Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

by Alex Rutherford

  Jahangir felt irritation as well as pity. Man Bai had always been unstable, sometimes hysterical, and as his first wife once insanely jealous of those he had married later. On more than one occasion she had inflicted harm on herself to gain his attention. She must have just heard of her son Khusrau’s blinding. One of the attendants who had accompanied Yar Muhammad from Gwalior must have spoken of the punishment and the news would have spread quickly. Her devotion to her son had made Man Bai refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of his faults. All she saw was a disobedient, high-spirited youth. She had never understood the murderous depths of Khusrau’s ambitions and the lengths to which he was prepared to go to achieve them. In recent weeks she had been pleading with Jahangir to pardon Khusrau, alternately vehement and tearful. Swallowing the opium would have been her immediate reaction to the news – an expression both of grief and of protest. It was his duty to go to her even if he could foresee her scalding reproaches as she recovered. But just as he could take no satisfaction from Khusrau’s blinding, he could not regret it either. If punishment did not follow treason, chaos would.

  ‘I will come at once. Forgive me, Yar Muhammad,’ he said, and walked swiftly from the room.

  Nearing Man Bai’s apartments in the haram, he heard a sudden outburst of wailing. As he entered, her Rajput attendants were clustering around the form which lay perfectly still on the divan, one arm thrown out. Jahangir had no need for any words to know that his first wife was dead.

  For some moments he stood still, his mind in a turmoil of grief, doubt and self-reproach. Memories of Man Bai as he had first known her – young and hungry for love and life, before her demons overcame her – flooded his mind. He had been fond of her once and had never wished her harm, let alone a death like this. Tears formed in his eyes but he brushed them away and straightened his back. Her suicide could not, must not be laid to his account. Khusrau had ruined many others’ lives as well as his own, and he and he alone had caused his mother’s death by his reckless and selfish ambitions. Jahangir’s expression hardened. Never again would he allow one of his family to threaten his rule or disrupt his empire.

  ‘Give orders for the funeral pyre to be built. Cremate Man Bai according to the rites of her Hindu religion but also with all the deference due to the wife of the emperor,’ he said solemnly, before turning and without a further word retracing his steps.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Light of the Palace’

  Jahangir stretched languorously then turned his head to look at Mehrunissa, lying naked beside him on the morning following their wedding. The pearlescent sheen of her skin tempted him to stroke the curve of her hip, half turned towards him, but he didn’t want to wake her. He enjoyed watching her as she slept – the rise and fall of her breasts, that full mouth, small straight nose and wide brow. He would never tire of gazing at her face, he was certain. Their marriage, following quickly as it did after the crushing of Khusrau’s second rebellion and the death of Man Bai, would, he was determined, mark a new beginning in both his life and his reign. With her at his side he would fulfil all the ambitions he had for himself and his dynasty.

  Suddenly Mehrunissa’s large eyes opened and looked straight into his.

  ‘I have a promise to make to you,’ he said.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘That I will never marry again. Though I have other wives you will be the last.’ Mehrunissa stretched to kiss him but before she could do so he went on, ‘Wait, I have something else to tell you. To mark our marriage you will be known from now on at court as Nur Mahal.’

  Mehrunissa sat up. Nur Mahal meant Light of the Palace. ‘It is a great honour . . .’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like one of my courtiers, flattery on their tongues and deceit and ambition in their hearts.’ She looked as if she thought he was teasing her but he wasn’t and continued, his tone serious, ‘I don’t want your gratitude. I chose this title because you have brought light into my world. One of the court jewellers is already carving you a seal with your new name – an emerald set in ivory . . . It will show the place you occupy in my heart and in my court. But to me you will always be Mehrunissa. I still remember standing behind a column in my father’s audience chamber listening to your father relate the story of his journey from Persia – of how, almost as soon as you were born, he abandoned you because he was in such desperate circumstances, and how he could not bear the thought of leaving you to the cold and the wolves and came back for you . . . It seemed to me then, though I was only a boy, that destiny had taken a hand in your life. You and I are similar. Destiny has also governed the lives of my family. My great-grandfather believed it was his destiny to found an empire here in Hindustan. It is my destiny and that of my sons to build on that legacy.’

  ‘I will help you,’ Mehrunissa said, meaning every word. Fate was giving her an opportunity for power and influence that came to very few of her sex and she would grasp it.

  Jahangir sat up and shaking his dark hair from his shoulders smiled at her, his mood lightening once again as his eyes took in her naked form. ‘This is our marriage bed. I’ve been talking about serious matters too much. For the moment we are just a bridegroom and his bride, and all I want is to make love with you again.’

  Mehrunissa opened her arms to him.

  Mehrunissa closed her eyes as Salla brushed out her long hair. She was pleased she had been able to make the Armenian one of her ladies-in-waiting but nothing had been so satisfying as getting rid of Mala. Three weeks after her wedding she had summoned the khawajasara to her new and luxurious apartments in a tower overlooking the Jumna river – rooms that had once belonged to Jahangir’s grandmother Hamida.

  ‘Leave everything. Go exactly as you are,’ Mehrunissa had said, repeating almost exactly the words Mala had spoken to her. The khawajasara had looked at her blankly.

  ‘But you can’t dismiss me. I have carried out my job honestly and conscientiously.’

  ‘You enjoyed your power too much.’

  The khawajasara’s eyes had glittered. She had seemed about to snap back a response but had clearly thought better of it and shaking her head had turned to go.

  ‘You have forgotten something.’

  Mala had paused, and when she turned her head again Mehrunissa had seen that her eyes were shining with tears of anger. ‘What is that, Majesty?’

  ‘Your staff of office.’

  Mehrunissa had held out her hand, elaborately henna-patterned from the wedding ritual, and reluctantly Mala had passed her the carved ivory staff still warm from her touch.

  ‘Majesty – shall I weave some of these jasmine flowers in your hair?’ Salla asked, holding her ebony brush in mid-air.

  Mehrunissa nodded. As Salla’s nimble fingers went to work, she allowed her mind to drift away down even more pleasurable avenues. How different her wedding night with Jahangir had been from the one she had endured with Sher Afghan. She had been so young then, so inexperienced, especially in the ways of men. To Sher Afghan only his gratification had mattered. Jahangir was a skilled lover but, more than that, in his every caress she felt his passion. He sent her gifts every day and had said to her, ‘If there is anything you want, you only have to ask and it will be yours.’ It was satisfying to reflect that, as an empress, she could have the best of everything. She would do justice to her place in this sumptuous court.

  But what would that place be? How could she become the soulmate Jahangir seemed to crave? He had spoken of the close relationship between his grandparents. To her, Hamida and Humayun were just names, but she would find out more about them, try to mould herself to become what Jahangir wanted her to be and through him to fulfil her own restless ambitions and longings. Above all she must keep his love. Without that nothing else would matter . . .

  Yet for the moment the possibilities for herself – and her family – appeared limitless. Jahangir had not only reinstated her father as Imperial Treasurer but heaped fresh honours on him including the title Itimad-ud-Daulah, Pillar of Governmen
t. Before long she would do something about Arjumand’s marriage to Khurram but not too quickly . . . it mustn’t be said that no sooner was the new empress installed than she was trying to advance her own family. Though everyone now treated her with deference in the haram, she knew her marriage to Jahangir must have displeased many. She wasn’t of noble birth like Jahangir’s other wives. Khurram’s mother, Jodh Bai, was a Rajput princess while Sahib Jamal, the mother of his elder brother Parvez, came from the old Moghul nobility. At her only meeting with them so far – both had made a courtesy visit to her apartments – she had detected both a wariness and a disdain beneath their pleasantries and formal politeness.

  ‘It is a remarkable thing that your father came penniless to the Moghul court from Persia,’ Jodh Bai had said, a smile on her round face as she picked at the dish of silvered almonds Mehrunissa had offered her.

  ‘My father was a nobleman on whom fate did not smile in our own homeland. He was fortunate to find favour with the late emperor.’

  ‘Indeed, one might say your whole family has been fortunate.’ Jodh Bai’s smile had seemed to harden a little.

  ‘True, though such things lie in God’s hands, not man’s,’ Mehrunissa had responded and turned the conversation to Khurram, praising his good looks.

  Jodh Bai, proud, doting mother that she was, had unwound a little but had then said, looking Mehrunissa straight in the eye, ‘It is important that my son marries well. The blood of the greatest Rajput clans as well as of the imperial Moghuls runs through his veins.’

  Mehrunissa had politely agreed but she had known exactly what Jodh Bai meant – that she disapproved of Khurram’s desire to wed Arjumand. She was now all the more determined to make sure the marriage proceeded.

  Parvez’s mother had been less talkative. In Sahib Jamal’s thickly lashed dark eyes Mehrunissa had detected a certain haughty curiosity, but her questions had been few. She had spoken almost entirely of herself and her family – of how her ancestors had ridden at Babur’s side in his conquest of Hindustan. She had made it clear that Mehrunissa could expect no intimacy with her. ‘I lead a quiet, retired life,’ Sahib Jamal had murmured. ‘My health is delicate and my circle of friends necessarily small.’

  Of course, some of their animosity had simply been the natural envy of two ageing women of a younger, better-looking rival. Mehrunissa smiled as she looked at her reflection. The jasmine did become her . . . She wouldn’t let their hostility bother her and she was already making a friend of Yasmina, the concubine mother of Jahangir’s youngest son, Shahriyar. From what she had seen, the boy, though unusually good looking, was a spoiled brat prone to cry and run to his mother’s side whenever anything went wrong and – if his teachers were to be believed – poor at his lessons. It was time he was taken from the haram and given his own household. But she had said none of this to Yasmina, who clearly doted on him.

  As Salla finished her hair, Mehrunissa felt beneath her robe for the slender steel dagger in a red velvet scabbard she wore concealed there. She had heard many stories of jealousies and feuds in the haram from Nadya while living with Fatima Begam. One was of a beautiful young concubine pushed to her death from a stone terrace by a eunuch bribed by a rival. Another was of a junior wife of Akbar who died in screaming agony after an enemy stirred ground glass into her food. No, it wasn’t foolish to take measures such as carrying the dagger or, indeed, employing the food taster who sampled the marriage gifts of fruits and sweetmeats that were still arriving daily. Of course, when she ate with Jahangir she was safe. The precautions surrounding the preparation of the emperor’s food were elaborate, from the special short-sleeved robes worn by the imperial cooks so that their hands were visible at all times in case they tried to sprinkle poison into the food to the sealing of the dishes with flour paste in the kitchen under the eye of Jahangir’s steward before they were carried to his table. It was when she was alone that she must be on her guard.

  Half an hour later, descending the ramp of the Agra fort in a high-domed silver howdah, Mehrunissa felt both excitement and deep satisfaction. When she had first suggested joining him on a tiger hunt, Jahangir had looked astounded. ‘No royal Moghul woman has ever done such a thing,’ he had said.

  ‘But why not? Why shouldn’t I be the first? I want to be with you whenever I can and share your pleasures. Besides, I’d find it exciting.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he had replied, but she could tell her request had intrigued him. The next day he had given her a matched pair of muskets with ivory- and ebony-inlaid stocks and told her that he had commissioned this special hunting howdah for her. It had wide openings on all sides, and though there were thin gauze curtains to conceal her from view they hung from large brass rings and at the critical moment of the hunt could be quickly swept aside to allow her to aim her weapon.

  Jahangir had been her tutor as she had practised her musketry. The fact that he had chosen to join her in the closed howdah instead of riding on his own elephant added to her delight. Behind them sat two haram eunuchs, trained to load their hunting muskets as quickly as possible.

  ‘You look happy.’ Jahangir’s lips brushed the side of her neck.

  ‘I am. I mean to make my first kill today.’

  ‘We may be unlucky. The tigers my huntsmen saw this morning may have moved away by now.’

  At first it seemed that Jahangir might be right. The huntsmen, galloping ahead, could find no trace of the tigers. Three hours after leaving Agra Jahangir would have given the order to return but Mehrunissa begged, ‘Please. Let’s just go a little further. Look, we’re almost into the hills where the tigers were spotted this morning . . .’

  Jahangir smiled. ‘Very well.’

  At first the sandy, dune-like terrain with its few spiny bushes looked unpromising. There was insufficient cover for a tiger. But then the ground began to climb towards some large grey rocks among which tamarind trees were growing. Suddenly the elephant halted and Jahangir leaned down to catch the words of a huntsman.

  ‘They’ve found fresh tracks. They’re going to place a goat carcass they’ve brought near the rocks,’ Jahangir whispered moments later. ‘We’ll wait here, downwind.’

  As the minutes passed a light breeze ruffled the tamarind trees but there was no other sound or movement. Then Mehrunissa smelled a strong, musky scent and Jahangir whispered once more, ‘They’re coming . . . see . . . two of them, among the rocks.

  ‘Pass us the muskets and have the tapers ready,’ he ordered the eunuchs and swept aside the howdah curtains. Mehrunissa quickly balanced the engraved steel barrel of her weapon on the edge of the howdah for support and checked the short thin length of fuse. Then, crouching forward as Jahangir had taught her, she squinted along the barrel. Sure enough, just emerging from the rocks were two black and orange shapes. The tigers, heads low between their massive shoulder blades, were moving slowly and cautiously towards the dead goat. She was about to reach behind her for the lighted taper when Jahangir said, ‘No, not yet. If you’re too quick you may frighten them off.’

  With the blood pounding in her ears it was torture to wait. The tigers had reached the carcass and as they sank their teeth into the flesh she sensed their caution was leaving them.

  ‘Now!’ Jahangir said. ‘You take the one on the right, I’ll take the left.’

  Grabbing the smouldering taper from the eunuch behind her Mehrunissa aimed at the broad, goat-gore-covered chest of her target. She heard the sharp crack as she fired, and then her tiger slumped sideways, fresh red blood crimsoning its white throat. Almost simultaneously Jahangir’s tiger collapsed with a great roar and after shuddering for a few moments lay still, pink and black tongue lolling from its half-open mouth. A new visceral thrill ran though Mehrunissa. Lips parted and eyes bright, she turned to Jahangir.

  But at that moment from behind their elephant came a high-pitched whinnying and a young qorchi on a bay mare panicked by the sound of the muskets rushed past. The elephant raised its trunk in alarm and shifted its
feet but the mahout steadied it. The youth, elbows and ankles flapping wildly, sawed futilely at the reins. Mehrunissa was about to laugh when he was thrown clean over the mare’s head to land a few yards from the dead tigers and lay there dazed. Suddenly some instinct told Mehrunissa to look not at the prone youth but into the rocks above. Something orange and black was moving there.

  ‘My other musket – quickly!’ Dropping the first she seized the new weapon from the eunuch and with two swift movements rested it on the rim of the howdah and trained the barrel on the rocks. She was only just in time as a tiger even larger than the first two leapt in a great arc towards the squire, who was still on the ground. Mehrunissa fired. In her haste she’d not braced herself properly and as the musket discharged the kick sent her tumbling backwards. Scrambling up she saw the tiger sprawled half across the body of the squire, who was struggling to extricate himself.

  ‘That was some shot. Are you all right?’ Jahangir asked. She nodded, breathing hard. ‘You never cease to astonish me.’ He was looking at her with utter admiration. ‘Your speed of reaction was faster than my own.’

  ‘The tiger was a threat. I reacted instinctively.’

  ‘Could you have fired if it had been a man?’

  ‘Yes, why not, if he was my enemy . . . or yours.’

  Khurram should be pleased with this gift of a painting of his bride-to-be, Jahangir thought as he scrutinised the portrait that Mushak Khan, his leading court artist, had placed on a carved rosewood stand in his apartments.

  The ruler of a small, far-away realm called England had recently sent gifts to the court including paintings of himself and his family. Although they looked outlandish in their tight-fitting clothes and high-crowned, curly-brimmed plumed hats, the idea of capturing the images of those around him had pleased Jahangir and he had commissioned several portraits. The mullahs didn’t like it, claiming such man-made images were blasphemous in the eyes of God the creator, but some courtiers, eager to please him, now even wore tiny jewelled portraits of their emperor as turban ornaments.