Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues)

by Ruchir, Gupta

  “Nonsense!” I sniffed, though I knew what Bahadur was saying was probably true. I just couldn’t bear to hear it. “How could he invade our allies and we not even know of it?”

  Bahadur looked away. “Your hookah is ready, Your Majesty.” She seemed uninterested in talking to me further.

  The messenger Khalid Shah appeared the following day in the Diwan-i-khas, badly wounded with bandages on both arms, kneeling on a cane.

  Dara said, “This is hardly a way to represent the Sultan, runner.”

  Khalid’s face was severely bruised and swollen face, and the hakims had wrapped his head and jaw in a disfiguring white bandage. It appeared one of his legs and one of his arms were broken as well.

  Aba sat on his throne, paying little attention to the court proceedings, leaving Dara to do most of the talking.

  “Your Majesty,” cried Khalid, “I was sent to bring you greetings from Sultan Qutb Shah, with diamonds from our famous mines and trays of rubies and gems, along with elephants and horses. Our embassy sent 15 people with several dozen concubines and female slaves for your pleasure.”

  The runner had at last said something of value to my sexually driven father, I thought. Hearing of concubines and female slaves, the aging monarch turned his head towards the runner, his eyebrows raised curiously.

  “Our contingent left a few weeks ago from Hyderabad, and we were travelling alongside the jungles in your dominion, en route to this beautiful majestic capital of yours. Khalid paused, unable to bow in honour of our new city. Then he said, “Suddenly we were attacked by a cordon of the Mughal army in the Deccan!”

  Dara looked in my direction as if gesturing me to understand that it had to be Aurangzeb who’d ordered this.

  “They surrounded us and demanded that we go with them, but we refused. They then tried to chain us and take us with them, but we fought back with our swords and daggers. The army killed our whole embassy, and the concubines all fled towards wherever they thought they could find cover. The riches meant for Your Majesty were confiscated, and I barely escaped. Playing dead, I hid under one of my soldiers and later trekked here on a limping horse that had been badly wounded in the skirmish.”

  I said, “How do you know the men who attacked you were Mughals and not bandits merely dressed as Mughals?” Dara appeared irritated by my interruption.

  The runner said, “Your Majesty, had they been bandits, I’m certain they would have merely looted us. Instead, they tried to kidnap us. They carried the Mughal flag and wore the traditional burgundy tunics.”

  Dara asked, “What was to have been the purpose of your visit?”

  Khalid anwered: “To tell His Majesty that the Sultan of Golconda views you as his brother and wishes you no harm. But war is being thrust upon us by your son, Aurangzeb. He threatens to attack our nation because we’ve confiscated the cargo of Mir Jumla, a businessman of poor character in our realm.”

  I’d heard before of Mir Jumla, a Persian businessman who’d made his fortune in Golconda’s diamond business. Backed by this fortune, he’d managed to spread his influence over other matters and by now had essentially created a monopoly over civil and military matters, much to the Sultan’s chagrin. Qutb Shah viewed him as a growing threat, especially since he’d begun to muster his own private armies within the borders of Golconda. To curtail his power any further, Qutb Shah began imposing fees and levies against his revenue, and he slowly laid restrictions on how many men he could employ in his military service. A distraught Mir Jumla was looking for asylum but afraid to approach the Mughals, fearful that the noble Shah Jahan would rebuff him and the thought of moving to them would further alienate Qutb Shah.

  I asked sharply from behind the screen, “But why have you confiscated his cargo?” I wanted to know the real basis for the war, and if Aurangzeb was in the wrong as this runner claimed.

  “Your Majesty, Mir Jumla has refused to pay the taxes levied against him. The confiscation was his punishment.”

  “But we heard,” Dara said, “that you seized cargo we had bought from you through Mir Jumla.”

  Khalid Shah paused for a long moment and the hall fell silent. I was flabbergasted at learning there’d been correspondence between Dara and the Deccan. If Dara was heir to the throne, I still was the queen and bearer of the royal seal.

  “Begging Your Majesty’s forgiveness, this servant of yours would like to inform you that no sales have occurred between our two kingdoms. Your representative in the Deccan has pried in our private affairs by granting sanctuary to the evil Mir Jumla.”

  “Runner,” growled Aba, “choose your words carefully! You are accusing a royal prince of deceit, a crime punishable by death!”

  I found it ironic that though always suspicious of Aurangzeb, Aba now acted as though he felt it a personal affront to allow an outsider to insult a member of the royal family.

  “I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty. But I assure you, no business transaction has occurred.”

  “You must stay here,” said Dara. “You will be our eyes and ears as we continue our investigation of this matter!”

  Afterwards Dara, Aba and I continued our discussion in the Macchi Bawan.

  “What do you wish to do?” Aba asked Dara.

  “We must send a letter to Aurangzeb forbidding him to attack Golconda under any circumstances!” Dara replied, looking towards me. I looked away, embarrassed on Aurangzeb’s behalf, but also still somewhat hopeful that this might be a misunderstanding.

  I said, “We must also ask him for any proof he may have of transactions.”

  “So be it!” said Aba.

  “That wretch!” yelled Dara. “He should be skinned alive!”

  I felt shock at seeing this belligerent side of my once-passive brother.

  Dara fumed, “He deliberately disobeyed imperial orders and marched onto Golconda!”

  “What orders, Dara?” I spat. “How could I not have been privy to all this?” I felt my influence and authority had slowly slipped from me, just as I’d feared.

  Dara said, “I received a letter from Aurangzeb.”

  “You?”

  “Well… it was addressed to Aba, but I read it and replied to it.”

  Aba looked away, as to dismiss my unmade question. Dara must have realised I’d grown furious.

  “The letter said that Mir Jumla wanted to sell cargo to the Mughal Empire, and this is why Qutb Shah seized that cargo.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I told Aurangzeb to write to the Sultan to release all the cargo in seven days or else military force would be used against him.”

  “Did you do your own separate investigation into the matter?”

  “Investigation?” Dara seemed puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  Shaking his head, Aba said, “You authorised military force against a neighbour without verifying the facts?”

  “That’s not the point, he intentionally misrepresented the facts! What’s worse, instead of seven it now appears he gave Qutb Shah only two days to comply!”

  “What do you want to do now?” asked Aba.

  “I want an embassy to travel to the Deccan, nonstop under the royal seal of the Empress, that attests to the fact that we wish for this military excursion to come to a halt.”

  Aba, his eyes gleaming greedily, said, “Have Golconda’s riches been compromised?”

  “If they have,” said Dara, “we’ll return them and start again. We’ll help them repair their empire and repay the families of their fallen from the royal treasury.”

  Dara looked towards me for support, which I reluctantly gave in the form of a subtle nod. No matter how neutral I tried to be, the lines between right and wrong couldn’t be clearer: This war in Golconda was clearly a war of choice, and it must be ended.

  While Raushanara, Aurangzeb and Sadullah had formed a team in the south, Dara and I made up a reluctant northern team, and both were vying for the approval of the overly sexualised Aba who, rather than bothering with these matter
s, would have liked to retire to his harem for enjoyment and pleasure.

  26

  COMING OF THE STORM

  6th September, 1657

  I wrote several letters to Aurangzeb trying to explain what had happened and imploring him to confide in me about his true intentions regarding the Golconda debacle. But Aurangzeb seemed to have lost faith in my loyalty and seemed to no longer wish any further communication with me. Banished to the Deccan by Aba, humiliated by Dara and prevented from achieving the prize of Golconda by my royal seal, Aurangzeb also refused to talk with anyone else in my triumvirate.

  I was in my apartment still pondering the future of Mughal women during the reign of Dara Shikoh when inauspicious news arrived. “Empress,” called out a female servant, “Wazir Khan has sent for you! The Emperor is ill.”

  I ran from my apartment to the Emperor’s chambers.

  “Wazir Khan,” I said, out of breath, “what’s wrong with Aba?”

  “I don’t know why, Empress, but for some reason, the Emperor hasn’t been able to empty his bladder for the last several days.”

  “What? Is this common for someone at this age?”

  “No, Your Majesty, it isn’t. But I think some of the aphrodisiacs the Emperor has been taking may be responsible.”

  While Wazir Khan was respectful enough to refer to the substances as aphrodisiacs, it was widely known that for the last several years, Aba had taken just about every stimulating drug he could find – from Europe, the far east, from Hindus, from hakims – to satisfy his urges. Yes, some mixture of all of these substances, taken simultaneously, had probably caused him to retain urine and made him increasingly sicker.

  Now I could see that my father’s eyes bore the same look of death I’d seen in Ami’s that fateful day in the Deccan. “You must do something!” I shouted. “Call healers from all across the globe if you must, but the King cannot die.”

  I felt in my core that despite all of Aba’s and Dara’s assurances, a war would erupt after Aba’s death and consume my family. There would be slaughter, tears, and millions of innocent Indians would lose their lives as unwilling participants in the bloodshed. Regardless of who won, India would lose, and the celebrations for the new monarch would occur alongside burials and cremations for the deceased. Though this seemed inevitable, I wasn’t ready for it just yet.

  The next several days saw Aba’s health drastically decline though the royal physicians hovered constantly over him. His legs were now swollen, his mouth so dry he couldn’t talk, his stomach swelled to a gross potbelly. To make matters worse, he developed a steep fever. I even thought of writing to Gabriel, but I soon realised such thoughts were futile – he was thousands of kos away, and by the time he received the message and could return to India, months would pass.

  I now slept near Aba, thinking how Nur Jahan must have felt when Jahangir was sick. She knew that after Jahangir was dead she’d be banished and exiled, or perhaps worse. Yet my worry was different; I wasn’t worried about myself – I never craved riches – I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was brewing in the Deccan and would erupt as soon as the King was dead.

  I applied moist dressings to Aba’s forehead in a frenzy hoping to bring his fever down. I also wondered if perhaps Aba was being misdiagnosed. Rather than suffering side effects of aphrodisiacs, had he caught an illness through one of his female liaisons? With a harem of several hundred concubines and illicit affairs with other women, the King in the past year must have enjoyed several hundred, maybe even 1,000 women from all across India.

  I ordered my servants to check all the women who’d come into contact with the Emperor in the last month – no easy task – and report to me anyone who was feeling ill.

  Over the next several days, my women fanned out across the harem and examined closely anyone, including nobility, even rumoured to have had recent relations with the King. Women suspected of liaisons were brought in from neighbouring towns and villages in carts, like cattle, and questioned by Bahadur.

  All this was done secretly, because news of the King’s illness had to be kept private to prevent any uprising. The zenana women were all investigated, of course, and anyone with strange symptoms or some recent illness was examined by the hakims.

  On September 12, the servants reported back to me. “We’ve found none of the women to be unhealthy, Your Majesty. About a dozen have died in the last month, but mostly from accidents; none were sick.”

  Then, as a matter of last resort, I told Bahadur to find the one other person who might shed light on the cause of the Emperor’s illness – Chamani Begum.

  “Do you know anything about her, Your Majesty?” she asked. “Where she lives, who she serves?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you even know what she looks like?”

  I looked away and said somberly: “She looks like me.”

  Despite my attempts to keep Aba’s illness private, news of it began to permeate the kingdom, and the people wondered even more avidly whether the rumours were true. When the public gathered now at the Jharoka-i-darshan, no King was was present. The rumours were worsening now; some were now openly saying the King was already dead, and that Dara was intentionally hiding this from the public to consolidate his empire.

  Dara insisted to me, “Aba must come to the window and prove to the people he’s very much alive. They won’t believe me or you unless he’s with us!”

  “What do you want from me?” I responded helplessly. “He can barely openly his eyes. Shall we prop up a living corpse?”

  Dara and I now restricted anyone from visiting the Emperor for fear that one or more persons might be spies or hired guns from my other brothers who’d try to take Aba’s life to spark a bloody war. But though we intended to protect him, the effect was to feed the conspiracy theories even further, making people believe Dara and I must be plotting something.

  On the morning of September 14, Aba was lying in his bed, covered with silk blankets; I was waking from fitful sleep on the Persian carpet nearby; Dara sat a few feet away, still asleep on the gold-studded chair, his turban placed on the table next to him. Suddenly I saw sunlight glare straight from the window onto Aba’s face, and it seemed to give him a boost of divine strength, for as the light hit, he opened his eyes and smiled.

  “Is anyone here awake?” he asked looking around the room.

  “Aba?” I cried. I stood up quickly, grinning and laughing hysterically. “Aba, you’re well! Allah ho Akbar!” My screams woke up Dara, who looked up still groggy from his uncomfortable sleep on the chair. “Aba, how are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Weak.”

  Dara said, “Well, that’s not surprising,” and knelt next to the King. “But you’ll get better now, I just know it.”

  Aba seemed very drowsy from the opium the hakims had been giving him. I lamented, “Oh, Aba, you can’t know all that’s happened in this kingdom of yours during the last several days. Rumours are rampant that you’re dead, and that Dara and I have hidden this and are usurping the throne.”

  Dara whined, “They’re saying I care more about the throne than for your health!”

  “But I feel fine,” Aba sighed.

  “Aba,” I said, “I know you feel weak, but I think it’s vitally important that after eating something you give darshan at the balcony to show that you’re alive and well.”

  Aba seemed perplexed by this request, but we explained to him that only physical proof of his life would quell the rumours and restore stability to the country. Then I advised Aba also to summon all the princes to Delhi and make his wishes for the future of India known to them.

  Later that day, though weak, Aba rose to the balcony window and rallied a crowd of several thousand, who may or may not have been relieved to learn that they’d just been spared an unnecessary war for succession. Aba was a popular king, possibly the most popular India had seen in a long time. There could be no substitute for him; each candidate to succeed him was controversial in his
own way, and no one before had ever shown the ability to form the broad ruling coalition the current Emperor enjoyed.

  As was customary, alms were distributed in the King’s name, prisoners were set free and Dara received promotions and rewards for his devotion to Aba. But outside Delhi, the validity of his appearance at the window was questioned, and though all of us children had to know our father was still alive, I knew it would serve some to pretend they didn’t know and rally the support of their constituents.

  I was lying in my chambers the next day, the sweet scents of flowers and cool water from the Paradise Canal cooling the city’s unusually hot September days. I thought to myself how great an idea the canals were, flowing all across the city, every avenue and lane on a boardwalk, and the sweet smell of the river mixing with the north winds, relieving the city’s normally dry climate.

  An attendant broke into my thoughts: “Bahadur is here to see you, Your Majesty.”

  When he entered the room, I asked, “Yes, what news do you bring?”

  “Your Majesty, I’ve found Chamani Begum.” “Really? Where? Is she still alive?” Bahadur hesitated, as if he knew he had to bring bad news. “Your Majesty, Chamani Begum died a few days ago of swollen legs, a potbelly and a high fever. Her skin turned completely black, and she was cremated at the far side of the town so the fumes from her remains wouldn’t blow into the city. It was believed she died of a toxic infection.”

  I stared confused at the servant. Aba had had those same symptoms, and though he was doing better now, I began to worry he might relapse. After a pause I said, “Who cremated her?”

  “One of the untouchables who cleans the gutters. No peasant wanted anything to do with her.”

  I sighed. This had been the end of Chamani Begum, whom I never knew but whose existence had caused me much unintended grief. A favourite of my father’s, this concubine probably could’ve mustered anything from Aba she chose; yet here she’d died as an orphan, with no relative or friend even to cremate her. Such was the fate of the Mughal concubine, to live and gain praise so long as she had a pleasing physical appearance, but to be discarded afterwards.