The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan

Author:Indu Sundaresan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780743481960
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2003-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

. . . I found a change in my health, and by degrees was seized with fever and headache. For fear that some injury might occur to the country and the servants of God, I kept this secret. . . . A few days passed in this manner, and Ionly imparted this to Nur-Jahan Begam than whom I did not think anyone was fonder of me . . .

—A. ROGERS, trans., and H. BEVERIDGE, ed.,

The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri

Night hovered over Goa and the Arabian Sea, the skies awash in gold and tangerine. Here, on the very western edge of the empire, the sun lasted longer, as though unwilling to leave. Long after dark, a line of silver would glimmer over the flat horizon, like an unseen city aglow in the distance. The moon had risen a few hours ago, and as the sun died, it gained in color. The streets were painted in silver, the steeples of the Jesuit churches plunged into the sky, their brass crosses laying shadows across the churchyards. The Portuguese Viceroy’s mansion stood tall and mammoth, made of open-faced brick, with arched verandahs, turreted roofs, and gabled windows. Goa’s harbor could be seen from the balcony of the mansion, which lay over the open portico in front.

During the day the sands were white as salt, their colors seemingly rinsed out by the waters edging the vast and impossibly blue ocean. Palm trees shivered in the humid breeze, and palm thatch umbrellas adorned the beaches. Time came to a halt in Goa; each day was like the next, beautiful, restful, the shade inviting a siesta to the lulling sound of waves scrambling up the beach and then wistfully draining down.

On this night, the harbor was crowded with a hundred and twenty ships. The ships swayed in the harbor, big and small, arranged like toys on the water, their hulls so close as to touch. The only sound across the waters to the Viceroy’s mansion was the creaking and groaning as the wind shoved one ship toward another, and they met uneasily and bobbed away. The sails were furled, gleaming white in the moonlight. The ships were for the most part small, displacing just a few hundred tons, but today they rode even lighter on the water of the harbor. Their holds were empty, their brass fittings removed, their crews on the beach, watching. The Rahimi lay in the center of the other ships. She too was forlorn, dejected—she was not made for this waiting, but to boldly sail across oceans and make war with storms and pirates.

The Viceroy sat alone on his vast and square balcony. A servant bent to his ear.

“We are ready, sire.”

The servant handed him a torch. The Viceroy rose to stand at the edge of the balcony and lifted his torch in the air. From the beach, another spurt of light answered his orders. A few minutes later, the Viceroy watched as a catapult was wheeled to the water’s edge, and a round, oil-soaked ball of cotton and wood chips was set on fire.

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