Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (12 page)

‘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?’

Perhaps Ashok Singh was right, Shah Jahan reflected. ‘Very well. Tell the envoy that any who leave the town within one hour of his return will live. I make no promises as to whether as free people or slaves, but they will live.’

Fifty minutes later Shah Jahan was sitting on his horse in front of the main gate of Krishnapur just out of arrow and musket shot. The gatehouse was a substantial sandstone building with an intricately carved hissing serpent relief above the double gates themselves. Shah Jahan had ridden down from the outcrop to see if anyone would accept his offer of life and to make his preparations in case they did not. He was determined that as soon as the hour was up he would order his forces to make an all-out assault on Krishnapur. The best route of attack would be across the dried-up riverbed since the town walls were lower and looked weaker at that side, doubtless because in normal times the river formed a first line of defence.

‘Majesty …’ Ashok Singh was again at his side. ‘If the invaders choose to fight, I and the captain of your bodyguard have a request. Please don’t expose yourself recklessly in the battle as you did the day before yesterday.’ The young Rajput prince paused before continuing, ‘All the court knows the grief you feel at the empress’s death … that you say your life has become empty. I too lost my beloved wife, not in childbirth but from the spotted fever – she died before I could be told and rush back from a tour of inspection of some of my father’s outlying posts. I too was devastated and held my own life cheap, risking it recklessly in battle and on the hunting field until my father took me aside and lectured me sternly. He made me understand that it was for the gods and not for a man to decide when he dies. It was the more so for me as a prince with responsibilities to my destiny and to him and the dynasty. Even though you are not a Hindu I believe your religion too teaches that a man should submit to God’s will. What’s more, your responsibilities are much greater than mine. You are not a younger son but head of a dynasty that controls a vast empire many times larger than the state of Amber. What would become of it and your family if you got yourself needlessly killed?’

Shah Jahan was silent for a moment before replying. ‘You’re right, I know. My sons are not yet of an age or experience when they could easily succeed me. I know too that Mumtaz herself would have said the same to me, and my daughter Jahanara has already done so. But from your own experience you must know it is easier to give such good advice than receive it and put it into practice.’

‘But you will heed my words, Majesty?’ Ashok Singh persisted gently.

‘Yes. Should the Bijapurans sally out of Krishnapur I will stay back in a position where I can command the whole action rather than rush forward to lead the charge.’

Moments later, almost as if in response to his words, the main gates of Krishnapur swung open. Was it to be a sortie or surrender, Shah Jahan asked himself. Capitulation, it seemed, as a column of women emerged through the gates, many gripping the hands of small children, others holding their palms outstretched in supplication. Nearly all were thin to the point of emaciation. The drought had not spared Krishnapur any more than anywhere else. Shah Jahan was just turning to give Ashok Singh the order for his men to go forward to receive their captives when suddenly armed horsemen burst through the gateway. Scattering women and children alike before them, they swerved their mounts round Krishnapur’s walls, hell-bent on their own escape. More followed. None slowed to avoid the prone bodies of those whom the first riders had knocked over but simply trampled them beneath their hooves.

‘Fire on those riders! Don’t let any get away!’ Shah Jahan shouted to Ashok Singh. His outrage at the Bijapurans’ treatment of the townswomen immediately overwhelming his promise to hold himself back from the action, he kicked his horse forward. Before he could get far, however, he heard a disciplined volley from the band of musketeers he had ordered to be stationed near the walls in anticipation of just such a Bijapuran sortie. Their firing emptied several saddles. It was a reduced enemy squadron which closed up as best it could and kicked on, heads bent low over their horses’ necks in the hope of safety, leaving their fallen comrades like the trampled women and children to care for themselves.

Shah Jahan had reined in briefly to see the effect of the musket shots. Now as he pushed on again his bodyguard and Ashok Singh’s Rajputs were around him. Together they were gaining fast on the Bijapurans when about a dozen of the hindmost wheeled their horses to turn back and attack their pursuers – clearly prepared to sacrifice themselves to save their comrades. Sacrifice themselves they certainly would, but no one else would escape either, thought Shah Jahan grimly as, drawing his sword, he prepared to meet the rebels, now only yards away.

The first of them – no more than a youth – crashed into the front rank of Shah Jahan’s bodyguard. He got in only one stroke of his sword, cutting into the muscular arm of a bearded Rajput, before being swallowed up by the charge of Shah Jahan’s men and knocked from his horse to die crushed beneath their onrushing hooves. His fellows fared little better. Only one succeeded in unhorsing a member of the bodyguard before he was himself spitted by a Rajput lance and carried out of his saddle. Soon Shah Jahan’s riders were beyond the melee and gathering speed once more, leaving crumpled bodies and riderless horses in their wake. Within five minutes they were up again with the remainder of the Bijapuran horsemen who were galloping along the rutted riverbed. Suddenly, as if as one and clearly in response to a shouted order, the whole Bijapuran column, still over fifty strong, reined in and threw down their weapons.

‘Take care. Don’t approach them too closely in case it’s another trick,’ shouted Shah Jahan.

A tall Bijapuran horseman wearing a cloak of gold cloth rode through their ranks, dismounted and prostrated himself. ‘We surrender, Majesty. We accept your offer to let us live.’

‘What?’ shouted Shah Jahan. ‘You expect my offer to stand after you have ridden down women and children and caused the death of some of my own men? You had the chance to live but you forfeited it by your brutal behaviour. You and your officers will die. Your men will be sold into slavery.’