by John Shors
Night fell and the celebrations began in earnest. Scant time was available to prepare a feast and most people went without food and drink. However, we lit the sky with Chinese rockets and our musicians played sitars until their fingers were numb. Men danced in unruly hordes, while Persian warlords and their women smiled or even clapped. Those of us fortunate enough to have wine drank until our flasks were dry.
At last Isa found me. Arjumand was still on his shoulders, and he handed her to Father, who again wore his tunic. Though I wanted to leap into Isa’s arms, I could only give him a congratulatory nod. He winked and we laughed as one.
The rockets ceased when the moon, ripe and glowing, rose. The night was clear, and moonlight slanted down to illuminate the Taj Mahal. The vast structure seemed to attract and magnify the light. Thousands of torches were extinguished and laughter dwindled. A few elephants trumpeted wearily, but tranquility otherwise prevailed. Elation turned to awe and awe to reverence. People sat in the mud and watched, transfixed, as the Taj Mahal brightened, so smooth and seamless that it might have been carved from a single piece of ivory.
Father, acting as if he’d discovered a new world, walked toward the main archway. Our people parted like curtains to let him pass. I followed him, holding Arjumand’s hand. Behind us trod Isa and Dara. Those inside must have sensed that Father wished to be alone with his wife, for as we entered the mausoleum, they left its gleaming interior. The tomb chamber was the centerpiece of the Taj Mahal and a sight to chill one’s flesh. It was shaped as an octagon, with eight arched doorways offering access. A dozen men standing atop each other couldn’t have touched the domed ceiling. Blackness should have prevailed here, yet the marble shone as if possessed of a magical transparency, as if each arch and wall were luminous from within. We seemed to stand beneath a white marble sky.
The eye of the room was Mother’s tomb, though it remained empty. She was buried within a vault far below. Her tomb, a rectangular block of white marble, boasted the most splendid arrangements of jeweled flowers that I’d seen. Garlands of tulips and fuchsias, incredibly rich with detail, would blossom eternally here.
Father knelt before the tomb, kissed it, then began to pray. The room was a place of echoes, and Allah’s name drifted eerily among us. Though Arjumand was tiring quickly, she honored us all by bowing to the tomb and, facing Mecca, adding her prayers to our own. We stood thus for some time.
Finally, Father turned to us and asked kindly if we’d leave. Dara smiled at me before disappearing into the crowds. Isa, Arjumand and I squeezed through the thousands of dusty and disheveled people surrounding the site. We walked to the trampled gardens, passing beneath palm and cypress trees. The songs of crickets mingled with the cry of an owl. Isa found a secluded patch of grass and we sat down tiredly. Arjumand stretched out, placing her head on my lap.
“Good night, Mother,” she mumbled.
“Will you dream of us?” I asked.
“I’ll try.”
I ran my hands through her hair, loving her enormously. Though I wanted Isa to hold her, we weren’t so hidden that I thought it safe. He sat respectfully apart from me and I had to kiss him with my eyes. Most men would have bent under such duress, but Isa smiled. We stared at each other, then looked to the Taj Mahal.
When Arjumand was asleep, I gently lowered her head to the grass. I then stepped a few paces away from her. “What shall you do,” I asked Isa softly, “now that it’s built?”
“There’s still much work, years of work, to be done.” He shrugged, as if he cared little to discuss such matters. When he next spoke his voice was hooded, like the call of the owl. “Do you remember, Swallow, our first night here together?”
“You were so excited.”
“Yes. But even then…even then I somehow loved you.” He reached for a rose that lay severed beneath its bush. “I’d give it all up,” he whispered, glancing at the Taj Mahal, “for you.”
A pair of boisterous Europeans passed and we quieted. Though I wanted to reach out to him, I dropped this coal of desire into cool water. “How is it, Isa, that we found each other?”
“Allah was kind.”
“But was it Allah, or simple luck?”
He twirled the rose as he thought, inhaling its sweetness. “It was more than luck,” he answered. “Luck might aid one in a game of chance, but something much more…infinitely more unfaltering brought us together.”
“What?”
“Truth, I think.”
“Truth?”
“Aren’t we true to ourselves, true to each other, when we’re together?”
More rockets exploded above. Our people were celebrating, for burning floats started to come down the river. Thousands of floats were visible, and soon the Yamuna was a vast shimmering torch. The floats drifted south, spreading apart with the current.
“Are you saddened, Isa, that I’ve never borne you a son?”
He was surprised by the question. “Arjumand’s priceless. She and you are all I’ll ever need.”
“But does it hurt, to never hold her as your own?”
A shadow crossed his face and I knew his pain was real. “It does,” he muttered. “I bleed because I can’t hold her. Nor you.”
I stared at our daughter and saw how her face was narrow, like Isa’s, and how her eyes were round, like mine. “Perhaps we should just leave. We’ve enough rupees and jewels to last a lifetime. Just leave and never return.”
He reached out and, despite the risk, touched my lips. His fingers were rough and rigid, yet reassuring and warm. “Someday, Jahanara, we shall. We’ll travel to the corners of the Empire. Perhaps we’ll even visit Europe, where I hear they build beautiful cathedrals. Then, when our hair is gray and our bones are weary, we’ll buy a simple house near the sea. We’ll fish and paint and grow old together.”
My eyes watered at the thought, and I kissed his fingers. “Promise me, Isa. Promise me that it will happen.”
“I do, my Swallow, I do,” he said, as dawn emerged from its cradle. “All will be fine.”
But in the years that followed, little would be fine.
And much would be horrible.
Chapter 15
The Hands of Isa
We had less than a year to enjoy the Taj Mahal.
During the next monsoon season, Father became ill. A fever struck him down and his flesh dwindled away until he was hardly more than a skeleton. He grew too weak to stand. He muttered, madly, for days on end. We summoned the Empire’s best physicians and paid heavy gold for European doctors. Our physicians gave him herbs and tried to cleanse him with enemas. The Portuguese doctors bled him regularly. Still he weakened.
At the time, Aurangzeb was to the north, fighting a renewed war against the Persians. He had joined forces with my other brothers, Shah and Murad, whom I hadn’t seen in many years. Between them, they commanded seventy-five thousand warriors and were scattering our enemy into the mountains rimming our northern frontier.
But when word of Father’s illness spread across the Empire, the Persians were allowed to escape. We learned from one of Shah’s officers, who had ridden south for days without rest, that Aurangzeb, after hearing the news, launched an attack on his brothers’ armies. Greed, as well as a fanatical desire to place the anti-Hindu prince on the throne, motivated Aurangzeb’s warriors, almost all of whom were Muslims. Aurangzeb surprised his brothers’ much lesser forces at night, overwhelming them. In the end, the heads of ten thousand of our own men were taken.
Shah managed to escape, though no one could swear that he still lived. Murad was executed. According to Shah’s man, who had lost a hand to swordplay and would likely die, Aurangzeb was marching south, hoping to attack us before tales of his treachery arrived. By the officer’s account, we had less than two days to prepare for the assault.
And so we gathered at F
ather’s bed. His face was the color of beeswax and tendrils of his slate-gray hair, which had started to fall out, lay on his cushions. He wore a fresh tunic but had often fouled himself and the room stank of disease. Rods of incense did little to diminish the evil odors. Father was barely lucid, and the physicians advised rest. Yet we desperately needed his counsel. I knelt by his side, while Dara and Nizam stood before him. Nizam had fled south as soon as Aurangzeb’s plans became apparent, arriving shortly after the officer. Though a slave normally would have never been present in such a situation, Father knew Nizam had become a warrior to alert us of Aurangzeb’s tactics. And my friend had done well in Aurangzeb’s army, quietly making a name for himself as a man to be reckoned with. After five long years of fighting, he owned a modest rank.
“How many men…have we?” Father asked weakly, his eyes closed.
Dara shifted from foot to foot. “Fewer than necessary.”
“Not what I asked you.”
“Aurangzeb has our best troops, Father, more than sixty-five thousand strong. We can muster only sixty thousand. But here in the fort, we should be able to—”
Father cut him off with a feeble wave of his hand. “Impossible…for us to win here. Isn’t that true, Nizam?”
My friend stepped forward noisily, for chain mail covered his torso. Nizam also wore a dented helmet, a curved sword at his side and carried a shield on his back. A quiver of arrows was attached to his belt, and a bow lay draped across his shoulder. How, I thought, could the gentle boy I grew up with in the harem have become such a warrior?
“Yes, my lord,” Nizam said softly, his words slow to unfold. “If Aurangzeb traps us here, we’ll never escape. His force will increase in size, while ours weakens.”
“How many elephants has he?”
“We think he wields some fifteen hundred,” Dara replied uneasily, for the number was vast.
“May Allah grant us strength,” Father muttered.
“He has more men, cannons and elephants than we,” Dara added. “And his men are battle hardened.”
I wiped beads of sweat from Father’s creased brow. Over the past day I’d thought of a counter that might offer us victory. But it came with a price. Deciding to finally voice my idea, I said, “What would happen, Father, if we enlisted the aid of the Deccans?”
“The Deccans?” he echoed, strength momentarily returning to his voice. “Why would they flock to our banner?”
“If they fought for us, and we won, we could offer them independence.”
A coughing spell wracked him. When it finally receded, he hacked into a rag I held. “A fine…fine idea, child. But there’s no time. Such a treaty would take weeks to arrange.”
“But couldn’t we survive in the Red Fort for that long? Let’s resist his siege, then when the Deccans arrive, we could attack him from both sides.”
“And Aurangzeb, may Allah forgive his…” Father paused, and I thought he might cry. “Aurangzeb shall lay waste to Agra…if we remain here. He’ll destroy all we’ve built. Starting with the Taj Mahal.”
I shuddered at the thought. But I realized Father was right. “Then what can be done?”
“Attack, my lady,” Nizam offered.
Dara grunted. “How and where?”
“Beyond Agra, my lord. In a place of our choosing.” Nizam rubbed his large hands together. His face was beaded in sweat and his anxiety was palpable. “Aurangzeb knows our numbers,” he said finally. “So it will be hard to deceive him. But perhaps we can use my lady’s idea, after all.”
“The Deccans?” Father asked.
Nizam’s armor creaked as he shifted his weight. “Might I speak freely, my lord?” When Father nodded, Nizam still hesitated. “Say, my lord,” he offered quietly, “we spread the word that we’d gone for their help. And if, in truth, we did so, would you send a few men into their land?”
“No.”
“You’d send a strong force, my lord, one that would return safely. They’d be our fastest warriors. Our cavalry.” Nizam paused again, waiting for some kind of approval.
“Go on.”
“If we sent our cavalry, my lord, perhaps twenty thousand strong, southward tomorrow, they could ride hard, then veer northwest and circle behind Aurangzeb’s approaching force. The bulk of our army could wait for him at a place of our choosing—perhaps a high hill. We could defend it with our cannons and our thousand war elephants. Aurangzeb, who craves the quick kill, will think we don’t have cavalry and will attack our lines. His rear—”
“Shall be unprotected,” Father concluded, rising from his cushions.
“Yes, my lord. Our cavalry, when they hear the cannon fire, could sweep down from the north and attack his rear flank. They’d destroy his forward-facing cannons and much of his infantry.”
“A dangerous plan,” Dara interjected. “For if Aurangzeb should attack our forces separately they’d face annihilation.”
“Certainly a risk, my lord.”
“A risk worth taking,” Father concluded. He clenched his teeth and weakly pointed at my friend. “You’ll…you lead our cavalry.”
“Me?” Nizam said in wonder, for surely he had never dreamed such an honor possible.
Father grimaced. “I could give the task to someone more experienced. But too many traitors…lurk within these walls. Do I know who among my officers is my cheetah…and who is Aurangzeb’s scorpion?” When no one answered, Father continued haltingly, “Come to me tonight with your plans. What hill will…Dara defend? And how will…” Father’s voice trailed off, and he seemed to sleep for an instant. “Come tonight, both…of you.”
Nizam bowed deeply to the Emperor. Though he always stood tall, when he followed Dara from the room his height appeared to have increased. I knew that Father wanted me at his side and so I dipped clean linen in water and wiped his brow again.
“You were clever, Jahanara, to send him…into Aurangzeb’s army.”
“Nizam’s the clever one, not I.” I offered him a sip of water, which he declined. “When it’s over,” I said, “and if we win, will you grant him a piece of land by the river?”
“More than that, my child.” After I thanked him, he motioned that I take his hand. When I did, he asked, “And what…what would you like?”
“For you to recover,” I said, stroking his jeweled fingers.
“Dream larger,” he whispered. “Do you think Allah could create such wonder by dreaming small?”
“You know what I want, Father.”
A series of coughs wracked him. I held his arm as he shuddered, wishing I could somehow ease his pain. “Perhaps,” he stammered, “if we should…be granted victory, I’ll send you far away. I need a skilled politician in Varanasi. If you were to go there, with Arjumand, your shadow…your shadow might follow.”
“My shadow?”
“Isn’t he your shadow? Don’t you live as one?”
“Sometimes.”
“Your mother and I…would speak without talking, love without touching.” He grunted, and I wiped more sweat from his brow. “She was my…no, I was her shadow.”
Despite my fear for him and the looming battle, I tried to smile. “Yes, you were, Father. It was never the opposite.”
“Never?”
“Get well, Father,” I said, rising. “For we’ve much to talk about.”
“Truly…never?”
I smiled and kissed his brow, bidding him farewell. The midday meal was approaching and I headed for the royal kitchen. Years had passed since Ladli labored within its walls, yet out of habit I looked for her. As I entered the warm room, spice-covered servants offered me delicacies. I filled a basket with food, for I wanted to visit the harem and have lunch with Arjumand, who was now old enough to study. About to leave the kitchen, I paused as a woman I’d known since childhood
placed a burnt serving of naan in my basket. I started to ask why she’d give me ruined bread when I noticed a piece of folded paper pressed against it.
Heart sputtering, I thanked her and walked outside. When certain no one could see me, I opened the paper. “I rest with your mother,” it said. Realizing that Ladli must have news, I found a horse and hurried toward the Taj Mahal. For once, the mausoleum didn’t charm me to stillness. I resisted its majesty as I dismounted and, hoping to avoid Isa, strode to the underground passageway. Soon this corridor would be sealed off forever, but today it still offered a recessed door. I always carried keys I might need, and thus opened it swiftly. I left it slightly ajar before stepping inside. Soon a veiled woman, clad like a Persian, entered. Many women in Agra enjoyed anonymity by dressing this way, and thus Ladli could protect her identity without attracting too much attention. I shut and bolted the door behind her. Wordlessly we walked down the corridor, came to another room, entered and secured it.
Ladli pulled off her veil and hugged me tightly. “He plans to kill you!” she said frantically. “He’s going to do it soon and—”
“Slow down, my friend,” I replied, even as my chest tightened and my lungs struggled to draw air. “Is Aurangzeb—”
“He’s sent someone, the half-wit, I think, to violate then kill you!”
“My death…it isn’t enough?”
She squeezed my arm. “May Shiva geld him before I—he wants you to suffer. He wants your ears as proof!”
I covered my ears instinctively. My legs shook, and I swayed unsteadily, collapsing against a dusty wall. “But I saved him,” I said weakly.
“That fornicator of lies denies it! He says you placed the cobra in his room!”
