Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (19 page)

There had been so much death and destruction within his family. What had the Moghuls done to deserve it? God had allowed them unbounded power and wealth but denied them the peace and harmony that even the humblest family had a right to expect. His name meant ‘Ruler of the World’, yet as he sat there, alone in the darkness, the words seemed to mock him.

Shah Jahan shifted his position a little to get more comfortable. The Turkish concubine, with her wiry dark hair and startling amber eyes, had departed at dusk back to the
haram
. She had exhausted his body but his mind was restless. He had not slept for several nights. He must tonight. Standing, he went over to a locked chest on a low table and turning the key took out a small bottle of wine, into which he dropped a pellet of opium. He knew Mehrunissa had damaged his father with such potions but he must sleep. Soon he was drifting into a world of sensual, soft-scented dreams. He and Mumtaz were lying beneath a jasmine-covered arbour in the garden of their first mansion in Agra, bodies close. He touched Mumtaz’s cheek and, seeing her answering smile, pulled her gently to him. Slowly he began unfastening the emerald buttons of her
choli
, marvelling at the velvet swell of her breasts beneath the tightly fitting silk.

‘Please, wake up … the cloth has been spread for the evening meal and we’ve been waiting for you … had you forgotten?’

A voice – a woman’s voice – was intruding into his idyll. Opening his eyes he tried to focus but the pink-clad figure in front of his divan was only a blur. Even when she came closer and knelt beside him, he still couldn’t distinguish the features, half hidden as they were by a sweep of dark hair. Slowly he sat up, confused. Was it Mumtaz? Yet how could it be if she was lying beside him? But as the figure leaned yet closer he caught the scent of orange blossom – one of Mumtaz’s favourite perfumes which she distilled herself. It was her after all. Reaching out, his fingers touched the yielding smoothness of her breast and began to caress it.

‘Stop it! What are you doing? … Please don’t …’

As she tried to pull away, he gripped the breast harder and with his other hand felt for the mound between her thighs. Through the soft fabric of her clothes her flesh felt firm and warm and welcoming, contradicting her words, which she couldn’t mean … Mumtaz had never denied him anything. This was just a teasing game to heighten his desire …

As she continued to struggle, Shah Jahan relinquished her breast and putting his arm round her neck pulled her down beside him, breathing in the fragrant scent of her body. ‘You know what you mean to me …’ he whispered, feeling her heart beating against him. She had always responded to him. From their very first night she had known how to give and to receive pleasure and so it would always be between them. But as he moved closer, she suddenly twisted away and scrambled off the divan, hair tumbling about her face. ‘Where are you going? Don’t go …’ Shah Jahan leapt up but as he reached for her she grabbed a brass bowl and flung it at him, catching him on his right temple. Blood streamed down his face and he felt dizzy. Gasping with pain he gripped a pillar for support and for a moment shut his eyes.

‘Father!’

Opening his eyes again, he saw Jahanara, the front of her
choli
ripped open, revealing her breasts. What was happening? He shook his head as if that motion could drive away the clouds in his mind. As he stared at his daughter … saw the shock and revulsion on her tear-stained, kohl-smudged face … he began to grasp what he had tried to do. ‘Jahanara … I didn’t mean …’ He took a step towards her but she backed away, the breeze blowing in from the terrace behind her ruffling her pink muslin skirt.

‘No … don’t come any closer!’ Her voice sounded strange – hoarse and high-pitched – and he saw her glance towards the doors leading from his apartments, but he was blocking her path. He let go of the pillar and was about to move aside when he stopped. How could he let her go like this? He must make her listen to him … ‘Let me explain …’

‘No!’ She stared at him, then without warning turned and darted out on to the terrace.

‘Jahanara …’ Shah Jahan staggered outside. At first his eyes couldn’t focus as he peered into the soft light of the oil lamps and wicks burning in their saucers of oil, but then a noise told him where she was – near a stairway at the far end of the terrace that led directly down to the
haram
. ‘Wait …’

For a moment she looked back at him, then gathering her muslin skirt she turned and ran towards the stairs. Suddenly she lost her footing and tumbled forward, putting out her hands to try to save herself. As she came crashing down, the hem of her skirt brushed a naked flame. Shah Jahan watched in horror as a tongue of orange fire spread into the fabric and his daughter began to scream.

Shah Jahan half ran, half lurched forward, but before he could reach Jahanara female
haram
attendants who must have heard her cries ran up the stairs. Seeing what was happening, two dropped to their knees beside Jahanara, one trying to beat out the flames with her bare hands, the other trying to remove the burning skirt. They had some success until one leaned right over Jahanara and her long hair caught light and she too began screaming and clawing at her head. Almost simultaneously the second attendant’s clothes caught fire and as she rose and ran towards a fountain a breeze fanned the flames, turning her into a human torch.

By now other servants were pouring ewers of water over Jahanara, dousing the flames before turning to help the other two women. But Shah Jahan had eyes only for his daughter. Kneeling low over her, he began peeling away the shreds of burnt clothing, fearful of what he was about to see. She was lying on her face, parts of her back and left leg horribly burned and much of her once lovely hair frazzled. As the smell of scorched flesh caught his nostrils, he began to heave.

‘Your
hakims
are coming, Majesty,’ he heard someone say. With the fumes of intoxication dissipating under the shock and tears coursing down his face, he tried to stand as strong arms reached out to help him. Minutes later, he watched as two
hakims
bent over Jahanara. ‘She’s breathing, but the burns are bad,’ one said at last.

‘Where should we take her, Majesty? Back to her own mansion?’ asked the other.

‘No … Prepare apartments for her in the imperial
haram
here in the fort. Also give every attention to her attendants – they risked their lives to help her.’ Shah Jahan watched as, following the
hakims
’ instructions, attendants covered Jahanara and her two waiting women with cotton sheets soaked in water and lifted them carefully on to litters. As they carried them from the terrace Shah Jahan followed slowly. Glancing for a moment towards the Jumna river he made out the pale shape of Mumtaz’s half-built tomb. ‘Don’t let my daughter die like her mother,’ he found himself praying. ‘Punish me, instead. I deserve it.’

S
hah Jahan leant closer as Jahanara muttered something. Briefly her eyelids flickered but then she lay quiet and still again in the half-light of the sick chamber. Though she was getting no worse the
hakims
were worried. Her periods of full consciousness were brief and her burns, pink and suppurating beneath their dressings, terrible to look at. So it had been for the past ten days. He was spending all the time he could by her bedside, making only the briefest of appearances in his audience chamber. As he sat head bowed, his mind returned again and again to that night. In his opium-laced longing and confusion he had mistaken Jahanara for Mumtaz and tried to make love to her, his own daughter, a sin before God and man. He could not forgive himself and therefore how could he ever expect Jahanara to do so?

Dara and Murad often joined him in the sickroom. Soon Aurangzeb would arrive from Burhanpur and Shah Shuja from Bengal. His family would be reunited again, but in what terrible circumstances. How could he admit to them what had really happened? Where was that aura of good fortune he had striven to preserve on his return to Agra after Mumtaz’s death? … Yet it wasn’t that fate had turned against him. He had cast her off through his own weakness, and even if she survived Jahanara’s scars would remind him for ever how he had betrayed his daughter’s trust. He was so lost in his thoughts that at first he didn’t hear one of the
hakims
enter the room and he started when the man came close and whispered, ‘Majesty?’

‘What is it?’

‘The foreigner says he knows of a European doctor who might be able to help Her Highness. I’m doubtful but I promised to pass his message to you.’

‘What foreigner? … Do you mean Nicholas Ballantyne?’

‘Yes, the Englishman.’

‘Send him to me at once. If he knows anyone or anything that might help I want to hear about it.’

Half an hour later Nicholas stood before him on his terrace, just a few feet from where Jahanara’s skirt had caught alight.

‘Well? I understand you know a doctor who you think can help the princess?’

Nicholas nodded. ‘He’s a French physician now settled here in Agra. I met him many years ago – he helped cure my master Sir Thomas when he was racked by stomach fluxes – and I know he is highly skilled. I told him about the Lady Jahanara’s burns and he described a remedy that he invented to help soldiers burned by flaming arrows or exploding cannon during battle. It combines medicines from Arabia, from his own country and from Hindustan and he swears that it reduces the pain. He also says that if applied soon enough it encourages the burnt skin to renew itself. He’s outside. I brought him with me in case you wished to speak to him – I could interpret. He speaks little Persian.’

‘Bring him in.’

The physician was a short, squat man and his dark belted robe was stretched tight across a rounded belly.

‘What treatment d’you propose?’

Nicholas translated, then listened carefully to the physician’s response before turning back to Shah Jahan. ‘Before he can decide what to recommend, he says he must examine the patient. He asks whether it’s true that her shoulders, back and legs have been severely burned?’ Shah Jahan nodded. The doctor reflected a moment then spoke again. ‘He says he’s treated similar cases here in Agra where thatched roofs are so dry that a few sparks can ignite them. Last month just such a fire swept through a row of houses in the north of the city. Several women died because they feared to break purdah by leaving their homes but he was able to save a few … As well as the salve I told you about he has invented other treatments, all of which can ease the patient’s suffering.’

‘He talks of easing pain. Can he restore the sufferer to health? My daughter’s two attendants have died of their burns.’

‘I know the answer to that, Majesty – I asked him myself. He says he will try but he can make no promises – at least not until he has seen the princess.’

‘And the disfigurement? If my daughter does survive, can he lessen that?’

Nicholas consulted the physician. ‘No, Majesty. He cannot obliterate the scarring that inevitably results from burns.’

‘That is a lesser matter. Tell him that if he saves my daughter’s life I’ll give him anything he wants.’

After a further whispered exchange Nicholas replied, ‘He asks how soon he can see her?’

‘She is being cared for here in the imperial
haram
. Only in the most extreme circumstances are my own
hakims
allowed to enter. No foreign man has ever been admitted. Though such rules are foolish in desperate times like these, I must show some regard to them. I will allow the two of you to visit the
haram
, but my eunuchs will lead you with your heads covered until you reach my daughter’s room.’

The Frenchman was saying something else and Nicholas lowered his head to catch the words. ‘Majesty, he asks for complete control over everything the princess eats or drinks.’

‘Tell him my daughter is barely conscious and that all that has passed her lips since the accident has been a concoction of water and opium to deaden her pain, especially when the dressings are changed.’

‘The doctor insists she must eat as soon as she is able – mashed fruits, especially bananas – but in particular she must also be made to drink as much water as possible. Her body needs fluids.’

Half an hour later Nicholas put his hand on the shoulder of the French doctor, standing directly in front of him, as the
khawajasara
instructed. Then a eunuch – smooth-faced and willowy – arranged a piece of green brocade over both the foreigners’ heads, twitching it into place until satisfied that neither would be able to see anything when they entered the
haram
. The brocade tickled the back of Nicholas’s neck as at the
khawajasara’s
command he and the doctor stepped slowly forward, the doctor’s hand resting on the eunuch’s shoulder.

‘I was in a
haram
some years ago,’ the Frenchman whispered, ‘in the household of the Moghul Governor of Gujarat. One of his wives thought she had been poisoned. In truth, she had simply over-eaten and I recommended a purge. But I’ve never forgotten how difficult it was to take the woman’s pulse. She had so many ropes of pearls wound round her arms that at first I couldn’t find it.’