The Spice Gate, page 3
And even though Ilangovan’s methods had often been questionable, Amir did not think he could find a better home for his mother and Kabir.
And yourself. You deserve it just as much.
Bindu must have seen the despair on his face, the hopelessness haunting his eyes. She sighed, emitting a low whistle. “Gates, you must really be desperate if you can manage that expression on your face. What is it, a lover from another kingdom you wish to sneak into Raluha? I’ve heard there are daayans among the Kalanadi women luring Carriers like you.”
“No, not a lover—”
“Ah, you know what, it doesn’t matter. Gates know I’ve paid for my curiosities. And this whole Poison game is an upper-caste scandal, and I don’t mind seeing bowlers like you swigging a vial down your throats every now and then, so mayhaps I’ll part with this little whisper that floated into my ears earlier today.”
Amir perked up. Of course there was an exception. It was Bindu he was talking to, the thrift rani of Vanasi, from whom nothing that transpired in this aesthetic regime was hidden. A daughter of Karim bhai in spirit. A liar, for sure, but a liar who sold lies he was eager to hear.
“Who?” Amir asked, his chest swelling up.
She kept her face plain and unyielding. And slowly, one arm extended toward Amir, the palm open. “If you’re a thief by nature, Amir of Raluha, I am the Vanasari rat of bargain.”
One finger curled in invitation.
“Then fulfill your previous bargain! I don’t have any more saffron,” Amir snapped. It gladdened him for once that he was not bluffing. Be it bowlers or rooters, or any of the gatecaste among the eight kingdoms, the obsession with spice escaped few. What began in the ornate palaces and the marble-decked households trickled down to the bazaar, and from there to the thin, barely stitched pockets of the lowborn. Seven levels of the hanging market in the tower of Vanasi was not sufficient to fill the bellies of one kingdom. They needed more; they always needed more.
“Empty your pockets,” she commanded him.
Amir was stunned at her audacity. She had the temerity to question him after consuming his own saffron for nothing, and yet there was little he could do in that moment except obey her. If she isn’t lying . . .
He emptied his pockets.
A single rolled parchment fell out.
A gift for Harini he had forgotten to hand over to Karim bhai along with the letter.
Bindu picked up the parchment and untied the ribbon before he could snatch it back. She opened it, and her eyes widened. For on the parchment was a painting of Raluha as seen from the eyes of a vulture. Replete with the saffron fields, the Spice Gate in its blooming midst, the great vale of settlements shaped like a bowl, the palace to the north, the stone manors and marble halls to the west, the market along the slopes, and at the bottom of the valley, the Bowl itself. The home of the gatecaste.
Bindu stared at it, at a loss for words. She licked the dryness off her lips and blinked. A moment later, she folded and pocketed the parchment.
“Give it back, please,” said Amir. “It is a gift meant for another.”
“Do you want your whisper or not?”
“I do, but this cannot be the price.”
“The painting will fetch entire jars of spice,” Bindu argued, wonder laced in her own voice, at the ease of the argument. “So very few in Vanasi know what Raluha looks like. These saffron fields . . .”
“Ho,” cried Amir. “Look at your face. I doubt you will sell this.”
You know you will. You have in the past, too, to earn a few extra spices for Amma.
Bindu smiled sadly, and Amir wondered if he was finally seeing her true face. “No, I will not.”
Amir clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Bindu’s thin smile did not waver. Amir slowly smiled in return, as though this were a game that they would never tire of playing, this ridiculous stench of barter, this inheritance of the bazaar that ran in the blood of every man, woman, and child of the eight kingdoms. He did not doubt the wealth of what Bindu was holding in her hands.
And thus, he conceded it.
“Okay, you have a deal. Tell me now. Who has the Poison?”
“I cannot say for certain,” Bindu replied, “and you will certainly not hold me accountable, but word in the bazaar is that the Jewelmaker ceased his supply after Rajkumari Harini of Halmora duped the Carnelian Caravan for a barrel full of the Poison five days ago.”
Chapter 2
Each daughter of Kabuliyah sat on one side of the weighing scale, the other balanced by sacks of cardamoms and groundnuts. And when the weights matched, the dowry for the wedding was decided.
—Jannat Munshi, Shaadighar: Criticisms of a Raluhan Marriage
The Bowl sagged in a life of its own. Its breathing was labored and rattled, often mingling with the sounds of its occupants: the bowlers—and among them, the Carriers—who snored louder than the roosters, and for longer than the bells clanged each morning from the Mouth’s temples. Kabir swore Amir snored like a pigsty, and no amount of crushed elaichi in water made it go away.
“Ho, did you give the painting to Harini?” Kabir asked the following evening after Amir had returned from Vanasi, his voice low, one eye beyond the curtain where Amma cooked dinner with one hand cupping her round belly. The aroma of spices was faint, and Amir hoped the Bashara would refill their jars next week.
He gave a faint nod to his brother, the spasms in his back stinging his bones. He winced, tracing a hand as far down his spine as he could and stretching his shoulders. “Yes, yes. She loved it. Said she’d hang it in her bedchamber along with the other paintings.”
Kabir’s chest heaved, and a grin formed on his lips. “I’m going to paint more. Do you think the other thronekeepers might like them too?” In the semidarkness of their home, Amir glimpsed the spicemark on his brother’s throat. He shrugged noncommittally. “It doesn’t matter. Just draw because you like to. I’m sure someone will find it worthy of hanging in their bedchamber.”
The thought seemed to please Kabir, who scampered to the shelf to pick out a fresh sheet of parchment and ran out of the house to begin his new work. Amir, too tired to chase after his brother, sat and leafed through his other paintings. Raluha was not the only focus of Kabir’s art. He had, in his boundless eleven-year-old imagination, conjured even the Outerlands beyond the kingdoms. The mountains that could be seen from the saffron fields, the clouds hovering over them, the forests and the darkness they heralded beyond the fences. He had drawn rivers sparkling beneath the sunlight, burbling through thick jungles, and—
Amir paused, his hand shivering at the next sheaf of parchment he came to. It showed an enormous beast, covering nearly the entirety of the paper, a black thing of malice that seemed to tower over a village. Kabir had liberally blackened the painting and left two crimson pinpricks in the heart of that darkness for eyes that glared at Amir through the parchment.
Heedless of his own words, he folded the painting and went after Kabir. He knew where to find him.
The Bowl came alive in much the same way Jhanak’s fish market did in the evenings. Nobody liked to sit inside their homes, not like the abovefolk. An hour of opinions and gossip, an hour of salves being applied to soothe troubled spines. The air stank of stale ginger, and the trickle of sewage was a permanent fixture along the fringes of the Bowl, like the steady passage of time, an endless riot of decadence amid the dim, flickering lanterns, while the Raluha above glowed like fragments of a golden moon.
The one thing it rarely smelled like was, ironically, saffron. No, only one yellow thing trickled down to the Bowl, and it wasn’t the kingdom’s spice.
Amir hated how content many of the bowlers looked. The sound of laughter stopped him in his tracks as he glimpsed Veni and Madhuri exchanging quips while sitting on a ledge. Beyond them, half a dozen men lounged outside a chai stall. Damini, who had tied a cloth around half her face, was sweeping one corner of the lane and with a swerve of her hip breaking into an awkward dance, her lips moving in sync with a song.
Or perhaps this was what it meant to live, and Amir had gotten it all wrong. That his desire to escape Raluha and join Ilangovan and his band of pirates in the Black Coves was as delusional as Karim bhai had claimed.
He found the object of his ire lying on a jute cot in a lungi, one leg across the other, a beedi between his lips, wispy clouds of smoke shooting out from an “o” at the center of his mouth. Kabir sat beside Karim bhai, sketching beneath candlelight.
“Go back home,” Amir told him. “Amma needs your help.”
Kabir looked pained. “But I just started drawing. Give me some time.”
“Now, Kabir,” Amir growled. Beside him, Karim bhai chuckled, removing the beedi from his mouth to reveal betel-stained teeth, and prodded Kabir to heed his brother’s instruction. When Kabir was gone, Amir shed what little patience he had. He unfolded the painting stowed beneath his tunic and shoved it into Karim bhai’s face.
“You’re teaching him to draw the Immortal Sons?”
Karim bhai gave a nonchalant shrug, his eyes darting around the edges of the parchment. “Someone has to. It is better they fear from a young age what waits for them beyond the fence in the Outerlands. It is how we’ll have fewer runaways like your father. Walked right into death’s open maw, didn’t he?”
Amir pulled the painting away and tore it to pieces, letting the bits rain on Karim bhai’s head. “It is enough to know the Outerlands as impassable. There’s no need for this religious hogwash peddled by the abovefolk to add flavor to it. I don’t want Kabir to be a slave to such stories, bhai.”
“You talk as if you haven’t been getting money or spices from selling them. And what do you tell the poor boy, ho? That you’re gifting his works to the people of the eight kingdoms. Gifting.”
Amir had, on several occasions, sold Kabir’s paintings. Amma’s addiction to ginger and cumin had grown to a point where she was willing to starve in their absence. Of course, Amir never told this to Kabir. His brother had one thing going for him, and Amir did not wish to ruin the flavor of this passion by making it seem like a profitable endeavor. Not when, soon enough, Kabir would be forced upon the spice trail. Would his callused hands be willing to paint after that? The thought made Amir shudder.
Karim bhai took another drag of the beedi before stubbing it beneath his sandals. He bade Amir to sit beside him on the cot, then swatted a mosquito on his arm. “There was a time when your father was not a slave to such stories, either, pulla. Instead, he got too curious. Would creep to the fences and wonder what lay beyond. He was a fearless one, your appa. Hated being told what to do, and where his station lay. There’s always folk like that from the Bowl, who, once they start climbing out, don’t want to stop. They don’t know how to.”
“I can’t imagine why,” replied Amir scathingly, thinking of Ilangovan.
“It’s not unwise, then, to say your prayers. To remain bounded by the scriptures.”
“Scriptures that exclude us as humans.” Amir spat on the ground. “We’re worse than slaves, bhai.”
Karim bhai emitted a gentle tsk. “Gah! We all make a big deal out of it, don’t we?”
“Easy for you to say,” Amir barked. “You get everything you want at the feet of your dear ministers.”
“Ho, pulla, and you don’t? Last I checked, we were two shadows prowling the eight kingdoms, not one. You may not walk their halls, but you carry their scents just as much as I do.”
Amir was incensed. “I did it so I could save up for the Poison!”
If Karim bhai was offended by the remark, he did not show it. “I do my bit for the Bowl while walking the gilded palace, pulla. Fifty-five years I’ve served the palace, since I was your brother’s age. Who do you think convinced Suman-Koti to sign the accord to permit bowlers to open their shops in the bazaar? Who do you think urged the Minister of Grains to increase the spice allowance for families whose sons and daughters were Carriers? If Orbalun is considering reserving even a single seat upon his council for a gatecaste, it is because I have sat at his ministers’ feet day and night, groveling, stitching myself to the shadows, delivering gifts and personal messages to distant kingdoms unbeknownst to the Spice Trade. I have planted myself between the abovefolk and you lot so that I take the first blow when I can.”
“You don’t have to,” Amir pleaded with him. “You can come with me to the Black Coves. To Ilangovan.”
Karim bhai clapped, bursting into laughter. He laughed for what seemed like a long time, until the skies darkened, then sighed and descended into coughs, clutching his chest, sputtering in smaller bursts of cackles. He placed a hand on Amir’s shoulder and leaned against him, chest heaving. “Do your thing, pulla, and let me do mine. The Mouth has blessed me with the spicemark in this life, and I intend to see this duty through.”
“Ho,” Amir complained. “Do your duty, all right. Deliver all the letters the abovefolk give you. But don’t deliver mine, is that your way?”
Karim bhai shoved him off the cot. “I waited an entire hour at the doors to the palace. Harini never showed up. Nor her father, nor her guards. The palace was naught but quiet, pulla. Don’t blame me. Karim bhai never fails to deliver a letter.”
Amir’s train of thought—and frustration at Karim bhai’s argument—snapped at once. His heart skipped a beat as Harini swam back into his thoughts.
What did she need all that Poison for? Or had Bindu been lying merely to get away from Amir? She couldn’t have possibly known any feelings he had for Harini. And it seemed improbable that, of all the thronekeepers and their scions, Bindu would have taken the name of Harini out of thin air to spin such a tale.
Equally as curious was why Harini wouldn’t receive Karim bhai. Was she angry that Amir had not come himself? He’d promised her, after all. Either way, he had too many questions that needed answering, none of which this old fool of a Carrier smoking his beedi and scratching his beard could give.
“I need to go to Halmora,” Amir said flatly.
Karim bhai smiled, lighting up another beedi and exhaling a puff of smoke into the stale night air of the Bowl. “You’re lucky, we have carrying duty to Halmora in five days. I checked Jhengara’s roster, and your name is on it. We’ve been chosen to bring back a hundred pounds of turmeric, for the maharani’s Bashara.”
A hundred pounds, he thought wearily, touching the mark on his neck. A blessing and a curse.
Hasmin whipped the Carriers into a straight line. He barked incessant orders and was in general a pestilence that afternoon. Amir was tempted to rile him up further, just to show his spine wasn’t fully bent, but was held back by Karim bhai.
“I can’t just let him go about—”
“Of course you can! Hasmin knows how important today’s duty is. If anything, he’s being more restrained than usual.”
“Gah!”
“Look at how he glances about. He feels the eyes on him.”
“Eyes?”
“We are going to Halmora to help fulfill the Bashara.”
“I couldn’t care less about the Bashara, bhai.”
“Ignore the significance of the Bashara at your own peril. Not for nothing did the Minister of Silk himself remind me to count the sacks. And who do you think put Suman-Koti in charge?”
“Orbalun?” Amir made an educated guess. Trust Karim bhai to constantly measure his closeness to the maharaja of Raluha at every opportunity. In this matter, though, Amir conceded the right of pride to the old Carrier. The Bashara was a sacred ritual, one that celebrated the future of the kingdom. And for Carriers, it meant an additional spice allowance for their families, and perhaps even a day off. Amir did not care for the former, but the day off . . . ah, the temptation was sore.
“Ho.” Karim bhai nodded. “The Bashara cannot start without the maharaja smearing the Mouth’s idol with turmeric.”
A hundred pounds of it, Amir thought bitterly. That should cover the Mouth and then some.
Coming from the Bowl, Amir never understood this incessant thirst for rituals the rest of Raluha had. Bowlers liked to keep things simple. A quick prayer, a song or two, and then out flowed the barrels of toddy. The palace, on the other hand, swam in the quagmire of a hundred customs.
Not that he’d been spared learning about the Bashara: Amir’s mother had not held back on any of the ostentatious details. She spoke of it like a song: as the queen went into labor, all the labor would go into serving the queen. Nine crones from the merchant quarters were to ascend the palace on the eve of the birth, muttering bashara under their breath. Adorned with pearl necklaces and gems encrusted with strips of amethysts, the crones would calm the queen in her torment and screeching agony, pasting turmeric on her cheeks, putting garlic and pepper in her mouth, and smearing saffron on her hair. A nutmeg, if she behaved. They would then dip her feet in rosewater pestled with sandalwood and dried ash and sing verses from the song of the unborn. From the doors at the end of the wetchamber the priests would ring bells until the baby slithered out, and the runners would dash to the restless thronekeeper—Maharaja Orbalun—with the good news.
It was all a little too much. No—it was a lot too much. But he was going to meet Harini, and on most days the mere thought of a moment with her was enough reason to suffer Hasmin’s whips and barks, even though it was in service of wasting spice on a baby.
“Remember, not more than an hour,” Karim bhai warned as the line began to move, the Carriers ahead flicking pinches of turmeric into the veil and disappearing through the Spice Gate. “You got lucky with the Vanasari guards, but the Haldiveer are not so frugal in their security.”
