Beneath a Marble Sky

by John Shors

  I ran a hand through my hair, which today bore no veil or jewels. “Please, Father! Do not make this harder than it is. Dara needs me. He’s—”

  “A tiger with no teeth?”

  “Not a man of war.”

  “Nor are you.”

  “But I may be of some use. And how can I leave when that possibility remains?”

  Father nodded reluctantly. He fought back a cough, then said, “Tell me, my child, of what happens.”

  As I straightened his bedding, trying to make him comfortable, I passed along what I’d been told. Nizam and twenty thousand horsemen had thundered south in the day’s first light. I added that Dara gathered his forces and would soon march his army north, later positioning it atop a nearby, but vacant, knob of land. It had been raining incessantly since last night, and Nizam expected the storm to cloak his movements. Our scouts reported Aurangzeb’s force to be a half-day’s march from Agra. If my brother fell for our ruse, he’d likely attack our army late in the afternoon.

  “Dara should leave now…give himself time to set his cannons,” Father said.

  “He soon shall.”

  I finished arranging his cushions and knelt again at his side. As much as I tried to ponder all that needed doing, wrenching my mind from Arjumand and Isa was impossible. Where were they? Had they made it to safety or had Allah abandoned me?

  “You don’t think of marching with Dara?”

  “No,” I replied hastily, perhaps too hastily. “I’d be of little use in such a battle.”

  “That’s truer…than you realize,” he muttered, as harshly as his feeble voice permitted. “I want you here with me. Dara and his officers are better off alone.”

  I had never disobeyed Father, but as I sat in that foul room, I heard few of his words. How could I remain here, when the fate of the Empire was to be decided outside Agra? Would Mother have stayed? She never had, and though only Father’s authority had allowed her to accompany him to battlefields, where women would never be welcome, he’d told me on several occasions that her advice had saved lives.

  Though I am no military genius, I had recognized this morning that one element of Nizam’s scheme required my presence at the battle. If I wasn’t there to ensure a fight, Aurangzeb might simply march to Agra and conquer an unprotected Red Fort. Of course, I hadn’t told Isa of my plan to visit the battlefield, for he’d have thrown me over his shoulder and carried me to Allahabad.

  “I shall return,” I said softly.

  “Don’t stray far, child. I might need your counsel.”

  “As you wish.”

  But I lied then, for the sun had barely climbed halfway up the sky when I found myself on the best stallion in Father’s stables. In a nearby courtyard I quickly located the clothing of a soldier. After Dara marched, hundreds of his warriors must have extracted themselves from hiding places and joined the exodus south, for their discarded weapons and uniforms littered the square like leaves after a storm.

  Normally, the courtyard brimmed with humanity. Today, only a bare-chested Hindu priest moved amid the rain. I jumped from my mount and slipped the yellow tunic of an officer about me. The garment was far too large and fit me more like a dress; but once atop my horse, with the tunic gathered about my waist, no one would be the wiser. Like all warriors, I’d attached a shield, quiver, bow and sword to my saddle. I couldn’t use these weapons, needless to say, but after my hair was swallowed up in a black turban, at least I looked the part of a soldier.

  Beyond Agra’s cobbled streets the road north turned into an endless bog of mud. Following the tracks of forty thousand men and a thousand war elephants was hardly difficult, even if visibility diminished as the rain strengthened and drove itself against the land. An unwavering wind pummeled me. It had arisen swiftly from the southeast, giving me alarm as the worst typhoons often surged from Bengal.

  My mount, so stout and strong, quickly caught Dara’s army. I smelled it before I saw it—the odors of dung, hay and unwashed men lingered even in the storm. I stayed at the army’s rear, trying not to think of my loved ones and watching foot soldiers struggle through ankle-deep mud. Deerskin drums beat morosely as we marched. Officers yelled at men as elephants pulled scores of cannons. Other elephants bore wooden platforms draped in bright fabrics and usually holding one or two musket-wielding officers.

  Fortunately, the journey to the knoll that would serve as our battleground was brief. It was only a slight rise, perhaps as long as the Red Fort, albeit not nearly so high. Almost devoid of trees, the mound boasted a few clusters of rock and sad-looking shrubs. Though my eye was untrained, shelter appeared scant.

  Our army briskly prepared its defenses. I watched from afar as our men, with the rain thrashing them, cut down the few trees present and used elephants to arrange the trees between boulders. Smaller branches and shrubs were shoved into gaps. This barrier, even if incomplete, would protect some of our men. Our cannons, numbering perhaps fifty, were then placed behind the wooden wall. Thus we created a vast circle of men, beasts and cannons surrounding the base of our knoll.

  It took some time for me to find Dara, who looked like a stranger in his helmet and chain mail painted with diagonal red and black stripes. He rode a magnificent elephant and was ordering the construction of additional barricades. His elephant wore armor over its skull, and its tusks were encased within silver casts ending in wicked points.

  Few horses were present, for most of our cavalry had secreted itself away to the north. And so after my mount neighed, Dara turned to me, expecting an officer of some rank. When I pulled off my turban, he froze in surprise, as did dozens of men about him. I spurred my horse toward his war elephant, which was clad in purple tapestries.

  “Why, why in Allah’s name are you here?” Dara demanded from his perch.

  I pulled on my reins, stopping a spear’s length from his elephant. “How soon,” I asked, “until Aurangzeb arrives?”

  “But why are you here?”

  Suddenly I was tired of being treated like a child, or a dog that might be kicked about. Just because Allah had made me a woman, could I contribute nothing to this cause? “Because it is my wish!” I countered.

  “Your wish? Does Father know of this wish?”

  Dara wasn’t above having me tied to a horse and returned in shame to Agra. And so I lied. “I am to leave once the fighting starts and tell him how it began.”

  “I have messengers for that!”

  “But can you spare them?” He started to nod, but I cut him off, finally voicing the real reason I had come. “Did you ever think, Dara, what might happen if Aurangzeb simply decided to march around your little hill and capture an unprotected Agra? Why should he attack you here, where you’re fortified, when he can grab the Peacock Throne and deal with you later?”

  “His honor dictates—”

  “You think that rat has any honor?” I interrupted. Though as women we were taught to subdue our emotions, I was too aggravated to quiet myself. In some ways, Dara’s naïveté vexed me more than Aurangzeb’s treachery. “Are the heads of your officers so deep in this mud that they can’t guess what he’ll do?” I asked scornfully. “Surely he’ll avoid attacking you here! I would, and I know nothing of war.”

  “And yet you propose?”

  “He hates me the most, Dara. He always has. And when he comes to us with his terms for our surrender, I’ll ensure he attacks.” I spurred my horse closer to him. It took immense will, but when I next spoke my voice was much lower. “I love you, Dara, but are you so blind as to not see that neither good, nor honor, dwells in him?”

  My brother grimaced, as if he’d just been wounded. Then he asked, “Do you think, Jahanara, that I walk an easy road? That only you have sacrificed?” When I offered no answer, he absently fingered the hilt of his sword. He pursed his lips. “I have been blind, yes. And I’ve
made mistakes that…mistakes men will die for, mistakes that keep me from sleep, night after night.”

  “But if you knew of this blindness, why didn’t you open your eyes? Why didn’t we talk about it?”

  “I thought we would. But time moved too quickly.”

  “Yes, yes, it did,” I admitted. “But you didn’t have to wait. I would have helped you.”

  “I sought above all…to bring our people together,” he lamented. Between the pauses in his words the rain roared, assaulting the fixed umbrella above him and falling onto his elephant. “I wanted Hindus and Muslims to live as one. I learned of religion instead of war because I thought understanding and respect would bring us together. I lived my life, dedicated my life, to achieving that union. Yet how I failed. For now I must fight my brother. And if brothers can’t respect each other, how can strangers?”

  “Aurangzeb’s doings, not yours, brought us here today.”

  My brother nodded wearily. He looked lost on his enormous war elephant with all its dressings. “I wish, Jahanara, that we were far from here. You should be with…your man and daughter. And I should be beside my son.”

  I hadn’t been sure whether Dara knew of Isa, but now I was. “If we win—”

  “Winning matters little,” he said sadly. “If we win, tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand Hindustanis will die here today. The Empire will never recover. Never. And if Aurangzeb wins, it will be worse, for Hindus will be persecuted and we’ll step centuries back into time. He’ll war against anyone not of Islam, and the Empire will crumble about him.”

  I lacked the insight to respond, recognizing only then that Dara understood these matters far better than I had believed. “I wish it could be as it was when we were young.”

  “Those days seem so distant, almost as if they were dreams,” he replied. “I wanted children of all religions to play as brothers and sisters. I wanted them to live in peace.”

  “Perhaps ours shall.”

  Dara absently licked rain from his lips. “A fine fate that would be. But I fear we’ll never see it.” A distant moan of horns rose and Dara immediately straightened. “If Aurangzeb comes forward with a flag of truce, seek me out. But if he attacks straight away, flee for Agra.”

  I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I was proud to be his sister, but he ordered his mahout to turn his elephant northward. When I looked up from my horse, my heart shuddered in fear, for a sprawling, seemingly infinite, army approached. Aurangzeb had only five thousand men and five hundred elephants more than we did in our total force, but his army somehow looked thrice the size of our assemblage on the knoll. He did brandish thirty thousand horsemen, and these warriors wheeled like the growing wind about his formations. The traitor’s cavalry was what our officers feared most, for it was a force of speed and strength, one we couldn’t match until Nizam attacked.

  “Let him come in time,” I whispered toward Mecca. “Without him, we’re lost.”

  As Aurangzeb’s army approached it began to uncurl into a long and menacing line. His elephants trumpeted as they pulled cannons into place. The enemy was still out of range and I heard our officers yelling at men to hold their fire. Our elephants, temporarily behind our guns, stomped their feet in trepidation, causing bronze bells about their necks to ring discordantly. A boy carrying a banner walked too close to one giant, and I shrieked when it gored him with its tusks. He died slowly, but no soldier neared the nervous beast to aid him. I suddenly felt sick. I had never seen war this close. Nor did I want to.

  When a cluster of enemy horsemen approached under a flag of truce, I spurred my mount in their direction. Dara, atop his vast elephant, headed down the hill toward them. The rain was strengthening and I had to wipe my eyes often. I quickly caught up with Dara and the officers surrounding him on their fine mounts. These men were loyal to Father, good men who would gladly die this day. In my ill-fitting tunic I must have invited laughter. Yet the officers nodded in respect as I approached.

  The two groups gathered at the base of our hill. Aurangzeb rode a beautiful white stallion but wore a gouged helmet and a battered coat of armor. My brother laughed when he saw me, though I knew him well enough to recognize rage flash across his face.

  “Hiding behind the skirts of women?” Aurangzeb taunted Dara.

  “I’d prefer her skirt to your shield.”

  Our men chuckled at Dara’s reply and the mood of our enemies darkened. Aurangzeb withdrew an onion and began to bite chunks from it. “My terms, heretic, for your surrender,” he began, spitting its outer shell at Dara, “are simple. I want your head. Then I want your whelp’s head.”

  “By what right,” Dara replied, his voice shaking with sudden fury, “do you have to ask for anything more than a whipping? For a whipping is all you’ll receive.”

  Aurangzeb shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll march on and spare you the trouble. If you like, attack me on the road to Agra.”

  When my brother started to turn his stallion away, I kicked my horse, so that he bumped against Aurangzeb’s. “Afraid of us, little brother?” I asked contemptuously. “Of course, a man who sends someone as foul as Balkhi to kill his sister could only be a coward. For surely a real man would have killed me himself.” I paused to spit in his direction. “But if Balkhi couldn’t do the deed, it seems unlikely that a man who cries at the sight of a snake would have the nerve.”

  Aurangzeb’s hand darted to his sword and steel slid forth. Officers on both sides withdrew their weapons, leveling muskets and notching arrows. Aurangzeb understood that he’d be the first to die and hence slammed his blade back into its scabbard. “My men will enjoy you, sinner,” he hissed at me. “And you, heretic, will make a fine target on that overblown beast.”

  Dara glanced skyward. “I shall pray for your soul.”

  “I want no lover of Hindus praying for me.” Aurangzeb finished the remainder of his onion. I could smell his rank breath from three paces away. “The Noble Qur’an says of infidels, ‘If only disbelievers knew of the time when they cannot ward off the fire from their faces or from their backs. No, it will come upon them unawares, and confound them, so they cannot avert it, and no respite will they have.’”

  My older brother stared at his sibling. “The Qur’an also says, ‘Anyone who does kill, through enmity and oppression, shall be exposed to fire, for that is easy for God.’”

  We turned then and climbed our hill. Dara positioned himself behind our guns, directly across from Aurangzeb’s force. I waved good-bye to him, and was about to spur my mount toward Agra, when Aurangzeb’s horsemen began to fan out around our position. We’d expected Aurangzeb to concentrate his attack on a weak point of defense, but instead it seemed he would harass us on all sides.

  “Go to the highest part of the hill!” Dara yelled when he saw my predicament. “Go!”

  I did as he said, suddenly fearful. Not far below, Aurangzeb’s elephants pulled his guns into place. As they neared, Dara commanded our men to fire. Our cannons were primed and leapt upward as they hurtled their balls of steel. I covered my ears at this deafening eruption. Though it now rained so furiously that discerning the enemy was difficult, I caught glimpses of elephants reeling drunkenly, of groups of men lifeless on the ground.

  “Hurry, Nizam,” I pleaded, looking northward, beyond our foe.

  Our men efficiently reloaded their cannons and fired at will. Below, the enemy advanced, spearheaded by murderous lines of cavalry and foot soldiers that charged our ranks. We were now within range of their cannons and I cringed as the world churned beneath me. I saw an elephant lose its leg, topple to the ground, and crush its riders and a slew of other men. Several of our cannons exploded as they were struck, and gunners died screaming.

  The horror intensified as the enemy approached. Some of our warriors fired muskets while those lacking guns launched arrows. Aurangzeb’s men
did likewise and suddenly the air thickened with thousands of projectiles. These flew through the howling rain and wrought destruction. Men died instantly or clutched deliriously at their wounds. Some warriors left the safety of our barricade and charged unmolested at our foe, whereas others cowered in fear and were struck by numerous arrows. Nothing made sense.

  Thunder boomed in tandem to the cannons, and the storm, already a full typhoon, intensified. I was nearly thrown from my saddle by a burst of wind. The rain assaulted me, stinging my face, my hands. I shielded my eyes and tried to find Dara, finally spotting him at the base of our hill atop his elephant. A beast near him rolled down the slope as my brother gestured wildly to the men about him, pointing below.

  Then I saw the enemy. They carried green shields and rushed us like a swollen river bursting through a dike, charging up our hill, curved swords held high. There seemed to be an impossible number of them; screaming, crazed men whose fury frightened me more than the booming cannons. Our warriors fired their muskets and bows until the last instant, then drew their swords. A sudden clashing of steel rang out amid the curses, screams and explosions. Our men held their lines briefly, but then Dara’s banners began to fall.

  I wheeled my horse about, looking for a means to escape. But everywhere, it seemed, our positions were attacked. I could try to break through the fighting but would more likely than not be killed in the process.

  “Isa,” I muttered, frantic that I’d see neither him nor Arjumand again.

  Where was Nizam? If he didn’t arrive soon, all would be lost. Our men were putting up a brave defense, but we were outnumbered and our enemies seemed crazed. Aurangzeb’s warriors had been killing Persians for years, while our men were either past their prime fighting age or were witnessing their first battle. Dara tried to rally our ranks, his huge elephant trampling the enemy. Though he had always seemed powerless, I realized again that he wasn’t so, only naïve. For now he fought as a leader might. He fired his gun and shouted at his men to go forward and die. They listened to him, chanting his name as they battled.