Beneath a Marble Sky

by John Shors

  As one guard started to ask him something, I cleared my throat. “My younger sister,” I slurred, “isn’t far behind. Will you…won’t you escort her through the gates? She’s alone and but a child.”

  The men might as well have been dogs about to go on a hunt. Their eyes widened and all save one hurriedly left their posts. I muttered good-bye to him, smiling wickedly. Beyond the thick gates, among the mayhem of Agra’s cobbled and darkening streets, our horses were tethered to an iron rail. I giggled as Nizam lifted me atop his mount. I draped my arms about his neck and he spurred the beast forward.

  When far from the Red Fort, I stuffed my jewels into a pocket within Nizam’s tunic. Normally, I’d have tossed the unshapely pearls to the poor, but I realized the pearls might be useful if we had cause to bribe someone. Though I reviled the thin robe adorning me, I could do little but pull myself against Nizam as we rode toward the river.

  Nizam didn’t speak but spurred his horse harder. On the way to the Yamuna, we passed the Taj Mahal. Five years had vanished since I had last seen it so close, and I felt a momentary urge to touch its precious walls. Yet there was no time for such indulgences. At any moment my absence could be discovered, though by now Father had arranged pillows under my blanket to resemble my body. With luck our ruse would remain undiscovered until long after the next change of guards.

  We headed directly for a fishing boat beached beside a score of its brethren. Unlike them, it carried no nets and flopping carp, but several wooden chests. A warrior stood guard over the craft. Nizam gave him a coin and helped him push the boat into the water’s embrace as I stepped within it. About us, fishermen paused in their chores, staring. I disliked so many eyes on us, for surely rumors would ensue. But we’d be far down the river by the time Aurangzeb’s men traced our trail here.

  Nizam leapt into the boat, followed by a fisherman. He must have owned the craft, for he scurried to the tiller and expertly guided us down the river. It was the dry season, and the Yamuna was low, moving lazily. Still, the shore drifted past as we headed south. I splashed water against my face, washing off the wine, perfume and makeup. As the night thickened, I wondered how our captain could safely steer us through such blackness. The lap of water against our hull and the pinpricks of light above made me think of that night so long ago, when Isa and I sat atop the barge as we returned from Delhi.

  “Thank you, Nizam,” I said softly, “for freeing me.”

  “Happily done, my lady.” He moved toward me from the bow, sitting with his back against the mast. “You played your part well.”

  “Too well, you think?”

  “I’m many things, my lady. But not a man who’d judge you.”

  I took a drink of sweetened lemon juice from a goatskin bag. “A slave, once. Then a builder. Then a warrior. What’s next, my old friend?”

  He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “I go with you.” The wind freshened and, as I shivered, Nizam handed me a heavier garment. “We’ll close our eyes,” he said.

  I changed quickly, pleased that he had brought me a simple desert tunic made to fit a boy. I also found a turban, which I wrapped tightly about my head. “Does this part suit me better?”

  “Ask me after a few days on horseback.” I offered him the juice, and he drank thirstily. “It won’t be an easy journey,” Nizam predicted. “We’ll travel fast for many days, through deserts with no ends, across rivers and mountains.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Two weeks. Less if Allah smiles upon us. More, maybe never, if we come across the Deccans or Alamgir’s forces.”

  “I’ll not slow you, Nizam.”

  His eyes settled on mine. “You never have.”

  After so many nights within my cell, the vastness of this night overwhelmed me. I saw an infinite space above, and the river seemed eternal. Is this why Akbar returned to us every night? Did he feel so very small? And are we fools to think Allah might actually care for our struggles?

  Though I believed Allah heard my prayers, upon this night I felt so insignificant that I found it hard to imagine that my life would matter to Him. Surely I was like a grain of sand to a sea. I might tumble against those around me, but currents, tides and time would cast me about until I was light enough for the wind to carry away.

  “Nizam?”

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “Might you sing, as you did so long ago?”

  He had a magnificent voice, and it surged and ebbed as we drifted. His words soothed me, and in truth, I needed soothing. I was afraid of this night, afraid of where the wind might carry me. I couldn’t live without Isa and Arjumand. Already I’d lost my brothers, my mother, and soon I would lose my father. I was gaining strength with age, I knew that much, but how strong could I be when no color remained in the world?

  I hummed with Nizam. Our voices blended—how good to dwell in those sounds. For a time I felt less alone, but then silence came, though it wasn’t truly silence, as I could hear my own tortured thoughts.

  “Please, Allah,” I whispered. “Please let them live.”

  I looked for a sign that He had heard—a dropping star, a leopard’s roar, perhaps. But no sign dawned. And I bit my nails until I bled.

  Chapter 19

  Journeys

  After arriving in Allahabad two days later, we purchased four stallions with Father’s gold. They were fine Persian mounts, not large, but fleet of foot. What few supplies we possessed were packed behind our saddles. I hardly gave Allahabad a second glance, as I was preoccupied with thoughts of my loved ones. It seemed a dull place, with far fewer palaces and mosques than Agra.

  We left Allahabad at dawn, following a beaten trail to the southwest. Nizam had changed into the clothing of a warrior and clearly looked the part. Strapped to his saddle were a musket, bow, quiver, shield, scimitar and two spears. His tunic and turban were light brown, so that he might blend into the landscape. I was clad similarly, though my only weapon was a dagger. The spare horses, also the color of sand, were tied to ours. Nizam said prudence required bringing extra mounts on such a journey. We could never hope to outfight any bandits we might stumble upon, but could outrun most.

  Allahabad disappeared behind us. At the city’s periphery, we encountered colossal fields of rice. Hundreds, if not thousands of frogs lived within the fields, and as we trotted west the moans of these creatures obscured all other sounds. Much life stemmed from the paddies, for butterflies, grasshoppers and mosquitoes drifted above the verdant, ankle-high rice stalks. Amid the tidy rows, farmers had placed stuffed falcons atop bamboo poles. Such falcons, I had heard, kept troublesome crows and rats at bay. So did the slingshots I knew the half-dozen farmers in the fields brandished. The bare-chested men patrolled their crops vigilantly.

  Not far from the paddies and the Yamuna that fed them, the land changed drastically. It became a flat realm, bereft of tall trees or whispering brooks. Patches of tough grass and sickly-looking bushes led to the horizon. The trail, ample enough for us to ride abreast of each other, cut like a scar into the barren earth. Dust rising from our horses’ hooves painted us brown.

  We rode determinedly and the sun rose. No breeze drifted here, only the air’s kiss as our horses trotted. In Agra, with the coolness of the river and the rich gardens, the hot season was endurable. Here it seemed overpowering. Even my light tunic felt thick and became heavier as sweat trickled, then ran down my skin. The sensation was unfamiliar, sticky and tiring.

  My turban shielded my face from the furious sun but felt unwieldy. I asked Nizam if I could remove it, but he made me promise not to do so. I made many such vows. For instance, I wanted to splash water against my skin, but we carried barely enough for the horses and ourselves.

  So this is the life of a soldier, I thought, to march through deserts and die in strange places.

  We passed few travelers that morning.
We did encounter a camel-driven convoy of merchants and their wagons, as well as a group of pilgrims on their way to Mecca. We wished them well, for it is every Muslim’s duty to visit the holy shrine once in his life. The pilgrimage represents that religion is a journey, and also unites travelers by their mutual suffering. Most Muslims trek to Mecca, yet those in power—including Father, alas—often can never set time aside for the long trip.

  When it became too scorching to continue, we left the trail, traveled southerly, and stopped near some boulders. No shade dwelt here, so Nizam took his two spears and stuck them in the ground. He tied a sheet of silk to the spears and the rocks. We stripped as far as decency permitted and rested on a thin carpet under the silk canopy. Nizam, however, never truly relaxed. He kept his long musket near him and constantly scanned the horizon.

  “Is it always so hot?” I asked, oiling his sword as he had earlier shown me.

  He glanced about us. “No, my lady. When the rains come, they fall very hard.” He had stripped to the waist and the muscles of his torso rippled as he moved. I noticed that he had fashioned the brooch I gave him into a necklace. Mother’s face hung upon his chest. “You can drown in those rains,” he added.

  Wiping sweat and grime from my brow, I tried to imagine him as a young boy in the harem. The day I had first seen him, Mother was attending to wounds on his feet, where shackles once bound him. “How was it, Nizam, serving my mother?”

  He began to clean his gun, breaking it apart and wiping traces of dust and sand from its workings. “At first, I thought she was like all the others,” he replied. “But soon I saw she was different.”

  “How so?”

  “She was kind.” His hands slowed on the musket. He stopped cleaning it, his forefinger absently scratching at a gouge on the barrel. “She wanted me to be happy.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  He nodded and reassembled his musket. “Do you know, my lady, what we called you?”

  Confused, I stopped working on his sword. “Called me?”

  “So many questions you ask,” he said fondly. “Even as a young girl. And so the servants nicknamed you Little Squirrel, for such animals are always chattering to each other.”

  “I was a rodent?”

  Nizam chuckled. “It seems so.”

  “Couldn’t you have called me something else? After all, tigers constantly growl at each other.”

  “You were always Little Squirrel, my lady. It suited you well.”

  I feigned displeasure with him, though he knew I jested. As he grinned, I recalled my childhood. Yes, I probably had acted like a rodent, but I was a child who forever sought to please her parents. And to do so, I had to be as interested in their worlds as they were in mine. “But, Nizam, do you miss her?”

  “Much. Though I see her in you.”

  “Her or a squirrel?”

  “Both, I think.”

  I grunted, then lay on my back. He checked the readiness of his bow, plucking its cord as if it were a sitar. Next he inspected his sword to ensure that I’d oiled it properly. “Nizam, would you answer a personal question?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Have you ever loved a woman?” I asked, voicing what I had wondered for so many years.

  As I might have expected, he didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he removed his sandals and sat beside me on the carpet. I knew he had brought this small luxury only for me and that he would sleep on the ground. “It’s not easy, my lady, for a man such as myself to love.”

  At first, perhaps because he seemed so much a man to me, I misunderstood him. Then, sadly, I realized that he spoke of his maiming. I bit my lip at the thought. What could it be like for him, to know that he would never make love, nor be a father? “I don’t pretend to comprehend how difficult it must be for you,” I said. “But isn’t there a woman who’s stolen your heart?”

  “There’s such a woman.”

  I bolted upright, thrilled to have heard so. “But who? Who is she and how can I help?”

  He smiled at my reaction. “I won’t tell you, for surely you’ll enjoy discovering her name.”

  “Why, Nizam, how you toy with me! Just whisper her—”

  He moved away from me and stretched out on a cotton blanket. “Rest, my lady. It will be a long night.”

  I lay against the carpet, my mind spinning. I was wonderfully excited for him and hoped that I could somehow bring them together. As Father had helped me with Isa, I’d help Nizam with…

  When I couldn’t guess the object of his endearment, I finally tried to sleep. Fitful dreams of Arjumand entertained me, and when I awoke, Nizam was boiling rice while the sun painted the horizon with its receding brushstrokes. We soon ate his rice, along with some dried fish. Then we broke camp and were again on our horses.

  In the darkness I found it hard to discern the trail and hence dropped behind my friend, letting my horse follow his. The night was neither cool, nor hot. I could see why Nizam wanted to travel at such a time, for the blackness felt soothing and secretive. The trail was strangely comforting, and I felt more at ease here than I had on the boat. Perhaps my lack of disquiet was because I believed I drew nearer to Isa and Arjumand. Though unable to sense them, I was calmed by a growing conviction that they lived. Nizam thought they did and had repeatedly reinforced this notion the previous day. Each time I had asked him of them, he replied that I’d meet them soon enough.

  A half-moon hung above us and we traveled under its stare. At one point we saw a group of burning torches approach from the south, and Nizam quickly led us off the trail. He pulled our mounts to the ground and we spied the distant silhouettes of twenty men on warhorses pass. Nizam didn’t know if they were Aurangzeb’s men or the Deccans. Neither group, however, was one we wanted to encounter.

  After their torches had vanished we were again on the trail. We moved at a steady pace, pausing only twice during the night to change horses. I thought we’d sleep once the sun rose, but Nizam said not a word and continued onward. My thighs had long ago been chafed raw by the saddle and my buttocks were equally aflame. Yet I asked for no pause, though I desired a reprieve desperately, as each step of my mount sent a spasm of pain whipping through me. I tried to reposition myself on the saddle but found that every adjustment only served to assault another portion of flesh.

  The merciless sun had almost reached its zenith when Nizam finally left the trail, heading for a trio of dead palm trees to the east. When we reached them he stepped off his horse and I stumbled from mine. My body throbbed and I shuffled toward the trees, where he tied our sheet. He attached it low on the trunks, perhaps making it harder to spot from the distant trail. I cared little for what he did or why he did it. I was too tired and scorched to think, and could only stare dumbly as he cut bushes with my dagger and piled them between the trail and us. After tethering the horses, he collapsed beside me. I said quick prayers for Isa, Arjumand and Father, then let sleep bear me away.

  For the next ten days we traveled in such a manner—sleeping all afternoon and riding all night and morning. We talked infrequently. Nizam felt exposed on that trail and wanted to get into the southern mountains as quickly as possible. His fears were well-founded, for on five more occasions we came across war bands. Though they never carried torches, as they had that first night, Nizam always heard them approaching and led us off the trail before they passed.

  We also skirted villages of mud-brick homes and decrepit inns, settlements that served as way stations for traders, nomads, scouts and bandits. Several dozen tethered camels usually surrounded the weather-beaten outposts, as did flocks of desert birds, which plucked ticks from the beasts’ coarse hides. Just beyond the settlements, villagers inevitably labored in dust-choked fields—driving thin oxen, reaping stunted crops. While men tilled soil, women cooked, worked looms and collected camel dung. Much dung was ne
eded, for each village had a stone tower where dung was burned at night to beckon lost and distant travelers.

  One morning we discovered the legacy of a battle. Strewn across the blood-soaked plains were hundreds of rotting corpses. The day was windless, and the stench of the dead was so thick that I thought it might rise up and knock me from my saddle. The decaying flesh reeked like the maggot-ridden, bloated carcass of a water buffalo. I couldn’t help but gag.

  Most of the warriors were Deccans, though some of our men dotted the landscape. It was an odd place for a battle, as no fort stood nearby. Nizam guessed that the two forces had simply stumbled into each other during the night. Most of the men died from swordplay, further indicating that they met by surprise.

  The carnage sickened me as much as it did when Aurangzeb’s army overran us. Birds of prey devoured the faces of men, while a smattering of Deccans, mostly old and young, stripped the corpses of anything valuable. They paid us little heed as we passed, for all were intent on looting friend and foe alike. They were a tired-looking people. Most went barefoot, and all were emaciated and clad in tattered clothes. Aurangzeb must be burning their food, I thought, with a surprising amount of guilt. Even if these people were our enemies, I didn’t see why children and grandparents had to starve.

  We left the reeking death in our wake. Images of the mutilated bodies lingered in my mind, however. “Do you believe, Nizam,” I asked, spurring my horse until it trotted next to his, “that all the world is as violent as Hindustan?”

  He kept his eyes on the trail, gazing for fresh hoofprints. “Impossible, my lady.”

  I turned about in my saddle, and watched birds circle the dead. I was weary of such sights. “I don’t want to kill anyone to free Isa and Arjumand.”

  “I know. But we may have to.”