Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

by Alex Rutherford

  But now the reason for the shouts wasn’t dacoits. The cries were of relief and joy, not fear. Ahead of him Bartholomew could see watchtowers silhouetted against the remnants of the sunset – it was Gaur. Bartholomew let go of his sword hilt and gave his sweating horse a pat. ‘Not long now, you wretched old nag.’

  What was all that commotion in the courtyard at this hour? Bartholomew wondered irritably as he lay on the straw-filled mattress in the small room he’d rented in a caravanserai just inside the walls of Gaur by the main gate. He sat up and scratched vigorously then clambered to his feet and without bothering to pull on his boots went outside. Though it was barely dawn, merchants were laying out their wares on a great stone platform in the centre of the courtyard ready to begin trading: sacks of spices, bags of rice, millet and maize, rolls of dun-coloured cotton and of garish silks. Bartholomew surveyed them without interest but as he turned away he found the carpet seller he had rescued looking up at him.

  ‘Gaur is a fine city, sir.’

  ‘Very fine,’ Bartholomew said mechanically. He was about to go back to his room – he could do with an hour or two’s more sleep – but then a thought struck him. ‘Hassan Ali – that is your name, isn’t it?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Hassan Ali, you know Gaur well?’

  ‘Yes. I come here six times a year and two of my cousins are traders here.’

  ‘You said you wanted to repay me for my help. Be my guide. I don’t know this place and my employers in Portugal wish me to send them a full report of it.’

  An hour later Bartholomew followed Hassan Ali across the square courtyard of the caravanserai and out through its high arched gateway into the streets of Gaur. At first with its narrow, refuse-strewn streets it looked a mean place but as Hassan Ali, walking with surprising speed for such a small man, led him towards the centre the streets began to broaden and the houses – some of them two storeys high – to become more handsome. Bartholomew also noted the many groups of soldiers they passed. ‘Where are they going?’ He pointed to a double row of twenty green-sashed, green-turbaned warriors marching by.

  ‘They were the detachment guarding the city’s gates during the night but they have now been relieved and are returning to their barracks.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Not far. I will show you.’

  A few minutes later Bartholomew looked up at a tall square fortress-like building with a parade ground in front of it. Built of mud bricks, its walls rose about fifty feet. As he watched, a group of horsemen, doubtless returning after exercising their mounts, trotted through the heavy metal-spiked gate that was the barracks’ single entrance. ‘It’s a fine building.’

  ‘Yes. It was built by the Emperor Akbar – may his spirit rest in Paradise – after his conquest of Bengal. He also reinforced the city walls and built the fine caravanserais that we have here. He was truly a great man.’

  ‘I’m sure. Who commands the Moghul troops here? He must be an important man to be so favoured by the emperor.’

  ‘I don’t know his name. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not important. I was merely curious to know who was entrusted with such a task. Hindustan is so huge compared with my own country. There, it is far easier for a monarch to control his lands and to know what is going on . . .’

  ‘It is true. Our empire is without parallel in the world.’ Hassan Ali nodded complacently. ‘Come. Let me take you to the great bazaar where much trading is done in addition to that in the caravanserais.’

  They were just turning away when the harsh metallic blaring of a trumpet made them halt. Moments later twelve soldiers splendidly mounted on matching bay horses cantered out of a side street and across the parade ground towards the barracks. One of them was holding the short brass trumpet he must have just sounded to signal their arrival. They were followed by three further riders – two in domed helmets riding on either side of a tall man who was looking to neither right nor left and whose long dark hair flowed from beneath a white-plumed helmet.

  Bartholomew’s pulses quickened. He glanced around for Hassan Ali and saw him conversing with a melon seller in a grimy dhoti. Bartholomew listened hard but couldn’t understand what they were saying. It must be a local language, he thought. It certainly wasn’t Persian. The melon seller seemed to have a lot to say. He had emerged from behind his mounds of cylindrical yellow-green fruits and was talking vigorously and pointing to the barracks into which the man with the plumed helmet and his escort had now disappeared.

  ‘Sir,’ said Hassan Ali, ‘the commander of the garrison is called Sher Afghan. That was him we just saw. The melon seller told me he is a great warrior. Two years ago the late emperor sent him to the jungles and swamps of Arakan east of here to deal with the pirates living there. It is a terrible place, infested with crocodiles, but Sher Afghan triumphed. He captured and executed five hundred pirates, throwing their bodies on to pyres of their own burning boats.’

  ‘Does he live in the barracks?’

  ‘No. His mansion is in a large garden to the north of the city, by the Swordmaker’s Gate. Now, let us go to the bazaar. You will find much to interest you there . . . last time I was here I saw a painted wooden figure of one of your Portuguese gods. It had golden wings . . .’

  Bartholomew bided his time. Every day the rains still came, hot and heavy, the drops bouncing up from the paved courtyard of the caravanserai. In between the showers he put on the hooded dark brown robe he had purchased in the bazaar to make his appearance less remarkable and walked around Gaur until he had fixed in his mind every twist of every street, every alley, in the area between the barracks and Sher Afghan’s house. He also observed his intended victim’s movements which, apart from the odd day’s hunting or hawking when the weather allowed, seemed surprisingly regular. Nearly every afternoon, Sher Afghan spent several hours in the barracks. On Mondays he reviewed his troops on the parade ground, watching their displays of musketry practice, and on Wednesdays he inspected some part of the city’s defences.

  During the long journey from Agra Bartholomew had pondered how best to find an opportunity to kill Sher Afghan. He smiled to think he had even contemplated trying to pick a quarrel with him as if Gaur were an English town where he and Sher Afghan might meet and brawl in a tavern. Now he had seen not just the muscular strength of the man but that a bodyguard accompanied him everywhere the idea had less to commend it. Whatever he did must be by stealth. It might be possible to find a vantage point from which to aim an arrow or hurl a dagger but the chances of even wounding him, let alone of killing him outright, were slender. Jahangir had made it absolutely clear that he wanted Sher Afghan dead.

  But on a clear day when the rains seemed finally to be easing and there was a new freshness in the air, the solution came to Bartholomew. It was so obvious and simple – though not without danger to himself – that he grinned as he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

  Two weeks later, towards eleven o’clock in the evening – an hour before the caravanserai’s gates would be locked for the night – Bartholomew slipped out of his room, giving a parting kick to the sweat-stained straw-filled mattress on which he’d spent so many uncomfortable nights. Beneath his dark robe, his sword in its scabbard was suspended from a steel chain round his waist as were his two daggers, the Turkish blade on his right side and the Persian weapon on his left. He had cut slits in the coarse cloth of his robe to ensure he could reach for them quickly.

  Bartholomew swiftly crossed the caravanserai’s courtyard and went out through its arched entrance past the sleeping gatekeeper who was supposed to keep watch for late arrivals seeking a bed for the night for themselves and stabling for their animals. Once outside he glanced swiftly around him to make sure he was alone. Then he set off through the quiet, narrow streets. He’d walked this precise route many times and knew exactly where it was taking him as he headed across the parade ground and past the barracks towards the north of the city. Reaching a small Hindu temple wh
ere tapers burned in a brass pot before the image of an elephant god, Bartholomew turned down an alley where the overhanging upper storeys of the houses were so close they almost touched. He caught the soft sound of a woman singing from one house and the crying of a baby from another. Here and there the orange light of oil lamps flickered through the carved wooden jalis covering the windows.

  Suddenly Bartholomew’s foot caught something soft. It was a dog whose reproachful whimper followed him as he continued his leisurely progress. There was no need to hurry and anyway a man in a hurry always attracted more attention. The alley was broadening out, and as it curved round to the left it gave on to a large square. Bartholomew had seen it at every time of day and night. He knew how many neem trees shaded the stallholders peddling their wares in the heat of the day, how many other streets and alleys led into it and how many men would be guarding the tall house directly opposite him at the far end of the square. Pulling his hood still lower over his face, Bartholomew peered cautiously round the corner into the square. The new moon was shedding hardly any radiance but the glow from braziers burning on either side of the house’s metal-bound gates showed that – just as on other nights – four guards were on duty. It also showed that a green banner was flapping from a gilded pole above the gates – the sign, as he had discovered from Hassan Ali, that the commander was at home. All seemed very quiet. Had any sort of party or feast been in progress he would have had to postpone his plan . . .

  Having seen what he wanted, Bartholomew drew back into the shadows of the alley and, turning, began to retrace his steps. After a hundred paces or so he came to a small street branching off to the left. In the daytime it was full of vegetable sellers raucously pressing their own wares on passers-by and deriding their competitors’ produce, but now it was silent and empty. Bartholomew walked along it, the leaves of rotting vegetables slippery beneath his feet and the air reeking of their decomposition, but his mind was on other things. This street curved round behind the square. In a few hundred yards it would pass close to the western wall of the fine gardens behind Sher Afghan’s house.

  The wall was quite high – at least twenty feet – but there were enough foot- and handholds in the brickwork to make climbing it possible, as he knew. On the past two nights he had hauled himself over it, choosing a place where a tall clump of bamboo was growing on the other side, to drop down amongst the dense vegetation. Crouching amongst the leafy bamboos he had listened and watched. Through the swaying stems he had been able to make out a courtyard with a bubbling fountain and beyond it the dark walls of the house. Metal gates identical to those at the front led inside the house but with two important differences. They were kept open – beyond them he had glimpsed an inner courtyard – and they were also only lightly guarded. At night, a watchman – no more than a youth as far as Bartholomew could tell from his slight frame – sat on a wooden stool just inside the gates. He appeared to have no weapon – only a small drum to beat to rouse the household in case of danger.

  But what danger could Sher Afghan be expecting? He was the commander of a garrison in a quiescent – albeit distant – part of a peaceful and powerful empire. The soldiers guarding the front gate were probably more for show than anything else. Once again Bartholomew found himself wondering why the emperor wanted this man dead and why – all-powerful as he was – he had chosen this way of getting rid of him. If Sher Afghan had committed some crime why didn’t Jahangir just execute him? He was emperor after all. But then that was none of his business. All that mattered were the thousand mohurs.

  Reaching the wall without incident, Bartholomew glanced about him to make sure yet again that no one was around. Satisfied, he hitched up his dark robe and began to climb. This time for some reason, perhaps nerves or impatience to get the job done, he didn’t choose his handholds so well. When he was already about fifteen feet up, the corner of a brick he was grasping in his right hand crumbled and he nearly fell backwards to the ground. Digging his toes hard into crevices between the bricks and hanging on with his left hand – he could feel blood oozing from beneath his nails – he managed to steady himself. Stretching his right arm higher he probed the rough surfaces until he found a place that felt secure. With one more big heave he was on top of the wall.

  Brushing the sweat from his face he carefully lowered himself down the other side, letting go when he was still ten feet above the ground to drop into the space he had found among the bamboos. Squatting down, heart pounding, he listened. No sounds, nothing. That was good. It must be after midnight now but it was still too early to make his move. He shifted a little to make himself more comfortable. He felt some small creature – a mouse or a gecko – run over his foot and heard the familiar whine of mosquitoes. Frowning slightly, he focused his mind on the task ahead.

  It was about one in the morning when Bartholomew began moving slowly towards the house, keeping under cover of the bamboos and then of the spreading branches of a thickly leaved mango tree. In the moonlight, he could see the watchman, young head slumped on his chest and clearly fast asleep on his stool. Beyond him the inner courtyard, lit only by small torches burning in brackets on the wall, was quiet and still. Bartholomew darted across the garden past the still playing fountain to the wall of the house, choosing a place a little to the left of the gates that was overshadowed by a projecting balcony. Flattening his back against the wall he closed his eyes for a moment as he steadied his breathing.

  Then he began edging towards the gates. Reaching them he paused and peered inside. He was so close to the watchman that he could hear his light snores. But there was no other sound. Tensing his muscles, he sprang forward through the doors, grabbed the youth from behind with both arms and hauled him out into the garden, right hand clamped firmly over his mouth. ‘One sound out of you and you’re dead,’ Barthlomew whispered in Persian. ‘Do you understand me?’ The youth’s eyes were wide with fright as he nodded. ‘Now take me to where your master Sher Afghan is sleeping.’

  The youth nodded again. Gripping the nape of the young watchman’s neck with his left hand so firmly that his nails dug into the flesh, and with his right drawing his curved-bladed Turkish dagger from its oxhide scabbard, Bartholomew followed him across the inner courtyard, through a doorway in the corner and up a flight of narrow stone stairs to a long corridor. He could feel the youth trembling like a frightened puppy beneath his grip.

  ‘Here, sir. This is the room.’ The boy halted outside a chamber with highly polished doors of some dark wood inlaid with brass tigers. Bartholomew thought he could smell some spicy perfume – frankincense perhaps – and tightened his hold on the youth, who looked round, brown eyes terrified. Without warning he opened his mouth to cry out an alarm.

  Bartholomew didn’t hesitate. In two rapid movements he jerked back the boy’s head with his left hand and with his right raised his bright-bladed Turkish dagger and drew it across the smooth-skinned throat. As the youth’s last breaths bubbled through the gaping wound he laid the limp body down. In other circumstances he might have spared him, but not here where he could so easily lose his own life if he made a mistake. Instinctively he wiped the bloody dagger on his robes. All his thoughts were on what he would find on the other side of those dark doors with their gleaming tigers. He’d heard it said that ‘sher’ meant ‘tiger’ – if so he was in the right place and Sher Afghan was just a few feet away.

  Still holding his dagger in his right hand, with his left Bartholomew carefully raised the ornate metal latch – again fashioned like a tiger – on the right-hand door and gave a gentle exploratory push. To his relief the door opened smoothly and quietly. When it was about six inches ajar he stopped. A shaft of pale golden light told him the room he was about to enter was not in darkness as he had hoped. Perhaps Sher Afghan had already seen the door swing open and was even now drawing his sword . . .

  Bartholomew hesitated no longer but pushed the door wide and stepped inside. The large room was hung with red silk embroidered with gold thread. Soft thick
carpets were beneath his feet and a spiral of smoke was rising from some crystals glowing in an enamelled incense burner. Wicks were burning in oil-filled bronze diyas. But Bartholomew’s gaze was on none of these things. He was staring through the almost transparent pale pink muslin curtains drawn across the room to divide it in two. Through the fabric he could see a large low bed and upon it two intertwined naked bodies, a man and a woman. The man at least was so absorbed in his lovemaking that Bartholomew could have probably kicked the door open without his noticing. The woman was on her back, slender legs hooked around the man’s muscular hips as he thrust and her view of the door obstructed by her lover’s body.

  Providence could not have given him a better opportunity, Bartholomew thought as he came nearer. Carefully, he slipped through the muslin curtains and treading softly approached the bed. He was now so close he could see the sweaty sheen on the man’s body and smell the salty tang of it but both he and the woman, whose head was turned aside, her eyes closed, were still oblivious of his presence. Close to climax, with each thrust Sher Afghan was joyously throwing back his head. As he did so, Bartholomew leapt forward, grabbed him by his thick black hair, yanked his head back even further and neatly severed his jugular. Bartholomew was a skilled killer. Just like the gatekeeper, Sher Afghan made not a sound as his hot red blood pumped from the gaping wound.