1636: Mission to the Mughals

by Eric Flint

  She cut him off with a painful pinch and playful growl.

  Laughing, he pushed her hand away.

  “You’re not old, you’re just older than me.”

  “Yep, and before the Ring, the whole town would have been talking about the years between us…not to mention my mother.”

  “Silly man,” she blew a raspberry against his chest, making him squirm. “Cora is still talking about it.”

  He chuckled. “I bet she is.”

  She raised her head to look at him. “Do you miss your mother?”

  “Not as much as I miss being with you, of course…But yeah, now and then. Especially these last couple weeks, with so little to do but ride back and forth to meet Rodney and Gervais.”

  “Some problems get you no sympathy,” she said, laying her head on his chest again.

  He winced. “Sorry. Ask Jahanara about an outing, at least. If she approves then you might find a tactful way to ask about getting out more.”

  “I’ll talk to Priscilla first, and see what we can come up with.”

  “Smart idea.”

  “Of which I have many: what about using the emperor’s reward to purchase a house in Agra?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sure we could get one built, call it the Mission House or some such. The English have one, don’t they?”

  “I think they did, yes.”

  “Did?”

  “As far as I can tell, there are no representatives of the English government with the court, not even of the East India Company.”

  “But getting back to the point…”

  “I think it’s a very good idea, but do we know whether we’ll be going back to Agra?”

  “I asked Jahanara, and she is certain of it. Shah Jahan pays close attention to construction of the Taj, always returning to it, barring some catastrophe. He spends a great deal of time at the construction site, overseeing the workers.”

  “All right. I’ll see about it.”

  The Red Tent

  Priscilla and the other mission women stumbled to a halt on entering the tent.

  Before the emperor’s informal throne was what looked like the largest balance scale Priscilla had ever seen. Joined by a single massive bronze rivet at the center, an enormously heavy iron tripod supported an iron crossbeam from which hung chains and huge brass pans, each a yard across.

  “Someone’s a Libra!” Monique quipped.

  The others were too nervous to laugh outright, but a few chuckles were heard. After an exchange of disbelieving glances, they took the places Jahanara had them rehearse.

  Nadira Begum was seated with her son in front of and below the emperor. Priscilla noticed that the princess’ eyes above the veil were smiling. As she was in the harem of her father-in-law, not her husband’s, she must go veiled, like them.

  Shah Jahan, an equally-pleased smile piercing his beard, addressed the gathered ladies of the harem: “As I commanded, so shall it be: Madame Totman, be seated upon the scales.”

  Never thought I would be so happy of the veils. Might spoil the gravity of the moment, everyone seeing me grin like an idiot, Pris thought as she approached the scales. She extended a tentative foot over the beaten bronze dish hanging from the balance, trying to work out how to sit without making a sound like a gong being struck.

  Sahana saved her, sliding a cushion under the pan.

  Mouthing a thank you the young girl couldn’t see for the veil, Priscilla gripped the chains and eased herself into a seated position. The scale noiselessly tipped her way, leaving the other pan well off the floor.

  “As reward for your service to my family, I promised your weight in silver. Here, now, I see that promise fulfilled.”

  Five pairs of eunuchs entered from the side, each sweating duo carrying a chest between them. The first pair opened their chest and started pulling bar after bar of shining silver out to place them neatly on the pan opposite Priscilla.

  This is some story-book silly! Too bad I lost so much weight since we came through the Ring of Fire. With what I weighed back then, I could have really put a dent in the emperor’s treasury!

  It required a great many bars, but gradually her pan began to rise. The workers slowed, then stopped, leaving her just a few inches higher than the pan opposite.

  Shah Jahan chuckled. “Take that last bar off and bring forth coin to equal out the measure…” The emperor trailed off as Nadira gracefully climbed to her feet and approached Priscilla, her son in her arms.

  She extended the child to Priscilla. “Take him,” she said, eyes shining. “For surely without you, he would not be the weight and treasure that he is.”

  The child tipped the scales in Priscilla’s favor once again.

  Nur Jahan’s Tent

  “You lie!” Mohan hissed, prayer beads rattling with rage.

  Nur swallowed her first response, instead answering calmly: “I assure you, I do not.”

  Oblivious, Mullah Mohan continued his rant. “I do not understand why he would even consider, let alone say these things! Surely he knows the faithful will not be bullied into submission by threatening to remove his support! Unthinkable! To close schools and places of worship because the true faithful might object to his divergence from Holy Law! Unthinkable!”

  Nur waited, silently urging Mohan to control his tongue before its wagging reached the ears of someone who cared to end them both.

  It took far longer than Nur would have preferred, but eventually Mohan wound down.

  “If we keep our calm, this is nothing but another opportunity to advance our benefactor’s position.”

  “Another—”

  Unwilling to endure another rant, she interrupted: “Pardon, but if you quietly called on your brothers in the Order and, through them, to all right-thinking Muslims, surely this can be turned into a groundswell of support. Support from so many and from all quarters will, of necessity, be heard by Shah Jahan.”

  Lust for power made his eyes glow in a manner the rage of a moment before hadn’t. He was a foolish man; cautious when he should be bold and heedless when he should be wary.

  The mullah’s expression changed, naked hunger replaced by calculation. “But with Shah Jahan’s favorite back in play, Aurangzeb is even more distant from power.”

  “True, but Dara has already proven his willingness to lie down with heretics, and will prove yet another reason for right-thinking Muslims to rally to our cause. And who knows, Dara may yet perish from the infection.”

  “I doubt that. Not with the foreigners who claim to be from the future treating him.”

  “Which can also be turned to advantage as well: they are not Muslim. In fact, they hardly seem to practice any religion.”

  “I don’t know…”

  Nur, forgetting for the moment who she was speaking with, mused aloud: “Perhaps if they were seen to fail after all the faith the Sultan Al’Azam has placed in them…”

  He seized on the idea, however. “Yes, that would certainly silence those who have advanced the foolish idea these people’s presence here is God’s will. I will leave it to you to see this idea through.”

  Nur opened her mouth to refuse but Mohan raised a hand, “No, I should not know any of the details. That way, when it is done, I can honestly say I knew nothing.”

  Nur Jahan closed her mouth. Had she become so old and stupid, to be outmaneuvered by this poor excuse for a man?

  As he’d make a hash of it anyway, I suppose there’s nothing for it…

  “I will see what can be done to see to it they fail, Mullah Mohan.”

  Chapter 29

  Palace of Hargobind Singh

  May 1635

  “You don’t understand. You’ve never been hurt like this,” Dara Shikoh’s petulant tone wasn’t lost on Gervais, who reined in his urge to slap the patient.

  “Shehzada, you cannot have another pipe now.”

  “But the pain—”

  “Is not as bad as withdrawal,” Rodney said. Salim emerged from
his giant shadow in the doorway of the sick room to translate.

  Dara Shikoh turned his glassy eyes on the up-timer. “How would you know?”

  “Trust me, I know. Last thing you want to be is dope sick.”

  “Might be a bit too late for that, Rodney. The drug already has its hooks in him. Just look at his pupils.”

  Rodney crossed the room and took out the tiny device for casting light into small spaces called a “pen light” and directed its beam into Dara’s eyes. “Dinner platter pupils, slow to respond to light stimulus. Oh, yeah, he’s chasing the dragon for sure.”

  Salim waved a hand. “Many smoke the poppy. The prince was known to occasionally indulge even before his injury.”

  Rodney muttered, in English, “One of the reasons we’re here, actually.”

  “What was that, Mr. Totman?” Salim asked, a bit sharply.

  “Poppies are the source of one of the best painkillers on earth, and as war generally means pain for the participants, we were sent to secure a ready source of opium.”

  “I understand. But who, exactly, is your king going to go fighting?”

  Rodney snorted. “Probably better to ask who isn’t attacking us. When we arrived in this time,” he waved a massive hand to encompass everything, “the status quo was severely disturbed.”

  Gervais opened his mouth to explain the Latin term, but promptly shut it as Salim smiled. “No,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I just can’t see how that’s possible. It’s not like you brought profound changes with you, or something.”

  “Right. So, in the two years before we left to come here, Gustavus Adolphus and the USE fought the French, English, Dutch, Spanish, various German states, the Danes…Help me out here, Gervais: I’m probably missing two or three different kingdoms that tried to get rid of us.”

  “I think Salim gets the point, Rodney.”

  “Oh, and that’s not counting the churches that want us—”

  “I. Want. My. Pipe,” said Dara Shikoh, displeased at being ignored.

  Gervais glanced down at the prince, and switched to Persian: “Be strong, Shehzada Dara Shikoh. What Rodney is talking about is your future health. The opium is slowing your recovery, and will prove difficult, even dangerous, to quit.”

  “Very well, after this pipe.”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “I’ll see you—”

  “Well rewarded for seeing to his health,” Salim said, deliberately mistranslating Dara Shikoh’s threats.

  “You should rest, Shehzada. We are disturbing you.”

  Dara Shikoh bit his lip, swallowed. “I’m sorry, this is not me.”

  “We know, Shehzada. We’ll slowly wean you from the opium, try and keep you from getting too sick. But it’s not going to be easy or comfortable.”

  “So…When?”

  “Tonight, when you make ready to sleep.”

  “And until then?”

  “Would you care to get up and move around?”

  “It hurts.”

  “A certain level of pain is to be expected, and shows you are healing. Exercise, light exercise, should be good for you. We don’t want those scars,” he gestured at the puckered tissue, “getting too tight.”

  “And the distraction should help keep your mind off the pipe,” Gervais added.

  Shehzada Dara Shikoh visibly took control of himself. “Very well. I will do my best.”

  “Thank you Shehzada. You will be better that much sooner.”

  No Man’s Land

  John reined in on the field that had become a no-man’s land between the Sikh town and the Mughal camp. He dismounted and joined Rodney for the walk back to camp. He didn’t have to ride out to meet Rodney, but it was a relief to get away from the camp, its smells and its spies, even if for just a short while.

  Rodney’s companions, the emperor’s negotiators, rode on without sparing the two up-timers a glance.

  “Nearly two months we’ve been sitting here, and still no real change. Well, aside from Wazir Khan arriving with that,” he nodded in the direction of the latest addition to the encampment, “huge army.”

  “Yeah, never thought to see horses and men literally cover the earth for as far as the eye can see…Something almost, I don’t know, Biblical about it.”

  “They do have some humongous armies.”

  “Big place, India.”

  “Yeah, drives it home, seeing this many people in one place.”

  “Not just people. All the damn livestock: elephants, camels, oxen, and so many horses.”

  Rodney nodded. “I haven’t seen this kind of crowd since leaving football.”

  John hiked a thumb at the palace. “Any change in the prince’s condition?”

  “Not so much a change as a problem. You remember me telling you the prince was using opium for pain management?”

  “Shit.”

  “It’s not all that bad. So long as we can control how much he’s getting, we should be able to get him off fairly safely. It’s not like he was mainlining it.”

  “Rodney, I don’t know all that much about that stuff, but I thought it’s really hard to quit.”

  “About as hard as cigarettes, but with nastier withdrawal symptoms.”

  “But what if he loses his mind and orders your execution or something?”

  Rodney gestured at the massive camp of the emperor. “Weren’t you just saying we’ve been sitting here for months with no change? We only need a week or so to safely drop off his intake. And if he orders it, the Sikhs ain’t likely to follow their hostage’s orders, now are they?”

  “I suppose not. You sure you can get him off the stuff without too much trouble?”

  “Now that he’s healed, more or less, he should be strong enough to kick it.”

  “Should be, Rodney?”

  “John, I can’t offer sure bets—I just don’t know. I ain’t a doctor.”

  “Sorry, Rodney. We’re up shit creek if this goes wrong, you know?”

  “Sure do.”

  “So what about just leaving him on it?”

  The look Rodney gave him was far more threatening than any physical display.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, stupid idea.”

  “Damn straight it’s stupid, John. Not to mention just flat out wrong. Talking with Salim, it looks like Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir, was a total opium addict. His wife, Nur Jahan, who’s with the court somewhere, seized power while her husband smoked and drank himself to death. It was her that Shah Jahan seized the throne from, not Jahangir.”

  “Wait, she’s still with the emperor’s entourage?”

  Rodney shrugged. “So they tell me.”

  “How does that happen?”

  “Don’t ask me, John, I don’t know. But getting back to my original point: anyone with that much power”—he pointed at the army to the west—“struggling with addiction, is going to be a complete disaster for everyone in reach of his armies.”

  “I get it, really. It was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say.”

  Rodney blinked, looked away, and sighed. “Sorry for the sermon, John, but some of the guys I played ball with got hooked on painkillers the coaches and sports medicine staff pushed on them so they could play one more day instead of get healthy. One ended up dead, and all three of ’em shot their lives to hell, and that was just at my school.”

  “I get it, man. I really do.”

  Point made, Rodney changed the subject. “What’s this I hear from Priscilla about a Mission House?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to run that by you. Salim says it’s exactly what’s expected of us, so the funds given to us by the emperor will have some use. He even says he knows some people in Agra that can start work on it now so we might be able to occupy it once we return.”

  “Sure will make Priscilla happy, not having to deal with purdah.”

  “Well, to an extent. It’ll be more of a change of scenery than a real change.”

  “And we’ll lose our back channe
l to court.”

  “Yep.”

  “If Priscilla knew I even thought about denying her this chance at even limited freedom, she’d have my balls.”

  “Yep.”

  “Guess we’re buying a house in Agra.”

  Dara’s Quarters, Palace of Hargobind Singh

  A lifetime’s instinct of living in war camps spurred Salim to wakefulness, senses searching for the threat that drove him from slumber.

  Nothing in here with me. The Sikhs had provided him a room attached to Dara’s quarters, with Gervais and Rodney occupying another directly across a common chamber from his.

  Rodney had gone to camp to see his wife. Aside from Gervais and the servants, who had been relieved for the night, there were the guards on the entrance and in the gardens below.

  Nothing unusual there, either.

  Trusting his instincts, he steadied his breathing and listened carefully for a repeat of whatever had roused him. A faint noise came, from the chamber around which all the sleeping areas were arranged.

  Perhaps…slippers on carpet? He got up as quietly as possible and retrieved his knife. Easing it from the scabbard, he padded to the exit on bare feet.

  Reaching the curtained archway, Salim moved the curtains aside to look out into the common room.

  Nothing moved in the silence.

  A shadow dimmed the moonlight coming through the windows set high on the walls. He glanced up, saw movement along the wall.

  A serpent?

  No! He realized, too late, what he’d seen was the quickly disappearing end of a rope being retrieved from outside. He opened his mouth to shout an alarm, thought better of it, and charged toward Dara’s room.

  He burst through the curtains in an low crouch, knife ready.

  Dara struggled to his feet. “What is this?”

  Thinking the assassins might have come in through the wrong window, and were even now readying themselves to strike, Salim rushed past Dara to the closest window.

  “Salim?” Dara asked, then answered his own question: “Salim. What is going on?”

  He heard scrabbling, realized Dara was trying to arm himself. He looked out without answering, saw no one but the guards.