Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee [93]
“Deception precedes triumph, says the wise one,” quoted the Raja, the wise one being Kautilya. “Ruses are the strategies of courage.” He swept his arm toward the distant campfires of his enemies. “He believes only in power and showing his power. A fool flexes his muscles. The wise man hides his strengths.”
She coped with the Raja’s alien concept of heroism. Appear weak before a boastful enemy; hit hard, flee fast. Men like Gabriel and the Marquis, even desk-bound power brokers like Higginbottham and Prynne, savored the flaunting and strutting more than the confrontation itself. And what, the Raja might have asked her, had become of them?
HE SHED the intimate folds of silk gauze and lover’s cotton and allowed his attendants, for the first time in a fortnight, to dress him in the robes of state. As his situation was obviously hopeless, he sent a petition for truce in exchange for Panpur fort and fifteen chests of gold, twenty chests of silver and a cash tribute of eight lakhs—eight hundred thousand rupees—to Morad Farah, whose foot soldiers were already crawling like roaches into the tunnel they’d dug under the moat. Others had already beached their landing boats on the Panpur side of the river. The petition was welcomed by the General on behalf of Nawab Haider Beg, and the treaty signing set up for Farah’s tent the following day.
Whereupon, the Raja knew, his exit would be barred, and immense suffering would be extracted from his final hours. Haider Beg would watch every minute, then report to his liege lord every delightful turn and twist of hot irons, extractions, crushings, beggings for mercy.
“His Excellency requests the lady accompany you,” said Morad Farah.
“My intention precisely,” the Raja replied.
SHORTLY AFTER the first quarter that moonless night, Jadav Singh bundled Hannah and Bhagmati into one palanquin, and a servant, disguised in royal jama, turban and jewels as Devgad’s Lion King, into another, and set off for distant Devgad at the head of an army of six hundred foot soldiers and three hundred horsemen. If Haider Beg had not been born to greed, the special greed of a provincial nobleman, he would not have been so easily stupefied by the promise of gold, the anticipated delight of inflicting torture. He would have recognized in the abject generosity of a surrounded, defeated adversary a subterfuge worthy of Kautilya himself.
In the valleys, the rain-moist air hung like smoke, condensing on every leaf. Every tree, every slightly cooler surface (and in such heat, even inflamed human flesh was cooler than the air), became its own small rain cloud, squeezing moisture in thick, heavy droplets to the slippery red Devgad clay. Rivers formed at the base of every forest tree, cutting their way through the rutted clay to form rushing torrents behind high grass just out of sight. Hunting parties broke off from the main band and returned minutes later with deer impaled on poles. Banana leaves, inverted, delivered the condensation like long green flagons, songbirds hopped along the paths, unable to gain altitude, and even mosquitoes, landing on her flesh for a bite of blood, found themselves skidding on her skin, unable to lift their sodden feet and drenched wings to get away. She squeezed her sari end; the water hit the ground in hissing droplets. The horses were scraped for leeches, which seemed to rise like locusts from the very grass. She thought: If the earth can melt from heat and humidity, it will today; she could brew her tea by waving a cup in the air and setting it in the sun to boil.
And as soon as she accustomed herself to the hell of a dripping, canopied rain forest, the path rose steeply through bands of cloud into the true coastal premonsoon heat, to a near-desert oven blast that made her long for the restful infirmities of the forest. The salt-stiffened sari flared off her shoulder and wouldn’t drape.
Up ahead, the Lion kept up a steady pace, racing forward with his advance scouts, galloping to the rear to make certain of no pursuit. He rode beside her a few