The Serpent's tooth eotm-5

by Alex Rutherford

  ‘Where is Raziq?’

  ‘Riding on, hoping to catch up with the soldiers and confirm what the cafila bashee said, while I returned to report to you. If we strike camp at once we might be able to overtake the soldiers and free the princes. The cafila bashee said there were only about a hundred of them.’

  ‘We can’t. I promised the prince I’d take care of his wife. Unless she is any better we must stay here. I cannot divide our small force. Wait here …’ Nicholas ducked out of the tent again. He’d tried to warn Dara … he should have been more forceful. ‘Bring Selima to me,’ he ordered a qorchi and waited impatiently for the old woman to appear. When she did her face was haggard.

  ‘How is your mistress?’

  ‘Very bad.’ Selima was unveiled and tears were running down her lined face. ‘She still doesn’t know me, her coughing racks her body, her skin feels as if it was on fire and her pulses are faint and racing.’

  Nicholas remembered the wormwood leaves and bending down scooped a fistful from his hat, which he’d left on the ground outside his tent. ‘Make her some tea from these. It might help,’ he said gently But even as he spoke, Selima’s face sagged with disappointment.

  ‘You have found no hakims?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. If her condition worsens, tell me.’

  Selima gave him a look that said as clearly as words, ‘Why should I? What can you do to help?’ and walked stiffly away on ancient legs, the already shrivelling wormwood leaves in her cupped hands. Whatever happened to Nadira, recovery or death, let it be quick, Nicholas found himself praying. Otherwise what choice did he have but for the time being to abandon Dara?

  Beneath a cloudless sky of a hard metallic blue Nicholas galloped along the great trunk road leading to Delhi, avoiding the wandering cows, the children playing barefoot in the dust and the peasants trudging to their fields with their tools on their shoulders, as well as the occasional train of ox carts or camels belonging to some merchant. It was the rural India he loved but he had little time to enjoy its eternal charms. The last earth had barely been piled on Nadira’s simple grave and the last prayers recited before he had mounted up six days previously. Though a third scout he’d sent out had managed to locate a hakim, the man had been able to do nothing for Nadira, whose delirium had increased hour after hour and whose lung-bursting coughing and agonised shrieks for Dara had tormented Nicholas as he’d paced helplessly about by the screens surrounding the haram tents. Now she was at peace, and he was free to discover what had happened to Dara and Sipihr. Why had Malik Jiwan betrayed them despite the apparently great honour of the gift of the breast water, however strange that appeared to a European? Had Malik Jiwan seen the gift as disproportionate and desperate, indicating that he should join the winning side? Perhaps seeing the small number of Dara’s followers had played a part too. Or had he already been committed to Aurangzeb and Murad?

  Although the collapse of Shah Jahan’s power and with it Dara’s hopes had seemed swift, it was becoming clear that it had been long in the fermenting. By remaining in Agra and keeping Dara at his side, Shah Jahan had gradually lost touch with his provincial commanders and officials, leaving his other sons free to sow sedition, making promises and winning allies as they travelled across their provinces and to and from Agra. Unlike Dara, basking in his father’s favour and taking his succession for granted, his brothers had known that to realise their ambitions they needed to act. Whatever the case, there might be little he could do to help Dara now … As the news of his capture had spread through the camp, even those who had remained loyal to him till now had begun to leave, slipping away quietly in ones and twos at first and then more openly in larger groups. In the end so few had remained that Nicholas had chosen to make his journey to Delhi alone. At least that way he would attract less notice.

  As the sandstone walls of the city finally took substance on the horizon, Nicholas reined in, contemplating what might be happening there. Would Aurangzeb and Murad really harm their brother? Before he could discover the truth, he needed to disguise himself further. He’d already exchanged his usual breeches and leather jerkin for loose-fitting dun-coloured cotton pantaloons and a long tunic with a broad purple sash into which he’d tucked his pistols and a dagger. Now he tugged on a round felt cap that Amul had given him, tucking his hair inside, and pulled his dusty cotton neckcloth higher to cover the lower part of his face.

  Two hours later, having left his tired horse at a caravanserai just outside the city, Nicholas joined what seemed an unusually large crowd of people passing through the main gate. Both the gatehouse and the adjacent walls were hung with flags of Moghul green silk — in normal times a sign that the emperor was in residence, but who were they honouring today? The emperor’s usurping sons? Several hundred yards beyond the gate Nicholas turned into the broad thoroughfare leading north to Delhi’s new Red Fort. This seemed the direction in which nearly everyone was heading, jostling one another in their haste to get ahead, as if anxious not to miss something. Perhaps today was a festival. Nicholas allowed himself to be carried along with the throng until it finally disgorged into a great paved square in front of the fort, whose massive sandstone walls rose up about two hundred yards away on the opposite side. Peering over a mass of heads, Nicholas saw that a large raised platform of roughly hewn wood had been erected immediately beneath an ornate carved balcony jutting from the wall of the fort — the place where Shah Jahan stood to address his people when he was in the city. Soldiers surrounded the platform.

  Nicholas pushed his way forward, trying to get a better view. Above the noise of the crowd he thought he could hear solemn steady drum beats. Others heard them too and he caught fragments of conversation. ‘They’re coming …’ an old man said, craning his skinny neck, ‘it won’t be long now.’ Who was coming? And why? Aurangzeb and Murad, perhaps, making a triumphal tour of the city their troops had occupied? That would explain the flags on the gatehouse. The drumbeats were growing louder and then he saw a column of foot soldiers, long staves in their hands, enter the square from a street to the left of the fort. Wielding their staves, they began forcing a way through the crowds to clear a passage across the square to the platform. They acted so roughly that a few scuffles broke out, but soon they had made a path five or six yards wide and then stationed themselves, arms linked, on either side of it.

  People were now looking expectantly towards the entrance to the street from which the soldiers had just emerged, and a great hubbub rose as a squadron of mounted troops riding two abreast entered the square. The two leading riders had drums tied to either side of their saddles and were striking them in turn: first one, then the other, and then both together. The anticipation of whatever was about to happen seemed too much for the crowds. Nicholas found himself being pushed forward again. He heard a scream as someone fell, and was trampled on by those behind as the great wave of people continued to press onwards, unstoppable as the tide.

  Then, as suddenly as the rush had started, it ceased. A hush descended, to be followed by a strange sound like a great, collective sigh. Then Nicholas saw the cause … A single elephant was making its way into the square — no gorgeously caparisoned beast from the imperial hati mahal with jewelled headplate and gilded tusks but a broken-down, scarred old animal with a ripped ear led by a shaggy-headed man wearing a simple dhoti. But like everyone else, Nicholas was looking not at the elephant but at the two wretched figures riding in a rough wooden howdah on its back — Dara and Sipihr, dressed in rags, with garlands of what looked like rotting flowers round their necks. Dara was sitting very straight, looking to neither right nor left, but his son was slumped forward. Nicholas gazed in horror and instinctively tried to push forward towards the captives, but people were thirty deep at least ahead of him and a tall, red-turbaned man directly in front turned round and swore into his face. Nicholas ignored the stream of spittle-flecked abuse. All he could think of was that Aurangzeb and Murad were parading their brother and nephew through the streets of Delhi as if
they were common criminals. But then Nicholas realised something else. If the traitors had hoped the populace would welcome such a spectacle they had misjudged. Cries of disgust were rising from all around him and some people were picking up stones and lumps of animal dung and hurling them at the soldiers, who stood their ground as the elephant continued its slow progress towards the wooden platform where it finally halted.

  At that moment, the drumming ceased and a tall, broad-shouldered figure appeared on the balcony above. Nicholas saw at once that it was Aurangzeb. The shouting ceased as suddenly everyone turned their attention to him. What was he about to do? Make a speech? Denounce Dara? But it seemed that Aurangzeb had no such intention. As he raised a hand, trumpets on the battlements above him sounded three shrill blasts. At the sign, two of the soldiers who had been standing around the platform stepped forward and pulled Dara roughly down from the elephant’s howdah. The crowd gasped as Dara fell to the ground. Nicholas lost sight of him for a moment then saw him as he struggled, hands bound, to his feet. The two soldiers took hold of him again, this time pushing him up the three steps of a wooden ladder on to the platform.

  Dara turned to face the crowds as they pressed against the barrier of the soldiers’ staves. At this distance he appeared haggard and his unkempt hair straggled in rat’s tails over his shoulders. Yet there was still pride and defiance in his posture, in the carriage of his head. His brothers had stripped away every external trapping of an imperial prince but they hadn’t managed to rob him of his dignity, thought Nicholas. Slowly Dara turned and looked directly up at Aurangzeb, standing motionless on the balcony above. Nicholas heard Dara call out something but couldn’t catch the words. Aurangzeb, though, clearly had. Immediately he signalled to the two soldiers standing next to Dara, who seized hold of him and, turning him back to face the crowd, pushed him to his knees.

  Then a gate in the fort wall to the platform’s right opened and a heavily built man appeared. He was wearing a leather apron that reached almost to the ground and in his hand gleamed a broad-bladed scimitar. Nicholas heard himself shout ‘No! … No!’ As the man mounted the platform, Dara began frantically struggling. Breaking free, he jumped from the platform and ran to the side of the elephant on which Sipihr was still sitting. He tried to reach up to his son but Aurangzeb’s soldiers seized him and threw him back on to the platform where the other two soldiers grabbed hold of him again. They pulled Dara on to his knees, then each took one of his arms and stretched it behind him so that his head was pushed forward. The executioner looked up at Aurangzeb, who gave him a nod. A terrible sound between a gasp and a groan rose from the crowd as the man swung his scimitar high in the air and brought it down in a single sweeping slash. Dara’s body slumped bloodily forward, but his head rolled across the platform and fell to the ground where a soldier quickly retrieved it.

  As people shoved and pushed for a better view, Nicholas looked up at the balcony. Aurangzeb had gone. Sipihr was now bent almost double and seemed to be weeping as his elephant was led onward into the fort, carrying him to whatever future his murderous uncles had in store for him.

  Chapter 21

  ‘Has there been any serious damage yet Father?’ As Jahanara was still speaking there was a distant boom. The daily bombardment of the fort usually ceased about now as night began to fall and the first cooking fires to glow in the rebel encampment just visible through the trees half a mile away across the Jumna. As had become his habit since the siege began, Shah Jahan spent much of the late afternoon on the battlements watching the exchange of cannon fire as the rebel gunners attacked the fort’s outer defences and his own artillery responded. Guessing she would find him here, Jahanara had just come from the haram to join him.

  Shah Jahan shook his head. ‘No. They’re still only using small cannon and targeting points along our defences at random. Only a concerted and prolonged attack by their biggest guns centred on a single point would breach these double walls. I remember my grandfather showing me the plans when he was rebuilding the fort — how proud he was of the walls’ solid construction and their height. I don’t suppose he ever imagined that one day a member of his own family would be assaulting them, any more than I ever thought to be under attack from my own sons …’

  ‘Why doesn’t Murad bring up his heavy guns? This siege has already lasted a month and what progress has he made? None!’

  ‘I agree. If Murad were serious he’d deploy all his firepower. But perhaps he isn’t. Maybe he’s no real intention of trying to batter his way into the fort.’

  ‘In that case why bombard us at all?’

  ‘My guess is that he wants to remind us of his presence and warn us against sallying from the fort. He knows that if he keeps us isolated we cannot contact supporters with the truth about the rebels’ actions, nor direct our remaining loyal forces. The only version of events that will reach the provinces will be their perverted one and I can scarcely blame the officials there if they believe it, or at least take no action to question it while the outcome of our struggle is uncertain.’

  ‘Perhaps he also hopes to demoralise the garrison and so precipitate our surrender.’

  ‘Maybe, but whatever his intentions I mean to stand up to him. We have enough food and water as well as troops, powder and shot to hold out for a long time and even to inflict serious casualties on our enemy. I’ve promised our gunners five hundred rupees for every rebel cannon they silence.’

  ‘Perhaps Murad’s motives aren’t what you think. Perhaps he’s regretting that things have come to such a pass and is anxious not to do anything to harm you … or his sisters. Maybe he is even thinking of reconciliation …’

  ‘Murad must know he’s gone too far to think he could ever win my forgiveness. He and Aurangzeb have killed my soldiers on the battlefield and put my appointed heir — their own brother — to flight.’ At the mention of Dara Shah Jahan saw Jahanara’s expression falter. ‘I know how hard this is for you,’ he went on more softly. ‘These past weeks have been difficult for both of us. Every day, like you, I hope for word of Dara.’

  ‘Not knowing is the hardest. Shut up in this fort we’ve no way of finding out what’s happening in the world outside. And the only news we have had has been bad …’

  Shah Jahan knew exactly what she meant — the letter from the Governor of Delhi brought by a messenger that Murad had allowed through his lines three weeks ago, which had reported the governor’s decision to refuse to admit Dara into the city. His justification had been that Aurangzeb had assured him that the emperor was far too ill to have issued any order to hand over the city and its treasure to Dara …

  Prince Aurangzeb tells me that Prince Dara is acting on his own account in a bid to seize the throne and that the instruction he claims to be from your Imperial Majesty is his forgery. By denying him I believe I am acting in the best interests of both my emperor and the empire. Instead I have given Delhi into the stewardship of Prince Aurangzeb who, I am convinced, is your loving and obedient son, seeking only to safeguard your Imperial Majesty’s position. May God in his great goodness grant you a swift return to health.

  ‘I hope one day Dara and I will be in a position to punish the governor for his duplicity and hypocrisy. I’d like to see him executed. That I cannot even send a reply condemning his action only brings home the harder how powerless I’ve become to impose my will on my empire.’

  ‘Do you think Aurangzeb is still pursuing Dara?’

  ‘Yes. Dara is the greatest threat to him. I doubt Aurangzeb’ll rest until he’s satisfied he’s driven Dara far away from Agra and Delhi. But he’ll want to get back here as soon as he can. He daren’t risk leaving Murad in sole command for too long. Aurangzeb must secretly fear that Murad means to seize the whole empire if he can — as doubtless he does himself. My hope is that the two of them will soon quarrel. If they do, it may give Dara a chance, especially if Suleiman brings back his army from the east. This war isn’t over yet …’

  For a while he and Jahanara stood in
silence. That was how it often was these days, she reflected. Cut off as they were from the outside world, what was there to talk about? Speculation was painful, raising fresh anxieties that each doubtless wished to spare the other. With every day she sensed her father retreating more and more into himself and she was doing the same. Sometimes her thoughts turned to Nicholas. The world around her — once so full of certainties — had become such a fragile place. Nicholas was one of the very few she knew she could still trust. She hadn’t forgotten his gentle touch on her scarred face. What had she felt at that moment? Not suprise, or shock, but … and it had taken her a little time to realise this … gratitude for such a human gesture at such a bleak time. If Roshanara had witnessed it, she would doubtless have interpreted it very differently.

  The thought of Roshanara reminded Jahanara that she should return to the haram for the evening meal, which since the start of the siege she had taken to eating with her sisters. Her relationship with Roshanara was still strained and they said little to one another, but she knew that the boom of the cannon frightened Gauharara. Though she was no child but a grown woman, her youngest sister was eating little and sleeping badly. Every evening Jahanara tried to reassure her and turn her mind to happier things.