Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne

by Alex Rutherford

  The doors opened and four attendants, legs bowing slightly with the strain, entered carrying a bamboo litter on which Jahangir was lying on his back, arms outflung. She could hear his heavy, rhythmic breathing.

  ‘Put the litter down over here, then leave us,’ Mehrunissa commanded, pointing to a dark corner of the chamber away from the bright sunlight that was now shafting in through the casement. As soon as they were alone she dipped a silk handkerchief into a brass bowl of water, then went over to Jahangir and knelt down by his side. How deeply he was sleeping, she thought, looking at his face, which with the passing of the years was growing a little fuller fleshed but was still handsome. As she began to wipe his forehead, a tenderness for him swept through her. This man had given her – could give her – everything she had ever wanted.

  He began to stir. Suddenly he opened his eyes and smiled a little ruefully. ‘I think I drank too much of that wine of yours again.’

  Chapter 12

  The Poison Pen

  ‘Majesty . . . forgive me for waking you . . .’ Mehrunissa opened sleepy eyes to see Salla leaning over the couch where she had been dozing. The Armenian was breathing hard, as if she had run to her mistress’s apartments. Mehrunissa sat up, alarmed.

  ‘What’s happened? Is it the emperor?’ An hour earlier, Jahangir had left her to watch a contest between one of his prize fighting elephants – a great scarred beast called Avenger, veteran of many battles with a broken but still highly effective right tusk – and an even more massive elephant sent as a gift by the Governor of Gwalior. Normally she would have watched the fight as well – she enjoyed the spectacle of these mountainous animals pitting their strength against one another and trying to guess which would win – but she had felt a little weary and decided instead to rest.

  ‘It isn’t the emperor, Majesty.’

  ‘What then?

  Salla held out a jewelled hairpin fashioned like a peacock, its enamelled tail feathers set with tiny emeralds and sapphires. It was one of Mehrunissa’s favourite pieces and she had been wearing it earlier that day as she had sat behind the jali screen set in the wall to one side of the imperial throne in the Hall of Public Audience, watching and listening as an emissary from the Governor of Lahore reported progress on improving the fortifications there. The pin must have slipped unnoticed from her hair, but surely Salla hadn’t disturbed her to report the finding of a trinket?

  ‘It was on your chair behind the jali,’ Salla was saying. ‘I found it when I went to retrieve my own shawl which I’d left there, but while I was there I overheard something . . .’

  Salla looked so troubled that instinctively Mehrunissa took her hand. ‘Tell me what it was.’ Though eager to know what had so disturbed her waiting woman, she kept her tone gentle.

  ‘It was the English ambassador and his qorchi. They were alone in the Hall of Public Audience because all the courtiers had accompanied the emperor to the elephant fight. I heard the ambassador say to his qorchi that for once it was safe for them to talk openly. I was curious and so I waited – you know that I understand their language. The ambassador was leaning against one of the sandstone columns by the dais while his qorchi perched on the edge of the emperor’s dais.’

  Mehrunissa frowned. To sit on the emperor’s dais was an almost unthinkable breach of etiquette but the two foreigners had clearly thought themselves unobserved. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The ambassader said that he wished to dictate a letter to be sent to England. He said it was time for his masters to know the truth about the emperor – that he is not only full of pride but in thrall to a woman. He said – forgive me, Highness – that in his country a woman like you would be put in a bridle to shame her.’

  ‘What else did he say?’ Mehrunissa’s voice shook with anger.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I left at once to find you. Did I do wrong?’

  ‘You were entirely right. Come with me. If the ambassador is still there I may need your help to understand what they are saying.’ Though she had been taking pains to learn English – even, with Salla’s help, reading some sonnets by an English poet called Shakespeare that Roe had presented to Jahangir – Mehrunissa knew her command of the language was still weaker than Salla’s.

  The two women walked quickly from Mehrunissa’s apartments and along the narrow passage connecting them with the small, dark room behind the jali. Barely a couple of minutes later Mehrunissa, with Salla behind her, slipped quietly into the room. Sitting down on a rose silk-covered stool, Mehrunissa leaned towards the jali to look intently through one of the star-shaped holes carved into the sandstone. Roe, spindly frame dressed in a long crimson satin tunic, was standing just as Salla had described, propped against a pillar. Nicholas Ballantyne’s golden head was bent low over a piece of paper over which he had just sprinkled sand. So the dictation was over. Mehrunissa leaned back, disappointed. Then she heard Roe say, ‘Read it back to me in case you’ve misheard anything.’

  ‘Your Gracious Majesty,’ Ballantyne began, speaking slowly enough for Salla to whisper to Mehrunissa the meaning of any unfamiliar words. ‘It is now eighteen months since I arrived at the Moghul court. I have written to you many times of the great luxury with which the emperor surrounds himself but last week he did me the honour of inviting me to visit one of his underground treasure houses. It is hard to find words to describe what I saw – candlelit vaults piled with rubies and sapphires bigger than walnuts, silk sacks overflowing with more pearls than you would imagine an ocean could provide and diamonds to outshine the sun. Of course, I did not reveal my astonishment but merely nodded as if used to such sights. But truly, Your Majesty, even the emperor’s favourite horses and elephants and hunting leopards have more magnificent jewels than any our royal treasury possesses, and all set in shining gold.

  ‘This glittering wealth is of great importance to the emperor, who has the pride of Lucifer in his dynasty, his empire and himself. He loves to show off his riches and it grieves me to report that his pride has recently taken a new direction. I have already told you how, entirely disregarding his mullahs’ prohibition of the portrayal of men and animals – as I am told his father did before him – he much admires the portrait of yourself that you sent him. He has had his own likeness painted. He is much pleased with the portrait, in which the artist – a man called Bichitr – has depicted him sitting on a jewelled cup like a chalice with a great golden halo round his head. He is handing a book to a mullah while you, Your Majesty, together with the Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia, are shown as small and insignificant figures squeezed into the corner. By this depiction the emperor in his arrogance is claiming to be the Lord of the World.’

  Mehrunissa shifted her weight on the stool. How dare Roe speak so slightingly and patronisingly of Jahangir? But the squire was continuing and she fixed her attention on him again. It was important she tried to understand every word, every nuance correctly.

  ‘This portrait is an affront to Your Royal Majesty, though when the emperor showed it to me I merely said that the artist had made his image most true to life and made no comment about the portrait’s composition. The emperor is so conceited that he did not notice my cool response, as I knew he would not. Indeed, I spend so many hours with him – he enjoys my company and never tires of asking me questions – that I have had excellent opportunities to study his character. I think that the time has come when I should attempt to explain his nature to Your Majesty so that you may understand why, although the emperor has granted us some minor concessions to trade in indigo, civet and cottons, he has still not given me an answer about allowing English ships to transport pilgrims to Arabia – a matter that I know from your last despatch is testing your patience.

  ‘The emperor Jahangir is a complex man in whom I have observed many contradictions. He can be charming and good natured. He has an open, active mind and delights in observing the natural world. When a villager recently brought word that a giant almost molten rock had fallen from the skies and crashed into the sid
e of a hill not far from Agra, he ordered it to be dug out while still smoking and swords fashioned from the hot metal extracted from it to test its strength. He has also commissioned a study of the intestines of a lion to see whether they offer any clues to the beast’s bravery.

  ‘However, the emperor can also be impulsive, impatient and short tempered to a fault. Although tolerant in most matters, including that of religion – indeed it seems to me that he himself has little – he can be bizarrely cruel. Always a believer in the importance of outward show, he makes a pageant out of torture and execution. On occasion he seems to relish the sight of men being skinned alive or crushed beneath the feet of elephants. He says these are the punishments that have always been meted out. I don’t doubt that this is true – or that they are merited – but it turns my stomach to watch. The emperor on the other hand observes some of these executions from close to as if they were the experiments of alchemists, noting how long it takes a flayed or impaled man to die and what their tortures reveal of the innermost workings of their bodies.

  ‘But to my mind worst of all, your Majesty, the emperor allows himself to be ruled by a woman. This Mehrunissa, of whom I have written to you before, is, I am convinced, a malign influence on him and on the empire he rules. It is well known throughout the court that she is hungry for power and also that she encourages her husband’s love of wine and opium to make him the more willing to give it to her. She is far more important here than any courtier – even the emperor’s vizier. Of course I take care to send her presents and flattering messages but despite this I am convinced from what I hear around the court that she is not our friend. Every time I ask the emperor for his agreement to allow English ships to transport the pilgrims, he tells me smilingly to be patient. I suspect the empress’s hand behind this procrastination. Courtiers tell me that, although a Persian herself, she distrusts all foreigners and suspects our motives, judging them as self-seeking as her own, I believe. Therefore she aims, by the advice she whispers into her husband’s ear, to play us off against each other and thus to maintain and increase her own power. Jahangir, instead of doting on her, should teach her not to meddle and to know her place. I am not alone in that view.

  ‘But I do not despair of achieving our objective. The emperor considers himself my friend and if I am patient I may yet persuade him to favour our proposal about the pilgrims. I will write again when I have further – and I trust favourable – news.’

  Nicholas Ballantyne looked up enquiringly. ‘Good.’ Roe nodded. ‘In fact, excellent. I want this letter despatched to Surat tonight so that it catches the Peregrine before she sails for England in a week’s time. Let us go to my room so I can put my seal to it.’

  Through the jali, Mehrunissa watched Ballantyne fold the letter and place it in his satchel. Then the two Englishmen made their way slowly from the hall. Her earlier weariness had disappeared as fresh energy and determination coursed through her. She had understood enough to know that Roe was not her friend. What was more, he had spoken disparagingly of the emperor. With Salla silent by her side, Mehrunissa sat motionless for a long time.

  ‘Ladli, read the first three verses to me.’ Ten years old now, her daughter had, like herself, a quick mind, Mehrunissa thought as the girl began. But though the poem was one of her favourites, she couldn’t concentrate. All the time she was wondering what was happening in Roe’s apartments. It had taken her time to decide how best to take her revenge on him and, indeed, whether it was even worth it. As her anger had died she had thought more rationally about his letter. Like any ambassador who had ever lived, Roe wanted to show his king how much influence he had, how deep were his insights into the lives of the great, how well he was furthering the interests of his own country, how his lack of success was not his fault . . . Now that she was calmer she could forgive Roe some of that.

  Yet she could not overlook his view of her. It is well known throughout the court that she is hungry for power, he had written . . . What if he was encouraging such talk among the many friends and acquaintances he had at court? She was annoyed with herself for misjudging the situation. For a long time she had encouraged Roe’s intimacy with Jahangir, knowing not only that her husband enjoyed his company but that the more time he spent with the ambassador the less time he would have for the official matters that bored him and that she was so willing – and able – to relieve him of.

  She could not, would not, allow Roe to undermine her position and all that she had achieved and the greater glories she aspired to. Now that she thought about it, only two weeks ago she had noticed an odd look on Majid Khan’s face when Jahangir had told his vizier to send some documents about refurbishments at the Lahore fort to her for approval. Even more recently she’d overheard two old women in the haram – one a great-aunt of Jahangir’s, the other a distant cousin of his father’s – bemoaning the influence of her family. ‘Ghiyas Beg controls the empire’s finances, Asaf Khan commands the Agra fort and as for her . . .’ She’d known very well whom they’d meant by ‘her’. It had taken an hour of having her long hair carefully brushed by Salla to restore her good humour and during that time she had come to a decision. Roe must leave the court.

  And tonight was the night when she should discover whether her plan was going to work. Suddenly she realised that Ladli had come to the end of the verse and was looking up at her. ‘Excellent. Well done.’ Mehrunissa smiled, feeling a little guilty that she’d no idea how well her daughter had read.

  Nicholas Ballantyne looked with some consternation at his master, his red face for once pallid, lying sweat soaked and naked on his bed. ‘My bowels feel as though they’re on fire though I’ve emptied them at least six times in the past hour,’ the ambassador moaned, closing his eyes.

  ‘When did this begin?’

  ‘Not long after I had finished supper.’

  It sounded like dysentery, Nicholas thought, something that sooner or later afflicted most foreigners in Hindustan. It certainly smelled like it – the stink in the room from the near-overflowing brass chamber pot beneath Roe’s bed was disgusting. Calling for an attendant to empty it and bring a new one, Nicholas steeled himself to come closer to his master, whose thin chest was rising and falling as he clenched the sides of the bed with both hands as if he feared to fall out.

  ‘I’ll fetch a hakim.’

  When Nicholas returned about twenty minutes later with one of the court doctors, a short stout man in a brown turban carrying his instruments in a leather satchel, Roe was vomiting copiously into a copper basin an attendant was holding for him. When eventually he had finished and had collapsed back on to the bed the hakim felt his forehead then rolled back first his right eyelid and then his left. ‘Let me see your tongue,’ he ordered. Roe opened his mouth and stuck out the tip, which Nicholas could see was coated with a yellowy film. ‘More,’ the hakim commanded. Roe feebly pushed his tongue out a little further.

  ‘You have eaten something rotten. You must be more careful in the hot season.’

  ‘All the ambassador’s food is prepared in the imperial kitchens by order of the emperor,’ said Nicholas. ‘The greatest care is taken . . .’

  ‘These symptoms could only be caused by tainted food. His body is purging itself from above and below of whatever has caused the problem.’ Seeing that Nicholas still looked unconvinced the doctor added, ‘Young man, if it were poison, your master would already be dead. As it is, I can tell you there is little risk to his life if he stays quiet, drinks plenty of water and for the next few days eats only a mixture of yoghourt and salt into which you must grind pellets of opium. I will prepare a portion now. Watch me carefully so that you know exactly what to do. Feed him two spoonfuls – no more – every hour until the diarrhoea and sickness stop completely. After that he must have nothing but water for a further three days. If there is any change in his condition send for me at once.’

  Nicholas nodded. After the hakim had left, he summoned attendants to wash Roe, change the bedding and, seeing how he was
starting to shiver, bring him a nightshirt.

  ‘Perhaps I’ve been here too long,’ Roe said. With his long moustaches drooping and dripping moisture from being sponged he looked thoroughly dejected. ‘They say this climate is no good for Europeans and that few of us survive more than two monsoons.’

  ‘Courage. You’ve been healthy till now. This could have happened anywhere . . . in England even . . . and you haven’t accomplished your mission yet.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. You’re a good boy, Nicholas, thank you. I won’t forget how well you’ve served me.’ Roe managed a weak smile but suddenly a spasm crossed his face as fresh gripes seized him. ‘Leave me now . . .’ he gasped, and levering himself out of bed he reached once more for the chamber pot.

  ‘I thought you planned to spend the evening with Sir Thomas?’ Mehrunissa looked up as Jahangir entered her apartments and bent to kiss her.

  ‘He sent a message that he’s not well.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I hope he recovers quickly.’ Mehrunissa composed her features into a look of gentle concern but inside she felt a deep satisfaction. It hadn’t been difficult to bribe an attendant to slip a little rotted meat into the highly spiced lamb pullao that she knew Roe particularly enjoyed. She felt no guilt – he deserved his sufferings for writing poison about her. She hoped she’d made him feel sufficiently ill to consider leaving the Moghul court. Probably not, but having found a way of attacking the ambassador through his bowels she could use it again and again until she’d weakened him sufficiently to achieve her objective of his departure. She’d never lacked patience.

  ‘I would have come to see you anyway. I have something I want to discuss with you. My agents in the south report that Malik Ambar is assembling a fresh army. I thought we had taught him a lesson, but his insolence and ambition – like those of the Deccan kings on whose behalf he fights – seem to know no limits.’