1637: The Peacock Throne

by Eric Flint

  Shame did not come naturally to Dara Shikoh—or any Mughal royal, being honest about it, including Jahanara. But his wife’s vehement censure caused him to close his mouth and flush. At least a bit.

  Jahanara decided the moment was ripe. It was probably the only chance she had.

  “I have one condition,” she said. “You have treated Salim disgracefully, and must make amends.” She held up her hand stiffly, as if to ward off any dispute. “I will be gone, so there will no longer be cause for foul rumors and idle gossip. And you can put what remains to rest by appointing Salim governor of Gujarat.”

  She lowered the hand and began counting off on the fingers. “That will accomplish several things. First, it will make clear that your exile of Salim was merely your clever subterfuge of war. Second, it will help clear my name and honor, since you would certainly not give the Afghan such responsibility if you had any doubts or suspicions about him. And finally”—she stopped counting on her fingers and lowered both hands into her lap—“he will be a good governor. You know it as well as I do. And the Das family will assist him in rooting out those who might retain some vestige of loyalty to the pretenders. He has proven very capable at everything he puts his hand to.”

  Including me. She forced the smile brought by that memory to go into hiding.

  Dara was running fingers through his beard again. A good sign, she thought.

  “Very well,” he said, after a minute or so. “But!”

  He raised a cautioning finger. “Salim is not to be told until after you have left for Surat. I want no further encounters between you!”

  “Of course, brother,” she said, trying to sound as submissive as possible. “By all means, do not make the announcement until I have left Red Fort. By the time he can get to Surat, I will already be crossing the sea.”

  Unless he’s a superb horseman with a string of superb horses.

  Chapter 52

  Sinhagad Fort

  Western Ghats

  “Well, at least we should be safe enough here,” said Iqtadar, leaning over the wall and looking down at the steep hillside below. “Need to clear away some brush, though, if we’re going to be here for very long.”

  He turned away and looked at Salim. “Just how long will we be here, Amir?”

  Salim spread his hands wide. “I have no idea. Hopefully, not long. But…”

  Standing to his left and also looking over the wall, Sunil chuckled and did a fair imitation of Salim: “My return is dependent on the whims of the emperor. Will he decide to reward me? Shorten me by a head? Who can say?”

  Both of Salim’s other lieutenants smiled. “What do you think, Iqtadar?” asked Mohammed. “Should we bet on it?”

  “Enough,” said Salim. His tone was mild, but his subordinates obeyed instantly. By now, Salim’s authority over them was unquestioned, in fact as well as in theory.

  He had chosen this fortress as the place to quarter his troops because he himself had no idea what Dara Shikoh intended to do with him. The Bhonsle clan had agreed to let him take possession of Sinhagad, since they were not using it themselves. Indeed, taking possession of the fortress had required ousting a band of outlaws who had been living there, but that hadn’t required any fighting. As soon as the bandits saw Salim and his sowar approaching, they had fled hurriedly.

  They would find a refuge somewhere else, easily enough. This whole region of the Western Ghats had been a harsh, chaotic landscape for years. In 1630, in the course of their war with the Sultanate of Ahmadnagar, an army of the Sultanate of Bijapur had razed the city of Pune about twenty miles or so northeast of Sinhagad. Salim knew that Shah Jahan had made plans to seize the area for the Mughals and rebuild it, but his assassination and the subsequent war of succession had ended that plan, at least for the time being.

  “We wait,” said Salim. “We have provisions enough for a month, two with some foraging. By then we should know something.”

  And what will I do if that “something” is a summons to answer for my errors in Agra?

  A summons that would most likely end in his death, if Dara still polished his anger. Salim might even be trampled by elephants, a traditional method of execution. Jahanara would try to intercede for him, but it was possible her brother might remain angry enough to have her executed as well. That would be done privately, though, not as a public spectacle.

  But…perhaps not, also. Dara Shikoh was another adherent to the teachings of Mian Mir.

  Still, that left exile. Or immurement.

  A reward of some sort was even possible. Salim had, after all, done the Sultan Al’Azam many services.

  “We should be quite secure here in Sinhagad,” he said firmly.

  Which means I’ll have plenty of time to brood.

  Stop. It.

  He’d think of Jahanara instead. Those memories were worth dying for. They were the best of his entire life.

  Agra

  Mission House

  “I’m not going to lie, folks,” said Bobby, sprawling on a pile of cushions. “I’ll be glad to get back home. India was…well, interesting, for sure. But I can’t say it was all that much fun.”

  “At least we’re going home,” said Ricky. “Which Randy ain’t—not even his body.”

  Bobby made a face. “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. But even if we dug him out of the Catholic graveyard here, how would we get him home? We’re talking months at sea.”

  John grunted. “The British Navy managed it, back in the days of sail. I read about it in a book once. They wouldn’t do it for common sailors, of course, but if it was a big-shot captain or admiral they’d—” He glanced over to where his wife and the other women were chatting, to make sure they weren’t in hearing range. “They’d gut him—pull all out all the innards—and then ship him home in a casket of rum. Pickled, sort of.”

  “Oh, you’re not doing that to Randy,” said Bobby, looking green around the gills. The effect was even stronger as the young man was still sickly-looking after his repeated illnesses on the road. They made quite the pair, the wounded “soldier” and the sickly “trader.”

  “Hey,” John said, raising his hands in surrender and wincing as the motion pulled at his many, many stitches. “I’m not proposing we actually do it. Just giving everyone a history lesson.”

  “And thank you for sharing.” Bobby smiled to show he held no grudge and cocked his head quizzically. “Are you sure about this, John? Staying here, I mean.”

  It was John’s turn to make a little grimace. “Am I sure? Hell, no. But…” He reached up and ran fingers over his scalp. “Rodney and Priscilla are dead set on staying, and Ilsa’s inclined that way, at the very least until our baby is born. I can’t see leaving the big guy and Pris here alone, even if I could talk my wife into it. Besides…”

  He paused again, and the grimace faded away. “Look on the bright side. Where else would a West Virginia country boy whose only qualification was as a county roadworks crew supervisor wind up an imperial general, ennobled, earn a vast fortune, and be entrusted with the safety and security of an emperor I’d never heard of before the Ring of Fire?”

  Ricky had a skeptical look on his face. “This might be a good time to remember that old saying, ‘Pride goeth before a fall.’ It’s from somewhere in the Bible.”

  “From Proverbs,” said John. “And the exact words are ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.’ I don’t honestly think that describes me, guys. Proud—yeah, sort of. I think we can all be proud of what we’ve done here. But I’m not what you could call haughty, and in any event”—here, he returned Ricky’s look of skepticism—“do you really want to try matching Biblical saws with me? My mom taught Sunday school, remember. And she was damn firm about her kids attending religiously. No pun intended.”

  Smiling, he added: “I’m sure there’s something from Ecclesiastes, especially if I paraphrase a little. How about ‘a time to be humble, and a time to accept awards’? Or—”

  “
Never mind,” said Ricky, waving his hand in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll give you this: the Mughal idea of a formal dress uniform is waaaay fancier than anything the up-time U.S. Army ever came up with.”

  Hating the jeweled robes something fierce, John hastened to change the subject. “So when are you guys leaving? Have you decided yet?”

  Bobby shrugged. “It’s mostly up to Jadu Das. He’s the one putting together the caravan.”

  “Is he really planning to go all the way with you? Back to the USE, I mean? Not just Surat?”

  “Are you kidding? Jadu Das? If you think that man would give up the chance to set up and profit from a new trade network—with people from the future, no less—you don’t know him the way Ricky and I do.”

  Ricky nodded. “He’s dead set on it, and having him not only along, but in charge, makes a lot less work for me and Bobby. We’re pretty much just”—he patted the silk cushion under his butt—“sitting pretty until he tells us he’s got all the goods packed away and we’re ready to go and what’s taking us so long anyway?”

  Monique came into the room. “John, Ilsa wants to talk to you.”

  Ennis climbed, a bit laboriously, to his feet. The Mission had chosen to follow the local custom of sitting on cushions rather than chairs in those rooms that might host informal guests. Mughal furniture could be very ornate, certainly, but it wasn’t particularly comfortable, especially for someone who’d been so recently sewn back together.

  “See you later, guys.” Gauging the subtleties of Monique’s expression, he added, “Probably quite a bit later.”

  * * *

  When he entered the chamber that served the Mission House as a formal meeting room, John came to an abrupt stop. Monique, who’d entered ahead of him, took a seat at one end of the table, but John’s attention was on the people seated at the other chairs.

  Four of them: Bertram, Ilsa, Rodney and Priscilla.

  “I thought you said my wife wanted to talk to me,” John said, in a mild tone of voice.

  “I lied,” said Monique. “Well, left a few details out.”

  “I do want to talk to you, John,” said Ilsa. “But this involves everyone here.”

  “And no one else,” said Priscilla. Her tone of voice wasn’t mild at all. You could even call it steely. John didn’t think he’d heard her take such a tone ever before. She gestured at the empty chair on the side of the table next to Ilsa. “Sit. Please.”

  Shrugging a little, John did as he was told. After gingerly seating himself, and smiling at Ilsa’s helping hand, he said, “Okay, so what’s this about? And why aren’t Bobby and Ricky—or Gervais—invited to join us?”

  Rodney chuckled, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “Haven’t you ever read a spy novel? It’s called ‘need to know’—and they don’t.”

  “They can’t,” Priscilla corrected her husband. “What we’re about to discuss needs to be kept secret. I mean, really, really, really secret—and no bullshit about it.”

  She looked at Monique. “Tell him.”

  “Jahanara is going on Hajj.”

  “Yeah, I know. Cut to the chase.” John didn’t bother explaining the idiom. An Indian wouldn’t have understood it, but by now Monique and Bertram spoke completely fluent and idiomatic American English, even, in Bertram’s case, without a trace of an accent. Not that John minded Monique’s French-accented English. He quite liked it.

  “She wants us to come with her. By ‘us,’ I mean me, Bertram, Pris, and Rodney.” She nodded toward Priscilla, who was seated at the other end of the table. “Especially Pris.”

  “What the hell for?” John demanded. “None of you are Muslims. And while I wouldn’t mind seeing Mecca—or even participating in the whole thing, just out of curiosity—they won’t let you in. The whole city’s off-limits, right?”

  Rodney shook his head. “I did some research and: not really—not in this day and age. That was true in the when-and-where we can from, because the Saudis were strict about it. But today the city—the whole Hejaz region—is under Ottoman control, although in practice they let the emir of Mecca pretty much run the show locally. From what I’ve heard, they’re pretty slack on the subject of keeping infidels out of the holy city. Probably all it would take to get in is a cover story and a bribe.”

  John was getting impatient. “I said, cut to the chase. What is this all about? Why does Jahanara want you along?” He looked at Monique. “You, I can understand. You’re probably the best friend she has—insofar as she has any friends at all. But why ‘especially Pris’? She doesn’t look sick, so why does she need to drag our best medical person out of here?”

  “No, she’s not sick. But she saw firsthand how much of a difference Pris made when Nadira gave birth. And she doesn’t want to lose her own kid—or her own life, for that matter.”

  John stared at her, his mouth open. “Huh?” was all he managed.

  His wife made an exasperated little snort. “What is so surprising?” She leaned back from the table and ostentatiously curled both hands around her growing belly. “She’s young, healthy and in love. Or thinks she is. Maybe it’s just lust, who knows? Salim is as pretty as they come. So she got pregnant. It happens. Even to princesses. Even in Mughal India.”

  John now stared at her. “But—”

  “Close your mouth, dear. You look silly.”

  Flushing a little, he clamped his mouth shut. Then, between clenched teeth: “Jesus H. fucking Christ.”

  Ilsa smiled. “Now that is some serious blasphemy. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  John shot her an irritated glance. “Blasphemy be damned. We’re talking about Jahanara. Do any of you have any idea what’s likely to happen when Dara Shikoh finds out? We ain’t in West Virginia anymore, kiddies. The worst you’d get back home was a shotgun wedding. Here…Shit…”

  He grimaced. “You can start with Salim—we are talking about Salim, I assume—staked out on a field with an elephant trampling him into chunky ketchup. It’s even possible Jahanara will be staked out alongside him. Probably not—she’s probably just in for a brutal beating and then being walled up for life somewhere really shitty—but you can’t rule it out. For the love of—”

  His mouth snapped shut again. After a second or two, he added: “Oh.”

  Ilsa shook her head. “He’s usually quicker-witted than this. Yes, dear, that’s why Jahanara’s going on Hajj. In case you hadn’t noticed, that girl is one smart cookie, to use one of your silly American expressions. The Hajj will take her out of India for most of a year. She leaves next month, before she’s really showing yet, and she has to stay in Mecca until May because that’s when they do the annual ceremony this year. Luckily for Jahanara. The timing’s perfect.”

  John was feeling out of his depth again. “The date of the Hajj changes every year?”

  Monique laughed. “You’ve been in the Mughal empire for this long and still haven’t figured out local customs? No, the date of the Hajj doesn’t change. It’s always the first ten days of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah, which is the twelfth and final month of the Islamic calendar. But it’s a lunar calendar, so over time the days and months shift compared to the calendar we use. This year, it starts in late April and runs through the first week of May.”

  “The point,” said Priscilla, “is that by the time observance of Hajj begins in earnest, Jahanara will have given birth. She told Monique she’s pretty sure she conceived early in July.”

  John glanced at Monique, frowning. “She doesn’t know for sure? How many times did she and Salim—”

  “I didn’t ask,” Monique said. “But I’m sure it was more than once. Let’s just hope she conceived the first time because if it was later in July—might even be in early August—then the timing might get sticky. She can’t very well be waddling around the Kaaba for seven circuits—that’s how many are required—and still keep her condition secret.”

  “How is she going to keep it a secret anyway?” John asked.

  “
Us,” said Pris, pointing to herself and her husband and Monique and Bertram. “And there’ll be others. Smidha knows already, so does Atisheh—and if Atisheh tells the staff to keep their mouths shut you can be damned sure they will. No one will go up against the Nagini of Red Fort, not after her repeat performance in defense of the emperor.”

  “Nagini?” John said.

  “Female naga,” Pris said. “A serpent-man of Hindu mythology. In her case, like a cobra crossed with a woman. Which isn’t too far removed from the truth, judging from the accounts I’ve heard.”

  “Firoz Khan might know already,” said Rodney. “If he doesn’t, Jahanara or Smidha will tell him by the time we reach Jeddah.”

  John scratched his chin. “Will all of them—I’m especially thinking of Firoz—keep the secret? They could collect quite a reward if they told Dara.”

  “Jahanara’s not worried about informers, at least not profit-motivated ones,” said Monique. “First, because she believes they’re completely loyal to her—and for what it’s worth, I agree with her. Second, because telling her brother is likely to get your head cut off immediately after he hands you the reward. The last thing Dara would want is for his sister’s condition to become public knowledge. And finally—”

  She laughed again. “Who do you think has been managing the empire’s financial affairs? Leaving aside the fact that Jahanara has her own incomes from trade, jagdirs, and endowments from her mother that make her something like the fourth or fifth richest person in the world. Why would any of her entourage go to Dara for a reward when they know that Jahanara will take very good care of them anyway?”

  John leaned back in his chair before thinking about it. The pain was sharp, and a stark reminder of the consequences of failing to recognize a backstabber. Sitting unnaturally erect, he spent another few seconds studying the table while the pain subsided. Jahanara had commissioned the large piece of furniture along with the accompanying chairs for the Mission, another reminder of her power. The princess had used the craftsmen of her own establishment, the same ones who provided the many palaces of the dynasty with furniture.