Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth Read online

  ‘Father … Father … wake up!’

  A gentle voice was intruding into his troubled sleep and a hand was shaking his shoulder. Shah Jahan opened heavy eyes to see Jahanara kneeling by him. ‘Why are you here? I said I wanted to be alone …’ he muttered. The sun was slanting through the casement but he had no idea how long he’d been sleeping.

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you, we all have … We couldn’t obey your order not to be disturbed any longer.’

  Shah Jahan pulled the cap he had been wearing from his head. As he ran a hand through his hair he heard Jahanara gasp.

  ‘My appearance shocks you, but I’ve no more use for fine clothes or rich gems … I followed your mother’s bier in these coarse garments and I’ll wear them until they fall from my body.’

  ‘It’s your hair, Father …’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ He tugged a lock forward and examined it. When he had ridden from the battlefield to Mumtaz’s side it had been dark as night. Now it was mostly white. The mirror hadn’t lied. ‘God has truly cursed me. He has punished me for my sins and cast me out. This is one of his signs.’

  ‘Father … Father, please … Shock and grief are the cause …’

  ‘No, it’s a message. God is reminding me that despite my power, my wealth, I’m only human – born to suffer just like the peasants who are dying because of the drought.’ He gave a mirthless laugh, then stopped as a yet darker thought came to him. What if Mumtaz’s death was God’s retribution for the deaths of his half-brothers? As he stared down at the carpet, the swirls of crimson red and indigo blue danced before him and he felt himself growing dizzy again. Leaning forward he put his head in his hands and began rocking gently to and fro.

  ‘Father, you are making yourself ill. You must eat something,’ Jahanara was saying. ‘Let me order your attendants to prepare you some food.’

  ‘The very thought turns my stomach.’

  ‘You must try, for the sake of our family. We need you. And you forget you have a new daughter. Satti al-Nisa is caring for her as tenderly as our own mother would have done, but we need to know your orders for her care …’

  Shah Jahan held up a hand. He had no wish to think about the child whose birth had cost Mumtaz her life. ‘Tell Satti al-Nisa I am grateful to her but that such matters must wait.’

  ‘You can’t just stay here avoiding the world.’

  ‘I don’t intend to. It is exactly a week since your mother died. Tonight I will go again to her grave.’

  ‘Let me come with you, Father … Dara too. As your eldest children it would be fitting – and we want to.’

  His first impulse was to tell her he would make the journey alone, but his children had the right to mourn Mumtaz as well. ‘Very well.’

  That evening, three palanquins decked in purple so dark it was almost black bore Shah Jahan, Jahanara and Dara Shukoh out of the same gateway through which Mumtaz’s bier had been carried head first from Burhanpur and which hadn’t yet been bricked up. The country people, who dreaded ghosts, believed that a corpse must be carried that way and the route of its final journey blocked to confuse the spirit and prevent it from finding its way back to the place where body and soul had parted. Shah Jahan had always thought it a foolish superstition but now he wished that it was true – to have Mumtaz return to him even in spirit would be some balm. Her ghost could never frighten him.

  The bearers crossed the river at a ford where the river was little more than a foot deep and continued up the bank towards the Zainabad Gardens, whose semi-ruined arched gateway emerged out of the darkness. ‘Set me down here,’ Shah Jahan ordered. Stepping from the palanquin, he waited for Jahanara and Dara Shukoh. Then, with them following, he approached the gateway, acknowledging the salute of the Rajput guards with a brief nod. Through the arch the white marble pavilion beneath which he had ordered Mumtaz’s grave to be dug glimmered palely as a crescent moon appeared through the scudding clouds. Beneath the canopy over the simple white marble slab bearing Mumtaz’s name flickered the mass of small candles.

  Shah Jahan’s eyes blurred with tears so that everything seemed suddenly magnified and multiplied as he walked towards the grave. Reaching it, he dropped to his knees weeping helplessly, his tears splashing on the marble. Bending lower, he kissed the cold stone. Mumtaz had been his lover, his friend, his guide through life’s complexities. To face each new day without her would be a torment. But it was his burden to bear. For the sake of Jahanara and Dara Shukoh, whose hands he could feel resting on his shoulders, and his other children he would devote himself to strengthening the empire and securing the future of their dynasty. Though Mumtaz had passed into another life, he would take the empire to even greater glory in her memory … But even as he made that pledge it echoed hollowly round his mind, bringing him little comfort. What did any of it matter without her beside him? There was greater consolation in the promise he had made to her in the last moments of her life. Raising his head he whispered, ‘I will build you a tomb like Paradise on earth in Agra. You won’t lie long in this famine-struck land.’ As he knelt by the grave Shah Jahan lost all sense of time.

  ‘Father … are you all right?’ Dara Shukoh’s tone was hesitant.

  This was the first time his son had ever asked him such a question. Until now it had been his role as a father to nurture and protect his children. How often had he spoken those very words to one of his sons after a fall from a horse or a tumble during a wrestling contest? Life was strange. A week ago, hair still dark as ebony, he had been riding to war against his enemies, never realising how close – or in what way – he was to tragedy. Now he was an object of the compassion, pity even, of a son barely out of his boyhood. ‘I am an emperor and as such I must and will weather this as I have weathered setbacks in battle and plots against my life. But as a man, no, I’m not all right. This wound will never heal. The pain may lessen but it will never go away and I wouldn’t wish it to, because the absence of hurt would mean I had forgotten your mother.’

  ‘Nothing will be the same for any of us,’ Dara said. At her brother’s words, Jahanara took him in her arms and held him for a moment, just as she had when they were children and he needed comfort, even though she was barely a year older.

  His children were so young, so vulnerable, thought Shah Jahan as slowly they made their way from the garden. Though tragedy had overtaken his family he must protect them from its consequences. For the first time since Mumtaz’s death, his mind returned to the war he was fighting. Though he had suffered a mortal wound he must conceal it from his enemies, who would already be scheming how to exploit his misfortune. They might even expect him to leave the Deccan and return in mourning to Agra.

  Shah Jahan frowned. The Bijapurans’ treachery had forced him south. If they hadn’t risen up, he would still be in Agra. Mumtaz would have stayed in the comfort and security of the haram to give birth instead of enduring an exhausting journey to this desolate part of his empire. She might have lived … His enemies would die repenting their foolhardiness.

  Shah Jahan looked up reluctantly from the drawings spread out before him. His master builder had followed his guidance but the result looked wrong. The tomb itself seemed dwarfed by its position in the middle of a large square garden. Yet he’d intended the garden as merely the setting for the flawless jewel that would be Mumtaz’s mausoleum. ‘I know the effect I want but I can’t see how to create it … This looks too ordinary. What do you think, Jahanara?’

  ‘I’m not sure … it’s not easy to tell.’

  He looked broodingly at the drawings once more. ‘I asked not to be disturbed. Why are you here, Jahanara?’

  ‘Because I must speak to you. It’s six weeks since my mother died yet I and my brothers and sisters still hardly see you. Neither do your courtiers or your counsellors. I mean no disrespect but I know that my mother would say the same thing if she were still alive. You must not neglect your duties because of your grief for her.’

  ‘How am I neglecting my duties?
My commanders have their orders and are in the field against the rebels. We are driving them back. What more do you expect of me?’ He saw Jahanara flinch and softened his tone as he added, ‘Please understand. I can find no rest until I have decided the plans for the mausoleum.’

  ‘I know how much that means to you, but you still haven’t seen your new daughter. You haven’t even given her a name. And now I hear that you intend to send her to Agra to be brought up in the imperial haram.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I wish the child to be well cared for, but the thought of her is painful to me.’

  ‘She’s not “the child”. She’s your daughter. At least look at her once before you send her away.’ Without waiting for his answer Jahanara clapped her hands. At the signal Satti al-Nisa entered the room. Cocooned in a soft woollen blanket in her arms was the baby. ‘Majesty.’ She bowed her head, then held the bundle out to him.

  Shah Jahan hesitated. He was on the point of ordering Satti al-Nisa to withdraw, but something stopped him. Slowly he stepped closer and with a hand not quite steady drew back the blanket. The baby was sleeping, one curled fist pressed against her mouth. How could he feel animosity towards such a tiny, innocent creature … Yet he felt no fatherly tenderness. It was as if he had lost the power to feel anything much at all.

  ‘Majesty, the empress often talked about the names you and she might give the child if it were a daughter. There was one name in particular she was fond of,’ Satti al-Nisa said.

  ‘What was it? I don’t recall …’

  ‘Gauharara.’

  ‘Then let it be so.’

  Gauharara suddenly woke and began to thresh about in Satti al-Nisa’s arms, then to wail.

  ‘Take her back to the haram.’ Shah Jahan turned away as Satti al-Nisa carried his daughter swiftly from the room.

  ‘Don’t send Gauharara from us, Father. Satti al-Nisa wishes to care for her.’ For a moment Jahanara rested her hennaed fingertips on the coarse-woven cotton of his tunic. Since Mumtaz’s death he had decreed that all the court should wear only the plainest garments.

  ‘Very well.’ At the relief on Jahanara’s young face he felt regret for causing her anxiety, yet he couldn’t help himself. Since Mumtaz’s death it was as if a barrier had sprung up between himself and the rest of the world, including his family, whom he knew he loved. Even now he was wishing Jahanara would go away and leave him to his thoughts, but it seemed she had more to say.

  ‘Father, there’s something you should know. A few days ago Aurangzeb came to me in great distress. A mullah had told him that God had taken our mother away because you are a bad Muslim who flouts Islamic law by employing Hindus and other non-Muslims at your court. I told Aurangzeb that the mullah was talking nonsense – that you rule as our great-grandfather Akbar did by showing tolerance to all – but he would not be convinced.’

  ‘Perhaps he was right not to be. Maybe the mullah is speaking no more than the truth. These past weeks I’ve asked myself over and over how I could have offended God so badly to be punished in this way. Perhaps I have been too lax, too indulgent towards those of other faiths, like the arrogant Portuguese Jesuits who travel the length and breadth of my empire proclaiming that they alone have God’s ear. They are corrupt, and venal as well. Remember how they expelled us from their settlement on the Hooghly river when we were fugitives, even though your mother was so weak? They acted without the care and compassion they boast is at the heart of their religion because they wanted to gain favour with my father and Mehrunissa. I’ve often thought of them over the years but now I’ve acted. Two weeks ago I despatched soldiers to expel the priests from their settlement and to burn their buildings down so that they cannot return. I am also thinking of forbidding the construction of further Hindu temples in my cities.’

  ‘What?’ Jahanara looked stunned, and it was a moment or two before she could gather her words. ‘Father, expel the foreign priests if you must – they have done something to deserve it – but don’t turn on your loyal subjects just because they are of a different religion. Your own mother, your grandmother, were Rajput princesses. Hindu blood flows in your veins and mine. What’s more, your Hindu subjects have done nothing to offend you and they share in our grief … Think of the messages of condolence we have received. The courts of Amber and Mewar and Marwar mourned with us, observing the forty days as strictly as we did ourselves. Don’t repay them by restricting their religious freedoms … It isn’t just.’

  Shah Jahan stared at his daughter as if seeing her properly for the first time. Her strained expression, the passion in her voice, told him she was speaking from the heart. And there was so much of Mumtaz in her – she had her mother’s courage and her gentle persistence. Even her tone was so like Mumtaz’s that for a moment, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine that his wife was still with him. The thought brought pain but also consolation of a kind.

  ‘Perhaps you are right. I will think further before I act. But in return I’ve something to ask. I’ve decided to send your mother’s body back to Agra for temporary burial until the tomb I will build there is ready to receive her. The golden casket I ordered will arrive in two or three days’ time and there’s no reason to delay any longer. My mind will be easier knowing she has returned to rest in the place she loved. I can’t leave the Deccan myself until I have beaten my enemies, so I’d like you and Dara to accompany the funeral cortège. As you reminded me once before, as my eldest son and daughter it is fitting.’

  Shah Jahan charged at the head of his men towards a large squadron of Bijapuran horsemen. He had encountered them as they crossed in front of his own forces on one of his sweeps of the countryside. At the urging of his officers he had reluctantly re-joined his forces for the first time a few days after the departure of Mumtaz’s cortège for Agra, but now he found that the excitement and risks of the search and ensuing pursuit were almost the only things that dulled his grief for Mumtaz, forcing him to concentrate his mind on present dangers rather than the past. He had been glad to embark on this, the third such sortie.

  ‘Majesty, you are outdistancing us. Rein in a little or we cannot protect you,’ he heard the captain of his bodyguard yell above the thunder of the charging horses’ hooves. He paid no attention. If his fate was to die so be it. He would join Mumtaz in the gardens of Paradise. Within moments he clashed with the foremost Bijapuran, a squat man on a white horse whose opening stroke with his curved scimitar whistled through the air above Shah Jahan’s plumed helmet as he ducked. Shah Jahan’s horse was galloping so fast that it carried him beyond the man before he could get in a stroke of his own. Another Bijapuran horseman thrust at him with his long lance but he turned it aside with his sword before giving a backhand slash with his own weapon which thudded into the rump of the rebel’s chestnut horse, causing it to rear and unseat its rider before bolting.

  Shah Jahan struck at a third Bijapuran but his blow glanced off the rebel’s breastplate. Moments later, he found himself alone on the far side of the Bijapuran ranks. Several enemy riders were wheeling to attack him. Realising the danger his impetuous and foolhardy charge had brought him into, he immediately headed, heart thumping, towards the nearest man, still battling to turn his horse, and before the rider could react thrust his sword deep into his abdomen below his steel breastplate. As Shah Jahan wrenched his weapon free his adversary collapsed on to his horse’s neck, dropping his short lance.

  A second Bijapuran had been quicker to turn and at once attacked the Emperor. His sword struck the pommel of Shah Jahan’s saddle as the emperor swayed back out of the way, simultaneously striking out with his own bloodstained blade and knocking the Bijapuran’s domed helmet from his head. Undaunted, the horseman rode again at Shah Jahan, this time joined by two of his comrades. Shah Jahan pulled back hard on his reins purposely causing his horse to rear up, front legs flailing. One of its hooves caught the foremost Bijapuran, who fell backwards. Immediately Shah Jahan, gripping his reins with his left hand to turn, slashed at the next rider
catching him in the muscle of his upper right arm and forcing him also to drop his weapon. Struggling desperately to turn his horse to face the third attacker, the helmetless man, Shah Jahan realised that he was not going to be able to do so before the Bijapuran got in his blow. Instinctively he tried to make himself the smallest target possible. Then the Bijapuran’s head split before his eyes into a mess of blood and brains. The captain of his bodyguard had forced his way through the column and cleft the man’s unprotected skull in two. Others of his bodyguard were appearing and straight away charging into their enemies’ disintegrating ranks. The Bijapurans who could disengage themselves from the fight – by no means all of them – were beginning to kick their horses into a gallop to escape, leaving their fellows to die or be taken prisoner.

  Forty-eight hours later – a period during which he had scarcely left the saddle, never mind slept – Shah Jahan was standing with Ashok Singh on a flat outcrop of rock looking down on the small walled town of Krishnapur sited in the ox-bow bend of a dried-up river. From his interrogation of some of the Bijapurans captured during the earlier skirmish Shah Jahan had discovered that the town had become a base for their activities. Sparing neither himself nor his men, two hours earlier he had reached Krishnapur to find its gates firmly closed against him. His men now encircled the town.

  ‘No, Ashok Singh! I will not bargain with them. They must surrender unconditionally. They’ve ignored the proclamation in which to honour the memory of my wife I offered clemency. Now that they are surrounded why should they expect me to renew my mercy?’

  ‘I will tell their emissary.’ Ashok Singh hesitated for a moment as he was about to leave. ‘Forgive me, Majesty. If deprived of any hope of mercy might they not fight the harder?’