1637: The Peacock Throne

by Eric Flint

  The infantry was on the move as well, withdrawing with the same choreographed precision as before. Now that the men had no obstruction to their fire, they resumed volley fire once more.

  Damla was suddenly beside her, dusty hand extending a swollen wineskin to Atisheh as they rode.

  Atisheh took it with a grateful nod, ignoring the painful protests of her shoulders and arms as she raised it to her lips. She coughed up as much as she was able to get down, but still felt far better for having something to wash the blood and fear from her mouth and throat.

  “Yonca?” she asked when she could speak again.

  Damla shrugged. “Dead, I think. Same ball I thought killed you.”

  “The others?”

  “More alive than dead,” Damla said with a shrug. “We’ll count the cost when we’re behind the walls again.”

  Atisheh noted Damla hadn’t said, “when we’re safe behind the walls,” but from the looks of things, Dara’s sortie had proven extremely effective. More than she’d dared hope it would be.

  She prayed Dara’s luck would hold.

  Gun line

  Carvalho was pressing the dragon to the touchhole for what seemed like the thousandth time when his luck ran out. A round from one of the devilishly long-ranged up-timer weapons spanked from the cannon and whirred into the meat of his left hand.

  Cursing, he dropped the linstock to grab his bleeding hand instead of stepping out of the way. The gun belched its load, rocking up and dropping its weight on his left boot.

  The world went white, then away.

  He came to on the ground, looking up into the dark, smiling face of Sidi Miftah Habash Khan. Sidi, not yet fully recovered from the injury suffered at Burhanpur, had become the leader of Aurangzeb’s remaining light cavalry in the absence of Shahaji, though what he was doing here was a question.

  “What?” he tried to ask, but his jaw was so tightly clenched he could not move it.

  The smile disappeared. “I said, that looks like it hurts. I am sorry, my friend, for what must come next.”

  Before Carvalho could figure out what Sidi was apologizing for, the former slave-soldier-now-umara grabbed his hand, the wounded one, in a tight grip.

  Carvalho screamed, reflexively pulling back to punch Sidi, who nodded at someone out of view.

  The weight on his foot was removed.

  The pain slapped him like a typhoon-driven wave. Carvalho had never felt the like, but he didn’t pass out, not this time. Not with Sidi’s distraction.

  “Sneaky, filthy, shit-eating Mohammedan bastard!” he grated in Portuguese, more because cursing helped him deal with the pain than any real anger at Sidi.

  The grin returned. “Now you sound like Father De Jesus.”

  “You speak Portuguese?”

  Sidi’s smile grew fixed. “Who do you think sold me to these people?”

  Their conversation was interrupted as another round from those infernal weapons ricocheted from the cannon and whir-whir-wheeted its way through the air.

  Sidi flinched. “The pig-eating vermin think we’re trying to get the gun back in play.”

  My men.

  Carvalho tried to raise his head, but Sidi pushed him down. “None of that. Can’t have you looking at it.”

  “My men,” Carvalho grated.

  “Are being seen to,” Sidi said.

  Such was the pain and disorder to his thoughts that Carvalho didn’t think to ask what, exactly, the man meant until he was being lifted from the ground and thrown over the back of Sidi’s horse.

  Just a glance revealed far more than he wanted to see or could ever forget. Great wounds gaped in the flesh of his men, men he’d known since taking service with the Mughals almost a decade ago. Men who would no longer answer his call to arms, fight beside him, make him laugh, make him proud.

  He tried to wipe his eyes but only succeeded in making his vision blur with more blood, sweat, and tears.

  Chapter 48

  Red Fort

  Redoubt west of Lahore Gate

  “Did we win?” Bertram wheezed, a coughing fit bending him double behind the parapet.

  “How the hell should I know?” John asked, waving the broken—and how did that happen?—sword in his right hand at the chaos raging along the ravine. Nothing moved immediately below the walls, nothing but flies and the occasional twitch of things that might have once been whole men. Indeed, the walls to either side of their position were relatively quiet, the men too exhausted and stunned to do anything other than, like John, take stock.

  Then one of the cannon fired, making everyone but the dead and deafened twitch. The Sikhs outside the walls were still shooting, the sound like an angry god’s metronome, and John could see the dust and catch an occasional glimpse of horsemen riding out beyond, but details were scant.

  Or maybe he was just too tired to see clearly. The last hour of battle had already become a terrifying blend of images in the mind’s eye, by turns fearful, angry, exultant, painful, and brutal.

  Bertram spat something thick and red.

  John glanced from the bloody mess to his friend, suddenly worried Bertram had been wounded.

  More wounded.

  No, more seriously wounded. They both had a number of shallow cuts and scrapes, but spitting blood was something worse. Maybe fatal.

  “You okay?” John asked. Bending down, he hissed in pain. Something hot and wet spread down his back.

  “I—One”—Bertram spat again—“of them…”

  “One of them what?”

  “I got blood in my mouth.”

  “I see. Do you hurt?”

  “Of course I do.” Bertram wiped at his mouth. He looked pale. “I hurt all over, but I didn’t mean my blood.” He went paler still. “Though I suppose some of it is probably mine.”

  “Oh,” John said, feeling his gorge rise.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck—” John leaned over the parapet and threw up—well, down, actually.

  “Jesus, John! You’re cut!”

  “So are you,” John said, straightening and wiping his lip with the back of his sword hand. There wasn’t much more than a foot of blade left on the weapon, but he wasn’t about to let it go. Sixteen or so inches was better than squat. “I’ll get someone to stitch us up.”

  “What, this?” Bertram asked, pointing at a long scratch on his forearm.

  John nodded.

  “It’s nothing compared to the big rent in your mail,” Bertram said, taking John’s arm.

  “Huh. Didn’t even notice—” John slid to the ground, legs suddenly weak. Now, he did let go of the sword.

  “Medic!” Bertram screamed.

  Pavilion of the Healers

  “So, my sisters, whence comes this sudden anger?” Jahanara asked. The rumble of distant gunfire continued.

  Is it my imagination or are there fewer cannon firing now?

  They should have a few moments of relative privacy while the runner she’d sent for word on the battle’s progress returned.

  “Whatever do you mean?” Monique asked, sipping the julabmost Smidha had summoned for them once they were on the veranda.

  Ilsa, less inclined to answer diplomatically, said, “I’m tired of tolerating the political games that put us at risk.”

  “You mean the spying my sister did for Aurangzeb?” Jahanara asked.

  “For one, yes.” Ilsa’s tone was light, but the undercurrent of anger was still audible, like stones beneath the surface of a smooth-flowing stream.

  “You worry she will escape punishment?”

  “I do.”

  “We do,” Monique said.

  Jahanara looked at her. “You, at least, knew my plans. Nothing has changed with regard to my intentions regarding my sister’s fate.”

  Monique shrugged.

  Ilsa looked from Jahanara to her, eyes narrowing. “More secrets?”

  Monique didn’t answer her directly, instead addressing the princess. “I remember. And I trust you will carry
through with your plans, and I even thought that would be enough. But now John and Bertram and everyone else is out there, risking everything for your brother’s throne, and it made my blood boil to hear her speaking as if the sacrifices of so many would mean so little.”

  “She has a knack for saying maddening things, my sister,” Jahanara said. Smidha knew her well enough to identify the bitter irony, but doubted the other women could hear it. “We have done much, and more, in hopes of ensuring Dara’s victory. It is in God’s hands now.”

  “No,” Ilsa said, surprising them all with the venom in that single word.

  Smidha opened her mouth to reprimand the ferenghi, but Jahanara stilled her lips with a surreptitious gesture.

  “No,” the blonde repeated, one hand still protectively curled around the baby growing within her. “It is not just in God’s hands. It’s in the hands of men like Monique’s fiancé, my husband, and the many thousands of other men doing their damnedest to make sure Dara has a fighting chance of keeping the Peacock Throne. But are these deceptions the method you will use to retain power once his throne is won? Is there no better way to honor the sacrifices of all those who die today?”

  “Dear God,” Monique mumbled, suddenly white with fear. “Please don’t let him die.”

  Ilsa’s free hand took the younger woman’s in her own, but her eyes did not leave Jahanara’s.

  The princess looked away, embarrassed that she had no ready answer. There was no easy answer.

  “I can only do so much to change the stage upon which we all dance. I am trying. God knows, I am trying.” Jahanara Begum, princess of princesses and power behind the throne of the Sultan Al’Azam, her brother Dara Shikoh, bent her head. Tears came to her eyes, and then her cheeks.

  Smidha saw the gentle hand Jahanara curled about her midriff and wondered at what caused the gesture. Her puzzlement lasted only an instant, the answer coming in a landslide of implications and rising terror. She felt her face drain of all color.

  A young man in messenger greens—hardly more than a boy, really—strode up onto the veranda and bowed.

  Smidha shot to her feet, worried the messenger would see what only she had the experience to identify. But the boy paid her no mind, indeed did not seem to take note of anything but the report he seemed eager to make.

  Jahanara took the hand from her waist and gestured him leave to speak.

  He bowed again. “Begum Sahib, the Sultan Al’Azam remains outside the walls, but lightly engaged with the enemy. The sally went according to plan: The Sultan Al’Azam’s sowar brushed aside the foe between the walls and the camp nearest Delhi Gate. The Sikh infantry rolled up the flank of those of the pretender’s forces still trying to carry the wall west of Lahore Gate and are beginning their withdrawal. The infantry withdraws under cover of the Sultan Al’Azam’s sowar, and the bulk of Aurangzeb’s remaining men appear disinterested in continuing the fight.”

  “The men on the walls?” Ilsa asked.

  The boy messenger glanced from the ferenghi to Smidha to Jahanara, unsure what to do.

  Smidha and Jahanara both nodded at the youth.

  He addressed the princess but answered Isla’s query: “Lahore Gate is intact, but with what seems heavy losses. It is too soon to know who is alive and who is dead.”

  Both Ilsa’s and Monique’s eyes closed and their lips moved. Smidha thought it the first time she’d seen either ferenghi pray.

  “Go, obtain the latest reports and return to us with fresh news,” Jahanara said firmly, eyes on her friends.

  Another messenger appeared as the first made ready to leave, this one from the interior of the pavilion.

  “Yes?” Begum Sahib said.

  This messenger, far senior to the first, began his report even as he bowed. “Priscilla begs leave to send in the stretcher-bearers and medics held in reserve.”

  Smidha had forgotten they were to send them in where the battle dictated a need.

  From Jahanara’s frown, she had forgotten as well. “Go directly to them and command them to go first to Lahore Gate and thence to wherever there are the most wounded in need. Then return to Priscilla and extend my personal thanks for her foresight and memory.”

  “Your will, Begum Sahib,” the man said as he bowed.

  Redoubt west of Lahore Gate

  “Jesus Christ,” Bertram said, turning John’s fall into a slide. A heave rolled the heavier man sideways and onto his front.

  “Medic!” he yelled again. When one did not immediately appear in answer to his desperate summons, Bertram took a breath and tried to remember his first aid training. Kneeling over the up-timer, he started the assessment.

  John was breathing normally, a good sign. He was pale. Not a good sign. There were a number of scrapes and bruises visible on his face, hands, and lower arms. But all of them seemed superficial. Ignoring the big wound he could see, Bertram felt for others. Finding none, he examined the wound in John’s back. It was perhaps the length of a hand and gaped a few fingers wide while the rent in the armor was far bigger, and the padded silk undergarment was stained red with blood. He shook off idle questions of exactly how and when the cut had been made. He couldn’t pull the armor off, so he had to do his best to check beneath the belt and around John’s waist by feel alone. Lots of blood in the fabric, but he didn’t find another wound.

  “Medic!” he shouted again. Standing, he opened the pouch at his side and promptly stuck himself in the hand with the tip of the pre-threaded needle as he rummaged for it.

  Cursing softly, Bertram bent, the needle ready to punch yet another hole in his friend’s back.

  Chapter 49

  Battlefield outside Red Fort

  Watching the milling mob of his reserves begin to retreat, Aurangzeb knew the day was, at best, a draw. He still had perhaps four times as many men as his brother, but Aurangzeb’s losses had been greatest amongst the most aggressive of his warriors. It was, perhaps, the natural outcome of any attempt to storm prepared defenses, but it was still one he could ill-afford. Unlike a regular siege, his best artillerists had died almost to a man while at their guns, felled by the infernal up-timer weapons with little to no gain.

  Sternly, Aurangzeb repressed the fury he felt toward Nur Jahan and his sister Roshanara, whose supposed intelligence had proven so faulty. He would deal with them later, but for now he forced himself to accept that the fault was ultimately his and no one else’s. He’d tried to be clever and forced the matter too quickly.

  He considered ordering the most powerful of his remaining umara to rally their men and make another attempt, but wisdom learned from Father stayed his tongue. A true leader did not issue an order when he knew that order would not be obeyed. Doing so led those who heard it to question not only your orders but also your authority to give them. No, the men would not—could not—be organized for another attack. Not today. And to ensure the men would fight tomorrow, he would have to arrange a truce to collect the dead and wounded who fell today.

  Dara had won the day—and perhaps many days still to come. Despite all Aurangzeb’s prayers. Despite his every effort to live and plan according to his understanding of God’s will.

  Aurangzeb glanced about his greatly thinned command group and sighed. None of his more powerful umara would be returning soon. Even if the battle had left them unwounded and not facing a challenge to their right to lead, none among them would wish to face their Sultan Al’Azam after failing to secure the victory, even though it had been Aurangzeb, not they, who had promised the win.

  No, they would not serve, and none among those remaining with him was of suitable rank to treat with Dara or his representatives.

  Briefly, he considered using Nur, but dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came to him. She had proven herself untrustworthy, whether from error or treachery.

  His eye fell on President Methwold. Dimly he remembered the man joining the command group sometime after dawn. Now the Englishman was gray-faced with worry as he watched Sidi Khan’
s retreat from the guns, concern for Carvalho writ large on his pale features. He wore ferenghi garb today, making him stand out among Aurangzeb’s silk-and-jewel-studded courtiers. Such garb would also mark him out on the battlefield.

  “President Methwold,” he said.

  There was no response.

  “President Methwold,” he repeated, louder.

  The Englishman started in alarm, but controlled his mount’s reaction without conscious thought. “Sultan Al’Azam!”

  “Approach,” Aurangzeb said, deciding the Englishman would serve.

  Methwold did as he was told, ignoring the stares of Aurangzeb’s kokas and umara.

  “I require a service from you,” Aurangzeb said.

  Methwold nodded and said, with admirable calm, “Then I am at your service, Sultan Al’Azam.”

  Aurangzeb looked again at the battlefield. “Ride to the pretender’s commander and offer a truce to recover the dead and wounded. The truce to last until”—he glanced at the sky—“tomorrow at dawn.”

  The Englishman nodded, expression unchanged despite any surprise he might have felt at the request.

  “And if they request more time?”

  Aurangzeb did not hear the question. A figure approaching from the east had caught his attention. A messenger, his greens stained and mud-spattered, his mount’s hide flecked with sweat. The rider himself sagged in the saddle.

  This bodes ill.

  Most long-distance messengers, when delivering news that was not critical, stopped for a time to clean themselves and their mounts so as to make the best presentation possible. Imperial messengers were, first and foremost, required to uphold an image as indefatigable riders. Reporting to the Sultan Al’Azam while appearing exhausted, travel-worn, or weary was simply not done.