The Temple Dancer (28 page)

"You want a real soldier, just find the kitchen." From a dark corner,
Shahji grinned at him. "There's butter here." Da Gama sat beside him,
stretching out his muddy boots in front of him. He knew it was impolite
to stretch one's legs, but he didn't care. It made him happy. He didn't know
the next time he'd be happy.

Using his punch dagger, Shahji scooped a mound of butter from a clay
dish onto Da Gama's chapati. "Don't tell me you don't like the stuff,"
Shahji said. "I can see well enough that you do."

"No, I like it enough," Da Gama laughed. "What plans have you got,
General?"

Shahji looked him over. "We're on our way back to Bijapur. Our inspection is done." Shahji paused. "You're starting to get worried, Deoga. You're beginning to wonder if you did right, leaving that young farang in
charge back at Belgaum." With a shrug and a tentative nod, Da Gama allowed that this might be so. "You see, you are not very hard to understand.
I myself wonder if you were wise to do that."

Da Gama stared at Shahji for a moment. "Why do you say that, sir? He
is a sort of hero, is he not? He was the one who went for help. He was the
one who found you and your men. If he had not found you, we might all
now be very dead."

Shahji lifted his eyebrows. "Take some more butter, sir," he said.
"That man of yours, I think he was not running for help. I think he was
running away. We had heard the shots and were already coming to investigate. One of my men had to chase him to bring that youth around."
Shahji gave Da Gama a moment to let this sink in. "Maybe you should
have put the eunuch in charge."

Da Gama looked back, blinking.

Shahji nodded seriously and went on, "I myself was most surprised to
see that eunuch with you. He had been a very respected fellow at the sultan's court. He was the Khaswajara's right-hand man. You know what this
word means, Khaswajara?"

"I know," Da Gama said. "Are you sure it is that same one?"

Shahji nodded. "He got into some trouble at court. Hijras ... who understands their ways? He must be back in Whisper's good graces or he'd
still be banished. He might have the Sultana's ear as well." Shahji chuckled
and gave Da Gama's shoulder a pat. "Hey, listen, Deoga, what do I know,
eh? I'm only a simple soldier, just like you. Maybe that Geraldo fellow will
do everything right."

"Who can say? But what can I do now?" Da Gama answered, shaking
his head. "Done is done. Geraldo is family. If I left anyone else in charge,
my masters wouldn't understand." Da Gama tore a piece of bread, but
chewed as though it had no flavor. "If Pathan were not hurt, it would have
been an easy choice."

"Yes," Shahji agreed. "Prince Pathan's a good man. And quite rich, if
the gossip is to be believed, but he'd rather be a soldier than a noble. Makes
you wonder, though. Why would a rich man want to be a soldier?" Shahji
stood, and gave a howling, stretching yawn that made the women round the
cook fire stare and laugh aloud. "Today, Deoga, you get to Bijapur! Come,
we'll wake the others."

"You farangs don't come here, do you? Not to the interior of Hindustan,"
Shahji said to Da Gama as the day's journey wore on. "Mostly you cling to
the seaports, like swimmers frightened to get too far from shore."

"Yes, General. My travels on the Deccan Plateau have been all too few.
Much of this is new to me," Da Gama agreed. His imaginary map of Hindustan consisted of a coastline and a few mountain passes that led to
nearby trading cities, islands in his sea of ignorance. He had not really understood the sweep of the country; how beyond the moist green mountains
like those that sheltered Belgaum stretched an endless dry and fissured
plain, punctuated here and there by green fields and shadowed forests, a
boundless expanse of rock-strewn earth more tedious than any ocean.

The horses' heads nodded heavily and they breathed hard now as their
road wound upward under the relentless sun, always upward. By the light
of last night's sunset they had first seen on the horizon the high plain of the
city of Bijapur. Now its far-off shadow taunted them, refusing to come
closer no matter how long they rode.

Da Gama missed the sweet, soft sea winds of the coast. Here the air
smelled like hot metal and parched his tongue and the wind blew blister
dry, so dry he did not sweat despite the heat. Though he drank from his
bronze canteen, the water now sour and tepid, his thirst never ebbed.

Shahji had made a special point of riding near Da Gama on this last
day of the journey, asking brief, careful questions that Da Gama answered
with good humor. He enjoyed the general's company. He noticed that
Shahji seemed to feel more comfortable with him than he did with his
own men. At first Da Gama had thought that this was the typical tendency
of an officer to isolate himself. Then he realized that Shahji was an immigrant to Bijapur, a former enemy who made a lucrative surrender and had
been named commander. Da Gama guessed that Shahji, like himself, felt
like a stranger, and sought the comfort of the company of another
stranger. Also, of all the travelers only he and Shahji were non-Muslims.
He wondered what Shahji had done during prayer times before he had Da
Gama to chat with.

Despite their growing familiarity, however, Shahji did not speak entirely
freely. While he offered his opinions about court politics and scandals, about the extravagance of the courtiers and the treachery of eunuchs, he
skirted military matters.

Even so, Da Gama got a vague understanding about the Malve forts to
the northwest and how those forts gave Bijapur dominance of the western
trade routes. He pieced together that Shahji had been a rebel general who
had managed to control enough of that territory to bring Bijapur to its
knees, and had chosen at last an honorable alliance instead of constant war.

Now Shahji was rich, now he had power, but always would he be a
stranger to the Bijapuris, and always suspect. Few men could be his confidants, Da Gama realized; and this explained, maybe, why Shahji seemed so
determined to be friendly with Da Gama.

The general seemed particularly interested in the details of the bandits'
attack on the Goan caravan, and he asked Da Gama about it several times.
At first Da Gama wished that his Hindi was better, for he assumed that
Shahji had not rightly understood him, but slowly discovered that Shahji
wanted as full a description as he could give.

Shahji's questions began to circle especially around Slipper-how had
he come to be part of the caravan in the first place? Da Gama explained
that Slipper had arrived at Orissa just about the time he'd picked up the
nautch girl, sent to accompany her on her trip to Bijapur. Yes, said Shahji,
but how had he found out about the nautch girl in the first place? Had he
been sent by Carlos Dasana, or by someone in Bijapur? Who arranged for
him to get to Orissa so quickly? Da Gama, sadly, could not answer to
Shahji's satisfaction.

"But what difference does it make, General?" Da Gama asked. "He's
only a eunuch."

Shahji considered Da Gama's face for a long time before he answered.
"Tell me why you say that."

"Well, I suppose he's sort of a lady's maid or something, isn't he? Don't
eunuchs tend the women, just as grooms tend the horses?" Da Gama felt
suddenly very foolish.

"Is that what you suppose?" Shahji lowered his voice to a whisper, but
his eyes burned. "Eunuchs are a disease. Like tapeworms they attach themselves to the noble and the rich; like ticks they bloat on others' blood. They
have no children to provide for, no heirs to fret over. This, they claim, makes
them objective and less apt to steal. It is but another of their endless lies.

"Soon they manage the harem, soon the servants, then the household, even the family business. Every great household has its Khaswajara and
soon no one can stir except with his approval.

"They seduce the women with obscene tricks and the men with drink
and opium and abominations. Their tongues are agile, and their ears are
quick. Who else knows the most intimate details of their masters' lives?
Who else listens with such rapt attention?

"Eunuchs have no religion, no country, no family, no friends. Like rats
who build a city in a sewer, they've established a society all their own, a
brotherhood of secrets, of borrowed wealth and stolen goods, populated by
children kidnapped and then maimed. Like moles they make their vile plots
in hidden burrows. From behind a curtain they move the world as a puppet
master moves the hands of a doll. Their brotherhood is dark and powerful,
and in Bijapur, Slipper was one step from the greatest power of all."

Da Gama found himself whispering in answer. "What power is that,
then?"

Shahji seemed to consider carefully, glancing around him almost involuntarily as if checking who could hear. "The power I speak of is held by the
vilest hijra in Bijapur, the sultan's Khaswajara, the eunuch Whisper, who
even now vies for regency, for the control of the heir, and through him control of the kingdom. Slipper was his second in command, but he disappeared a few years ago, and no one has heard of him until now."

Da Gama considered what Shahji had said. He'd heard similar tirades
by Hindi traders too drunk to mind their speech, but rarely from a sober
man, and never from one otherwise as clear-headed as Shahji. Stumped for
a reply, he said, "Do they all have such foolish names?"

"Names designed to fool the foolish. Their real names they tell to no
one." Seeing Shahji's dark, frowning eyes, Da Gama felt concern growing
in his heart. Maybe I did wrong to leave them all in Belgaum, he thought,
to leave them all alone with that eunuch Slipper.

Shahji seemed to read his thoughts. "He is no danger, farang, or at least
not much of one; not by himself, not without his cohorts. Clearly he has
some interest in that nautch girl though. So if you must worry, worry for
her. He had no designs upon the others, I would guess, or you would know
by now-nor on you either, or he'd have come along."

"I never would have permitted it!" laughed Da Gama.

But Shahji's face was stern. "He'd have come, like it or not, permitted
or not. He'd have found a way."

At that point, Da Gama almost told Shahji about the nautch girl's small
pouch, now tucked into a secret pocket of his coat, how Maya had begged
him to keep it as though she feared for her life. Almost he told him, but he
held back.

By the time the sun reached its fierce zenith, they could see in the distance
the dark basalt walls of Bijapur. The road grew busier with each mile, the
dull clank of cowbells now always in the air. They passed a line of bullock
carts, each piled mountain-high with sugarcane stalks. Straddling the sugarcane like charioteers, drivers with long reins and long whips drove the exhausted bullocks at a gallop. They passed huts of mud and grass. Naked
children ran along beside them, holding out their hands.

As they stopped for afternoon prayers, Shahji nodded to a road that
snaked through the hills to the south. "That road leads to Gokak Falls," he
told Da Gama. "The Sultana goes there often. Have you seen it?"

"Once, in the dry season. Even then, a most impressive display."

"You should see it now, after the rains." Shahji's heavy face bore a
thoughtful frown. He began talking with an unexpected urgency, as if he'd
been thinking for a while and had finally made up his mind to speak.
"Look, Deoga, there's some things you should know. In Bijapur you may
not find what you expect."

With that, Shahji began to tell him of Victorio Dasana's recent fortunes. "He no longer lives in his great house. He's lost a lot of money playing Fives with Wall Khan, the vizier. Wall Khan has moved him into some
rooms at the palace, but whether out of friendship or just to keep an eye on
him until the debt is paid, who can tell?"

Shahji lowered his voice. "I know you're worried about what he'll say
when he finds out about the attack." Da Gama answered with a shrug and
Shahji went on. "He's lost a lot of influence, Deoga, so I don't think he can
do much. But if you should have trouble, I will do what I can. In fact I'd be
less worried about Victorio than about Whisper, the Khaswajara."