by John Speed
"I think my father might have been a farang. I remember so little, but I seem to remember the man who lifted me over his head, his face so pale and his pale eyes. And a white shirt full of ruffles. Only farangs wear shirts like that."
"Was your mother a farang as well?"
A tear slid down Maya's cheek tracing a glistening path. "I remember a cold night, and a woman pulling me into the forest. I don't remember much about her, but she wasn't a farang. She wore a sari, wet with blood. I remember that she fell asleep and I could not wake her. I pushed leaves into the wound beneath her breast. When she stopped bleeding, I thought I had healed her. But she then grew cold."
"You poor thing! How old were you?"
Maya's voice was steady, but now tear after tear spilled down her cheek. "Two, maybe? Three? I left her there, in the night, on the bare ground. I spread more leaves over her, like a blanket. She was so beautiful, so still." A sob escaped her. "I left her," she choked.
"You were a child!" But Maya covered her face and Lucinda sat silent. Then a golden glint in the sword box caught her eye. Lucinda lifted out a golden rial, rudely sawn in two. "What's this?" she asked. But Maya did not hear her for sobbing, and Lucinda set it down without another word.
The elephant, too big for the dharmsala stables, stood near one of the guesthouses, lit by the flames of a small fire. Bits of ash danced like fireflies into the starlit sky.
Despite the dharmsala guards, Pathan had stationed his own men at key points of the compound. He found his way to the fire. Soon Da Gama and Geraldo came. Da Gama had brought a few sadc.le blankets from the stables; he and the others sat on them tailor-fashion. All but the mahout, who squatted on his haunches, keeping his hands pressed against his lips as if blowing them for warmth, occasionally pushing twigs toward the flames with his bare toes, as nimble as a monkey's. Each time he did this, Geraldo blinked in amazement.
The faces of the men, lit from below, took on an eerie glow. There was little talk: instead the men focused on the flames, which they watched in tired, silent fascination.
Finally, huffing as if at the end of a race, Slipper joined the circle. The farangs slid apart to make him room, but Pathan and the mahout did not move. With a number of grunts and sighs Slipper sat and tucked his fat legs beneath him. He held his pudgy hands toward the flames, and rubbed them together enthusiastically. "Well, well," he blinked. "What a cozy night!"
The men might otherwise have eyed each other in silence all night, but Slipper's piping voice acted like a lubricant. He turned from face to face with happy appreciation, asking polite questions and nodding openmouthed as if astonished by the answers. Whenever someone made an observation, Slipper glanced at the others, offering everyone a chance to respond, like an auctioneer encouraging a bid. When anyone spoke, he let out a tiny happy sigh.
Soon Geraldo was telling of the whores of Macao. "They're tiny as dolls! I went to one, I swear, she had a calha no bigger than the neck of a wine bottle; I swear, I could barely stick my little finger in!"
"Sounds like a perfect fit for you!" Da Gama said.
"To the contrary, she nearly fainted when she saw the size of my fonte. She had to pry herself open with her thumbs to get me in. When she sat on me, I thought I'd split her in two. Each time she moved, the suction! Madonna!"
Slipper's tiny eyes glowed as the tip of his tongue circled his lips. "You should let me give you a shampoo sometime. Many men enjoy it."
The deep laughter of the circle died away, and all eyes turned to Geraldo, awaiting his response. "You are most kind to offer," Geraldo answered. And the others, knowing that they would be traveling with both the eunuch and the young farang for many days, hid their smirks.
"You should go to Macao, Deoga," Geraldo said to Da Gama. "There if you had but one rial you could buy yourself a dozen whores."
"If I had forty thousand rials, I'd buy a nautch girl," Da Gama answered. He nodded toward Maya's room. "That one, and no other." Da Gama lifted an eyebrow to the others. "But I don't, so I won't. Anyway, she's young enough to be my daughter. My granddaughter for that matter. My dream is to find a feather bed, and a nice fat aya."
"What's stopping you, uncle?" Slipper asked sympathetically.
Da Gama frowned. He didn't like artificial pity, particularly from someone he considered inferior. "What's stopping any of us, eh, senhor eunuch? Nothing but money. Gold slips through my fingers like water through a sieve. Like everybody, I'm poor." He nodded ruefully toward Pathan. "Like everybody but this fellow, eh?"
Pathan's eyes narrowed. "If you wish for money, my friend, you need only ask. I owe you much."
"You owe me nothing. Certainly not money. That would be too easy," Da Gama answered. "Someday, maybe, I will ask a favor." Pathan solemnly lifted his hands to his forehead.
The mahout cleared his throat. "You want money? Just find the Web of Ruci. They say a farang hid it, somewhere near here. So maybe a farang would have better luck finding it. Maybe a farang would know where to look." Slipper gave the mahout a particularly unpleasant look.
"What's the Web of Ruci, sir?" Geraldo asked.
The mahout's eyes glowed. "When our sultan married, may his soul be in Allah's care, the mukhunni Brotherhood commissioned a wedding present." He looked to Slipper as if seeking confirmation, but the eunuch said nothing. "What the hell else do eunuchs do with their money, anyway? They've got no families, no expenses. I'll tell you: they use wealth to buy power. The Web of Ruci was baksheesh for the sultan-a wedding headdress; a net of diamonds and pearls the size of pebbles."
"Diamonds that big?" Geraldo's eyes widened.
The mahout's faced glowed in the fire's flames. "Everyone who saw it marveled. The jeweler called it the Web of Ruci, the Web of Effulgence. Then, poof, it disappeared."
"What became of it?" Geraldo asked.
"No one knows. The mukhunni were fools: they entrusted a settlement man to transport it to Bijapur, a damned farang. He never arrived, and the Web of Ruci disappeared. The eunuchs have searched for it these fifteen years without success." The fire crackled, and behind them, the elephant groaned in its standing dream.
"If you believe the stories, maybe," Pathan said softly.
Slipper held his hands out. "The Web is real. I myself held it with these very fingers. They were not so fat then." The eunuch sighed. "If you want to know, I was one of three brothers who was to fetch the Web. We had travelled in secret to the farang's house. That night the house was attacked. We heard shouts. One of us ran for guards, but the bandits had gone by the time they arrived. The farang was dead and the Web was gone. Our Brotherhood looked after his son, but the wife and daughter had fled into the jungle. We never found where they went. Of course we never found the Web."
"Well, then, what's the mystery? The bandits took it."
Slipper's face grew unexpectedly dark. "No-they never got it. They thought the Brotherhood still had it. We caught one or two and persuaded them to speak."
"The Brotherhood is well known for its persuasive powers," Pathan observed dryly.
"Well, if they didn't take it, what happened to it? Anyway by now the headdress has been broken up," Geraldo said, "and its jewels sold individually."
"No," Slipper said. "It's too beautiful for that. To destroy it so would break your heart." He lifted his pudgy hands to the fire as if they were very cold. "We think the farang hid it, or that he gave it to his wife to hide. We have spent many years seeking it." His tiny eyes grew bright. "But it is too beautiful. It cannot hide forever."
Da Gama chuckled, the dimming fire etching his face with shadows. "Many have searched for the Web, Geraldo. It is a pleasant recreation. A few years ago, I myself searched that very jungle. Why might I not be the lucky one?"
"Did you find anything?" Geraldo asked. Da Gama's silence answered him.
"Someday, someone will find it," Slipper said, almost to himself.
"If ever it was," Pathan put in.
"I said I held it," Slipper protested.
&n
bsp; Pathan's eyed the eunuch, but his head did not move. "Yes. That is what you said."
Slipper looked back, and then stood up with a grunt. "Time I went to bed." He bowed to everyone except to Pathan and padded into the shadows, and the others followed. Only Pathan and Geraldo remained, gazing at the hot embers and low flames.
"You don't believe him?" Geraldo asked Pathan when Slipper was out of earshot.
Pathan shrugged. "I don't believe anything that eunuchs say, not anything, not ever."
Geraldo considered this in silence. At length he stood, bowed and turned to leave when Pathan spoke. "That farang woman ... your sister?"
Geraldo looked back. "My cousin, sir."
Pathan's serious eyes met Geraldo's. "Do you find her attractive?"
"Some find her so." Geraldo waited, but Pathan did not answer, and Geraldo did not bother to bow again.
Next morning, Lucinda cracked open the dharmsala door. She expected to find Slipper snoring outside the room as usual, but there was only the breakfast that one of Pathan's men had left discreetly on the porch. Maybe last night's rain had driven the eunuch off, she thought.
An unexpected shower had fallen in the night, leaving the air clean and brilliant. In the dawn light the rain-spattered courtyard sparkled like a thousand jewels. The red roses and magenta bougainvillea leaped toward her eyes, framed by the brightness of the whitewashed walls. From the mountains came a breeze so fresh it seemed never to have been breathed before.
"Chilly," Lucinda said as she latched the door. Maya was nearly finished dressing, and her skin had a golden glow that made Lucinda think she'd bathed in cold water. "You're so pretty!" The words tumbled out unexpected. Maya lowered her head, embarrassed, and Lucinda blushed. "I'm sure everyone tells you so."
"That is what a mother says to a little girl or a father to his daughter. Maybe a husband says this to his wife. Priests raised me in a temple. They never used the word."
"But you must know," Lucinda said.
"I know I fetched a high price, particularly with the merchants." It took Lucinda a moment to work out what Maya meant. The nautch girl had taken a vial of kohl and touched a black application stick to her eyes. She looked up at Lucinda, blinking tears. The black powder settled against her eyelids and cleared the whites, making her strange, gold-flecked eyes seem even larger. "Do you want some?" Maya asked. Lucinda hesitated, then took the vial. Maya helped her touch it to her eyes; her soft hand felt :=ull of vitality.
"I thought you ... had ... sadhus..."
"Blink," Maya said. As she closed the vial and put it in her bag, she spoke without looking up. "Sadhus were the better part of my duties. They had true commitment-forsaking all, yearning only to be one with the Goddess. For them I was a grateful vessel. But merchants are how the temple made its money. Of course they'd pretend a little, wearing a white garment or smearing themselves with ash." Maya said no more. She had taken another box from her bag, tiny, maybe made of silver, and opened it ':o reveal a red paste.
"Do you take arsenico?" Lucinda said with surprise.
"This is my kumkum," Maya answered. She moistened her third finger and touched the color, then pressed it to her forehead.
"Does it mean something, that dot?"
Maya laughed. "In some castes it does. I have no caste, so to me it's just a dot." She then turned warily to the pile of clothing on Lucinda's trunk: her corset, drawers, hose, petticoats and dress and who knew what besides. "We'd better get you dressed as well. I myself will help you."
"It could take a while. Let's eat first."
They alternated eating and getting Lucinda into her complicated clothing. It took some effort to get Lucinda dressed. The corset in particular was difficult. In the end they had to take out all the stays to get it laced. The door latch rattled, but it was locked from inside. "Come, come, hurry!" Slipper's voice piped outside the door. "Everyone is waiting!"
"Never mind him," Maya told Lucinda.
"I'm waiting." Slipper said impatiently through the c.oor. Lucinda patted her clothes into place and closed the trunk. She opened the door. "Hurry, hurry," Slipper told her.
"You go first without me, dear. I really must rebraid my hair." Ignoring the eunuch, Maya shut the door behind Lucinda.
Not even acknowledging Lucinda, Slipper blinked at the closed door, his mouth forming a small pink 0 in his enormous face. "She'll pay for this!" he whispered as he walked Lucinda to the howdah.
The morning sun shone so crisp that even the cheap gilt of the elephant's traveling livery gleamed.
After another ten minutes of Slipper pounding at her door, Maya walked across the courtyard with Slipper beside her. With exaggerated politeness he pointed out puddles in their way. With one hand she lifted the hem of her sari over the mud, with the other she held a long loose fold of sari cloth over her head. The creamy silk, edged with red and gold, framed her golden skin and gleaming hair. "It isn't right, mistress, for everyone to see you thus. It's time you began wearing a veil," Slipper hissed.
"There's time enough for that when we reach Bijapur," she answered. Still, she kept her eyes down, and held the sari to shield her face, but as she walked she determined to remember forever the feeling of the breeze soft as rose petals against her cheek.
Slipper glared and clucked his tongue. As he tiptoed across the muddy courtyard, he heard a servant making rude remarks. Unable to contain himself, he turned and gave the fellow a grateful smile.
Near the elephant stood Da Gama and Pathan, conferring in hushed tones. Da Gama gave Maya a sweeping bow. Such a strange man, thought Maya. None of his clothing seemed to fit; any moment some new bit of pasty flesh might show.
Pathan for his part did not lift his hands as would have been polite, but merely nodded. Noting the Bijapuri's arrogance, Maya ignored him, turning instead to Da Gama. "So, Deoga, how shall our travel be today?"
"Excellent, madam," Da Gama smiled. "We have a good road; the rain is gone. Easy travel."
"So it seems. You fear no ... trouble?"
Da Gama glanced at Pathan, but he had turned his cold eyes elsewhere, content to ignore Maya as much as she ignored him. Da Gama smiled warmly. "I think we'll be fine. Captain Pathan has sent some men to scout ahead, to be sure that the road is not too slippery after last night's rain."
"I place my trust in you, Deoga," Maya answered as she melted Da Gama with one of her special smiles and made her way to the elephant's silver ladder.
"You should not speak to him so familiarly," Slipper whispered as he held the ladder for her. She did not answer, but hurried to the howdah. When she passed through the silk curtains, Maya found Geraldo already there, chatting with Lucinda, and although they both tried to hide it, she saw the longing in their eyes.
"Geraldo was just telling me about our route," Lucinda told Maya. "We go through the Sansagar Pass today. He says it won't be easy."
"The mountain road gets rather narrow in places," Geraldo said, turning his dark eyes toward the nautch girl. "It could be difficult. Elephants have a rough time, I'm told, particularly after a rain."
"It wasn't much of a rain," Lucinda said.
"Most times it's heavier in the mountains."
"Are there bandits?" Maya asked quietly.
Geraldo's face darkened. "Who told you that?" Maya shrugged. "Yes, it's true," Geraldo answered. "But Deoga has made arrangements. I'm sure we'll be fine." Still, a chill had fallen on Geraldo's attractive face.
Puffing with the effort, Slipper now heaved himself into the howdah. Once seated, he yanked the curtains closed, glaring at Maya, glaring at Lucinda, then smiling shyly at Geraldo. With the mahout's hu;'-hut the elephant's walk began, and with it the rolling lurch of the howdah. The elephant's footsteps made no sound-they heard only chittering morning birds, and the talk of the riders and the clip of their horses' hooves, the deep, arrhythmic clunk of the elephant's lucky bell.
"Let's open the curtain," Lucinda suggested. The sun was brilliant; the trees and grass and ground sparkled like
emeralds. Ahead of them dark mountains loomed like black fingers. The road, as Geraldo had suggested, was getting narrow. Whoever had built this road, hundreds of years before, must have had a difficult time. They had scraped it from the living rock of the mountainside: a sheer rock wall on one side, a narrow road of stone scraped flat, and then a sheer drop where the mountainside continued.
A deer appeared in the brush, took a long, terrified look at the procession, and dashed off. The caravan toiled upward. At one point they squeezed past a couple of women placing flowers on a rock painted bright orange. "What are they doing?" Lucinda asked.
"Hindis," snorted Slipper. "They worship stones."
"No! Do they?" Lucinda looked at Maya for an answer, but the nautch girl had buried her face in her book. Slipper glared at her, then snatched the curtains closed.
Growing uncomfortable in Slipper's icy silence, Lucinda began to prattle on about nothing. A memory popped into her head: the children's puppet shows that Uncle Victorio had put on when he visited Goa. As she talked about the beautifully crafted dolls, Lucinda's memory stirred-Princess Colombina, graceful, lonely, cold as ice; the jester Arlequim wretched with love for her. The stories were meant to be funny, and of course the children had hooted and laughed at the jester's misfortunes, but as she spoke, Lucinda realized that even then, her child's heart had stirred at the pangs of ill-starred love.
Slipper's mood improved as Lucinda spoke. He seemed eager to hear everything; his eyes gleamed like black beads. Even Maya looked up from her reading. Soon Geraldo brightened, and joined in, remembering the fox prince, so sly and debonair. "But the fox always confused me!" laughed Lucinda. "Was he a hero or a villain? You could never be sure!"
"I suppose he hardly knew himself," Geraldo answered.
It seemed only a few minutes had passed when the howdah lurched to a stop. Geraldo now threw all the curtains wide. They stood at the foot of the ghats. A great battlement of black craggy stone leaped into the air ahead of them, so high that it blocked the morning sun and left them in shadow. Geraldo moved casually to a seat near Maya, and pointed with his forefinger as farangs do, not caring that it was impolite. "You can just see the road there," he said, loud enough for all to hear, yet Maya felt that he spoke to only her.
