Afzal raises his eyebrows. Is the king holding him responsible for the loss? He is not the military general of the Adilshahi; he is just a subhedar of the Wai province! After the death of Khan Mohammad, who was the wazir as well as the general, Ali has announced the name of the new wazir. But he is yet to name the new military general. And how can Ali hold him responsible? For the past ten years, he has been trying hard to expand the kingdom by taking over the Hindu kingdoms of Karnataka in the south and dealing with the aggression of Aurangzeb in the north. He has struggled in the battlefields, while his sultan, Mohammed Adil Shah, has remained in bed, paralysed and stricken with bedsores. Ali was just a boy of ten when his father fell ill. Now this juvenile young man is belittling him. What does this adopted son of the late king know?
‘If this goes on, son . . .’ the Badi Sahiba intervenes, her voice soft enough to make up for Ali’s rudeness, ‘Shiva Bhosale will make us beg. With Jawali in his hands, he controls the trade route of Dabhol on which our supply of salt, spices, wood, textile, and other such things depends. Shiva can starve our kingdom of those essentials.’
‘We feel that you are the most competent to take up the challenge,’ Ali’s affirms.
Afzal does not want to say anything amiss. There are traps within traps within traps, but no time to unravel them. He has cleverly gotten rid of Khan Mohammad, but there is a new wazir now. Khavas Khan, the African warrior, is rather close to Ali Adil Shah. He needs to find out whether Ali is acting on his own or is being incited by Khavas Khan. Perhaps it is Khavas Khan’s idea to send him to the peril called Shiva. But Afzal thinks decisively. He will treat this as an opportunity given by Allah. If he eliminates Shiva, his court rivals like the new wazir will collapse inevitably.
‘We have kept funds aside to bribe the deshmukhs of Maval,’ the Badi Sahiba assures.
‘If you can buy off Kanhoji Jedhe, the deshmukh of Bhor Maval, half your job is done. He wields considerable amount of power over the other deshmukhs from Shiva’s jagir,’ advises Ali.
‘Am I the only man in control of this operation or will our wazir also be in command?’ asks Afzal, sounding resolute.
‘You are now the general of the Adilshahi, Afzal Khan Sahib, and henceforth you will not take orders from anyone,’ announces Ali.
Afzal nods trying to conceal his happiness, raises his hands skywards and says gravely, ‘My esteemed king, I promise you I will bring Shiva’s head to your feet. If I fail, then sever my hands from my body.’
4
On his way home, Afzal cannot help but think about his past, when he had saved the Adilshahi from being wiped out. When the Mughal emperor and his late king had joined hands to annex the Nizamshahi and later to defeat Shahji Bhosale, his master had accepted the vassalage of the empire. He had also agreed to pay two crore rupees as tribute. After a few years, when Mohammed Adil Shah had started ignoring the protocols of the Mughal treaty, he was reprimanded by the emperor for carrying out practices that were the prerogatives of only, well, the emperor. Holding court in lofty places outside the citadel, witnessing elephant combats and using sovereign emblems fixed on a long, gold spike—a sun, a fish, an upraised hand and scales of justice. Over the years, Mohammed Adil Shah had broken the stringent protocols on various occasions and was reprimanded with the serious threat of war.
Afzal still lucidly remembers the night of the festivities. On an event to celebrate a battle victory over parts of Karnataka that was ruled by a few stray Hindu kings, a still robust and beaming Mohammed Adil Shah had thrown a lavish party. On the terrace of his seven-storey palace in the air, the drunken king had been enjoying with his favourite nobles.
‘Tell me, what do people in my kingdom talk about me, Afzal Khanji?’ he had asked.
‘They are singing your praise, what else can they say?’ he had replied cautiously.
‘What does Shah Jahan think of himself? What will happen if we challenge the protocol of the Mughal treaty, Afzal Khanji?’
‘If you do that, my king, instead of the sounds of revelry, we will only hear lamentations of grief. The streets lit by lamps will be drenched in the blood of our men. The Adilshahi will be a part of the Mughal Deccan.’
The master, even in his state of total drunkenness, had heeded his advice and had sent a letter of apology to Shah Jahan and saved his kingdom. Peace had reigned for ten long years until Aurangzeb had started his war against the Shia kingdoms of the south. It was time to protect Bijapur again. He had saved his beloved Adilshahi in the past and he would do so again in the future.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1
Yesaji Kank stands inside the wrestler’s akhaada, barefoot, in a loincloth. The commander of the Maval infantry is a simple wrestler at heart. He intently watches two young men struggle in another mud pit and makes mental notes as their torsos and limbs twist and turn to lock their opponent in a python grip. He notices several flaws. For him, every single move, every single glance, every single movement and even a moment of stillness is a move or a counter-move.
Suddenly, his ears pick up the familiar sound of hoof beats. He jumps out of the wrestling pit, and leaps towards the entrance. He reaches just in time to see Raja Shivaji and his guards dismount from their horses. His instincts tell him that something serious has happened. The visitor is grim and there is that worrisome tightness around his mouth as he looks around cautiously. Barring a few men pulling shafts of wheels near a well to draw water, the place is empty. The tree stump stands still—it was used by them as a base point when they played hide and seek just fifteen years ago. The visitor quickly sits on the stump, not bothering about the dust that has gathered on its surface. Yesaji and some of his wrestlers circle around him.
‘The news is true. Afzal Khan has taken up the challenge. He is the new general of the Adilshahi,’ Shivaji whispers restlessly.
Yesaji takes a moment to understand. This is the first time that the Adilshahi rulers have considered a man of Afzal Khan’s military status. It is disturbing news. The Sultani calamity is about to march in from the east.
Yesaji has turned rigid.
‘Many of the Adilshahi subhedars have already reported for duty. Several jagirdars and deshmukhs have agreed to help the new general. They have all gathered at Bijapur along with their men. Afzal Khan has mustered ten thousand well-mounted cavalry and equal number of infantry. We will get the precise numbers of his war elephants, camels and guns-on-wheels within days.’
Yesaji nods.
‘We need new swords. Leave immediately and start meeting the blade-makers of the region. Find new swordsmiths if need be. Explain to each one the length, weight, balance and sharpness of blades we need for our dhop swords, patas, daggers and javelins. Specify proportions and the dimensions of the blade. Change the design of the hilts. Add cushioned linings and bigger knuckle guards for a better grip.’
Yesaji already knows all this.
‘And yes, make the ridges of the pata blades heavy. Ask them to add more metal to the blade near the hilt. That will bring the centre of gravity closer to the hand that holds the sword.
‘A few blade smiths had visited Rajgad last week. They insisted that a little more carbon and chromium in the iron make the blades less bendable, yet they do not break when they hit the bones.’
Yesaji counts his fingers. He must remember the number of instructions.
Shivaji smiles, but soon turns serious. ‘The rulers of the sultanate have opened the doors of their treasure in support of Afzal Khan. The number of soldiers deployed to finish us is huge. Soon, our small terrain will turn into a battlefield—a real one.’
Yesaji and his wrestlers remain silent.
‘I need to go, sarnobat Palkar is waiting for me. We need to send the letters to the Maval deshmukhs. Afzal Khan has already written to them saying that if they do not join him he will dig them out from their hiding places, slaughter them and their family members to pieces and extrude their body parts through oil mills,’ Shivaji relates.
�
��That’s typical of him,’ Yesaji murmurs.
He stands near the entrance to watch Shivaji and his guards gallop away, kicking up behind them a small dust storm. He stares till the horsemen become mere specks and then vanish from the range of his vision.
He remembers the past, especially their visit to the ancient temple of Lord Shiva when Raja was barely fifteen.
‘Friends . . .’ young Raja Shivaji had lowered his voice and bitten his lower lip, ‘you call me a raja, a king, because I am the son of a jagirdar. But remember, all the jagir holders in the Deccan call themselves rajas. We, the jagirdars, are mere revenue-collectors who work for the Muslim kingdoms. Our armies are meant to fight their wars. Our blood is meant to irrigate their battlefields.’
The boys had looked on, wide-eyed.
‘The real rulers humour us when we call ourselves rajas, like lions that ignore the barks of lowly dogs. The emboldened dogs may perceive that they are kings of the jungle, but it is not true. We too live in such perception.’
Shivaji had stopped for breath.
‘We are like the wooden swords used in the drills. They are called swords but they actually are not. They have no blades to cut the enemy.’
There was utter silence. Raja’s words rang true in their ears.
‘We are even less effective than the wooden swords, as we do not know who our enemy is.’
‘In the name of God Shiva, I want to tell you that I dream of a raj, a swaraj—our own state that is ruled by us. I want our own military bases, manned by our armed garrisons, in places that will be inaccessible to the Adilshahi or Mughal armies, and we will never have to bow to any of them.’
The raja had spoken unhurriedly. Later, he had turned around to look at each of them to see their reactions: a smile, a snigger or a mocking glance could mean that they had not taken him seriously.
‘We have seen the intervening hills of this region, and many have a fort built on their crest. We want them all. They will be our military bases. It is a difficult task, as difficult as touching the moon. Today, in this ancient temple, I take an oath. My first step will be to acquire the dilapidated, neglected, hill forts of the Adilshahi standing in my jagir and repair them. These will be our military strongholds, the seeds of our swaraj.’
Yesa had watched as Raja Shiva had wrenched his new, real sword out of his belt, moved further towards the lingam and held his left thumb over it. Before they could guess, he had raised the blade of his sword and made a sharp cut on his own thumb. Crimson droplets had fallen on the lingam.
‘I do not want to be a wooden sword. I want to be a blade, sharp and cutting, one made of iron. This is my first offering,’ the young jagirdar had concluded.
Each of them had followed him, bathing the lingam with their blood, thus binding their pact with the blood that they had spilled in the ancient temple of God Shiva.
2
Afzal Khan’s horse trots through his military camp, half-a-kos east of Bijapur. Sayed Banda and his men follow him vigilantly, holding naked swords in one hand and navigating the horse with the other. The drummers make a deafening racket as they rally before his procession. He is not an ordinary viceroy anymore but the Adilshahi general. Never before has he experienced such public adulation, and never before has he been the cynosure of all eyes. He watches as the soldiers jostle and push, and shamelessly climb on each other’s shoulders just to get a glimpse of him. This rise in the social ladder achieved at the age of forty is truly mesmerizing. People who have never seen him before are stunned at his physique. He is indeed a big man, whose fully grown horse looks like a pony. His jama lined with silver brocade dazzles in the afternoon sun and the kimoush turban embellished with emeralds makes him look taller. He waves as some raise their swords to hail their new master and some scream and chant his name and the words written in his seal.
‘Afzal Khan, Afzal Khan, Katil-e-Kafiran Afzal Khan!’
The chants please him immensely and he caresses his long, henna-dyed beard. The seal that he put on each of his official letters has been the subject of discussion in the Deccan. In fact, some of the Hindu landlords went cold with fear when they received letters with his seal: Katil-e-Kafiran, Sinkada-Biniyade-Butan. The killer of the infidels and the destroyer of the deities.
Afzal is proud of his name that in Arabic means superior, most excellent and principal. Impulsively, he turns to Sayed and shouts, ‘Send notes of encouragement with my new seal to all my officers, and demand that they read them aloud to their respective contingents.’
Sayed nods with reverence as he is reminded of the words etched on his master’s new pledge of assurance.
If you seek higher heavens
Then compare this Afzal, with the Afzal, the supreme, in the best of men
And when the beads of the rosary are counted
You will hear only one name,
Afzal, Afzal, and only Afzal.
Afzal has many other things on his mind. He signals Sayed and leaves alone. For a distance, Afzal rides parallel to the moat infested with crocodiles and gallops along the outer wall of the fort city of Bijapur. The archers minding the bastions of Bijapur’s outer wall recognize him and wave. He waves back to them in acceptance of their greetings while crossing the north-facing Bahamani Gate. Thereafter, he kicks his horse to fly north-west through vast stretches of open farmlands. It is evening by the time he arrives near a hillock. From its base he can see a low yet ornate building enclosed in a compound wall. He dismounts quietly, and leads his horse uphill. The path is well looked-after, hedged with flowering shrubs. Afzal quietly tethers his tired animal to a lone mango tree near the gate and shakes off his sandals before entering the building. A blind old man sits near the shrine covered in red and green brocaded velvet cloth, surrounded by heaps of roses and jasmine. The pleats of the man’s long robe fall around him and his long, silvery beard covers his chest. He seems lost while counting his sandalwood rosary beads. Another man sitting behind the shrine chants to evoke the divine powers of the Sufi saint Hazrath Pir Amin Chisti, who lived during the times of Mohammed Adil Shah’s father.
‘Is that you? You have come after a long time,’ he hears the blind old man whisper. It is known that the divine light was transmitted from the famous Hazrath Pir Amin Chisti’s heart to the blind man’s almost fifty years ago.
Afzal removes his turban, hunkers down his body and puts his head on the floor before the old man.
‘Son,’ the old man finally speaks in a quivering voice, ‘do not go, for in my vision your body has been severed from your head.’
For the first time in many years, Afzal’s heart misses a beat. Then he feels the touch of the old man’s trembling hand on his head. The Sufi saint consoles him mutely, urging him to accept Allah’s decree. Afzal says nothing. While heading home he just thinks and thinks.
It is late into the night but sleep eludes Afzal. Should he trust the blind man or should he just let it go? He curses himself for going to the dargah to seek his future. But that was a done deed. And a seed of doubt has already been sown. Even though the chandeliers burn, throwing golden light over his enormous bed, bleak thoughts flood his mind. He has to wind up his personal affairs before he leaves for his western campaign.
His fifteen legitimate wives and their children are to accompany him. His twenty-year-old son, Fazal, is to be his right hand. His concubines, picked from different parts of his country, bought from the slave traders or presented to him by his officers, will be left behind. A new stock of seventy-seven young women has been left untouched. The bloody battles with the imperialists and tensions of court politics have robbed him of both his leisure and his libido. Who will have them if he dies in the battlefield? The girls will fill someone else’s bed, sire someone else’s children. Sheer jealousy overwhelms him as visions of these virgins in other men’s arms hammer his skull like an iron mallet striking a large metal bell.
‘Bring Amina,’ he screams as eunuchs scurry outside his door. His youngest catch is almost thrown i
nto his room as the door is bolted shut behind her. A slim girl with large eyes, long, lustrous hair and wearing a transparent skirt with a very short blouse looks up at him. He waits as she shivers, her hands trying to cover her breasts. She, the incapable bitch, has failed to stir his manhood. For a moment he disregards the fact that, in the recent past, all of them have. A blade of rage slices through his mind. He gets up at once and rushes towards her, with the confidence of a hyena lunging at an animal already killed by a jungle cat. Seeing him advance so rashly, she turns stiff with dread and then falls on the ground like a dry, broken reed. He lifts her by her hair, holds her in one hand and starts marching towards his private bath. She hobbles like a dead animal as he drags her across a long corridor lined with cusped arches. The main foyer has a large marble tub and a fountain spewing water jets at its centre. He kneels near the tub and submerges her in the water. She floats like a petal as he stares at her striking face, translucent skin and small breasts. Her flimsy clothes flail around her like wings of a bird dropping dead from the sky. The faint sound of spluttering echoes in the marble-floored bath. The mild scent of rose and khus wafts in the air. He watches her as she jerks in his arms and thrashes her limbs about, like a calf on its last spasm before being devoured by a carnivore. He holds her hard with one hand around her waist and uses the other to drown her face. She struggles feebly and within moments is limp, her fourteen-year-life gone too quickly. He lets go of her and marches back to his chamber, breathing heavily.
He has decided to kill the remaining seventy-five women in the next few days. They will drown in the same manner, in the same bathtub. He has also decided to build tombs of precisely the same pattern for each of them, seven in eleven rows. The tombstones will rise over a raised platform at the backyard of this very palace. He intends to name the place sattkabar, to let the world know his absolute passion.
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