Beneath a Marble Sky

by John Shors

  Such insults were increasingly common between my siblings, and Father took fleeting interest in the exchange. However, my attention was gathered by their words. “We’ll ride far and hard,” Aurangzeb warned. “The poets will be left behind.”

  Dara, though as naïve as a virgin bride, was no coward. Nor was he physically weak. “But not I,” he replied, turning from Aurangzeb.

  We finished the meal in silence. I suspected Father would have preferred to dine alone with me, as we often did. On such nights we spoke of the Taj Mahal or rekindled memories of Mother. Tonight the tension between Dara and Aurangzeb seemed to taint the air.

  After we were served desert, and the servants had left, Father looked at my brothers. “My sons, who are like a mongoose and a cobra in the same pen, put aside your differences, just once, for this journey. The Persians seek peace, and peace they shall have. But only, Aurangzeb, if you go in good faith. And Dara, on military matters, you’ll obey your younger brother.”

  Father proceeded to advise them on negotiations, and then they left silently. I noticed that both their plates were empty. I was about to ask Father of his day when he said, “I don’t know what to do with them, my child. I fear there shall be more than words between them.”

  I eased closer to him, leaning against the circular cushion bordering the carpet. “But you’re still young and healthy. We won’t have to deal with that problem for many years.”

  “Let it be so, please Allah. For what does a father do with two such sons?” He took off his spectacles and, after sipping his wine, whispered, “I love Dara, but is he strong enough to be the Emperor? I have always trained him to take my place, but perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps Aurangzeb, as…vexing as he may be, would prove to be a stronger leader. And with enemies pressing on all sides, we might need a warrior, not a scholar, as our next emperor.”

  Dimly aware of the dancing girls and the ringing bells about their feet, I wondered if Father was right. “Who did Mother think would be best?”

  He toyed with a heavy ring of silver. “Dara.”

  “Then you weren’t mistaken.” I kissed him and said good night, heading for my room. Though I’d soon be awake, I changed into my sleeping gown and sought rest. To ease my mind, which raced and twisted my stomach, I recited my favorite verses of the Qur’an, whispering them until my pulse slowed.

  Much later—for the candles in my room had burnt themselves out —an urgent knocking caused me to bolt upright. I hurried to the door. Outside stood Nizam, his eyes bright with fear. “Your brother, my lady! He’s very sick!”

  I didn’t bother to dress, nor put on my sandals, but hurried to Dara’s room. His wife, whom I had last seen a moon before, knelt at his bed. So did Father. A chamber pot beside Dara reeked of decay and vomit. Drenched in sweat, he moaned incoherently, gripping his sides.

  “What ails him?” I asked worriedly, just as Aurangzeb entered the room.

  “I’ve sent for the physician,” Father said, glancing toward the door. “May Allah give his legs strength.”

  Dara moaned again and promptly retched. He lacked the will to turn to the chamber pot and hence vomited upon himself. His wife shrieked as I fell to my knees beside him. “What hurts?” I questioned, my heart raging so fiercely that I was certain others could hear it. “Tell me!”

  “My…stomach,” he stammered, barely coherent. “It feels afire!”

  Hurriedly the old man shuffled into the room, carrying a wool bag and wearing the same oversized turban as before. I moved aside and he wordlessly took my place. “Where…where, my prince, does it ache?” he asked, winded enough that he could hardly string together two words.

  “My…my gut.”

  The physician looked carefully into the chamber pot. “Your fever, my prince, is it cold or hot?”

  “Cold.”

  Nodding, the physician inspected his patient. He felt for the strength of his pulse, studied the movements of his eyes. He then pinched Dara’s tongue. “Too dry,” he muttered.

  “What’s happening?” Father asked, turning from Mecca to the physician.

  The old man considered his prognosis. “Too early to tell, my lord. Perhaps malaria. Perhaps some other wretched fever.” He paused, leaning to withdraw some herbs from his bag. “I require tea,” he said to no one in particular.

  Nizam left instantly. Aurangzeb stepped closer to his brother, his face seemingly compassionate. “What can be done?”

  “The herbs will help with the fever, my prince. He may be fine in a few days. It may take a week.” The physician wiped his brow in apparent concern. “But if the fever doesn’t abate, he could…he may leave us.”

  Father groaned at this news and Dara’s wife sobbed. I draped a blanket over my brother’s writhing form. “Should he eat or drink?” I asked, genuinely concerned, guilt rising in my blood.

  “No food, my lady. But much of my tea. He’ll drink it all night, no matter if he throws it up or gulps it down.” The old man rose. “But you should all leave. If it’s a fever, the infected air could steal into your lungs. I’ll stay with him.”

  “Please,” I begged, “please let me help.”

  “Not tonight,” Father replied, taking charge of the situation. “The physician shall stay. The rest of us will return to our rooms.”

  “I want to—”

  “Go, child!”

  “Please.”

  “Go!”

  We cleared the room as one, and I promptly slammed my door shut. My plan, even if unfolding as it should, was all too real. I wanted Dara’s pain, which far surpassed my intentions, to stop. Perhaps Nizam had given him too much meat! How could I, who knew nothing of medicine, have expected to poison him just right?

  In the hall I heard Father and Aurangzeb talking. My younger brother, it became evident, would travel to Persia alone. That journey was too important to forfeit, even now. Aurangzeb didn’t argue with Father. His voice, though he tried to cloak it, rang with jubilation. After all, Dara might die tonight, die without the risky intervention of swords and men. Furthermore, though Aurangzeb had grown less transparent than in his youth, I was almost certain he would attack the Persian envoy.

  After I heard Father depart, Ladli’s familiar voice rang forth. Why she was in the royal chambers I could hardly fathom, but despite my turbulent emotions, I was quick to realize that she presented me with an opportunity to further fool Aurangzeb. Perhaps her intention was thus.

  As my brother and his mistress spoke, I stormed out of my room. Ladli stood barely three paces from me, and when she saw the rage on my face, her fear was real enough. “Get out!” I demanded.

  I tried to slap her, but Aurangzeb caught my wrist easily, his grip so strong that I yelped in pain. “She’s no concern of yours, sinner,” he hissed.

  “Do you hear him, you plague-infested, treacherous rat?” Ladli added.

  “Treacherous? You betrayed me!”

  “Am I the thief?”

  “You—”

  Ladli spat at my feet. “Be glad you’re the Emperor’s daughter, Jahanara, or you’d be flogged like a common criminal, a sight I’d certainly like to see! I suspect your pretty little body wouldn’t hold up well.”

  “At least I’m no whore!” I shrieked, trying to slap her as Aurangzeb, while denouncing my language, threw me into my room. I banged my shins against a low table and toppled to the ground. Suddenly I was overwhelmingly confused. Ladli, though only playing her role, seemed actually to hate me. How was it possible for best friends even to say such things to each other? Could she be lost to me forever, now that we’d always have to pretend to be foes? Amid sudden tears, I vowed to meet her secretly again.

  A series of moans emerged from Dara’s chambers. Thoughts of Ladli fled and my concern for him returned. However much I wanted to sneak back and comfort my brother, as w
ell as to tell him the truth, I could never mention what had happened. He would lose face, and never trust me again, regardless of whether I’d saved his life.

  Trying to ignore his cries, I paced my room like a caged lioness, paced until my feet ached and my legs turned to stone. The night vanished slowly, as if trying to torture me further. When dawn finally emerged, I was still sleepless, praying for Dara and begging Allah’s forgiveness.

  Just after the sun reached its zenith, long after Aurangzeb left to face the Persians, the exhausted physician came to us and said that Dara’s fever had yielded. The old man believed, quite incredibly to us all, that he’d be well. I broke down then, and Dara’s wife and I cried together.

  Dara, still reeking of filth, smiled at our womanly emotion.

  Chapter 11

  Daybreak

  Though I made many mistakes in my life for which I paid dearly, poisoning Dara was not one of them. My dear brother recovered quickly from his ordeal and we all marveled at the strength of his constitution. The physician said that men often died from fevers of this sort. Yet Dara was healed in a matter of days. I hadn’t expected my co-conspirator to spend the entire night with my brother and secretly rewarded him with a bolt of gossamer silk and a spool of golden thread.

  Aurangzeb, as I had predicted, went northwest, seeking trouble. He later reported to Father that Persians had ambushed his undersized force, but I believed the opposite was true. Aurangzeb fashioned a pile of Persian heads at our border, and Father worried about renewed attacks from our foe. Our warriors, however, prized my brother for his victory.

  Not three weeks passed before our reviled neighbors to the south, the Deccans, were again hoping to carve Hindustan in two. The Deccans had been troublesome in earlier times, but not altogether threatening. Alas, more recently a powerful sultan had risen in Bijapur, a city we claimed as ours but which the Deccans declared otherwise. This sultan sent his troops northward to raid, and raid they did, burning our crops and stealing our livestock. Father ordered Aurangzeb, with forty thousand battle-hardened warriors, to quell the rebellion.

  We soon learned that Aurangzeb, after enduring harsh losses, had laid siege to Bijapur and captured it within a week—a tremendous victory by all accounts. The outcome pleased Father, for now the Sultan of Bijapur would have to pay tribute to the Empire and sign a profitable treaty of vassalage. His fame as a warrior spreading, Aurangzeb was appointed Viceroy of the Deccan. Fortunately, he was ordered by Father to stay in the south for many months, ensuring that the conquered remained on a short leash.

  Life in Agra was far removed from such conflict. We watched the soldiers and war elephants train but had little else to do with the fighting. After all, we had twenty-two thousand men working feverishly on our mausoleum and it swelled slowly upward. When the first structural bricks were set in place for the splendid, tear-shaped dome, we celebrated the achievement with Chinese rockets.

  Early one morning Isa sent a pair of messengers to Father and me at the Red Fort, who requested that we follow them to the Taj Mahal. Though we had not eaten breakfast, we complied with their wishes. As they neared the sprawling site, the messengers turned to us and asked if we’d dismount, adding that Isa wanted us blindfolded and then guided to a clandestine location. Father’s royal guards bristled, their hands darting to their sword hilts. A carefree wave from the Emperor, however, eased their worries.

  Thus blinded, we were led up a series of steps. I feared stumbling into something hard, but my guide took extreme care to usher me around obstacles. Despite the day’s freshness, the air buzzed with activity. Elephants trumpeted, masons chiseled and men chanted as they worked. Such sounds seemed heightened by my blindness, and I resolved to close my eyes more often. Surely the voices of birds, or the drumbeat of rain, must be even more rewarding than what I heard now.

  I knew we had gone inside something when the edges of my blindfold turned from yellow to black. “Please keep your eyes closed,” Isa softly advised. Hands withdrew the fabric from our faces, yet all was still dark. “These walls,” my secret lover said, “which temporarily lean against each other, will become the skin of the Taj Mahal. They’ll cloak her interior and exterior. And, if I might be so bold, they’ll steal your breath, my lord. Now, if you’d please open your eyes.”

  Our world blossomed. The first thing I noticed was that we were in a room, rather a box, of white marble. But the marble, despite its brilliance, did little to captivate me. What did were the hundreds, no, the thousands, of flowers adorning the walls—delicate forms of lily, iris, tulip and narcissus. The corollas of these creations were gracefully tapered, while the petals and leaves were perfectly configured. Flowing vines connected the flowers.

  I had never seen such beauty, not even in Allah’s best gardens. For these flowers weren’t of water and light, but of semiprecious stones. They were infinitely more colorful than the rings of a rainbow, or the hues of a sunset.

  “Our masters cut thin tendrils of stone, which they inset into the marble,” Isa said animatedly. “They fit the tendrils perfectly into the marble, then bond and seal them.” His voice, serene as always, gathered speed. “You gaze at lapis from Afghanistan, jade from China and Burmese amber. There are pearls and coral from our coast, as well as jasper, green beryl, onyx, agate, amethyst and quartz from our interior.”

  At some places the marble was free of semiprecious stones but had been carved away to reveal immense white bouquets. These sculptures were smooth to the touch and had been polished until they glistened. Even the room’s floor was a godlike work of art, boasting geometric patterns of black marble set within the white. Each line was as straight as the horizon and each angle as sharp as a blade.

  No one spoke for some time. Finally, Isa said, “Try to envision it, my lord. The dome, of course, shall be pure white marble, as will the minarets. But the arches, the kiosks, the walls and the ceilings will be draped with such images.”

  I tried to imagine the finished Taj Mahal, and the mere thought of its beauty made me tremble. Father traced the flowers with his fingers, his palms. “One shall step inside the Taj Mahal and think he has entered Paradise.” He looked toward Mecca and I knew he was begging Allah to let him live long enough to see the sight. “So much beauty,” he whispered.

  “I can feel her,” I said, “within these walls.”

  His eyes glistened. “Yes, my child.”

  Isa smiled at me, and I was entranced by his stare. How could one man conjure such magic? Though the best craftsmen in the world toiled for him, I sensed his hands everywhere. They were the hands of a poet, perhaps, a man who could make one weep by looking at a stone. Suddenly I wanted his hands upon me. I yearned to kiss each finger. For they were hands too precious for this world, this place of suffering and woe.

  Why would such a man love me? I wondered. And could our affection, as noble as it might be, inspire him to create such majesty?

  Love. Such a simple feeling, yet such a force of creation. My parents’ love, I was sure, would be written about until the end of time. Our own love, may it last forever, would be celebrated unknowingly for centuries through the dressings of the Taj Mahal. How fortunate we were, I realized. Men like Aurangzeb might know victory on a field of battle; they might earn titles and untold wealth. But could they ever reach such a height as this? When they were decrepit and dying, would they be content with their memories, or wallow in their lost opportunities? I suspected that their regrets would be many, and I pitied Aurangzeb, for his life would never be as complete as mine.

  I gazed at my lover, thanking Allah for this man, this most precious of gifts.

  “You honor the Empire, Isa, with your skill,” Father said quietly.

  “I’ve only a small role in this play, my lord.”

  Father nodded, then asked, “Would you leave us, please? Go from this room, and ensure that no one draws near.”

 
“Certainly.”

  When Isa was gone, Father placed his hands on my shoulders. “I understand why you love him.”

  “But Father—”

  “Your adoration for him, child, is as open for all to see as the wares of a greedy merchant.”

  “It is?”

  “You are young in such matters. But others are not. I see your love when you smile at each other, when your eyes linger upon meeting.” He ceased speaking long enough to slide his smallest ring onto my largest finger. “I’m delighted you’ve found love, my child. I was wrong about Khondamir. And I’m sorry, more sorry than you’ll ever know, about that mistake. Please forgive me.”

  “Nothing needs forgiveness.”

  He kissed my finger, the one bearing my new ring. “You must be much more careful. Your love is dangerous. If Khondamir or one of my enemies should discover it, Isa’s life would be in terrible jeopardy. I could protect you, but not him.”

  I massaged my temples, as my head ached from a sudden fear of discovery. “But what am I to do, Father? How can I love him, as Mother loved you, if I can’t hold him?”

  Father turned to the nearest wall, once again tracing its flowers with his fingers. “Truly beautiful work. The best I’ve seen in a lifetime spent gazing at such masterpieces.”

  “But,” I persisted, “what shall—”

  “Don’t always move with such haste, Jahanara. I fear that impatience is your true weakness, for the tiger that springs too early often goes hungry.” I stifled a response, smart enough to realize that my rashness was a fault. Father chuckled at my intake of breath. “Do you think that I, who loved so much, would leave you alone in this plight?”

  “You have the Empire to run,” I offered lamely.

  “Yes, even if my sons run it more each day. Soon I’ll be a decoration, much like that golden peacock straddling my throne.” Though he’d hardly mind such a life, I stayed silent. “I think it’s time for you to have better quarters,” he said finally.