by John Speed
Shivaji thrusts upward, again! Again! A rain of blows falls on him, but he does not stop. With his hand twisting in Afzul Khan’s gut, Shivaji leans into the massive chest, and pushes with all his might.
Afzul Khan staggers, but he will not fall. Instead with a roar he clenches his fists together, and smashes them against Shivaji’s back. The blow is staggering: Shivaji crumples to his knees. As he falls, his arm, wet with black blood, pulls out from Afzul Khan’s side.
Shivaji looks up to see Afzul Khan’s face, contorted in triumph and pain. “You cannot kill me!” Afzul Khan shouts, and with those words hammers his foot into Shivaji’s ribs. The blow hurls Shivaji within inches of the bamboo cage. “It is I who will kill you!” Afzul Khan staggers toward him. Blood gushes from his side, but he comes on, unheeding of his wounds. He pulls back his foot for one more kick. Twisting, Shivaji stabs, catching Afzul Khan from below, ripping the tiger claws up his thighs, his balls, slicing his lingam. Afzul Khan screams and plunges forward.
Into the cage.
At the last moment, he manages to turn his head.
One spike breaks; the other pierces his ear, emerging bright red through the white folds of Afzul Khan’s turban.
Outside the tent, the guards wait. They began by watching each other with grim faces, but as the tent collapses, as the muffled shouts and groans emerge, their eyes grow tight with tension. What should they do?
When the first tent post fell, Tanaji rushed forward, but one of the Abyssinians spurred his horse to block his way. The two stood, eyes locked, listening to the grunts and unintelligible words.
Now the whole tent collapses, and worry slips across the Abyssinian’s face.
“We’re going in!” Tanaji yells to the Marathis. He lifts his mace like a club, with two hands, and the Marathis bare their swords. Jedhe waves Shivaji’s farang sword, still sheathed, above his head. The Abyssinians quickly form a line to stop them, but they look at each other with troubled faces.
“We should all go in!” Tanaji shouts to the Abyssinian. “Something’s wrong in there! Let’s go in together!”
The Abyssinian captain, glancing to the part of the tent that now twists and squirms like a living thing, considers for a moment. “No,” he says.
Then the tent stops moving.
From within, no more muffled voices. Silence.
Tanaji looks at the Abyssinian and sees a face as troubled as his own.
Then the tent begins to move once more, as someone pokes and thrashes toward the entrance flap. Tanaji steps forward, wanting to help, but again the Abyssinian bars his way.
And then a man emerges: feet bare and soaked with blood, legs bloodstained, shirt slashed, turban gone.
Shivaji lifts his bleeding head to see the sky. His helmet, cracked and mangled, tumbles from his head, and his blood-soaked hair falls in thick wet ropes across his shoulders. He lifts the bloody wagnak so that all may see.
“Bring me my sword!” Shivaji cries.
The grizzled Bijapuri captain stands in his stirrups and shouts, “No one move! Not one inch!” The Abyssinian guard scowls at the captain and lifts his lance. “Stop! Keep still! Not one inch, I say!” the captain screams.
Shivaji now moves quickly to Jedhe, who stares at him with horror. “Do I look that bad?” Shivaji asks. The white teeth gleaming from that red-streaked face look like a demon’s. “Courage, cousin,” Shivaji says. “Give me my sword.”
“It is yours, lord,” Jedhe cries and hands over the ram-hilt blade.
As Shivaji takes it, he sees that he still wears the bloodstained tiger claws. He tears them off and hurls them to the ground. Then he grasps the sword and tears off its sheath. The farang blade, polished mirror-bright, sparkles in the sunlight. Shivaji holds the sword high, walking toward the road.
“Stand your ground! Move not one inch!” the captain screams.
Shivaji steps to the captain, his demon smile gleaming. Then Shivaji lifts the sword above his head and cries out in a loud voice: “For the goddess! For Bhavani! Har, har, Mahadev!”
“We will not move until we hear the general’s order!” shouts the captain.
“Har, har, mahadev!” Shivaji cries, and from the crackling, leafy woods along the roadside, shouts are heard.
“Stand your ground!”
“Har, har, mahadev! Har, har, mahadev!” Shivaji shouts, waving the sword above his head with each word. The voices in the woods begin to raise the call as well, “Har, har, mahadev! Har, har, mahadev! Har, har, mahadev!”
“Not one inch!” the captain yells, his eyes wide. And then the blasts begin.
Hidden in the foliage of the woods, Hanuman squints through the underbrush, trying to see the parley tent at the top of the hill. “What do you see, captain?” one of his soldiers whispers.
There’s a stirring on the hilltop; the elephants are stamping more emphatically. Hanuman thinks he can make out his father, lifting his mace.
All around him a deathly quiet has fallen. I wish I knew what the hell is going on, he thinks. What is happening up there? He strains to see the parley tent.
And then a figure, bloody and obscure, emerging from the tent. “Shahu!” he whispers involuntarily.
“Is it him?” the soldier whispers from behind. Hanuman holds up his hand for silence.
Not until Shivaji lifts his sword above his head is Hanuman convinced. And when Shivaji gives the signal cry, Har, har, mahadev! Hanuman turns and yells as well: “The signal! The signal! Har, har, mahadev! Attack! Attack!”
The forest bursts forth with sudden violence. Out of the leaves and vines, men emerge, and bright blades.
“The fuses!” Hanuman screams. “Throw the granadas!” Can anyone hear him?
All around comes a chant that sounds like roaring: Har, har, mahadev! Har, har, mahadev! Buried beneath the road, the first of O’Neil’s hidden bombs explodes. The blast thuds like a book dropped beneath a dome. The blast of other bombs follows. “Get down! Get down!” screams Hanuman.
Another blast, and another, the blasts now heavier and stronger. Beneath the Bijapuris’ feet the road becomes the mouth of hell. Fire leaps down the road; black smoke belches into the sky.
The forest brush begins to rattle as a rain falls; not a rain of water, but of bodies broken: arms, and feet, and sharply broken skulls; hooves and tusks and shattered weapons pelting through the leaves. Men cower against the damp earth, which shudders beneath them as though it were a great drum beaten hard.
Sound erupts around them, battering their ears though they have squeezed their hands against their heads. Smoke rolls through the forest like an angry river.
O’Neil’s bombs, hidden beneath the road from the bottom of the hill to the top, explode in a rolling cloud of thundering death, spewing smoke and fire, sending death screaming through the blackened air.
On the hill road there is no warning, only death, death before the bomb’s roar hits the ear. The soldiers watch in frozen terror, unable to move, unable to pray even, as the ground beneath them roils into fire.
At last the ground stops rumbling and Hanuman lifts his head. “Attack! Attack!” he cries. His ringing ears cannot hear his own voice. He dashes down the hillside, sword in hand, pushing the Marathis forward. “Attack! Attack!”
Amidst the broken bodies on the road, men still live. But not for long. The Marathis dash through the fire, swords and sickles waving, slashing anything that moves.
Blood pours down the smoking road in rivulets.
The bomb blasts stop a hundred yards from the hilltop, leaving all the elephants alive. But though they have been trained to war, they are not ready for the fury of those bombs. Maddened by the flame and smoke and thunder all around, they rear up and the soldiers fall from their howdahs.
The great beasts collide into each other, goring and being gored by armored tusks, skidding on the gore of the men they squash beneath their heavy feet. Bellowing, eyes rimmed with white, the elephants drive mindlessly into the forest. Their howdahs
and their armor tumble off, dragging behind them as they run. Sometimes they drag men still tangled in the traces.
Jedhe siezes his katar and runs to the captain in the bamboo cage, miraculously unharmed. Jedhe slices through the thongs that secure the cage door. The captain, trembling and moaning, is too far gone even to notice. Jedhe releases the captain’s feet, and catches his body in his arms—the smell is horrible—and lifts him so his eyes no longer face the pointed stakes. Then Jedhe cuts the bindings on the captain’s wrists, and he collapses.
When this is done, Shivaji lowers his sword and looks to the Bijapuri captain, still standing in his stirrups. “That man is now free,” Shivaji says. “And so are you. Take what men still live and leave my lands.” Blood trickles from the wound beneath his helmet.
“What about the general?” the captain answers.
“He’s dead,” Shivaji says.
“He should be buried,” the captain says.
“I myself will do it. Leave or die.”
The captain looks behind, down the road now burning, where Marathis slash and hack at anything still moving. In the clearing far below, several thousand soldiers mill in disarray. “I could still take you,” the captain says.
“Try,” Shivaji answers, and he lifts the point of his shining sword toward the captain’s heart.
The captain looks at him. “I never moved, did I? Not one goddamned inch.” The captain turns to the Abyssinians. “Come on, you, bastards,” he calls. “I’m the general now.”
The captain turns once more to Shivaji. “Shall I take him?” he says, nodding to the prisoner Jedhe has released.
“He’s mine now.”
“So’s the goddamned treasure. And the goddamned forts. And any other goddamned thing you want, son.” The captain starts to pick his way down the bleeding, broken road, the other riders following.
Tanaji comes forward, grabbing Shivaji’s arm. “You’ve won, Shahu!”
“Have I?” Shivaji whispers. Then he collapses to the ground.
EPILOGUE
Maya’s feet slap the black stone floor of the temple, punctuating the complex rhythm that Gungama taps behind her on a drum. How long has she been dancing? She has reached the wild ecstatic moment near the end. Maya has merged into the goddess.
No more can Maya tell if she is dancer, dance, or goddess. She can no longer tell the jingle of her ankle bells from their echo. The small drum sometimes seems to guide her feet; her movements sometimes seem to wring the rhythm from the drum. This is why she dances, this one moment that expands beyond eternity. As she whirls, perspiration flies from her limbs like stars.
Then the drumming stops, and the stone walls ring with silence. Maya lifts her hands to bowed head. It takes many seconds before she feels the pounding of her heartbeat, the pulsing ache of her limbs, the heaving of her breath.
Gungama comes beside her. “You did well,” she says. “Be careful of the wideness of your left eyelid during the Kharunabhava. You must emphasize the goddess’s compassion, child; one can’t do this with eyelid held so wide.”
“Yes, ma,” Maya answers when she can catch a breath. Gungama throws a shawl across her shoulders, for Maya’s silks are wet from dancing, and the morning air is cold.
Maya hesitates for a moment outside the griha doorway as they leave. There she sees Shivaji, bare-chested, wearing only a lungi, prostrate on the floor, head buried under his arms. A brahmin stands nearby, holding a bowl of fragile rice cakes. “The sraddah gift,” Gungama whispers. “It is the eleventh day since Sai Bai’s passing.” Maya turns her eyes to the goddess, remembering Sai Bai. Today Sai Bai’s will soul occupy a new body.
May my sister’s next life be happier, Maya prays.
Outside the temple, dawn lights the street. The Poona market stirs to life. Gungama and Maya walk together, arm in arm: one woman bent from exhaustion, the other bent from age.
Shoppers have begun to stroll the market stalls. Poona is aflood with visitors come to see Shivaji, the hero of the Malve. The city has been filling since the day they came from Pratapghad. And since that day, a week ago, thousands more had come: every bed filled, every inn packed. Outside the walls another city has sprung up, a vast metropolis of tents.
Each day Shivaji sat cross-legged on a dais in his courtyard, greeting his unexpected guests. High caste and low, even untouchables, received a look, a touch, a piece of candy or of gold.
In the midst of all this hubbub, Hanuman’s wedding to Jyoti began four days ago. In the mad excitement of the victory at Pratapghad, Hanuman had invited all his soldiers. Of course they accepted, bringing with them wives and children, grandparents and servants, all joining the crowds already at the city. It soon became impossible to tell who was invited and who was not, and at last Shivaji let everyone take part.
Workmen adjust the wedding pandal that covers half the courtyard, tightening the canopy of bright cloth by shinnying up the long support poles. A plaster murti of Ganesha, nearly six feet tall and pink as a baby, rests on a bed of rose petals. Some servants sweep, others hang fresh garlands. From the kitchens of the brahmin chefs, the smells of fires and cooking fill the air.
The women reach the palace guesthouse, where a servant girl tells them that Jyoti is still asleep. Her eyes sparkle. “I guess she won’t get much sleep tonight. Lucky girl.” The girl turns back to Maya. “And what of you, mistress?”
“We still mean to leave tonight, after her wedding. See that our bags are packed.”
When Maya has changed clothes, she and Gungama eat chapatis. Jijabai enters without a knock. “Am I to understand that you are leaving?” she asks, with a cold formality that might almost pass for politeness.
“That was always our intent,” Maya replies.
“I have come to ask you to change your mind. Do not go to Adoli. Stay here, and be my son’s wife.”
Astonished Maya looks up, first to Gungama, then to Jijabai, whose hands are folded in supplication. She takes a long time to answer. “Does Shivaji know that you are here?”
“What difference does that make?”
Gungama whispers to Maya. “There’s your answer, child.”
Maya lifts the end of her sari over her head. “I decline your offer.” She turns back to her breakfast.
Jijabai has managed to contain herself, but no more. “How dare you, little whore! I come here begging, and you treat me so!”
“And now you know why I decline,” Maya answers.
Gungama speaks without looking up. “It is her destiny to wed a king. Is your son a king?”
Jijabai glowers at the old woman. “She is a pauper and a whore.”
“Show her,” Gungama tells Maya.
Maya slips like a shadow into another room and comes back with a wooden box. She opens it and takes out the jeweled headdress. The diamonds and pearls glitter like water in her hands. “You see I am no pauper,” Maya says. “Ask your son if I’m a whore.” Jijabai whirls on her heel and stomps out the doorway.
Last to arrive at a hastily called meeting in the main palace are Tanaji and Trelochan. Bala, Lakshman, and Shivaji wait for them.
“I have news,” Jedhe tells them. “Iron and I rode behind the Bijapuris as they retreated. We took five hundred men, just to keep an eye on things. As we neared Bijapur, we heard that the Moguls had lifted the siege of Golconda.” Jedhe glances around the circle, letting the news sink in.
“So we took the men east. On the road, moving slow, were a couple of thousand foot soldiers. Led by a eunuch.” Jedhe looks around, enjoying the expressions of surprise. “But that’s not all. They were escorting five hundred cannon.”
“Five hundred cannon and two thousand men?” Tanaji blinks in astonishment.
Jedhe nods. “Iron set our force up on a hillside. We attacked their flanks. Imagine being led by a eunuch! The better soldiers had been part of the earlier divisions, and these were the the dregs. They ran off. They left more than four hundred cannon behind.”
“That’s twice wha
t we took from the Bijapuris,” Bala says. “We have nearly a thousand cannon now.”
It’s the final day of the wedding.
Jyoti enters from the guesthouse, splendid as a princess, her face hidden beneath a long veil of golden silk, led by Shivaji, since she has no father. Maya follows behind her former maid, their roles now reversed.
Then Shivaji escorts Hanuman, decked out like a prince, to a seat of honor in the shadow of Ganesha. He places honey in Hanuman’s mouth to sweeten his welcome. His parents sit nearby. Nirmala sobs into the end of her sari while Tanaji pretends not to notice.
Shivaji leads Jyoti to Hanuman’s side, and with a sweeping gesture, places her hand in his. Trelochan and another brahmin bind their hands together.
Together, Hanuman and Jyoti walk a slow circle around a fire and a vessel of Ganges water. Three times they walk, and each time offer roasted bakri to the gods. “I am the melody, you are the words,” Jyoti says.
“I am the earth, you are the sky,” Hanuman replies. “Let us live a hundred autumns.”
Then Trelochan brings them to a place a few yards from the fire, and places seven heaps of rice in a line before them. Side by side, they step from heap to heap, with each step repeating a prayer. “For food,” Hanuman says. “For strength.” Another step. “For wealth.” Another. “For happiness.”
Nearby, Maya’s gaze drifts to Shivaji, his face radiant with joy and edged with sorrow. Never has Maya felt more longing. She is about to turn away when he bends toward her. As their friends walk the final three steps, his eyes lock with hers.
Jyoti and Hanuman throw ghee into the fire, the crowd in the courtyard presses close. This is the part they’ve been waiting for. Every hand is filled with kumkum-stained rice; the younger boys have bags of the stuff.
Shivaji and Maya hold a silk sheet between Hanuman and Jyoti while Trelochan intones a verse. When he finishes, the crowd pelts the two with a shower of colored rice. Seven times he does this, seven times the rice rain falls. Maya and Shivaji are too busy laughing to stare into each other’s eyes. Then Trelochan says the word, and Maya and Shivaji drop the silk curtain. Rice falls on Hanuman and Jyoti so fiercely they must cover their faces. When things calm down, they garland one another with roses, and sprinkle rice on each other’s heads. Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! the crowd chants, until Jyoti pecks Hanuman’s cheek and everyone applauds.
