Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues) (28 page)

Fully understanding that he now possessed unmatched military prowess in the Empire, he gladly accepted charge of converting the worst debacle in Mughal military history into a triumphant victory over the enemy.

17

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

1
^st
February, 1647

I
think you need a smaller turban,” chuckled Dara as he looked me over. I’d reluctantly decided to wear the signature green turban of the Qadiriya movement whenever I attended their meetings.

We knelt on the floor before the pictures of Mian Mir and began to pray for guidance. Shah Badkashi looked towards me as if he knew I wasn’t concentrating on the prayer but other matters instead. I avoided his gaze. It seemed he had some special power that I’d yet to learn of.

We rose after our prayer, and I casually approached Dara and said, “My brother, I need to speak to you in private.”

Dara seemed preoccupied, still murmuring some prayer verses as I spoke to him. He raised his hand as if gesturing me to wait. A few seconds later he looked at me and said, “Yes, what is it that can’t wait, Jahanara?”

His attitude annoyed me. Maybe he thought he could speak to me this way because we weren’t in the palace but in the headquarters of a movement he thought of as his own.

I shot back: “It could wait! But not for long. It’s about Nadira!”

Dara’s face softened. I wanted to be delicate in my approach to this topic.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “All right, Jahanara. I’ll come to the zenana later today and we can talk then.”

I looked away, annoyed and frustrated. I already felt tortured about soon revealing Nadira’s duplicity to a man who was one of the most genuine people I’d ever known.

Dara met me in my apartment later that day. I had the royal chefs prepare his favourite dishes and bring them to my chambers: mutton korma, tandoori chicken and grilled fish in lemon sauce. After he ate, I offered him
shirazi
from my special collection. Shirazi and Canary were in high demand in our kingdom. Both were imported from Surat, Gabriel’s port, and took at least 46 days to arrive in Agra. The high cost of such transport prohibited its sale in the open market, but that cost had no meaning for the royalty or nobility.
Araq
, the native wine made from local grapes and unrefined sugar, was what most noblemen drank when the foreign wines weren’t available.

Dara sipped his shirazi and started the conversation. “So, what matters concerning Nadira do you wish to discuss with me?”

I could tell he’d prepared himself for bad news. I began: “I never told you this, but I was very fond of the firangi hakim, Gabriel.”

“We all were,” he responded, squinting. I’d watched him imbibe a large quantity of the mildly sour drink.

“Not the way I was fond,” I said. This was getting harder. I’d never disclosed the full nature of our relationship to anyone, and verbalising it now made me feel dirty and soiled. It would be hard for me to find words to make my liaison with Gabriel look pure and sincere. Would Dara think of me the way we both always thought of the zenana women?

I said, “Gabriel held a very special place in my heart. I can’t tell you how or when, but perhaps the way he cared for me during my illness sparked something inside me, and he felt the same way. We met several times after I became well and…” I didn’t know how to say the rest.

Dara nodded slightly. His eyes looked into mine unblinking, but without a judgmental cast. Rather, I felt he was sympathetic towards me.

I continued: “I just want you to know that I know I can never marry anyone, but if I could, it would be Gabriel. He asked me to
leave with him and even offered to stay here so we could go on loving each other in secret, but his captain forced him to relocate to Bengal.”

Dara raised an eyebrow, as though he hadn’t expected such a twist in the story. I went on: “I’ve recently learned that someone from here contacted his captain and implored him to send Gabriel away, telling the captain that not doing so might result in the rescinding of the privileges Aba had given him in Bengal.”

Dara stared away for a few moments as he must have been thinking of what to say. At last he said: “Why would sending him away be a bad thing if you’d already been making your affair a secret? I mean, the longer he stayed, the greater the threat Aba would find out. Maybe whoever did this was trying to protect you.”

I’d never heard of anyone refer to my relationship as an affair, though that’s precisely what it was. I said, “Don’t you understand? If they knew enough of this relationship to send Gabriel away, and they were calculating enough to go to the captain and threaten him enough to send order for Gabriel to leave, who knows how else they might utilise this information?”

“And I presume you think Nadira did this?” Dara put his glass down and folded his hands.

“Who else could it be? The only women, I’m told, who took care of me during my accident were Kandari, Manu and Nadira. Kandari is ill, Manu is too sweet, so that leaves Nadira.”

Dara looked puzzled. He picked up his glass and took another sip of the shirazi. This was his third serving, a considerable amount for Dara. He then looked again at me. “Jahanara, Nadira wasn’t taking care of you when Gabriel arrived. She was initially chosen by Aba, but then when she got further along in her pregnancy she found she was unable to handle the stress.”

I felt a bit foolish then, for not having pieced together that Nadira’s pregnancy’d been far from simple. She’d been on bed rest, and didn’t even visit me after I was well. A full month passed after I regained consciousness before I saw her.

Dara said, “Aba then asked me who I thought should take Nadira’s place in your care.”

I felt I was getting close to my answer. I anxiously said: “And who did you recommend?”

“Your lady-in-waiting, Sati.”

I felt betrayed and devastated. How could the one person I’d confided in the most after Ami’s death do this to me?

The following day I confronted Sati about what she’d done.

She said, “I did it because you’re
foolish
, Jahanara! Mughal daughters aren’t supposed to have such feelings. It’s very dangerous for you to be involved with any man, much less a firangi!”

I sensed so much fury in Sati’s voice, it was as though she’d forgotten I was her queen; she spoke fearlessly and as though I were still a child.

I snapped: “And you think
you
have the right to pass over me and make such decisions?”

“Yes! I vowed to you mother I would protect you!”

“You could have simply come to me and discussed your concerns!”

Sati placed her tea on the table and said, “Matters have gone far beyond discussion, Padishah Begum!”

“What are you talking about?”

Sati shook her finger up as if disciplining me. “While you were running around in a boy’s disguise to see the firangi, your Aba has had a concubine, not much different in looks or age than you, also wearing boy’s disguise, visiting
him
!”

I huffed dismissively. “That’s nonsense! Aba has no need to disguise anyone. He’s the king; he can do whatever he wishes.”

Sati stared at me wide-eyed. “Not when it’s a street girl! To appease the mullahs, your Aba was trying to limit his liaisons to just his zenana, but then a street girl caught his attention, and deeming she’s not good enough to be an official part of the zenana, he’s chosen to meet her discreetly, dressed as a boy. Her name is Chamani, Begum!”

“What does this have to do with me and Gabriel!”

Sati pouted as if disappointed in me. “Your sister Raushanara has started a rumour that
you’re
Chamani, Begum!”

This news shocked and disgusted me. Immersed in the Qadiriya order and on the construction projects, I’d had little time to keep my ears open to what was occurring in the zenana.

Sati cried, “She claims you and your father are having an incestuous relationship, and this is why he made you queen!”

I sat in utter disbelief. What could I say? How could I console myself? Sati went on: “She claims she spotted you one day from her window, and you lost your turban in the wind. She saw your face and tried to have the guards seize you, but you vanished quickly. Later that day, knowing he would be livid, she went to your father to tell him you were escaping from the zenana wearing a boy’s uniform. But when she arrived at his palace, she saw him in a compromising position with a woman who from the back looked just like you, and whose clothes on the floor resembled the same boy’s clothes you’d been wearing. The coincidence seemed too unlikely to dare question, but I know you and know you could and would never do such a thing!”

Sati began weeping. How she must have secretly suffered, hearing these rumours and fearing for me! She said through her tears: “I reckoned it was time for the firangi to go so the visits would end; then the rumours would die out. But they’ve only gotten worse!”

I said, calmly as I could, “Does Aba know of the rumours?”

“No. The nobles have protected your father, fearing his wrath.”

“And Raushanara’s continuously fuelling these rumours?”

“I’m afraid so. She wants you discredited so you have no merit in the kingdom. She wants to take your place!”

My eyes also began to tear. This had to be the worst day of my life. My love for my father had been perverted, and my own sister was the culprit. I said, “What should I do?”

Sati leaned toward me. “Discredit her! Everyone has secrets, Jahanara. Find out hers and exploit it the way she’s trying to exploit yours! Discredit her before she can discredit you! Then no one will believe her.”

I thought this over for a moment, and decided indeed, revenge was in order. Now I asked Sati, “But what about the rumour that’s already out there about me? Should I address it in the zenana, perhaps issue an edict banning anyone from speaking such ill thoughts of the King and their Queen?”

“No!” shouted Sati. “You mustn’t say anything. Right now it’s just a rumour, but if you as the queen address it, it will become a
story
, and you’ll only give it validity.”

“So I should let the rumour stand?”

“Rumours have a way of dying, my child. Right now it’s new, so people are talking. Eventually, something else will come up, and this story will be forgotten. But in the meantime…”

“…I have a score to settle with my sister!”

18

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

3
^rd
March, 1647

W
hen Aurangzeb arrived at the Central Asian frontier with just 10,000 soldiers, he hadn’t been fully briefed about the devastation that occurred there in the wake of a leaderless army. The 45,000-strong force Aba had sent with Murad was now but half that size, disease and famine having killed as many soldiers as had enemy attacks.

Aurangzeb quickly organised what now constituted the imperial army, sectioning the wounded and infected in one area so as not to let their diseases infect anyone else. He used the rations he’d brought to set up low-cost, high-energy meals for all the men. He then assembled the remaining generals and strictly forbade infighting, citing death as the penalty for such offences.

He then mustered his regiments according to size, the largest regiments in back, the smaller in front, then paraded them across the valley. The Hindu Rajputs wore orange, signifying their Hindu origin, though it was understood they were under the Mughal banner. The regimen from Agra wore green headbands – the colour of Islam.

The parade made for a massive show of force by the new prince-general, putting the Bukhara army on notice of an impending attack that wouldn’t be a small, mere guerilla one based on bribes and treachery. This would be a serious, frontal assault by the new general.

Unlike Murad, Aurangzeb exercised disciplined control of the army and the whole situation. He had to make a repeat attack, but Aurangzeb was a savvy enough statesman to conclude that this region wasn’t worth much fight – neither Balkhh nor Badakshan could even provide the salary of a second-rate Mughal noble. Indeed, the entire region would be a drain on the treasury and the empire’s resources. Rather than expanding north into this snow-covered, dead region, the empire would be better served expanding south, into the diamond mines of the Golconda region of the Deccan. Thus, Aurangzeb resolved to end this conflict as quickly and at lowest cost as possible.