1636: Mission to the Mughals

by Eric Flint

  By the time he was rolling his prayer rug up, the Rajputs and Catholics under his command were rapidly reducing the tiny hilltop fortress to a corpse-strewn ruin.

  Chapter 36

  Agra, Along the Waterfront

  November 1635

  Gargi bent close to the eldest of the washer-women at work along the Yamuna. “I seek word of Mullah Mohan.”

  The woman, squatting on her haunches and pausing at her laundry, looked Gargi up and down. “You are not welcome here.”

  “I know. I have coin.”

  “Not enough to make you welcome, infidel.”

  Gargi bit off an angry retort and climbed from the step-sided riverbank where the women gathered to wash. She paused in the shade of a building to catch her breath, contemplating her next move. Nur had come to Agra to pray at the mosque, giving Gargi opportunity to inquire about town. As no other could be trusted with the task, Gargi had spent the better part of the day attempting to fulfill the need for direct intelligence on the whereabouts of Mullah Mohan.

  The washer-woman’s response had been typical, if more polite than some of those she’d had from Agra’s Muslim population. Because she was Hindu, none of them would talk to her, though their resentment confirmed an awareness of Mohan’s sentence, at least.

  No doubt the man had hidden himself well enough that Gargi, with her limited resources and incorrect religion, would not likely find him. At least not today.

  Sighing, Gargi left the riverside and turned her footsteps in the direction of the mosque Nur Jahan patronized.

  A few minutes later she rounded a corner and ran into a man who smelled of camels. Preoccupied, she opened her mouth to apologize but he punched her, hard, in the side.

  Gargi grunted and, outraged, looked the man in the eye. She saw the hate there, the mad anger, and wondered at it even as she felt him punch her again, harder, in the belly.

  She tried to shout but he hit her once again, knocking the breath from her lungs.

  She folded her hands across her belly protectively, felt a hot, sticky wetness. He struck her again, this time on the left side, just below the rib cage.

  Raising her hands, she was surprised to find them bloody. What? She thought, stupidly. Stabbed? He stabbed me!

  She turned to run, wobbled on suddenly weak legs.

  Another dagger-blow sent her bouncing off a basket and into the arms of another man.

  Nur, oh, Nur, I cannot fail you…

  Gargi tried to stand, but her knees wouldn’t carry her weight.

  Things came in flashes, then: the man who caught her slowing her fall, his eyes widening with concern, his mouth gone wider still as he shouted for help. And, finally, darkness as the earth reached up and pulled her close.

  Agra

  “What the hell is that?” Ricky asked, getting up from the table and sauntering over to the wine-sink’s arched doorway.

  Bertram held his breath and listened. Lots of people were shouting. And…was that the sound of steel on steel?

  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound good.”

  Bobby put his cup down. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Ricky returned, his expression grave. “Lots of angry shouting, some dust, and what might be smoke from a fire on the north side of town.”

  “Horses,” Bertram said, climbing to his feet and tossing a rupee down on the counter.

  “Will do. Get Randy.”

  Bertram cursed. He hadn’t seen where Randy went. “Where—”

  Bobby pointed at one of the upper floor rooms. “With that girl he keeps dragging us here to see.”

  “Christ.”

  “No, not really.”

  “I didn’t even want to come here, damn it,” Bertram muttered, mounting the stair. He wouldn’t have, either, if the other men hadn’t insisted. He only ended up drinking too much of what passed for wine here while the rest of them consorted with the prostitutes.

  He was behaving foolishly, perhaps. Monique had never once said she was interested in him, so why should Bertram imagine her face tighten with disapproval? And now every time he even thought about hiring a woman to share his bed, it was Monique he saw, looking angry.

  The guard who normally kept nonpaying customers off the second floor just nodded at Bertram as he headed downstairs to see for himself what the growing noise outside was about.

  Bertram knocked, loud and long, on the door.

  “What?”

  “Trouble. Get your things. We’re leaving.”

  “What?”

  “Get your things. We are leaving.”

  Some muffled talk from the other side of the door, then footsteps. It swung wide to reveal a disheveled and shirtless Randy. “What’s so damned important?”

  “A riot in the streets that sounds like it’s coming this way. The others sent me to get you while they ready the horses.” Bertram avoided looking at the naked woman sitting up in bed.

  Randy stepped past Bertram, looked over the rail and saw the empty common room. Bertram’s report thus confirmed, he retreated into the bedroom and started stomping into his boots.

  Once he had them on, Randy bent over the woman and, using remarkably passable Persian, said, “Trishna, I’ll be back to see you soon.”

  She smiled, pulling him close to kiss him.

  “Come on!” Bobby shouted from outside.

  “Coming!” Randy and Bertram shouted in unison.

  “Bertram, Catch.”

  Bertram turned back to face the younger man, barely getting his hands up in time to catch the pistol the up-timer tossed his direction. Catching it, Bertram led the way downstairs and out into the mid-afternoon sun.

  Randy still hadn’t got his shirt all the way on by the time their respective horses’ reins were being slapped in their hands.

  Ricky pointed at the brothel-owner, who was ordering his men to stand by the gate to his establishment and handing them big bamboo sticks. “He says some woman was murdered down by the river. Some of the Hindus are already tearing shit up, either looking for the killer or just getting their mad out.”

  “Which way do we go?” Bobby half-shouted. He had to, the noise was getting a lot closer.

  “Away from the river, I think, and then to the nearest gate.”

  “Khan’s Gate?”

  “Yes!” Bertram said, struggling to control his horse. He smelled the smoke that spooked it a moment later.

  Bobby let out a strange yip and yelled, “Let’s ride, boys!”

  Together they fled, Bobby and Ricky leading off. Randy—shirt tails flapping in the breeze—and Bertram brought up the rear. For the first time in Bertram’s experience the streets of Agra were nearly empty. Bazaar vendors were the only people abroad, and even they were hurriedly putting up their wares.

  “What was that weird noise Bobby made?”

  “I think he was trying for a rebel yell.”

  “Are we rebelling?”

  “Nope, just something out of westerns.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know, six guns and Indians.”

  “No, I don’t know. Sounded to me like a choking hyena.”

  “Yeah, needs a lot of work before he embarrasses us all with it again.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” Bobby said over his shoulder, face red.

  They had to slow as they negotiated a turn, silencing them momentarily. The wall was much closer now.

  “Yup, just like we were all forced to hear your strangled cat impression,” Ricky quipped as they cleared the corner and picked up the pace again.

  “C’mon, guys, how often do we get to shout famous lines from movies?”

  Randy snorted. “You mean ruin ’em?”

  “Aww, C’mon! Like you could do better, Randy!”

  “Wouldn’t even try, not if I had a voice like yours.”

  Bobby went an alarming shade of red while the others laughed.

  “Right turn ahead, I think.”

  “Yeah, Khan Gate is just a few blocks over fro
m there,” Bertram agreed.

  They again slowed to make a turn, but couldn’t speed up once clear of it. Traffic had increased here, farther from the incident and closer to the choke point of the gate, forcing them to keep the horses at a walk.

  Bertram looked over his shoulder and watched as word of the riot spread through the crowd in their wake like an angry wave.

  “Heads up,” Ricky said.

  Bertram looked ahead, marked the distance they had to cover before reaching the gate, and cursed silently. Getting through the narrow gateway would quickly become problematic if the crowd panicked or, more likely, turned into an angry mob.

  Looking above the crowd before the gate, he saw the guards watching.

  One of them—a commander, from his fine robe—started giving orders.

  “We need to move, gentlemen, things are about to get ugly.”

  “Can’t go any faster, Bert, not without causing a panic.”

  He hated it when they called him that! As if everyone liked having their name truncated to some overly familiar diminutive. Bad enough they had all these short names that end in “Y.” It made Bertram feel like he was reading lists in Spanish: Gordo y flaco, arroz y pollo, Bob y Rand y Rick y…

  Focus, Bertram!

  More guardsmen were forming up on the ramparts, bows in hand. They didn’t look inclined to pick their targets, either.

  “Shit,” Randy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Got yours?” Ricky asked Bobby.

  “I do.”

  Bertram opened his mouth to ask what they were on about and caught sight of the revolver in Bobby’s hand.

  “All right. Don’t shoot unless—”

  “Don’t shoot at all!” Bertram hissed, “Even if it gets us out of here, it’ll trigger a massacre!”

  Ricky turned to look at him. “What do you want to do?”

  “Keep pressing forward at the walk. I think we can make—”

  Shouts, then screams came from the avenue they’d entered on.

  Bertram looked over his shoulder, saw the crowd behind them shift from milling clumps of individuals into angry, opposing mobs, and saw the first weapons appear, the first stones cast.

  “Fuck it! Ride!” Bobby shouted.

  More sensitive to the rising atmosphere of violence than any human, his horse was already moving away from the threat when Bertram touched heels to its flanks.

  The people between the gate and the mob started running in every direction. Some right into the path of the riders, only to be tossed aside.

  Bertram glanced back in time to be hit, hard, in the shoulder. Bouncing from his shoulder, the rock clipped his lip. Surprised more than hurt, he swayed a bit in the saddle, making his mount swerve into Randy’s path.

  Though a relatively inexperienced rider, Randy was an excellent athlete in his prime. The young up-timer pulled his boot from the stirrup before Bertram and his horse collided with his own.

  Bertram screamed as his leg absorbed the majority of the impact. He managed to keep his seat, barely, as they pounded through the gateway and free of the city.

  They rode a few hundred yards free of the gate, Bertram grunting in pain with each jarring step.

  “Guys, Bert’s hurt.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Bertram yelled, cold sweat popping from every pore.

  Randy’s brows shot up. “What, Bert?”

  “Yes! I am not some love interest of yours! Don’t shorten my name like you want to whisper it in my ear!”

  “Okay, Bertram. Just relax.”

  “I will not! Anger is the only thing keeping me in the saddle just now. God, this hurts!”

  Randy glanced down.

  “Don’t even look at it!” Bertram snapped, worried the leg had been ripped free.

  The up-timer held up his hands. “All right, Jesus! Just so you know, it doesn’t look broken.”

  “Oh, so I’m being a—what is it you call it, a ‘wimpie’?”

  All three of his companions laughed.

  “What?” he barked.

  Randy eventually wiped his eyes and said, between chuckles. “Wimp, not wimpie. And, no, no one’s calling you a wimp, not after getting the mother of all charley horses.”

  “Would you please, please, speak like a normal person for once!”

  More laughter.

  Randy tried again after a while. “The injury you just took, when the meat of a thigh is pulled or hit by something heavy, we call it a charley horse. No one is going to say shit about how tough you are, not when they see the monster bruise you’ll be sporting tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you were right. Shooting our way out would have been stupid.”

  “Oh?”

  “The guard commander, he held fire till we were out of the way, then had his men fire.”

  “Loose,” Bertram corrected the up-timer without thinking. “You loose a bow, not fire—”

  The mocking laughter of his friends didn’t exactly make him feel any better, but joining it did take his mind off the throbbing of his leg.

  Aurangzeb’s camp, the Deccan

  “Shahaji himself? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Shehzada. He was recognized by three men who served with him before,” Mahabat Khan said.

  “And was he taken captive or killed by these sowar who were so close they recognized him?”

  “Sadly, no, Shehzada. The Marathas escaped into the hills by ways we did not know.”

  “And made off with a healthy quantity of our supplies in the process, I presume?” Aurangzeb asked, hiding his displeasure. The local frontier governor, Mahabat, had been asking his father for an army to expand the empire into the lands but lightly claimed since the death of Malik Ambar. When two armies were delivered, though under the command of royal princes, he had promptly decided to attach himself to Aurangzeb’s force. He had proven an able subordinate, providing useful intelligence on the various factions at play, but his forces had yet to prove their worth.

  To his credit, Mahabat did not flinch from the truth. “They destroyed more than they made off with, but essentially correct, Shehzada.”

  Aurangzeb struggled to keep his calm mask in place. The last month had proven difficult. It seemed as if a party of Maratha horsemen was hidden every few kos, avoiding contact with his main force and emerging only to harry and carve bleeding chunks out of his lines of communication and supply.

  “The guns are safe?”

  “Yes, Shehzada. This attack was directed against our food supplies.”

  “Something we can ill-afford. Already the men suffer.”

  “Yes, Shehzada. Willingly, Shehzada, for they know the rightness of your cause, and would punish these Shi’a and their Hindu lap-dogs.”

  Aurangzeb was glad Samarjit Khan was not there. His Rajput pride would surely be stung by this one’s contempt.

  The thought was stopped by the glimmer of an idea, smoldering in one corner of his mind. He let it be, fearful he would smother it by seizing on it too swiftly, and was rewarded with an even better idea.

  He considered the gambit from several angles, decided it was worth trying, and said: “These men, the ones who know Shahaji on sight: I would to speak to them.”

  “Your will, Shehzada.”

  Aurangzeb spent the next little while stretching his idea, found it could encircle a great many useful things and possibly turn them to advantage.

  “And send me my swiftest messenger, pen and ink.”

  “Your will, Shehzada.”

  Agra, Red Fort, Nur’s Quarters

  At first Nur Jahan wept for loss, then for pain, and finally she wept with a rage that burned so hot it dried all tears.

  I will make him pay for this.

  Overcoming joints grown stiff from too long spent kneeling beside her oldest and best companion, Nur stood. Unsteadily, she turned and, for the last time, left Gargi’s side.

  She took two steps and stopped. Shockingly, the other ladies of the harem were a
rrayed in a half circle about her, ready to offer what solace they could.

  Jahanara, sitting slightly forward of the rest, rose and joined her. “Nur, I am sorry for your loss. She was true to her salt, and served you well.”

  Nur, struggling to find her voice, hated having to look away before she could master it. “My thanks. You need not have stayed with me.”

  “And ignore your grief at the murder of one of our own harem servants? I could not do so.”

  Nur was too raw and exhausted to keep the suspicion off her face.

  Jahanara tactfully ignored the look. “Father wished me to ask: do you know of anyone who would do this?”

  “No,” Nur lied. Her vengeance would be personal, and accomplished at her instigation, not the emperor’s.

  Jahanara nodded. It had to be the answer she had expected, after all. “Now the rioting has been put down, Father has launched a full investigation.”

  Nur nodded. “Good.” She gestured at her ruined silks. “I must bathe and rest.” And because she appreciated the form, if not the motive, of Jahanara’s respectful presence: “I thank you for remaining with me while I was lost to grief.”

  Jahanara waved a dismissive hand. “I know you would do the same, had I lost Smidha.”

  Nur, unable to detect any irony in Jahanara’s tone, marveled at how proficient her grandniece had become at concealing her true thoughts.

  “Can Father’s household offer you any assistance?”

  “Again, my thanks, but no. I will bathe and rest now, and let the attendants…” she swallowed against the knot that formed in her throat, “see to Gargi.”

  “As you wish, Nur Jahan. We are,” she gestured at the other ladies of the harem, “all of us, at your service should you desire it.”

  Nur nodded, which Roshanara must have taken for a desire for the offered help. The young princess rushed forward, murmuring condolences and taking her by the arm.

  Nur allowed herself to be led to her bath, her thoughts grinding slow and hateful.

  I told Gargi it was too soon to investigate Mohan, but she said we had to know. Oh, how I wish I had not relented! Just as I told her to be careful and take a guardian, but I let her refuse me.

  Why, God, could you not have extended her your protection?

  Roshanara kept up a constant stream of patter even as the slaves removed Nur’s clothes and settled her into the bath. She lay back, concentrating on her breathing and nothing else.