SULTAN, NOT SULTANA: THE FORTY AND THE FIELD

[Intro]

Hear the bells? That's the elephant. Hear the drums? That's mine.

The Sultan rides in front. Fall in line.

[Verse 1]

Twelve thirty-nine, Kabir Khan in Lahore says no,

I don't send a letter. I bring the army and I go.

[Verse 2]

A thousand hooves in the dust behind the howdah,

Naqqara on the camels, every mile a little louder.

He saw the dust from the walls and he counted what he saw,

Kabir Khan bowed before I ever reached the door.

[Pre-Chorus]

No veil, no litter, no curtain on the beast,

The Sultan's face is open from the west to the east.

[Time]

[Drop]

Bells on the elephant! Drums on the plain!

Lahore, open up, or you'll see me again!

Up on the howdah, cap on my head,

The army goes where the woman goes, and the woman goes ahead!

[Verse 3]

Elephants in front and the amirs in the rear,

The Turks don't like the order but the order's very clear.

They watched me ride and they didn't like the view,

A girl in a Turkish cap doing what they couldn't do.

Elephant knows the weight, elephant knows the way,

Twenty paces in the front where a Sultan ought to stay.

Minhaj wrote warlike. He wasn't being kind.

He was being accurate. Look behind.

[Drop]

Bells on the elephant! Drums on the plain!

Lahore, open up, or you'll see me again!

Up on the howdah, cap on my head,

The army goes where the woman goes, and the woman goes ahead!

[Outro]

Bells.

Drums.

Fall in line.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

Forty men around a table. Forty beards. Forty knives.

Forty slaves my father bought, now they're running forty lives.

[Verse 1]

Amir of the stables, Jamal ud-Din Yaqut,

A black man in a Turkish job. The Forty went mute.

[Verse 2]

It wasn't about the horses. It was about the chair.

Every post I gave a stranger was a Turk who wasn't there.

They said he touched my arm when I climbed into the saddle,

I ride an elephant, boys. Go check the beast, then check your tattle.

[Pre-Chorus]

Forty men and a horse. Forty men and a lie.

A hundred years later Isami writes it down with a sigh.

[Time]

[Drop]

Forty men and a horse! One of them is black!

That's the whole indictment, that's the knife in my back!

Not the war, not the coin, not the cap or the law,

A Habshi holding the reins was the thing that stuck in the craw!

[Verse 3]

Barani gave them the number, a hundred years on,

Forty was a legend by the time the Forty were gone.

But the knives were real, I counted every blade,

Altunia in Tabarhinda, Aitigin in the shade.

I made them. I paid them. I gave them iqta land,

And every iqta came back as a fist instead of a hand.

Yaqut kept the horses fed. That's what he did.

Ask the Forty what they did. Then ask them where they hid.

[Drop]

Forty men and a horse! One of them is black!

That's the whole indictment, that's the knife in my back!

Not the war, not the coin, not the cap or the law,

A Habshi holding the reins was the thing that stuck in the craw!

[Outro]

Forty men.

One horse.

Guess who paid.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

Third of April, back in Delhi, dust still on my boots.

A rider from Tabarhinda. Altunia's cut the roots.

[Verse 1]

Ten days later I'm marching west with my own men,

I didn't know the men were his. I know it now. Not then.

[Verse 2]

They turned in the camp. They came for Yaqut first.

A spear, a shout, a sunrise. That was the worst.

Then they came for me, the Sultan, with the chains in hand,

Ikhtiyar ud-Din Altunia and his iqta land.

[Pre-Chorus]

Twenty-first of April, Delhi crowns my brother Bahram,

Aitigin takes the deputy's chair. I take a cell at Bhatinda.

[Time]

[Drop]

Stone floor! Iron door!

Three and a half years a Sultan. Now I count the floor!

Yaqut's in the ground and the Forty hold the hall,

Tabarhinda keeps a Sultan behind a mud-brick wall!

[Verse 3]

The man who holds the key is the man who made the plot,

Altunia wanted Delhi. Delhi's what he hasn't got.

They gave the crown to Bahram and left Altunia the chore,

A Sultan in a cell and no reward for the war.

I watch him count his losses, I watch him count the hours,

A jailer with a grievance is the only door that's ours.

Fifth of May, they swear to Bahram one by one.

Nobody swears to Altunia. Now the real game's begun.

[Drop]

Stone floor! Iron door!

Three and a half years a Sultan. Now I count the floor!

Yaqut's in the ground and the Forty hold the hall,

Tabarhinda keeps a Sultan behind a mud-brick wall!

[Outro]

Tabarhinda.

Count the days.

I'm counting too.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

He had the key. I had the name.

So we did the arithmetic. Two prisoners, one game.

[Verse 1]

Marry the jailer. Say the words. Sign the deed.

Ikhtiyar ud-Din, you wanted Delhi. Here's what you need.

[Verse 2]

He had a grudge and a fort and a thousand angry men,

I had a crown they stole and the right to it again.

Not love. Don't write love. Write a contract in the heat,

A Sultan and a rebel with one city to complete.

[Pre-Chorus]

Raise the drums. Hire the hills. Khokhar swords and Jat,

September at our back and Delhi's walls ahead of that.

[Time]

[Drop]

Marry the jailer! Open the gate!

Bride on the elephant, Delhi, don't be late!

Second time I come for you, the first time you came to me,

The crowd chose me once. Choose me twice. We'll see.

[Verse 3]

Bahram sent the army out. The Forty rode along.

In a field outside Kaithal we found out we were wrong.

Our hired men looked at the odds and did the hired thing,

By nightfall it was two of us and the crows began to sing.

I married for an army and the army walked away,

Still the only woman who ever made them pay.

October on the plain, the dust is in my mouth,

Sultan of two people, and the road runs out.

[Drop]

Marry the jailer! Open the gate!

Bride on the elephant, Delhi, don't be late!

Second time I come for you, the first time you came to me,

The crowd chose me once. Choose me twice. We'll see.

[Outro]

Marry the jailer.

It nearly worked.

Nearly.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

Fourteenth of October, twelve forty, a field outside Kaithal.

Two of us walking. No army at all.

[Verse 1]

Hungry, tired, a Sultan in a stranger's coat,

The farmers took the jewels and they didn't take a vote.

[Verse 2]

The village found us sleeping and the village did the rest,

Nobody from the Forty had to put it to the test.

Altunia beside me. The jailer kept his word.

Three years and six months, and the rest is what you heard.

[Pre-Chorus]

Now they can't agree on where they put me down,

Three graves, three cities, one woman, one crown.

[Time]

[Drop]

Kaithal, Delhi, Tonk! Pick a grave, pick a stone!

Three towns want the Sultan, not one of them wanted the throne!

Bulbul-i-Khana, Turkman Gate, two slabs and no name,

Ibn Battuta saw the pilgrims and the dome, all the same.

[Verse 3]

Minhaj wrote it down, and this is what he penned,

A great sovereign, just, the patron of the learned, a friend

To her subjects, warlike, every kingly trait,

Then a pity she's a woman. Then he shut the gate.

No portrait on the coin, just my name in a line,

Sultan al-Mu'azzam. Go find one. It's still mine.

I took the veil off once and it never went back on,

Three graves in three cities and the daughter's name lives on.

[Drop]

Kaithal, Delhi, Tonk! Pick a grave, pick a stone!

Three towns want the Sultan, not one of them wanted the throne!

Bulbul-i-Khana, Turkman Gate, two slabs and no name,

Ibn Battuta saw the pilgrims and the dome, all the same.

[Outro]

Sultan.

Not Sultana.

Three graves. One name.

[Fade Out]

[End]