by Shazia Omar
Ellora could sense her husband’s fear as he rubbed the jade ring on his pudgy finger, appealing to a deity for protection. She offered him a caustic smile. The pusillanimous pig she had married was timid and superstitious.
Outside, a drizzle. Their howdah was built by the best carpenters in town with artistic images of the Mahabharatha etched into it but though aesthetically pleasing, it was not practical for the monsoon season. Ellora crouched under her veil to stay dry.
With the rain, their progression slowed even further then sputtered to a halt. She could see her husband eyeing her to gauge her reaction. Her face was stolid, a trick she had learned from her father.
Mondol Raja called out to the captain of his soldiers, ‘Boy, why are we stopping?’
‘Raja saheb,’ replied the captain, drawing his horse to their howdah. ‘The men are frightened. This forest is haunted. Perhaps we should stop for the night?’
‘What? A bit of wilderness and my men are unnerved? I’ll execute every last one of them if they do not pick up pace this instant!’
‘As you command,’ said the captain, off to deliver his orders.
Ellora smiled. How brave he pretended to be from atop his howdah.
Mondol Raja scrutinized her expression then cleared his throat. ‘Do you know the duties of a respectable wife?’ he asked.
Ellora was about to deliver a derisive reply when the rain began to beat like battle drums on their wooden roof. Ellora wondered if the forest was really haunted as the rumours claimed. She had no weapon on her apart from a small khanjar with a steel blade and an ivory handle in the shape of a horse. The Raja shuffled in poorly concealed discomfort, jumping at every noise.
Only a complacent fool would set out on an expedition on such a night. A shiver crept up the young bride’s spine as she stared at the fresh henna on her hands. How could she live with this geriatric who smelt like coconut grease and cowered at every sound?.
The path was treacherous and in the distance, a hungry wolf howled. Mondol Raja snivelled and tried to nestle into her but she pushed him away as nausea threatened to overcome her. The elephant bearing Ellora’s howdah stumbled into a muddy pothole and lost balance. The carriage lurched forward, sending her crashing into its wooden frame.
A scream from outside launched an uproar. Mondol Raja cautiously parted the curtains of their palanquin for a peak. Ellora caught sight of his captain approaching, white as a ghost. The news he gibbered was bad.
A tiger had taken one of the men. The unfortunate sepoy had stepped off the clearing to urinate. The others witnessed the beast dragging him away but no one had the courage to rescue him.
Ellora parted the festoons to catch a glimpse of the tiger. Foot soldiers banged pots and shouted mantras to frighten it away though it was nowhere to be seen. Drenched in fear and rain, the entourage inched forward in a tight huddle, no one wanted to be the last man.
They soon arrived upon a river they would have to cross. The men sang with joy, relieved to be clear of the dense forest. They once again requested the Raja for permission to camp out the storm and darkness, promising faster progress come dawn. This time the Raja had no choice but to agree.
No sooner had they put down their weapons and tethered their horses, the forest started charging towards them. Whooping cries surrounded them and suddenly they were ambushed by a dozen horsemen with swords and muskets, pale-skinned pirates riding upon steeds with small cannons tied to the saddles, camoflauged in twigs and branches.
The pirates leapt out of the bushes so quickly, the Raja’s outer layer of guards died before they could unsheathe their weapons. A handful of loyal soldiers attempted to form a blockade around the royal howdah. The rest fled, choosing to brave the tigers rather than the white devils.
Mondol Raja drew the curtains of the howdah shut and muttered prayers. Pandemonium continued outside: gun shots, screams of agony, galloping hooves and unfamiliar battle cries. Ellora reached for the curtain.
‘Don’t!’ the Raja snapped. ‘Hiding is our best chance.’ His lips drew tight in fear.
‘What about your men?’ said Ellora. He pretended not to hear.
As the attackers came closer, they fired their canons. Two elephants came crashing down, including Ellora’s. The beast fell onto its belly, spilling the howdah onto the floor. Mondol Raja ran off into the forest, a stench of shit trailing him.
Ellora whispered a prayer then cursed her husband under her breath. She swore she would kill him and renounce her religion rather than burn at a widow’s pyre after.
Ellora had never encountered bandits before but if the cries outside were any indicator, these men were vicious, molesting women, killing children. She weighed her options. She was decked in gold, dressed in a flimsy choli that barely covered her bosoms. Her brocaded ghagra was covered in gems and she wore heavy gold anklets on her feet. Any attempt to escape would be futile. Ivory handled blade in hand, she crawled out of the howdah.
Men on steeds gathered around the fallen carriages, collecting loot. One pirate towered above her, bearded and masked, a silver hoop in his ear.
‘I don’t need any treasure. I’ll take the jewel of Hindustan,’ he yelled. With a raucous laugh, he dismounted his steed and approached her, musket in hand.
Ellora’s heart pounded. She jabbed her khanjar at him. He caught her wrist and twisted it till the weapon dropped. She screamed and kicked. Her choli, snagged by a bush, tore, leaving her breasts exposed. He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand and threw her over his horse.
Slumped over her captor’s horse, Ellora saw a hooded man approaching them like a fierce gust of wind. The pirates tried to stop him but he razed through them.
Her captor turned to face him but before he could spark his weapon, Ellora saw the silver gleam of a sword shimmer in the moonlight. Her captor’s head fell at the horse’s feet.
The pirates frightened by the sight of their beheaded captain fled into the forest with whatever booty they had grabbed. Ellora wondered who her cloaked saviour was: an apparition, a god, a demon? As quickly as he arrived, he turned to depart.
Ellora slid down from the horse swiftly. ‘Wait,’ she called. ‘Don’t leave me. There are tigers and Ishvar knows what.’
‘Who are you?’ asked her mysterious hero.
‘I’m a princess,’ she said. ‘I was on my way to my husband’s kingdom.’
‘Where is your husband?’ he asked, coming closer. He smelt of attar and smoke.
‘The coward fled!’ she said indignantly.
‘Do you want me to take you to him?’ the man asked.
‘No!’ said Ellora. ‘I will never go back to him. He left me to die!’ She scanned the carnage. Her retinue and soldiers were either dead or had fled.
‘Shall I take you to your father?’ asked her champion.
‘No,’ said Ellora. ‘I shall never return to him either.’ He had cast her off to the Raja as if she were cattle.
The hooded man was bewildered. ‘What shall I do with you?’
‘Take me with you, wherever you are going.’ She held her hands up for him unaware of her bare bosom gleaming in the moonlight.
Her knight looked at her and could no more deny her than he could stop the sun from sinking in the west. He lifted her from the ground with an arm around her waist and placed her on his stallion behind him.
As they galloped off, she wrapped her arms around his barrel-chest tightly, as much to ensure she did not fall off as to still her wildly thumping heart. She could feel his steely muscles and that created strange sensations of excitement she had never experienced before. The bravery of this man, the ferocity with which he had fought, his total disregard for his own safety, and the way he treated her ... this man had to be Arjun. She fell headlong in love with him.
Ellora was stunned when they arrived at a manicured garden and a luxurious haveli guarded by at least a hundred armed men on the periphery of Lal Mahal, a fort she knew well.
The hooded rider help
ed her dismount, holding his hand for her to step on. Despite his immense muscles, she could barely feel him when he touched her. He led her to the entrance of the chateau and ordered the woman who answered the door to look after her. She looked at her with eyes like saucers and threw a shawl over her nakedness.
‘You’ll be safe here,’ said her hero. ‘Tomorrow, we will take you home.’
‘But I am already home,’ said Ellora. ‘Who are you?’
The man just smiled.
‘You saved my life,’ she said.
‘Think nothing of it,’ he replied and left.
The matron of the house was a compassionate lady known as Didi Ma, both the dance instructor and the governess of the dancing girls. Didi Ma fussed over Ellora like a mother hen. She bathed Ellora herself, cleaning the blood off her with heated water, admiring her with glowing eyes.
Over a spicy rabbit stew, Ellora learned from the girls that it was the Subedar Shayista Khan, the Mughal viceroy of Maharastra, who had saved her. This was the man Ellora’s father was fighting, the man to whom they had lost their fort. How sad, she thought, that her father never knew his chivalry.
The girls were both in awe and fear of the Subedar. They claimed he patrolled the roads of his subha late into the night with a sword and side-dagger tucked into his belt, killing criminals by the dozens. He was irascible and tempestuous but he believed in justice and he loved music. He was not the type to dally with promiscuous princesses. He did not bed his dancers. These details seemed to be common knowledge. The fact he himself had brought Ellora bare-breasted on his horse inspired many more sessions of gossip.
That night, Ellora could not sleep. She had grown up on tales of the Subedar too: Kinslayer, Hindu-hater, taxing the poor to indulge the rich. This did not match what she had seen, the gentleness she had experienced. Reality, she remembered, was a selective act of interpretation. Perhaps the stories she had heard were lies. Perhaps everything she had known was a lie, and only now, she was rising from the illusion.
When Shayista returned to the chalet the next morning and offered to take her home, she refused to leave. She swore she would rather slit her throat than return to either her father who had forced her to marry or her husband who had abandoned her to pirates. She went so far as to challenge Shayista to a duel for her freedom. In the end, he made the mistake of letting her stay.
Shayista extricated himself from the memory. He stared at the joba petal in his palm. An overwhelming loneliness washed over him. The red had dried up into a dark brown. Ellora was dead. What hope was there for happiness?
For Shayista, Ellora was everything Nasim was not. She was dark and sultry where Nasim was fair and frigid. She was a monsoon of passion, mighty Ganga gushing with love, beauty set loose upon a cyclone, while Nasim was calculating and ambitious. Nasim was obsessed with the past while Ellora had revealed no details of her history but bore instead her heart and soul and luscious body.
Most intoxicating of all was Ellora's scent: a mixture of sandalwood and attar that she learned from the pages of the Kama Sutra. She studied the manual of love with earnest vigour and applied what she learned upon Shayista. To her, sex was a spiritual act of a natural order. She approached it shamelessly, as an art to be explored and mastered, not a sin to shy away from. With coy enthusiasm, she stretched Shayista’s body and imagination to new lengths.
Shayista had been living a cold and cruel life for decades. For the first time since the death of his sister and Dara, he felt his soul dance. He found sublime joy in ordinary things. But then, joy and grief are never far apart. His fate was soon to be disrupted by destiny, so what use was it remembering it now, twenty two years later?
Shayista wiped his eyes with his kerchief and headed towards the Diwan-i-am. Two steps in, he felt the cold edge of a steel blade against the soft skin of his throat.
CHAPTER 20
N
asim Banu peeked out of the curtained howdah as her trusted eunuch led the elephant through the winding alleys behind the bazaar. They were going to meet the Pir of Lal Bagh and the roads were narrow with vendors on either side.
Nasim meditated on her predicament. She needed to maintain Shayista’s interest so he did not marry a second wife. She needed to tone down his enthusiasm for unorthodox pleasures such as alcohol and music to appease the Emperor. She needed to convince him to ask the Emperor to promote their son. She needed to ...
‘We have arrived, your Highness,’ announced Eunuch Ambar.
Following the mahut’s prodding ankus, the elephant sat down. Nasim Banu gingerly dismounted. She noticed a bevy of cats surveying her. There was something haunting about the place. Questioning her decision to come, Nasim knocked on the door.
A bony young lady with a purple scar on her cheek greeted her. From the confidence in her demeanour, Nasim could make out that the lady was a family member not a servant. She was dressed in a simple cotton kamiz but comported herself with dignity. She led Nasim down a corridor to a chamber.
‘Come in,’ said a voice from inside.
Nasim entered. Eunuch Ambar waited outside. The room was lit dimly with a single candle. She could vaguely make out a large desk with many books and a caged falcon.
‘Sit down,’ said the pir, dressed in black garbs, a black turban, a sapphire broach. ‘You are unhappy.’
Nasim nodded.
‘You yearn for youth,’ said the pir.
Nasim nodded though he was not asking so much as proclaiming.
‘Is it so important?’ the pir asked.
Nasim mused for a moment. No, perhaps it was not.
Pir Baba stroked his beard thoughtfully then handed Nasim a silver mirror. ‘Are you beautiful?’
Nasim blenched at her haggard reflection. ‘I was once.’
The pir frowned. ‘Every woman is a creature of divine beauty.’
‘Perhaps it was my destiny to marry a man blind to my beauty.’ She regretted her petulance but her words had already slipped out and not unnoticed. The pir pulled the loose thread.
‘If he cannot see the beauty in you, it is because his vision is obstructed by his ego,’ said the pir. ‘The ego divides. Love unites.’
Nasim nodded. The Empire could only be run properly if she and her husband were united in their aims. He needed her to guide him, to manage his ego, and it would be much easier to do so if he loved her deeply rather than passively.
‘I can help you,’ said the pir. He gathered three jars from the shelf behind his table and from each took a pinch of its contents to place in a mortar. With a wooden pestle he ground the mixture and decanted it into a glass.
‘Drink this,’ he commanded.
Nasim Banu took one sip and gagged. It was the foulest concoction she had ever tasted, grey and globular. The pir urged her on. Pinching her nose, she slurped it up.
At last, she asked. ‘What was it?’
‘The placenta of a black cat, dried stool from a pig and ashes from a Hindu crematorium.’
Nasim gagged and might have vomited but for the strange sensation of tingling on her skin.
‘Behold,’ said the magician.
She gazed into the mirror and saw to her immense wonderment, her face metamorphosed. Was it her imagination or were her wrinkles less visible? One by one, the age marks, the dark circles and the tired lines dissolved leaving her reflection that of her younger self, some twenty years younger. Nasim could not believe it. She touched her face tentatively, the texture was altered. Shayista would love her now!
‘Take this cream,’ said the pir, handing her a jar. ‘Rub it on your face daily.’
Delighted, she offered to pay the pir.
‘Anything more I can do for you?’ he asked.
Nasim was confused. What more?
‘I have astral powers,’ said the holy man. ‘My prayers can manifest your deepest desire. There must be something you wish for, your Highness?’
Nasim was stunned. ‘How do you know who I am?’ Was he clairvoyant?
The pir laughed and pointed to the royal insignia on her cloak.
She blushed.
‘Look deep within, your Highness. What do you love most?’
Nasim Banu scrunched her brows together. Love most? She loved her palace, the hammam, her jewellery, fancy parties, her sons. What else could she ask for? ‘Pir Baba, there is nothing more I desire.’
‘Look deeper,’ said the pir. ‘Close your eyes.’
Nasim did as she was told.
The pir began chanting Al-Haq, Al-Haq, Al-Haq with such energy, Nasim felt the table shake. Her heart beat began to race. She peeked and saw the pir turning red in the face from the exertion.
‘Look with your third eye,’ he instructed. ‘Awaken your intuition. There, your Highness, look deep within. What do you see?’
Nasim Banu saw a modest boy sitting quietly on a swing, a boy she loved even more than life itself, his feathery hair ruffled by the wind.
Nasim opened her eyes.
‘What did you see?’ urged the holy man.
‘My youngest son.’
‘Then he is your deepest love.’
She nodded. Abul Fateh she loved beyond all the riches in the kingdom, alas ... ‘But he’s dead,’ exclaimed Nasim, wringing her hands. O how his eyes beamed when he saw her, how he wrapped his fingers around her hair when he slept.
‘I see.’ The pir nodded slowly.
‘What is it?’ asked Nasim, a tremor in her voice.
‘More challenging than I anticipated,’ said the magician. ‘But not impossible. I cannot resurrect him but I can summon his departed spirit. To do so, I need to channel his energy through a jewel. If you want to speak to your son, bring me the biggest jewel you can find.’
Nasim did not know what to think. She had heard pirs claim they could channel spirits but they had all turned out to be tricksters. Was this also a hoax?
She thanked the pir for his time and left feeling bleak. Outside, Ambar helped her into the decorated howdah.
On their way back to the fort, two thugs in orange turbans accosted their elephant with wide-bladed gauntlet rapiers. Nasim Banu trembled from behind the chintz curtains as Khajah Ambar spoke to them in hushed tones. When they left, she demanded, ‘Who were they? What did they want?’
