Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai

by Venketesh, R.

  Malik was one who harboured far-reaching aspirations, and it was a risk to have him around. There was a good chance his ambitions would be stifled amongst the Sultan’s eighty-four thousand slaves, and he would be lost in a sea of the enslaved. Ulugh smiled as he knew what he had to do. It would be a loss for him but he consoled himself by remembering that Malik would always remind him of his distressing escape in an embarrassing position.

  When he learnt of his impending transfer, Malik knew being a slave to a royal personage was different. He could rise to great heights, here in the Sultanate’s capital and in the Sultan’s service. But he was not overtly joyous at this turn in his fortunes. His life had a way of being overturned whenever he felt secure. The astrologer’s prediction was at least close on one count: Malik would see the Sultan himself. Perhaps the old man had meant that he would serve the man who ruled Hindustan, and Malik’s parents had misunderstood him.

  A month after they reached Delhi, an excitement overtook the household. Some of the captured girls, loot and slaves were segregated. Ulugh deemed it fit to give the Sultan the best of his booty. The Sultan would already have a detailed inventory anyway, so there was no point in him trying to stash some away.

  The entourage, along with the treasures, moved to the majestic palace of the Sultan, which Malik had earlier seen from Ulugh Khan’s terrace. It was a palace with a thousand pillars, red sandstone covering its façade. Malik walked behind his master, who was on a horse. It was a spectacle being played for the benefit of the citizens, to show off Ulugh as a hero and as a loyal officer of the Sultan. The crowd cheered the conqueror and jeered at the conquered.

  The procession was allowed into a large courtyard. The floor was a geometric mosaic of marble and sandstone, with a gracefully arcaded pavilion of marble rising a few feet above it. The entire group halted before it and the loot was arranged with the pavilion as a focal point, obviously where the Sultan would sit. The pavilion was open at the front and there was a gate at the back, from which he would make an entrance. Its arches were supported by delicate double pillars, the two outer arches intricately decorated with vine patterns and the finest pietra dura inlay adorning the whole structure. The triple-arched royal canopy above the monarch’s seat was lavishly ornamented and the inner walls of these arches were covered with white lime polished to a smooth finish.

  The gate to the pavilion opened and the Sultan of Hindustan entered. As if on cue, all except Ulugh Khan fell on their knees. Before he kneeled and looked at the ground in respect, Malik got a quick glimpse of the Sultan. Malik knew Alauddin was Ulugh’s brother and had assumed that he would be similar in appearance. He found to his surprise that the Sultan was trim. His nose appeared chiselled, and the high cheekbones of his Turkish ancestors were distinct, unlike Ulugh’s, whose features had long been buried between flabby folds of flesh. Behind the Sultan were two armed escorts, while flies were kept away by the swish of the fly-whisk in the hands of a mammoth Negroid attendant.

  ‘My lord, I have brought a gift for you, a very useful one you’ll find,’ Ulugh Khan moved two steps aside, revealing Malik on his knees, and allowing the Sultan a view of his new eunuch. The Sultan’s piercing eyes probed and scrutinized the slave who would later affect his life and death. Malik looked up. When he saw Alauddin, his heartbeat jumped as his inner voice spoke to him, telling him that his fate was to be forever entwined with this man who ruled millions.

  The Sultan scratched his chin and queried his brother, ‘So this is the slave who rescued my general from the lavatory?’ News travelled faster than wings. ‘You have done great service to me, slave,’ he commended, ‘my brother must have been relieved.’ Alauddin guffawed at his own joke.

  Ulugh was too ashamed to respond to Alauddin’s dry sense of humour, but he could take no visible offence if the Sultan joked about him. On the contrary, he laughed more heartily than the rest. The other men shifted uneasily. To laugh would earn them the undying enmity of Ulugh, and not to smile would irritate the Sultan. Malik thought perhaps it was Alauddin’s way of testing loyalties.

  Malik could not decipher why he was being presented to the Sultan. Was this change in his fortunes a result of a higher calling or was he being caught up in a web of intrigue that was not of his asking? Malik withdrew after the Sultan willed him to, and stood by the side of the courtiers.

  As the inquiry about the Mongol rebels took place, Alauddin trembled with rage, the rushing blood making his face look like bloodied marble. He thundered, ‘The wives of the rebels will be taken to the parapets of the fort and stripped, so that the common man may see them. They and their children will then be handed over for the pleasure of the scavengers who clean our lavatories.’

  There was a deathly silence in the audience. Most of the women thus punished for the crimes of their spouses were the daughters of high-ranking nobles who had been married to the Mongol defectors on the insistence of the Sultan himself. But they kept quiet. To appeal for clemency would target them as traitors. Malik now saw the other face of Alauddin.

  The Khiljis were an Afghan family of Turkish ancestry and they had used their descent to win over the loyalty of the Afghan nobles who’d felt rather left out under the overwhelmingly Turkish rule of Hindustan. Alauddin’s uncle and father-in-law, Jalaluddin Feroze Khilji, the founder of the dynasty, was senile by the time he ascended the throne. Though a powerful military general, he suddenly decided to follow the path of peace after being crowned and refused to shed blood under any circumstances.

  The aged Sultan had an extremely ambitious son-in-law in Alauddin, who had campaigned in the Deccan with great success. The persistent ill treatment at the hands of his wife Malika Jan, who had become a king’s daughter halfway through her life because of her father’s sudden elevation in stature, made him want to escape from Delhi for long periods. When Alauddin set out to take the city of Deogiri under Yadava rule with just eighteen thousand horsemen, he let out the word that he was dissatisfied with his uncle and was going south to offer his services to any Hindu ruler who was interested. As a result, no one offered him any resistance on the way. When he entered the boundaries of Deogiri, the Yadava king Raja Rama Chandra belatedly woke up and decided to offer some resistance. Alauddin had cleverly timed his visit with a campaign that the Deogiri army was fighting further south. So the Yadava king had to capitulate and pay a vast amount of gold to him as part of a peace treaty. As Alauddin turned towards home, Jalaluddin’s well-wishers tried to warn him about his scheming son-in-law, but the old Sultan wouldn’t hear a word against him.

  Jalaluddin himself went to bring his nephew back into the family fold. Alauddin embraced the Sultan and then, in a treacherous split second, shouted the command, ‘Off with the Sultan’s head!’ His soldiers obeyed at once.

  While returning to Delhi, Alauddin scattered coins of gold and silver along the way. Within a week he was proclaimed Sultan of Delhi by popular demand. Those opposed to Alauddin saw a very different face of this gift-bearing king – the gritty, calculating and cold-blooded side. He crushed the powerful lobby of the Jalali nobles who had opposed him with clinical ruthlessness. And with the free hand history had given him, Alauddin was able to transform the Delhi Sultanate from the organized mess it was to a true empire, one that stretched its boundaries far beyond the old Sultanate.

  Malik stood patiently as Alauddin went through the business of state. Halfway through the meeting, Alauddin paused for a minute, turned towards Malik and made a gesture indicating that he was to be taken to the palace harem. Malik was escorted by a Habsi slave to the exterior of the courtyard, where the captive girls and other slaves were waiting in the sun.

  Alauddin’s harem was a vast enclosure containing a complex of opulent buildings to house his women. Palace buildings and gardens occupied the entire quarter of the walled city. This, of course, included the garrison, which Alauddin preferred to keep close to him. The harem, with more than four hundred rooms, contained the combined households of the Queen Mother, the Su
ltan’s favourite wives and his concubines. Many of the concubines of the imperial harem were reputed to be among the most beautiful women in the Sultanate.

  The harem’s numerous stone and wooden buildings spread in and around six main courtyards. Malik’s eyes were captivated by the buildings, which were splendid in their sheer grandeur and perfect proportions. A magnificent gateway led to an interior courtyard, which was surrounded by grand halls covered with profuse carvings on stone and heavily fashioned brackets.

  The Sultan kept the largest harem in the land not only to establish his image as the principal personage of the empire but also to assure many heirs to the throne. The presence of numerous ever-watchful eunuchs guaranteed that each child born in the harem was sired by the monarch. Irrefutable royal paternity as well as chastity was essential to rulers. Traders were not allowed in, but had to conduct business in an anteroom in the presence of an armed eunuch.

  The Koran permitted a man as many as four wives as long as he treated and satisfied all of them equally. A modest man’s harem might consist of two wives living in a single room, their quarters separated by a mere partition, while a rich man’s could be lavish and opulent. The Sultan’s grand harem was beyond the most outrageous of dreams. It was a palatial maze of lounging rooms and bathing rooms overseen by hand-picked wives and eunuchs. The windows were enclosed in jalis, intricately perforated marble lattice screens which overlooked the gardens and presented a fabulous view of the river and its banks, which the women could see without being seen. These small holes in the walls would be the only view of the outside world they would have for the rest of their lives.

  When they entered the main area of the harem, Malik was stunned. The floor was paved with coloured marble, and the interior was a decorative delight of tiled walls, gilded roofs, ornate window-covers and an elaborately domed ceiling. Suddenly, the slaves shrunk back as a dark shadow blocked the entrance. It was the chief black eunuch, whose menacing figure loomed before them. He would, from now on, be the one to haunt them in their dreams.

  The kizlar agha, or the chief eunuch, was greatly feared, and often was the most bribed official in the empire. He was nominally the third highest-ranking officer of the empire, after the Sultan and the grand vizier. In fact, he controlled the household of the Sultan from which the master could expect as much trouble as from his realms. His position was that of a pasha and he was the honorary commander of a division of corps. Though the post was always held by a slave, his powers originated from the privilege that he could approach the Sultan at any time, and functioned as the private messenger between the Sultan and the grand vizier. He was the most important link between the Sultan and the harem, which included the Sultan’s mother and wives. He oversaw the purchase of girls and the promotion of women after the death of a higher-ranking wife. The Sultan spent nights with each of his favourite women in turn and kept a schedule recorded by the chief eunuch in order to establish birth orders and the legitimacy of his children. He acted as a witness for the birth ceremonies, which would act as proof of succession. He was also responsible for protection of the women and most importantly, for taking girls either to the bedchamber – or to the executioner – as he deemed fit.

  The current honour of this high post was enjoyed by Manrk, a Habsi.

  ‘Habsi’, a corruption of the Arabic word habash, was the term used for Abyssinian slaves, Negroids employed in large numbers by the Delhi kingdoms. The first Habsi who stole the thunder was Jamal al-din Yaqut, a slave who rose to be a royal courtier in the kingdom of Delhi. He won the favour of the reigning sovereign Queen Raziya, the only woman to sit on Delhi’s throne. He shared her bed too. This incurred him much jealousy, on which account he was eventually murdered by his rivals and the queen overthrown.

  When first brought in, the girls were closely scrutinized by Manrk. They had to be checked for physical flaws and their antecedents had to be verified. Not all harem women were destined to serve the Sultan. In fact, many of the harem women would never see him and instead became servants necessary for the daily functioning of the harem. Some were later married off to pashas and other dignitaries. Only those who were extraordinarily beautiful and talented were seen as potential concubines and were trained in the art of pleasing their master, learning to dance and sing, write poetry or play musical instruments and master the erotic arts.

  The eunuchs were separated from the girls to be checked again. Malik wondered how many times he would have to undergo this humiliation. Manrk viewed them one by one, and as he approached Malik, he paused. As if addressing the eunuchs in general, he spoke in a voice that was rough, ‘If you serve your master well, you may rise in life. One of you may even succeed me.’ He looked at Malik from the corner of his eye. ‘Or rise so high that the harem will be too small. Ambitions are good but have to be backed by sincerity. Your loyalty to your master is the best attribute, much higher than your skills. Many have risen from slavery to sit on the throne.’ Malik knew the speech was intended for him, but he did not know why. He was just relieved that Manrk had not taken a dislike to him.

  In the first few weeks of his service, Malik had more to be amazed at. The girls proved to be more beautiful than any he had ever seen. Skin hues ran across the colour spectrum – from dark-ebony to alabaster-white skin, from auburn to raven-black hair, from brown to golden eyes. Young girls of extraordinary beauty were usually bought from slave markets after being kidnapped. But many families encouraged their daughters to enter the harem as it promised a life of luxury and comfort.

  Each concubine who was the Sultan’s favourite had been given her own spacious apartment. Almost every chamber had its own reservoir of water and spouting fountains, in addition to a window view of finely laid-out gardens. The other girls lived in dormitories and ate in the communal hall.

  The eunuchs dined in a separate hall. It was here that they exchanged bawdy gossip on the antics of their masters and mistresses. Many thought sex was a man’s greatest delight but like a teetotaller who comments on the drunken masses, the eunuchs treated sexual frolic as futile and foolish.

  At first, Malik did not see the Sultan for quite a while. But he learnt much about the system of the harem in the meantime. Girls in the Arab’s harem had been happy. They had come over to him for a new lease of life, with a sense of relief that they would no longer be exposed to the slave market. But here, he pitied the women who lived a secluded life behind the thick walls of the Sultan’s private quarters. Many tears must have been shed in this harem as most were snatched away from their parents and used by various officials till they were noticed by somebody higher in the hierarchy. After barters were made between flesh and favour, they had ended up in the harem.

  Meandering through the cobbled corridors of the harem, Malik could hear the sobbing behind the doors. The bright courtyards had misled him; darkness was the word to describe the harem. Inside the harem were several hundred rooms with barred windows or shutters and the impression was as gloomy as the mood of most of the inmates. The Arab’s harem had been tightly guarded too, but this vulnerability of the inmates did not exist. A harem was like a small town with all the necessary services, except a sufficient supply of males. Even cucumbers and other vegetables of inflammatory shapes were cut into slices before being allowed in, for fear of misuse. In this harem nothing was left to chance, but it was not surprising that harem girls not occupying the Sultan’s bed sometimes took an interest in one another.

  Daily life in the harem was often dull and hopeless, an extravagant ritual of bathing, eating and mindless play that underscored the child-like status accorded to these women. However luxurious their surroundings, the women were but bondmaids without any rights at all, and could only hope to end their days discarded and alone. They grew fat on sugared food and boredom. Nestled in soft cushions, they seldom moved and their faces were frozen in perpetual disinterest. The use of drugs was fairly common, mostly opium and hashish, seeking a respite from their numbing fatigue.

  The compet
ition for the attention of one man made women almost feral in nature. The master’s failure to favour each wife with equal enthusiasm stirred up a great deal of anxiety, insecurity and malevolence. There were alliances, cliques and a perpetual silent war. There were endless stories of brutal murders and poisoning of rivals.

  There were other types of women too. They included the three wives of Alauddin. The wives must have been as pretty as their daughters were now. The ravages of age had left most of their beauty to the imagination, but they had to be treated with the utmost respect as they were official wives.

  Girls were not allowed to step outside after dusk, and long evenings were often spent listening to stories. It was here that Malik discovered his talent for cooking up romantic stories with sad endings. Soon it was common to see twenty or so girls jostling with each other to get a better view of his facial expressions as he related the tales of melancholy to a background of sobs. Manrk witnessed these gatherings but never interfered. He realized that Malik would be a useful tool to control the girls if they took a liking to him. One to fear and one to love: two eunuchs would be a good team to handle so many frustrated women. ‘You know why they cry when you entertain them?’ Manrk asked him one day. ‘It is because they see themselves in your stories.’

  Malik was happy that he had adjusted to the new situation so easily.

  *

  Not everybody liked the new eunuch, though. The one person who immediately disliked him was Alauddin’s queen, the daughter of Jalaluddin. Malika Jan and her mother ran the harem. It did not matter that Alauddin had murdered one’s father and the other’s husband. They knew that since Jalaluddin was in his grave, they would have to go along with Alauddin to retain their power. And though their power did not extend over the Sultan, they bullied other inmates of the harem.

  Malika Jan and Malik Kafur crossed paths over one particular matter. Alauddin took as wives various princesses and queens from neighbouring lands. Many marriages were exclusively political and diplomatic, intended to secure alliances, fortunes and territories. But on occasion a sultan, a man after all, fell in love. Such was the case of Kamala Devi.