Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne (40 page)

‘I had hoped my father would call Mahabat Khan off. It’s nearly two months since I sent my messenger to Agra.’

‘Is your courier trustworthy?’

‘Yes, I’m sure he is. But he would have faced many dangers on the road to Agra and perhaps he never reached it. The empress may have been warned of his mission and sent assassins to intercept him. Or he may have been killed by bandits or fallen ill. Perhaps I should not have sent a European. They are much more prone to sickness than we are. Certainly if all had gone smoothly he should have found me by now. My whereabouts are no secret if Mahabat Khan is on my track, and anyway many will have seen my
column pass this way from Hooghly.’ Khurram raised his head to look at the bright veil of stars across the night sky. How insignificant and transitory men’s lives were compared to that mysterious and timeless expanse above them . . .

‘Don’t look so sombre.’ Azam Bahksh’s gruff voice cut into his thoughts. ‘There is still time. My many years have taught me one lesson at least – patience. All may yet be well.’

Khurram nodded, but only out of politeness. He could not afford to be patient when the lives of himself and his family hung so precariously in the balance.

But two days later, Azam Bahksh was proved right. Khurram was sitting with Arjumand when he heard drums boom from the small gatehouse to announce new arrivals. Leaping to his feet he hurried down a narrow flight of steps into the courtyard.

Nicholas Ballantyne was just dismounting. As he unwound his face cloth, Khurram saw he looked exhausted. He was hollow cheeked and his chin thickly stubbled. ‘Majesty.’

As Nicholas made to kneel, Khurram said quickly, ‘No need for that. Tell me what happened. Did you give my father my letter? What did he say?’

‘I reached Agra without incident, although my journey was slower than I had hoped. The emperor received me in the Hall of Public Audience where he indeed read your letter. Next day he gave me this to bring to you.’ Nicholas reached into his jerkin and extracted the leather wallet Jahangir had entrusted to him. Even while snatching a few hours’ brief sleep on the road he had always been conscious
of it, tucked into his shirt just inches from his heart. As he handed it to Khurram, he felt a weight drop from him.

Khurram opened the wallet with impatient fingers, pulled out the letter and began to read it. Watching him, Nicholas saw first joy, then bewilderment, then anger cross his features. He also heard Khurram’s quick intake of breath and saw how his fingers were starting to crush the piece of paper. Then, suddenly aware again of Nicholas and his escort and of the other attendants in the courtyard, all watching him intently, Khurram seemed to gather himself together. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly to Nicholas. ‘You discharged a difficult task loyally and well. When you have rested we will talk more. I want to know everything that happened while you were at court, but first I must go to my wife.’

As Khurram turned away back into the shadows and began to mount the stairs leading to the upper storey, he looked to Nicholas a different man from the one who just a few minutes earlier had bounded eagerly into the sunlit courtyard. His head was bowed and he was moving slowly as if trying to delay reaching Arjumand’s quarters.

She was waiting near the door. ‘That was your messenger returning from the court, wasn’t it?’ Khurram nodded, and slowly drew the oak door shut behind him so they would not be overheard.

‘Khurram, why do you look like that? What does your father say?’

He hesitated, then began. ‘He will recall Mahabat Khan and his army provided I agree to withdraw my remaining men to Balaghat where I am to be governor. I must also agree not to go to court unless he summons me there.’

Arjumand’s pinched face was suddenly radiant. She looked
again like the eager, happy girl he had first glimpsed at the Royal Meena Bazaar. ‘But that’s wonderful. He has agreed to be reconciled with you. It must mean he has decided to forgive you. We and our children will be safe at last after all these years of wandering.’ She flung her arms round his neck, but when he failed to respond she let them fall and stepped back from him. ‘What’s the matter? Isn’t this what we were hoping for? Why aren’t you happy, Khurram? Tell me, please.’

Khurram thought of Jahangir’s cold, brief, disdainful words – not a message of forgiveness from a father to his son but a list of conditions such as a ruler might send to an erring vassal. And of all those conditions the one he was still struggling to take in was the one he must now admit to Arjumand.

‘As a guarantee of my good conduct, my father demands that we send Dara Shukoh and one of his brothers to him at the court.’

‘What?’ Arjumand whispered. Putting her hands to her head as if she’d received a physical blow, she crumpled to her knees on to the worn red carpet. Helplessly, Khurram watched as she began to weep. He should put his arms round her and hold her to him, but what could he say to comfort her when he felt the same despair?

‘My father says the boys will be well treated but I can’t hide the truth from you. They will be hostages in all but name.’

‘Dara Shukoh is so young . . . I can’t bear to even think of it. How could your father be so cruel? He once loved Dara . . . I remember the gifts he gave us when he was born . . .’

‘I’m sure my father would never harm our sons. But . . .’ He paused and looked at Arjumand, knowing she understood.
Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand and struggling to regain her self-control she managed one word.

‘Mehrunissa?’

He nodded.

‘You really think she might hurt them?’

Khurram reflected. Much as he hated Mehrunissa – and who knew what she might not be capable of in desperate circumstances? – could he really see her as the cold-blooded murderer of children? ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said at last. ‘And after all, why should she? Having control of our sons is enough for her ends. She is also shrewd enough to know that any harshness towards them would cause outrage. Our tradition – going back even to the days of Timur – is that the lives of young and innocent imperial princes are sacred. It is only those who rebelled when older that have received the severest of punishments.’

Arjumand rose slowly to her feet and, pushing her loose hair back from her face, went to the casement. The sun was going down, pinkening the tips of the distant mountains. She could smell the pungent smokiness of dung fires being lit to cook the evening meal and see the first torches being lit in the courtyard below. Such normal scenes, she thought, and yet their whole lives had been turned upside down. As a mother what should she do? Surrender two of her children to secure the survival of the rest? The physical pain of childbirth was nothing compared to this mental agony she was feeling.

‘We do have a choice. We don’t have to accept my father’s terms. We could go north, up into the mountains where it would be hard for Mahabat Khan to follow . . .’

But Arjumand’s face as she turned away from the casement had hardened. ‘No. Think what your father would say if you reject his offer: that your unwillingness to trust our sons to him – his own grandsons – means you never intended to remain loyal to him. He will ask why a supposedly obedient and dutiful son would refuse to send his children to their own grandfather unless he intended to rebel. He will redouble his efforts to capture you and what would happen to our children then?’

Though his initial instinct – both as a father and as a prince – was to reject his father’s offer, wasn’t she right? Khurram wondered, stricken by the truth and clarity of her words. What choice did they really have? He had barely three hundred men and no resources to recruit more. If he were alone he could fight on as his great-great-grandfather Babur had done, taking to the hills, leading hit and run raids, waiting for an opportunity to grab territory. But he had his family to think of . . .

Now that he was thinking more calmly he could see that Jahangir’s offer was as subtle as a move on the chess board, leaving him nowhere to go except where his father wanted. Jahangir had once loved to play chess, but Khurram knew whose intricate mind had produced the idea of demanding he yield up his sons. He could picture Mehrunissa winding a strand of her dark hair around her finger and smiling as she wondered what choice he and Arjumand would make. Mehrunissa was like a spider that beginning with one or two simple strands begins to weave an ever more intricate web. His father had been caught in it long ago. One day, he promised himself, he would rip that web apart. He would free himself, his family and even his father – if he were not
already too far lost in Mehrunissa’s toils – from her bonds, allowing the Moghul empire to prosper once more. But that satisfaction could only lie in the future. He must think of the present.

‘You’re right,’ he said, a heaviness wrapping itself around his heart as he spoke. ‘The truth – and you saw it more swiftly than I – is we have little option but to agree. But which of our other sons should we send with Dara Shukoh – Shah Shuja or Aurangzeb?’

‘Aurangzeb,’ Arjumand replied after a moment’s thought. ‘Though he’s a year younger than Shah Shuja he’s stronger – he’s seldom had a day’s illness – and he’s fearless. He will even be excited at the thought of going to the court.’ Arjumand’s voice trembled a little. ‘When must they go?’

‘My father has instructed me to write immediately with my decision to the commander of Patna who will speed the letter to Agra by relays of imperial messengers. If we accept his terms, we’re to send our sons under strong escort to Allahabad where my father will in turn send men to receive them. We must prepare them immediately. Dara Shukoh is old enough to have understood that my father and I have been at odds. We must tell him we have resolved our quarrel and that their grandfather is anxious to see him and one of his brothers. We mustn’t let him see how troubled we are . . .’

Mahabat Khan took the leather message pouch from the hands of the weary-looking imperial post rider who five minutes earlier had caught up with his column as it advanced, enveloped in clouds of dust, towards its confrontation with Khurram. Opening the well-worn pouch Mahabat Khan took out the single letter it contained and broke the green wax seal. A brief glance told him all he needed to know. Although the seal was Jahangir’s the writing was Mehrunissa’s, as it so frequently was with his orders. Her message was terse:
The wretched one has seen sense and made terms, surrendering two of his sons to our good care as surety for his future behaviour. Your mission is aborted. Return to Agra to await our further instructions which will be despatched on our arrival in Kashmir. M.
There followed the date and the place of writing – Lahore.

Not a word of commendation or thanks, thought Mahabat Khan as he crumpled the paper in his hand. ‘No reply,’ he told the messenger, ‘except the simple confirmation that I
have received the instruction.’ Turning to the officer riding at his side – a young slim Rajput named Ashok, mounted on a chestnut horse – he said, ‘The emperor – or rather the empress – has ordered our return. The campaign is over. We will halt here and make camp for the night.’ Then, softening his tone, he added to one of his attendants, ‘Make sure this messenger gets food and a chance to rest as well as a fresh horse before he begins his return journey.’

That night, Mahabat Khan could not sleep, not just because his tent was hot and airless – which it was – nor because he had drunk quantities of the wine of his native Shiraz with some of his senior officers – which he had – but because he felt more than a little discontented at the summary manner of the recall of his army to Agra – and not even by the emperor, he mused, but by the empress. That she had been the authoress of the peremptory letter of command was an added cause of his discontent. Not for the first time he wondered why he should allow Mehrunissa to exploit his loyalty to the emperor by ordering him hither and thither as if he were a common soldier. Why on this occasion should she arbitrarily deprive him and his devoted followers of the rich booty that would have been theirs had he conquered Khurram and his allies? And she a mere woman too, albeit the most shrewd and calculating he had come across and a Persian like himself.