1637: The Peacock Throne

by Eric Flint

  The cannon belched, firing true. A portion of the parapet jumped as the heavy ball shattered sandstone to embed itself in the brick backing beneath. One of the outsized crenellations that sheltered a defender buckled and fell outward from the gatehouse, dropping him four stories to the hard ground amongst the rubble of his former protection.

  Carvalho again watched his other guns as his crew repeated the complex, carefully orchestrated dance the machinery of war required when one was in a race to see who could kill more, faster. The other gun crews, hurrying to match his aim and get off a shot before the deadly weapons of their opponents could be reloaded, hardly matched his accuracy. Two struck too low to repeat the effect of Carvalho’s shot, burying themselves in the sandstone gatehouse without visible effect. One sailed high, disappearing from view. The fourth, either by some freak stroke of luck or the gun captain’s skill, raked the top of the perpendicular wall that had been their initial target. Sandstone, men, and masonry shattered amid great clouds of dust and smoke.

  Another series of flares rose above the walls, though by now dawn was more than a gray suggestion to the east.

  Two gun’s reduced crew, struggling heroically to position their weapon for another shot, died at their gun. The lone cannon that could bear on them from Red Fort had found them with a shot that skipped from the ground some forty yards in front of their position and then barreled into the gun, savagely shoving it sideways and breaking it from the limber. Carvalho could see no one alive in its wake when the weight of iron and bronze settled to earth.

  The grinding lethality of battle continued: the crew of gun five perished under the lash of the up-timer long guns before they were ready to fire again.

  Sweat pouring from his lean frame, Carvalho made certain of his aim one more time and unleashed another shot. Another paltry few Sikhs were injured. It seemed for a moment that their bawling cries could be heard even at this remove.

  Then the camel corps loped past his battery, screaming zamburakchi whipping their bawling mounts relentlessly toward the sound of the guns.

  “The Sultan Al’Azam sends his regards!” someone shouted from behind Carvalho.

  The Portuguese mercenary turned and saw a man in messenger greens sitting a fine tall horse that looked as if it would rather be anywhere but smelling camel.

  “The Sultan Al’Azam commands y—” the man started to say, but pitched backward over saddle when one of the heavy bullets of the infernal up-timer weapons struck him in the chest. The horse, predictably, bolted back the way it had come.

  “God. Hates. Me,” Carvalho muttered. There being nothing else to do and unable to spare a man for clarification of his orders, he shouted for his men to continue firing. They would fire as long as they could.

  The artillery captain cursed God, cursed Aurangzeb, cursed his brother umara, but most of all he cursed the spies who had failed to uncover the truth. Based on their reports, everyone from the emperor to the least soldier of Aurangzeb’s army had been dead certain the explosion that claimed the munitions factory had cost Dara the ability to produce ammunition for the up-timer weapons.

  They were paying for that failure now with their lives.

  Aurangzeb’s command group

  Aurangzeb ground his teeth as yet another Rajput fell, an arrow sprouting from his chest. If the man yelled or cried out to his gods, the sound was lost in the distant roar and crackle of the battle taking place at the base of Red Fort’s walls.

  It had been hard to tell how things were going until the defenders had set off the fireworks. Until then, Aurangzeb had been fairly sure most of his men had made it, if not into position, then close enough, by the deadline the plan called for.

  The light of the flares had revealed the shambles his carefully thought-out timetable had been reduced to. Some areas of the defenses were almost entirely uncontested while others were faced with masses of men packed so tightly they got in each other’s way.

  Worse yet, Aurangzeb’s subordinates, commendably eager to come to grips with the enemy, fed men into the assault without carefully lining the troops up to minimize the time they would spend under fire from the defenders. It was less than perfect.

  A messenger rode up as his artillery began firing.

  The Sultan Al’Azam nodded. He had given no order to begin the cannonade, but he approved of Carvalho’s initiative. The initial plan had called for the artillerist to move his mobile pieces up under cover of darkness and then only fire at dawn, when it was hoped there would be enough light to avoid striking the attacking men. The flares gave him the opportunity to do just that, and, rather than wait for Aurangzeb’s permission, he’d opened fire.

  Aurangzeb waved for the messenger to speak.

  “Carvalho reports his guns are in position and he is firing, Sultan Al’Azam.”

  “Understood.” Aurangzeb smiled, admiring the ferenghi’s style. Making certain the emperor could not interfere with the best application of his guns even while he sent a messenger to mollify his superior smacked more of the experienced courtier than hardened mercenary.

  The messenger’s horse twitched, trying to move farther from the loud noises, but the rider was too accomplished a horseman to allow his mount to embarrass him before the Sultan Al’Azam.

  Aurangzeb considered cautioning Carvalho, but decided against it. Repeating himself would do no good, and only serve to insult the touchy ferenghi as he’d issued complete orders to the mercenary-cum-umara in a face-to-face audience. The artillerist knew his craft, and would only fire so long as he could be reasonably assured his pieces would not strike Aurangzeb’s own men.

  He gestured for the messenger to retire and rest his balky mount.

  While he’d been considering cautioning his captain of artillery, the infantry had pressed forward into the attack. Successfully in some areas, though the Rajputs in front of him attempting to take Lahore Gate were slowed by the deep ravine and rain-swollen creek they had to cross under the arrows of the garrison. Despite their shields and heavy armor, it seemed to Aurangzeb a great many of them had fallen even before they set ladders to the outer walls adjacent to the outermost, and lowest, gatehouse.

  “Messenger to Samir Khan,” Aurangzeb said.

  The next in line of his royal messengers came forward.

  Aurangzeb did not look at the man as he rattled off his commands. “He is to deploy the camel corps in front of Carvalho’s battery and try and keep the heads of the garrison down. He should focus his fire to the left of the gate and on the left of the gatehouse proper.” He spared the man a look. “Repeat it.”

  The rider flawlessly repeated his orders and Aurangzeb waved him to his duty.

  Relative silence descended as the rider galloped away.

  “Sultan Al’Azam?” Habash Khan said.

  Aurangzeb looked to the Habshi, barely visible in the predawn murk, waving permission to speak.

  “Something strange is going on…” the man said, eyes distant and expression slack as he regarded the fighting.

  Aurangzeb returned his gaze to the battle, seeking those details that had made his umara call for his attention.

  Why do their cannon not fire? He would have thought Carvalho’s guns were caught in the light of the flares as well and would prove a good target, but they had been silent since the beginning.

  They watched in silence for a little while, Aurangzeb wary of disrupting the other man’s concentration. Father had once claimed to have developed a sense for the ebb and flow of battle, and insight for when and where to strike or withdraw. Aurangzeb knew he lacked the experience to have fully developed such a talent, but, he hoped, was wise enough to recognize it when he saw it. Unable to find it himself, he looked again at the Habshi and then followed the line of his gaze.

  Sidi Habash Kahn’s attention had settled on the battle surging at the base of the walls to either side of Lahore Gate.

  Aurangzeb’s Rajputs were over the low wall and dragging ladders into the space between it and the high inne
r wall. Hundreds of men, packed shoulder to shoulder…He cocked his head…sensing something…off.

  “Ah!” Habash Khan sat bolt upright next to him. “They do not shoot as much as they might…Almost as if they want our men to…Merciful God!”

  Aurangzeb understood then, too. He opened his mouth to shout for messengers when the gray-black of the last minutes before dawn suddenly lit with fire and light so intense it seemed the sun rose at the base of the wall. In the moment that followed, the young emperor felt his heart skip a beat before stuttering back into its normal pulse just as a muted, thunderous, evil roar reached his ears. Dara had mined the space between the walls! Men ran, made human torches when their hair, clothing, their very flesh, started to burn. Even those God chose to spare trembled at the thought of fighting on. Some broke, fleeing the horror. Aurangzeb did not even blame them.

  The reinforcements Aurangzeb had sent slowed their rush to the walls, understandably reluctant to expose themselves to whatever hell lay in wait for them.

  All but the Rajputs. They, incensed by—rather than fearful of—the garrison’s weapons, redoubled their efforts to climb the walls and come to grips with the enemy.

  But whatever the flame weapons had been, they were not the only nasty surprise Dara had in store for his brother’s warriors.

  The relative silence that persisted after the hellish mines had gone off was broken by a resumption of sharp cracks from the walls and towers of the fortress.

  In the hell-light cast by the burning residue of the mines, Aurangzeb saw a defender level an odd-looking arquebus in the direction of a battery of Carvalho’s guns. The gunners went about reloading, sure in the knowledge that nothing but another cannon could reach them. A moment later a long plume of smoke shot from the end of the gun.

  A measurable heartbeat later, one of Carvalho’s gunners folded.

  Aurangzeb ground his teeth, but ordered another of his umara into the assault. So they had one or two of the weapons modeled on the up-timers’ guns, but they would not be enough to make any difference.

  Two more artillerymen fell at almost the same time. Then an entire gun crew went down within the time it took to take one breath.

  Stunned, Aurangzeb watched as four other men, easily found by the cottony plumes of gun smoke, manipulated their weapons, dropping fresh twinkling things into the breeches.

  Another series of smoky plumes. More men fell at their guns, struck down from a seemingly impossible range.

  Carvalho’s cannon kept firing. Retreat under fire was a death sentence as certain as staying, and fighting men such as those the Portuguese gun captain surrounded himself with would rather strike back than be killed while running from battle.

  Two of Carvalho’s guns spoke at the same time. The fortifications topping the middle gate disappeared in a cloud of dust. The rumble was audible even over the other noises of battle.

  The battle went on unabated. Still Dara’s cannon had not fired. As if his observation had summoned evil from them, the muzzle of the first of Dara’s guns belched smoke.

  Expecting the cannon to be targeting Carvalho’s battery, Aurangzeb closed his eyes and said a brief prayer for the already-beleaguered gunners. He opened them to see his prayer had been too specific. Others had needed God’s protection: the men approaching the outer walls had been targeted by some fresh outrage created, no doubt, by the up-timers or that devil Talawat. It seemed as if the men had splashed in a horrific fan of bloody remains. It looked almost as if God, in his righteous anger, had reached out and pulped the men who strove to take the walls.

  Dara had waited until Aurangzeb’s men were too close to retreat, too densely packed to do anything more than die screaming. Then, and only then, Dara had unleashed this new outrage. And, if the frenetic activity around guns of the fortress was any indication, Dara’s pets had provided the means to repeat the outrage.

  Aurangzeb’s eyes desperately sought some positive sign, some development that would confirm that God was still with him. But God, instead of showing him favor, revealed yet another hateful weapon from the future.

  Despite the fires, the devastating swarm-projectiles Dara’s cannon fired, and the still-falling hail of arrows, several hundred screaming Rajputs had not only successfully set their scaffolds and ladders at the base of the redoubt west of Lahore Gate, they were about to crest the inner wall.

  Some twenty Sikhs appeared atop the next redoubt thirty gaz away and leveled weapons that looked suspiciously like those already used to such good effect against his artillery.

  Aurangzeb’s fist clenched upon his prayer beads.

  It seemed as if the entire body of Sikhs fired in the same instant. All of them certainly disappeared in a cloud of gray-white gun smoke.

  An unbelievable number of Rajputs perished from that one volley, torn from the wall like the leaves of some flesh-and-blood ivy uprooted by an angry giant. It was worse than the new munitions Dara’s cannon fired; no man who stepped in the line of fire of a cannon could fail to know the risks involved. No, these handguns that killed so many with one discharge were the work of the Adversary. While their effect was even more devastating, it became clear these weapons were not the same as the longer-ranged ones almost immediately after they fired. These new ones did not project their gun smoke as far from the barrel and, more terrifying, fired once more without the manipulations the other weapons seemed to require.

  Surely it would be too much, even for Rajputs of the warrior caste.

  Aurangzeb weighed his options. Even if they broke, the scaffolds and ladders the Rajputs had fought into place remained up. He still had nearly ten thousand men between him and that section of the wall, men who could, properly led, exploit the opening the Rajputs seemed to have carved in the defenses.

  Carvalho had already called forward the guns the night attack had forced him to leave behind. Their heavy projectiles would give any defender at the wall pause, make short work of the gates, and with God’s favor, bring down the walls as well.

  Aurangzeb found his prayer beads rattling through his fingers at an ever-increasing pace.

  God willing, the dawn would allow them to win through. Thoughts of God and the rattle of the beads reminded him that he’d nearly forgotten Al-Fajr prayers.

  The young emperor made to dismount, causing a stir amongst his messengers and bodyguards. Caught off guard by his sudden need to pray, those who were slow to part for him were pushed aside by those who knew better. Unrolling the carpet and performing the ablutions with his habitual care settled his spirit. Within moments he was kneeling to face Mecca and adding his unworthy praise to that of countless others in the world.

  So fervent was his heart’s desire that God hear him that the sounds of battle—not the cannon, nor the arquebusiers, nor even the distance-thinned screams of men dying to serve His ends—were unable to disturb his prayers.

  Chapter 44

  Red Fort

  North wall

  Atisheh nocked another arrow, drew on the powerful bow, and leaned over to lose it through the loop. She grinned as the fletching tickled her cheek, timing the release to skewer one of the men struggling with a ladder they planned to plant at the base of the outer wall to the right and below her tower. She added her arrow to the storm falling along the attackers.

  “There are so many you barely have to aim!” one of her fellow guards shouted, echoing Atisheh’s sentiments exactly as the target folded around her arrow.

  She reached for another arrow, found the pannier mounted to the wall next to her empty.

  “Runner!” Atisheh shouted as she turned and pulled another sheaf of arrows from the supply at the center of the tower.

  “Yes?” the boy said from not two steps away.

  “Tell the diwan we’ll need more arrows, then find Talawat and tell him I take back everything I ever said about his art. Those flares are working very, very well.”

  “Wait until you see what the new guns do!”

  “Off with you, boy!” Atishe
h grunted, already nocking another arrow.

  The Grape Garden

  The sounds of battle penetrated the palace complex as Smidha led Monique and Ilsa to the Grape Garden. Slippered feet found their way without thought as Smidha fretted over the wisdom of Jahanara’s decision to seize Roshanara.

  For one, the harem was already perilously short of guards. So much so, Smidha felt the need to improvise.

  For another, while the younger princess was certainly a traitor, she had been under very close observation for months and made no effort to do anything more than pass information to Aurangzeb. Indeed, Smidha was as certain as one immured in the politics of court life could be that Roshanara had made no attempt to bribe, coerce, or even contact any of Dara’s commanders, and certainly not any placed in charge of the gates.

  And Smidha’s informants had been eager to report Roshanara’s every move. A reputation for capricious violence against servants and slaves alike had made recruiting people to spy on the princess absurdly easy. The difficulty had been discovering those who would not make up vile rumors as a means to strike at the young woman.

  On the other hand, Jahanara had made clear to her sisters that the royals were to present a united front to the nobles of the court. Roshanara, true to her reputation, was not complying. Indifferent to her duties to the royal family, Roshanara had decided to come here instead of joining the rest of the noble ladies and her royal sisters when the shooting started.

  As Smidha, Monique, and Ilsa walked from the covered galleries and into the jasmine-scented night, they could see Roshanara had installed herself on the central platform of the garden where she had apparently rousted a number of her brother’s dancing girls and a pair of blind musicians and commanded them to perform for her.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Roshanara, her back to Smidha and the Mission women’s approach, flung a goblet at one of the dancers for no other reason Smidha could see than it entertained her to do so.