‘What was it? I don’t recall …’
‘Gauharara.’
‘Then let it be so.’
Gauharara suddenly woke and began to thresh about in Satti al-Nisa’s arms, then to wail.
‘Take her back to the haram.’ Shah Jahan turned away as Satti al-Nisa carried his daughter swiftly from the room.
‘Don’t send Gauharara from us, Father. Satti al-Nisa wishes to care for her.’ For a moment Jahanara rested her hennaed fingertips on the coarse-woven cotton of his tunic. Since Mumtaz’s death he had decreed that all the court should wear only the plainest garments.
‘Very well.’ At the relief on Jahanara’s young face he felt regret for causing her anxiety, yet he couldn’t help himself. Since Mumtaz’s death it was as if a barrier had sprung up between himself and the rest of the world, including his family, whom he knew he loved. Even now he was wishing Jahanara would go away and leave him to his thoughts, but it seemed she had more to say.
‘Father, there’s something you should know. A few days ago Aurangzeb came to me in great distress. A mullah had told him that God had taken our mother away because you are a bad Muslim who flouts Islamic law by employing Hindus and other non-Muslims at your court. I told Aurangzeb that the mullah was talking nonsense — that you rule as our great-grandfather Akbar did by showing tolerance to all — but he would not be convinced.’
‘Perhaps he was right not to be. Maybe the mullah is speaking no more than the truth. These past weeks I’ve asked myself over and over how I could have offended God so badly to be punished in this way. Perhaps I have been too lax, too indulgent towards those of other faiths, like the arrogant Portuguese Jesuits who travel the length and breadth of my empire proclaiming that they alone have God’s ear. They are corrupt, and venal as well. Remember how they expelled us from their settlement on the Hooghly river when we were fugitives, even though your mother was so weak? They acted without the care and compassion they boast is at the heart of their religion because they wanted to gain favour with my father and Mehrunissa. I’ve often thought of them over the years but now I’ve acted. Two weeks ago I despatched soldiers to expel the priests from their settlement and to burn their buildings down so that they cannot return. I am also thinking of forbidding the construction of further Hindu temples in my cities.’
‘What?’ Jahanara looked stunned, and it was a moment or two before she could gather her words. ‘Father, expel the foreign priests if you must — they have done something to deserve it — but don’t turn on your loyal subjects just because they are of a different religion. Your own mother, your grandmother, were Rajput princesses. Hindu blood flows in your veins and mine. What’s more, your Hindu subjects have done nothing to offend you and they share in our grief … Think of the messages of condolence we have received. The courts of Amber and Mewar and Marwar mourned with us, observing the forty days as strictly as we did ourselves. Don’t repay them by restricting their religious freedoms … It isn’t just.’
Shah Jahan stared at his daughter as if seeing her properly for the first time. Her strained expression, the passion in her voice, told him she was speaking from the heart. And there was so much of Mumtaz in her — she had her mother’s courage and her gentle persistence. Even her tone was so like Mumtaz’s that for a moment, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine that his wife was still with him. The thought brought pain but also consolation of a kind.
‘Perhaps you are right. I will think further before I act. But in return I’ve something to ask. I’ve decided to send your mother’s body back to Agra for temporary burial until the tomb I will build there is ready to receive her. The golden casket I ordered will arrive in two or three days’ time and there’s no reason to delay any longer. My mind will be easier knowing she has returned to rest in the place she loved. I can’t leave the Deccan myself until I have beaten my enemies, so I’d like you and Dara to accompany the funeral cortege. As you reminded me once before, as my eldest son and daughter it is fitting.’
Shah Jahan charged at the head of his men towards a large squadron of Bijapuran horsemen. He had encountered them as they crossed in front of his own forces on one of his sweeps of the countryside. At the urging of his officers he had reluctantly re-joined his forces for the first time a few days after the departure of Mumtaz’s cortege for Agra, but now he found that the excitement and risks of the search and ensuing pursuit were almost the only things that dulled his grief for Mumtaz, forcing him to concentrate his mind on present dangers rather than the past. He had been glad to embark on this, the third such sortie.
‘Majesty, you are outdistancing us. Rein in a little or we cannot protect you,’ he heard the captain of his bodyguard yell above the thunder of the charging horses’ hooves. He paid no attention. If his fate was to die so be it. He would join Mumtaz in the gardens of Paradise. Within moments he clashed with the foremost Bijapuran, a squat man on a white horse whose opening stroke with his curved scimitar whistled through the air above Shah Jahan’s plumed helmet as he ducked. Shah Jahan’s horse was galloping so fast that it carried him beyond the man before he could get in a stroke of his own. Another Bijapuran horseman thrust at him with his long lance but he turned it aside with his sword before giving a backhand slash with his own weapon which thudded into the rump of the rebel’s chestnut horse, causing it to rear and unseat its rider before bolting.
Shah Jahan struck at a third Bijapuran but his blow glanced off the rebel’s breastplate. Moments later, he found himself alone on the far side of the Bijapuran ranks. Several enemy riders were wheeling to attack him. Realising the danger his impetuous and foolhardy charge had brought him into, he immediately headed, heart thumping, towards the nearest man, still battling to turn his horse, and before the rider could react thrust his sword deep into his abdomen below his steel breastplate. As Shah Jahan wrenched his weapon free his adversary collapsed on to his horse’s neck, dropping his short lance.
A second Bijapuran had been quicker to turn and at once attacked the Emperor. His sword struck the pommel of Shah Jahan’s saddle as the emperor swayed back out of the way, simultaneously striking out with his own bloodstained blade and knocking the Bijapuran’s domed helmet from his head. Undaunted, the horseman rode again at Shah Jahan, this time joined by two of his comrades. Shah Jahan pulled back hard on his reins purposely causing his horse to rear up, front legs flailing. One of its hooves caught the foremost Bijapuran, who fell backwards. Immediately Shah Jahan, gripping his reins with his left hand to turn, slashed at the next rider catching him in the muscle of his upper right arm and forcing him also to drop his weapon. Struggling desperately to turn his horse to face the third attacker, the helmetless man, Shah Jahan realised that he was not going to be able to do so before the Bijapuran got in his blow. Instinctively he tried to make himself the smallest target possible. Then the Bijapuran’s head split before his eyes into a mess of blood and brains. The captain of his bodyguard had forced his way through the column and cleft the man’s unprotected skull in two. Others of his bodyguard were appearing and straight away charging into their enemies’ disintegrating ranks. The Bijapurans who could disengage themselves from the fight — by no means all of them — were beginning to kick their horses into a gallop to escape, leaving their fellows to die or be taken prisoner.
Forty-eight hours later — a period during which he had scarcely left the saddle, never mind slept — Shah Jahan was standing with Ashok Singh on a flat outcrop of rock looking down on the small walled town of Krishnapur sited in the ox-bow bend of a dried-up river. From his interrogation of some of the Bijapurans captured during the earlier skirmish Shah Jahan had discovered that the town had become a base for their activities. Sparing neither himself nor his men, two hours earlier he had reached Krishnapur to find its gates firmly closed against him. His men now encircled the town.