“There have been no conquerors on earth but those supported by a Baphomet. You’ll tell me that the Templars were burned alive. That’s because it’s necessary to know the manipulation of the victory. And all this is linked to the riches of Genghis Khan, a story that I told you while we were sailing on the Santa-Fé. Try to revive your memories. You can go into the remotest rooms of the Emperor Akbar’s palace. Have you not seen somewhere, even in a corner—for the Emperor might not know himself the value of the talisman he possesses—an image, a drawing, perhaps a sculpture resembling that bearded head?”
And my cousin brandished before my eyes the fabric curled up at the corners, on which the bearded head of Baphomet was painted, or embroidered, or painted on embroidery.
I shook my head negatively.
At the same moment I felt for my cousin a great surge of affection, with which was mingled the sentiment of my ingratitude and a sincere desire to repair it as quickly as possible. The human soul is full of mysterious turnings. At the same time, an image emerged from the shadows of my memory: another Baphomet, seen recently, appeared to me. That one was, without a doubt, an embroidered Baphomet, and very old. At first it emerged all alone in my memory. I made a slight effort and it took its normal place on the linen chemise, the night-shirt of the Emperor Akbar, to which it was stuck or sewn directly above the heart.
One morning, the Emperor had summoned me to his bedroom in order to show me an Afghan bow that he had just received and which he counted on shooting in my company. He was wearing that immaculate and very supple chemise, which fell all the way to his feet. I had noticed that remarkable face as a grotesque stain, which spoiled the beauty of the precious linen, in my opinion.
What inexplicable force had prevented the appearance of the memory on my face? I remained impassive. Several times, I said: “No, I haven’t seen anything.”
And I cannot explain why I did not simply say that the Emperor Akbar wore a head of Baphomet on his white linen nightshirt, over the place of the heart.
TOWARD AHMEDNAGAR
In accordance with laws of weight that are unknown to me, I have sometimes seen an object that has been thrown into water sink to the bottom, remain there for some time, and then rise up again, for no apparent reason, to the surface. Thus, the thought of Inès de Saldanna, after having remained in the depths of semi-forgetfulness, returned to the surface of my soul. For the same laws rule material and spiritual things.
To be sure, in spite of the austerity of the Emperor, Akbar’s Court was dissolute. The Rajputs who were my companions introduced me solemnly to the most extraordinary old crone that I had ever known, Dgidgi Anaga, the treasurer of the harem. She had once been the Emperor’s governess in the time of his infancy, and her authority was immense. The sight of young men softened her, and it was known that she favored illicit unions. That was easy for her, because she had a controlling hand on all the singers and the dancers. She had conceived an affection for me and only asked to be my confidante. I don’t know what interior motive drove me not to say anything to her about Inès de Saldanna when her image reappeared within me with the force of an obsession.
Perhaps the return of that image was due to the encounter I had with Francisco Manoël. We crossed paths under the Gate of the Sun and we both leapt from our horses and simulated pleasure at seeing one another again. But in launching himself toward me he struck the attitude of someone who has something special to say.
He sniggered, and was even uglier than usual.
He put his hand on my shoulder and approached his face to mine as if to confide a secret.
“The accursed host is doing its work—you know what I mean, the host on the virginal breast. But souls take time to decompose, much longer than bodies. The slowness of their disaggregation is proportional to the subtlety of their essence. She has asked me several times what had become of you. She’s thinking about you.”
I feigned astonishment, but sensed an intense burn of curiosity.
“You’re young,” he went on. “You don’t know yet that the man who possesses and directs a truly beautiful Occidental woman can be master of India and all its kings, for it’s lust that leads the world. I’d gladly tell you more, but I’m in a hurry.”
He leapt into the saddle and rode away, laughing.
As the grandmaster of the police was one of the Hindus to whom one could speak familiarly—for there were many who rendered themselves inaccessible by the majesty of their nearing and their disagreeable manner—I questioned him the next day about the presence in Agra of a Portuguese by the name of Manoël.
“All foreigners are identified to me, and I’m certain that no Portuguese of that name left Agra yesterdays by the Gate of the Sun,” he relied, in a tone so peremptory that I did not dream of contradicting him.
Inès de Saldanna! What had become of her? At what point of immense India was she to be found, and why? What a mystery there is in everyone’s destiny, I thought—but I could not foresee the chain of events that was about to bring me back to her, and all that was written in the book of Destiny about me.
It began one night. I had just returned in order to sleep to the room, or rather the cell, that I occupied on the ground floor, between other similar cells where certain officers of the emperor’s personal guard were lodged. I heard muffled voices; the door opened, and I was open-mouthed with surprise on seeing Emperor Akbar before me. He was followed by Aboul Fazi, his prime minister—his other self—who was holding a resinous torch.
My heart beat faster, and I immediately thought of some grave fault that I must have committed unwittingly.
There was no word of explanation.
“Look,” said the Emperor to Aboul Fazi. “Lift up the torch—see whether it isn’t striking.”
And as I remained motionless, he told me in a tone that brooked no reply: “Turn sideways.”
I saw that the resin was running in burning drops on to Aboul Fazi’s hand, but that he was paying no heed to it. I saw that the Emperor was clad in the white tunic that he put on in order to sleep and on to which the head of Baphomet was sown.
“I take back what I said,” murmured the minister. “The resemblance is extraordinary, and I’ve never been so struck by it.”
I had no idea why the Emperor had come to find me by night in order to have his prime minister examine my profile. There was something stupefying about it. Nevertheless, I dared not speak.
The Emperor placed his hand on my shoulder.
“You are going to be called to fulfill a difficult mission, but you are courageous and perhaps intelligent. I hope that you will succeed.”
The tone of his voice was grave and he had the kind of wrinkles around his eyes that are caused by a great dolor contained by will power.
He made a vague gesture of adieu, and on the threshold I heard him say to Aboul Fazi: “A lie is always a lie. I prefer that you should explain it to him. At any rate, leave within the hour.”
In fact, an hour later, mounted on the best horses in the empire and followed by a dozen cavaliers, Aboul Fazi and I left Agra.
In order for what follows to be comprehensible, it is necessary to say a few words about the Emperor’s sons. He had three of them, for whom he had a blind, inconsiderate and puerile love. Love of that sort is rarely repaid in kind. Akbar did not feel loved by his sons, and suffered in consequence.
He had had a temple built on the spot where a hermit had once told him that he would have three children and had doubtless given him some magical method of determining the make sex of those children. Alone and on foot, he sometimes made a pilgrimage to that temple in order to thank the dead ascetic, but he no longer did so with the same joy that he once had. He had asked for children, but had forgotten to ask that they should love him.
Often, he had cursed his power, wars and the métier of Emperor, everything that had contributed to separate him from his sons. He told himself that he should never have quit them; but he sensed in that separation the work of an occult
force. For his eldest son, Mourad, for the second, Selim and for the youngest, Danial, the evolution had been the same.25 Until their fifteenth year they had shown themselves to be pious, affectionate toward their father, intelligent and just, with all the qualities necessary to the sons of kings; but at fifteen they had begun to drink. The loss of consciousness caused by alcohol had been for them the greatest pleasure possible.
Their intelligence had diminished, they had become bad, and a mysterious wall had risen between them and their father. Not only did they not love him, but perhaps they hated him, When Mourad had been Viceroy of Gujarat he had thought of raising the north of India against his father. Selim had also woven a conspiracy in Lahore. Forewarned, Akbar had had no difficulty in returning his provinces to duty, and he had pardoned them. Believing that activity was necessary to deflect Mourad from drink, he had sent him to the recently conquered Deccan some time before, with the mission to pacify it. Mourad had installed himself in Ahmednagar, the capital of Khandesh, which he had just taken by assault, He was accompanied by Khan Khanan,26 a former companion in war of the Emperor, charged with watching over him, and also with organizing vanquished Khandesh.
For several months, however, the news received from Ahmednagar had been increasingly bad. Enclosed in the interior fortress, Mourad never showed himself to the inhabitants of the city and even refused to see the Omrahs who requested an audience. Those irritated Omrahs were now on the point of rebellion. One of the last couriers sent to Agra by Khan Khanan requested that troops be sent urgently, at a forced march.
The Khan also announced that Mourad was afflicted by a malady whose causes the physicians distinguished clearly—alcohol, and the opium that Mourad now absorbed in large doses—but whose effects they did not understand. The Emperor’s son refused to leave his room and complained of breathing difficulties. On the advice of the Khan he had made an effort and consented one day to say a few words to several great lords of Khandesh who had come to see him. The Khan had also taken advantage of the opportunity to introduce delegates of the population who had requested to be in the presence of Akbar’s son. This is what had happened:
Deccan nobles, Muslim priests, Hindu Brahmins—for the two religions shared the city—and merchants’ leaders had gathered in a large hall in which there was a large staircase leading to Mourad’s apartments. They had been made to wait for a long time. It had been necessary for the Khan to beg him to appear, for although his dolors had ceased, by virtue of a singular whim, Mourad, who was not literate, had decided that his lector should read him the poems of Hafiz. In spite of the Khan’s interruptions, for long minutes, the voice of the lector had mingled with the murmurs of the proud Omrahs, who considered that wait insulting.
Then it was necessary for Mourad to change his robe and have a pellet of opium prepared, which he absorbed. That substance acted upon him in a dramatic fashion, and generally put him in a state of benevolence and agreeable reverie. In fact, a few minutes after he had absorbed the pellet, he smiled, and asked for his ivory cane, in order, he said, to appear with more majesty before the people of Ahmednagar.
The Khan began to breathe. The doors were opened. The crowd fell silent and a part of the assembly prostrated themselves. Mourad arrived at the first step and stood still, leaning on his cane.
“I’m waiting for them all to prostrate themselves,” he said to Khan. “Am I not Mourad, son of Akbar?”
A few seconds went by, and he fell asleep. The astonishment did not have time to become manifest. The ivory cane broke for some unknown cause, and Mourad, dragged by his weight, fell so unfortunately down the stairs that he rolled all the way to the bottom, his head colliding with the marble.
The details only reached Agra later; but the last message said that he had not recovered consciousness, and his physician would not answer for his life. The partisans of the old Queen, Tchand Bibi,27 had spread the rumor of his death; the city would revolt and all Khandesh in its wake, if troops did not arrive at a forced march.
While I raced on horseback alongside Aboul Fazi and another individual with a red turban and a large moustache, I wondered what role I, a poor foreign chevalier, was called upon to play in all that.
It was the principal role.
I did not know that until the following day. We had traveled all night and most of the morning. Aboul Fazi decided that we would sleep for a few hours in the palace of the governor of I know not what town.
It was a few hours only, and then took some rapid nourishment. Although he was a Hindu Brahmin, Aboul Fazi ate with me. Hindu Brahmins consider themselves soiled if they take aliments in the company of a foreigner, but Aboul Fazi had the title of High Priest of the Sun in the new religion that Akbar wanted to reign over the world and affected no longer to observe certain rites. Those, he held out a bowl of saffron rice to me personally and explained to me what was expected of me. He did so with a certain embarrassment, in spite of his age and high position and the infimal character of mine, for it as a matter of a lie and he had a veridical soul.
“You know,” he said to me, “what an extraordinary resemblance you have, in the face and bearing, to Mourad—more that I would have dared to formulate, for it is not good, it is out of the order of things, that ordinary men should resemble sovereigns. But the order of things makes detours to arrive at its ends. It is with great difficulty that Khandesh was conquered, and many men were killed in that conquest—too many men. And it is necessary that that does not recommence. Khan Khanan has caused the imminent demise of Mourad to be foreseen in his recent letter. The Emperor has seen in consequence the great evils that might result from it, evils greater than his own grief in the balance of universal dolor.
“The announcement of Mourad’s death will be the signal for an uprising in the city and throughout the province. The old Queen Tchand Bibi is ready to reenter Ahmednagar. The troops at Khan Khanan’s disposal are insufficient. It is necessary that Mourad should be seen, that he is believed to be alive, until the moment when that army that was due to leave Agra immediately after our departure has arrived in Ahmednagar. Mourad is lying inanimate with a fractured skull and is perhaps in the process of dying. We will enter the city by night. You will take the place of the Emperor’s son. It will be sufficient for you to be seen passing on horseback through the streets, dressed as Mourad was. You will speak as little as possible. If it is strictly necessary, you can say a few words. The luck of the Empire will do the rest.”
I thought it as well to say that perhaps they were counting too much on me and my adaptation to the circumstances, but Aboul Fazi interrupted me, smiling. I understood that he did not believe my reservations, judging my pride to be immeasurable. He was not mistaken. Such is the folly of the early years. I was certain that I could play my role well. I felt that I was cut from royal cloth. No better choice could have been made. I thanked the harmony of things that had elevated me so justly to such a dignity.
I have never traveled so rapidly. We requisitioned new horses in towns and villages. We only slept for a few hours wherever night surprised us. Then the horsemen of our retinue set up little low tents beneath which we allowed ourselves to fall, exhausted. Aboul and I had the same exhaustion, and we shared it with the man with the large moustache. He was a confidant of Khan Khanan named Yacoub, a native of the Deccan. He must have had great vigor, for he had made the journey from Ahmednagar to Agra and had set forth again immediately, affirming that his presence would have a great influence and was susceptible of arranging everything.
He repeated that several times along the route, and I had a desire to reply to him that, since that was so, he would have done better to stay in Ahmednagar and pacify the city immediately. He showed me a natural antipathy, for the Emperor had not admitted him to the secret and did not understand why Aboul Fazi was accompanied by a young Christian. He must have had great courage. In the heart of the Vindhia mountains we camped in a gorge where the narrow road snaked between the walls of somber forests. The horses had been p
laced in the middle of four tents erected in an uncovered area, and a great fire had been lit.
We feared that the mounts might be carried away by tigers, and the men of our escort took turns to make a tour of the tents, carrying a firebrand and uttering cries that they tried to make menacing but in which the vibrations of terror were audible. As the mewling and roaring came closer and closer, they stopped going out. My two companions and I sat up simultaneously, for we had the sensation that a beast of large dimension had brushed the fabric of our tent.
That shelter was very light, but it was a shelter. Then, with admiration, I saw Yacoub get up, deposit on the ground with a rapid gesture a necklace of precious stones that he wore around his neck, take a sharp short saber that would have been similar to a Roman sword had it not been curved, and leave the tent. Did he intend to fight body to body with a tiger? Fortunately, the ferocious beast must have been frightened by the glare of the fire. Yacoub came back in, placed his weapon beside him, and went back to sleep almost immediately. It was only later, when I had seen a tiger at liberty in the forest, that I measured the insensate courage of the man.
We forded countless rivers. The governor of Aurangabad gave orders to a hundred elite cavaliers to accompany us, for the country ceased to be secure. The vanquished troops of Queen Tchand Bibi were wandering in bands, lying in wait or couriers, pillaging caravans of provisions and everything that belonged to the Emperor.
In spite of my natural vigor, I was exhausted. The scornful glances the Yacoub sometimes darted at me—for he watched the progress of my fatigue—were like an aliment of strength.
We arrived in a cloud of dust on the banks of the Godaveri. It was about midday and we witnessed a gripping spectacle. The ground and the trees were covered in crows and a certain species of long-necked raptor similar to the vultures of France. Around the ford where we were about to cross over a great battle had recently taken place in which the fate of the Deccan had inclined in favor of the Emperor Akbar. There had been so many dead that those birds had considered that where their nourishment was, their kingdom was, the part of the earth dispensed for carnivorous birds.
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