Wyvern
Page 47
Jaki knew the truth of her words, and he conceded with a nod and a silent sigh. They remained the Subahdar's prisoners, manacled with gold, caged by wilderness. Unless Lucinda and he abandoned their fortune, what choice did they have but to go forward?
Jaki preferred to live alone and penniless in the mountains rather than wealthy and watched by armed men. So spoke the animal in him — the same animal that had squandered his life in the jungles of Burma. He would be tiger's scat now if Lucinda had not saved him. She knew this world of walls, of cities and empire, of money and barter. She knew to wait for the tiger. And he knew well enough now to trust her. So he tried to stop thinking of running away from the walls. He remembered a vision he had shared once with Jabalwan — that soon the whole world would become a wall. In his loneliness, he confided in Dhup.
The monk had been given a horse and, in fact, rode better than he walked. He and Jaki followed Lucinda's carriage together.
“I have watched your clumsiness. You are no ordinary man."
"We are all ordinary," the monk replied. "What is extraordinary is how ordinary."
The memory of the fakirs performing their siddhis struck Jaki. "My teacher, toward the end of his life, took me to the mountains to show me a skill he called spirit fist. He dangled from cliffsides like a hummingbird and once punched me senseless without touching me. He said the power is ordinary. Everyone has this. It is the strength that moves in our bones, that heals our wounds and grows our hair. He called it spirit wind. You know of it?"
"For a man with a wife and a child coming" — Dhup smiled wearily and shook his cubic head — "You are enacting the rites. You are a husband. Soon you will be a father. Now is not the time to greet the power growing your hair. Leave that for those who live alone, who have married the force growing their hair. You are married to the world. Make your place in this mystery, Jaki, and think hard on those around you. What holds people together is a pain that has no wound. All your love grows from this pain. Those who understand this are wiser than good or evil. Do secret good."
After that, Dhup deflected all conversation about spirit wind by quoting the sutras on the wounds of wanting. Jaki preferred to ride in silence. If the heart, with its hungers, is madness, what is love? Is Dhup right? Is love the child of pain? Is that the meaning in the opium image of Father eating the gruesome child? A long murder called life?
These black thoughts churned within Jaki, and he strove to hide them. Ahead lay Mandu and peril to all he loved. Once he ascertained that Lucinda could not be dissuaded from following the Subahdar, he spent his time with her at the frequent roadside stops extending his chess game, while keeping his darkest strategies to himself.
*
Mandu rose from the southwest sky, its mosque domes and palace turrets lit by golden daybreak. Perched along the crest of the Vindhya Mountains, the Muslim city gleamed like a bed of pebbles under the sky's gigantic river. The battlement wall ribboned across the horizon, appearing and disappearing among folds and rills of the mountains.
"Mandu is eight English miles long," the Subahdar declared to the travelers. "The circuit of the wall is almost twenty-three miles," he said, sweeping his gem-knuckled hand across the long vista. He had charged into their camp the night before with twenty horsemen and relieved the soldiers who had escorted them from Saugor. When he waved parchment sheets at Lucinda, trading papers for the rajahs on the road to Surat, she glowed with joy. Jaki, though glad to see her happy, did not much like the papers for being paper. All anxiety dimmed before the view of Mandu this morning. The city shone, glorious and huge. Then, the travelers descended a mossy trail. For an hour they traveled through a valley of ancient pines, where night still hung like a beard among the boughs. Near a pine bog, the Subahdar called the procession to a stop so that the women could rest. He dismounted, and his men followed, knotting their reins together and dispersing along dim paths into scraggly underbrush to relieve themselves.
Jaki tied his horse to Lucinda's carriage and with his medicine bag slung over his shoulder wandered over the rock outwash of a cliffwall into the darkness of willow flats. He hunkered under a tree as if to empty his bowels and removed two items from his bag: the hollow reed he had shaped into a blowpipe as tiny as his fingernail — and, embedded in treewax, a thorntip soaked in poison. He peeled away the wax, inserted the dart in the blowpipe, and capped the pipe at both ends with the wax. Then, he thumbed the wee weapon into the vault of his mouth and used the wax to affix it to his palate. The poison would take him if the casing broke. He accepted that risk, unable to dim his suspicion. This, he knew, would be their last stop before reaching Mandu, and he had to be certain that in the capital of his enemy he at least had the power to sting.
Jaki tucked his diamonds into the pocket of the folded Wyvern standard and buried the cloth under gravel and willow leaves. He marked the spot with three stones that he leaned into a pyramid. Then he returned to the group with his medicine bag weighted down with rocks.
They rode for another hour before the trail lifted through a glen of sunslants and stately trees. A herald's trumpet blared from ahead, and its echoes bounced into the canyons. With the next bend, cliffwalls fell away, and the sky opened to a cloudless blue panoply above massive ramparts the color of dried blood.
On a high turret above the arched entryway, a herald blared on his trumpet again, and sentries posted in the open gateway raised their pikes in formal salute to the Subahdar. The trail had widened enough for four horsemen to ride abreast, and Jaki and Dhup, flanked by soldiers, entered the mountain city behind the women's carriage and Kota's painted wagon. They trotted under the stone archway into the city, and he observed archers in the battlements and musketmen patrolling the tree-lined boulevard inside the wall. Beyond the trees, nailed to warped planks crossed in X's and leaning against the parapet, a dozen naked bodies hung, aswarm with carrion birds.
"Whoever has found the world has found a corpse," Dhup quoted in English from the sutras, and urged his horse closer to the Subahdar's. "Who are these unfortunates?"
"Rebels," Hadi answered, not averting his gaze from saluting troopers who flanked the boulevard. "Fanatical supporters of Shahryar — men who shared the same devotion as myself and Prince Dawar Bakhsh. They refused to accept the new Moghul Shah Jahan. I should be nailed there myself were I not resolved to serve whoever sits on the Peacock Throne."
Dhup dismounted as soon as they had passed the site of the execution. "I will stop here to pray before these corpses," he told the Subahdar and Jaki. "And then I will visit the shrines of Mandu."
"The dead best serve themselves," the Subahdar said. "But do as you must." Hadi waved to his troopers to let the monk pass. Dhup pressed his palms together, bowed, and turned toward the corpses silhouetted in the morning glare.
Lucinda and Maud had not seen the bodies from their carriage, so entranced were they by the marble buildings and garden-lined avenues. Kota, at the reins of his wagon, had turned his head from the crucified men and smiled broadly with forced bravura, trying to blot the ill omen by imagining the bounty they would cull from this opulent city. Limp garlands and the shattered rags of fireworks festooned the gutters, remnants of the three-day celebration honoring the new Moghul's coronation.
The Subahdar guided them to a palace of blue marble that shone like ice. "Here you will leave all your weapons," he commanded, "and I will accompany you into the presence of Prince Dawar Bakhsh."
Jaki stood up in his saddle and nudged back his fawnskin hat. "Why must we leave our weapons?" he asked. "We have dined together before with our weapons at our sides."
"Yes," Hadi acknowledged with a judicious nod, "but never with a prince. My men will collect your weapons here, and you will come with me into the reception garden."
When Hadi pulled away to give this order to his men, Jaki dismounted and frowned at Lucinda. "This is not good."
"We need no weapons here, Jaki," Lucinda told him. "We are in the protection of the Subahdar and his prince."
The Subahdar motioned for them to follow him up the white stairs, and Jaki restrained Lucinda with a hand on her arm. "Maud and Kota will join us, of course," he said to Hadi.
The Subahdar frowned. "You are meeting a prince. Have some consideration for his sensibility. He will not want to share his presence with your servants."
"They are not our servants," Lucinda insisted, and Jaki regarded her with surprise. "We have traveled together from Dagon, thousands of miles, through jungle and over desert and mountains. If they are not deemed worthy of the prince, then neither are we. Convey our apologies to Prince Dawar and show us where we shall be staying while we are your guests in this city."
The Subahdar lifted his hands in exasperation. "My apologies," he said with contempt. "Bring your companions. We will not detain the prince any longer."
Jaki waved Kota to his side. "Be sharp now," he whispered to the swarthy man. "We are in the dragon's lair. Stay close to the women."
They climbed glassy stairs and entered the palace beneath a speartipped marble dome. Plasterwork galleries arched overhead, illumined by oil lamps in nets of iron lace. Jaki pretended to admire their filigree while he noted the six archers who took up positions behind them at the only exit.
They waited a long time before a massive bronze door while the Subahdar spoke softly with the archers at the end of the portico. Sparrows flitted among the galleries. Sunlight climbed two more stairs, and at last the immense metal door swung outward on giant hinges. Blue-robed men in white turbans bowed to the Subahdar and stood aside to admit him. They ignored the sword at his side but meticulously searched each of his four guests. They took Jaki's medicine bag and, at the Subahdar's signal, left it beside the door. From Kota they removed a dagger hidden in his boot cuff. Lucinda frowned at him. "You are no longer a pirate, Kota," she berated him. "Has your wealth done nothing to soften your hostility?" He shrugged and winked at Jaki, who placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.
Hadi strode over the onyx threshold, and the others followed into an expansive courtyard open to the sky. At the center rose a curtained gazebo with brilliant blue awning tasseled with pearls, beneath which sat the prince, backed by two men with scimitars. A splinter of a man, he wore exquisite silk robes that hung bulkily on his frame. He motioned them closer. Hadi strode four paces and dropped to his knees, face lowered, palms face up. Lucinda and Maud curtsied, and Jaki and Kota removed their hats and lowered their heads, both of them searching the courtyard from the corners of their eyes, placing the guards.
Prince Dawar stroked his whiskers with long fingers and spoke softly in Persian to Hadi. Behind him, the curtain of the gazebo parted, and William Quarles stepped out. Jungle fever had harrowed his face to a waxy mask behind a singed beard, and the cold stars of his gray eyes fastened on his daughter, full of sparkling concentration. He held his square hand out for her.
"Father!" Lucinda exhaled, almost soundlessly. The shock of seeing him whirred through her, and she sagged against Jaki.
The Subahdar jumped to his feet and stood before them with a sharp smile. "Deception brought you here more safely than force, Mistress Quarles," he said as the guards closed in from the edges of the chamber. "Go quietly now to your father." He looked to Jaki. "Let her go and spare her the sight of your spilled blood."
Anger burst through Lucinda's surprise, and she glared past the Subahdar at her father. "You cannot have me back!" she yelled. "I am married now!"
Quarles's outstretched arm beckoned her, and he shook his haggard head. "Come, Lucinda," he said in his bass rumble. "You are still my child. Come to me."
"Never!" she shouted past the guards who had stopped before her. "I belong with my husband. I am carrying his child. I will not leave him."
Jaki searched for an opening among the closely ranked guards and saw none. Kota, who had also been looking, caught his eye and shook his head. At a signal from the Subahdar, the guards grabbed Lucinda and pulled her away.
With his tongue, Jaki dislodged the reed waxed to the roof of his mouth, bit off the gum caps, and clenched the tiny blowpipe firmly. The metallic flavor of the poison wrinkled his mouth and stung his tongue. Guards closed on him swiftly, and he stepped forward as if to meet them, while actually angling for a clear shot at the Subahdar. He held his head high, peering over the guards' shoulders as they seized him. They converged on him with such force they hoisted him off his feet. Lucinda dragged toward her father cried out, her stricken face craning to see him. Maud and Kota did not struggle and guards led them docilely away.
Jaki looked around. The poison leaking into his mouth had already numbed his tongue. He had to act quickly or he would die. He would not kill a hapless guard; he wanted the Subahdar.
A slap resounded in the courtyard, and Lucinda's cries stopped. He turned and saw his wife slumped over between two Moghuls, Quarles clutching her long hair and lifting her face to meet his furious stare. He tore the tiger's beard from her throat and threw it to the floor. Jaki's sight dizzied, and he realized that he had waited too long. The poison began paralyzing his brain. He sagged, and the flanking guards bolstered him.
The Subahdar's regal figure appeared suddenly before him holding the medicine bag he had retrieved from the door. Jaki pulled back as if to avoid the man, and, as he had hoped, the guards lugged him firmly forward. He reversed himself abruptly, sprang ahead, his whole body outstretched, and spat through the reed blowpipe.
The dart spun wild and dropped harmlessly to the floor beside the Subahdar's boots. Jaki gagged and let the tainted reed drop from his numb mouth. Swords hissed and flashed, and the Subahdar's shout stopped them as metal bit the flesh under Jaki's ribs. Hadi opened the bag and yelped to find stones. He gripped Jaki's face in a gruff hand and stared into his sickened eyes. He barked something in Turki, then said loudly in English, "The fool has poisoned himself trying to kill me." His own sword came up and nicked Jaki's throat.
"Stop!" Quarles called. He looked to the prince, who had watched the seizure from his throne with slumberous opium-eyes. The prince lifted a frail finger, and the Subahdar lowered his sword. Quarles nodded for the guards to take his daughter away, and he approached the pirate. He looked even younger than Quarles had remembered from the night of the duel in Macao. He searched the heathen's face for the pugnacity that he had expected and saw only a boy dopey with defeat. "Do not kill him yet," he told the Subahdar. "I must speak with my daughter first before I will know how he must die."
The Subahdar waved the guards away, and they dragged Jaki across the courtyard in the opposite direction from where Lucinda had been hauled. The poison invaded his brain, and with the mosaics of the floor shuttling under his gaze, he slid into darkness.
*
Lucinda sat sobbing on a marble bench in an enclosed garden while Maud hovered nearby, fretfully scanning the enclosure for the inevitable approach of William Quarles. When he did arrive, she gasped at the sight of him. Hatless, a state she had rarely seen him in, he looked gaunt and severe.
Lucinda lifted a contemptuous stare to her father and did not rise. "You have no right to take me from my husband," she said with a tight jaw.
Quarles stood before her, hands fisted at his sides. Anger gilded his stomach and lungs with acid. "Are you carrying his child?"
She thrust her face toward him. "Yes." Her lip flinched, expecting a blow.
Quarles did not move. The months of anguish that he had endured, tracking her through malarial jungles and across mountains, had all concentrated to this moment. Looking into her scornful face, he did not recognize her. Her escape had changed her. Her sun-streaked hair and burnished features were not those of the girl he had reared. And the vacuum in his chest that he had expected her to fill only swelled tighter against his ribs.
"You are mad," he said then, and his hands unclenched as a flush of pity tempered his rage. "The lustings of flesh have shaken you, Lucinda.
You are not the daughter I knew."
"I am not mad," she replied hotly. "You are mad to pull asunder husband and wife."
"Hope now is my only delight, daughter." He extended an open hand to touch her cheek, and she pulled away. "I can only hope that time will heal your madness. For surely you have lost your wits to throw yourself away on a sea rover and a rover’s life of hardship. You are not meant by heaven or precedent to live in the wilderness. What you think love is the ambition of lust, an inward fury that has blasted your reason."
"And the child that I carry?" she demanded. "Will you pretend that my child is madness?"
"Wisdom must bear what our flesh cannot banish. You will have the child in England."
"No!" she said, furiously. "I will have this child with my husband, the man I married before God. You have no right to separate us."
"Daughter," he said in a gasp of sorrow. "You will bless me for saving you when you are right again." He turned away from the stiff face that condemned him. "We leave on the morrow."
"I will not!" she shouted after him. "I will kill myself first!"
He did not look back. Her threat held her face before him, and he imagined her hanged by the neck, curled about poison in a puddle of vomit, dashed among rocks ... he put a hand to his damp brow. Watched closely until she recovered from her madness, she would return to herself. He needed that faith. Or better she were dead — and he could not bear that. At least Providence had delivered her into his hands, and fate had granted him the term of her pregnancy to heal her of her imbalance. He knew her well enough to believe she would not kill her child, and he prayed that, despite her threat, despite his great fear that she might never recover, she would grant him an heir to bless his pitiless life.