Tiger Claws (6 page)
Authors: John Speed
“I am but a beggar on this earth,” Aurangzeb says quietly. “In this as in all things I will obey my father’s will. But is it truly my father’s will that you have spoken, brother?”
“It is,” Dara replies, looking directly at him.
“I would hear my father say so.” Aurangzeb looks to his father. The emperor faces his younger son with some confusion, then turns helplessly to Dara—who says nothing—and then to Assaf Khan.
“It is your father’s will that the siege of Golconda be raised,” Assaf Khan says, hardly glancing at the emperor. Shah Jahan’s eyes have drifted away. “As his vizier, I say this. Hear and obey.”
Aurangzeb peers at the faces of the courtiers who watch him with anxious fascination, scarcely breathing. He then bows to his father, tapping the floor with his hands three times, and walks slowly from the hall without a word or even glance to Dara. Jumla follows, neither bowing or nodding.
And as they leave, Basant enters the dark shelter of the purdah chamber of the private palace. In the dim light he approaches Roshanara, kneeling on her cushions “What’s going on?” he asks.
They stare through the jali at the scene in the audience hall. The nobles have begun to breathe again, and now are whispering with one another. Assaf Khan is speaking anxiously with Shah Jahan. Only Dara seems unaffected, sitting on his golden stool, alone; it seems odd to Basant that no one is talking to him. “What did I miss?” Basant asks again.
Roshanara turns to him, tears streaming from her eyes. To Basant’s surprise, she throws herself on his shoulder and weeps. Embarrassed, he puts his plump arms around her. “There, there,” he whispers. “There, there.” He doesn’t know what else to do.
Basant knows the touch of women on the boil, churning with the heat of passion. He knows the smell and taste of their desire. He knows the thrashing
and squealing, as they clench his head between their thighs and melt into moaning, throbbing delight.
and squealing, as they clench his head between their thighs and melt into moaning, throbbing delight.
But he never feels their softness, their yielding. Such gifts, thinks Basant, they save for men, not for those like me. For what has he, deformed and maimed, to offer a woman? Cut off a man’s leg, and even though it is gone he can feel it itch. What happens if you cut off his lingam?
Can it be that Basant feels something like desire? Is this why, when he holds Roshanara just so, he begins to dream of serving girls and pillows, and
sharbats
, and swings?
sharbats
, and swings?
Here is a secret he would never tell: Sometimes he dreams of being Roshanara’s husband, of being cradled in her arms (sometimes she is naked in these dreams; and sometimes so is he); and she feeds him sweet milk full of sugar from an ivory cup.
Now his dream is close, now as he holds her. Thoughts of pleasure fill his head; he floats as on a cloud of some unnamable desire.
Only he is not with some daydream, but with the real Roshanara—and Roshanara shares no one’s dreams. She twists from his embrace and pushes him away. “The hand is dealt. I must not fear my role. It is now: not soon, but now.” She blots her eyes with her palms, as a child might, and she snaps at him: “Come, fool. We have work to do.”
The familiar twisting dread returns.
She flips back the veil that covers her face, and peers into a miniature mirror that she wears as a ring on her right thumb. Patting a wayward lock of hair, she scowls at her reflection. Angrily she strides out. The marble walls echo as the heels of her slippers clap against the tiles.
Basant, forlorn, forgotten, watches her shadow disappear through the door. He blinks and follows. A taste like acid burns the back of his throat, making his eyes water. A fool might say that I’ve been crying, he thinks.
They step into the light-drenched hallways of the harem. After the shadows of the purdah room, the bright sunlight of the seraglio bruises his weary eyes. The warming air is already heavy with damp smells of beauty—of hot bathwater, of attar of roses and
chandan
oil, of patchouli and musk. Breezes from the river carry a breath of orange blossoms, and fetch the laughter of water splashing in the scented courtyard fountains.
chandan
oil, of patchouli and musk. Breezes from the river carry a breath of orange blossoms, and fetch the laughter of water splashing in the scented courtyard fountains.
The harem is buzzing—maidservants, serving girls, eunuchs of the lower ranks, all walking quickly here and there; ill-mannered children dash between them, giggling. The wives complain to the eunuchs, who turn and
scold the maids, who then bark at the serving girls, who chase off on some errand near tears.
scold the maids, who then bark at the serving girls, who chase off on some errand near tears.
But Basant feels only the burning stares of the eunuch guards. Since these guards are suddenly important, brought in to cope with unknown danger, they are especially watchful. And because they are eunuchs, laughed at by the regular guard, they are more watchful still.
And the guards are everywhere, halting people, asking questions—acting in the same intrusive way that drove Shah Jahan to command their removal from the harem in the first place. The eunuch guards scrutinize even the Tartar women, Shah Jahan’s most trusted guardians. It is clear from their pink, angry faces that the women despise the eunuch guards.
In fact it seems to Basant, as he watches the comings and goings, that everyone and everything in the harem seems upset, off balance. He has never seen the harem like this. It would be hard for him to say exactly what strikes him as wrong. Perhaps it is only his own anxiety that he projects around him—yet it seems that every eye he sees darts fretfully away, every face turns furtively aside. Anxiety perfumes the air; it pervades each breath that Basant takes. Something terrible is about to happen.
Roshanara, walking purposefully, veiled—although here in the privacy of the zenena, veiling is unusual—moves quickly toward the wing of concubines of the first rank. Basant follows at her heels as she thrusts open a great ebony door. Whose room is this? Basant wonders. He doesn’t recognize it. He steps tentatively inside.
Here the world moves at a different speed. Sunbeams float above them, lazily catching the incense smoke spiraling from braziers hanging from the ceiling. Two young and beautiful women are bathing, assisted by attentive serving girls and eunuchs who at this moment are pouring salvers of steaming water over their heads and backs.
The sunlight glistens on their smooth bodies and dances in wisps of steam rising from their hair and shoulders. It sparkles on the surface of the bathwater in the twin, swan-shaped tubs, on the girls who look impossibly beautiful. Basant feels like a dervish glimpsing paradise.
Though he has never entered these particular rooms before, Basant of course recognizes the two women who are bathing. They are Shah Jahan’s favorite nautch girls; twin sisters, barely fifteen, so similar in looks and temperament as to be indistinguishable.
I’d forgotten they’d been moved in here, Basant thinks.
Their nautch names are Sun and Moon. The wags in the court call them Breakfast and Lunch. From all indications they are insatiable.
What a shame they are so stupid.
Around them Shah Jahan has no self-control. Master Hing loves to recount how the emperor actually commanded that they both be brought to his bed at the same time. Hing, of course, was horrified, and although he expected to die for it, he refused to obey. Later—as Hing recounts at every opportunity—the emperor apologized to him for this sinful lapse and sent to Hing a robe of honor for his steadfastness, and, no doubt, to buy his silence.
Hing subsequently had given vehement and explicit orders to assure such a scandalous act never occurred. Such a sinful act could destroy the emperor’s authority to govern.
Basant winces at the rude and disdainful greeting Roshanara gives the twins. The twins raise their sleepy beautiful faces to her—round, wet, and innocent of any disturbing thoughts, or of any thoughts at all. Though the servants bow low to Roshanara, and stay prostrate excessively long (and one even says “highness” very loudly, as if to give the sisters a hint), the two girls gape at her with their dark, blank eyes.
Without raising her voice, Roshanara commands all the servants from the room; they scramble to their feet and dash for the door before she finishes speaking. Then she turns and orders Basant to bring Tambula the apothecary to her immediately.
Basant is stunned, not only by the command, but by its unexpected tone—stately and demeaning. But he gathers his wits, and moves to obey. As he leaves, he looks back hopefully. Maybe she will call him back, say that she was only teasing her dear Spring Blossom—but as she turns with a scowl to the twins, Basant thinks she looks angry indeed.
He hurries down the long hall to the red sandstone archway that separates the harem from the palace. Guards patrol this gateway: on Basant’s side of the gate stand eunuch guards who nod at him as he passes, on the other side stand a few of the now disfavored palace guard. Once he steps beneath the arch, a palace guard calls out “Hey! Hey you! Stop!” and drops his tasseled lance across Basant’s path.
Basant toys with the idea of running. For a moment he remembers being five years old, with all his parts intact, and he wishes he had run then when he could run. Cursing silently, he halts.
“Aren’t you Basant? Basant the eunuch?” the guard demands.
“I have the honor to be a servant of the emperor, a eunuch of the first
rank, and personal attendant to Princess Roshanara Begum, second daughter of the emperor. By her am I called Basant, and by my friends.”
rank, and personal attendant to Princess Roshanara Begum, second daughter of the emperor. By her am I called Basant, and by my friends.”
“That’s enough,” the guard sneers, unimpressed. “Wait here,
hijra
.” The words thud in Basant’s ears, like rocks heaved into a shallow pool.
hijra
.” The words thud in Basant’s ears, like rocks heaved into a shallow pool.
Across the sunlit courtyard Basant sees a door open, and the guard who stopped him leads a familiar-looking man toward him: It is that same man, Ali Khalil—the friend of Hing, the cousin of the emperor, the pain in the ass. He looks just the same as earlier, and Basant hates him for it, hates that he should be smiling and friendly and impeccably groomed when Basant sweats in cold panic.
“Good day, Basant,” Khalil says, stepping toward him.
“He don’t like that name,” says the palace guard, pretending, as soldiers do everywhere, to be stupider than he really is. “That name be only for his friends, he says.” The guard sneers at Basant with smug amusement.
Khalil thinks this over, and fixes the guard with his charming smile. “But you see, I am his friend.” And he beams at Basant. “Am I not your friend, Basant?”
Basant beams back, thankful to have something to do besides perspire.
Basant notices that the other palace guards have moved closer. They are watching Khalil—waiting for his subtlest sign before stepping into action.
“Ali Khalil,” Basant says, giving the appearance, he hopes, of bored annoyance, “I come on an errand at the order of my mistress, the princess. Already she will be asking for me—I dare not delay.”
“Do me a service, Basant?” Though he phrases it as a question, Khalil speaks it like an order. He draws the eunuch away from the arch. Khalil’s hand feels hot, like the hand of a man hot with desire. Surely that’s impossible! Basant thinks.
Khalil puts his face close to Basant’s ear. Basant can feel his smiling breath. “What a lot of trouble you have made for me,” Khalil whispers, the words blowing warm and soft in his ear, like a caress. “And for yourself, Basant,” Khalil whispers. The sound curls in Basant’s ear like a snake.
Basant wants to flee, but where can he go? “Could you look at something with me?” Khalil says, peering into Basant’s face with his plaster smile. “It may be something that concerns you.” Basant’s knees are shaking so much that he can feel his silken pant legs quivering.
“This way, Basant,” Khalil says gently, and he motions to his palace guards. They step forward, almost offhandedly forming themselves together into a tight unit. This subtle action nearly undoes Basant; he thinks he must collapse. Instead he walks beside Ali Khalil to a small
storeroom. Khalil stands by the door while one of the guards pushes it open.
storeroom. Khalil stands by the door while one of the guards pushes it open.
A moist smell of damp wool emerges, then the sour smell of old dust. The room is dark. “Show him,” Khalil says, gesturing with his chin to something in the shadows. With a heave, two of the guards push the end of a big wet carpet through the door and into the sunlight. It lands in a tented heap in front of Basant’s feet. A dark puddle forms beneath the carpet, spreading toward Basant’s jeweled slippers.
“Seen this before?” Khalil asks.
It is the carpet from Basant’s own room—a deep blue Persian carpet of Sarouk design. “Never,” Basant replies.
“We fished it out of the moat this morning. Someone thought it might be yours,” Khalil looks at him levelly.
“Someone is mistaken.”
Khalil looks at him carefully, the way a man might watch a bubble, waiting for it to pop. Basant looks back, forcing his eyes to be soft, half-asleep. Whoever speaks next loses, Basant thinks.
“Well, that’s what we told him. We looked in your room—the carpet’s still there.” Khalil seems embarrassed by the admission. “Then he said the one in your room was a new one.” Basant sniffs, disdaining even to answer. Who is saying these things, he wonders, though he keeps his face blank. “Any idea where this came from? How it ended up in the moat?” Khalil asks, almost pitifully. Basant shrugs. “Put it back,” Khalil says to the guards.
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