Sary and the Maharajah's Emeralds

by Sharon Shipley

  “This is all his, is it not?” I asked, to break the awkward spell and slapping a mosquito as large as a dragonfly supping on my salty skin.

  “He grows sicker, more…ungovernable. I must do more, I must be prepared.” He swatted a broadleaf. “Yet”—he smiled at me—“by that time the maharani may have another son, or he will name the young prince.”

  “Or the sky could fall,” I answered in kind and brushed a damp curl off my neck.

  The mood passed. “Oh! Look!” I pointed at scolding monkeys making daredevil leaps. My mood darkened again as I recalled the purpose of this outing, the possible death of a magnificent Bengal tiger.

  The rajah read my thoughts.

  “But we aren’t killing it, are we?”

  “Is it their nature also to dine on children?” he asked quietly. At my look of dismay, he said, “This particular beast developed a passion for human flesh. Young human flesh. Several children have been dragged off, as seen by witnesses. One father found the poor child’s chewed bones. A girl of three. This one’s a stalker and pure killer. If my brother won’t investigate, I must.”

  I was chastened and mortified. “Children! How can a tiger attack children? Where are their parents?”

  I brooded a moment. “Tell the villagers they should be more careful.”

  “Yes, I shall do that,” he answered dryly.

  “Why don’t they look after their children?” I cried. He waved at the open jungle. “Children run freely here. Do you see walls?”

  “Of course not,” I muttered. Ragged villagers now gravely lined our path.

  “Tricky, too right.” Rami scowled beneath fierce brows. “I wish they would stop that bloody bowing! My brother needs little excuse to threaten unspecified treason, if there is a hint I overstep.”

  “You walk a thin rope.”

  “Razor wire, more aptly. One of the chaps up there is a spy.” He nodded at the truck of armed bearers.

  And I do not make it easier.

  I felt the villagers’ anguish when, after setting fresh meat lures and waiting, we failed to trap the beast or see any sign. With promises of returning with more scouts, we left the ramshackle village along the riverbank for another spot the trackers excitedly led us to.

  A mile later, the rajah nodded at water buffalo stomping muddy holes in a far bank. “See that motion in the canes? The fellow’s stalking them.”

  I glimpsed tawny yellow and black rippling the bulrushes across the brown river, near shaggy buffalos hitched to a water wheel. “Yoked! The poor beasts are fair game!”

  He motioned. His men raised carbines. The distance was too far, I thought, and then shots peppered the bank from rifles and shotguns both. I could see puffs of dust. Even a pot shot from a pistol. The canes across the way thrashed and stilled.

  The rajah held up a hand—Stop. The men waded the murky river and, shouting happily, held up the tiger’s head. Hauling the body above their heads, they recrossed the river and fixed it to a truck bed.

  Exultant, we turned to head back.

  We re-entered the narrow jungle road. Neither Rami nor I saw the sinuous rope hanging from a tree until the motion, a yellowish flash, caught the edge of my vision.

  “Rami!” A thick loop of scales swung a foot from my face. I noted, as I turned, one man smiling secretly, but spellbound, I took no notice…

  Black squares decorated the hanging length, dropping down, down, seamlessly coiling and recoiling.

  The elephant placidly jolted aside and plodded on.

  I rose from the cramped space, as we left the snake behind, scraping my knee.

  “Okay! Laugh—fool!” I cried. Somewhere below, I heard another man’s low chuckle.

  “Ah, Sary. That is an ajgar, that is all.”

  “All!” I twisted my mouth, eyeing the undulating rope looping to another tree. “It’s following us!”

  “They don’t bite. They may crush you to death and afterward eat you, of course.” He snorted like the despicable male he was.

  “Fine! If I am really fortunate, I might find one in my bed one night!”

  More annoyed than puzzled, I saw the guard suppress another knowing smile. Apparently, I was the source of endless humor.

  “It is what you call a python,” my unthinking male continued. “Grows twenty or so feet and can swallow a water buffalo if allowed.”

  “I wouldn’t know!” I swallowed a sharp remark as Ram droned on about how colorful, fascinating, deadly, brilliant, intelligent, and bloody downright delightful snakes are, apparently ever since Adam and Eve’s infamous cajoler.

  I balefully scrutinized the jungle.

  “Now the daboia,” the infuriating man continued, “common in Punjab and Bengal, is most aggressive. The deadliest of reptiles. Most certainly. The daboia delivers maximum venom, unlike species with a dry bite. Invariably…”

  “How fascinating. You don’t say,” I snapped.

  It was not his joking manner making me tedious. Something is wrong. My primitive brain center had been set a-jangle. I decided to ignore him.

  “India even has snakes with tails like monkeys that grasp, or let them fly from treetop to treetop to drop down on…”

  I drew my hands inside the howdah, checking trees.

  “However, I find the bamboo viper and the sea krait, oh, very nice—the sea krait, black with brilliant blue stripes, while the viper is green, like a beetle—but the ugliest fellow…” He chuckled. “The ugliest is the hump-nosed pit viper.”

  He continued chortling at my disgust—typical male the world over—while I tried to drown him out with thoughts of pitching him from the howdah.

  “But for sheer evil”—he sobered—“King Cobra. Enormous!” He spread muscled arms wide. “A snake who feeds on other snakes. They rear three feet if aroused, though I find…”

  “Enough!”

  “Oh, but mera pyara,” he teased, “I haven’t listed all our reptiles. There is the naja naja, the most famous. The spectacled cobra flares its hood, hypnotizes one, and causes instant attacks of the heart if…”

  “I said, enough!”

  “Are you ill, priya?”

  “Of course not.” I looked away. “Takes more than a few silly snakes—just—tedious is all!”

  “I take it you would not fancy my dear brother’s snake collection, then.” The cleft in his jaw deepened.

  I flashed him a horrified look.

  “Yes, that domed building behind the animal enclosure. Dear brother owns species from—”

  “All your bloody buildings are domed! Don’t jest.”

  “I was—how you say—”

  “Teasing?”

  “Yes, teasing. I forget I am nearly twenty-two years of age now.”

  Twenty-two! Younger than I! Suddenly I felt cranky, old, and tiresome.

  “Yes, only teasing.”

  “That…that thing was rather remarkable. However, your brother… What…what does he do with…?”

  “Let’s leave it that he has inventive ways, as I mentioned, of dealing with thieves, spies, and those harmful to the empire, or those he supposes harmful, or simply for whim or boredom.”

  His face darkened, and he shrugged his broad shoulders as if to say, Who kens? “See, we are well past. The snake has not climbed in with us. I will never tease you again. Feel free to get back at me”—the cleft in his jaw deepened—“when I least suspect it.”

  “Never fear.” I laughed, still seeing legions of reptiles dropping from trees and rapidly crawling after us.

  “Yet I would love to tease you—a little?”

  He had the familiar question in his hooded secretive eyes and wicked lingering smile.

  I read his ardor and felt myself respond unwillingly as he touched me, for I still wanted to be angry with him. It did not matter. Even if our elbows brushed, I felt a tremor entering my bones—no matter we were atop a jogging elephant.

  “How?” I widened my eyes with the innocence of a schoolgirl.

  Ram
drew the side curtains, murmuring, “This is how. We have a mile back to the palace, and transportation is agreeably slow.”

  It did not take long for Ram to convince me that the back of an elephant in a curtained howdah was the most pleasurable place on earth in which to become intimate.

  The gentle lumbering aided our lovemaking, rising and falling to the heated rhythm of our passion. The sun turned the shades molten gold. Resting my forehead against his, I rode the rajah face to face, he holding my bottom and kissing every reachable part of me. I felt the urge to giggle over each lurch and jolt subsiding as our ardor grew.

  Eyes closed, uttering a breathless shudder, I dropped my head onto his broad, slick shoulder. Gradually we cooled—difficult in our sultry bower—and, laughing, attempted to make ourselves presentable to the rational world, clothing our sticky bodies as we jostled in the small space.

  The rajah whispered before raising the side curtains, “Ask me anything, my love. I will move that mountain an inch nearer, if it pleases you.”

  “I need nothing.” I meant it at the time.

  I detected the elephant had changed its tempo and its feet struck broad bricks in place of dirt…

  We returned.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bitter as a Serpent’s Kiss

  I floated in the bathing pool, dreaming of yesterday, alone except for Asha—friend, servant, or spy, and most likely, unwittingly, all three. If Asha minded her status, her small monkey-face revealed nothing as we splashed each other and happily gossiped away.

  Apparently, Preeta had been caught in flagrante delicto with the elephant tender’s boy, Kamala.

  Or so Asha told me in halting English, a skill she was thankfully learning far above my Hindi.

  I hid a smile. The elephant tender’s boy! So that was Preeta’s lover. Complacently, I lifted one leg, examining my toes, idly watching my figure shimmering like a mermaid’s, reflecting smugly that it was a shame Rami could not see me now.

  Oh! You are insufferable! Vain and irritating as those pea-headed peacocks, mewling love calls outside! scolded my imp.

  I had to agree, returning to Asha’s tittle-tattle.

  My mouth gaped satisfactorily at what she revealed in the next item of gossip.

  “Yes!” Asha clapped tiny hands, sending bubbles flying. “It is indeed true, this thing, Sar-ee! Preeta was selected as night companion to the maharajah! And now, she grows the belly! The maharajah is to have a son, perhaps. Preeta will be much high!”

  She drew a mock regret face, impishly shrugging.

  I smiled, putting two and two together. Of course, the elephant tender’s lad. I could figure it out as well as any suspicious person. Apparently, Asha was not so discerning, or judgmental.

  “Asha,” I queried mildly, “did Preeta ask to go to the maharajah? Before she ‘got the belly’…or after? Or did he summon her?”

  “I do not know this thing. Why do you ask, Sa-ree?” Innocence shone in her eyes.

  I smacked the water, vexed at myself. Why worry? I could just see Preeta parading around with her ever-growing belly filled with the elephant tender’s offspring and no one the wiser. The pressure was gone. All would be well. Asha chuckled with me, and we began a splashing war. Scented water flew.

  I hesitated, lifting a hand for silence.

  I thought I heard an alien sound above our noise.

  A slight burrrrrrrrr-ing—riiiipping of tearing silk.

  I shrugged and held my head back, still mulling over Asha’s news. She was pouring rinse water over my hair when she raised her head—and the pleasurable time was forever shattered with one taut scream.

  ****

  Asha’s shriek cut off as I looked up at the bulging tent-like ceiling—the rose silk canopy over our bathing pool was writhing, alive with something, until the fragile silk split wide and torrents of snakes of all sizes and colors—a tangled knot of snakes—tumbled down, irately slithering, twining, thrashing about each other, furiously hissing as they plummeted and plopped heavily into the bath.

  The instant the wriggling mass splashed down—a small one landing on my head and slithering down my neck before coiling rapidly off under water…Where was it?—I shrieked, floundered, and tried to scramble out. The steamy, scented bath boiled with activity.

  “Asha, run!” She seemed frozen, still gaping in terror at the ceiling.

  I leapt out in an awkward vault. Asha, open-mouthed, still crouched in the water with snakes swimming all about her, too frightened to scream…

  Snakes! Fat black snakes, crawling over my legs.

  I slipped, half lying on the floor. I looked up. Snakes, still dropping over the ripped sides of the canopy, flopping onto soapy, oily marble, angry, confused, their primeval brains striking at anything moving.

  I scrambled to my feet, keeping the reptiles—thin, thick, long, sinuous—in view. Asha, moving jerkily, managed to get out of the pool. Our splashing and the reptiles still plopping down started a tidal wave of sudsy, oily water turning the floor into a swamp as Asha slipped and dragged me down with her.

  We held on to each other, trying to keep to our feet. I kept going back to Preeta—Preeta’s face, her reassurance, the way she popped up to lead me to the tunnel and left me in the dark to die.

  Snakes. My mind flashed to the rajah.

  I saw his face, too, as he pointed them out with certain pride.

  “The maharajah, my dear brother, keeps them as pets.”

  Then Asha found her mouth and courage at the same time, yelling for help, while we stood, an island in a sea of reptiles. I looked over. The bath was yet alive with gleaming snakes slithering out, flickering slim black tongues.

  My feet went out from under me while my mind boiled over with suspicion. I landed in a knot of snakes amassing in the middle of the floor. Yawning cottony throats wide in agitation, some sank backward-facing fangs deep into other snakes as I scooted gingerly past them.

  Asha tried to skirt around and reach me. I scanned the acre of floor still swarming and alive as the last agitated snakes dropped down. The cascade had thinned; now only a few fell as afterthoughts and bobbed placidly in the bath water.

  “Sary!” Asha screamed, but in a different tone. Immediate. Urgent. Hurt.

  I darted a look. A slim, deadly black thing clung to her arm. Asha back-peddled, swatting at it.

  “Asha! Don’t wave your arm!”

  Asha flailed the reptile against a dresser. It recoiled once, falling off with a broken-back look. Asha huddled in a corner, holding her arm, whimpering, eyeing the advancing tide as they slithered for concealment.

  “Asha, hold still. I’m coming!” I looked about, helpless, playing hopscotch. One minute the floor was clear in a spot, then vanishing under the knot of reptiles as they rippled my way the next in an unending pattern. Which were deadliest? What did Ram say? My mind shrieked, “Think!”

  I leapt. Swerving close to my foot, while I watched, was the deadly green Bamboo viper—I was sure.

  Oh, dear God! And that black slim thing behind me—a pit viper, certainly.

  All but the beautiful, repulsive King Cobra…

  Move—move! my imp shouted, but I was spellbound, eyeing the slim brown snake humping over my foot, feeling a slight pressure and smooth cool belly. The innocuous-looking thing was the deadliest. I kicked wildly, spinning it off into the steamy air.

  Asha, examining her arm, was now wailing softly.

  “Sar-ree, why?” Her arm swelled as I watched.

  Almost there.

  “Asha, tie something around your arm. Tight! Please, Asha, do it now!” In my concern for her, I forgot to check the floor—moreover, my mind was churning with suspicion.

  All those snakes…a sick jest from a sick man, or genuine assassination? Had Rami grown tired of the troubles I must cause him?

  He would not—even in jest.

  But perhaps, besides his brother, he too is ill!

  He bragged about all these only yesterday.


  Ill, like his brother… my imp whimpered. Too much a coincidence… No, it was the maharajah!

  And so, as I waded to Asha, my mind stumbled over itself, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible: A flicker of a guard’s evil smile, the one on the tiger hunt. Rami, my beloved Rami’s admiration of the reptiles. And Preeta and the elephant tender’s boy—she knew the zoo.

  All this flashed before me as I slid my way over to where Asha lay still, her arm ugly, swollen. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a eunuch’s broad back and the sole of one calloused foot as he pounded off.

  “Help! Help! Bacnā! Sahāytā karnā! Hey!” I cried to him. “Bacnā!—help!”

  Instead, I heard a scraping sound and a round wicker basket tumbled in from the direction the feet had vanished, and as if summoned, an immense king cobra spilled out. It coiled massively, rearing three feet high, undulating side to side and watching with cold yellow-green eyes from a flat spade head, its spotted hood flared wide.

  While I watched, frozen, a cold sensation ringed my neck. I realized some snake’s tail had slithered about my neck from behind, like a cold metal choker, while the cobra’s flaring hood, flickering tongue, and merciless eyes two inches from my nose had kept me in thrall.

  I wrenched my eyes away from it and looked about. The muscular tail of a python I had not seen before continued undulating thick coils obscenely down about my chest, tightening as it took over more of my body in its single-minded zeal to squeeze the life out of me.

  I futilely clawed the strong, rippling muscles; I could not draw a breath. With each exhale, the coils clasped tighter. I looked desperately about. I finger-tipped a brass side table that until now had held oils and sponges. Spots before my eyes enlarged. I was airless. Only my fingers clutching the metal leg had any sensation beyond my starving lungs. More in reflex than by conscious thought, I whipped the table sideways and back in a clumsy action, tearing at my shoulder and elbow. Awkward, but it did the job.

  The table hit the cobra’s head, only grazing it but still enough to anger and distract it, while the python behind me loosened its grip for a moment before rippling and squeezing harder in reflex, gaining an even tighter hold.