The Crows of Agra

by Sharath Komarraju

  When he saw Mahesh Das, Atgah Khan hurriedly got to his feet. Without his armour covering his chest, Mahesh Das thought it made him look almost naked, with shrunken, drooping shoulders and a sagging pair of arms.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  The bravado in his voice seemed a little forced, Mahesh Das thought.

  ‘Just taking a walk, General,’ he replied. ‘And you?’

  ‘Ah, to Allah’s very own hell with all these lies!’ Atgah Khan dusted off his hands. ‘I think we both know why you and I are here.’

  ‘Perhaps you tell me why you are here, sir, and then I shall tell you my reason.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Atgah, shrugging. ‘I saw some of this black soil in Bairam’s room the other night.’

  ‘I was told that it could be filings from sharpening a weapon.’

  Atgah Khan shook his head with force. ‘I am a man of weapons. I learned how to handle a sword before I could read my first words of Persian. You tell me that you could sharpen a weapon and drop such fine filings? I think not.’

  Mahesh Das looked down at the man’s hands. A trace of black was still present on his index finger.

  ‘Did you happen to see this when you went to meet Bairam Khan?’ Mahesh Das asked.

  For a moment Atgah Khan did not respond. Then he smiled. ‘I suppose nothing stays a secret when your house overlooks the harem.’

  ‘You admit, then, that you visited Bairam Khan.’

  ‘Admit?’ said Atgah Khan. ‘I have not done anything wrong by visiting an old friend, have I?’

  ‘But you did not tell me yesterday that you did.’

  ‘I did not think it necessary for you to know.’

  ‘Why, if you have nothing to hide–’

  ‘We all have something to hide, boy,’ said Atgah Khan, bringing his lazy eyes to fasten on Mahesh Das. ‘If you must know, we spoke of rather tame things. He told me that I should protect the emperor in his absence; words that I have repeated to myself often during my time in the army.’

  ‘And what did Adham Khan have to do in your reunion of old friends?’

  ‘I do not know. Adham just stood in the corner, waiting for our conversation to finish. I assumed that Bairam wanted to speak with him after he was done with me.’

  ‘And Bairam Khan was alive when you left him.’

  Atgah Khan laughed. ‘Of course he was, boy. Did Gulbadan Begum not see me come out of Bairam’s room before Adham?’

  ‘She did.’

  Atgah Khan took a few steps toward Mahesh Das. Even without his armour and riding shoes his gait was thunderous. ‘You would do well not to heed Gulbadan’s words too much, my dear man. I have known her for longer than you have, and let me warn you, those sweet eyes are filled with a cobra’s venom.’

  ‘Venom or not,’ said Mahesh Das, ‘she could not have killed Bairam Khan.’

  Atgah Khan smiled. ‘And why do you think not?’

  ‘Because,’ said Mahesh Das, and paused.

  ‘Because she did not tell you that she went down to Bairam Khan’s room after Adham left. Is that why?’

  Mahesh Das flinched. There had been an hour between Adham Khan’s departure and Salima Begum’s entry to Bairam Khan’s room. He thought of his conversation with Gulbadan Begum. She had said that they had met in the garden.

  ‘Now you begin to think,’ said Atgah Khan, drawing closer. ‘And you wonder why you had not suspected her so far. Perhaps she gave you an alibi or I would not be surprised if she told you that she has forgiven Bairam Khan.’ Atgah Khan examined Mahesh Das for a moment, then broke into a chuckle. ‘By Allah, that is what she told you, is it not?’

  Mahesh Das nodded.

  Atgah Khan held him by the shawl around his chest and pulled him close. ‘Listen. I am as worried as you are about the emperor and about who killed my friend. Yes, I had my arguments with him, but when all is said and done, a soldier weeps for another. You know?’

  Mahesh Das nodded again.

  ‘You have been looking at this all wrong. You have been only watching the path that leads to the front door, whereas there is another path to the room—the one through the window.’ The general licked his lips. ‘I have been on the trail of these footsteps, and this fine black dust. Let me say I have found some startling things.’

  A manic look took over Atgah Khan. His grip on the shawl intensified.

  Mahesh Das wondered in a wild moment if the older man had designs of strangling him. Here they were in the middle of the day, but secluded from all eyes and ears. At once Mahesh Das realized he could not hear another human sound apart from his own breathing.

  ‘What did you find?’ he managed to ask, in a squeak.

  ‘Not here,’ said Atgah Khan, shaking his head. ‘Not now.’ The bell at the prayer house rang once and then another time. ‘The servants will be here any moment now.’ He placed his hand again on Mahesh Das’s chest and looked into his eye. ‘My chamber, after the ninth gong tonight. Do not tell anyone that you are meeting me.’

  In spite of the fear that was gnawing at his heart, Mahesh Das nodded. He looked down at his chest, and where the general’s hand had been resting, there appeared a large grey spot. ‘You are a disgrace,’ said Atgah Khan, walking away. ‘I wonder what the emperor sees in you.’

  With that he walked across the garden and disappeared around the corner.

  Mahesh Das stood for a long time under the shadow of the berry tree, resting his hand against its tough, reedy bark. The bells had stopped ringing, and a slew of servants spilled out on the courtyard. Atgah Khan had wondered what the emperor had seen in Mahesh Das, how he could think that someone as timid as he could protect His Majesty from danger.

  A wave of despondency washed over him. No matter which way he looked at the puzzle, the questions held on stubbornly. He was reaching a dead end with the case. Atgah Khan was right, he thought.

  What does the emperor see in me?

  Twenty Eight

  AS MAHESH DAS was hanging his shawl in his room, he had a disturbing feeling that he was being watched.

  The windows had been shut on his orders, so none of the afternoon heat or light entered the dark chamber. He turned away from the wall and looked around himself, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, for the smudges to acquire shape. Soon he began to see edges of furniture, the silver of the walls, the slits of light that stole in through closed shutters.

  What puzzled him was that the room was almost suspiciously silent. Over his long career as a thief he had come to realize that there was no such thing as a quiet house. Even when all the occupants were asleep, an attentive thief heard sounds: the easy rising and falling of breath, the scurrying of a lizard or a mouse, the creaking wood, the movement of breeze, through windows and hot-air shafts.

  Mahesh Das distrusted complete silence. All his senses became alert and for a moment he considered calling for the guard.

  ‘I would not, if I were you,’ said a low voice to his right, and a cold sharp edge pressed down on the soft portion of his neck.

  Mahesh Das took in a sharp breath, but found that a hoarse sound emerged from his mouth. ‘Do not say a word.’

  Mahesh Das nodded. He recognized the voice without any conscious effort. It was hard not to identify the ruthless cruelty of Adham Khan’s words, even if they were whispers.

  ‘You have been nothing but trouble since you came to the palace,’ said Adham Khan. ‘Nothing but trouble! If I can sneak into your room without anyone seeing me, you can well imagine that I can behead you with one little stroke of my knife and no one would be any wiser. You know that, do you not?’

  Mahesh Das nodded again, even though the threat gave him hope. If Adham Khan’s meant his words, he would not have bothered telling him so. .

  ‘I have been watching you,’ he said, ‘ever since you have come here, you have been sticking your nose into everyone else’s affairs but yours. You have been asking questions, prodding, pushing—and I do not like it!’

/>   Mahesh Das caught the faint whiff of wine on his breath. He said in a low voice, ‘I beg your forgiveness, my lord. It was not my intention to anger you.’

  ‘Well, anger me you did. And you have done enough of it.’ The knife pressed down so hard against his neck that Mahesh Das was certain it had drawn blood. ‘Tomorrow, before sunrise, you will pack all your clothes and leave the palace for good.’

  ‘Leave, sir?’

  ‘Never to return.’

  ‘But sir, the emperor–’

  ‘He is our emperor too, Brahmin. We know how to protect our emperor better than you do. Why, has he not survived the twenty years before you came into his life?’

  Mahesh Das licked his lips. He squinted, trying to make out shapes in the room. Everything seemed to be as he had left it. His sacred thread hung off the arm rest of one of the chairs, and he could see that the tip of it still dripped with water.

  ‘I do not doubt that you can protect the king when needed,’ he said, ‘but the emperor entrusted me with a job—the job of finding who killed the regent.’

  * * *

  ‘That, my dear priest, is not something you should concern yourself with.’ He drew a line with the very edge of the knife on Mahesh Das’s neck. ‘I am telling you that he will manage just fine.’

  ‘Did Maham Anga send you here?’ asked Mahesh Das.

  For a moment, silence reigned in the room. All Mahesh Das could hear were the sounds of their breath—his quick and frantic, Adham Khan’s slow and assured. But the question had surprised him, as Mahesh Das had hoped it would. The pause told him what he needed to know.

  ‘Mother does not order me around,’ said Adham Khan. ‘I chart my own destiny.’

  ‘I do not doubt that, Your Highness,’ said Mahesh Das, keeping his voice calm. ‘But what good will it do you if I were to leave the kingdom tomorrow? How is my humble presence hurting your joy?’

  Adham Khan leaned closer to his ear. ‘Do you know why I hate Brahmins?’ he said. ‘Because you talk too much. Even when you are about to be killed!’ With his free hand he grabbed Mahesh Das by the throat and squeezed it, hard enough for Mahesh Das to squeak like a squirrel. ‘I did not come here to debate with you. I came to warn you, that if tomorrow, after sunrise, I still see you here, you will meet the same fate as Bairam Khan. Understood?’

  Mahesh Das gasped for breath, but Adham Khan’s grip was like that of a python coiled around a hapless rabbit.

  ‘I said, understood?’

  The fingers eased around Mahesh Das’s throat. He dropped to his knees, coughing, and nodded frantically.

  ‘Good man,’ said Adham Khan, coming down on one knee beside him, and placing his hand over the back of his neck. Even in the dark Mahesh Das saw that his eyes glowed with a hateful yellow fire. ‘I can snuff your life out with my bare hands,’ he whispered. ‘So run away, priest. Run as far away from the palace as you can and never come back.’

  Mahesh Das nodded.

  Adham Khan hobbled to the front door and stepped out. He closed the door behind him, once again leaving Mahesh Das in pitch darkness, panting and coughing like a diseased woman on her death bed.

  * * *

  Three hours later, having woken up from a fitful nap, Mahesh Das could not shake off the feeling that something cold was slithering down his back. He looked up at the ceiling and stared at the frescos. Heavy-tusked elephants draped in armour and silk stood on their hind legs, trumpeting at some unseen enemy. The mahout wore no headgear, just a turban, and he carried a smile on his lips, controlling the beast with deft touches of his bare hands. Below the elephant lay a wounded warrior, a spear driven through his chest, his hands holding the animal’s trunk.

  Around this gruesome scene were flowers, grapes, vines and berries, curling and knotting among themselves, reminding Mahesh Das of what the emperor had asked the day before: how many crows were there in Agra?

  Why was Adham Khan so keen to ensure that Mahesh Das be sent away from the palace? The only possibility seemed to be that Adham Khan thought Mahesh Das was getting uncomfortably close to the truth.

  That had to be a good thing.

  But what if he had been wrong all along? Mahesh Das had seen young boys kill grown men with their bare hands. All men and women had the instinct to kill, provided the stakes were high enough. Push a man hard enough and for long enough, and he will outgrow his outer shell of deference and cowardice and he find that inner beast that lurks within all of us.

  The same could have happened with Adham Khan. Who knew what lurked beneath, and who knew how far he had been pushed?

  But what if he had meant what he said?

  A shiver ran up his spine. He made a note to himself to request Akbar that very evening to assign two more guards to stand watch outside his door.

  Atgah Khan had spoken as though he had found something while foraging in the garden. That night’s conversation with the general would be interesting. But he couldn’t shake Adham Khan’s threat off.

  Life at the palace was good, but only if you were alive.

  He sat up on the bed and sighed, thinking of the village that he had left behind. It had only been three days, and yet it seemed like another life, long past. He would be welcomed back without a word, and the bandits would not hold it against him that he had returned empty-handed. The plan to sack the royal treasury had always been a long shot. Everyone knew that.

  Yes. It seemed best to return.

  Outside, the sun had set. Someone had come in when he had been sleeping and had opened the windows. The first fires of the night had been lit in the courtyard outside. The sixth gong had just gone off. If he got up now and packed his travelling bag, he could set out right after dinner and reach his village before the eleventh gong. How nice it would be to sink into that old dirty cot once again. There would be no people lurking about with knives.

  He turned around, got off the bed and stretched his arms.

  Just then there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Who is there?’ he asked cautiously, looking around for something he could use as a weapon, should he find that Adham Khan had returned.

  ‘Govindram, my lord,’ came the reply.

  The thumping in Mahesh Das’s heart eased.

  ‘I have brought Ahmed with me, as you asked me to.’

  A frail man entered with Govindram. He had shrunken limbs and a sick face, with drooping eyes and thin, feminine eyebrows. Mahesh Das wondered with irritation what Nazneen could have seen in him. But then, it also gladdened his heart that if she found such men attractive, perhaps, some day—if he was still here—she would look upon him with good will too.

  Ahmed stepped up and bowed. His lips were thin black slits. Mahesh Das guessed that Ahmed spent much of his free evenings smoking rolls of tobacco behind the palace walls.

  ‘Ahmed, is it?’ he said, filling his voice with all the derision he could muster.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the boy.

  ‘Govindram tells me that you and Nazneen were near Bairam Khan’s chambers the night he was killed.’

  ‘So we were, sahib.’

  ‘May I ask what you were doing?’

  ‘Sahib,’ said Ahmed, smiling faintly, ‘Nazneen and I have been here at the palace since we were both children. We have fallen into the habit of having dinner together, she and I. We were just about to eat that day when we heard sounds from Khan Sahib’s room.’

  ‘You were going to eat,’ said Mahesh Das.

  ‘Right there, by the outer wall of the palace. It allows me to smoke, you see, sahib, and though Nazneen does not smoke, she likes to give me my freedom.’

  ‘It is none of my concern what you and Nazneen were doing at that time of the night, though I must warn you that if the emperor came to know that you, a stable boy, was courting one of Gulbadan Begum’s waiting women, he would not take the matter lightly.’

  ‘Courting, sir?’ said Ahmed, running his hand over his fledgling beard. He had a farmer’s fingers, long and strong, with short
, stubby, dirty nails. ‘Nazneen and I have never courted one another, my lord.’

  ‘Regardless! I suggest that you keep your tracks well covered in this matter, lest it reach the emperor’s ears.’

  ‘As you say, sahib,’ he replied meekly.

  ‘Now tell me,’ said Mahesh Das, ‘what time did you meet Nazneen that night?’

  ‘Sahib, it must have been a little after the tenth strike of the gong, my lord, but not after the half-hour.’

  Mahesh Das sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. Then he said, ‘Tell me in your own words, my man, and in as much detail as you can, what occurred that night.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Ahmed, ‘Nazneen and I sat in the garden, by the Gulmohur tree, to have dinner together. She brought with her some curried mutton from the harem, while I only had stale bread with me. We ate slowly—she said Gulbadan Begum was in a black mood that evening—and without much conversation between us.

  ‘Around the tenth gong, we saw Shamsuddin Khan enter Bairam Khan’s chambers. A few minutes later Adham Khan arrived. We heard people talking.’

  ‘Were you able to distinguish their voices?’

  Ahmed nodded. ‘Yes, sahib. Khan Sahib’s voice was the loudest, so we could tell when he was speaking. He seemed to be agitated about something, and was speaking quite loudly.’

  ‘Did you understand the topic of conversation?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  Ahmed paused a tick. ‘No, sir. I could guess.’

  ‘Ah, what did it sound like to your ears?’

  Ahmed shifted on his legs. ‘I caught a few words here and there, sir. Just a few.’

  Mahesh Das sat up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘The regent seemed to have used the word “disgraceful” a lot in his speech. And he said it at the very top of his voice, as though he was hurling it at the other two people. I took it to mean that he was admonishing Shamsuddin and Adham for not protecting the emperor as they should have.’

  Mahesh Das nodded. ‘You could be right.’

  ‘And the other thing he kept saying was “last journey”. That was not surprising because everyone knew the regent was about to embark upon his last journey the next morning. So perhaps he was referring to that.’