Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne (35 page)

Jahangir looked at the three of them – father, brother and sister. His was not the only family divided by recent events. ‘I will think on what you’ve all said, but now I will return to my own apartments.’ He saw Mehrunissa make a slight movement towards him, but he ignored her. Tonight he needed to be alone to reflect.

Jahangir sat in the darkness by the open casement, a cup of Mehrunissa’s opium-laced wine by his side. As he sipped, the pain in his head was easing, but he still found it hard to marshal his thoughts. Disturbing images flickered across his mind, distorting as they passed – of himself as a boy watching his father Akbar and wondering whether he could ever win his approval, of running through the warm night to the house of the Sufi, Shaikh Salim Chishti, to reveal his fears and uncertainties to the old man, of his rebellion against Akbar. All Akbar’s affection had been for Jahangir’s sons, not for Jahangir, and what had that led to in the case of Khusrau? The screams of his eldest son’s followers, spitted on stakes, echoed in his head, and Khusrau peered at him with sightless eyes.

Horrified by these phantom images, Jahangir pulled himself fully awake and tossed the metal cup into a corner, splashing the rugs with the dregs of the wine. He needed to think with a clear mind. Slowly, the soft breezes through the casement seemed to blow away the drug and alcohol fumes. If Akbar had been a better father to him and he a
better father to his own sons, Khusrau’s revolt and Khurram’s disaffection might not have happened. Yet he had tried so hard not to repeat Akbar’s failings towards him. Perhaps what had happened was inevitable – perhaps the inheritance the Moghuls had brought from the steppes of Asia made it so. It was in their blood to challenge for the throne, just as a young stag tests his strength against the leader of the herd. It was part of nature for fathers to teach sons harsh lessons.

Jahangir gazed deep into the starry darkness. His grandfather the Emperor Humayun had believed that the stars held the answers to all life’s mysteries. Jahangir’s lip curled. They certainly hadn’t solved Humayun’s problems – problems born of being merciful when he should have been ruthless, hesitant when he should have been decisive. That was why he had lost his empire.

That would never happen to him. He had waited too long for his throne . . . Mehrunissa was right, as always. Any delay, any hesitation on his part could be fatal. He must put sentiment aside and deal with Khurram.

At dusk the following evening, with his entire court standing beneath the marble dais in the Hall of Public Audience, Jahangir rose to address the rows of noblemen before him. Now that he had made his decision he felt his confidence grow, just as it had at his coronation when he first appeared to his people on the
jharoka
balcony. Among those nearest the dais were Ghiyas Beg, Asaf Khan and his vizier Majid Khan. He had told nobody, not even Mehrunissa, what he was about to say, but no one could doubt that he was about to announce something momentous.

He had ordered the hall’s hundred sandstone pillars to be wrapped in black silk. All the fountains in the courtyard beyond had been turned off and more black silk had been thrown over the beds of bright flowers, banishing all colour. He himself was also dressed in black, a simple turban of the same hue on his head and not a single jewel. His courtiers were looking round uneasily. Jahangir waited, allowing the tension to build yet further, and then began.

‘As you know, yesterday the Governor of Mandu reported to me that my son Prince Khurram is stirring up insurrection. He has written to many of my governors urging them to ally themselves with him against me. That is not his only crime. He abandoned his command in the Deccan and came to Agra without my permission. When I ordered his arrest he fled in the night. Even then I hoped he would see his error and return to the path of duty. In my fatherly affection I was patient, allowing him time to repent of his youthful arrogance; I sent no army against him. But ambition has corrupted him completely. He responded not with love but with further defiance. Now I can hold my hand no longer.’

Jahangir paused. The silence was absolute. His eye fell on Ghiyas Beg, whose head was bowed. Mehrunissa’s father would not like what he was about to say but his own security, the empire’s security, must come first. Speaking loudly and firmly to emphasise the importance of the moment Jahangir commanded, ‘Bring me the imperial ledger in which I inscribed the name of the
bi-dalaut,
the wretch called Khurram, on the ill-starred day of his birth.’

An attendant holding a large green leather-bound volume stepped forward and laid it on a mulberry wood bookstand that another servant had already placed on the dais. Jahangir
opened the book and slowly turned the pages until he found the one he sought. Then, taking a pen from the attendant, he dipped it into a black onyx ink pot that the man held and drew a line through the page with a single decisive stroke. ‘Before you all I declare that I disown the
bi-dalaut,
Khurram. Just as you have seen me strike his name from the list of my sons so I strike him for ever from my heart. From this day forward Khurram is no son of mine.’

Even while he was speaking, Jahangir heard shocked murmuring from his courtiers. Ghiyas Beg and Asaf Khan, standing just a few feet away, had horror on their faces while his vizier Majid Khan, eyes closed, was running his prayer beads through his fingers and rocking backwards and forwards. But he was not finished yet.

‘I will not tolerate rebellion within my empire – whoever the perpetrator. Earlier today I signed and sealed a
firman,
an imperial decree, declaring Khurram an outlaw and placing a price upon his head – fifty thousand gold
mohurs
for any man who captures him. Furthermore, I am sending an army against him under the command of my general Mahabat Khan. It will march in a week’s time.’

Jahangir turned and walked swiftly from the hall, a craving for Mehrunissa’s opium wine to numb the harsh realities of an emperor’s life, a father’s life, gnawing at him once more.

The smell of rain falling on the hot earth – the unmistakable smell of the monsoon – seemed to grow ever more pungent the further east they travelled through the fetid lands of Bengal, Khurram thought as, riding at the head of the column, he looked back over his shoulder at the force straggling behind him. During the last months it had dwindled to a mere five or six hundred men. The news that Mahabat Khan had swept out of Agra at the head of a large and well-equipped army – twenty thousand soldiers and three hundred war elephants according to some reports – to hunt him down had persuaded many of his own soldiers to desert.

Khurram had only met Mahabat Khan once at court but had heard of his bravery in battle. He was a Persian who had been in the service of the shah until, like Ghiyas Beg, he had fallen from favour and come to the Moghul court. By all accounts he was a risk taker, impulsive sometimes to the point of recklessness, but always successful – at least until
now. His elite personal force of two thousand Rajputs were said to be devoted to him. He must indeed be a charismatic leader if as a foreigner and a Muslim he could so impress those fearless saffron-clad Hindu warriors, who believed themselves the children of the sun and the moon. Small wonder, Khurram thought, that some of his own men had slunk away. But better a small force of true supporters than a larger one with no stomach for a fight.

Feeling an insect bite the side of his neck, he slapped at it with his hand and glancing at his fingers saw that they were smeared with blood. He had seldom felt wearier or more dispirited. By declaring him an outlaw, his father had set every man in the empire against him. A feeling of helplessness mingled with anger rose within him. How could his father have repudiated and humiliated him so brutally, so publicly, allowing him no chance to defend himself? How could the pride he had once had in him, his deeds and auspicious birth, have turned to such vindictive rancour? Whatever his father might choose to believe, he had become nothing more than Mehrunissa’s puppet. She controlled Jahangir and she controlled his empire, feeding his weakness for wine and opium. And everything she wanted was coming to pass. According to a letter from Asaf Khan, whose messenger had followed Khurram’s retreating force from Asirgarh, two months ago Jahangir had summoned Shahriyar and placing the imperial turban on his head had declared him his heir. And that wasn’t all. The date for Shahriyar’s marriage to Mehrunissa’s daughter Ladli had been set by the court astrologers and would take place during the New Year festivities.

Meanwhile, he and his family were being forced to flee
for their lives, perhaps even beyond the borders of the empire. Mehrunissa had reduced him to a landless wanderer just like his great-grandfather Humayun and Babur before him. But she would not win. One day he would reign, like Babur and Humayun. Jahangir could do or say what he would but he, Khurram, was the only one of his four sons fit to be an emperor and his father had forfeited the right to his loyalty.

Hearing a sudden noise behind him, Khurram looked round. A wheel on one of the heavily laden baggage wagons had become bogged down in the mire. If his men couldn’t free the wagon quickly they would have to abandon it. Food and equipment mattered less than putting distance between himself and his father’s pursuing army. At least his small force could cover the ground faster than a large one with artillery to drag across a terrain made even more inhospitable by the monsoon rains that had been falling for the past two months, making the swamps and marshes almost impossible for a large army to negotiate. That was why he had chosen to come east. And, even if Mahabat Khan’s army succeeded in following him into Bengal, he could take ship and seek sanctuary further south down the coast. Only two weeks ago he had received a surprising letter – an offer of alliance from Malik Ambar. ‘You and I have been worthy adversaries on the battlefield,’ the Abyssinian had written. ‘Why shouldn’t we now be brothers in arms?’ Khurram hadn’t replied but he hadn’t dismissed the idea either. Malik Ambar and his backers, the Deccan rulers, would be bound to require substantial concessions in return for their support, but with it he would have the strength to confront his father. But could he really make common cause with the Moghul
empire’s external enemies, even if it seemed his only way to regain the position that was rightly his?

As his men pulled and heaved at the wagon Khurram felt himself boil over with frustration. Without even calling to his bodyguard to follow, he kicked his horse and cantered ahead over the squelching ground. After riding barely half a mile through the thinly slanting rain he glimpsed a ribbon of water. Brushing raindrops from his face he peered more closely. It must be the Mahanadi river at last . . . He was about to turn his horse to ride back with the good news when an arrow slashed through the air, just missing his head but shattering his peace of mind. Then another – black shafted and black feathered – thudded into his saddlebag, embedding itself in the by now mildewing gilded leather and missing his thigh by inches, while a third landed in the mud just by his mount’s right foreleg. Dropping low over his horse’s neck and dragging hard on his reins to turn it, he kicked the animal into a gallop back towards the column, every nerve tingling, all the time fearing that another arrow was about to strike him in the back and put an end to all his ambitions. As he rode he cursed himself for his recklessness. He should have sent scouts ahead.

Who could the attackers be? Had some henchman of his father’s, attracted by the reward for his capture and riding fast and light, caught up with them? Could it even be Mahabat Khan and his troops? If so, he would sell his life dearly. After what seemed an age but was probably less than a minute he was approaching the column. As soon as he was within earshot he shouted, ‘Archers up ahead. We’re under attack. Halt the column. Our muskets will be useless
in the rain. Ready your own bows and arrows.’ Back among his men, he flung himself from the saddle, keeping his horse’s body between himself and the direction from which the arrows had come.