I thought again about the ironic spectators who were following me with their eyes. What if I had been deceived by a pusillanimous literate? It is not customary to draw one’s sword when one runs across a dog or a horse in the street, even f he horse is gigantic in size, with a dentition of a phenomenal order.
What followed happened in a matter of seconds. The horse had almost made a slow tour of the fountain in the center of the square. I thought to myself: Decidedly, it’s inoffensive.
It came toward me at a gallop, its jaws open to bite me, and I only just had time to bound sideways.
All my anguish disappeared in the action and gave way to a perfect lucidity. I had folded myself up. I saw the horse loom up above me and I had time to say to myself: Why, there’s another horse whinnying nearby. It seems to me that it’s mine.
The monster lost a quarter of a second listening too, and that saved my life. I plunged my sword into a white patch that it had on its breast, remembering the words of a Toulousan groom who had told me that such patches often coincide exactly with the location of the heart. And I recoiled precipitately in order not to be crushed.
The beast did not get up again. It gripped the pavement with its feet, uttered a frightful cry, and after its body had been agitated by spasms, it expired.
The entire city must have been behind the windows, for an immense rumor filled the houses. There were voices and appeals as I wiped the blade of my sword and inspected the point to see whether it had suffered any damage. I raised my head. I was outside the porcelain tower, and the metallic trellis of its window had just closed.
I did not have time to reflect on the range of the homage. The door of the old seigneurial dwelling in the center of the square had just opened wide. I recognized Yacoub coming down the steps. His face was furious. His long moustache was agitated. He was surrounded by armed men.
“Who gave you permission to kill one of my horses?” he cried.
And without waiting for any explanation, he added all sorts of insults, among which I distinguished the words dog and Portuguese beggar.
At the same moment I heard a distant sound of trumpets. The bearded man that I had seen at the gate of the city arrived at a run, and without paying any heed to the dead horse he approached Yacoub and spoke to him in a low voice, like someone who has to confide an important secret.
“Well,” replied the latter, “do you not have orders? Fire the cannon. Sweep the road with grapeshot. Yes, even if Miran is at their head.”34
One does not kill a monster with impunity. My action had given me an unusual verbal abundance. I was fortified by having just accomplished an exploit of which he Emperor would have approved. I have no exact memory of what I said, but there was a poisoned dart in my words for Yacoub’s pride. He stopped with a gesture those who wanted to hurl themselves upon me. He wanted to punish me himself.
I was still speaking. Before that day I had never understood so well the heroes of Homer and their interminable speeches. Certain texts need to be lived in order to be explained. I said that I scorned the Emperors of Persia of olden days and their decadent posterity, that it required to be particularly devoid of courage to fight tigers with a dagger, and many other follies.
He thought at first of traversing me with one of the long arrows that are the ancient weapon of Mongol warriors. He took the bow that one of his companions was carrying and drew one from his quiver, but he must have found the form of the arrow too short.
“Have you a longer one?” he said.
He changed his mind, fortunately for me, and threw the bow to the ground. Then he drew the enormous saber that he had at his side.
I darted a circular glance around. I saw the faces of people who were about to witness an interesting spectacle, but who were not palpitating, because the outcome was certain. Doors banged. The square was full of people who were showing one another the dead horse, and exclaiming, but muffling their exclamations because of the presence of Yacoub and his warriors. I recognized the literate and was surprised by the sincere expression of sympathy for me that his fearful face expressed.
I no longer had more than two or three minutes to live: that was the general sentiment that I perceived, and which impressed me disagreeably.
Yacoub measured me with his gaze. Did he have the chivalric thought of equaling the combat or did he want to satisfy the spectacular taste of the audience by having the appearance of equalizing it? With a rapid gesture he unhooked from the belt of a thickest man who was next to him a saber similar to his own and he threw it at my feet.
I had a desire to cry to him that to equalize the combat it was necessary that he took off the thick tanned leather breastplate that covered him to the waist. I contented myself with kicking away the saber and raising my excellent épée toward him slightly, making a sign that it was sufficient for me, in spite of the difference in weight and length by comparison with my adversary’s weapon. That provoked laughter. I threw my turban to the ground in order to be freer in my movements and everyone laughed again. I was vanquished in advance, and hence ridiculous.
At that moment, a drum-roll resounded, which had to come from the gate of the city through which I had entered.
“The Nakar” said several voices in the audience.
The Nakar was the great war-drum of the imperial armies. It was carried on the back of an elephant, and two men struck it in turn.
“Quickly,” cried Yaoub, “go throw his head to Miran, since they’re sending me Miran.”
Miran was an army leader honored by the Emperor for his great wisdom.
And as a sharpshooter shows a target before firing, Yacoub said to the thickest man, loudly enough for his performance to be well-established by everyone: “I’m going to cut it just there, where he has a black cord.”
I had a widened collar, and the black cord of the Jesuits’ scapular had ridden up on my neck and was tracing a black line there, which I could not see but suddenly began to feel.
The blow that Yacoub struck would certainly have cut off my head if, during my childhood, a skillful master had not taught me the art of giving and receiving trenchant blows and alternating them with thrusts of the point. The features of Bertrand de Latourmadour, who had instructed me in the art of combat suddenly reappeared before my eyes.
“Victory in single combat,” he had said, “comes from the concentration of thought in the blow that one is about to deliver.”
In order to obey that precept, I immediately chased that image away, and my first riposte would certainly have wounded Yacoub but for his leather armor. The thickset man saw that and, taking a spear from the arms of another warrior, he attempted to strike my wrist with the shaft in order to break it, crying out several times: “It’s vermin! It’s necessary to crush it.”
The Nakar resonated in the distance, and, because of the necessity of finishing it quickly, all of Yacoub’s warriors would doubtless have thrown themselves upon me, but one does not belong to the oldest nobility on earth with impunity. Kings dating from the primitive formation of societies doubtless intervened confusedly in Yacoub’s soul. Then too, his pride and confidence in his enormous saber assured him in his mind of victory over a young man he considered as a despicable Court favorite.
He launched an imperious order. The circle widened, doubtless in order that he could send my head flying entirely at his ease.
If I had reflected then on the situation in which I found myself, alone in that closed city, fighting with an experienced warrior in revolt against the Emperor, I would have despaired of my fate, and that thought would have diminished my strength. Often, thought is a bad thing. I banished it from my mind and concentrated on the blow to deliver, in accordance with the recommendation of my master Latourmadour.
My head did not roll on the ground, and I saw on the face of my adversary a rage even greater than his surprise. I noticed then how Yacoub’s face, divided by long moustaches, had a pair of short and graying side-whiskers, which I had never seen. Death was suspended
over my head, and I thought: Haven’t those side-whiskers just grown abruptly? And why are his side-whiskers gray while his moustaches are black?
Fortunately, I said to myself immediately: I’m doomed if I occupy myself with his side-whiskers. And I chased away such absurd thoughts.
In such a combat, salvation depends, most of the time, on the quality of the blade. Mine was undamaged in spite of the blows it received. Yacoub, in truth, was a master in the art of fighting with the Mongol saber, but, like many combatants on earth, he was to perish for not having estimated his opponent at his true value.
He renounced the exploit of making my head fly off my shoulders when he understood the difficulty of that enterprise. He was in a hurry. He was awaited on the rampart. As I had broken before his furious attack, he took advantage of the fact that my heel bumped into the saber that he had thrown me—and which still lay on the ground—to precipitate himself upon me with a bound that I would have thought impossible for a man of that age. At the same time as he released his saber he seized the little dagger known as a ginda, which every man of quality wore in his belt. I was saved by the instructive rapidity that permitted me to seize his arm, letting go of my sword and taking from my own belt the ginda that was suspended here.
Nature, in the distribution of strength, had been generous to me and, without giving it the external appearance, had gratified my body with an uncommon force. I had the sensation of bending a tree in one hand and delivering a mighty blow with the other. The circle of spectators had widened when we seized one another bodily, and a rumor had spread. It was not yet terminated when my adversary lay at my feet, his heart traversed clean through the leather breastplate.
I had not withdrawn the weapon. No blood came out of the wound. The certainty of death came from the inexorable immobility. A strangely long silence weighed upon everyone, and great birds that were flying, and whose wing-beats could be heard, suddenly began to glide.
In the silence, I picked up my sword and simulated the greatest calm
Will they hurl themselves upon me en masse? I thought, carefully wiping it and examining the cutting edge, while watching the thickset man from the corner of my eye.
But no one budged. I also picked up my turban, and replaced it on my head.
Interest spoke in souls and informed them that the revolt was dead, that I was a creature of the Emperor and that his soldiers had just made their drum resound at the gate of Almaner.
There was a tumult in the square. I recognized Miran on horseback. He was a celebrated individual. His bridle was being held by the literate who had greeted me. He was trotting beside him, and giving him explanations in a breathless voice. I saw him pointing his finger at me. Miran’s face, framed by a black beard in a fan, remained as impenetrable and severe as a philosophical enigma. Everyone moved aside respectfully before him.
He dismounted and remained standing in front of Yacoub’s body, as immobile as him. He had been his companion in war and his friend, and it was because of that amity that the Emperor had sent him. But their destinies had separated; one had been possessed by a madness of cruelty, the other had marched toward wisdom and it was said that he had attained, it in the solitude of his soul.
The crowd was attentive and silent. Finally, Miran made a movement and turned toward me.
“The Emperor orders you to return immediately to the camp at Ahmednagar,” he said.
I uttered a sigh.
“I have it from my venerable master Kwaji,” said the literate then, as if he were continuing his interrupted speech, “that in spite of his young age, he has his name in the book of friends, his name written by the hand of Aboul Fazi.”
“We are all in the book of the friends of God,” said Miran gravely, as if speaking to himself.
And as I had bent down and was searching the ground attentively, he added in a curt voice: “The order is: without any delay.”
“Do I not have time to pick up a rose?”
“No.”
I hastened to go away.
“I’ll return your horse,” said the literate, accompanying me.
I did not know how to thank that man, to whom I owed a great deal. I measured the effort he must have accomplished to vanquish his timid nature in informing a chief as taciturn as Miran.
I asked him what I could do for him. He smiled.
“The man who has received from God the gift of writing verses is so complete that he cannot desire any other favor.”
How different the poets of India are from those of France, I thought, drawing away.
As I went through the city gate I turned round. The tower was outlined against the sky. The grille of the oval window had disappeared. I saw the contour of a woman’s upper body. She seemed to be leaning in my direction, but I was too far away to be entirely sure.
THE SIEGE OF ASIR
“My son, mistrust any man wearing red boots. Even if the boots are black and only the lining is red, be suspicious. You might well be told that red boots have been in use in Kashmir at all times. Once, the Uighur cavalry only wore red boots. It might be that you are dealing with an inoffensive Kashmiri on someone observing the customary costume of the Uighurs, but all the same, believe me, if a man who has red boots approaches you, be on your guard.”
Thus spoke Pierre Du Jarric. He called me his son, although I was only his cousin—but he loved me more than one loves a distant relative.
“But it seems to me,” I replied, “that the ancient Emperors of Byzantium, and after them the Doges of Venice, wore red brodequins in their ceremonial costume.”
“That’s possible. And that’s not only a matter of coincidence. When one thinks of the roles played by the Emperors of Byzantium and the Doges of the predator city that as Venice, one wonders….”
“But what would be the significance of the choice of that color of footwear?”
“There’s no certainty, but the Orient is such an enigmatic land! What I can tell you might appear risible, and have the effect on you of a fanciful tale. It might be that it is a fanciful tale. But after all, why should a certain category of men not have found it convenient to have a simply sign of recognition? Fundamentally, there are good ones and there are bad ones. And if one admits that the bad ones act consciously, that they are linked together by the interest of enabling evil to triumph, they need to have a sign of recognition. That sign might perhaps be in the color of their boots. So, I say to you: mistrust a man who wears red boots.”
“But I imagine that you haven’t made the long journey from Agra to Asir in order to give me that advice?”
“No, not only for that. But Father Aquaviva thinks that the moment to act has come. Once the city of Asir is taken, Emperor Akbar will be the greatest sovereign on earth.35 The Jesuits ought to reign through him. I have spoken to you about a great treasure to conquer, but that treasure is only a symbol, the exterior sin of power. It is the Emperor’s soul that it is necessary to conquer. We’ll have all the rest as surplus. Now, we have a method of conquering souls, and through you….”
My cousin launched into long explanations concerning that method. It was a question of a magical chain of which I was to be one of the links, and a host of things that surpassed my understanding. In the end, I was only listening with a distracted ear, and thinking about something else, but I felt a shock on perceiving this sentence:
“Do you remember Inès de Saldanna? She will be the second link in the chain.”
I was ready to demand explanations. Certainly, I would have liked nothing better than to make a link in that incomprehensible chain in such company; but at that moment someone lifted up the flap of the little tent that I occupied in the midst of the tents of the officers of the imperial retinue. The Emperor was asking for me urgently.
My surprise was extreme. I thought that I had lost the favor that I had enjoyed. Since the siege of Asir had commenced, I had not been able, in spite of my requests, to be designated among the troops that had attempted assaults against ramparts. W
e had been there for several months, and the rumor had begun to go around that the city of Asir was decidedly impregnable and that the imperial army would be obliged to resume the northward route, not because of the value of the defenders of the Deccan, but because of the height of the walls of the ancient city.
My cousin came out with me and he indicated to me, among the inextricable host of tents, the direction in which he was camped, with two other Jesuits and the priests of different religions who always followed the army.
As he drew away, I noticed, not without astonishment, under the hem of his floating robe, red sandals that I had never seen before.
There was need, for a hazardous enterprise, of a man whose courage almost extended to folly. They had thought of me.
The siege of Asir was becoming eternal. The city enclosed behind its ramparts the elite of the Deccan armies, provisions for several years, immense riches and certain pagodas so ancient and sacred that the gods of India were reputed to inhabit them when they came to earth in human bodies. On an isolated rock in the Satpura chain, with its citadel framed by precipices, its fortified walls, its vaulted galleries and its hills guarded by three fortresses, connected together by lines of ramparts, Asir gave the impression of a great geometrical figure in granite. For centuries, the kings of the Farrukhi dynasty, in anticipation of the coming of the men of the north, had hollowed out subterrains, built arsenals, elephant parks and interior courtyards for livestock. The city was vast in spite of its stone limits; every house had reserves of nourishment in the depths of its cellars, just as every tower had shelters for archers on the platforms of its terraces.
Bahadur, the descendant of the Farrukhis, had only just mounted the throne of the Deccan. He had been cloistered in a remote castle until his thirtieth year, in accordance with the custom of the sovereigns of India, for only thus could royal heirs be preserved from assassination. A Brahmin sage had instructed him in divine things but had not thought that a future King ought to know the things of the earth.
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