Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne Read online

  EMPIRE OF THE MOGHUL: THE TAINTED THRONE

  Alex Rutherford

  Copyright © 2012 Alex Rutherford

  The right of Alex Rutherford to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by Alex Rutherford in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 8328 3

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

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  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Also by Alex Rutherford

  About the Book

  Map

  Main Characters

  Part I: Sun Among Women

  Chapter 1: Blood in the Sand

  Chapter 2: The Assassin

  Chapter 3: The Widow

  Chapter 4: The Imperial Haram

  Chapter 5: The Meena Bazaar

  Chapter 6: The Executioner’s Sword

  Chapter 7: Absolution

  Chapter 8: ‘Light of the Palace’

  Chapter 9: Life and Death

  Chapter 10: ‘Lord of the World’

  Chapter 11: The Red Velvet Coach

  Chapter 12: The Poison Pen

  Chapter 13: The Abyssinian

  Chapter 14: The Enemy Within

  Chapter 15: The Homecoming

  Part II: Outcasts

  Chapter 16: Asirgarh

  Chapter 17: The Outlaw

  Chapter 18: The Kindness of Strangers

  Chapter 19: The Messenger

  Chapter 20: The Price

  Chapter 21: The Opportunist

  Chapter 22: River of Blood

  Chapter 23: A Parting of the Ways

  Chapter 24: The Funeral Cortège

  Chapter 25: The Sins of the Father

  Chapter 26: The Peacock Throne

  Historical Note

  Additional Notes

  Alex Rutherford lives in London. Raiders from the North, Brothers at War and Ruler of the World were the first three novels in the Empire of the Moghul series; this is the fourth.

  By Alex Rutherford and available from Headline Review

  Empire of the Moghul: Raiders from the North

  Empire of the Moghul: Brothers at War

  Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World

  Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

  About the Book

  Agra, India, 1606. Jahangir, the triumphant ruler of most of the Indian subcontinent, is doomed. No amount of wealth and ruthlessness – and as the Moghul Emperor he has plenty of both – can protect him from his sons’ desire for power, at any cost. The glorious Moghul throne, its unimaginable wealth and millions of subjects, is worth any amount of bloodshed and betrayal; it drives son against father and brother against brother, whose acts of horrific violence are only matched by mind-boggling deceit. Once Jahangir raised troops against his own father. Now he faces a bloody battle with Khurram, the ablest of his warring sons.

  Worse is to come. Just as the heirs of Timur the Great share intelligence, physical strength and utter ruthlessness, they also have a great weakness for wine and opium. Once Jahangir is tempted, his talented wife, Mehrunissa, is only too willing to take up the reins of empire. Perhaps a little too willing; she’ll stop at nothing, not even seizing Khurram’s young sons, to keep the throne in her grip. And with Khurram and his half-brothers each still determined to be their father’s heir, the savage battle for the Moghul throne will be more ferocious than even Timur could have imagined.

  Main Characters

  Jahangir’s family

  Akbar, Jahangir’s father and the third Moghul emperor

  Humayun, Jahangir’s grandfather and the second Moghul emperor

  Hamida, Jahangir’s grandmother

  Kamran, Jahangir’s great-uncle

  Askari, Jahangir’s great-uncle

  Hindal, Jahangir’s great-uncle

  Murad, Jahangir’s brother

  Daniyal, Jahangir’s brother

  Khusrau, Jahangir’s eldest son

  Parvez, Jahangir’s second son

  Khurram (later the Emperor Shah Jahan), Jahangir’s third son

  Shahriyar, Jahangir’s youngest son

  Man Bai, Jahangir’s wife and mother of Khusrau

  Jodh Bai, Jahangir’s wife and mother of Khurram

  Sahib Jamal, Jahangir’s wife and mother of Parvez

  Mehrunissa (also known as Nur Mahal and Nur Jahan), Jahangir’s last wife

  Mehrunissa’s family

  Ladli, Mehrunissa’s daughter by Sher Afghan

  Ghiyas Beg, Imperial Treasurer and Mehrunissa’s father

  Asmat, mother of Mehrunissa and her brothers

  Asaf Khan, commander of the Agra garrison and Mehrunissa’s elder brother

  Mir Khan, Mehrunissa’s younger brother

  Arjumand Banu, Mehrunissa’s niece, Asaf Khan’s daughter and wife of Khurram (Shah Jahan)

  Sher Afghan, commander of the garrison at Gaur in Bengal, Mehrunissa’s first husband

  Jahangir’s commanders, governors and courtiers

  Suleiman Beg, Jahangir’s milk-brother

  Ali Khan, Governor of Mandu

  Iqbal Beg, a senior commander in the Deccan

  Mahabat Khan, a Persian and one of Jahangir’s leading generals

  Majid Khan, Jahangir’s vizier and chronicler

  Yar Muhammad, Governor of Gwalior

  Dara Shukoh, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) eldest son

  Shah Shujah, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) second son

  Aurangzeb, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) third son

  Murad Bakhsh, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) youngest son

  Jahanara, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) elder daughter

  Roshanara, Khurram’s (Shah Jahan’s) younger daughter

  In the imperial haram

  Mala, khawajasara, superintendent, of the imperial haram

  Fatima Begam, a widow of the Emperor Akbar

  Nadya, Fatima Begam’s maid

  Salla, Mehrunissa’s Armenian lady-in-waiting

  Khurram’s circle

  Azam Bahksh, one of Akbar’s aged former commanders

  Kamran Iqbal, one of Khurram’s commanders

  Walid Beg, one of Khurram’s gunnery commanders

  Others

  Aziz Koka, adherent of Khusrau

  Hassan Jamal, adherent of Khusrau

  Malik Ambar, former Abyssinian slave and now commander of the armies of the Deccan sultanates against the Moghuls

  Shaikh Salim Chishti, a Sufi mystic, and his son, also a Sufi.

  Foreigners in the Moghul empire

  Bartholomew Hawkins, English soldier and adventurer

  Father Ronaldo, a Portuguese priest

  Sir Thomas Roe, English ambassador to the Moghul court

  Nicholas Ballantyne, squire to Sir Thomas Roe

  Part I

  Sun Among Women

  Chapter 1
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br />   Blood in the Sand

  Northwest Hindustan, spring 1606

  Jahangir ducked out from beneath the awning of his scarlet command tent and in the half-light peered towards the ridge where the forces of his eldest son Khusrau were encamped. Beneath the clear skies the early morning in the semi-desert was chill. Even at this distance Jahangir could see figures moving around, some carrying flaring torches. Here and there cooking fires had been lit. Banners were silhouetted against the rising dawn in front of a large tent on the very crest of the ridge, presumably Khusrau’s personal quarters. As he watched, a sudden sadness as chill as the morning air ran through Jahangir. How had matters come to this? Why would he face his son in battle today?

  Only five months ago, following the death of his father Akbar, everything he had wanted for so long had finally become his. He had been proclaimed Moghul emperor – the fourth of the dynasty. Jahangir, the name he had chosen to reign under, meant ‘Seizer of the World’. What a feeling it was to be master of an empire stretching from the mountains of Baluchistan in the west to the swamps of Bengal in the east and from the saffron fields of Kashmir in the north to the parched red plateau of the Deccan in the south. The lives of one hundred million people were subject to him and he subject to none.

  As he had stepped out on to the jharoka balcony of the Agra fort to show himself to his people for the first time as emperor, and heard the roars of acclamation rising from the crowds cramming the banks of the Jumna river below, it had seemed incredible that his father was dead. Akbar had brushed aside difficulties and dangers to create a rich and magnificent empire. Just as Jahangir felt he had never fully won Akbar’s love nor lived up to his expectations during his life, suddenly he had doubted whether he could do so after his death. But, closing his eyes, he had made a silent promise. You have bequeathed me wealth and power. I will prove worthy of you. I will protect and build on what you and our forefathers created. The very act of making the vow had renewed his confidence.

  But then only weeks later had come the blow, struck not by a stranger but by his own eighteen-year-old son. Treason – and the climate of distrust it created – was always ugly, but how much worse when the instigator was his offspring. The Moghuls had often been their own greatest enemy, fighting one another when they should have been united. He could not, would not, allow the pattern to repeat itself and now, at the start of his reign, he would demonstrate how seriously he took familial disloyalty and how swiftly and utterly he would crush it.

  In the past few weeks nothing had mattered except closing the gap between his own forces and those of his son. Late the previous evening he and his army had caught up with Khusrau and encircled the ridge on which he was encamped. The more he thought of his son’s treachery, the more a visceral anger surged through him, and he ground his heel into the sandy earth. Suddenly he was aware of his milk-brother Suleiman Beg at his side. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded, his tone harsh with pent-up emotion.

  ‘Hearing the latest reports from our scouts who got close to Khusrau’s camp during the night.’

  ‘What do they say, then? Has my son realised he can’t outrun us and must face the consequences of his rebellion?’

  ‘Yes. He’s readying his army for battle.’

  ‘How are he and his officers deploying their men?’

  ‘There are a few small sandstone Hindu cenotaphs on the ridge. They’ve overturned their baggage wagons around them and are throwing up earth barricades to shield their cannon and protect their musketmen and archers.’

  ‘So they’re preparing to withstand an attack rather than deliver one?’

  ‘Yes. They know it’s their best chance of success. Neither Khusrau nor his chief commander Aziz Koka is a fool.’

  ‘Except in defying my authority,’ Jahangir broke in.

  ‘Should I order our men to form up for an immediate assault?’

  ‘Before I decide, do we know if there is a spring or any water on the ridge?’

  ‘I questioned the single herdsman we came across last evening. He said no but he was so terrified he might have just been saying what he thought I wanted to hear. However, the ridge is mostly red dust and rocks with only a few dead-looking trees and scarcely a blade of grass.’

  ‘The herdsman’s probably right, then. In that case, rather than attack immediately let’s leave them to eke out what water they have a little longer while they ponder their fate in the fighting. Like Khusrau, most are young and inexperienced in war. Their imaginings will exceed even the worst horrors of battle.’

  ‘Perhaps, but not so many as I expected have taken up our offer to surrender.’

  Jahangir grimaced. The previous evening he had agreed to Suleiman Beg’s suggestion that arrows should be fired into Khusrau’s camp carrying the message that any junior officer or soldier who left Khusrau’s camp during the night and surrendered would save his life. There would be no second chance. None could count on any mercy after the battle.

  ‘How many gave themselves up?’

  ‘Fewer than a thousand, mostly poorly armed and clothed foot soldiers. Many are little more than boys who joined Khusrau’s ranks as they passed in the hope of booty and excitement. A deserter told how one young soldier captured trying to escape was thrown alive into a blazing campfire on Khusrau’s orders and held in the flames by spear points until his screams ceased. His charred body was then paraded around the camp to deter others from following his example.’

  ‘How many men does that leave Khusrau with?’

  ‘The deserters say twelve thousand. I think that’s an understatement but there’s certainly no more than fifteen thousand.’

  ‘We still outnumber them by three or four thousand men. That should be enough to compensate for our troops, as the attackers, being more exposed than Khusrau’s men crouching behind their defences.’

  As he paced his command tent waiting for his qorchi, his squire, to ready him for battle, questions raced through Jahangir’s mind. Had he done all he could to ensure success? Over-confidence could be as big a threat to a commander as the lack of it. Was the plan he and Suleiman Beg had devised, talking late into the evening, robust enough to give him victory in this, his first battle as emperor? Why hadn’t he been prepared for Khusrau’s treachery? During Akbar’s lifetime Khusrau had tried to ingratiate himself with his grandfather, hoping to be named his heir. When Akbar had instead chosen Jahangir, Khusrau had seemed to accept it but had only been waiting his moment. On the pretext of inspecting progress in the construction of his grandfather’s great tomb at Sikandra, five miles from Agra, he had ridden out of the Agra fort with his entourage. Instead of making for Sikandra, he had wheeled north towards Delhi, raising recruits as he went.

  The sun had risen high in the sky when Jahangir gathered his senior commanders for their final orders. ‘You, Abdul Rahman, will lead our war elephants, together with a battalion of mounted musketeers and archers, round to the west where the ridge drops gently to the plain. Once there, you will advance up the spine of the ridge, making Khusrau believe that this will be, as conventional strategy might suggest, the route of our main attack.

  ‘But it won’t be. It’ll be a diversion to tie down as many of Khusrau’s forces as possible. Once I see you are fully engaged, Suleiman Beg and I will lead out another battalion of horsemen. First, we will feign a move west to support you, but then we will wheel and charge up the ridge directly in front of us towards Khusrau’s tent on the crest. Ismail Amal, you will remain here to command the reserve and protect our camp against any attempt at plunder. Do you all understand the parts you are to play?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty,’ came the immediate response.

  ‘Then God go with us. Our cause is just.’

  Half an hour later, Jahangir was fully dressed for war, sweating beneath his steel helmet and the engraved steel breast- and backplates protecting his torso. Seated on his white horse, which was pawing the ground as if it scented the action to come, he watched Abdul Rahman’s force advance a
t a steady pace, trumpets blaring, side drums beating with an ever increasing rhythm and green banners fluttering in the gentle breeze. As they were approaching the bottom of the spine of the ridge, puffs of white smoke rose from the nearest of Khusrau’s positions as his artillerymen fired some of his larger cannon towards the attackers.

  However, the gunners were clearly nervous and unable to restrain themselves from firing too soon, because their first shots fell short, raising showers of dust in front of Abdul Rahman’s advance. But then to Jahangir’s dismay he saw one of his leading war elephants collapse despite its steel plate armour, spilling its howdah as it fell. Another elephant slumped to the ground. To Jahangir the attack seemed to falter but then, urged on by the mahouts sitting behind their ears, the remaining elephants surged past their fallen companions, advancing quickly for all their size up the ridge. Occasional spurts of smoke showed that the gajnals, small cannon, in their howdahs were being brought into action. At the same time, Jahangir could see his cavalry charging up the spine, green banners held aloft and lances extended as they leapt the makeshift red earth barricades and clashed with Khusrau’s horsemen. Men from both sides fell and riderless horses galloped from the battle, some impeding the attackers. More and more drifting white smoke obscured Jahangir’s view but not before he saw a squadron of horsemen, breastplates glistening in the midday sun, move quickly out from their positions in front of Khusrau’s tents and turn to the west to reinforce their comrades against Abdul Rahman’s onslaught. The crisis of the battle was upon him.

  ‘Now it’s time for us to go,’ Jahangir shouted to Suleiman Beg as he pulled his ancestors’ eagle-headed sword Alamgir from its scabbard and, rising in his stirrups, waved it to indicate to his trumpeters to sound the advance. Soon his white horse was moving smoothly into the gallop, raising dust as it pounded the ground in the planned feint to support Abdul Rahman.

  Jahangir’s pulses were racing at the prospect of action. Despite his thirty-six years he had experienced far fewer battles than had his forebears at his age, partly because his father had refused to grant him military commands, partly because Akbar’s successes had diminished the number of conflicts the Moghuls had engaged in. Now command was his, as the empire was his, and he would crush all challengers.