Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues) (27 page)

I was confused. Yes, I thought my life had been filled with misfortune, but how did Kandari know that.

Then she said, “I know about you and Gabriel.”

“How?”

“When you were sick. I watched how he cared for you. Then I watched from the curtains when you first awoke and stared into one another’s eyes. I knew then.”

Profoundly embarrassed, I softly asked, “Is this why you moved to have him sent away?”

“Sent away? No, my child.” Kandari reached out to touch my face. “As someone who was never touched, I felt your pain and couldn’t bear the thought of you ending up like this. I was happy for you.”

I paused and then said, “Mother Kandari, I need to know who else knew about me and Gabriel.”

Kandari began coughing forcefully and for a moment I thought she was about to die. “The ladies that your Aba put in charge of nursing you during your illness, only they knew.”

I had heard from Gabriel that Aba didn’t want all of the zenana women hovering over me because the hakims had warned him about how susceptible I would be to infections, so Aba had appointed a select few of the zenana women to coordinate my care. I never really delved into who was in this small circle, but now I needed to know.

I looked away from Kandari and at Bahadur. “Who else besides Mother Kandari was nursing me?”

Bahadur looked up as if trying to jolt her memory to remember something so esoteric. “Queen Kandari, Queen Manu, Princess Nadira and…”

“And?”

“And that was all, Your Majesty. Just three women were required.”

I began to think. I knew Manu would never harm me, and Kandari’s words seemed sincere. That left Nadira, but as Dara’s wife she was especially close to me, so what was her reason? Was she also jealous of me because of my closeness with Dara or did she fear me the way Ami feared Nur Jahan when she first married Aba? After all, Nadira would be Empress one day. But she and Dara always showed me intense love. They even named their daughter after me, Jani.
Why would she name her first child after me if she had ill feelings towards me? Could it be that she was two-faced? Could she have committed those good will gestures so no one would suspect her of trying to harm me? Was she afraid Dara would keep me as Empress after he became King while she would be discarded the way Kandari once was? I would go to Dara to learn the truth.

Much to Murad’s surprise, no jubilant signs of celebration awaited him in Agra’s streets. No crowds gathered, no drums beat, no jubilant sign appeared anywhere. I could see from my balcony Murad slowly ride his lone horse into the main street of Agra, people barely noticing him, as if he was just another royal casually going about his business. At one point he had to stop so a cart drawn by two overworked, sweaty bulls on their way to the Taz Mahal could carry stones across the street.

Murad’s face looked discouraged. Here he was, dressed up in a jewel-studded turban, wearing royal silk garments with pearl necklaces and gold bracelets, coming victorious from battle – and being treated this way? While his horse stood still, he moved his head side to side, looking for any signs of celebration. In the deep distance I heard some loud music, but I soon realised it came from a wedding party, and the music slowly faded away as the party moved closer to its destination.

Now visibly upset, Murad stormed through the streets, even running over a limping beggar who was unfortunate enough to cross the street just as Murad reached it. He ordered that gates to the fort be opened, rode his horse to the outskirts of the Diwan-i-khas, dismounted and slowly walked to the hall to be presented to Aba. I went over to the marble window and prepared to see my brother’s and father’s encounter. Aba eventually entered, and the zenana women waited in the corner while Dara and Afzal Khan stood in their respective places.

“You idiot!” Aba raged. “I sent you on the most important conquest of my reign, and you deserted your army and ran back here!”

Murad hung his head, unable to offer an explanation for what he had done. He looked utterly pathetic there, wearing more jewels than even the emperor, seeming dressed as if for some reward banquet. Yet he was being scolded like a child in front of all of the nobles.

He stammered, “Aba, I-I…”

“Did you know that in your absence the king of the region refused to surrender?” Aba roared. “And in your absence no reigning general can command all of the imperial forces! Now the generals are quarreling with each other. Don’t you see this is why we send
princes
with our armies – to prevent such quarrels and maintain a united front? Get out of my sight!”

Murad left the hall, remounted his horse and rode back towards Lahore to resume his governorship of the region. At least the King hadn’t robbed him of his title, he must have thought. I saw him pause in the distance near the crowd that gathered around the lifeless body of the beggar he’d run over. But as if unaffected by the incident, he merely threw off his expensive pearl necklace and threw it in the body’s direction. Then, with a haughty look after giving the poor man’s life the value of that necklace, he rode away.

Aba was clearly devastated by this turn of events. What should have been the crowning military glory of his reign was now the biggest military debacle of all times. He moaned aloud about the Mughal men now dying of frostbite and pneumonia in the unforgiving snowy mountains of the Hindu Kush.

I’d always found the geography of this area fascinating. Sati once taught me the origins of the rugged northwest. These mountains were created ages untold ago when the continents were first split from the earthquake that gave the globe its current geography. The land mass that would one day become India broke off of present day Africa and floated in the Indian Ocean for several hundred years, gradually floating north to collide with Asia. As the land mass collided with
the southern region of Asia, the sheer force of the collision created the Himalayan mountains. Thus, India developed borders along its northern frontier in the shape of the world’s tallest mountain range, which included the highest peak in the world, Mt Everest.

Nowhere were the effects of this collision greater than in the northwest region of India, where several layers of mountain ranges continued to form, making the area almost uninhabitable. As a result, the people who lived there were a coarse group, used to a rugged lifestyle and unafraid to die. Their lives were a far cry from the opulent Agra, where parties and celebrations occurred every day while cool water chilled the arid climate in the summer months. Yet here were tens of thousands of Mughal soldiers from all over India, freezing to death, their remains not even receiving proper burials in the process.

We all realised something had to be done, and someone reliable had to be sent to do it. Though Aba thought about going personally to the area to supervise the reinvasion of the region, I was reluctant to let him leave the city without its King, especially given the construction projects still underway. Besides, if he were to be captured or killed in the process, India would be plunged into chaos, I felt, and all would be lost. Too much was at stake for him to put his life in danger; he had to send someone else, I implored.

He considered sending Dara, but he was too concerned about the danger to Dara’s life. Besides, Dara never showed much of a military mind; he’d often been rebuked by his teachers for not concentrating enough during his training with muskets and arrows. And since no other of his sons showed much political promise, Aba was reluctant to send his future heir into harm’s way. He next considered my other brother Shuja, who was the next oldest after Dara. But Shuja was at the time in Bengal on the eastern front of the Empire. To summon him from there and send him northwest would take too long; everyone now in Balkh would be dead by the the time he could get there.

So Aba knew who had to be sent; he just couldn’t muster the will to say it. I told him, “You know who needs to go, right Aba?”

He looked away from me and said, “The generals could handle it on their own if I made one of them the supreme commander.” But there was no confidence in his voice. He knew that was a ridiculous proposition; no military expedition of this magnitude could hope to succeed without a prince at the helm.

I said, “Tell me to send for him.”

Aba made no comment, his face frozen as if defeated.

I repeated: “Tell me to send for him.”

Again he ignored my plea, and now I implored: “He has military acumen like yours, and we need to bring our soldiers home. He alone can defeat the enemy and deliver the regions to us!”

Aba looked at me with resignation. “I must send for him, yes?” Now Aurangzeb would be ordered to Agra.

“Presenting Prince Muhammad Aurangzeb!”

Dead silence reigned in the Diwan-i-am as we awaited the arrival of the Prince. The nobility always stood on edge whenever his name rose. Now a broad-shouldered, muscular young man with fair skin and a neatly trimmed beard, he walked slowly, with confident strides into the hall, the gold and pearl necklaces around his neck chiming in rhythm:
Clink, clink, clink
.

He came to a halt on the thick Persian carpets and saluted Aba.

“My son…” Aba extended his hands as if to hug Aurangzeb metaphorically. Aurangzeb stood politely at a distance, motionless. “How you’ve grown since last I saw you! I have heard of your successes in Gujarat and am pleased with your work.” (Though Aurangzeb had disappointed in the Deccan, he’d impressed the Emperor in Gujarat; under his leadership robbers and rebels had been dealt with firmly, bringing peace and order to this previously lawless region. He’d even received a raise in his allowance and an increase in his estates in return for his good work there.)

He bowed deferentially. “Your Highness is too kind.”

The mullahs at their distance all smiled broadly.

Aba went on: “As you have heard, your brother, Murad, has abandoned the royal troops and rushed home to quench his thirst for all sorts of vices.”

I was amused to hear Aba refer to Murad’s philandering nature as ‘vices,’ considering Aba’s own indulgences in the same. It was rumoured that Aba was now engaging in intense sexual activity in the court. Several of his affairs were with wives of nobles; assignations were announced to him in cryptic ways, such as, ‘Your morning breakfast has arrived,’ ‘your lunch is here,’ ‘dinner is ready.’ These alliances were outside even his harem of over 300 concubines.

Much worse, Aba was now said to be engaging in yet additional promiscuous behaviour, even fornicating in the Shish Mahal, the Palace of Glass, so he could watch himself mirrored during sexual acts. All of these incidents added to my perception that when it came to earthly pleasures, Aba now observed no bounds whatsoever. At times I thought Raushanara must have gotten her voracious sexual appetites from him. Alas, the Mughal Kingdom was now a bastion of hypocrisy.

“I need you to bring the perishing Mughal men in the northwest home, son. Only you can do this task.” Aurangzeb stood silently at attention, head bowed in mild deference to the royalty in whose presence he now stood. He glanced over to Dara, who himself gazed intently at the ground; he was doubtless annoyed at this lavish praise thrown at Aurangzeb. Meanwhile Aurangzeb might rightly have felt disappointed, still trying to decipher why Dara was the favourite if everyone, including the King, knew Dara couldn’t be trusted with this expedition.

Aba now ordered: “Go now, to the rugged northwest and bring our troops home!”

“As Your Highness wishes,” said Aurangzeb, “I will leave immediately.”

Aurangzeb spent the night in Agra, but didn’t visit me before he left. He and Raushanara were becoming dangerously close, and I didn’t know what to do about that. Still, I felt if Aba continued
treating Aurangzeb as his son and not a ‘serpent,’ Aurangzeb would slowly come to our side and stop being swayed by Raushanara.

The Aurangzeb who had just appeared before the Emperor was very different from the one who’d arrived a few years ago from the Deccan during my accident. He was now more charismatic, he held his head high, his accomplishments radiated from his smiles; he seemed very much aware of his destiny.