The Moghul Part 93

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Kamala paused to tighten the straps securing the bells around her ankles. "The song goes on to say that she cannot bear even to hear the voice of the nightingale now that she is separated from her Lord Shiva.

She cannot endure the dark night now that he has taken himself from her."

"It's a very touching love song." Hawksworth found himself thinking again of Shirin, and of the dark nights they had both endured.

"It is really much more. You see, Lord Shiva is her beloved, but he is also her G.o.d. So her song also praises the beauty of the great Shiva in all his many aspects: as her own consort, as one who has the Third Eye of Knowledge, as the great G.o.d of the Dance, Nataraj. Through my dance I will show all the many aspects of Shiva--as creator, as destroyer, as lord of the cosmic rhythms of life."

Hawksworth watched in groggy fascination as she rose and, clasping her hands above her head, bowed toward a small bronze statue of the Dancing Shiva she had placed on a corner table. Then, as the drummer took up a steady cadence and the flute began a searching, high-pitched lament, she struck a statuesque pose of her own, feet crossed, arms above her head. Gradually her eyes began to dart seductively from side to side, growing in power until it seemed her entire body might explode.

Abruptly she a.s.sumed a second pose, reminiscent of the statue. As the drummer's rhythms slowly increased, she began to follow them with her body, next with her feet, slapping heel, then ball, fiercely against the carpet. The drummer began to call out his bols, the strokes he was sounding on the drum, and as he did she matched his rhythms with the rows of tiny bells around her ankles.

Hawksworth found himself being drawn into her dance. Her rhythms were not flamboyant like those of the Kathak style, but rather seemed to duplicate some deep natural cadence, as she returned again and again to the pose of the Dancing Shiva. It was pure dance, and he slowly began to feel the power of her controlled sensuality.

Without warning she began a brief song to Shiva in a high- pitched, repet.i.tive refrain. As she sang, her hands formed the signs for woman, for beauty, for desire, for dozens of other words and ideas Hawksworth could not decipher. Yet her expressive eyes exquisitely translated many of the hand signs, while her body left no mistaking the intensity of their emotion.

When the song and its mime reached some climactic plateau, she suddenly resumed the pure dance, with the drummer once more reciting the bols as he sounded them. Again she matched his rhythms perfectly.

After a time she began another verse of the song. By her mime Hawksworth concluded she was describing some aspect of Lord Shiva. When the song concluded, the drummer called out more _bols _and again she danced only his rhythms. Then she began yet another verse of the song, followed by still more rhythmic dance. The aspects of Shiva that she created all seemed different. Some wise, some fierce, some clearly of a beauty surpa.s.sing words.

As Hawksworth watched, he began to sense some alien power growing around him, enveloping him and his despair, just as she had said.

Kamala seemed to be gradually merging with an energy far beyond herself, almost as though she had invoked some primal rhythm of life into existence. And as he watched the growing intensity of her dance he began to experience a deep, almost primitive sense of fear, a stark knowledge of life and death beyond words.

He found himself fighting to resist the force of some malevolent evil settling about the room, beginning to possess it and all it contained.

He felt its power begin to draw out his own life, hungry and insistent, terrifying. And still she danced on, now only rhythms, her body dipping and whirling, her arms everywhere at once, her smile frozen in an ecstatic trance.

Forcing himself at last to turn away, he looked toward the musicians.

They seemed entranced by her as well, captured by the delirium of her dance. He finally caught the eye of the drummer and weakly signaled him to stop. But the man stared as though not comprehending, spellbound.

Her dance had now grown to a frenzy, surpa.s.sing human limits.

Summoning his last strength, he tried to pull himself up off the bolster, but he discovered his legs were no longer his own. The room had become a whirling pattern of color and sound, beyond all control.

Uncertainly he turned and began to feel about the carpet for his boots.

His grip closed about a sheath of soft leather and he probed inside.

There, strapped and still loaded, was his remaining pocket pistol.

Shakily he took it in his hand, checked the prime, and began trying to aim at the long drum resting between the musicians. Now the drum seemed to drift back and forth in his vision, while the players smiled at him with glazed eyes.

He heard a hiss and felt his hand fly upward, as though unconnected to his body. Then the world around erupted in smoke and flying splinters of wood.

The shot had been timed perfectly with the end of a rhythm cycle, as the drum exploded into fragments on the sum.

The smoky room was suddenly gripped in silence. The musicians stared wildly for a moment, then threw themselves face down on the carpet, pleading in unknown words needing no translation. Hawksworth looked in confusion at the smoking pistol in his hand, not recognizing it. Then he threw it onto the carpet and turned toward Kamala.

She was gazing at him with open, vacant eyes, as though awakened suddenly from a powerful dream. Her breath was coming in short bursts, and her skin seemed afire. She stood motionless for a moment, then tried to move toward him, holding out her arms. After two hesitant steps, she crumpled to the carpet.

When he bolted upward to reach for her, the servants were there, holding him back.

"You must not touch her, Sahib."

"But she's . . ."

"No, Sahib." They gripped his arms tighter. "Can't you see? She has the sickness."

"What are you talking about?"

"It began late today, in the bazaar. Perhaps they do not know of it yet in the fort. At first no one realized what it was. But tonight, while she was dancing, one of the slaves from Sharif Sahib's kitchen came to tell us. Two of the eunuchs and five of his servants have become very sick." He paused to look at Kamala. "I think she must have known. That is why she wanted to dance tonight."

"Knew what? What did she know?"

"The plague, Sahib. The slave who came said that the plague has struck all over Agra. It has never happened in India before." The servant paused. "It is the will of Allah. The prophet Samad foretold it. Now it has come."

Hawksworth turned again to Kamala. She was still watching him with empty, expressionless eyes, as though her life had just poured out of her. He looked down at her for a moment, then reached for a pillow and carefully slipped it beneath her head. Her lips moved as she tried to form words, but at first no sound came. Then, as though again finding some strength beyond herself, her voice came in a whisper.

"Did you see?"

"What . . . ?"

"Did you see him? The Great G.o.d Shiva. He came tonight. And danced beside me. Did you see his beauty?" She paused to breathe, then her voice rose again, full and warm. "He was as I knew he would be.

Beautiful beyond telling. He danced in a ring of fire, with his hair streaming out in burning strands. He came as Shiva the Destroyer. But his dance was so beautiful. So very, very beautiful."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

_From the _Tuzuk-i-Arangbari, the court chronicles of His Imperial Majesty_:

"On the day of Mubarak-shamba, the twenty-eighth of the month of Dai, there came first reports of the pestilence in the city of Agra. On this day over five hundred people were stricken.

The first signs are headache and fever and much bleeding at the nose.

After this the _dana _of the plague, buboes, form under the armpits, or in the groin, or below the throat. The infected ones turn in color from yellow inclining to black. They vomit and endure much high fever and pain. And then they die.

If one in a household contracts the pestilence and dies, others in the same house inevitably follow after, traveling the same road of annihilation. Those in whom the buboes appeared, if they call another person for water to drink or wash, will also infect the latter with the sirayat, the infection. It has come to pa.s.s that, through excessive apprehension, none will minister unto those infected.

It has become known from men of great age and from old histories that this disease has never before shown itself in this land of Hindustan.

Many physicians and learned men have been questioned as to its cause.

Some say it has come because there has been drought for two years in succession; others say it is owing to the corruption of the air. Some attribute it to other causes.

The infection is now spreading to all towns and villages in the region of Agra save one, the n.o.ble city of the Great Akman, Fatehpur.

Wisdom is of Allah, and all men must submit.

Written this last day of the Muharram in the Hijri year after the Prophet of 1028 A.H., by Mu'tamad Khan, Second Wazir to His Imperial Majesty, Arangbar."

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Brian Hawksworth walked slowly up worn stone steps leading from the riverside funeral ghats. The pathway was narrow, crowded, and lined with carved statues of Hindu G.o.ds: a roly-poly G.o.d with human form and the head of an elephant, a G.o.d with a lion's body and a grotesquely grinning human face, an austere deity with a pointed head and a trident in his hand. All were ancient, weathered, ill-kept. Tame monkeys, small, brown, malicious, chased among them screeching.