Tiger Claws (23 page)
Authors: John Speed
“Soon, soon, I promise, mother.”
“You have been saying so, but that demoness remains!” She sees Sambhuji dashing through the hallway. “Sam!” she calls. “Stop that running.”
Sambhuji shuffles to his father’s door with his head down.
“You know better than to run. You are prince of the blood, Sambhuji. What will the servants think?”
“I’m sorry, grandmother. I’m on an errand for Auntie Maya.”
Jijabai pulls Sambhuji into the room to face his father. “Do you hear this? Your own son calls her ‘auntie’!”
Sambhuji peers up at his father. “I was just on my way to find Jyotibai. Auntie Maya needs her. She knew I could find her, quick as fire. She says I’m really fast. But I should have fetched Jyoti by now!”
“We do not fetch, young man. Dogs fetch. That is why the gods made servants.” Jijabai turns to Shivaji. “You see her influence! It spreads from her like a disease. First your wife, and now your son.”
“Where she belongs.”
“Please, grandmother. I have to get Jyoti. Auntie Maya wants her bath.”
“Her bath!” Jijabai sputters. “She would have a bath every day. Every day! And hot water, too!”
“But I bathe every day. Father makes me,” Sambhuji puts in.
“We bathe by the well, son,” his father says, trying to smooth things over. “So our baths are not so difficult for your grandmother.”
“You must forbid this! She should bathe like a regular person or not all! A hot bath every day! Is she some sort of queen? Even I …” Shivaji’s large eyes bore into her. She stops, for she has come to the heart of the matter. Well of course she is jealous! Who wouldn’t be jealous? Some whore treated like a queen! While Jijabai herself, truly a queen, must watch and suffer? “I blame your wife,” Jijabai whispers, and strides from the room.
“Did I do wrong, father?” Sambhuji asks.
“You did fine, son.” Shivaji tousles his son’s hair with his strong fingers. “Now, don’t you have an errand?” With that, Sambhuji dashes from the room.
On the stairs, Shivaji meets Jyoti hurrying to Maya, with Sambhuji tagging behind. Now that she has been away from the temple, her face seems longer, more sophisticated. But she still walks with an energetic bounce, as if any minute she might begin to skip.
“Well, you have been summoned, I see,” Shivaji says, winking at his son. “And it is not morning any longer; the noon bell rang some time ago. Time for your mistress to be up, I think, or there may be trouble.”
Jyoti laughs. “My mistress can make trouble without leaving her bed, master. Come on, Sam.”
As they slip past Shivaji on the narrow staircase, he pulls Jyoti aside. “I don’t think Sambhuji should be there when your mistress bathes,” he says, careful that his son not hear. “I know that in a harem boys are allowed …”
“My mistress bathes in privacy,” Jyoti replies. “Frankly, your son is the least of my worries. It’s those others …” Jyoti stops suddenly.
“What others?”
“No one. It’s nothing.” But finally, glancing anxiously at Maya’s door, Jyoti allows that she has seen men trying to peek into the bathhouse.
Shivaji’s face grows cold. “Who?” he says, his voice harsh.
“I don’t know, sir,” Jyoti responds, suddenly timid. “I’d say if I could, sir. When I go to chase them away, they are gone.”
“Maybe it’s just children.”
“Maybe,” Jyoti replies.
“I will take care of it,” he says finally. “Go to your mistress. Tell her she won’t be bothered by this insult again.” He looks angry, Jyoti thinks, as he clatters down the narrow staircase.
The shutters of the house have been sealed since dawn, trapping the morning air. Outside, the heat is already fierce. Before he gets to Tanaji’s house Shivaji is damp with sweat.
He glances at the wooden bathing house behind the Rang Mahal: an older, simpler building. Some of its wooden sideboards have cracked with age. Anyone could peer in and get an eyeful.
He finds Tanaji sitting on his verandah, using a flat stone to sharpen the blades of his mace. “Morning, Shahu. Dadaji’s coming for breakfast. Maybe you’ll join—”
“Who has been spying on Maya in the bathhouse?” Shivaji asks.
Tanaji looks up, his eyebrows hunched and his lips pursed. “How would I know?” Shivaji says nothing. Tanaji stares at Shivaji, and slowly an unpleasant idea strikes him. He sets the mace between his crossed legs. “Hey, boys!” he calls. “Boys! Come out here.”
In a moment the twins come out. Shivaji knows them well: they have been playmates, have hunted and gambled together. But now instead of greeting them, Shivaji stares at them as if he is sizing them up for a fight.
Tanaji frowns. His sons are a few years younger than Shivaji. Both sport wide, flowing mustaches, and like Shivaji, they look trim, strong, and proud. Hanuman and Lakshman are almost indistinguishable, although a close friend can see that Hanuman’s face is slightly heavier, more apt to smile, and that Lakshman’s eyes often flash with anger.
“You boys seen anybody prowling around the bathing house?” Tanaji asks.
They glance at one another. “What’s going on, Shahu?” Hanuman asks.
“He’s accusing us, brother,” says Lakshman softly, eyeing Shivaji.
Shivaji stares back. “Not both of you.”
“Speak up if you know something,” Tanaji says.
Hanuman lifts his hands in confusion, but Lakshman speaks. “I’ve seen nothing others haven’t seen.”
Shivaji glares at him. “She is my guest.”
“She’s a whore.”
“Lakshman!” Tanaji barks. But Lakshman is used to speaking freely.
“Say, Shahu,” says Hanuman, “take it easy. So he watched her. So? She’s used to it, right? Anyway, isn’t the plan to sell her off? So he got a look at the goods … what difference does it make? No harm done, Shahu!”
But Shivaji and Lakshman are locked in an edgy staring contest. Tanaji feels compelled to add his voice, “Shahu, where’s the harm? She’s just a nautch girl!”
Shivaji bristles. “You call her ‘daughter.’ She calls you ‘father.’ But now she’s just a nautch girl?”
“I call my mare ‘sweetie,’ but she’s still just a horse. And I keep her in the stable, not in the house!”
There’s wildness in the air, a fight on its way, ripping through the hot air like a thunderstorm about to burst. Tanaji waves Lakshman to stand behind him. Lakshman doesn’t move, except for his right hand, which fumbles in his pocket. Shivaji, for his part, is standing easy, eyelids half-closed so it’s hard to see where exactly he is looking.
If it were just another fight his brother had brought on himself, Hanuman would know what to do, but he’s got his father to deal with, and Shahu as well. “Let’s take a breath, all right? Why are we all getting so excited?” He looks up to see a barrel-shaped brahmin passing, his head shaved but for a small topknot, his chest bare except for the sacred thread. It is Trelochan, a young priest. Hanuman calls to him.
Trelochan ambles over, and then senses the tension. “What’s going on?” he whispers to Hanuman.
“That girl …,” Hanuman replies.
Trelochan shakes his head. “You see how it is, Shahu? All Hanuman needs to say is ‘that girl’ and immediately I know! What does that tell you? Let us sit down and discuss this like men,” he says, lowering himself to the floor. “Shahu, please, come sit. Tanaji, please.”
So they all sit with exaggerated casualness, careful not to touch.
“Show me your hand,” Trelochan says to Lakshman.
Slowly, Lakshman lifts his bare hand—bare, that is, but for three black rings on his fingers. Suddenly he makes a fist and thrusts it a thumbs-breadth from Trelochan’s nose.
Jutting out from between his fingers are three dark dagger blades, each sharp, double-edged, about two inches long.
Lakshman gives Trelochan his sneering grin.
“Very nice,” says Trelochan. “Tiger claws. Let me keep those for now.”
Lakshman first stretches his hand flat—the blades hide neatly between his fingers; the weapon disappears. Then he pulls the weapon’s rings from his fingers, and lays the tiger claws on the brahmin’s open palm.
Just as Trelochan thinks he’s settled matters, a door opens in the rear of the big house, and Sambhuji comes out, and Jyoti, and last of all that girl herself, the source of all the trouble, wrapped in a robe of sheer silk that clings to her limbs. Her round hips sway. No one speaks until they have followed Maya’s silken walk across the courtyard. Finally the door of the bathing house closes.
“Really, Shahu,” Trelochan says. “Something must be done. This arrangement is no good. Maybe you could move the bathing place closer to the house. It would be less distracting.”
“Just tell Maya she needs to learn to enjoy being dirty like the rest of us.” Tanaji grins. They all laugh, but Shivaji least of all. As for Lakshman, Trelochan notes that he keeps glancing toward the bathing house, and sometimes to the black tiger claws resting on Trelochan’s lap.
Trelochan turns back to the men around him. “Look … Dadaji is coming. It is a good omen.”
When Dadaji sees the gathering on the verandah he frowns. He is barefoot, and he carries his beautiful bright red shoes tied on his belt, another indication of his well-known frugality.
Coming with him is a tall, nervous young man: his apprentice, Bala. Bala, as always, is grinning happily, as if the simple act of walking is his greatest pleasure—with such big ears and wide lips, his toothy smile is infectious. His dark head gleams in the sunlight, for Bala is gloriously bald. No hair on his head, his face, his body: no eyebrows, no lashes, no mustache, no beard, no pubes. As with every part of his life, this oddity seems to delight him.
Dadaji looks around, then seats himself with a formal dignity, as though recognizing that there is an official quality to this gathering. “Well?”
“It’s about the girl,” the priest replies.
“Ahcha.” Dadaji slumps back. He’s been expecting this. “Well?”
Lakshman starts to tell his story: He may have glanced at Maya in her bath. By accident.
Dadaji turns to Tanaji, not Lakshman. “You see how it is? Your sons need wives, Tana,” he declares. “It is not good for them to be alone. You must find them wives.”
“What harm has been done?” Tanaji asks. “A man sees a naked whore—what’s the harm?”
Dadaji looks at Lakshman. “I am embarrassed that your son feels no shame.” Then he notices the tiger claws resting in Trelochan’s lap. He picks them up between finger and thumb, as though lifting a dry dog turd.
“Wagnak,”
he whispers, using the old Marathi word for the weapon. “Whose?” The priest nods toward Lakshman. Dadaji sighs.
he whispers, using the old Marathi word for the weapon. “Whose?” The priest nods toward Lakshman. Dadaji sighs.
“How long will this girl remain, Shahu? You see the trouble she brings.” He turns to Bala. “When did you send those ransom letters?”
Bala’s smile is frozen and painful to see. “Master, maybe they did not go right away.”
Dadaji bristles. “When did you send them?”
“To be perfectly accurate, master, I might say that those particular letters still await actual sending.”
“What?” Dadaji shouts. He slaps at Bala, but Shivaji catches his hand.
“It’s not his fault. I told him not to send the letters.” Shivaji hesitates. “It did not now seem right to me. As I considered it, it seemed to me that this was no more than selling her for a slave.”
Dadaji stares at him. “You might have told me. Supposedly I’m still in charge. Anyway, she
is
a slave! You must not interfere with her karma!” Dadaji turns to Trelochan for support. “Am I not right?”
is
a slave! You must not interfere with her karma!” Dadaji turns to Trelochan for support. “Am I not right?”
The priest shrugs. “Maybe, sir, but … it has occurred to me that … well, since Shahu took the girl by force, by kshatriya law, they are already married.”
Another vein pops pulsing into the skin of Dadaji’s forehead. “Married?” He lifts his hands to the gods. “Has everyone gone mad?”
“That is the law of the kshatriya caste, sir. Marriage by force is the most honorable form of marriage for a warrior.”
“Enough nonsense!” Dadaji shouts. “Shivaji is not a kshatriya!”
Trelochan speaks without thinking, excited now. “Oh but he is sir! He is a kshatriya prince! My preliminary research …”
“I say, enough!” Dadaji stands, an old man filled with righteous anger. “The day of the kshatriyas has passed. That caste is dead. Those ancient
laws do not apply. Kshatriya law was written for kshatriyas, not for us. We don’t gamble and whore and hunt and kill for pleasure. We don’t have a dozen wives. And we don’t marry by kidnapping!” Dadaji glares. “We need no kshatriyas! We need men! Real men! Men of honor!” He looks directly at Shivaji. “Men who keep their word!” Slowly he lowers himself down. “I’m old. Perhaps the time has come for me to leave.”
laws do not apply. Kshatriya law was written for kshatriyas, not for us. We don’t gamble and whore and hunt and kill for pleasure. We don’t have a dozen wives. And we don’t marry by kidnapping!” Dadaji glares. “We need no kshatriyas! We need men! Real men! Men of honor!” He looks directly at Shivaji. “Men who keep their word!” Slowly he lowers himself down. “I’m old. Perhaps the time has come for me to leave.”
The men around the circle know the coming speech by heart.
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