Sary and the Maharajah's Emeralds

by Sharon Shipley

  I stared numbly at keys bunched at his waist. A tarnished ring as big as an embroidery hoop held one as long as my hand and as thick as a rifle barrel. The others rattled on a smaller ring, differing by bits of colored string.

  My heart stopped—resumed. Why keys?

  “Come.” The rajah without another word forged over a path of crushed shells gleaming as though magical.

  I caught sight of my sandaled, hennaed feet flashing beneath me, gauzy veils fluttering behind like dragonfly’s wings. He was, as usual, in cream satin, this time only in breeches ending at the knees, displaying everything he had as well as a taut backside flexing muscularly as he strode ahead. I watched his broad naked back tapering to a neat waist, his black unbound hair flying behind like a young boy’s. It wasn’t often I watched him unawares. He was indeed beautiful, yet I must not lose sight of where I was. I tried to take note.

  ****

  We were farther even than the zoo—animal yowling was fainter, shrubbery dustier and untrimmed, weeds higher. Dead fronds littered the ground. No more white crushed shells or mosaic-floored follies here, as I skidded past forlorn, waterless fountains to keep up and, after that, nothing but weedy rampant growth, alive with insects, which the creosote kept at bay. What is this all about? my imp fretted.

  Though the palace grounds were sprawling, I sensed we neared an end.

  I looked back. The palace was a pale toy on a slight rise between the trees.

  “Stop! Wait!” I gasped, spitting out a bit of palm leaf.

  But the rajah disappeared into a deeper jungle of palms and ferns. He seemed in a tearing rush, now. Fronds scraped my face, dragged at my silks, and tangled my feet as I stumbled after him.

  He pulled me through a last straggle, stopping abruptly. I could see nothing beyond a sudden mound blotting the dark sky—a hillock covered in coarse grasses. “We are here. There is a more direct way, but…” He did not finish that thought.

  I checked my surroundings and slapped at mosquitoes. “Here? Where?”

  The rajah withdrew an ornate lighter from skintight breeches in answer, torching the bundle of faggots. Creosote sent sooty spirals upward.

  The rajah’s face took on a wicked, sensual mold, the flickers of light casting his eyes into unreadable shadow as he rummaged the key ring.

  Keys? A key? But where to put it? What to unlock?

  I studied the odd green hill looming before me, a plain green dome of grasses and weeds hidden until now behind the vegetation.

  He brushed hands over the coarse grasses covering the unnaturally smooth mound, muttering, “It’s here somewhere,” and by digging through dead patches, revealed stained concrete covered by the skim of dirt and weeds. Then he inserted the key as large as my fist into a slab of metal corroded green and studded with welds and crude hammered designs, absurdly set in the wall of grass.

  It looked centuries old.

  The sound of the key in the lock shattered the night air.

  Crickets ceased.

  A bat fluttered off in the dark.

  The rajah wrenched the massive door, which squealed like a cat with its tail trod upon.

  Air, curiously dry and odorless for India, rushed out.

  As he stepped into the dusty gloom, holding the torch, I instinctively stepped back.

  “Come, prya.”

  I looked behind me into the dark. It was the far side of the moon. Inside was no better—stygian dark. The dark of a crypt, my imp suggested.

  “No!” I pulled back.

  “Mere saath aaeeyé.” He spoke soothingly. I translated his words haltingly as, “Come. Don’t be afraid.”

  But I was.

  “See? I will light this.” He waved the faggot at a sconce on the wall.

  “What is this? Why—?”

  Why have you not spoken to me? You were angry when last we met. It is dark and disturbing way out here. Now you wish me to go in there?

  Oblivious to my hesitation, he used the torch to light a flame in the metal sconce. Looking back at the bug-filled night, I ducked just past the doorway into the domelike cave or room that followed the contours of the grassy hill. If I keep behind him, he cannot trap me.

  Reservedly, I stepped farther in.

  Now his back was to the massive door open to freedom. One way or another, he had gotten behind me.

  I could claw a century and never get out of here. No one would hear, not even if any soul ever did venture to this godforsaken end of the grounds.

  I braced to run, croaking instead, “Leave the door ajar,” staring with longing to the beckoning, bug-filled night.

  He laughed, showing his fine white teeth. “Ah! But I cannot do that, little one,” and drew the door shut with grinding force.

  “I—I hate being closed in,” I tried, desperately tugging the door, all pretense gone.

  He laughed and disappeared as I still regarded it, spinning to find him fooling with another door. It was nothing fancy—wood, crude welds raised like scar tissue, bolts and padlocks. The key from the smaller ring now sounded as if the cat were having a wrestling match with a saw, as tumblers clawed open with a sharp screeching.

  This portal, five inches thick, solid monkey wood with nail heads the size of dessert plates, swung lightly on pivots as if well oiled.

  Dignity intact, I passed beyond, knees only slightly knocking. It was too much like the tunnel I had so lately traveled. “Hard to breathe. This air is dead. Sorry, cannot…”

  He grabbed my hand, bringing me about.

  “Mere dil ka pyaar. I’ve frightened you.” His smile could melt slag.

  Indeed.

  I understood “pyaar”—“love of my heart,” or close enough.

  “But what is this ridiculous place?” I demanded.

  His answer was to lock the door from inside.

  ****

  I sensed this passage was far older, perhaps centuries, crumbling brick under whitewashed walls, bemused by the frieze of fanciful, faded animals and birds, flickering as if animated as the rajah rushed us by.

  As the passage curved deeper, doors, older and riddled with wormholes, now studded the passageway along one side. The outer edge followed the contours of the hillock.

  I checked for grills or slots indicating human occupancy. There were none.

  He halted before one door, scratching a plaque, dark with age, and muttering, “This is it.”

  As he unlocked it with one of the tagged keys and reached inside, lighting another lantern, I scanned engraved symbols on the door—Hindi, but old.

  I followed hesitantly into a room bathed in golden light as thick as honey. Sucking a breath, I squinted against the wavering glow.

  Gradually my sight adjusted, after he lowered the wick—this one shaded, thank God, or we would have been blinded by the glittering mounds, bars stamped with exotic symbols, heaped in tottering piles surrounding drunken barrels of coins, all dumped among pyramids of tangled oddments. Shimmering, gleaming, and glittering, points of light sparkling off walls clear to the rounded ceiling and over-tipping in messy, glistening avalanches.

  “It is like sunshine washing over us…” Eyeing the unstable piles, letting my hands play in the light, I needed to trod oddments and scuff litters of coins to enter farther. The dazzle quivered until I could not tell if my vision was flawed or the golden hoard shifted subtly, flowing from one stack to another.

  He kicked a stack of coins over. “All this is my brother’s,” he said with a rueful disgust. “I liked to play with it from time to time, when I was but a lad and could steal away the keys. I nearly scared auntieji Madhuri to her death when no one knew where I’d got to.”

  “You mean—Madhuri was your amah?”

  He nodded.

  “A pretty dazzling sandbox!”

  “It’s been a while,” he said, bashfully for him, plunging his hand into a pile. A piker at three feet, letting African rands, Dutch guilders, American eagles—some rough coins were older, with crude crosses and figures of ei
ght—fall in discordant clatter.

  Tripping, I sat hard on a tangled mound of chains and medallions, a ransom in solid gold baubles, earrings, pendants, diadems, and arm cuffs. Not plate or brass but pure gold, feeling a light touch of envy.

  He supposes this excess will impress.

  Of course, I’m not impressed.

  Certainly not.

  I owned gold once.

  I squinched my brows together, puzzling this new information that came from nowhere.

  I owned gold? Not just a little, but a lot!

  I was still lost in thought, trying to recapture the memory, when he unceremoniously yanked me up. “Time wasting!” He laughed like a boy, and I forgot my one clear moment.

  “Mere saath aaeeyé. Come!” he said when I lagged, still staring at the gold, striving to recall why that pile of glitter was a key to the past.

  ****

  Color seeped out from the next cell like a London fog, if fog were pink.

  My skin bloomed a rose-red blush, for the room was a rainbow, if scarlet was the mother-color. Boxes and barrels of the maharajah’s birthday bounty—blood red, garnet, pink, carnelian, fire-red crimson, lavender. Dull, smooth, or polished cabochons like fat little pillows—oblong, square, round, sparkling with facets.

  “The latest haul,” he said heavily.

  “Indeed!” I dryly eyed the excess. “So this is where it ends up. Buried!” My feet trod stones, rubies all, rolling under my step. Hot reflected light pinked my pale flesh. My body soaked up feverish hues as if the room were on fire and not my blood.

  “May we go now…?” I whispered.

  “Not quite yet.”

  “I’ve seen enough!” I added pointedly.

  He watched me, stoic, yet something indefinable stirred in his eyes. Curiosity overcame my unease.

  Grudgingly, I allowed him to lead me farther on.

  A soft glow radiated from the next cave-like room as if it captured moonlight, and I entered a grotto this time filled with tributaries of pearls rolling and clicking about my feet. At the disturbance, an avalanche spilled rattling out the doorway. Pearls—oblong, angular, lumpy, or perfect spheres like small lustrous planets—clacked smoothly against each other as I picked my way carefully through.

  I scooped handfuls: some black as ebony, sober grays, lavenders shading to deep purple, pale green, mabe pearls like lustrous blisters, and seed pearls…pink pearls and…

  I sighed. A fairyland shimmering in the mellow glow of the lantern. So sad never to see the light.

  “It’s beautiful! Indescribable,”

  “Yes.” He nodded, pleased.

  In the torch’s flare, shimmering moonlight from the mass of pearls washed over us. Angrily I brushed desire away like a stray, dangerous dog. Instead, I forced myself to glance coolly about, though I longed to throw myself into that lovely mound of pearls and feel them shifting, chill and smooth, beneath me, to bury myself in them—let them trickle through my fingers…

  Don’t be silly!

  The rajah as usual looked through me as if I were a pane of clearest glass.

  I glared back.

  “More?” He nodded at the corridor.

  What could be more? “If you must.”

  The pearly moonglow extinguished as the light receded from the room, and I slammed against his back, his muscles rippling beneath warm pecan skin like steel coils. The tips of my fingers tingled, imagining running them down that deep cleft of spine. He halted slightly, and I felt a quiver before he strode on.

  Sucking a breath, I murmured, “Kshama kee-jeeae,” not registering I spoke in Hindi—“Excuse me.”

  We were far under the mound now, halting before another oxidized plaque with more ancient Hindi writing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Green Passion, Emerald Lust

  Even after the excesses of the last cave-like rooms, I glided unprepared into an underwater realm of a shimmering sea. Dazzled by the bottle-green effervescence of what seemed like endless oceans—the phosphorous lime of spring grasses, green as translucent as May apples, even the velvet green of deep forest pools—washed in waves over us.

  Verdant luminosity surrounded me, invaded me, coloring my vision…

  I whirled, enraptured. As before, barrels and mounds, caskets, heaps, and pillows of loose stones cluttered the chamber.

  Emeralds!

  The whole cavern awash with them!

  I imagined climbing those verdant swells of shifting sparkle, and slip-sliding back in a musical heap. How pleasurable! Swimming these chill green seas…

  Over there, as an afterthought, a pile of duller, uncut stones rested. And here, in another heap, iridescent polished cabochons, ridges and waves of faceted effervescence—shimmering, dazzling, flashing.

  I kicked past a sparkling mound to discover to my astonishment a low table and plump velvet cushions—green, of course.

  The table was set with jade cut-glass decanters and gold plates studded with sea-bright stones.

  I was reckless with a feared-forever-lost sensation of youth.

  “Won’t you dine with me?”

  “I am already drunk on riches, and have feasted on jewels.”

  Oh! How simpering! my imp chided.

  As if I beheld such enchantment every day, I sank before the priceless plates, the tempting pastries, savories, small roasted fowl, sweets, and fruits ripe to bursting. Cut glass buckets of white wine reflecting green glints dripped icy condensation. What magic made this happen? I had heard no servants. Roast game fowls were steaming. The breads, crisp outside, soft on the inside. This was what it was like to own almost unlimited power. I refused to allow the thought in.

  We sweetened our mouths with wine and honeyed sakar-loung pani with the bite of cloves, tart lemon nimbu pani, and candied ginger…prolonging anticipation of the inevitable?

  The rajah sucked a ripe mango from its hard smooth seed. Sticky gold ran down satiny chest muscles. I trembled, longing to run my tongue over that glowing skin, lick its sweetness up to the pulse throbbing in the hollow of his neck, and end at the rajah’s mouth, sweet with mango…

  I tore my gaze away, certain my face flamed. What am I thinking?

  You know. My imp smirked.

  I brushed the imp aside; feeling as sensual as Delilah with her scissors, I threw my head back, gazing at him invitingly, or so I supposed.

  ****

  He could only drink her in, her pale hair coiled high, her supple flesh as underwater-green as any sea creature, the pink tongue licking wine from a moist and inviting mouth, her body lushly revealed beneath diaphanous silk—but most of all, those ensnaring sea-green eyes.

  With difficulty, he tore his gaze away…

  Too soon, too soon.

  ****

  Dreamily, I contemplated the luminous grotto. How would these smooth sea pebbles feel rising in chill green waves over my body?

  As if reading my mind, the rajah chuckled. “You are a—how you say it? A mer-woman?”

  “A mer-maid?” I grinned happily. Though hardly a maid!

  “You are my—my Varuni, under the sea.”

  “Va-runi? And just who is this—Va-runi?” I flirted.

  “Wife of Varuna, Lord of the Seas, celestial oceans, and the underworld.” His expression seemed to say, Doesn’t every one know that? “Lord Varuna would be envious of me now.”

  He lowered his head, melting me with his hooded gaze. “And I would see all of you…”

  “All?” I shivered, not from cold.

  “Primarily, to see if you own two legs…or an iridescent tail.” He grinned his charming, lopsided smile.

  I owned two hungers now, with both raging through me. Since I was not certain of one, I would let one hunger feed the other.

  Wine and food made me languorous, yet blood coursed my veins, warming my thighs and belly. To answer my first hunger, I sank into green clouds of pillows, lifting my arms in invitation. It was the wine, I told myself later.

  His eyes spo
ke volumes as he sank beside me. Crunching emeralds made a musical clatter beneath us. Then he withdrew an ornate knife.

  My eyes widened. I flinched aside. He merely cut the knot on my sari. Filmy veils drifted as lazily as butterfly wings over the stones, leaving me clothed only in verdant light.

  Chill emeralds yielded. We sank into shifting masses that went slip-sliding away, crunching, tinkling, reconforming, until there was a comfortable niche—cool and delicious against my heated skin.

  I helped him, tearing at the knotted cord at his waist, slipping my hands beneath the band and down long, cool, hard thighs; my hands, trapped between us, eventually felt the epicenter of greater heat, greater hardness, and sensed his body quivering with ravenous need as his hands explored me hungrily in turn. The rajah roughly dragged off the rest of his raiment until he was as free as I. We held and stroked each other, exploring, until our bodies, overriding desires, took over our minds and any reservations we had fled.

  He cupped long, brown, articulate hands about my face, kissing me lingeringly, nipping my lower lip, brushing my eyelids and tonguing my ears. Keeping my own hands from straying, he held them securely above my head with one strong broad hand and, working down, nuzzled my breasts and brushed lips over my belly, bruising it with lusty kisses. When he finally entered, I groaned with a lust of my own, as if he had waited until the last possible moment or he would die. Or I would.

  Still he delayed, until our combined union was the crashing fury of two thunderheads igniting the storm within us with primitive intensity and our bodies flickered silhouettes against the walls as lightning struck repeatedly, and electricity coursed our bodies.

  ****

  We lay gasping, murmuring nonsense and gazing in wonder and yes—love. At least at that moment in time.

  “Has it ever been like this for you?” I longed to ask, afraid he would ask in turn. I had no answer.

  I whispered instead, “We can’t leave yet…” Unless it is to leave forever…

  The rajah whispered raggedly. “Never. Yet only Lord Vishnu knows when we may have this time again, little mermaid. Events change like a sword standing on end and just as dangerous. Plus”—he kissed me—“his excellency attends his treasure house infrequently, true—the only time he exerts himself is when he is…able.” He shrugged. “Yet there are spies and eavesdroppers everywhere, currying favor from the one they fear most. We are not safe.”