The Thief and the King

In the month of July, our condition was worsening. For each impoverished family that lived in the slums of Bengal during the draught of 1600 - only 2 cups of rice were to be permitted per day. I could no longer walk to the palace of the King, Ghulam Musaroor, the protagonist of this melancholy occasion, without absorbing the cries from children that lay next to dead mothers & fathers, ‘Babi! Babi! My mommy!’ from one side of the street. On the other side, bodies that lay like a winding array of fallen dominoes with stomachs that had dissolved to a thin layer of skin.

King Musaroor was a colossus of a man. Reaching 8 feet tall, he towered over every native man who served him and even made the white folk, who had been conquering neighbouring provinces of their natural riches, look physically inferior. He was a man who was spoken to have unparalleled strength; a man who could ‘slice the head off an Indian elephant with a single brandish of his sabre’; a man who had the brawn to ‘smash two heads of his enemies together on the field of battle as if they were ripe, juicy watermelons’.

With an oiled moustache that spread its extremities across his cheeks like the wings of a golden eagle, the King boomed with refinement. Every night, I would stand in the corner of his chambers whilst I wait for my next command, and watch as he’d infuse the senses of his mind with the fumes of opium and divulge into manipulating women into sexual commerce.

But the king had vices that were not just physical: his excessive desire to resist and defeat the advancing European armies and his outrageously inflated view of his own abilities & self-importance, made him naïve; it made him naïve to the shrewdness of a timid servant like me. Instead of spending taxes on building stockpiles of grain for the drought seasons, the King obsessed over spending coin to beef up his military capability:

“The Europeans have never seen soldiers like ours! Our prowess with the sabre & nimble cavalry riders will outwit, out-dodge & out-fire any heavy artillery they employ – a single slap from our greatest swordsmen will send those foul beasts into the abyss they came from!”

The King’s ignorance towards the needs of the poor, towards the needs of my own family, lead to the death of my father. He was a man of unrivalled kindness, and rather than possessing the ability to ‘slice the head off an elephant’, I am confident my father could ‘tame the most savage of wild tigers with a single smile’. He taught me to use the fact I was a girl to deceive haughty merchants and to take advantage of the nihility that my gender gifts me when serving them:

“The relationship you have with your future masters will be utterly transactional: whether it be food, drink or opium they desire from you. Use your ghostly position to observe their traits; their weaknesses; what is most precious to them. Then, when they are vulnerable, when their focus is drunken on the gluttony their life deals them, take what you can. These men have numbering enemies; they’ll never suspect a girl like you.”

Galvanised by my father’s faith in me: I learnt how to master the art of stealing. As a young girl, I would roam the bustling inner-city streets where merchants would flog fine silks, spices and herbs. High on the pungent aromas of cumin and masala and blinded by the colours of turmeric and chilli powder, I would dress in shabby clothes to stand and observe the merchants bartering with potential customers; I’d memorise routines and weaknesses; I’d identify when they were vulnerable and steal what I. Never did anyone – albeit the street rats feeding on crumbs of dried pakora – ever notice the shadow of my disparaged sandals whispers by the stalls.

But my mission to serve the greatest lord of them all, King Musaroor, wasn’t born from the fires of my own addiction to stealing from the rich: I wanted to permanently destroy everything he’d built and his own person. Unless his bones were dismantled, his legacy deleted, his legislations erased, I would continue to cook Mujaddara for the poor sitting at my door, and watch as one would lick the bowl dry and throw on the floor; only for another to pick up with sand, dust and insects amongst it, and do the same.

So on this day – the 99th day – of my devotion to his royal highness, I find myself preparing for one final mission with consequences that will become rich for the poor of this province. A risk that revolves around something the King Musaroor treasures most; the weakness my Father taught me every man has. Unlike the masters of my past, it is not something exorbitantly luxury: it is something quite the opposite:

“My cavalry and infantry will line the perimeter of my fort for 6 miles, with my most sublime officers dressed in fine armour and sparkling new sabres. Upon the arrival of our ally – Prince Aldool – we will exchange elephants, elephants as majestic as the stars, before proceeding to discuss how are great armies of 50,000 men will coalesce and quash my European enemy.”, the King wrote in his journal, a little black book, at the end of every day.

The journal contained reams of notes on the King’s defend his palace against the advancing European forces: the artillery he was purchasing off the Japanese, the names of his allies who were sending re-enforcements, the paranoia he harboured towards his commanding officers whom he feared would betray him:

“I hear the snigger of my military men as I leave the room, I see the smirks slither across their faces in my periphery as I bellow my wisest of words. These men have defected before; their provinces left gaping to pillage and ransack. These thoughts are driving me to megalomania as they waltz around my mind like a poisonous Cobra, striking me when I’m at my weakest...”, were words the King would often right in panicked states of mind.

However, I was not delusional enough to believe that I, a peasant thief, had the strength or valour to face the King in combat despite knowing his next move. But what I did know, from the stories my late Father used to chronicle during our walks along the rice plantations of Hindustan, was that the Europeans were a force like no other in these parts:

“Like a sleeping dragon should be left alone, the modern Indian sepoy armies of the European nations should not be stirred into aggression. All Indian rulers who have fought them in battle have come away with nothing but a headless torso. If 10,000 Bengali cavalry attacked a European force of 500 men, they would do well to come away with their lives!”

Driven by hatred for my psychotic King, I’d stand quietly every night and watch him drown into the celestial opium fog. And as the King’s eyes would close, I’d whisper towards the little black book hidden away; in the same disparaged sandals that only the rats ever see; and take note of the King’s delusions and secrets on a sheet of parchment stolen from His Majesties library.

The European forces were stationed 20 miles west in the city of Kolkata, too dangerous for a girl like me to travel. But in reward for helping a farmer feed his family with the stolen coin from my masters, a dilapidated old man called Harman offered to help me in my quest for retribution.

“Ayala, I owe you a great service, for your food has saved the lives of my children. In return for 5 lakh, I have promised the King’s Minister of Trade that I will travel to Kolkata to collect much-needed rice stores to help feed the poor. If you trust me with the King’s secrets, I’ll deliver them to the Europeans.” Harman said as I sat on the doorstep of a Mosque, questioning whether God himself would trust this man.

I replied in a hushed tone to avoid someone overhearing us in the sheathlike streets:

“I have no option but to let you take these papers to Kolkata, take them to the cities rulers and beg them to attack our city. I’ll wait on this doorstep all night of every day to hear word of your return.”

With the Indian air intense and muggy, I waited – moon after moon – for my friend to return. I became angry, angrier with every day that passed, angry at God himself for comforting me into relying on anyone but myself. Then, whilst I was sitting on my doorstep of rage, a man came into view, a man whose turban had lost its magisterial posture; whose beard was wiry and skin tort from the sun’s burn.

“Ayala, you are destined for great things in this world, the Europeans believe it too. Take this correspondence from my hand: your skills are needed one last time” the tired farmer hissed in my ear, as I trapped his note between my fingers and unfolded the shape:

“Ayala, I am so greatly sorry to hear there are tragedies in your city no child should have to witness. I write to you to confirm my army’s arrival will put an end to them. In response to your news regarding the Prince Aldool, we will ride up to the King’s palace from the West Bank River to avoid detection in 3 moons times. But I must ask you to take one final courageous risk: I must ask you to send us word of the King’s military plan on the eve of battle. And for your selfless service to this cause, you will be rewarded to the sum of 1 million rupees [$20,000] and a seat at the noblest of parliamentary tables. It is true, that it appears you are destined for something: something very special. – Captain Lewis Roberts.”

The Captains news filled my heart with belief, the same belief that leaks from the soul when life repeatedly fails to return to you the effort you put into it. I was feeling energised, like a new-born Falcon preparing to take the first jump off the rock face, to fulfil the request from a master I had yet to lay eyes on. And so, as the King’s eye lids kissed the luminous moons cheeks, I reached for the little black book for one final time, and read the new page that had been written:

“On the eve of battle, the paranoid cobra that has been spitting poison through my mind is growing stronger each day! I dream every night of an intruder in my ranks, an invisible intruder, who conceals oneself so well only the vermin scattering my palace floors notice they are there. I feel naked to this phantoms gaze, as I fear they have seen me do things that breach our God’s teachings; I fear they know my weaknesses; I fear they know what is most precious to me…my little black book. I am not well, I know I am not well…but I shall sleep with one eye open tonight to try and catch a glimpse of my minds intruder...”

As my eyes finished reading the words on the page, a sickness vibrated through my body like the shockwaves of an erupting volcano. The muscles in my neck stiffened; my arms and legs quivered; I could not smell nor hear anything from fear; I could not breathe a murmur. The only sensation I could feel was the warmth from the light of the moon, as it reflected off the white outer rings of the King’s eye. For the first time in my thieving life, I had been caught. For the first time in my life…it was time to run!