Tiger Claws (53 page)

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Authors: John Speed

BOOK: Tiger Claws
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Lakshman tries to look wild and strange. With his scarred face, with his broken eye that now weeps almost constantly, he succeeds. He sleeps in an alcove near the tomb, and wakes to find warm food placed near his feet.
When he gets bored, which is often, he goes to the bazaar. As he wanders through the marketplace, Lakshman hears the rumors: the Mogul guard camped just miles from the city gates; Shahji slowly coming back to health at the hand of the young ambassador; Afzul Khan readying a massive force to recover the stolen Bijapuri gold.
Holding out a cup, mumbling nonsense to the passersby, Lakshman walks among the market stalls. Some people recognize him from the tomb. But most prefer to ignore beggars than to see them, so it’s easy for him to stand nearby unheeded as men discuss the latest news.
One day a strange procession pushes down the streets of the marketplace: cruel-looking soldiers accompanying a line of ten covered palanquins, each alike with black lacquer and silver decorations. The air fills with the shouts of the soldiers, the protests of the people they shove aside, the indignant barking of pariah dogs and the lowing of the street cows, with the cries of the shopkeepers and rough-edged street singers’ songs.
Lakshman follows. At last the bearers lower the palkis outside a fabric store. From each box a woman emerges, some middle-aged, some young, and each one veiled. Lakshman wanders closer, hearing “the wives of Afzul Khan.” At the shop door, the owner and his men bow as they pass inside.
Lakshman pushes close. The last in line, a slender graceful woman, lifts her head, and Lakshman glimpses behind her veil the outline of her face. From beneath her robes she drops into his cup a golden hun.
As the days pass, Lakshman thinks that he should write to Shivaji. He decides to wait until he has firm news of Afzul Khan. It does not occur to him to tell Shivaji of the rescue of his father.
Meanwhile in the marketplace, the men talk of little except the stolen gold. It’s slowly dawning on everyone just how serious their situation is: without the gold, cash is growing short, credit strained.
Guards and soldiers have not been paid. Some have begun to walk through the bazaar in packs, taking what they will. The nobles insist on buying things on credit. Supplies grow short. Prices rise.
One day there is a riot over bread. The guardsmen simply watch as the mob runs down the street, looting any store that isn’t locked.
The next day Lakshman hears a commotion at the mosque: a crowd of young men, all wearing white, chanting for Shivaji’s death. It gives him an unexpected satisfaction to join in. He screams so loud that he’s pushed to the head of the crowd. Death to Shivaji! Kill the thief! Death to Hindus! He shouts until his throat hurts. Others cluster near him, shaking their fists. He can hardly keep from laughing. But when the crowd marches out, Lakshman stays behind, relishing the silence of the quiet tomb.
Later he hears that the mob burned down a Hindu temple, leaving a brahmin trapped in the flames to die.
 
 
At prayers next morning, he lifts his head from the mosque floor to see a rich procession moving toward the tomb; Afzul Khan and all his captains bearing deep baskets of roses. One by one they enter the tomb and dump the flowers, shaking out the roses on the tomb of Ibrahim Roza.
Afzul Khan barely manages to squeeze through the door. When he emerges he kisses the threshold, the doorjamb; he spreads the dust of the floor upon his heart. Tears stream down his heavy face. At last he lifts his head and shouts in a voice that rocks the quiet: “I shall crush the infidel beneath my heel!” He shouts this two more times. Then his captains join him, calling “
Jai, jai
Afzul Khan!
Jai, jai
Afzul Khan!”
The fakir who sleeps in the next alcove slides over to Lakshman, saying, “His army is assembled. Tomorrow they set out for Poona. What men will do for gold!” The fakir shakes his head.
Lakshman merely sighs. I really should send word to Shivaji, he thinks.
 
 
It so happens that as Lakshman walks through the marketplace later that morning he sees again the line of ten black palkis. He feels a sudden urging, and follows them. The procession stops at Gold Street, and again the bearers help the wives of Afzul Khan to their feet. The last one, the small one, notices Lakshman again, and hesitates but then moves toward him.
This time, however, Lakshman speaks to her. “I must tell you something! I’ve had a vision!”
“What vision, fakir?” says the whisper from behind the golden veils.
“I saw your husband at the mosque. I saw Afzul Khan,” he croaks. “He prayed to the saint for victory, but when he rose … he had no head! Just a bloody stump between his shoulders where his head should be!”
“Oh, Allah!” she cries, clutching her veiled cheeks.
“If he does this terrible thing, he shall die. Do you hear? He shall die!”
“Angels of grace!” she whispers.
Lakshman strides off into the crowd.
 
 
The next morning, things are not peaceful in Afzul Khan’s harem.
In anticipation of his departure to battle, Afzul Khan had taken a strong
vajikarana,
and all night long his lingam had been swollen and his balls boiling.
But he had no pleasure.
His wives, horrified by the tale of the one-eyed fakir and his vision, had wailed and wept in their beds. Just when he’d calmed one wife enough to mount her, he’d hear another start to cry. Thrust as he might, she’d be too upset to give him any pleasure.
From room to room, from bed to bed he’d gone, his lingam ready to explode. Finally he’d stormed off to his room and slammed the door. Then at last he found relief.
He brought all his wives in the garden. Dewdrops cling to every rose; birds sing. The women stand in dressing gowns, eyes red with weeping.
Afzul Khan stomps into the garden, dressed for battle. Weapons hang from his belt, spurs protrude from his black boots, and his broad curved sword slaps against his leg. The older wives gulp and lift their tear-stained faces, while the younger ones weep aloud.
Afzul Khan comes to his first wife. He stands by her—feet wide apart, jaw clenched, neck bulging. “I am not satisfied!” he shouts. He waits. She struggles not to sob. The birds stop singing, and only the babble of a nearby fountain breaks the silence.
“I am not satisfied, wife!” he screams, bending down so his face looks into hers. His wife lifts her damp eyes, but she knows better than to answer. “I am not satisfied!”
He moves down the line from woman to woman, his face a mask of rage. “I am not satisfied!” he yells at each, until the fifth wife bursts into sobs.
“But husband,” she cries. “We don’t want you to die!”
At this, Afzul Khan wheels around. The fifth wife’s eyes reach scarcely to his breastplate. “You think that I will die?” he whispers.
The fifth wife can say nothing. She falls to her knees. Soon all his wives are wailing. Afzul Khan strides down the line, turning each wife’s face with a gauntlet-covered hand and staring fiercely into her eyes.
When he reaches the tenth wife, the wife who spoke to Lakshman, she looks at him as though her heart would break, a look so searching and so deep that Afzul Khan drops his hand. “Husband,” she whispers, her voice raw, “I could not bear to see you dead.” She lifts her hand, but he pulls away so quickly that the heavy sword slaps against his leg.
“Is this so?” he asks softly. “You could not bear to see me dead?” She nods. He moves back to the ninth wife, and the eighth. “Is this so? Is this so?” They nod, silently. Down the line he walks, asking; down the line they nod, one by one, too anguished even to speak. “Even you?” he asks, when he reaches his first wife. “Even you?”
“Husband, you know I could not bear this!” she cries.
Afzul Khan bows his head. “So be it,” he says softly. Then he turns. His broad sword flashes from its scabbard in a whirl.
One by one he mows them down, slashing through neck after neck, killing the next before the last has slumped to the ground.
By the time he’s reached the middle of the line, the ones that still breathe have begun to scream. On the ground behind him, heads fall with mouths still gasping, dark blood pumps from hearts still beating. Green grass, white robes, black hair, red blood. The sword rips through their necks like stalks of wheat.
By the time he’s reached his tenth wife, she starts to back away, begging. Afzul Khan points his sword to her, and blood drips from the blade. “Come back, you!” he calls, his voice hoarse. “Come back and die!”
Without thinking she begins to run, running and turning, running backward, and her little feet get tangled in her robes. She falls and creeps upon the ground. “No!”
Wearily, Afzul Khan shuts his eyes. Then as calm as a man about to strike a snake, he walks over and thrusts the broad blade of his long sword into her belly, thrusts it through so hard it cuts the bones, thrusts it till it penetrates the soil beneath her back. Blood bubbles from her mouth, and when he pulls away his sword, blood fountains from the wound.
With the folds of her white skirt, while her mouth still moves and her wide eyes stare, he wipes the gore from his blade. Then he sheathes his sword, and without a look behind him, walks to the garden door. “Bury them in a row,” he tells his
khaswajara.
“Except the last. Bury her where she fell. She at least showed some courage.”
Afzul Khan strides from the garden, ready now for battle.
 
 
Bala knocks on Sai Bai’s door, and when there is no answer, he pushes the door open and steps in. The shutters are closed, and the room in shadows. Shivaji sits by Sai Bai’s low bed, holding her hand. Her face, once round, now is gaunt, her eyes enormous, dark-rimmed. Beautiful eyes, thinks Bala, but then he realizes that they are wide with pain.
A servant girl tucks a crisp white sheet tight around her mistress; nearby in a wooden bowl, sits a dark wad of bandage oozing blood. The servant takes up the bowl and as she passes Bala, a smell rises from the bowl, sick and sweet. Bala knows that smell; anyone who has seen death knows it. It will linger in his nostrils for a long, long while.
Shivaji looks up, his face full of anguish. “What is it?”
“Word from Lakshman, lord.”
Shivaji glances at Sai Bai. “Go,” she says. “I’ll be all right.” She even tries to smile. Shivaji rises, pressing on her hand all the while. It takes a while for him to let her go. Her wide eyes never leave him.
When Shivaji shuts the door, Bala asks, “Still bleeding?”
“Much less than yesterday, I think.”
“Good,” Bala says. But they know this might be a sign of a body giving up. For a moment he considers placing a hand on Shivaji’s arm, but he does not. It would not be seemly to touch Lord Shivaji so.
The bright sun bathes the busy courtyard, and Shivaji blinks as though unaccustomed to the light. Bala notices how worn his face appears. Bala
hands a wrinkled paper to Shivaji. “This came a few minutes ago, lord, brought by an Afghan trader. A one-eyed fakir paid him a gold hun to bring it. He gave Lakshman’s code word, ‘vengeance.’”
Shivaji unfolds the note.
 
Shahji freed. Afzul Khan setting out for Poona. 100 elephants. 500 cannon. 2000 horses. 15000 men.
 
“Is this all?” Shivaji cries. He says each word aloud once more. “All that time in Bijapur, and this is all?”
“Fifteen thousand men, lord,” Bala says, as shakes his bald head. “How many men have we in Welhe?”
“Two thousand, maybe three. Perhaps another thousand in Poona. A couple of hundred more in Pratapghad or on their way. Maybe a thousand ponies.”
The thought occurs to Bala that there are many signs of coming death: a blood-filled cloth in a wooden bowl, for instance; or a thousand ponies and four thousand untrained men. They sit in silence for a moment. Around them the bustle of living carries on: men carrying baskets on their heads, women singing as they wash clothing at the well, birds flitting to the ground to peck at unseen seeds, a bony cow poking through a pile of garbage. “What shall I do, Bala?”
This is not what Bala wants to hear. He wants the plan laid out for him, he wants to act upon it. He does not want uncertainty. “If you need guidance, ask the goddess.”
At that moment, a young sentry, running hard and out of breath, dashes through the courtyard calling to Shivaji. “A dozen Mogul soldiers at the city gates, lord, asking for you!” the sentry sputters. “We didn’t know if we should let them in.”
Shivaji glances at Bala. “Escort them here.”
Soon, a pair of sentries on ponies come through the compound gates, followed by two rows of soldiers riding on proud Bedouins, pennants fluttering from the tips of long lances.
The captain of the Moguls rides forward. “We seek Lord Shivaji of Poona,” he says, enunciating each word.
“I am he,” Shivaji answers.
Hanging from the captain’s belt is an elaborate silver tube, which he hands to Shivaji. “I bring this message from my master, Lord Ali Rashid,
who sends you greetings and begs that you read it at your ease. He bids me to await your answer, if you have one.”
“Tell your master that we are in his debt, captain,” Bala answers before Shivaji gets a chance. He calls to the sentries. “Take these guests to our dharmsala and give them every comfort.”
“You are kind, lord,” the captain says, bowing again to Shivaji.
Shivaji opens the silver message tube and breaks the seals. He unfurls the bright parchment and tosses it to Balaji. “Persian,” he says.
Balaji looks the paper over. “It’s from Aurangzeb’s ambassador to Bijapur. He says that they have rescued your father. Shahji is being given every honor a man of his greatness deserves.”
“That’s good,” Shivaji says. “That’s very good.”
“Maybe,” says Bala. “He says that he has brought five thousand imperial cavalry to Bijapur. They’re encamped at the gates of Bijapur, ready to attack if he should give the word.” Shivaji raises his eyebrows. “He says that Afzul Khan is on his way to attack you.”
“That we knew already.”
“He suggests that a Mogul foray into Bijapur would force Afzul Khan’s return. You have only to request this action.” Bala looks at Shivaji, his face serious. “He apologizes but with the siege of Golconda, a small contingent is all that could be spared on your behalf.”
“Five thousand imperial guards?” Though Shivaji shakes his head, all he can do is laugh. “A small contingent? This fixes everything!”
“Wait, lord. The note goes on to say that your presence is requested—no, it says ‘required’—in Agra. There you shall confirm your fealty to the Peacock Throne.” Shivaji’s face hardens. “They will send a hundred men to escort you, and to protect the tribute that you naturally will wish to offer to the
padshah.
” Bala looks up at Shivaji and rolls the parchment. “The rest is an insult, lord. Such bad manners are unforgivable.”
“What does it say?”
Balaji seems hard pressed to say the words aloud. “He suggests—that’s the word he uses, ‘suggests’—that you would wish to bring no less than nine crore hun to lay in tribute at the
padshah
’s feet.”
For a moment, Shivaji stares at him in silence. Then he starts to laugh, and laughs some more, and soon Balaji is laughing, too. “Well,” Shivaji says finally, lifting the silver tube, “it’s an elegant bill, I’ll say that much. Whoever thought I’d be rich enough to get a bill for nine crore hun?” He looks at Bala bitterly. “Think Shahji’s life is worth nine crore hun, Bala?”
“At least then your troubles will be over, lord. Give them what they want and live in their protection.”
“No, Bala. Our troubles would only be beginning.”
 
 
“He should have come himself,” Iron grumbles to Jedhe once they return to his house in Welhe. “I keep thinking Hanuman will be different than his father. Honor doesn’t run in their blood, Jedhe.”
They’d just returned from a war council, where they heard the message sent by Lakshman, and Shivaji’s terse note: “Prepare a defense.”
“Why didn’t you speak out, uncle?” Jedhe says.
“I tried! Weren’t you listening? Every time, he shut me up. Told me to talk to him later! Me! Iron! He tells me this! We’re outmanned and outgunned—and there sits Hanuman brimming with confidence. Truth wasn’t welcome there, Jedhe.”
“It’s true, uncle. We’re sunk.”
Iron laughs. “Take the advice of an old man, nephew. Never trust anyone completely. Never. Not even your old uncle Iron.”
“You don’t trust Shivaji, uncle?”
“In the end, what difference does it make? Unless we watch our backs, we’ll all be dead. What do you think of Tanaji’s plan?”
“You mean Hanuman’s plan, uncle?”
Iron sniffs. “I’ve seen this plan before; always the same thing. You think I don’t recognize Tanaji’s tactics?”
“But I think the two of them are hardly talking now, since the trouble over Hanuman’s marriage.”
“Then the son is just a copy of the father. Too bad. Lakshman at least thought for himself. Too bad we got the other twin as captain. As for the plan, I can’t see any part of it that doesn’t end in death.”
They talk about the plan: a series of quick feints by small squads of bowmen mounted on ponies. Hanuman expects Afzul Khan to follow the squads into the Torna valley, where the combined Marathi forces will perform a double-flanking attack, rushing down from the hills, supported by the Torna cannon. “I never heard such nonsense,” scoffs Iron. “As if Afzul Khan would follow those squads into a fortified valley. Maybe he’ll also aim his cannon at himself and shoot his own head off.”
“What do you think he’ll do, uncle?”
“What would I do if I had fifteen thousand men?” Iron laughs. “I’d break off a phalanx of cavalry. Chase down the bowmen and crush them.
Make it ugly. Make an example. The main force goes straight to Poona.” Iron looks at Jedhe seriously. “That’s the goal, nephew—Poona! Why would Afzul Khan be distracted? He doesn’t want battle. He wants gold! He wants Shivaji! Both are in Poona.”
Jedhe considers this. “So what do we do?”
“I’ll keep my word. I’ll fight next to Hanuman. At least until it’s clear all hope is gone. Then I’ll decide. There’s nothing to prevent us from cutting a deal with Bijapur if it’s clear Shivaji’s doomed.”
“Then why wait? Isn’t the outcome already clear now, uncle?”
“To us perhaps. Not to my men. It’s sad that men will have to die. But if I do things my way, some will live.” Jedhe merely looks at the floor. “You’re young,” Iron says gently, “and you don’t like an old man’s plan. I understand. Don’t you think I’d rather die gloriously?”
“If you don’t like your own plan, uncle, why do it?”
“Dying gloriously is still dying. The point is staying alive.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad to die, uncle.”
“That’s the spirit! Go and die!” Iron puts a calloused hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Listen to the way an old man thinks: if you lose and live, Jedhe, you can always fight again. If you die, you’re done.”
Jedhe, for a change, has nothing witty to reply. “This isn’t how I thought that it would be, uncle.”
“When you’re young, you want a hero’s life. When you’re old, any life will do. Hanuman’s playing at being a hero. You want to die for his dreams?”
 
 
Meanwhile, across the courtyard from Iron’s house, Hanuman says to Tanaji, “How do you think it went, father?”
Tanaji tugs at his mustache, and grimaces. “About as well as you could expect. No one likes to think about facing a big army, least of all one led by Afzul Khan.”
Hanuman considers this. “What should I do?”
“You can’t do anything. In battle the plans will fall apart, and then, in all the smoke and noise, someone will take the lead. You, maybe, or Iron, or me. Jedhe, maybe. And everyone will follow in a glorious attack. Or a rout.” Tanaji sighs.
“Why doesn’t Shivaji come?” Hanuman says bitterly. “Shivaji should lead us. I no longer think he’s needed in Poona. Anybody who is going to join us has already made the move.”
Tanaji thinks this over. “Write him. Ask him to come.”
Hanuman turns to a little writing desk in the corner of the room when a servant enters. “A visitor for you,” he says. “A woman.”
As the woman steps shyly through the door, Hanuman jumps to his feet. “Jyoti!”
In the dim light her dark face seem to glow. She bows deeply to Tanaji, eyes lowered, then to Hanuman, but looking straight at him. Then she turns back to Tanaji. “I know you asked me to have no more to do with your son, sir, but something has come up. Something wonderful and strange.” Hanuman’s first thought is that Jyoti is pregnant. That would explain the way her face glows, but not her happiness.
Tanaji glowers at her. “You have heard my judgment. You have no dowry; my son and you have no future.”
“All that has changed, sir,” Jyoti says.
“Changed how?” Tanaji asks gruffly.
“Two nights ago, when I lifted the covers of my bed I found a gift. A gift that I can only guess the gods sought fit to give me. A purse. A yellow purse, a purse of soft leather, tied with a golden cord. The cord was cut in two. Inside were coins—heavy golden coins I have never seen before: not hun, not rupees. I showed it to the
shastri.
He said the money was
farang
gold.”
“Farang?”
gasps Hanuman.
“Yes. Suddenly I am a rich woman.” She giggles nervously. “When the
shastri
saw how much, he nearly piddled. He told me I should give the gold to the temple. Then the gods would give me blessings; otherwise the gold would bring evil. I refused.”
“The rich give nothing away,” Tanaji says. “That’s how they stay rich.”
“Then I am rich. Rich enough, maybe, to be worthy of your son.”
“But where did the purse come from, Jyoti?” Hanuman says “How did it come to be in your bed? Had someone been to the temple that day?”
“No. Only the regular villagers been there that day, other than your father,” she says, turning to Tanaji. Tanaji braces himself with a big frown. “Did you see anyone around that night, someone who might have had a bag of
farang
gold?”

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