them, to imprison them in their own fortresses or on islands in lakes, or to execute them with their own swords.
Salim, bless him, the bloodthirsty wretch, was already dreaming up ingenious methods of killing people.
If anyone betrays me, papa, I will slaughter an ass and have the traitor sewn up inside the animal’s freshly flayed wet skin. Then I will sit him backward on a donkey and parade him through the streets at noon and let the hot sun do its work.
The cruel sun which would dry the carcass so that it slowly contracted, so that the enemy within died slowly of a strangled suffocation. Where did you come up with an idea as nasty as that? the emperor asked his son.
I made it up,
the boy lied.
And who are you to speak of cruelty, papa. I myself saw you draw your sword and cut off the feet of that man who stole a pair of shoes.
The emperor knew the truth when he heard it. If there was a darkness in Prince Salim, then it had been inherited from the king of kings himself.
Salim was his favorite son, and his most likely assassin. When he was gone these three brothers would fight like dogs in the street over the meaty bone of his power. When he closed his eyes and listened to the galloping hoofs of his children at play he could see Salim leading a rebellion against him, and failing like the puny runt he was.
We will forgive him, of course, we will let him live, our son, so fine a horseman, so shiny, with such a kingly laugh.
The emperor sighed. He did not trust his sons.
The question of love was rendered more mysterious by such matters. The king loved the three boys galloping before him on the maidan. If he were to die at their hands, he would love the arm that delivered the fatal blow. However, he did not plan to let the young bastards do him in, not while there was breath in his body. He would see them in Hell first. He was the emperor, Akbar. Let no man trifle with him.
He had trusted the mystic Chishti whose tomb stood in the courtyard of the Friday Mosque, but Chishti was dead. He trusted dogs, music, poetry, a witty courtier, and a wife he had created out of nothing. He trusted beauty, painting, and the wisdom of his forebears. In other things, however, he was losing confidence; in, for example, religious faith. He knew that life was not to be trusted, the world was not to be relied on. On the gate of his great mosque he had carved his motto, which was not his own, but belonged, or so he had been told, to Jesus of Nazareth.
The world is a bridge. Pass over it but build no house upon it.
He didn’t even believe his own motto, he scolded himself, for he had built not just a house, but an entire city.
Who hopes for an hour hopes for eternity. The world is an hour. What follows is unseen.
It’s true, he acknowledged silently, I hope for too much. I hope for eternity. An hour’s not enough for me. I hope for greatness, which is more than men should desire. (That “I” felt good when he said it to himself, it made him feel more intimate with himself, but it would remain a private matter, one that had been resolved.) I hope for long life, he thought, and for peace, for understanding, and a good meal in the afternoon. Above all these things I hope for a young man I can trust. That young man will not be my son but I will make him more than a son. I will make him my hammer and my anvil. I will make him my beauty and my truth. He will stand upon my palm and fill the sky.
That very day a yellow-haired young man was brought before him wearing an absurd long coat made up of particolored leather lozenges, and holding a letter from the Queen of England in his hand.
In the early morning Mohini the sleepless whore of the Hatyapul brothel awoke her foreign guest. He came awake quickly and twisted her roughly into his arms, conjuring a knife from thin air and holding it against her neck. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I could have killed you a hundred times last night, and don’t think I didn’t think about it while you
Salim, bless him, the bloodthirsty wretch, was already dreaming up ingenious methods of killing people.
If anyone betrays me, papa, I will slaughter an ass and have the traitor sewn up inside the animal’s freshly flayed wet skin. Then I will sit him backward on a donkey and parade him through the streets at noon and let the hot sun do its work.
The cruel sun which would dry the carcass so that it slowly contracted, so that the enemy within died slowly of a strangled suffocation. Where did you come up with an idea as nasty as that? the emperor asked his son.
I made it up,
the boy lied.
And who are you to speak of cruelty, papa. I myself saw you draw your sword and cut off the feet of that man who stole a pair of shoes.
The emperor knew the truth when he heard it. If there was a darkness in Prince Salim, then it had been inherited from the king of kings himself.
Salim was his favorite son, and his most likely assassin. When he was gone these three brothers would fight like dogs in the street over the meaty bone of his power. When he closed his eyes and listened to the galloping hoofs of his children at play he could see Salim leading a rebellion against him, and failing like the puny runt he was.
We will forgive him, of course, we will let him live, our son, so fine a horseman, so shiny, with such a kingly laugh.
The emperor sighed. He did not trust his sons.
The question of love was rendered more mysterious by such matters. The king loved the three boys galloping before him on the maidan. If he were to die at their hands, he would love the arm that delivered the fatal blow. However, he did not plan to let the young bastards do him in, not while there was breath in his body. He would see them in Hell first. He was the emperor, Akbar. Let no man trifle with him.
He had trusted the mystic Chishti whose tomb stood in the courtyard of the Friday Mosque, but Chishti was dead. He trusted dogs, music, poetry, a witty courtier, and a wife he had created out of nothing. He trusted beauty, painting, and the wisdom of his forebears. In other things, however, he was losing confidence; in, for example, religious faith. He knew that life was not to be trusted, the world was not to be relied on. On the gate of his great mosque he had carved his motto, which was not his own, but belonged, or so he had been told, to Jesus of Nazareth.
The world is a bridge. Pass over it but build no house upon it.
He didn’t even believe his own motto, he scolded himself, for he had built not just a house, but an entire city.
Who hopes for an hour hopes for eternity. The world is an hour. What follows is unseen.
It’s true, he acknowledged silently, I hope for too much. I hope for eternity. An hour’s not enough for me. I hope for greatness, which is more than men should desire. (That “I” felt good when he said it to himself, it made him feel more intimate with himself, but it would remain a private matter, one that had been resolved.) I hope for long life, he thought, and for peace, for understanding, and a good meal in the afternoon. Above all these things I hope for a young man I can trust. That young man will not be my son but I will make him more than a son. I will make him my hammer and my anvil. I will make him my beauty and my truth. He will stand upon my palm and fill the sky.
That very day a yellow-haired young man was brought before him wearing an absurd long coat made up of particolored leather lozenges, and holding a letter from the Queen of England in his hand.
In the early morning Mohini the sleepless whore of the Hatyapul brothel awoke her foreign guest. He came awake quickly and twisted her roughly into his arms, conjuring a knife from thin air and holding it against her neck. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I could have killed you a hundred times last night, and don’t think I didn’t think about it while you
Similar Books
