The Crows of Agra

by Sharath Komarraju

  ‘They could have been speaking about anything.’

  Salima Begum smiled. ‘Then Maham Anga asked, “What about the weapon?” And to that her son replied, “There are enough weapons in the man’s room.” Do you still think they were discussing the weather, sir?’

  As the servants proceeded to serve portions of rice and potatoes garnished with beef crumbs, Salima Begum held out her hands to the right, whereupon two ladies attended upon them, one washing her fingers, the other drying them.

  You do not mind, then, if I eat in your presence.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  The plates arrived on the table, and she took her first bite. Her grief did not seem to have much affected her appetite, Mahesh Das thought.

  ‘Is that true, though, my lady? Was Bairam Khan not planning to leave?’ asked Mahesh Das. ‘Did he tell you anything of the sort?’

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He told me to make preparations for the journey and say my goodbyes. Why, sir, do you say that Maham Anga could have been right about that?’

  Mahesh Das spread his hands. ‘I am a mere observer, Begum. Anything is possible for an observer.’

  ‘Do you know, madam,’ he asked, ‘why Bairam Khan wanted to meet Adham Khan that night?’

  Salima Begum shook her head. ‘The affairs of men of the Mughal court, sir, are much more secretive than those of the women. We women tend to prattle a lot and there really are no secrets hiding within our breasts. But men…well, men think of a thousand words and speak out but one of them.’

  Mahesh Das could not help smiling.

  ‘I do not jest,’ said Salima, even though she returned his smile. ‘There must have been something that Bairam wished to speak to young Adham about, though I cannot guess as to what it must have been.’

  The mid-morning gong sounded.

  Mahesh Das felt the overwhelming desire to roll some tobacco and smoke it. The dearest memories of his life among the bandits had been the times when after a job they would sit with the loot between them, distributing it, and then proceeding to smoke the wonderful tobacco that Bihari used to procure from some acquaintance of his.

  ‘I must take your leave, my lady,’ said Mahesh Das, standing up and bowing. ‘Please proceed. I am certain that we shall meet again very soon.’ And just like that, she turned away from him and focused all her energies on eating.

  Mahesh Das turned for the door, his still tingling with desire for a well-rolled tobacco leaf.

  * * *

  Mahesh Das did not take the chair Ruqaiya Begum had offered him. Instead, he walked up to the window where he had stood for a moment the last time he visited. The perfume mark on the windowsill was gone.

  So was the smell of lilies.

  Mahesh Das opened his eyes. From where he stood, Mahesh Das had an unobstructed view of the courtyard. If Ruqaiya Begum had wanted to pay Bairam Khan a visit, she would have known exactly when to leave from and how much time it would take.

  He turned around to face Ruqaiya Begum. ‘My lady,’ he said, keeping his tone as steady as possible, ‘there is a lot that you are not telling me.’

  ‘I have told you all that you wish to know,’ she said, a chill tingeing her tone.

  Mahesh Das took a step closer to her. ‘But Your Highness, you lied to me this morning. You had not come to the room to find your ring, I know that.’

  ‘If I tell you that I went to the room to retrieve my ring, that should be enough for you. Are you saying that the word of the empress is not true?’ she replied curtly.

  ‘The guard at the entrance saw the ring on your finger when your entered, Your Majesty.’ He looked into her eyes and saw the life leave them. He knew he was on the right track. ‘What are you hiding, my lady?’

  ‘You think I have killed him,’ she said, tonelessly.

  ‘I know you have not,’ he replied. ‘But why then are you lying? Why do you not trust me with the truth, Begum? I shall do my very best to protect you–’

  ‘Protect me?’ she said. ‘I need no protection, for I have done no wrong.’

  ‘What are you afraid of, Your Highness?’

  ‘I think you need to leave. You are making me uncomfortable.’

  ‘But my lady –’

  ‘Guards!’

  She clapped her hands. Mahesh Das heard heavy footsteps behind them, and with a squeak the door opened. Two guards in red suits and brass armour stepped in and stood on either side of the door, their eyes fastened on the queen. She held her head high now, as if feeding off the courage she got from the sight of the men.

  ‘You need to leave now, Mahesh Das,’ she said. ‘I shall tell the emperor that you are not to see me again, even if you come bearing his seal.’

  Mahesh Das eyed the two men. Then he bowed in her direction. ‘As you wish, Empress.’

  As he made out of the room, Mahesh Das felt more than ever that if he had to get to the bottom of this puzzle, he had to know two things: what Ruqaiya Begum had seen that night from her balcony and why she returned to Bairam Khan’s room and lied about it.

  He stepped out into the sunlit area and stood there, thinking. She was never going to tell him. He had to find out for himself.

  The notes of a sitar floated down to him. He looked up to see the white figure of Gulbadan Begum standing at the doorway to her chamber, watching him. When their eyes met, she smiled and beckoned him.

  Mahesh Das turned to look at the now closed door of Ruqaiya Begum’s room. The two men had come out of the room now, and they stood on either side of the heavy wooden arch, their spears brandished, their eyes fixed on him.

  Mahesh Das let his feet guide him in the direction of the sitar notes.

  Twenty Six

  ‘YOU LOOK CONCERNED, Mahesh Das,’ said Gulbadan Begum. ‘I would have thought your life has become better since you came to the palace.’ She sat on the edge of the bed, her bare feet on the marble floor. She had yellow toenails, Mahesh Das noticed, and they were raised and thick; perhaps the only part of her body that could not be described as poetic.

  ‘My lady, you are correct,’ he said, bowing. ‘I have gained much in the last two days; the emperor’s favour, the audience of royal ladies such as you, the chance to join the Mughal court.’

  ‘And yet you are troubled, are you not?’ she said. A fickle breeze blew in through the open windows, making her hair dance. She flattened it with her wrinkled hand. ‘Man is never happy with what he gets, is he, miyan?’

  ‘This is a curious little problem we have on our hands, is it not?’ she asked, smiling up at him. ‘Nazneen told me that you had her summoned to your chambers this morning.’

  Mahesh Das nodded. ‘It would be so easy for all of us if it had been Adham who killed Bairam Khan, my lady.’

  ‘You have reason to believe that he did not?’

  ‘Begum sahiba, Adham Khan is a threat to the emperor. Both of us know that. I am certain the emperor knows that too.’

  Gulbadan Begum did not respond.

  ‘However, we only know that he visited Bairam Khan after the eleventh gong. We do not know what transpired between them, and we do not have proof of him killing Bairam Khan.’

  ‘Nazneen tells me that when he left, Adham looked shaken and pale, the way you would expect a man to look if he had just killed someone.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Mahesh Das, ‘but there are other details too that do not fit.’

  ‘Like why Ruqaiya went back to the room this morning?’ said Gulbadan Begum, smiling at his befuddled expression. ‘I make it a point to be in the know about things that happen around the harem, miyan.’

  ‘Yes, that is one detail that does not fit. It is my theory that Ruqaiya Begum stood by the window that night, and he saw someone pass the courtyard to Bairam Khan’s chambers, someone she did not expect to see, and someone she wishes to protect, perhaps?’

  Gulbadan Begum looked down at her palms, then turned them around to examine her nails. Age had not dulled the clear pink on the tips of her finge
rs.

  ‘You seem to be thinking how I knew about Ruqaiya’s visit to Bairam Khan’s room this morning. It is not important. What is important, though, is that whatever she could have seen, I could have seen too.’ She looked up at him with that twinkle in her black eyes. ‘Are you not going to ask me?’

  ‘I am afraid, my lady,’ said Mahesh Das, smiling, ‘that you would not tell me the truth. You will speak in some puzzle that I must unravel, and I have enough puzzles on my hands already.’

  She laughed, and signalled to the girl playing the sitar to stop and leave. The girl got up, bowed in their direction, and carried the instrument away in quick, crisp steps.

  ‘Life itself is a puzzle, Mahesh Das,’ said Gulbadan Begum. ‘But I may tell you something that will help you unravel the knots of your puzzle.’

  ‘I am all ears, my lady.’

  ‘First of all you can discount me from your number of crows. I did not kill Bairam Khan.’

  Mahesh Das tried to maintain his composure but failed. How did she know about his conversation with the emperor?

  So it was true then. That Gulbadan Begum had ears everywhere in the palace, not just the harem. He made a mental note of never speaking about secretive matters in the presence of servants any more. No matter how disinterested they looked, no matter how dutifully they bowed their heads, they still listened.

  ‘I have forgiven Bairam Khan for his crime, heinous as it was. He took away my brother’s life, the only man who loved me with all his heart.’

  ‘Does the emperor not love you with all his heart, my lady?’

  She smiled. ‘Akbar is still a young boy. He is still only discovering the pleasures of the flesh. He has much to learn about matters of the heart. He will, in time, I am certain, but he is not there yet.’

  ‘When did you discover that you have forgiven Bairam Khan, Begum? After his death?’

  ‘You taunt me, sir, but I shall take it in good humour. Before dinner, on the eve of his departure, Bairam Khan came to meet me.’

  ‘Here?’

  She waved her hand to the window. ‘Out there, in the garden. He confessed to me.’

  ‘Confessed?’

  She nodded. ‘He told me that he was responsible for Hindal’s drowning. While he did not drown him with his own hands, he did not rescue him when he could. He said he chose to rescue Humayun instead.’

  ‘My lady, that must have been hard to hear.’

  Gulbadan Begum’s eyes grew moist, but she sighed and said, ‘It was a long time ago, Mahesh Das. We have all become old now—Bairam Khan, Atgah, I...Humayun is dead, and we all must walk through the same gate. I found it much easier to forgive him after he made his admission. And what was I to gain from being vengeful? He was going on his last journey the next day. Allah would take care of him, I thought.’

  Mahesh Das watched her, wondering how much of what she said was true. If Bairam Khan had indeed confessed, did she truly forgive him or did she use it as a way to exact her vengeance?

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ she said. ‘How can a sister hear her brother’s killer confess to her and still forgive him? You are thinking, perhaps, that it made me angry, that perhaps I was the one who held the knife that felled him.’

  ‘I am thinking no such thing, Begum.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Your eyes give away too much, Mahesh Das. So does your mouth. I told you. You should grow a beard, and do away with that plait of yours. It makes you look like a girl of twelve, I dare say!’

  ‘I will, my lady,’ said Mahesh Das. ‘But you must give me your word that you have not killed Bairam Khan.’

  She chuckled in surprise. ‘You ask for promises from the Mughals. We are known for breaking our promises quicker than dusk falls in the winter months, good sir. But for you, I shall give my word, for what it is worth: I did not kill Bairam Khan. By that evening, when we took our leave from each other in the garden, I confess I may even have had some fondness in my heart for him. I forgave him completely.’

  ‘Then you are a nobler person than I can ever hope to be, Begum.’

  ‘Nobility comes easily to the aged, Mahesh Das.’ Gulbadan Begum paused, as though thinking of something. ‘But my question to you is this: what if Bairam Khan had a change of heart with others in the palace like he did with me? What if he had met Atgah Khan as well and confessed some of his long-forgotten crimes to his old friend?’ She twisted the diamond ring around her ring finger. ‘What if Atgah was not as willing as I was to forgive the old man? Atgah, Adham and Bairam were in the room together, all three of them, at the tenth stroke last night. Who was the killer and who was the witness? All we know is that half an hour later, both Adham and Atgah left the room, within minutes of each other, first Atgah and then Adham.’

  Mahesh Das did not say anything for a few minutes.

  ‘Do you think, my lady,’ he said finally, ‘that Bairam Khan truly wished to leave for Mecca?’

  ‘I do not know. I wish we could just ask Bairam that. Let us have a pact, Mahesh Das, you and I, that whoever goes to the abode of Allah first will ask him and then find a way to send the message down.’

  ‘He confessed to you after all these years. Perhaps he did want to atone for all his sins. Perhaps he was just starting here.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Gulbadan Begum. ‘But then, Bairam has always been a wily old fox. Perhaps he had another ruse in his mind. Who knows really?’

  Mahesh Das nodded slowly. She was right; he had no way of knowing what Bairam Khan had in his mind. Whether he wished to go to Mecca the morning after or not, he had summoned two of Akbar’s foremost men to his chambers, and he had had the foresight to get rid of all his servants so that no one would hear what was being said.

  Just then Nazneen walked into the room, carrying a silver bowl of plump, red berries.

  ‘The berry tree in the courtyard has just blossomed. Here, have a fruit,’ said Gulbadan Begum.

  Mahesh Das looked up at her, and for just a brief moment, their eyes met. She bowed her head at him, and he responded in kind. She placed the bowl on the table, bowed and traced her steps back toward the exit.

  Mahesh Das picked up a plump cherry and took a bite.

  Twenty Seven

  MAHESH DAS CROSSED the stone path leading from the harem to Bairam Khan’s chambers, and stepped onto the garden. His sandals sank into the moist green earth. It was a hot dry day, but the lawns had been were fed and watered. In the Mughal household, perhaps nothing else held the same sense of importance as the gardens, and no other employees more highly thought of than gardeners.

  His meeting with Ruqaiya Begum had left him rattled.

  Mahesh Das walked into the shade of a berry tree and looked up at the harem windows. Only a tiny part of Gulbadan Begum’s window could be seen, but Ruqaiya Begum’s chamber was in line of sight.

  As if his thoughts had willed her out, she appeared by the painted window sill. She stood at an angle from him and craned her neck. Mahesh Das could not tell if she was looking at him, but he bowed nonetheless.

  Perhaps she had seen him, because the next instant she disappeared from view, and then her shutters came down.

  He proceeded further away from the path, onto the muddy part of the garden, where small guava and mango plants had been sown a few weeks before. Each plant stood supported by a sturdy cane. Each tree had been planted in a large circular ditch, filled with soft red-and-black soil. He noticed a network of footprints all around the trees. Some barefooted, some of shoes, some deep and pronounced, others smudged by last night’s rain.

  He walked to the outer corner of Bairam Khan’s house, and from there he looked back at the harem wall again. This time, only Ruqaiya Begum’s window was visible. So it was possible that she had seen something which Gulbadan Begum could not have. He did not know why, but something about the empress’s surreptitious behaviour made him nervous, and while she did not trust him enough to tell him what she had seen, he could tell that it had shaken her.

  He bent
down on his knee and ran his hand over the soil. Lifting his hand up to his nose, he took a breath; it smelled of rain and manure. He dusted his hands and got up into a crouch. Staying close to the wall and low, he travelled along the back of the house, eyes trained on the ground. He picked the trail of a certain pair of footprints. While the others were haphazard and random this one seemed to have a certain pattern to them.

  After a short distance, though, the footprints disappeared, and the earth looked freshly dug up. He walked with light steps, to avoid mud from dirtying his feet and sandals, and turned the third corner to stop under Bairam Khan’s the closed window.

  Nothing on the sill to suggest someone had climbed in. No marks on the wall either.

  Mahesh Das set his hands on the panelled wood and examined it for soft spots. He did not find any. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a long metal file, which he tried to slip into the hinges. The gaps were too small for his tool. Whoever had built these windows knew his trade. He seemed to know the thief’s trade too. If Mahesh Das had been tasked to break into this chamber through this window, he would have indeed struggled.

  So if someone had entered through the window, the shutters would have to be open. Bairam Khan had been in the room.

  He thought about the black filings he had found by the regent’s weapons closet. Salima Begum had said that they must have been from a sharpening exercise that had taken place the morning before. But what need did a man have for sharpened weapons if he was to go to Mecca? But wasn’t it odd that the texture of the filings matched the texture of the black soil through which he had just walked.

  He looked up to see if any of the harem’s windows could be seen from here, but all he saw was the blue sky of the afternoon and the gathering clouds in the distant horizon. There would be rain tonight too, he thought, and these footprints would be washed away. He was about to leave when he heard the crunch of leaves behind him.

  He approached the corner and looked around it. There was Atgah Khan, on one knee, his blackened hand held to his nose.