Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (8 page)

‘We found it wandering not too far away.’

‘Were we victorious in the battle?’

‘Yes, Majesty. We gained the upper hand in the fighting during which we lost sight of you and drove the Bijapurans from their camp, inflicting many casualties on them as they retreated.’

‘Is the pursuit still continuing?’

‘No. Our losses were also high. In your absence your generals thought it better to regroup and tend our wounded rather than maintain the chase. They feared another ambush of the type that overtook Ahmed Aziz and of course we needed to discover what had happened to you.’

So the victory was by no means complete, thought Shah Jahan, but better a partial success than the setbacks he had suffered previously.

Two hours later, once more wearing his breastplate, which one of his soldiers had retrieved from its hiding place, Shah Jahan mounted his horse. Nearby the pyre hastily constructed by his Rajputs from the coppice’s dead trees crackled and burned. By her dress the old woman had clearly been a Hindu and it had seemed only proper to accord her the rites of her faith. But with the flames licking around the cotton-wrapped corpse there was no need to linger. Let the old woman crumble to ash alone in the desert. The important thing now was to re-join the main body of his troops before demoralising rumours spread that the emperor had been injured, even killed. Casting a last look at the spiralling black smoke of the pyre, he urged his tired horse to a canter.

For the first few miles not a living thing crossed their path in the arid and featureless terrain, but then Shah Jahan noticed what looked like a small village – no more than six or seven shacks – away to their right. Perhaps there was a well not yet dry where they could water their horses. Signalling to his men, he turned his mount in the direction of the low mud-brick houses. As they approached, an old man staggered up from his charpoy beneath a withered banyan tree which had retained just a few of its leaves and stumbled forward on stick-thin legs that looked too weak to bear even his frail weight.

‘Food, gentlemen, food, I beg you …’ he cried out through cracked lips.

Shah Jahan reined in his horse. The old man’s eyes stared unnaturally bright in sunken eye sockets above prominent cheekbones. ‘Are your stores exhausted? When did you last eat?’

‘Our grain was gone six weeks ago. A few days later our animals began to die. We ate their carcasses – skin and entrails too. We even ground their bones to make a kind of flour. We were lucky our well still had a little water. But other than that we’ve eaten nothing but dried leaves and two geckos we caught a few days ago.’

‘Where are the other villagers?’

‘They left three days since to seek food elsewhere but my wife was too weak and I’ve remained with her.’

‘Give him what food we have and any spare water bottles,’ Shah Jahan told Ashok Singh. ‘I hadn’t realised the extent of the famine.’

‘It is bad, Majesty. Around the walls of Burhanpur I have seen proud men fight over undigested grain one had extracted from animal dung. But it seems far worse in these outlying regions. Parents are said to be selling their children into servitude for a few coins in the hope that both they and the children may thereby live. There are even rumours of cannibalism among some of the hill people whose flocks of sheep and goats have perished.’

As his Rajputs handed the man food and water Shah Jahan could not get the thought of people grinding bones for flour and even descending to cannibalism from his mind. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it was only a few hours since he himself had killed the old woman. However, as he rode on another thought struck him. The man must have truly loved his wife to stay with her rather than desert her to seek his chances away from the village, just as he himself would have stayed with Mumtaz. If survival was a basic and selfish instinct shared with animals, man also had other more noble ones … like love.

S
upported by Satti al-Nisa and wearing a shift of sapphire silk, Mumtaz stepped carefully down the three white marble steps into the pool of rose oil-scented water. Despite her bulk – in a few weeks she would give birth – her every move was graceful, thought Shah Jahan, watching from the doorway into the
hammam
. The apricot glow of the candles accentuated the curves of her body. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of just watching her as she lay back in the pool, resting her head against its side as attendants poured more water down two marble shoots carved in a fish-scale pattern to make the droplets ripple and dance. At least here within the encircling walls of Burhanpur he had created a haven for Mumtaz. Red lilies and sweet-scented
champa
flowers bloomed in the courtyards and the ancient fountains had been coaxed to new life.

Yet beyond the walls lay an unforgiving landscape where men and beasts struggled beneath a pitiless sun that was daily sucking them and their land dry. In their temples his Hindu subjects were beseeching their gods to relieve their suffering – even making blood sacrifice to the many-armed Kali. Some were blaming the Moghul emperor for failing to aid his people. Last week two
saddhus
, bony ash-daubed bodies pale as ghosts, had walked up to the gates of Burhanpur, shaking their sticks and denouncing him. He had given orders they should not be molested and they had remained in the blistering heat for an hour. Before departing they had placed what looked like the body of a young child on the ground. When his soldiers investigated they found it was only a bundle of sticks wrapped in dirty cloth with a dried gourd for a head but the message was clear. Children were dying and he, the emperor, was to blame. He hadn’t told Mumtaz.

As he stepped towards the pool, she heard his footsteps and turned her head, smiling. ‘I felt so tired tonight – I thought a bath would revive me.’

He waited until the tall figure of Satti al-Nisa and the other women had withdrawn, then sat on the pool’s marble ledge. ‘The famine’s getting even worse. Every day I receive reports of whole villages emptying as people take their surviving livestock west to seek water. I’ve ordered the imperial granaries in the affected areas to be opened but there’s just not enough grain to go round – only enough to feed the people for a few weeks, not their flocks. Yet without their animals their future is bleak. In some places the Bijapuran rebels are raiding the grain stores.’

‘You are doing what you can.’

‘But I feel helpless. Despite my wealth and power what is needed is water, not gold. If the rains don’t come quickly many more will die.’

‘Not even you can defeat nature.’

‘I should be able to do better for my people and I can’t while this war distracts me … I must end it quickly.’

‘You’re being impatient again. I’d rather stay here a year, two years even, than see you hazard yourself for the sake of a short campaign.’

In the candlelight Shah Jahan saw the earnestness in Mumtaz’s eyes. Leaning forward he stroked her cheek. ‘You’re right. I am impatient. I always have been. It’s not only that I want to deal decisively with my enemies and be free to turn my ambition elsewhere – I want to be able to take you back to the comfort and security of Agra. Long ago, when we first married, I vowed to protect you from dangers of all kinds and to give you the life of peace and luxury you deserved. But when my father turned against us I couldn’t keep that promise. Since we’ve been here in Burhanpur I’ve worried that I’ve failed you again and exposed you to unnecessary hazards. This is no place for you.’

‘It was my choice. I refused be parted from you, as I’ve always done …’ Mumtaz sat up, then, gripping the marble ledge, pulled herself upright. ‘Help me out.’ Standing before him she took his face between her hands and kissed his forehead. ‘The present is as it is. Again I made my choice, and again it was to be with you. As for the past, we survived it together. It is over, as I’ve told you so many times. Why keep tormenting yourself with unrectifiable regrets?’

‘You’re right. I must look ahead, but some things are hard to forget. By defeating my enemies quickly I can do what is best for those I love and win my subjects’ respect for me as their new emperor.’

‘You already have it. Your father himself gave you the title “Shah Jahan”, “Lord of the World”, and time and time again you proved your worthiness of it.’

‘That was a long time ago. Much has happened since then and my people don’t yet know me.’

‘You are as stubborn as our son Aurangzeb. Go if you must. But promise me one thing, at least – that before charging headlong into battle you will think what may be in your enemy’s mind … Others can be as clever and cunning as you. Each time I bid you farewell I need to believe you will come back to me.’

‘I promise to take care.’ He saw that Mumtaz was shivering despite the warm air. ‘You should put on dry clothes – I will summon your attendants.’

He was about to ring the silver bell hanging from a green silk cord when Jahanara appeared through the cusped doorway, breathing hard as if she’d run quickly. ‘It’s Dara … a rider has just brought the news … He’ll be here tomorrow.’

‘You’re sure? He wasn’t due to reach Burhanpur for another two weeks,’ Shah Jahan said.

‘The messenger says Dara has been insisting on riding all day and much of the night.’

Shah Jahan glanced at Mumtaz, whose face was glowing at the thought of seeing their son after so many months. ‘I’ll send troops at once to meet the party.’

‘Let Aurangzeb go with them so he can share in the glory of his brother’s return,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Young as he is, I know how much he envied Dara the opportunity of going to the Persian court.’

Shah Jahan considered for a moment. ‘If we were at peace I’d agree, but the Bijapurans are impudent enough for anything. I’m not sending an escort for show but to ensure Dara and the rest of embassy reach Burhanpur safely. I think it best that Aurangzeb remains here.’

Seated on his throne on the sandstone platform in the middle of the courtyard of the Burhanpur fort, Shah Jahan waited, hiding his impatience. There were few times when he wished himself an ordinary family man, free to behave as he pleased, but this was one of them. The neighing of horses and the clatter of hooves on flagstones from beyond the arched gateway had told him that Tuhin Roy, his envoy, and his party had arrived. He found it hard not to rush to greet his son but protocol demanded a formal ceremony. That was why his courtiers and commanders were standing in rows before him, while on a low dais to his right his three younger sons waited, dressed in brocade coats of Moghul green with ropes of pearls round their necks.

Thirteen-year-old Shah Shuja was looking around grinning but the stockier, square-jawed Aurangzeb, two years his junior, was solemn-faced. Soon he must find suitable tasks for them both, just as he had for Dara. An imperial prince’s training couldn’t begin too early. Shah Shuja needed to learn that life was about more than hunting and hawking and Aurangzeb to appreciate that the exercise of power might not be as easy as he sometimes seemed to think from his reading about his ancestors. At least it would be some years before he need worry about the six-year-old Murad, who was trying without success to attract Shah Shuja’s attention by tugging on his sash.

The trumpets sounded and, as precedence required, Tuhin Roy as the head of the embassy appeared first through the gateway. Elderly but still upright, his beard dyed black, he approached with slow, stately steps and bowed low before the throne.

‘Welcome back, Tuhin Roy. Did your embassy to the shah prosper?’ Shah Jahan knew perfectly well that it had – the envoy had sent regular despatches – but it was important to announce the success of his mission in public.

‘The shah sends you his greetings and calls you brother. I carry a letter from him. May I read it aloud, Majesty?’

‘Proceed, Tuhin Roy.’

The envoy opened an ivory case and took out a paper. Unfolding it he began to read, starting with a flowery passage extolling the greatness of the Moghul empire at which Shah Jahan suppressed a smile – the Persian shah and the Moghul emperor had long been rivals rather than allies. But then the envoy came to the meat: ‘
I, Shah Abbas, am graciously pleased to accept the trading rights you offer in Herat in return for which I pledge myself not to levy taxes on the merchants of the Moghul empire passing through my city of Isfahan
.’

‘You have negotiated well, Tuhin Roy, and you will be well rewarded. But first you must rest, as you have had a tiring journey. For that I know I must blame my son and his eagerness to return to his family. Forgive me, but I am equally eager to be reunited with him.’

Tuhin Roy looked a little hurt to be dismissed so quickly, but bowed and withdrew. At Shah Jahan’s signal a trumpet sounded and Dara Shukoh appeared through the gateway, the ranks of courtiers bowing like stalks of wheat in the breeze as he passed between them to acknowledge the return of the emperor’s eldest son. Dara was smiling as Shah Jahan descended his dais and enfolded him in his arms. Then taking Dara by the right hand he turned to his assembled courtiers. ‘To celebrate the safe return of my beloved son, I hereby present him with a yaks-tail banner – since the days of my ancestor Babur one of the highest honours an emperor can bestow.’