Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues)

by Ruchir, Gupta

  Sati continued: “You can now exercise more control over state affairs than any prince or even the Emperor.” I immediately began feeling to feel a sense of this new-found power; such was the effect of the muhr uzak. And I already knew what I would do with it: I would learn from Sebastian Manrique what had happened to Gabriel in Hugli, and then determine why my sister chose Hugli of all places against which to instigate an attack.

  The words immediately began resonating in my mind: More power than even princes! I didn’t covet this power, but since it was bestowed upon me, I could now redefine a woman’s role in my society. I could finish the work Ami had begun, to stop the male domination of my kingdom. I hadn’t seized power; power had seized me; and I would now seize this opportunity to set right what in the past had gone wrong.

  “Padishah Zindabad!

  “Padishah Zindabad!

  “Padishah Zindabad!

  The crowd continued to chant louder each moment. I nodded to my constituents and bowed to my father in reserved appreciation. Did he have any idea what he’d just done?

  10

  HIDDEN SECRETS

  29th September, 1632

  I soon found my life as empress more exhausting than I’d imagined it could be. Sure there were perks: slaves would bathe, dress and perfume me over the course of hours, for this was customary for empresses. I was waited upon by countless eunuchs, slaves and Tatars and at times I felt as though I was drowning in all the attention. However, there were also strict requirements of me, and this made being an empress very arduous. Every word, gesture and movement I made was noted, interpreted and discussed. I was now required to move with the demeanour of an empress around the zenana. My mother had made all this look so easy; perhaps it came more naturally to her.

  As I struggled to adjust to my new title, I took the first step in fighting back against my wicked sister. I assembled a team of spies consisting of slave girls, eunuchs, maids and Tatar women to inform me of Raushanara’s whereabouts in a given day, to see whom she interacted with and what mischief she was planning on wreaking on the royal household. Now that I knew she’d spent time with Nur Jahan, I was convinced she’d learned some of Nur Jahan’s manipulative tactics and was not to be trusted. It was still unclear to me where her loyalties were, but I was convinced they weren’t with me or Aba.

  The head of this team was a burly Tatar woman named Isa. At a gargantuan size of seven feet two inches, her biceps were the diameter of the strongest of Mughal men. She was at once both loyal and fierce. With her in charge, the other members of the team would remain in line.

  The announcement came: “Padishah Begum, the firangi, Sahib Manrique has arrived.”

  Sebastian Manrique was escorted by Bahadur to the special screened window at which he would have an audience with me. By promising him employment for Agra’s Jesuit mission, I’d lured him close enough to me to ask him what had happened at Hugli and what had become of Gabriel.

  He began: “Your Highness, I am at your service as you requested.”

  “Very well, Mr Manrique. The Jesuits have begun to hold services here again in Agra, and the emperor wishes for you to meet with the head priest and determine the best way to tell those in neighbouring suburbs about his mission. As a traveller, you have the ability to reach thousands of Christians within the Mughal domain.”

  “Her Majesty is too kind. It would be my pleasure to offer assistance to the head priest of the church.”

  “I have another matter to discuss with you. You mentioned you knew of Gabriel Boughton in Hugli. What else can you tell me about him?”

  Sebastian hung his head low, for he was not permitted to stare at the marble window behind which I stood. He abashedly said, “I told you, Your Highness, I knew him. What else can I tell you?”

  “I wish to know under what circumstances he arrived and what became of him.”

  Sebastian said: “Much of what I’m about to tell you I heard from his own mouth…”

  Gabriel arrived in Hugli a few weeks before the arrival of the Mughal regiment and found the port busier than any he’d seen since arriving in India. Ship after ship of cargo was being exchanged at this port, and for a moment, Gabriel began to feel as if he was back in Europe, with all the churches and light-skinned people. It was as if someone had plucked a town out of Portugal and planted it in India.

  Not sure of where to go, he made his way to the Church of St Augustine, where the Brethren of St Augustine’s head, Pastor Reverend Frahlo, was Gabriel’s contact.

  Gabriel spent the next several days learning from the Portuguese the secrets of the profitable trade, especially the salt trade that had made the Portuguese very powerful and wealthy in this area.

  One night, as Gabriel was sleeping in his guest quarters, a servant came running to his room and informed him that an army was gathering at their doorstep.

  The two men peeped out of the small window of the guest quarters, and Gabriel saw an entire division of men carrying torches with the Mughal banner off to one side. This military cordon was dressed on war footing, and Gabriel wasn’t sure what to do or where to go.

  Gabriel ran to the church of father Frahlo, where he met Sebastian Manrique. The men decided to pursue diplomacy and try to negotiate with the Mughal generals.

  Sebastian Manrique slowly walked over to the general, who was mounted on a horse and asked what his grievances were. The general informed him that this colony had been accused of committing heresy and teaching infidel religion contrary to the teachings of the Koran. Sebastian pleaded with the general to understand that it was the King’s own father, Jahangir, who’d given the colony the power to build churches and practice their religion as they pleased. But the General was clearly looking for a pretext for attack, not interested in debating or discussing any issues. He made his demands clear to Sebastian: “Surrender your leaders, tear down all religious buildings, burn all Christian books and accept Allah as your saviour. Anything short of this will mean swift annihilation.”

  Sebastian went back to the church, which by now had swollen into a town hall gathering of all the Europeans in the colony. As he told everyone what the Mughal general demanded, the entire crowd cried out in an uproar.

  The firangis decided to organise and mount resistance. One by one, men volunteered, until the number of people ready to do battle swelled to over 100. Aware that they were drastically outnumbered, the men began to devise a strategy whereby they could sneak behind the army and attack them from either side with bullets. The soldiers would be so surprised, they would run in whichever direction they could find cover.

  Gabriel volunteered to use the underground tunnel linking the church to the port, to lead a group of men to the far side of the field. There, they would grab weapons from the ships docked at the port and sneak up behind the rebel army.

  As the hours passed by and the time allotted for the Europeans’ surrender drew near, the Mughal army began making preparations to storm the church. Pursuant to Aba’s orders, the European missionaries were to be burned within the church, while the women and children would be brought back to Agra as prisoners.

  Gabriel and his men made way through the tunnel and snuck into one of the cargo ships carrying munitions. Gabriel reached the storeroom and grabbed rifles, which he began handing out to each of his men as they entered in single file.

  As the men loaded their rifles, one of the men accidently fired a shot into his own shoulder. The loud sound, along with his own scream as he was writhing in pain, alerted the Mughal army that something was occurring at their rear.

  The men began running towards the church, launching cannonballs at the different wings. Haphazard firing from the church also began, but was too disorganised to mount any serious challenge to the Mughal army. The merchants-turned-soldiers were no match for the Mughal army, and one by one they began to fall. The women and children all gathered in the rear of the building under the guidance of Father Frahlo and began to pray for help. “Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have
mercy on us,” the crowd chanted as the bombs continued, while the women watched their men drop like flies.

  “Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us, Christ, graciously hear us.”

  “God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.”

  More men continued to die and cry out in pain; women watched their husbands, children watched their fathers fall.

  “God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us. God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.”

  The Mughal army mercilessly pursued the Christians. For every one Mughal soldier that fell, ten Portuguese merchants died.

  “Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.”

  The women and children knelt on the ground and closed their eyes, flowing tears as father Frahlo continued to lead them in what would be their final prayer. “Holy Mary, pray for us. Holy Mother of God, pray for us. Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us.”

  Finally the shelling and bullets stopped. There was utter silence. The congregation opened their eyes slowly and awoke to a scene of horror no person would wish upon their kin. All their men were dead. There was smoke and rubble everywhere. The front of the church had been completely blown away. Sebastian Manrique lay at a distance playing dead, so he might survive to tell me this horrific story one day.

  Then the front door was blown open, and the general arrived with blood in his eyes.

  Meanwhile, at the other end of battlefield, near the port, the Europeans apparently had better luck. They were able to position themselves at different locations in various ships and engage in sporadic fighting against the Mughal army. Here, for every one European that fell, ten Mughals fell. However, the ratio was apparently not enough to help the Europeans – there were too many soldiers overall.

  Gabriel fought off several soldiers, but then noticed one of his men was hit. As he tried to run towards the man to help him, a shot hit him across his neck and he fell into the Bay of Bengal. The remaining men each fell, either to their deaths, or into the Bay, or both.

  Back at the church, the families of the fallen were all chained around the stage where they’d been praying, the crucifix and the statues of Christ overlooking their imprisonment. Their heads were covered with black cloths as they continued to pray and recite their religious chants.

  “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord. Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us...”

  Then the Mughal general ordered the entire church and all its occupants, burned. Though Aba had merely ordered the death of the missionaries and was silent on what should be done to the families, the battle-enraged Mughal general, not content with killing the men in armed combat and merely imprisoning the families, decided to avenge the deaths of his soldiers in a much more ferocious way.

  As the women, children and Father Frahlo began to smell smoke, everyone screamed and writhed trying to free themselves from their bondage, but to no avail. Children could be heard screaming for their mothers; women screamed at the fumes that smothered their dresses; some continued to pray: “Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!”

  The Mughal army watched this spectacle at a distance and began celebrating, as if they were watching a fireworks display. Some even began drinking wine in celebration. Soon the sounds of people began to die out, and the smell of burnt flesh permeated the air. By morning, the entire church had burned to the ground, and no European in Hugli seemed left alive.

  A full month later Isa paid me a visit at my apartment, with an update on her assignment.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, “when you’re not in your apartment, Raushanara Begum welcomes herself here and looks through your belongings!”

  I gravely looked at Isa, nodding gently, trying to hide my disgust and horror at learning of this invasion of privacy. “Anything else?” I asked, staring straight at her.

  I believe Isa understood I had to purposely refrain from showing any emotion. Doubtless sensing the gravity of the news she’d just given me, she added, “Mallikaye, I have worked in this zenana since before you were born. I know what goes on here. If you have kept personal items such as letters or presents in your apartment, I suggest you check them.”

  I was appalled to learn that my quarters were being routinely ravaged by Raushanara in my absence, and then restored as if nothing happened. After Isa left, I opened my drawer to search for the one token I had from the man I felt something akin to love for: Gabriel’s letter.

  Opening my copy of the Ibn Majah hadith, a holy book for us Muslims, I turned to number 2771. Number 2771 of the hadith stated ‘Paradise is at the mother’s feet.’ I’d purposely hid Gabriel’s letter there because of all the hadith messages, this one held a special meaning for me, as my Ami existed now only in my thoughts and prayers.

  I turned the pages, anxiously trying to reach number 2771, hoping Raushanara hadn’t touched, and if touched, not stolen, this memento. I finally reached the number 2771, and the only thing staring at me was the message, Paradise is at the mother’s feet. There was no letter.

  I picked up the book by its cover, opening it like a bird’s wings and shook vigorously from side to side, hoping the letter would shake out.

  Finally a small piece of torn, flat paper folded into fourths popped out, that must’ve gotten caught in the seams of one of the pages. Though Raushanara must be sharp enough to know that I’d again look for the letter one day and, not finding it, would suspect something amiss, she hadn’t realised I’d kept the letter in a special place, with my Ami, and that if I didn’t find it there, I’d know someone had moved it. So Raushanara knew about Gabriel and me, and this is why she must have incited Aba to burn Hugli.

  11

  THE WHITE SERPENT

  28th May, 1633

  Aurangzeb had seemed like an awkward boy for several reasons. First, his odd personality and cold intellectuality repelled anyone who might have found his skinny, peach-fuzz physique even mildly attractive. Secondly, he wasn’t interested in athletics or music, the two things women of the zenana saw as prerequisites in a suitor. So Aurangzeb went through childhood with no real friends or admirers, burying himself in the one companion that couldn’t abandon him: religion. And he began acting as if he owned it; only his interpretation was valid, and any deviation from his standards was heresy against Islam. He found admirers in the marginalised mullahs, who were still reeling from Aba’s rebuke following the massacre at Hugli.

  The mullahs had seen for several generations the laws and tenets of Islam being stretched widely and skewed creatively to form an inclusive, pluralistic society in India. Beginning with Akbar in the 1500s, intermarriage between Muslims and Hindus was accepted, and Hindu traditions were observed in the Mughal kingdom. Jahangir and Aba continued this tradition, each taking Hindu wives and expanding the scope of our kingdom to now include Christian missionaries from the west. All this had led to a counter-revolution by the Islamic purists, who were, in their opinion, observing the incremental destruction of Islam by non-Islamic forces.

  Thus far, though, no prince of any merit had taken up the mullahs’ cause as his own. For Shuja and Murad, life was about wine, women and wealth. Dara was a continuation of the infidel tradition of Aba, according to the mullahs. But Aurangzeb was the antithesis of Dara. Where Dara was inclusive, Aurangzeb was stringent; the more Dara spoke about the oneness of religions, the more Aurangzeb spoke about the strict letter of the law. The mullahs rightfully saw in Aurangzeb their opportunity to win back the kingdom and mold it according to religious doctrine as set forth in the Koran.

  Aurangzeb, now 14, was becoming a handsome young man. He was now tall, well built, he had facial hair and a firm understanding of warfare. He had Aba’s physical frame and military acumen, and Ami’s skin tone and charisma. Aba had effectively shunned him numerous
times, no doubt at the instigation of Dara, who still held resentment towards Aurangzeb for poisoning Gita. In fact, Aba called Aurangzeb the ‘white serpent,’ a stinging reference to his pale skin.

  One day, in the northwest city of Lahore, Aba was seated at the royal balcony while 40 fighting Bengali elephants were presented to him. As the Padishah Begum, I was observing from behind the marble window, while the four royal princes watched the event from horseback. Suddenly, I noticed that one elephant, instead of fighting its opponent, began charging towards my four brothers. Dara, Shuja, and Murad all fled for their lives, but Aurangzeb stayed mounted, unwaveringly staying his ground. As the elephant continued to charge towards him, Aurangzeb, a spear in his hand, stared directly, without blinking, into the elephant’s eyes.

  “Allah ho akbar, Allah ho akbar,” he murmured – and then to the amazement of all, the elephant moved around Aurangzeb and passed without harming him.

  “All hail Prince Aurangzeb!” yelled the riders on the elephants and the guards at the gate. Aba smiled and nodded approvingly to his son (recognition Aurangzeb rarely received).

  Then the crowds suddenly stopped cheering. Aurangzeb, looking towards Aba, and noticed the people in the balcony fall to worried looks. He suddenly turned his head straight and saw that the first elephant’s opponent was now charging Aurangzeb in pursuit of his earlier rival.

  Still with spear in hand, Aurangzeb again began to mutter his religious verse. “Allah ho akbar, Allah ho akbar.”

  As the elephant came charging, Aurangzeb rode his horse into the beast’s path: an immense shape against a 14-year-old prince. Every moment seemed a day long; we hovered on the edges of our seats, our voices unable to leave our throats and make a sound. I was terrified though protected behind the screen. Suddenly Aurangzeb let out a loud cry and hurled his spear at the elephant, piercing its forehead. Though hurt, the elephant swung its trunk and knocked Aurangzeb off his horse, and the crowd gasped in horror.