The news from the front hasn’t been either very bad or very good. Sometimes I think that Sultan Muzaffar Shah has lost his nerve and that’s why he has retired to Champaner instead of leading his armies against Father. But the Sultan of Gujarat is a wily man. It would suit his purpose to make us believe that the fight had gone out of him and that power was slipping from his hands. Perhaps he knew a thing or two that we Rajputs had not learnt and were unlikely to. He appreciated the fact that not every skirmish was a battle and not every battle was a war. Secondly, he understood the benefits of delegation. He figured why pay your generals hefty salaries and award them vast jagirs if you were going to end up doing all the work anyway? Thirdly, if the Gujarat troops lost, the shame and dishonour would accrue to the generals in charge and not to him. And lastly, the fortunes of the war Father and he were fighting had seesawed long enough, going his way for some time and ours at other times. It seemed unlikely then that it would have a definite and lasting outcome. So why get worked up and lay one’s honour and life on the line?
Father has maintained a studied silence on the subject of Vikramaditya’s treason and imprisonment. I know that Rani Karmavati has sent embassy after embassy to him accusing me of overarching ambition; of rigging up false charges against the naive and innocent Vikramaditya and pleading with him to free my brother. At times she threatens to go to Kumbhalgarh and personally unlock the triple latches and locks that imprison her beloved son. I wouldn’t put the last beyond her. And I frankly wouldn’t know how to respond. The soldiers in the Kumbhalgarh fort can’t possibly deny her access to Vikram. She hasn’t left me alone either. She has been coming over to my office and challenging me in a stage whisper that will carry a good mile or so to put her behind bars now or else … I daren’t put her behind bars for an offence she has not yet committed and I doubt if I would, even if she did set the Prince free. Sometimes she is all honey and charm and enquires after my welfare and brings over a savoury that she claims she has cooked herself. For a whole week she won’t refer to Vikramaditya and then suddenly she pleads his age and lack of experience and won’t I forgive him just this once? When I mention that the matter is out of my hands, she starts screaming and reminds me that I am a twit, an avaricious and ambitious twerp who’s so afraid of his brother’s outstanding leadership qualities and the love the whole populace bears him that I’ve thought it in my interest to keep him locked up.
Where does Father stand in all this? Does he see it as treason or merely, as the Queen says, as the impetuous behaviour of an energetic and impatient youngster who is but following in his father’s footsteps? Does he appreciate that a legally constituted court of the highest personages in the kingdom voted to send the Prince to prison? Will he stand by our decision?
In the meantime our guest, Prince Bahadur, is a great success in Chittor. Even the Queen Mother has grown fond of him. His smile, his prodigious courteousness, and his generous nature, never mind who is financing it for the time being, have swept aside all earlier reservations in the minds of those who had objected to my proffering him protection and hospitality. Bahadur is well-read and well-informed. He is curious about almost everything which is new to him. He is intelligent and sharp, and under his own roof, I’m sure, will not suffer fools gladly. But he never talks down to anybody at Chittor and has the knack of adjusting his intellectual pitch to whoever’s around.
He has a broad and bawdy sense of humour which, moreover, does not give offence. His repertoire of jokes is staggering and he never repeats himself. He tells Gujarati jokes, Malwa jokes, Delhi jokes and once he was sure of himself and of his reception here, he started telling Rajput jokes.
You have to see him do an evening with his five mothers. He does them individually and with different voices and he does them bitching simultaneously. Out of the blue, the chief eunuch of the zenana appears. He rails at them lasciviously and tells libidinous stories. The Sultan is away at war or preoccupied with some odalisque and the starved queens suddenly fall upon the sexless intimate who must now perforce unmanfully appease their concupiscent frenzy. My cousins, colleagues and nobles laugh rowdily (so do I), little realizing what an accurate portrait he is painting of our zenanas and what wondrous tales he would have to tell back home of all our tics and idiosyncrasies, fragile egos and risible follies.
There’s a rich timbre to his voice and his laugh is deep and infectious. For the moment he is the toast of the town and his engagement book is full for the next fortnight.
The women in the palace gossip endlessly about him and the company he keeps at night. They watch him from their jharokhas when he leaves the Atithi Palace in his smartly tailored white clothes, bottlegreen or pink sash around his waist and a fancy saafa on his head. He knows he’s being watched and he deliberately overdoes the airs of a rake. When we go for dinners together, I notice the women of the house fighting to be closest to the curtains that sometimes perfunctorily separate them from us, as much to see him as hear him. Bahadur’s opened my prudish eyes. Women enjoy the double-edged joke, bawdy and sexual humour far less self-consciously than men. You can hear them laugh their hearts out and stop all of a sudden because they realize the men are watching them.
He hasn’t been idle, our friend Bahadur, but to be fair, Vikramaditya’s mother was the first to make overtures to him. She has promised him twelve thousand horse and ten thousand infantry if he gets together a small group of his people and frees the Prince. Bahadur has shown interest in the scheme but he is no fool. He knows he can’t afford to align himself with a down-and-out friend, at least not yet. Yesterday, Rani Karmavati raised the ante further and told him that she would provide the men if he provided the leadership to spring her son from jail. I like that. I am sure that he’ll wriggle his way out of that one too but am keen to see how he’s going to do it. That’s being over-confident. I’m slipping up. He may just decide to take her up on her offer.
However dashing and popular, Bahadur’s not without problems. He can’t hold his drink well and sometimes his mouth runs away with him. Nowadays I make sure that when he begins to get out of hand, one of my people adds a little opium to his drink. That settles matters quickly for he is fast asleep in the middle of a sentence. But once in the early days when I too was feeling my way with him, we were invited to dinner at the house of the Minister for Home Affairs, Lakshman Simhaji. My uncle loves company and keeps open house. The trouble is he can drink anyone under the table. By the third drink, Lakshman Simhaji’s son Rajendra and Bahadur who have become good friends, were slapping each other’s backs. When they were on their fifth drink the Minister and Bahadur were exchanging anecdotes about the hilarious blunders committed by the Malwa and the Delhi armies. It was Bahadur’s turn to one-up Lakshman Simhaji. He remembered a trick that his father had played about the time that Bahadur was eleven.
‘On the eve of the battle, Father sent his emissary Shaist Khan with a white flag to the enemy camp. There was much speculation about the Khan’s visit: What did he want? Was Gujarat suing for peace? Did the Sultan want to strike a deal with the enemy? Nothing of the kind. The Sultan had a small request to make, a mere trifle. “The next day is a feast of Islam. Would Mewar be so kind as to defer the fighting by a mere twenty-four hours?” (I should have realized instantly when he switched to tales from closer home that the Shehzada was about to enter dubious territory.) The commander of the Mewar armies was a pompous windbag, the kind who believes in large, magnanimous gestures. “Tell His Majesty,” he said, “we are civilized and chivalrous people and would be happy to oblige. We’ll treat tomorrow as a day of rest and join battle with you at 9 a.m. the day after.” There was much drinking and merriment that night in the Mewar camp. The next morning, when the soldiers were suffering from a hangover and taking it easy, the Gujarat armies attacked. It was slaughter, unprecedented slaughter. Close to three thousand Mewar soldiers were massacred.’
Lakshman Simhaji fought hard to keep an impassive face.
‘And do you know who we owed our triumph to?’ The Shehzada was getting repetitive. ‘To the Commander of the bravest army in the world. The fool believed there were rules and codes of conduct in the prosecution of a war. There’s only one rule in war. It’s called victory. Victory at any cost and to hell with the rest.’
Bahadur laughed his hearty laugh. My cousin Rajendra excused himself and went inside. I was too embarrassed and angry to look up. The massacre was one of the blackest days in the annals of Mewar. Later on, Lakshman Simhaji more than paid back the Sultan of Gujarat for the three thousand soldiers he had lost that day but the people of Mewar never forgave Gujarat for its dastardly act. Bahadur, however, was right. The Sultan understood the meaning of war as Rajputs even today cannot. One must conduct war as if the life of one’s country depends on it. It often does. Conduct it then with every means, fair and foul. If you can, go for the kill. If you can’t, bide your time.
The Minister for Home laughed too, a choking, mirthless kind of laugh. He poured a big drink for Bahadur and an even bigger one for himself. Bahadur asked him to top his story. Laxman Simhaji smiled a little ruefully. ‘Prince, I’ve laughed so much today, I’m close to tears. Some time in the not too distant future, I hope I can tell you of a rout that will make you laugh till it hurts. Let’s drink to that.’
I was with the town-planner, Sahasmal, that morning. He had been hard at work and had come up with two schemes, one for sewage and another for potable water. His plan comprehended two new networks of piping for the whole city but at significantly different levels. Since seepage is mostly downwards, the clean water pipes would be at least three feet higher than the ones that carried the dirty water. The new waterworks and drainage systems would be executed in phases and would be financed in two ways. The first was a scheme whereby whoever invested money got four percent interest and four percent tax benefits. The rest of the money would be raised by an annual water cess to be paid in advance every year.
‘I like them, I like your plans for the water systems,’ I said. ‘Let’s refine them a little more in the next couple of months and present them to His Majesty when he’s back. Thanks.’ He was at the door when I called out to him, ‘Sahasmalji, I assure you your work will be far more beneficial and lasting than that of Rana Kumbha’s architects, Jaita and Mandan. Come back next Tuesday. We’ll spend some more time …’
I did not complete that sentence. Mangal had walked in. What was he doing here? Shouldn’t he be with Bahadur at the hunt? One look at his pale face and exhausted eyes begging me to forgive him and I knew that something terrible had happened. I motioned to him to wait outside and said goodbye to Sahasmal. I collected my wits and walked out quietly. Mangal had untethered Befikir and was waiting for me.
‘Where to?’
‘The Atithi Palace.’
‘How badly is he hurt?’
‘Very.’
‘Did he have a fall?’
‘No, my Prince.’
I should have gone. Too late to say that now. I had had the feeling I had been mothering Bahadur too much. He had asked for protection when he came over but I was being too literal and he was chafing under my vigilant eye. He was an avid hunter and since the jungles around Chittor have some of the best game in the country, I arranged for a royal hunt. I was sure that he would be happier on his own and have a good deal more fun if I was not around. Besides Mangal would keep an eye on him. It had not occurred to me that Prince Bahadur could get hurt in a hunt.
‘Weren’t Rao Bharat and Hada Komal with him?’
‘They were, Your Highness. So was I. I have failed you.’
‘We’ll look into that afterwards. Have you called the Raj Vaidya?’
‘Yes. And the hakim too. He has lost an enormous amount of blood.’
We were at the palace. Bahadur had been transferred from the make-shift stretcher to his bed. There was a strong smell of infected wounds and I was already beginning to feel nauseous.
‘Clear the room,’ I said hoarsely. ‘All except the Raj Vaidya, Hakim Altaf Hussein and Mangal.’ The members of the hunting party, the servants and the spectators disappeared. I felt Bahadur’s forehead. It was hot enough to boil water. ‘What are you two planning to do?’ I had woken the two medical men out of their reveries.
‘Ghanikhama, Sarkar,’ the hakim said hesitantly, ‘but I have taken his pulse. It’s too late to do anything.’
‘And you, what conclusion have you reached?’
‘I don’t know, Your Highness, but it seems that the patient is past recovery.’
‘Sit down,’ I said softly to both of them. ‘If he was not a Prince but a common man from one of our villages, what would you do? He may not have a strong pulse but you did find remnants of a feeble pulse in him, did you not, Hakim Altaf Hussein? That would mean he’s alive, right? Would you permit a seriously ill villager who is not yet dead to lie in his own muck and not even change his clothes? My friends, you’ve been overawed into inaction by his royal pedigree. Consult with each other, treat him as any other human being in desperate straits and get to work. Do your best and let God do the rest.’
I got out of the room, walked through the endless corridors of the Atithi Palace into the garden and took several quick, long inhalations of the wonderfully pure, unfetid, fresh air of Chittor.
