Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne (50 page)

One of the hindmost riders fell, throwing up his arms and pitching from the saddle, presumably hit by a musket ball. Another horse – a chestnut – crumpled, throwing its rider, but the rest disappeared unscathed behind a clump of scrubby trees. Khurram knew that even if she were not already aware of it Mehrunissa would soon be alerted that his men had crossed the river. ‘Hurry,’ he shouted to one of his officers. ‘Begin towing the sections of boat bridge across to the far shore. Ready our troops to cross. There is no time to lose.’

Two hours later, Khurram was on the far side of the river. His men had quickly completed the bridge. Although parts
of it had had to be kept steady by oarsmen rowing against the current in small boats attached to it by strong taut hemp ropes, it had served its purpose. Even if the bridge snapped now most of his cavalry, many of his war elephants and even some of his small cannon were already across – enough to begin the assault on the fortifications around the Lahore palace.

Drawing around him his officers, all like him accoutred for battle, Khurram briefly addressed them. ‘Know this. Today is the most crucial day in my life. By its close with your help I will have secured the imperial throne and rescued my beloved sons or I will have perished in the attempt. But I know that with your support I will triumph. When I do, I will present all of you with magnificent rewards from the treasuries of Lahore and the forfeited lands of my usurping half-brothers’ supporters.

‘Remember, our plan is simple. As soon as we hear the cannon commanded by Asaf Khan open fire across the Ravi river on the palisades, we and Mahabat Khan’s men who messengers tell us have also crossed the river safely upstream will simultaneously storm the palisades from opposite directions.’

Only a few minutes later, Khurram heard the crash and boom of Asaf Khan’s cannon. Preceded by four of his bodyguard all carrying large dark green banners and four trumpeters sounding their long brass instruments, he pushed his black horse forward at the head of his men. Soon he was trotting quickly along the exposed cracked mud of the riverbank. His heart was beating even faster than it usually did when he headed into battle and he was finding it more difficult to focus entirely on the fighting ahead. His mind was constantly
turning to where he might find his sons in the palace if he succeeded in gaining entry to it.

Knowing that he must concentrate on the present and not get ahead of himself if he was to safeguard himself and his men and achieve his objective of saving his sons, he reined in a little. Then he peered through the smoke billowing from the cannonading and counter-cannonading between Asaf Khan’s gunners and those of Shahriyar. The palace within its palisades was by now no more than half a mile ahead. However, Shahriyar’s men seemed to have demolished most of the houses and other buildings between his present position and the palisades to give themselves a clearer field of fire. The piles of rubble from the destroyed buildings which had not been removed would slow down his horsemen and many of them would be lost before they even reached the fortifications, he thought with dismay. But if they dismounted and went forward on foot for the last eight hundred yards the heaps of rubble would provide cover.

Wheeling his horse, he gave the order to dismount to the leading squadrons of his men. Leaving one man in every six to tether the horses, he led the remainder forward, scuttling bent double from the cover of one pile of bricks and rubble to the next. Before they had covered even a tenth of the distance Shahriyar’s men saw them and began to direct cannon and musket fire towards them. Khurram flung himself down behind the remains of a wall. As he did so he saw one of the men sheltering behind some rubble near him suddenly slump, presumably hit by a ricochet since he seemed to be protected fully from the front. Then, waving his gauntleted hand for his men to follow him, which they did bravely, Khurram was up and running forward again, dodging from
one rubble heap to another and zigzagging a little as he did so to put his opponents off their aim.

By the time he paused again two minutes later, sweating and gasping for breath behind the stump of a neem tree which had been felled by cannon fire, he had covered another six hundred yards or so, arrows as well as musket balls hissing past him. Feeling what he thought was a trickle of sweat running down his left cheek he dabbed at it with his cream face cloth only to discover the cloth stained with blood. Removing his gauntlet he explored his face to find a wound beside his left ear, but it seemed little more than a graze, perhaps caused by a flying chip of masonry dislodged by either a cannon or a musket ball. Peering round the tree stump he saw that there was very little cover over the remaining distance to the palisades, which were about four feet high but looked in places to have been quite badly damaged by Asaf Khan’s cannon fire from across the Ravi river.

After waiting no more than a few minutes to allow his men to gather in strength around him, Khurram shouted orders to the trumpeters to send the prearranged signal to Asaf Khan that they were about to attack the palisades and so to keep his cannon fire away from the area. Next he commanded the banner-bearers to raise their large green standards. Then he stood and surrounded by his bodyguard charged once more head down towards the palisades. Musket balls again whistled past him and an arrow struck his breastplate and bounced off. Then, a moment later, he tripped over a single mud brick lying almost invisible on the bank and nearly went sprawling. Quickly recovering himself, he was almost immediately up to the palisade. Levering himself
up by his muscular arms he’d soon straddled it and was jumping down on the other side.

Landing lightly on his feet he was immediately confronted by a tall musketeer. Having fired his weapon he reversed it and swung it by its barrel at Khurram, who swayed back on his heels out of the way before thrusting his sword deep into the man’s ample stomach. As he wrenched his bloodied weapon free from the body there was an audible release of gas. Then Khurram saw another man raising his scimitar above his head to attack him. Attempting to sway back again Khurram slipped, twisting his ankle, and fell sideways. As he did so his opponent loomed over him, preparing to strike, so as soon as he hit the ground he rolled aside. The man’s sword thudded into the earth beside his head. Khurram cut at his opponent’s legs with his own sword and the man too fell. Struggling quickly to his knees, Khurram brought the sword down with all the force of which he was capable into his opponent’s throat as he lay on the ground. Blood gushed for a moment, then the man lay still for ever.

Scrambling to his feet and glancing about him, Khurram saw that the palisades were now in his men’s hands and that everywhere their opponents were breaking off the fight and rushing back towards the protection of the palace itself. Then he saw green Moghul banners emerging through the smoke in front of him. Mahabat Khan’s Rajputs had breached the palisades from the other direction. ‘Charge for the main gate of the palace,’ Khurram shouted, his voice hoarse with excitement as well as smoke, and together with his men he ran forward as fast as his painful twisted ankle would allow, all the time expecting to come under attack from musketeers and archers. To his surprise, however, no arrows or musket
balls came. Shahriyar’s forces seemed to be melting away. Had they lost heart, or were they retreating as part of some pre-arranged plan to an inner stronghold or ambush position?

Running on, Khurram found the ground littered with discarded swords and muskets. He passed overturned wagons and other defensive positions, some equipped with cannon from which gunners as well as musketeers could have wrought deadly havoc, but which had all been abandoned without a shot. Shahriyar’s men really were fleeing. Khurram was soon approaching the high, metal-studded wooden gates of the palace, by now open and seemingly undefended. Victory was his, he thought elatedly. Now to find his sons. But suddenly the bodyguard running beside him swerved in front of him to avoid a rock and a moment later sprawled forward on the ground. Looking down as he in turn swerved to avoid the man’s body, Khurram saw he had been hit by a musket ball in the forehead. But he had no time to think further about it before he was inside the gatehouse.

Mehrunissa stood back from the casement of her apartment on the second floor of the palace and put down her musket, the one with the mother of pearl-inlaid butt with which she had killed so many tigers. Her aim even at that distance had been good. Why had the bodyguard crossed in front of Khurram? He couldn’t have seen her and been protecting the prince. Then her mind, active as ever, began to race through her options now that the palace had fallen, as it clearly had. Soon Khurram and his men would be ransacking the rooms searching for his sons, for herself and for Shahriyar.

Where was Shahriyar? He hadn’t led the troops in person, nor was he with Ladli who she knew was in the next room with her child. She could rely on none of them but must depend as before on her own resources alone. She had known that her musket shot had been a long shot in more than one sense. Even if she had succeeded in killing Khurram, it was unlikely that his men would have surrendered. Rather – at the behest of her brother and Arjumand – they would have proclaimed Dara Shukoh as emperor. So should she die fighting, reloading her musket and killing the first of her opponents as they came through the door of her apartments? No. She had survived desperate times since her birth. She was not ready to die yet. A clear, calm and subtle mind could manipulate and ameliorate even the worst circumstances. For once her status as a ‘mere woman’ would help her. She knew what she must do . . .

Followed by some of his bodyguards, Khurram quickly ascended the two flights of white marble stairs leading to the second floor of the palace where, after some moments’ thought amid the chaos of the gatehouse, he had remembered the imperial quarters were. He began to fling open the ivory-inlaid doors, lining a corridor only dimly lit by a single casement at one end, searching for his sons. Where were they? Had Mehrunissa and Shahriyar spirited them away to act as hostages for their own safe passage? Even worse, had they killed them in sour revenge for his success? He wouldn’t put it past Mehrunissa, he thought, involuntarily clenching his hand tighter around his sword hilt.

The first room he went into was entirely empty and the
only movement was that of the muslin curtains blowing in the breeze through the casement. The second was empty too and so was the third, although an overturned silver goblet and a small pool of spilled sherbet suggested that an occupant had recently left in a hurry. As he emerged from that room sword in hand another door opened further along the corridor and a straight-backed dark-clad female figure emerged, a cream shawl shrouding her face. She began to walk steadily towards him, head held high. Almost instantly Khurram realised from the posture and self-possession the form displayed that it was Mehrunissa. Before he could give the order to seize her she pulled back her shawl and flung herself on to the floor twelve feet from him.

‘I yield, Khurram. The prize of the throne is yours. Do with me as you will,’ she said, but then added, ‘but first you will want to know where Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb are, won’t you?’