The Moghul Part 47

"My present birth was due to a very grave mistake. The soothsayer explained it. He said that in my last life I was a Rajput. Once I ordered my cook to prepare a gift for some Brahmins, to bake bread for them, and inside the bread I had put gold. It was an act of great merit. But the faithless cook betrayed me. He stole the gold and put stones in its place. The Brahmins were very insulted, but no one ever told me why. Because I had insulted Brahmins, I was reborn as I am. But my next life will be different. I will be rich and have many women.

Like a Brahmin or a Rajput." Nayka's eyes gleamed in antic.i.p.ation.

"The improvement in money I can understand." Hawksworth examined Nayka's ragged dhoti. "But what does it matter when it comes to women?

There seems to be plenty of randy women to go around, in all castes."

"That's true if you are a Rajput or a Brahmin. Then no woman of any caste can refuse you. But if you are a low caste, and you are caught with a high-caste woman, you'll probably be beaten to death by the Rajputs. They would say you were polluting her caste."

"Wait a minute. I thought Rajputs would have nothing to do with a low- caste woman." Hawksworth remembered Vasant Rao's stern denial.

"Who told you that?" Nayka smiled at Hawksworth's naivete. "I would guess a Rajput. They always deny it to strangers, so you won't form unfavorable ideas about the high castes. Let me tell you that it is a lie, Captain Sahib. They take our women all the time, and there is nothing we can say. But a low-caste man with a high-caste woman is another matter."

"But what about their 'ritual pollution'? They're not supposed to touch the low castes."

"It's very simple. A Rajput can take one of our women if he chooses, and then just take a bath afterward and he is clean again."

"But can't a high-caste woman do the same, if she's been with a low- caste man?"

"No, Captain Sahib. Because they say her pollution is internal. She has the polluting emissions of the low-caste man within her. So there is no way she can be purified. It's the way the high castes control their women. But if you're a man, you can have any woman you please, and there's nothing anyone can say." Again Nayka's eyes brightened. "It will be wonderful the day I am reborn. Caste is a wonderful thing."

Hawksworth studied the half-starved, almost toothless

man who stood before him barefoot, grinning happily.

Well, enjoy your dreams, you poor miserable son-of-a- b.i.t.c.h. I'll not be the one to tell you this life is all you get.

He took a slug of brandy and returned to his dung-flavored lentils.

Taken with some of the charcoal-flavored bread they were actually better than he'd expected.

Vasant Rao had already summoned the Rajputs and made a.s.signments for the evening guard duty. Guards were to be doubled. Hawksworth remained astounded by the Rajput concept of security. A large kettledrum was set up at the head of the camp and continually beaten from dusk to dawn. A detail of Rajputs would march around the perimeter of the camp throughout the night, and on the quarter hour a shout of "khabardar,"

meaning "take heed," would circle the camp. The first night Hawksworth had found it impossible to sleep for the noise, but the second night and thereafter his weariness overtook him.

He poured himself another brandy and watched as Nayka scrubbed out the cooking pans with ashes and sand. Then the driver rolled a betel leaf for Hawksworth and another for himself and set to work erecting the tent, which was nothing more than four poles with a canopy. After this he unloaded Hawksworth's cot, a foot-high wooden frame strung with hemp. None of the Rajputs used cots; they preferred a thin pallet on the ground.

Nayka seemed to work more slowly as he started unrolling the bedding onto the hemp strings of the cot, and he began to glance nervously at the sky. Suddenly he stopped and slipped quietly to where the other drivers were encamped, seated on their haunches around a fire, pa.s.sing the mouthpiece of a hookah. A long discussion followed, with much pointing at the sky. Then Nayka returned and approached Hawksworth, twisting his head in the deferential bow all Indians seemed to use to superiors. He stood for a moment in hesitation, and then summoned the courage to speak.

"It is not well tonight. Sahib. We have traveled this road many times."

He pointed east into the dark, where new lightning played across the hovering bank of clouds. "There has been rain near Chopda, farther east where the river forks. In two _pahars_ time, six of your hours, the river will begin to rise here."

"How much will it rise?"

"Only the G.o.ds can tell. But the river will spread beyond its banks and reach this camp. I have seen it. And it will remain impa.s.sable for three days."

"How can you be sure?"

"I have seen it before, Sahib. The drivers all know and they are becoming afraid. We know the treachery of this river very well. But the other bank is near high ground. If we crossed tonight we would be safe." Again he s.h.i.+fted his head deferentially. "Will you please tell the raja?"

To the drivers, Vasant Rao could only be a raja, a hereditary prince.

All important Rajputs were automatically called rajas.

"Tell him yourself."

"We would rather you tell him, Captain Sahib. He is a high caste. It would not be right for us to tell a raja what to do."

Hawksworth watched for a moment as the Rajput guards began taking their place around the perimeter of the camp, and then he looked sadly at his waiting cot.

d.a.m.n. Crossing in the dark could be a needless risk. Why didn't the drivers say something while we still had light? G.o.d curse them and their castes.

Then with a shrug of resignation he rose and made his way to Vasant Rao's tent.

The Rajput leader had already removed his helmet, but after listening to Hawksworth he reluctantly strapped it back on and called for his second in command. Together they examined the clouds and then walked down to the river.

In the dark no one could tell if it had begun to rise. Vasant Rao ordered three Rajputs to ride across carrying torches, to test the depth and mark out a path. The river was wide, but it still was no more than a foot or two deep. When the third Rajput finally reached the far sh.o.r.e, over a hundred yards away, Vasant Rao issued orders to a.s.semble the convoy.

The drivers moved quickly to harness their bullocks, which had been tethered to stakes near bundles of hay. The weary cattle tossed their heads and sniffed suspiciously at the moist air as they were whipped into harness. Meanwhile the Rajput guards began saddling their horses.

Hawksworth saddled his own mare and watched as his cot and tent were rolled and strapped into the cart alongside his chest. He stared again into the darkness that enveloped the river. Nothing could be seen except the three torches on the distant sh.o.r.e. Suddenly he seemed to hear a warning bell in the back of his mind.

We're too exposed. Half the guard will be in the river while we cross.

And there'll be no way to group the carts if we need to.

He paused a moment, then retrieved his sword from the cart and buckled it on. Next he checked the prime on the two matchlock pocket pistols he carried, one in each boot.

Five mounted Rajputs holding torches led as the convoy started across the sandy alluvium toward the river. Hawksworth's cart was the first to move, and as he drew his mare alongside, Nayka threw him a grateful smile through the flickering light of the torch strapped against one of the cart's poles.

"You've saved us all. Captain Sahib. When the river grows angry, nothing can appease her."

The bullocks nosed warily at the water, but Nayka gave them the lash and they waded in without protest. The bed was gravel, smoothed by the long action of the stream, and the water was still shallow, allowing the large wheels of the carts to roll easily. Hawksworth pulled his mount close to the cart and let its enormous wheel splash coolness against his horse's flank.

The current grew swifter as they reached the center of the stream, but the bullocks plodded along evenly, almost as though they were on dry ground. Then the current eased again, and Hawksworth noticed that the Rajputs riding ahead had already reined in their mounts, signifying they had gained the far sh.o.r.e. Their five torches merged with the three of the Rajputs already waiting, and together they lined the water's edge.

Hawksworth twisted in the saddle and looked back at the line of carts.

They traveled abreast in pairs, a torchman riding between, and the caravan had become an eerie procession of waving lights and shadows against the dark water. The last carts were in the river now, and Vasant Rao was riding rapidly toward him, carrying a torch.

Looks like I was wrong again, Hawksworth thought, and he turned to rein his horse as it stumbled against a submerged rock.

The torches along the sh.o.r.e were gone.

He stared in disbelief for a moment, and then he saw them sputtering in the water's edge. Lightning flashed in the east, revealing the silhouettes of the Rajputs' mounts, stumbling along the sh.o.r.e, their saddles empty. He whirled to check the caravan behind him, and at that moment an arrow ricocheted off the pole of the cart and ripped cleanly through the side of his jerkin. He suddenly realized the torch lashed to the side of the cart illuminated him brilliantly, and he drew his sword and swung at its base, slicing it in half. As it fell, sputtering, he saw a second arrow catch Nayka squarely in the throat and he watched the driver spin and slump wordlessly into the water.

G.o.dforsaken luckless Hindu. Now you can be reborn a Brahmin. Only sooner than you thought.

A shout of alarm erupted from behind, and he looked to see the remaining Rajputs charging in formation, bows already drawn. The water churned around him as they dashed by, advancing on the sh.o.r.e. The Rajputs' horn bows hissed in rapid succession as they sent volleys of bamboo arrows into the darkness. But the returning rain of arrows was dense and deadly. He saw the Rajput nearest him suddenly pivot backward in the saddle, an arrow lodged in his groin, below his leather chest guard. Hawksworth watched incredulously as the man clung to his saddle horn for a long last moment, pulling himself erect and releasing a final arrow before tumbling into the water.

Again lightning flared across the sky, and in the sudden illumination Hawksworth could see shapes along the sh.o.r.e, an army of mounted hors.e.m.e.n, well over a hundred. They

were drawn in tight formation, calmly firing into the approaching Rajputs. The lightning flashed once more, a broad sheet of fire across the sky, and at that moment Hawksworth saw Vasant Rao gain the sh.o.r.e, where he was instantly surrounded by a menacing wall of s.h.i.+elds and pikes.

Then more of the Rajputs gained the sh.o.r.e, and he could hear their chant of "Ram Ram," their famous battle cry. The hors.e.m.e.n were moving on the caravan now, and when the lightning blazed again Hawksworth realized he had been surrounded.