1636: Mission to the Mughals

by Eric Flint

  Nur had almost succeeded when Roshanara said something that snagged at consciousness.

  She opened her eyes, looked at the younger woman. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Roshanara asked.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Oh…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you by bringing it up again, but I was just wondering aloud whether I should ask Mullah Mohan to help us find poor Gargi’s murderer.”

  It took every ounce of the self control Nur had learned in three decades of harem politics to just settle back into the bath instead of clutching Roshanara in her hands, dragging her face to face and shaking the information out of her. When she was certain her voice would not betray her, she said, “Oh, I think you should.”

  “I don’t know…” Roshanara gave a dismissive wave that was such a such close copy of her mother’s and, more recently, Jahanara’s manner, it sent chills running down Nur’s spine. “Father won’t be happy if he learns I am in communication with Mohan.”

  “Perhaps, but then your father may also be disposed to think more kindly of Mullah Mohan if presented with the information needed to capture the murderer. When he asks you the source, you can reveal Mohan’s role, improving both your reputation and his.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Nur let Roshanara ruminate, carefully reining in her desire to push, and was rewarded after a few minutes: “If you think it will help?”

  “I think it might help both parties come to understanding, even if Mohan does not reveal the murderer.”

  “Then I shall write him this afternoon.”

  “I am sure he will be a great help. How soon do you think he can respond?”

  “Tomorrow, though I doubt he will discover anything so quickly.”

  Still in Agra, then, just as Gargi thought. A fresh pang of loss stabbed her. She would need to set someone to follow her messengers.

  She let Roshanara prattle for a while, the warm waters easing sore joints, if not her wounded heart.

  Eventually, concerned she would nod off, Nur climbed from the bathing pool. “I am ready to retire, Roshanara. I thank you for your company. We should spend more time together.”

  “I would like that. I know Aurangzeb would, too.” She leaned in close, whispered, “He told me to give you his regards.”

  Nur forced a smile through her surprise. “I see. Return mine to him, if you will.”

  “I will. Rest well, Nur Jahan.”

  Nur nodded as the princess left her quarters. So Aurangzeb had enlisted Roshanara to his side. She was not as able, perhaps, as her elder sister, but he was wise to make certain of as many ears at court as possible.

  “Tara,” she called.

  Gargi’s lieutenant appeared, bowed. “Yes, mistress?”

  “You now have charge of my household. Your first act is to tell Vimal I require his presence.”

  “Yes, mistress.” Tara bowed but lingered.

  “What is it?”

  “Permission to approach, mistress?”

  Impatiently, Nur waved the woman forward.

  Tara leaned close, the scent of Nur’s own attar of roses strong on her person. She spoke quietly into Nur’s ear, voice husky with suppressed rage: “Are we to avenge my mother, mistress?”

  Nur, turning her head to meet Tara’s gaze, angry eye to angry eye, said simply: “You may rely on it, Tara.”

  Chapter 37

  Red Fort, Agra

  December 1635

  “Ah, ici t’est, ma fille!” Papa’s use of their native French was planned, no doubt, to throw any listeners off.

  “I have been here all year, Papa,” Monique answered in the same language, marveling at how she missed using it.

  He cast a reproving look her way. “No need for a piquant tongue so early in the morning.”

  “Really, Papa? Are you the one who’s locked up?”

  “No, but that’s why I wanted to visit.”

  “Should I even hope for good news?”

  He shook his head regretfully.

  “You should know, I’m contemplating getting married just for a change of scenery.”

  He looked at her, eyes wild.

  “A joke, Papa,” she said, surprised at the intensity of his reaction.

  “Not funny.” He shook his head. “As to the news I have: I fear it could be better.”

  “Tell me, Papa. I’m a big girl.”

  “We were lucky that our construction site for Mission House survived the rioting relatively intact, but we’re having trouble finding people to continue the work.”

  “Really? You don’t have to lie, you can just tell me if you don’t think it safe for us to live there…”

  “There is that, as well, and it’s a real issue I’ll want to see addressed before we depart the emperor’s direct protection. But the thing about the workers is true, and while the site survived intact, there was some damage and theft. Besides which, between the riots and the emperor’s projects like the Taj, there’s a dearth of labor for any project. Add to that the fear they might get beaten or harassed for having worked for Christians, and the labor market is even smaller.”

  “Beaten?”

  “Things are very unstable. Religious animosity and intolerance is running high just now.”

  “That hasn’t been my experience at court.”

  “That’s just it: it’s not the powerful at court instigating this, it’s the common people settling scores across religious lines.”

  “I’m not questioning your conclusions, Papa, I’m merely saying the court isn’t reflecting what’s going on out there.”

  “Nobles are always inclined to their own self-interest.”

  Meaning they suppressed their religious bias in order to keep their position in the pecking order. Aloud, she said, “I’m not sure there isn’t some real blindness going on as well.”

  “Blindness?”

  “They’re all so caught up in their own politicking,” she waved at the limits of the enclosure, “they can’t see what’s going on just outside their walls.”

  “That may be so, but the court is still in control of the military and the treasury, and it doesn’t look like Shah Jahan’s grip is going to slip from either of those.”

  “I agree, but I think someone must be pulling strings among the commoners.”

  Gervais nodded, considering. “Mullah Mohan, the one who was stripped of his titles and booted from the court seems a likely suspect to me. Salim said he was a bit of a darling among the common Muslims.”

  “Anyone ask Salim what Mohan’s up to now?”

  “I haven’t, no.”

  “Might be a good idea to ask, no?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’ll ask Sahana and, if I get a private moment, Jahanara.”

  Papa cocked an eyebrow. “You talk a great deal of Jahanara and Nadira, but I rarely hear mention of Roshanara or Nur Jahan.”

  “Nur keeps to herself, mostly, though she’s been around a lot more since her servant was killed.”

  “The one that touched off the riots, right?”

  “Yes. As to Roshanara…To be honest, she’s been rude and unpleasant to each of us.”

  Gervais glanced around.

  She sighed again. “I know better than to say that where someone could overhear us, Papa.”

  “Still, it’s always good to be careful.”

  “And I am.”

  “Any idea what motivates her attitudes toward you?”

  “You mean beyond being a spoiled child in a woman’s body?”

  “My, I hadn’t realized she’d made such an impression.”

  Monique ran fingers through her hair, considering her reactions. Was Roshanara really that bad?

  No, not really…

  Then what is it that irks me so about her?

  She sighed. “Harem life, it infects me, too. I’m becoming petty and spiteful.”

  “You sure?”

  “Well, to a degree. She is rude to ever
yone.”

  “And her motive?”

  “Spoiled bitch too easy for your suspicious sensibilities, then?”

  Papa just looked at her.

  “All right. She seems as devout as the rest, but not in any way that makes her stand out, so I doubt she harbors some severe religious bias against us.”

  “And how is she around Nadira Begum?”

  “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen them together at all, except on formal occasions.”

  “And with Jahanara?”

  “The…same, more or less. I don’t think she can avoid Jahanara as easily, since she runs the show in the harem. Every time they are together, Roshanara seems eager to upstage Jahanara.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep talking, Papa. Actually saying things out loud is helping me work out exactly what my thoughts are, if you take my meaning?”

  “Of course. It’s like our old skull sessions while we planned a swindle…” He paused to take her hand. “Ma chèrie, I really am sorry about the living arrangements.”

  “Well, there’s no cure for it but to put one foot before the other, so to speak.”

  The Deccan

  Aurangzeb sat his horse and watched the clash between his mounted archers and those of the child-sultan of Ahmednagar.

  Arrows flew, dust and blood spurted, men and horses fell, the screams taking a heartbeat to reach his position on the hill opposite.

  Screaming must be the one universal of battle, he decided, whether the battle be between beasts of the field or men. The dull thud of one of the Ahmednagari cannons on the ridge overlooking the field punctuated the thought.

  The cannonball bounced from the hard earth and caromed through a knot of Aurangzeb’s horse, spraying blood and flesh over their compatriots, who, despite their losses, continued loosing arrows into the opposing cavalry.

  “Shehzada, their guns have the superior position,” Carvalho cautioned as another of the foe’s guns belched dirty smoke and deadly round shot. “Unless your cavalry can clear that ridge, they will take any thrust up the valley under fire, breaking it.”

  Another cannon spoke.

  Taking his eyes from the rising smoke and dust in front of the opposing guns, Aurangzeb glanced at the Portuguese mercenary. “I know.”

  “But—”

  “I am aware, Carvalho.” More men died under the guns. “Go to your men and prepare the oxen. You will be expected to occupy that ridge with your guns in one hour.”

  Returning his attention to the smoke and dust clouds blowing back across the ridge-line, Aurangzeb judged the time had come. He turned and nodded to one of the messengers held against this moment. The man rode off as if shot from one of the cannon, dirt spurting from beneath his horse’s hooves.

  He looked again at Carvalho, who had yet to leave.

  The artillerist, clearly inclined to argue, snapped his mouth closed on meeting Aurangzeb’s eye. He nodded, said, “Yes, Shehzada,” and turned his horse back the way they’d come, down the hill and to his heavy guns.

  Aurangzeb watched the man ride away. No horseman by Mughal standards, Carvalho was an accomplished artillerist and was able to tell, quite accurately, what cannon could do—both his and those of Ahmednagar. Of course, Ahmednagar had hired its own mercenary gunners. Probably men known to Carvalho himself.

  When he was emperor, Aurangzeb meant to ensure they were not dependent on Europeans for such expertise. In fact, today he hoped to take the first steps to prove they could handle their own gunnery.

  A bawling ruckus erupted from the left as Aurangzeb’s camel corps moved forward behind the screen of horse archers. Most of the time, camels were disagreeable animals of limited use in the line of battle. While they could carry significantly greater loads and didn’t require a fraction of the water horses did, they were also slower, harder to train properly, and tended to extreme obstinacy even when not panicked.

  All of which Aurangzeb hoped he’d allowed for in his battle plan.

  After a few minutes, some hundred of the camel riders on the flanks of the corps slowed and came to a stop. Dismounting, they made their camels kneel side-on to the Ahmednagari lines and aimed very long muskets across the backs of their mounts. They started firing at the enemy cavalry even as the central riders continued another twenty or thirty gaz closer, almost into the rear of Aurangzeb’s mounted archers. Once there, they too dismounted and turned their camels side on, before making them kneel and hobbling them. Rather than muskets, they instead pulled back the leather covers on gaz-length, heavy brass pieces, pintle-mounted on the backs of their mounts.

  Zamburak were by no means new, but Aurangzeb hoped deploying them as close as possible and under the covering fire of the marksmen on either flank, combined with the poor visibility caused by the dust of the earlier engagement would keep them alive long enough to fire en masse, maximizing the impact of the forty-eight small pieces against the dozen heavy guns the Bijapuri had on the ridge.

  Aurangzeb nodded to his signaler, who passed the order. After a long, bloody time, the horsemen began to withdraw, many loosing a last arrow before galloping headlong toward Aurangzeb’s lines.

  In the dust and confusion left behind, the Ahmednagari could not see the zamburak. While they no doubt heard the gunfire when Aurangzeb’s long-musket men started shooting, their fire only occasionally emptied a saddle.

  Indeed, from their ululating cries, the Ahmednagari were beginning to celebrate their victory.

  As soon as the majority of Aurangzeb’s riders had cleared the lines of the zamburaks, the small field pieces fired in a long, rippling crash, each brass gun throwing one pound shot up the slope and into the dusty heart of the Ahmednagari lines.

  Horses and men screamed as bodies and parts of bodies flew. Dust clouds rose and concealed the carnage. A lone horse galloped out of the dust, trailing the arm of its rider by the reins.

  The thick, dirty-wool smoke of their firing blew uphill into their target’s faces as the camel gunners leapt up and began reloading.

  Aurangzeb stood in the saddle but couldn’t see whether the Ahmednagari guns were out of action.

  The dust and smoke slowly settled, revealing a low mound of ruined flesh, horses and men, in a shallow crescent just below the enemy guns.

  Their screening cavalry was gone as an effective force.

  He scanned the gun line, saw movement: a gun captain lowering the match to his piece. An instant later the cannon bellowed. The ball struck the ground ten paces before the camel corps and bounced once, twice, three times without striking a single one of Aurangzeb’s sowar.

  God is with us.

  He gestured for two messengers, telling the first: “After the next volley, Mahabat Khan is to strike up the ridge and overrun the guns. Once he has made certain they are out of action, he is to assist Samarjit Khan’s main assault, forming up on his left flank.”

  He turned to the other: “Samarjit Khan is to lead his Rajputs straight up the valley floor and at the enemy. I will take the right.”

  The faces of both messengers were stretched in feral grins as they salaamed, turned and put heels to horses.

  Aurangzeb returned his attention to the field as the camel corps’ musket men resumed firing. The zamburakchi were ramming shot home atop fresh-laid gunpowder charges.

  Another enemy cannon belched fire and smoke, the large ball harmlessly burying itself in the ground a few gaz in front of the closest camel.

  The fastest of the zamburakchi swiveled their pieces to bear on the enemy but waited at their guns. That was good. Aurangzeb had not known if they would manage to keep to this new discipline of massed shooting while under fire. It was much more devastating to the spirit of the enemy and better for accuracy, what with the breeze at their backs.

  The last of the zamburakchi had his piece ready to fire just as the third of the Ahmednagari guns spoke. This time, Aurangzeb’s forces were not so lucky; the ball crashed through two teams of men and camel
s before rolling the rest of the way down the slope.

  The remaining massed zamburak fired in answer, devastating the enemy gunners. Starting with just one or two men, they quickly became a mob as they broke and fled their position.

  “Praise God,” Aurangzeb said, carefully concealing the unseemly satisfaction that flooded through him.

  Now, God willing, Bijapur and Shah Shuja.

  Red Fort, Agra

  It required some planning, but Monique managed to arrange some time in which to be alone with Sahana. The girl was returning from her daily report to Diwan Firoz Khan, walking across the balcony when Monique called out to her in English. “Sahana, do you have a moment?”

  “Of course, Monique.” Sahana seemed to enjoy being on a first-name basis with the women of the mission, and Monique’s name seemed to roll off her tongue with special relish.

  Monique gestured at the cushion opposite her. “I have a question for you.”

  The young girl lowered herself onto the offered seat and looked at Monique with her lovely, bright eyes. “Yes, Monique?”

  Lowering her voice, Monique asked, “What do you think of Roshanara Begum?”

  “I do not know what you mean…” Sahana said, looking away.

  And there is an answer in and of itself.

  “Please, Sahana, I would have your thoughts. I will guard them like my own,” she added, lowering her voice even further.

  The young slave girl looked at the chess board for a long while. So long, in fact, that Monique opened her mouth to ask once more when Sahana cut her off: “It is very dangerous for me to speak so, but…Roshanara is not my mistress, and therefore I do her no disservice, only do as you ask by informing you of her reputation: Roshanara is not liked by her servants. Most especially those of us who are not Muslim.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She looks for things to punish us for, sometimes even breaking things intentionally so that she can later blame servants…And, it is rumored among the slaves and servants that once, when Shah Jahan found her drunk, Roshanara blamed her body-slave for giving her the drink, claiming the girl had lied to her, that it was not wine Roshanara Begum drank, but some other elixir.”