Swords From the Desert (40 page)

Wallah! Jahangir delighted overmuch in torture. Even when hunting, he liked to have the carcasses stretched out at the end of the day for him to scan, and he kept at his side a servant whose duty it was to write down the total of each kind of game. For these unnamed miscreants, the thieves, the sword would have been punishment enough.

But they served me indeed that night, since I passed from the field into a trampled garden where a hundred soldiers sat about or snored by one fire. Beyond the fire was the ata khanate, the red cloth barrier around the imperial quarters. I went forward slowly, crawling in the dry grass, the sound of my passage unheard in the murmur of the wind.

The cloth screen that flapped and shivered over my head made a poor kind of barrier. I felt for the bamboo supports and thrust up the cloth between them, crawling beneath and standing erect all in a moment.

No fires glowed. Far off, lanterns swung gently on spears thrust into the ground, and the tops of the great pavilions swelled and sank. As I passed by the nearer tents I heard the tinkle of women's anklets, and laughter.

And straightaway I sank into the grass again. Torches came around the pavilion-torches borne by barefoot slaves before some young nobles who looked like Persians. One of them held in leash a pair of hunting leopards, and the eyes of the beasts glowed when they turned toward me, scenting a man.

I gripped the hilt of my sword and lay without moving, until one of the courtiers, noticing the restlessness of the leopards, held back his companions.

"Not that way," he cried. "Yonder lies the field of the dead."

Another laughed.

"Nay, Amir ul Amira, whoso kneels upon the carpet of Jahangir may win to immortality in this world, or the next."

Nevertheless, they went away to seek a more distant gate, and again I had reason to be grateful for the unfortunate thieves. I had marked by the torchlight a single spearman standing beside the largest of the pavilions, and toward him I made my way.

He was watching the departing nobles idly, and I waited until he had turned his back, walking away slowly. Then I rose to my feet and sped to him, drawing the curved dagger from its sheath.

The warrior stopped, listening. He faced me, peering into the gloom by the tent wall. Before he could speak, I gripped his tunic at his throat and pressed the tip of the knife under his beardless chin.

Eh, he had the long spear in one hand, a shield upon the other arm; the hilts of other weapons showed against his white garment. But for all his weapons, he trembled when he felt the steel prick his skin.

"Be silent and live!" I whispered. "Take me at once to the gold chain, the chain of justice that hangs by the pavilion of the padishah."

Doubtless he thought, if he thought at all, that I had come to carry off the gold. Before I let him move, I felt for all the knives at his waist and tossed them to the ground. In the darkness a long spear avails not at all, and a shield is of little worth; a sword may serve its turn, but the weapon that slays is a knife.

"This way," he muttered, drawing me with him. And, growing bolder in a moment, he asked what I desired.

"Speed," I laughed, and shifted the point of the yama-dhara from his throat to his back, beneath the left shoulder blade.

Indeed, he went swiftly around the pavilion, stumbling over ropes and his own spear shaft, until he ran full into another guard, who cursed him and warned him to be silent, in a whisper.

My man could not draw back and dared not speak. The other peered at him, recognizing him, and yet doubtful. My eyes were accustomed to the near darkness of the starlight, and I beheld within arm's reach something that hung down from the eaves of the pavilion. A post and a kind of bracket showed dimly against the tent wall, and from this bracket above my head stretched the thing that glimmered softly.

It came into my mind that this might be the chain of justice and the man he who stood guard over it. I reached forth and pulled upon it strongly.

Wallah! Above and within the pavilion bells without number tinkled and rang and chimed. The two soldiers cried out, and the one that had brought me hither, feeling my dagger withdrawn from his neck, turned and fled. The other grasped my arm.

"What madness is this?" He muttered. "0 fool, there will come angry mansabdars to ask the meaning of this. If they find thee, they will drag thee before the king of justice and light of the law of Mohammed. And if they find thee not-"

He tightened his grasp on me. Truly, to free myself I would have needed to slay him.

"Has none come before me, to appeal to the Mogul?"

"Yea, desperate men, and-"

A lantern shone on the ground beside us, and came around the comer of the great tent-a lantern carried by a stout man in an embroidered robe who was followed by armed officers.

They held the lantern close to my face, exclaiming at my black garments. They spoke angrily to the guard by the chain, and the man in the robe of honor would have taken my weapons but I put hand upon hilt, saying:

"I am of the clan Nejd, a Sayyid, and the grandson of a chieftain. I have come to the light of the law of Mohammed in this fashion, at this hour, because evil men have kept me from his face."

The noble in command of the guard glanced upward fearfully. I had spoken in a clear voice, and doubtless many were listening, unseen.

"Come," said he. "The mercy of the Mogul is denied no one."

Indeed Jahangir, the Conqueror of the World,* sat awaiting us in the central chamber of the pavilion. His attendants led me through a curtain, out into the center of a wide carpet, holding fast to my arms, while others stood with drawn swords a spear's length at either side. The space was hung with tapestries woven into pictures, always of hunting, from elephant and horseback. And behind the Mogul stood a long screen of wooden fretwork, inlaid with mother of pearl. Above my head a canopy of cloth of gold swelled and shivered as the wind brushed into the pavilion.

Jahangir half sat, half reclined against a round cushion-a stout man without a beard. When he moved, his head turned from side to side, as a lion's. He had the broad chin and the full, slant eyes of the Mogul race. Only in a pearl armlet and upon the loose ends of his girdle did he wear precious stones; but his garments were the lightest linen, and he breathed at times with heavy panting, as if a hand had clutched his throat.

In the beginning I thought this shortness of breath might be due to the heat of the night. After another moment I beheld the gray tinge of his flesh, the coarse lips and bloated eyelids of one who has denied himself nothing of forbidden food, of opium and spirits.

Indeed, I beheld the living carcass of a man who would stand before the dark angels within the space of two years. I bent my head and shoulders thrice in the salaam of greeting.

"Thy hand caused the bells to sound?" His glance, that had been roving among the tapestries, passed over me fleetingly. "Speak!"

"0 Lord of Ind," I said in Persian, which he readily understood, "dismiss thy followers and then hear me."

Again he looked at me and moved his shoulders in vexation.

"I was sleeping. Thou art armed. What is this?"

"A wrong to be redressed."

Suspicion, annoyance, and curiosity flickered across his broad, pale face. I asked the Hindus at my side to draw the yama-dhara from my girdle and to present it to the Mogul as a gift. He fingered it a moment, drew blade from sheath, and placed it beside him.

"Grant, 0 King," I cried, "that I may put my sword at thy feet and speak to no ear but thine." And I added, when his brow darkened, "The message is from one who would serve thee."

Eh, the ways of the court were strange to me; and I knew that already a messenger must have been sent to rout Asaf Khan from sleep, for his spies among the guard would have orders to report such happenings. So I took the boldest course unwitting. If only I had spoken otherwise ...

But who may escape his fate? I did what I did. And a new look came into the eyes of the Mogul. He gave command that the chamber of the pavilion should be cleared. At once the officers objected, with many words, saying that I had come at night, without a friend. He bade them search me for other weapons, and, when they found none, he told them sharply to be gone.

In the end, they went. The chamber was great in size, and though they may have listened beyond the hangings, they could not hear a word. Before they departed I had drawn my sheathed scimitar and, holding it upon both hands, placed it upon the carpet within reach of the Mogul, stepping back three paces.

"Thy message?" he demanded, curling his bare feet under him and leaning forward, perhaps to understand the better, perhaps to have the sword under his arm.

"Thus was it." I reflected and said what Mahabat Khan had said: "Mahabat Khan sends fealty. Are his deeds forgotten? Think, if the hawk that strikes down its quarry be not a better servant than the crow that feeds from others' leavings?"

The Mogul's eyes widened and he frowned.

"Aye, a hawk indeed. He has drawn apart the heart of my army and follows upon my heels." For a moment he was silent. "Who art thou?"

It came into my mind that Mahabat Khan had told me to speak to this lord of men from an open heart. So did I, relating how I had journeyed to Ind to behold his face, and how I had fallen in with the Rajputs, and with the stricken Rao.

This seemed to trouble Jahangir. He started to clap his hands to summon a servant, then thought better of it and reached forth to pour with his own fingers a little amber fluid from a silver jar into a drinking cup. Such a cup! Half a palm high it stood, glowing with all the fires of Iblis, for it had been cut from a single ruby. In gold inlay, there was upon it a single word-Nur-Mahal, the Light of the Palace.

Now as the Mogul lifted the cup and drank I heard the slightest of sounds, as if some one breathed deep nearby. But the hangings of the partition were five spear lengths away. Another sound came, the faint tinkling of a woman's anklet.

Eh, there was no woman within sight. Jahangir had not stirred, save to set down the cup, and he wore no bracelets or earrings. I looked covertly on all sides, and then at the wooden screen behind the Mogul's head, such a screen as bars the quarters of the women from the presence of men.

Jahangir choked and breathed heavily, feeling about with his fingers as if uncertain of what he touched.

"If I were sure," he chewed his lip, eying me. "Mahabat Khan was my sword arm until too much honor made him over-daring. He has been too long with the lords of Rajputana. If he had come into my presence, then I would know whether he be faithful or not."

"Verily he sent his comrade, Man Singh."

Jahangir moved impatiently.

"As to that I know nothing. If the Rajput came to the lashgar, he did not seek audience with me. I do not remember giving order for his punishment."

"Then others did so, in thy name."

"By the many-armed gods! Who would dare give out a firman in my name? Let Man Singh come before me and point out the one. Let him complain! "

So said the Mogul, yet his thought was otherwise. The eye of his mind contemplated Mahabat Khan and the five thousand riders bivouacked within a day's ride. Now in the lashgar were men without number, horse and foot and cannon men, slaves, huntsmen and their families. A multitude, perhaps a hundred thousand, perhaps more. Who knows? Yet the riders of Mahabat Khan worried him, because he questioned me-indeed I think it was for this purpose he had endured my words-as to the number of horses in the camp of the khan, and the names of the chieftains. "Do many come in from the countryside to talk with the khan?" he asked.

"More than a few," I responded. "And this, 0 King of justice, is clear to me. Mahabat Khan is true to thee in his heart. When the chieftains cried out against thee, he would have none of it. Yet the wrong done to his cousin is his shame, and now he is like a man goaded into a path he did not mean to follow."

Jahangir threw himself back on the pillow, taking up and playing with the dagger.

"If a king's son, the firstborn, rebels against him, how is he to put trust in a Pathan?" Nevertheless, he seemed a little reassured. "What would Mahabat Khan have me do? He has lifted his standard apart from mine."

"He did not say. Why not send for him, pledging him safety, and then judge the wrong done his cousin?"

"Did he say that?"

"Nay, the thought is mine."

"Art thou a sorcerer, to read good and evil in a face? A hakim, thou! A curer of ills. This shall be a fortunate hour for thee if Mahabat Khan makes his peace with me. Bism'allah! I will give thee the healing of the women's quarrels and a robe of honor with a stipend of twelve silver crowns a month."

He smiled reflectively, and it was clear that he believed Mahabat Khan had charged me with this last message. His broad face shone with good humor, though he still breathed with difficulty.

"Ibn Athir, I find thee a discreet messenger, and I bid thee return to the khan and say-"

He paused, thrusting the point of the dagger against his palm, then casting it down, as if remembering it might be poisoned.

"Say to Mahabat Khan that if he comes to seek me with no more than two hundred followers, I, Jahangir, his king, swear that no harm will come to him. Much may be pardoned in a hawk that flies back to its master."

I bent my head and stepped forward to pick up my sword, when I saw the expression of the Mogul change. Turning, I beheld the hangings parted behind me, and a Hindu prostrate at the end of the carpet.

"Lord of the World," the fellow cried, not raising his head, "NurMahal seeks thee, and even now approaches."

Alone, she advanced to the carpet. A triple salaam she made, her light body swaying with more than the grace of a dancing girl at each bending.

"It is the seventh hour of the night," she said, "and a nameless wanderer keeps the lord of my life from sleep."

Her voice was modulated as a singer's. An echo of it lingered in my ears, like the cry of a mocking djinnee. She looked down at my sword, picked it up and placed it under Jahangir's hand. Though she had said no word, she made it clear that she feared for his life.