Free Tiger Claws by John Speed Page A

Of whom, he wonders.
    Without looking up, she dismisses her other servants, and asks him for a full report.
    Basant sketches out the events. He speaks softly, barely loud enough for his voice to reach the princess’s ears—someone might be listening.
    As he speaks, he realizes that his feeling of dread and doom is growing. He finds it increasingly hard to speak. By the time he tells the story of the nautch girls and Dara’s spoiled recitation, his throat is so tight his voice is husky and barely above a whisper. He just manages to tell the story of her father’s exit before his voice seems to altogether fail him.
    “My father. My father.” She spits out the words, like a cobra spitting venom. And then Roshanara begins to shake with laughter. Or so it seems at first. But the shaking continues too long and Basant realizes that sobbing racks her slender body.
    The sight of her tears overwhelms Basant; for a while he merely stares at her. His own troubles and uncertainties seem so ominous and large, but he realizes that something is working on Roshanara as well. He places a tentative hand on her shoulder. She turns to him, her face wet with tears.
    “Basant,” she says, her voice full of desperation, “do you love me?”
    Basant blinks and his mouth drops. “Do you love me, dear?” she demands. She clutches his pudgy hand.
    “My princess, yes, of course!” He bends close to her. His voice is so husky, he wonders if she can hear him.
    “Tell me. Tell me you do!”
    “Of course, of course. How could you not know? I love you!” He strokes her dark hair. “I love you, Little Rose.”

    “Darling, darling,” she whispers and kisses his hand. She has never done that before. Her eyes, dark as wet jasper, stare into his. “Would you still love me if I were bad, darling?” Basant uses his thumb to dry her tears on her cheek and shakes his head: the question is too ridiculous to answer. “I can be very bad, you know. I think I shall live in hell, I am so very bad.” She grasps his fingers. Both their hands are wet with her tears. “Promise you will never stop loving me, no matter how bad I have to be.”
    Basant stares solemnly at Roshanara’s anxious face. “I promise, Little Rose, oh my dear little rose! always, always, always!”
    “Darling, you must write a letter for me,” she says when she has at last recovered her voice. Basant nods. He moves a small writing table near her and kneels before it. Taking a piece of paper, he chooses a quill pen and dips its tip in the ink and waits.
    Then she begins to dictate a letter. Basant transcribes her whispered words, which seem on their surface entirely benign—but of course he can guess for each a dozen deeper meanings.
    When she is done, he again dips his pen, but she interrupts him. “Don’t sign it!” she hisses. He nods, confused, and flips the paper over. “And don’t, for heaven’s, sake, seal it! Hide it. Give it to my brother only. Destroy it rather than let another read it!”
    Basant places the letter in the folds of his shirt.
    “Go quickly to my brother in the Rambagh. Take my palanquin.” She crosses to him and pats his heart, where the letter lies hidden. “Go with God,” she whispers. “Go with God.” Basant is so touched he can barely respond.
    “Remember your promise!” she calls as he leaves her. “Keep your promise to your Little Rose!” For a moment he can’t place the promise she refers to, but then he understands: to love her always, even if she is bad. Well, that shouldn’t be too hard, he thinks. He lowers his head, walking backward from the room. He finds her maid outside the door, and tells her to have Roshanara’s bearers bring the palanquin.
    Basant looks up to see Roshanara slink through her door, head down. Keeping her eyes to the floor, she shuffes toward her father’s chamber, like a condemned man going to the gallows.
    The eunuch guards at the chamber door eye her uncertainly—she shouldn’t be here, but she is