“Have to what? Discover their whereabouts and liberate them with your blade?”
“I’ll free them in the night. By the time they’re missed we’ll be—”
“They might have a dozen guards, Nizam. What would happen if you killed a handful and then you died? Or if you were wounded?” He started to speak, but I cut him off. “No, there’s a better option, though also risky.”
He swatted at an immense fly. “What do you propose?”
“It’s simple. We’ll go to the Sultan of Bijapur and tell him who we are.”
“And he’ll slash our throats!”
“No, no, he won’t. For I’ll give him something in exchange for their freedom.”
“But we have nothing, my lady.”
“We have,” I corrected, “everything. For I can give him Aurangzeb, whom he must hate above all men.”
Nizam hacked, then spat out the dust that seemed to breed in our throats. “You’d betray your brother?”
“He is only a brother in blood. In all else he’s a foe. And I have never moved to hurt him. I could have killed him long ago, or watched him die.”
“But you will in Bijapur?”
“I’ve no choice,” I said, licking my cracked lips.
“Quiet,” Nizam hissed, staring behind us. Beneath the birds rose a cloud of dust, drawing swiftly in our direction. “Switch horses!” he shouted, leaping off his saddle.
I struggled to climb the fresher of our steeds. Nizam grabbed our most precious supplies, then struck the backsides of the riderless stallions, so that they ran toward the approaching force. “What are you—”
“With luck they’ll pursue the mounts,” he snapped, leaping onto his stallion. “Now ride! Ride hard!”
I charged ahead, holding my reins desperately. In a few heartbeats we galloped with frightening speed. The wind snatched my turban, and my hair streamed behind me. My saddle beat against my buttocks with the clap of a deerskin drum. Someone fired a musket.
“Faster!” Nizam roared.
Though fearful of being thrown from the horse, I spurred him harder. He neighed, accelerating. I glanced around and, to my awe, saw Nizam draw his bow and twist in his saddle. He launched an arrow, which disappeared into the cloud of men and horses behind. The other riders fired more muskets, the air cracking with their discharges. Puffs of soil kicked up around us, but we weren’t hit. The men must have been unable to reload their guns while charging, for they began to release arrows. Nizam shot another bolt, then realized that I’d turned toward him.
“Ride!” he screamed, and I looked ahead once more. The trail, seemingly always straight at a slower pace, twisted now, the landscape flying past until it was but a blur of brown. I shrieked at my mount to go faster, my heels relentless. He neighed again, redoubling his efforts. An arrow churned into the soil before me and I glanced behind in time to see a pursuer fall screaming from his mount. Nizam notched another arrow, and a second man fell. “They gain on us!” Nizam yelled, and he was right, for the trail was becoming rocky. If my horse was to stumble, we’d surely die.
But then, quite magically, my fear turned to instinct and my mind emptied of all thoughts except those that could save our lives. “The gold!” I shouted. “Throw them the gold!”
Nizam didn’t hesitate. He dropped his bow and reached into his saddlebag, pulling out handfuls of gold coins. He threw the coins high, so that the sun sparkled off their faces. They tumbled into the dust behind us, hundreds of them. I thought Nizam might stop at one bag, but he quickly emptied the other. Soon enough gold rolled on the ground to last a hundred men a lifetime.
The warriors approached the coins and I prayed they would stop. Allah must have been bored that day, for upon coming to the glittering gold, they dismounted, shouting triumphantly. Most men dove into the dirt and dug like mongooses, while some drew their blades and attacked each other.
“Don’t slow!” Nizam yelled.
I maintained our pace, and soon the men were gone. We galloped long thereafter, until at last I began to fear for our horses. The heat was blistering, and white froth dropped from my mount’s mouth. I gradually reigned him in, only then realizing how my heart throbbed. Nizam slowed beside me. He dripped sweat and was covered in dust.
“Have we lost them?” I asked breathlessly.
“Perhaps. But we’d best keep moving.” He let his horse trot down the trail, though he often twisted about in his saddle to look behind. “That was a fine idea, my lady.”
Shielding my eyes from the relentless sun, I replied, “It was odd, Nizam. Suddenly everything became clear to me. I was fearful, yet my mind remained sharp.”
“In battle, some men have such clarity. They see things that the rest of us don’t. They might not be the strongest, but by Allah, they can lead. Your brother, alas, is—”
“Such a man,” I interjected. “But I’ll betray him all the same.”
“As you should. But how?”
I was tired from the chase and still formulating my plan. “Might we rest, Nizam?” I asked, looking ahead. On the horizon rose a range of mountains. I knew we were close to the Deccans’ stronghold, for my companion had said this morning that we would cross a river and mountains, and that Bijapur wasn’t far beyond the peaks.
Midday approached, and Nizam, I think, was also ready to sleep. He left the trail and proceeded down a dry streambed. We followed it for some time, then rode on a vast expanse of sandstone, passing the sun-bleached bones of a camel. Nizam circled back to the stream and, to my delight, found a sizable pool of water, a hollow place in the earth, shaded by bushes and an overhang of rock. We tethered our mounts and made camp.
Nizam gazed northward. “By now they’ve killed each other, or are drunk in the nearest settlement.”
“Were they Deccans?”
He nodded as he unraveled his sweat-soaked turban. “Your brother’s men are more disciplined. They wouldn’t have chased us.”
“Why not?”
“Because we might have lured them into a trap.”
We replenished our waterbags before leading the horses to the pool. Nizam pulled them away before they drank too much. “If you’d like, my lady, you can bathe. I’ll wash in a moment.”
I was so spent that all I wanted was sleep. Yet the thought of that cool water against me was tempting. Once Nizam had tied up our sheet and lay down, I stripped quickly. Squatting on a rock, I rinsed my dirty clothes and draped them across a bush to dry. I then carefully stepped into the water, groaned, and sat on the streambed. I hadn’t taken a bath in two weeks and used sand to rub the grime from my body. It gave me scant surprise to see that since my escape from the Red Fort I’d shed what little fat I carried. Yet I disliked how my skin was starting to age. It didn’t appear as ripe as before and seemed looser on my bones. I had seen thirty-six years, after all, and I knew that a woman’s beauty was considered a fleeting thing. Perhaps mine was already gone.
I scrubbed myself angrily, then put on my damp tunic. As I sat beside Nizam, his eyes fluttered open. “How was it?” he asked.
I shrugged, combing my hair with my fingers. “My mind was elsewhere.” Nizam was polite enough not to ask its whereabouts, and so I said, “May I ask you a question? A rather childish question?”
“It depends—”
“Do you think… ” I sighed, feeling foolish and quite young. Why could I be so sure of myself in battle, where I had no business being, but at times so unsure when it came to love? “Do you think I’m still attractive?” I asked weakly. Nizam seemed startled and before he could respond, my words spilled out. “It’s been five years since I saw him. Perhaps he’s found someone younger and prettier. Most men do. And why should he be any different, especially in my absence?”
“Most men are fools,” Nizam replied, his face serious.
“But why? They get younger women, whose bodies haven’t started to sag and whose—”
“Minds send them to sleep.”
“But do men truly care about minds? My husband doesn’t. And most nobles have mistresses half their age. These girls must give them something we can’t. Perhaps their beauty makes men feel young. Or maybe they’re jewels that men like to be seen with.”
Nizam sat up, glancing around our camp’s perimeter. “I don’t know the thinking of other men. But I know myself. And I know Isa. He loves you and he’ll never tire of you.”
“But he loves beautiful things, Nizam. Think of the Taj Mahal, think of what he creates. Why would such a man care for old things, when he can have something new?”
“You aren’t a thing,” he replied. “And perhaps that’s the difference between us and other men. For most think of women as things, while we think of you as.… ” He paused, embarrassed. “I’m not a man of many words, my lady, nor am I a poet. But it seems to me that we think of you as…as white elephants. We search a lifetime for you, and when we finally find you, we’ll not toss you away.”
In all the years I had known Nizam, I’d never heard him speak so. Was he becoming more secure with himself, or was I finally treating him as an equal? Hoping it was the former, I reached out to take his hand, thinking that my feelings, no, my love for him would be no more complete if he were my brother. “Thank you, my old friend,” I said. “I’m undeserving of you. Truly.” Nizam shook his head, though I paid the gesture little heed. “Who,” I asked, “my warrior-poet, is your white elephant?”
He laughed, which was rare indeed for Nizam. “She’s purple perhaps. For surely no such other woman exists.”
I saw her then, and I clapped my hands. “Ladli!” I exclaimed. “It’s Ladli you love!”
He froze. “But how…how do you know?”
“How was I so blind as to have not seen it sooner?” I bit my lip as my mind trod in memories. It had been ages since I saw them together, but when we were younger, and she was smitten with Dara, how many times had I noticed him staring at her? “How long have you loved her?” I asked excitedly.
“I’d better prepare lunch.”
I swatted him on the arm. “How long?”
“Too long,” he muttered, looking away.
“Does she know?”
“Why would she care?” he replied, with a trace of bitterness. “I’m a man beneath her and always will be.” He rose and began to gather firewood.
“Rubbish! Total and complete rubbish!”
“We should eat, then rest, my lady.”
I ignored his words, for I was already scheming about how I could steal Ladli from Aurangzeb and reintroduce her to Nizam. I knew what my friend thought of men, but hoped that she might see Nizam as I did, as one who would love her unconditionally. Surely I might bring them together, the way Father brought Isa to me so long ago!
“Oh, Ladli,” I whispered mischievously, just loud enough for Nizam to hear, “how very happy you shall be.”
Chapter 20
Shivaji
We slept all afternoon and through the night, leaving just before dawn. Nizam said the mountains were cooler and thus traveling in darkness was unnecessary. In fact, the path would soon grow treacherous, and even our surefooted horses would need light. And so in plain view we crossed the river, then eased into the foothills. Peaks towered majestically above us, and I found myself often gazing toward Paradise. The mountains made me think of green waves. They rose from the earth, shrouded in mist, to lap at the underbellies of clouds.
I couldn’t fathom why, but as we neared the range, the arid land of Hindustan grew fertile. A sweetness permeated the sky, as if it yielded water. Where once only bushes bordered the trail, now there rose lush trees. I had never seen so much foliage. Certainly, I’d heard of jungles where rain fell each day, but to study a true forest was mesmerizing. More shades of green flourished here, it seemed, than all other colors combined. Monkeys hung from moss-covered limbs and red parrots mingled within leaves the size of shields. Sometimes the birds took flight together, and the sky turned scarlet as thousands of the creatures sought new perches.
For three days we journeyed through the mountains on a narrow and rocky trail. Nizam was quite nervous, for the trees were so thick that a score of enemies might surprise us at any moment. My companion kept his sword resting on his lap. He also showed me how to fire the musket and tied it to my saddle so I’d have it nearby. The gun was long and heavy, but I thought I could aim it straight if needed.
Several times we passed small groups of Deccans, who were always on foot and never paused to give us trouble. Occasionally we saw women picking berries and men hunting wild boar with spears. I gave some dried fish to a girl in exchange for a pouch of cherries. Thus we ate fruit for the first time in weeks.
As we neared Bijapur, signs of war increased. Soon many forts straddled the mountains. These structures were made of stone blocks and were hardly more than walls set on each side of a ridge, often flanked by towers. Warriors stood behind the fortifications, silently watching all below.
We also came across Deccan war bands. Such parties were unavoidable and ranged from hundreds of foot soldiers to scatterings of horsemen. The Deccans, surprisingly, caused us no woe. Sometimes they asked where we hailed from, and our lies rose smoothly. We looked and spoke in their manner and hence were believed. The warriors appeared worn, and, in fact, many were wounded and all held their weapons uneasily. At one point, Nizam was bold enough to ask of Alamgir’s raiders. He was told that they rode through the valley only a week ago. They sought to capture the high forts but were beaten back at a terrible cost. Some believed they’d retreated northward to their cities, whereas others swore they were raiding farther to the south. Nizam and I digested this news with churned emotions. While we were saddened to hear of the battles, at least Aurangzeb’s forces appeared to be far from Bijapur.
It took us another day to reach the Deccan stronghold. Bijapur was a city like any other, with cobbled streets, bazaars and palaces. Yet Bijapur was a city at war. There was ample evidence of recent fighting: scorched homes and crops, toppled fortifications, rows of ravaged bodies awaiting burial or cremation. At the center of Bijapur stood its fort—a stout, circular edifice of stone and mortar. Cannons topped its palisades, which were inundated by helmeted warriors. Scores of rooftops rose from behind the fort’s towering walls.
We tethered our horses at a nearby stable and walked toward the fort. It was built into a hill of rocky snags, and men watched us from above as we climbed. At a ramp leading to the main gate, guards didn’t question us as we passed but scrutinized our movements. They were dressed in full armor and held long spears. Along the wall above the gate stood a dozen more men, their muskets pointed downward.
“Is this wise?” Nizam whispered after we were beyond the gate.
Now that we were so close to Isa and Arjumand, I refused to waste time fabricating a different strategy. Not when they drew nearer with each passing moment. Not when I wanted to kick off my sandals and run to them, throw my arms about them and never let go. Therefore, though harboring doubts, I tried to appear confident. “It shall work.”
“It must.”
My plan depended on reaching the Sultan without incident. I expected him to be on his throne, with his advisors gathered close. The problem, however, was that numerous buildings surrounded us. Most had spires and looked little different from their neighbors. The Sultan could be in any one of them.
A soldier stepped from a doorway and I walked toward him. Initially he frowned at my approach, but when I smiled and bowed slightly, his scowl vanished. “Excuse me, sir,” I asked, “but where might I call upon the Sultan?”
He thrust a handless arm toward a structure with its own balcony. “But he’ll see no woman. He’s entertaining Shivaji.” The warrio
r grunted, then moved away.
It took me a moment to follow his words. On several occasions Father had spoken of Shivaji, the military leader of the Hindu Marathas, another sworn enemy of the Empire. The Marathas hailed from the mountainous region surrounding Bijapur. Drawn from the lowest caste of Hindus, they had become a fierce military force under the command of Shivaji, a charismatic young man.
Suspecting that Shivaji and the Sultan of Bijapur were now allies, I headed directly for the spired building. Surprisingly, only two guards manned its entrance. They started to bar our entrance, but I produced the misshapen pearls, depositing them in rough hands. Without further pause we were allowed inside, where coolness prevailed. The marble floors and tapestry-covered walls radiated comfort. Scattered about were men dressed in fine tunics—a sight which rendered me self-conscious in my tattered and dust-stained garments. Servants clad in white linen served fresh fruit, goat cheese and venison. My mouth watered at the smell of roasted stag, but I resisted giving the trays a third glance. Instead, I walked up granite steps that I supposed led to the balcony, where I hoped to find the Sultan and Shivaji. Lining the curved stairway were several warriors. These men asked nothing of our business but their hands never strayed from the hilts of their swords.
The next floor bore an elaborate bedroom. Its style was the same as ours, replete with carpets, blankets and thick cushions. Down the corridor, beyond the bedroom, was a balcony which contained potted plants, tables, and a raised dais that supported two men. Other figures, including nobles and warriors, mingled below. No women were present.
“We can still free them with my blade,” Nizam whispered as we approached the balcony. “The Deccans are treacherous.”
I slowed, thinking that perhaps he was right. Would Mother have marched, defenseless, straight into the lair of an enemy? Undoubtedly, she’d have concocted a better plan. Yet here I was, wholly unprepared for what could happen, proceeding against the wishes of a friend who knew the enemy well.