Tiger Claws (11 page)

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Authors: John Speed

BOOK: Tiger Claws
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As he approaches Roshanara’s door, he hears far-off singing: a ghazal full of yearning and despair, the cry of a lover spurned by her beloved. His heart aches at the sound of it, almost he begins to weep. He despairs at what he is about to do.
The door opens, as he expects, even as he approaches, but it is not Roshanara who emerges, but her maid Shaheen. “Our mistress will not need you tonight, Basant,” she says, and begins to shut the door.
But Basant is not to be put off. “She must see me, Shaheen.”
“‘Must’?” Shaheen repeats, her lips pursing. “I think not.” She again begins to shut the door.
“I beg you to let me in. It is …” He’s about to say “a matter of life or death,” but realizes that it sounds too foolish, even if it is true for once.
Shaheen seems to sense his anxiety. “Let me see what I can do,” she says, closing the door. Finally Shaheen reappears, but from her face alone Basant knows she has bad news. “She doesn’t wish to see you, Basant. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’ve done. She says …”
Basant waits for her to go on. “Please,” he says quietly, “please tell me.”
Shaheen bites her lip. “She says she has a new eunuch.”
It seems to Basant that the ground has slipped suddenly from beneath his feet. “Who?” he gasps.
“She says never mind who.”
“Did she say that? A new eunuch, never mind who? She said that?”
Shaheen looks away, shamefaced. “I have to go.” Then she whispers, careful that the princess won’t hear, “Come back tomorrow, Basant. You know how she loves you. I’m sure things will be different.”
Shaheen begins to shut the door. “Wait! Tell her … tell her …” he starts to say, but the words simply will not come. His hand clutches the green glass vial as he walks slowly away.
Now he is more resolved than ever.
 
 
For what seems like hours Basant watches Roshanara’s quarters. Her door opens at last, and Shaheen slips gently away; Basant now moves unnoticed from shadow to shadow. His hand has nearly reached the handle of Roshanara’s door when he hears a noise and steps back. Her door opens.
Roshanara’s new eunuch slips quickly from her room.
Like Basant, he wears a cloak whose hood obscures his face, and he too hugs the shadows. Basant decides to follow him. The new eunuch is slender, and moves quickly. Basant thinks for a moment that he might be Alu, that eunuch from the Rambagh. But it’s too dark to be sure.
Soon Basant is sweating and puffing, struggling to quiet his breath as he follows: the other eunuch walks quickly. Near the Diwan-i-Khas, he takes a butter lamp from its niche and then slips around a corner.
Basant snorts; the eunuch has just entered a dead end. He expects him to reappear any second and so waits a few yards away, catching his breath.
But the eunuch does not reappear.
What’s he doing? Basant wonders. There’s nothing there but a courtyard, not even a fountain, nothing. At last he figures it out.
The tunnels.
Where else could he have gone? He goes back to the corner to fetch a butter lamp, puzzling how this unknown eunuch would know about the tunnels, a secret known to few.
At the edge of the outer wall, he stretches on tiptoe to press a marble
dado with his fingertips. When he feels it click, three sandstone blocks in the wall beside him pivot to create a narrow door.
 
 
Basant hates this entry: it is
so
narrow. Thrusting the butter lamp through the passageway, he squeezes in; the rough sandstones scraping his shirt. Only as an afterthought does Basant worry about the safety of his green glass vial. He feels through the cloth: the vial is in his pocket.
The tunnel passage is so inky dark that he wonders whether the eunuch even entered there at all.
When he pushes against the stones to close the secret door, he nearly drops the butter lamp. He doesn’t relish the idea of being in the tunnels without a light. This opening was designed to be only an entrance, not an exit. He would need to trace his way through the tunnels for several hundred yards to find a way out. Without a light such a journey would be difficult, for the tunnels were filled with traps both intentional and unintentional, traps hard enough to see holding a lamp in one’s hand.
How much his safety depends on that one little lamp. The tunnels are a maze of passages beneath the foundations of the fort, built long before Babur, the first Mogul emperor, acquired Agra as his capital. They are centuries old: even the air trapped inside the tunnels must be hundreds of years old, dank and unhealthy, the rough walls slimy with ages-old mildew.
Basant steps down a steep, rough-hewn staircase, now steadying himself with his free hand so his lamp wavers unprotected in the stale air. The risers of the steps are so deep that Basant can scarcely reach the step below without pitching forward. He crab-walks down, clinging to the sandstone walls as tightly as his sausage fingers allow, puffing hard.
At last he reaches the main tunnel, a wide passage that runs the length of the fort. Hiding the light of his lamp, peering into the shadows, listening hard: He hears nothing but the echoes of water dripping from the ceiling and striking the stone floors with a soft slap. His eyes, adjusting to the dark, seem to see dark shapes swimming through the shadows, but when he blinks, they disappear. He hopes they are tricks of the light, not ghosts.
The main tunnel runs from beneath the courtyard of the Diwan-i-Am to the moat. He seems to sense more than see a faint lightness to his right, toward the moat. How much the day has changed me! Basant
thinks. A little light is enough for me to follow now: to follow I know not where!
 
 
The glass vial bounces rhythmically in his pocket as he pads down the passage, ducking every so often when he passes beneath the beams that reinforce the ceiling. He knows this part of the tunnels so very well that he scarcely needs his lamp; even so he shields the flame.
The tunnels’ echoes magnify every footfall, every breath. Shielding the precious flame of his butter lamp, Basant hurries through the stale air, deep into the bowels of the palace. The path is marked, but the marks are secret and subtle. The tunnel is meant to be confusing. The tunnel winds and twists, and every crossing leads to traps and wells and death in many forms.
Basant knows the way well enough to walk quickly. He’s confident that the new eunuch, even if he knows how to find the secret marks, will be more timid. Basant should be able to catch up with him soon.
Suddenly Basant hears a
bang,
and involuntarily stops and presses against the wall as if expecting to be shot. It’s only some noise from farther down the tunnel. He guesses it is the sound of the river exit swinging shut; that means the other eunuch is now only a few yards ahead.
In a few minutes, he too reaches the river exit. At his feet he finds not one, but two butter lamps, their wicks still smoking; a tiny ember still glowing on the end of the wick of one of them. Two lamps, thinks Basant. He was certain the eunuch had only taken the one.
Basant places his own lamp beside them and steps out into the star-filled Agra night. The exit is hidden by a tall thicket of briar roses. He pushes the stone door back into place and steps carefully down the narrow path. The other eunuch is nowhere to be seen.
At last Basant emerges from the bushes. He stands on a narrow embankment at the foot of the enormous walls of the fort; the embankment descends quickly to the moat, its waters stocked liberally with crocodiles. In times of war, sentries patrol this embankment, but tonight all is quiet. Basant hears laughter and soft music from high above, the sounds of the harem at play. Beyond he sees the lights of fishing huts along the river’s edge.
A small pier pokes into the moat a few yards ahead. Tonight, unexpectedly, a narrow rowboat, the kind used by fishermen, is tied to the pier. Beyond the pier Basant can just make out the shadows of another boat already gliding across the river. He inches along the embankment, wanting a
better look. He pulls the hood of his cloak over his head and depends on the darkness and shadows to protect him from being seen.
So he is surprised to hear a voice in his ear saying, “You’re late.” From under his cloak Basant sees a peasant: a dark face stubbled with gray beneath his ill-kempt turban. His breath reeks of onions.
“Hey,” the peasant says suspiciously, “how many damned eunuchs are we supposed to take tonight? Two isn’t enough, now there’s supposed to be three eunuchs? Nobody told us that. Nobody told me the third fare would be another eunuch.” He looks Basant over, frowning at what he sees. “Not that I care whether you have balls or not. But a fellow likes to be told things.”
“Why do you think I’m here, uncle?” Basant replies politely.
But instead of answering his question, the peasant simply snorts and walks to the boat. After a few steps he turns. “You coming or not?”
 
 
The slow, steady current of the Jumna pushes them forward. In the dim light of the stars, curls of mist rise ghostlike from the river. Basant can just make out the outline of the Taj Mahal against the black sky, its white marble surfaces so polished it catches the least hints of starlight.
As they slip closer to the Taj, Basant makes out a number of boats in the river. It is unusual for even one fishing boat to be out at this hour. “Hey, we’ve almost caught up with your buddies,” the boatman says.
“How many did you say there were?” Basant asks.
“How many do you think? Just those two.”
Basant hopes with his silence to encourage the boatman to say more, but he seems focused only on rowing. So Basant is left to wonder who else may be in that boat. They are beginning to push toward the south bank, toward the river wall of the Taj. Approaching, Basant feels a change. From afar the tomb appeared delicate as bubbles on soft grass; coming closer, its vaulting domes loom overhead: rich, powerful, ominous.
The boatman guides his craft toward a pier Basant had not even seen. Soon Basant is directly adjacent to one of the wooden ladders built into the pier. “This is where you get off,” whispers the boatman. “And hurry, will you! I don’t want to be near this place. There are ghosts here.”
Basant manages to appear calm, though he’s rattled somewhat by the daunting prospect of leaving the boat by ladder. But he manages the climb, stands straight, feeling as if he has accomplished something just by reaching the top.
The place is empty. For a moment he considers calling to the boatman, begging him to take him back. Instead he walks to the end of the pier and mounts a sandstone step. This leads to an arched doorway in the river wall, which opens to the rear of the tomb. There a staircase has been built into the
rauza
’s marble plinth.
The Taj looms over him.
 
 
He climbs the stairs as quietly as he can, and looks around. At least no one is standing there with a sword, as he imagined, ready to slice off his head. He hears the sounds of conversations somewhere nearby, and sees the gentle glow of lamps. It reminds him of a nighttime picnic.
Who would have the audacity to violate this sacred space with a picnic? Forget the ghosts, he thinks, who would risk the emperor’s wrath?
He crouches at the railing that overlooks the mosque. Beside the marble plinth of the mausoleum stretches a wide courtyard; in the midst of this courtyard, a broad, shallow
hauz
: a pool of water where the faithful might wash before prayer. At its edge, Basant sees a group of people gathered in a circle on a large carpet, talking in hushed, intense tones.
They could see him if they looked his way. Though he kneels on the marble floor, behind the low, intricately carved railing that sweeps around the plinth, Basant is in plain sight. Only the shadows hide him, and also that the attention of the circle seems to be focused only on each other.
Basant recognizes most of them even though their faces are lit only by the dim glow of lanterns. At the head of the circle is Aurangzeb. To his right is General Jumla, looking very relaxed now, much different than he looked this afternoon. Beside Jumla sits Shaista Khan, tough as an old wolf.
Yes, thinks Basant as he sees him, you were the start of it all, the start of my ruin. If only I had led you through the tunnels as I planned—if only I had pushed you into the well.
Next to Shaista Khan are two other men that Basant has never seen before. Basant makes out in the shadows the form of Aurangzeb’s deaf manservant hovering behind the lanterns. At last, a slender eunuch steps into the circle and sits in the empty place.
So, thinks Basant, it was Alu the whole time. He curses the sweet-faced eunuch, curses Roshanara, curses himself, curses silently but in the midst of his cursing fails to hear what Alu is saying.
The circle shifts, making space, and two new figures join. It is Master Hing, and with him is a different eunuch—Roshanara’s new eunuch.
Two butter lamps at the exit, Basant thinks stupidly. Despite the new eunuch’s hooded face, Basant sees now that he is shorter than Alu—even his shape is different.
Hing sits down, hunching away from Aurangzeb, making room for the other eunuch, who sits abruptly—almost playfully—next to Aurangzeb.
Then the eunuch tosses back the hood that hides his face. But his face is still veiled from the eyes down.
Her face.
Of course, Basant realizes, her face. Roshanara’s face.
 
 
What a fool, what a fool I am, Basant thinks, tapping his head with the heels of his hands, and nearly crying for joy. Of course she still loves me.
While Basant thinks his giddy thoughts, even as it dawns on him that there is something odd here, the circle is quickly changing its nature. Instead of soft chatter, the group grows quiet, and seats are shifted so that everyone is leaning toward Aurangzeb.
“Where is Ali Khalil?” Aurangzeb asks Master Hing, looking at some place on the carpet rather than directly at any of the people there.
The old eunuch shrugs. “He knew the plan, your highness. He should have come. The boatman was waiting for him when we left.”
“What does it mean that he has not come?” Jumla asks. “He is a danger.”
“I will see to it,” Hing replies in his scratchy, piping voice.
“I regret it, but it must be so,” Aurangzeb says, not lifting his eyes.
“And what of Jai Singh? What of him?” It is Shaista Khan who speaks. Basant notices that he seems to feel free to be aggressive with the prince, and that Alu and Jumla look at him with the same disapproving expression.
Aurangzeb sits impassively, staring at the carpet. “He will not come.”
“Then I will manage it,” Shaista Khan says.

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