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 . . .’
Chapter 21
The Opportunist
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.
Even though she had reduced the emperor – supposedly the most powerful man in the world – to a mere henpecked lapdog he was himself her better or at least her equal in every way. Although both their blood was Persian, his was of a more noble family. She had no more right to wield power than he. She might be clever but she was no cleverer than he was. Unlike himself she commanded no armies and being a woman never would. The more Mahabat Khan debated with himself, tossing and turning in the heat beneath his simple cotton coverlet, the more it seemed to him that he should no longer tolerate Mehrunissa’s domination. He was as good an arbiter of imperial power as she was with all her plotting against Khurram and her promotion of her dimwitted son-in-law Shahriyar as the heir, now that alcohol had finally killed Parvez. Perhaps he had been wrong not to have thought more earlier about joining forces with the young charismatic Khurram against his ailing father and his calculating, manipulative, steel-tongued chief wife? Their respective absences from court on campaign had meant that he had met Khurram only once, but he was by all accounts a good and generous leader and his skills as a general had been amply demonstrated by his ability to evade Mahabat Khan’s own forces. Such was the loyalty that Khurram inspired that he still had many adherents at court and elsewhere, even if they were lying low at present. Perhaps he should switch sides now? His skirmishes and confrontations with Khurram’s supporters in his long pursuit of the prince had been conducted within the conventions of warfare. There had been no massacres, no executions, no loss of close family members on either side to give rise to embittered hatred or blood feud.
As the night wore on and Mahabat Khan continued to toss around, his mind too active now to sleep, another thought came to him. Couldn’t he create an independent role in the power struggle for himself? He knew from the messenger and others who had preceded him that now, in the early spring, the emperor and empress were making their way with a mass of courtiers and accompanying baggage – but no great army – towards Kashmir, in the happy assumption that with Khurram sidelined they had no threats to fear. What if they were wrong and he himself turned from being their loyal, even obsequious general, subject to their every command however tersely conveyed, into the arbiter of their destiny and that of the empire?
Wasn’t he in a position to control them and not the other way round? What if he and his ten thousand men, all personally loyal to him, followed the emperor and empress and seized Khurram’s children from them? Wouldn’t that put him higher in Khurram’s favour than making an alliance now? Even better, if more daring, wouldn’t holding the opium-fuddled emperor and his wife hostage, as well as Khurram’s children, allow him to dictate terms to either party? Let the emperor and Khurram outbid each other for his favour. How much more booty would he amass, how much more influence would he wield, than if he had either continued his campaign against Khurram or if he threw in his lot with him now. Such a strategy was no mere fantasy. His long military experience had taught him that the most novel and audacious plans often proved the most successful, probably because of the consternation and surprise created by their very novelty. It would be risky, he thought as he slapped at a whining mosquito, very risky, but sometimes he felt he was only alive when facing danger or planning how to overturn long odds. That was what had made him a soldier in the first place. In the morning he must sound out his men, but he had no doubt of their loyalty or their appetite for rewards. His mind was made up. He would capture the entire imperial party and play the emperor-maker and breaker. Within minutes of deciding, Mahabat Khan had fallen into a deep, untroubled sleep, oblivious of the heat and buzzing mosquitoes.
Jahangir settled himself more comfortably against a brocade-covered bolster on the thickly carpeted floor of his tent. He was growing old, he thought. His muscles ached after eight hours in a howdah as the imperial column – nearly half a mile long – completed another day’s slow march northwest. The sight of the foaming jade-green Jhelum river, the last great barrier before they reached Kashmir, had been welcome. So too had been that of the emperor’s scarlet tents, which had been sent ahead and were already erected near the riverbank.
‘How soon should we cross?’ asked Mehrunissa, who was seated on a low stool close by him.
‘My officers say it will take two days, maybe longer, for our whole column to do so. It won’t be easy. As you saw, the Jhelum is in full spate with meltwater from the mountains. The bridge will take a little time to construct. They suggest we ourselves cross on the morning of the second day.’
‘No matter. This is a good place to break our journey and we’ve no need for haste.’ She pushed back a lock of her hair. ‘You’re tired. Soon I’ll order the attendants to light the fires in the bathhouse so you may bathe.’
Jahangir nodded and closed his eyes. He was glad Mehrunissa had suggested they go to Kashmir. At least the crisis with Khurram was over and it was safe for him to travel so far from his capital at Agra. According to the latest despatch from Majid Khan, Khurram had reached Balaghat and quietly assumed his duties as governor. Time would tell whether, despite Mehrunissa’s reservations, he would keep his side of the bargain as Jahangir hoped he would. Surrendering two of his sons must be some guarantee for his good behaviour.
And now that civil war had been averted he had less to fear from enemies beyond his borders who had been watching the discord within the Moghul empire hopefully, just as jackals sniff the blood of wounded animals from afar. Shortly before he had left Agra, a gift of six perfectly matched black stallions had arrived from the Shah of Persia, together with a letter professing eternal friendship. Yet Jahangir knew that had the shah scented the slightest opportunity he would have seized Kandahar, Herat or some other Moghul stronghold close to the Helmand river and his borders.
After recent events, he felt the need of tranquillity and Kashmir’s lakes and gardens would provide it. He had loved the place since the first time he had seen its misty purple fields of saffron crocuses after his father had conquered it for the Moghuls. There he had felt closest to Akbar. He would spend his days gliding about the shimmering surface of the Dal lake in the imperial barge or riding into the mountains in search of game while gradually regaining the ease of mind that Khurram had shattered. Perhaps too he would recover his physical strength and lose the persistent cough that in recent months had scarcely left him.
Suddenly he heard children’s voices from somewhere outside. ‘Is that Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb?’
Mehrunissa nodded. ‘I said that they could practise their archery down on the riverbank. They have so much energy . . . the journey doesn’t tire them at all.’
‘Sometimes I wonder whether taking them from their parents was right. It must be hard for them.’
‘We had no choice. There must be peace within the empire and having them in our custody will help ensure
it. We treat them well. They lack for nothing.’
‘But they must miss their parents. They haven’t seen them for at least three months. Aurangzeb seems cheerful enough but sometimes I see Dara Shukoh watching us and frowning and I ask myself what he is thinking . . .’
‘He is only a boy. He’s probably thinking of nothing more than when he can go hunting or hawking again.’ Mehrunissa’s tone was brisk and dismissive. ‘Now, I think I will go to the bath tent myself to supervise the warming of the water. Last night’s wasn’t hot enough – the attendants are growing lazy and hadn’t collected enough firewood. After that I’ll prepare your evening wine.’
When she had gone, Jahangir stretched out again. He was fond of Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb and sensed that their initial reticence towards him might be relaxing. The relationship between a grandfather and his grandsons should be less constrained than between a father and his sons . . . There could be no element of rivalry. Perhaps that was why his own father Akbar had taken such pleasure in his grandsons.
‘General, we’ve caught up with the imperial column. The emperor has been encamped for the last two nights on the bank of the Jhelum river about five miles ahead of us while his men have built a bridge of boats across it. Many of his troops – I guess two out of the three thousand he has with him – crossed this evening before darkness began to fall and then I heard shouted orders to halt crossings for the night and begin to prepare the evening meal. I am sure that the imperial party will cross tomorrow,’ a scout clothed entirely in dull brown to allow him to blend into the terrain reported to a relieved Mahabat Khan after dusk the following evening.
Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne Page 28