Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

by Alex Rutherford

  Also, though he’d said nothing to Mehrunissa, he had begun to wonder whether one day he and Khurram might not be reconciled as he had been with his own father after his years of rebellion. Dara Shukoh’s words had caused him to reflect . . . to perceive that there might have been faults on both sides. The love he had once borne Khurram had begun to rekindle, reminding him how auspicious his birth had been . . . what a brave warrior and leader he was . . . how much more worthy a head of the great line founded by Babur he might prove than the submissive but less charismatic Shahriyar. He might be fooling himself, but time would tell . . .

  A meaningful cough from one of his officers recalled Jahangir to the present and to what he had been about to say when carried into his reverie. ‘I believe that we are entering a golden time. Our internal enemies have been vanquished and our external foes fear to probe our borders. Peace and prosperity await the citizens of our great empire. That is what I wanted to tell you tonight. But something else as well . . . Before you all I wish to pay tribute to my empress Mehrunissa who has done so much to help me bring our fortunes to this position. It is not often women fill such important roles outside domestic life but she has helped me in every sphere and I thank her.’

  Then, raising his arms, Jahangir cried, ‘Zinderbad the Moghuls! Zinderbad the Moghul empire!’ Long live the Moghul empire! The crowd immediately responded, ‘Zinderbad Padishah Jahangir!’ Long live the Emperor Jahangir! A wild cheering broke out as Jahangir took his place on his throne. It reminded him of his first appearance as emperor on the jharoka balcony of the Agra fort all those years ago. How far he had travelled. How much of both the best and the worst he had experienced. How much more he wanted to achieve to fulfil fully the vow he had then made to prove worthy of his father Akbar’s legacy. Just then the aroma of roasted meat caught his attention. An attendant had placed a dish of venison garnished with ruby-red pomegranate seeds before him. His appetite for food felt stronger than for many months. He began to eat with unaccustomed relish.

  Three hours later Mehrunissa rose from the bed where slowly and patiently, to allow for the frailty of Jahangir’s body, and for the first time in some weeks she and Jahangir had made love while the noise of revelry continued outside at the feast. Afterwards she had, as she usually did at night, mixed his opium and rosewater and he had drunk it slowly before drifting into sleep, a contented smile on his face as she had lain down beside him again. Now, pulling her silk robe around her, Mehrunissa looked down on her husband. His tribute – unrehearsed with her, unlike most of his speeches – had deeply touched her. More years would remain for them and with her help they would be his greatest. After that . . . well, with Shahriyar on the throne – as she would make sure he would be – she would still be the most powerful person in the empire. Shahriyar’s wits were not of the sharpest and with Ladli’s help she would mould him to her will. As for Khurram and sweet Arjumand, she would decide their fate and that of their sons, two of whom were sleeping over there in another part of the tent. Mind full of pleasant reflections, she turned and made her way to her own curtained-off sleeping area.

  ‘Fetch the hakims!’

  Mehrunissa sat up as the shout rang out. As she did so, one of her attendants pulled apart the curtains round her bed and cried, ‘Majesty, come quickly. It is the emperor. He is ill.’

  Mehrunissa rose and pulled on her green silk robe over her sleeping shift, then rushed to Jahangir’s quarters. He was lying on the bed, a trickle of vomit leaking from his lips. The hakim was already there and Jahangir’s servant, who slept nearby, was saying, ‘I heard him coughing a little while ago but then there was silence. When I looked in at him as I do every hour I saw him like this.’

  The hakim glanced up and seeing Mehrunissa said without ceremony, ‘The emperor is dead, Majesty. He must have coughed and vomited and then choked. There is nothing I can do.’

  A violent chill ran through Mehrunissa. Jahangir was dead . . . The man who had never failed her, always wanted her, would never have deserted her and had always been attentive to her thoughts and wishes was gone. As she dropped to her knees and touched his cooling face with the back of her fingers tears began to run down her cheeks – tears of shock, of loss and of love. For some moments she abandoned herself to weeping and to grief, then slowly another thought formed in her splintered consciousness. What of the future? Jahangir had abandoned her, albeit not of his own volition. She must once more look to herself and her position. She brushed aside her tears with the back of her hand, stood, composed herself a little and then said quietly, ‘Fetch Shahriyar and Ladli.’

  A minute or two later the young couple were led in, sleep, confusion and alarm mingling in their dazed eyes. Mehrunissa spoke. ‘As you see, the emperor is dead. Shahriyar, if you wish to rule in his stead you must both now do exactly as I say.’

  Chapter 24

  The Funeral Cortège

  ‘Shah Shuja, keep your sword up or you’ll never make a great swordsman. Stop me attacking you.’ In one of the large rooms of the fortress-palace of Burhanpur Khurram smiled as his eleven-year-old son tried valiantly to knock away his own blunted practice weapon. Suddenly Khurram was aware that someone else had entered the room behind him. Turning, he saw one of his qorchis.

  ‘Highness, forgive me,’ the flustered young man stammered, ‘but a group of five riders has just galloped unannounced into the courtyard. They claim they have ridden night and day for the past twenty days from the emperor’s camp, pausing only briefly to eat, sleep and change horses in their haste to get here. They say they bring a letter of the utmost importance from Asaf Khan that may only be handed to you personally.’

  Khurram immediately put down his sword and, mind racing with the possibilities of what the letter might contain, left the room and descended the flight of steps leading down to the courtyard two at a time. Had something happened to Dara Shukoh or Aurangzeb? Had Mehrunissa persuaded Jahangir to despatch them to some dungeon? Surely not . . . but if so how would he tell Arjumand? But perhaps the letter had more to reveal about the strange story of Mahabat Khan’s appointing himself as Jahangir’s chief adviser. Only Mahabat Khan’s odd but conciliatory letters and Asaf Khan’s repeated advice to stay away and stay calm had prevented Khurram from attempting to raise a force to intervene, although he had moved with his family from Balaghat westward to Burhanpur to be closer to the main routes to the north. The latest reports had said that Mehrunissa had seized back control and that Mahabat Khan had fled into the hills. At the time Khurram had thought it strange that such a stalwart fighter as Mahabat Khan should have put up no fight. Perhaps he had returned as part of some great plan.

  Emerging into the courtyard and squinting into the harsh sun, Khurram immediately saw the five dusty riders, each still holding the reins of not one but two horses. They must have each taken a lead horse as a spare to speed their journey by changing mounts whenever necessary. As his eyes adjusted Khurram recognised the tall youth standing a little in front of the other four as Hanif, the eldest son of one of Asaf Khan’s best commanders and strongest supporters. For Hanif to have come the news must be serious.

  Wasting no time on preliminaries Khurram strode across to the youth. ‘You have a message for me, Hanif?’ Immediately Hanif extracted a letter with Asaf Khan’s seal from the leather pouch slung across his chest and handed it to Khurram, who opened it, without a word.

  The emperor, your father, is dead. The words burned into Khurram more hotly than the midday sun as he stood bare headed in the courtyard. Beyond the stark news of his father’s death Asaf Khan confirmed that Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb were well, but urged, Now is the time to act. Come soon before others seize their opportunity and take what should be yours.

  Stunned by the letter’s contents, Khurram briefly thanked the five men for the speed with which they had brought the message and dismissed them. Waving away his own attendants he stood alone in the sunny courtyard with the letter dangling from his hand, trying to make sense of what it said and
what it left unsaid. His father whom he had not seen for some years was dead. That much was clear. But how and why? Had Mehrunissa poisoned him? After all, she’d openly boasted to her brother Asaf Khan of getting rid of Thomas Roe by constantly lacing his food with rotten meat. But what would she have to gain from his father’s death? Perhaps if she had had a hand in it it was accidental, through steadily increasing the strength of the opium and alcohol concoction she fed Jahangir to bind him to her.

  As he pondered the nature of his father’s death images of Jahangir’s life came into Khurram’s mind – not of the years of their estrangement but of his youth, of his father standing to one side, stiff and awkward, as Akbar instructed him in the intricacies of camel riding and of chess; of Jahangir’s stumbling attempts to rebuild his bonds with him after his rebellion against Akbar; of Akbar’s death and Khusrau’s revolts and then the good years when he had first married Arjumand and been his father’s leading general and confidant.

  With these recollections Khurram realised that his father had loved him and he his father. Tears began to form in his eyes. He brushed them away as his thoughts turned to Mehrunissa. She had been the cause of his alientation from Jahangir. She was still alive and had two of his sons in her power. In the three weeks since the emperor’s death she had no doubt been planning the next moves for herself and her two creatures, Shahriyar and Ladli. Manipulative, calculating and cold, she would not have spent much time in grieving and nor could he. As Asaf Khan had wisely written, he must act immediately, but first of all he must break the news to Arjumand.

  ‘No. For the first time in many years we must part,’ Khurram insisted to the stubborn-faced Arjumand. ‘Don’t you see, it isn’t the same as when we went on campaign together for my father or when we fled from his forces? On the first occasion we knew that if we perished my father and your father would care for the children. When we were fleeing they were safest with us. Now that I am splitting our forces and seeking allies it is best that you remain here with them. If you do and if I fail – God forbid I should – they would have you to protect them rather than being left defenceless orphans at the mercy of Mehrunissa.’

  Arjumand’s expression lost a little of its stubbornness. ‘I understand your logic and must accept it, but are your other plans as logical? Why split your few resources, and why travel north with so few men yourself?’

  ‘I thought I’d explained – because I do not know who else may claim the throne and hence where the greatest threats may lie. I need to undertake several tasks simultaneously. I have to assemble as many men as I can as quickly as I can. The best way of doing that is to send out detachments of troops under trusted officers to raise them from among my friends and supporters. You know that I’ve already sent Mohun Singh to try to locate Mahabat Khan. The Persian general is a sensible and pragmatic man. He will know that allying himself with me will offer his best chance of restoring his battered fortunes. I also need to send out strong bodies of scouts as well as spies. I cannot allow your father – good man though he is – to be our only eyes and ears. Finally, to take speedy advantage of developments I need to make the quickest and most inconspicuous progress I can towards Agra, leaving my main forces to follow when sufficient men are assembled.’

  ‘Yes, but how are you going to make yourself inconspicuous?’

  ‘That I haven’t decided. It’s difficult to conceal even a small force and I’m sure Mehrunissa will have spies out.’

  ‘Then why not disguise it rather than conceal it?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘As a merchant’s caravan, perhaps?’

  ‘No. In these troubled times any enemy will investigate a caravan, ransack it and even steal from it. But you’re right. Disguise is a good idea. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Whose coffin is this?’ Khurram heard a male voice say as he lay in the stifling midday heat in a velvet-lined silver coffin on a black-brocade-draped bier pulled by sixteen white oxen. He longed to scratch a clutch of day-old mosquito bites on his left knuckle and move his right leg, which was beginning to grow numb, but he knew he mustn’t do anything that might shake the coffin and betray that the occupant lived. Despite the sandalwood essence with which the cloth wound round his face and mouth had been impregnated, the smell of the ten-day-old piece of meat placed in the coffin with him to give an authentic stench of decay was overpowering. He had climbed into the coffin at the first sight of the approach, amid a cloud of billowing red dust, of a group of horsemen from the great crenellated fortress of Rotgarh. The fort stood atop a craggy promontory that dominated the arid landscape and the road northwest to Agra, and was the stronghold of Wasim Gul, one of Mehrunissa’s most stalwart supporters.

  It had in fact been Arjumand, not he, who had come up with the idea of a funeral cortège supposedly bearing the body of an officer who had died in the Deccan homeward for burial as a disguise for his force, suggesting that it was the least likely column to be subjected to close scrutiny. It was she, too, who had proposed the refinement of the decaying meat. He, however, had devised another deception: just as his great-grandmother Hamida had prevented news of her husband Humayun’s death from leaking out while she gathered support for Akbar by having a man similar in height and build impersonate him, Khurram had designated a trusted officer to dress in his clothes and be seen entering and leaving the private areas of the Burhanpur fortress to give the illusion that he had not yet departed for the north.

  All had gone to plan with the ruse of the cortège up to this point. He had only had to use the coffin twice, and on both occasions those approaching had veered off as soon as they saw the sombre nature of the procession. This officer of Wasim Gul’s seemed to be different, though, Khurram thought as he struggled to suppress a sudden desire to sneeze. He had already heard him give orders to his men to check some of the baggage carts. It was a good job his extra muskets and powder were either concealed deep beneath animal fodder or in the false bottoms of some of the wagons. Even so a diligent inspection might find them, he thought, as his heart began to beat yet faster.

  ‘It is the body of Hassan Khan – an officer in Prince Khurram’s army and a cousin of the ruler of Multan – which we his loyal followers are transporting back to Peshawar for burial in his homeland,’ Khurram heard one of his own men reply to the newcomer. ‘We are fulfilling his final request, made in the last coherent words he spoke as he lay in his tent sweat soaked and dying of the spotted fever.’ Khurram could almost hear the inquisitive officer’s intake of breath. It was an inspired idea to mention spotted fever. It was so deadly and spread so quickly that no one ever wanted to stay close to a sufferer or a corpse. After a few moments he heard the voice of Wasim Gul’s officer, already a little further off, say, ‘Although he supported a traitor, nevertheless may he rest in Paradise. You may proceed.’

  Khurram smiled with satisfaction as two weeks later he looked around his growing council of advisers in his scarlet command tent fifty miles southeast of Agra. Soon after he had left the territory of Wasim Gul he had abandoned the pretence that his small column was a funeral cortège. Three days ago he had been joined by another large detachment of his troops, including a number of war elephants, who had travelled from Burhanpur under the command of Kamran Iqbal by a more circuitous route to confuse any lurking spies or scouts. Additionally, many commanders of imperial forces in the areas he had passed through, as well as some of the local vassal rulers, had pledged allegiance to him and joined him with their men. His army now numbered almost fifteen thousand and was well equipped and supplied.

  ‘What do we know of the latest movements of Shahriyar, Ladli and Mehrunissa?’ he asked.

  ‘According to our spies, since Shahriyar had himself declared emperor in Lahore a month ago he has remained there with his wife and mother-in-law simply sending out emissaries to seek allies,’ Kamran Iqbal responded.

  ‘And Mahabat Khan?’

  ‘The latest message from Mohun Singh says that he is riding with Mahabat Khan and his men
to meet your father-in-law Asaf Khan and his troops. He insists there is scarcely any more reason to doubt Mahabat Khan’s pledge of allegiance to you than there is that of Asaf Khan himself.’

  ‘Good. Let’s hope Mohun Singh is right and that Mahabat Khan has learned not to meddle in politics. He should be wise enough to know that if he wishes to recover a position within the Moghul empire I am his best hope. He can have little expectation of reconciliation with Mehrunissa.’

  ‘Mohun Singh is certain Mahabat Khan is loyal by nature and only his treatment by Mehrunissa drove him to rebellion.’

  ‘We will still keep an eye on him when he joins us with Asaf Khan. When can we expect that to be?’

  ‘Perhaps in three or four weeks, allowing them time to recruit more men as they ride. Mahabat Khan in particular has sent messengers to Rajasthan to recall some of his old comrades as well as to recruit new men from that crucible of warriors.’

  ‘Well, that leaves us only Khusrau, doesn’t it? Does he still seem intent on making a bid for the throne?’