behind. The other riders fired more muskets, the air cracking with their discharges. Puffs of soil kicked up around us, but we weren’t hit. The men must have been unable to reload their guns while charging, for they began to release arrows. Nizam shot another bolt, then realized that I’d turned toward him.

“Ride!” he screamed, and I looked ahead once more. The trail, seemingly always straight at a slower pace, twisted now, the landscape flying past until it was but a blur of brown. I shrieked at my mount to go faster, my heels relentless. He neighed again, redoubling his efforts. An arrow churned into the soil before me and I glanced behind in time to see a pursuer fall screaming from his mount. Nizam notched another arrow, and a second man fell. “They gain on us!” Nizam yelled, and he was right, for the trail was becoming rocky. If my horse was to stumble, we’d surely die.

But then, quite magically, my fear turned to instinct and my mind emptied of all thoughts except those that could save our lives. “The gold!” I shouted. “Throw them the gold!”

Nizam didn’t hesitate. He dropped his bow and reached into his saddlebag, pulling out handfuls of gold coins. He threw the coins high, so that the sun sparkled off their faces. They tumbled into the dust behind us, hundreds of them. I thought Nizam might stop at one bag, but he quickly emptied the other. Soon enough gold rolled on the ground to last a hundred men a lifetime.

The warriors approached the coins and I prayed they would stop. Allah must have been bored that day, for upon coming to the glittering gold, they dismounted, shouting triumphantly. Most men dove into the dirt and dug like mongooses, while some drew their blades and attacked each other.

“Don’t slow!” Nizam yelled.

I maintained our pace, and soon the men were gone. We galloped long thereafter, until at last I began to fear for our horses. The heat was blistering, and white froth dropped from my mount’s mouth. I gradually reigned him in, only then realizing how my heart throbbed. Nizam slowed beside me. He dripped sweat and was covered in dust.

“Have we lost them?” I asked breathlessly.

“Perhaps. But we’d best keep moving.” He let his horse trot down the trail, though he often twisted about in his saddle to look behind. “That was a fine idea, my lady.”

Shielding my eyes from the relentless sun, I replied, “It was odd, Nizam. Suddenly everything became clear to me. I was fearful, yet my mind remained sharp.”

“In battle, some men have such clarity. They see things that the rest of us don’t. They might not be the strongest, but by Allah, they can lead. Your brother, alas, is—”

“Such a man,” I interjected. “But I’ll betray him all the same.”

“As you should. But how?”

I was tired from the chase and still formulating my plan. “Might we rest, Nizam?” I asked, looking ahead. On the horizon rose a range of mountains. I knew we were close to the Deccans’ stronghold, for my companion had said this morning that we would cross a river and mountains, and that Bijapur wasn’t far beyond the peaks.

Midday approached, and Nizam, I think, was also ready to sleep. He left the trail and proceeded down a dry streambed. We followed it for some time, then rode on a vast expanse of sandstone, passing the sun-bleached bones of a camel. Nizam circled back to the stream and, to my delight, found a sizable pool of water, a hollow place in the earth, shaded by bushes and an overhang of rock. We tethered our mounts and made camp.

Nizam gazed northward. “By now they’ve killed each other, or are drunk in the nearest settlement.”

“Were they Deccans?”

He nodded as he unraveled his sweat-soaked turban. “Your brother’s men are more disciplined. They wouldn’t have chased us.”