‘Father, look, there’s Dara …’ Shah Shuja broke into his thoughts.
Peering down towards the bottom of the ridge, Shah Jahan saw a figure urging his horse up the path. The sight cheered him. God had taken Mumtaz but with four fine sons his dynasty would live on. He had much he should be grateful for.
The next morning Shah Jahan glanced up into the pale, almost colourless sky. According to the scientific instrument an Italian trader had brought to his court, today was the hottest of the year so far. The curious-looking device consisted of a glass bulb filled with water attached to a long tube, also of glass, on which a series of lines had been etched. According to the Italian, a man named Galileo had invented it and it was in common use in Europe. The trader had shown Aslan Beg how to use it. The complicated process fascinated Dara Shukoh, though he himself doubted the instrument’s utility. Wasn’t nearly every day on the plains of Hindustan hot?
Approaching the place where the brick core of the sandstone platform was taking shape and Ustad Ahmad was waiting for him, Shah Jahan coughed as the coarse dust hanging in the air caught at his throat. ‘Majesty, if you accompany me to that mound over there you will see better and the air will be clearer.’ Shah Jahan followed Ustad Ahmad across the hard-baked ground to a small hillock. His architect was right — the view was better from here. He could clearly distinguish the perimeter of the vast platform — 970 feet long and 364 feet wide according to Ustad Ahmad — on which the mausoleum would stand.
‘It still seems to me incredible that ground so close to the river can support the weight.’
Ustad Ahmad smiled. ‘Majesty, I’ve checked my calculations again and again and I am entirely certain, provided we strengthen the bank in the right way, that it will. I’ve already ordered the workers to dig shafts close to the riverbank, varying their depths to compensate for the slope, and then line them with bricks and a cement made of lime and sand and fill them with rubble and more cement. I’ve also ordered them to position piers on top of the shafts to support the platform.’
‘But aren’t labourers digging down on the riverbank too?’
‘Yes, Majesty. They’re excavating large holes in which they’re burying cement-filled ebony boxes to provide added reinforcement against the rise and fall of the Jumna.’
Shah Jahan nodded. Ustad Ahmad had thought of everything.
‘We now have twenty thousand workers. Those are their living quarters.’ The architect pointed to the south of the building site. ‘As well as their huts there are four caravanserais for the merchants whose camel and mule trains arrive daily and for the boatmen bringing materials by barge along the Jumna. They have named their city Mumtazabad in honour of the late empress. I hope that doesn’t offend you, Majesty.’
‘No, it’s fitting. But tell me, have you everything you need? Is enough sandstone arriving?’
‘Yes, we already have a good supply. While you were still in the south, I obtained Prince Dara’s permission to construct a road of packed earth ten miles long so that the teams of oxen can haul their carts laden with stone from the local quarries here more easily. Would you like to see the masons at work, Majesty? A group are over there beneath that cotton awning.’
A middle-aged man in a white dhoti with a red Hindu tilak mark on his forehead was bending over a large, square block of sandstone, watched by two youths who by their looks were clearly his sons. As Shah Jahan drew closer he saw that the mason was hammering a straight row of small nail-like wedges into the block. Suddenly aware of the emperor and his architect, the man jerked upright.
‘We didn’t mean to disturb you. Please continue,’ said Shah Jahan.
With a nervous look at his visitors the mason resumed his work, sweat beading on his muscular arms as he drove the line of wedges deeper into the stone. After several minutes he passed the hammer to one of his sons, who continued hitting the wedges until suddenly the sandstone split cleanly. Using a large length of wood, the younger man levered one of the pieces aside. The mason ran his fingers over the newly cut surface with a grunt of satisfaction, then took a fine chisel and began almost tenderly to smooth the edges.
‘The masons work the stone with their chisels and polish it with grit until the surface becomes as smooth as alabaster,’ explained Ustad Ahmad. ‘When each block is ready they will lift it into place and secure it with cement, iron dowels and clamps. You’ll not detect a crack between them.’
But Shah Jahan’s attention was on the mason, who was incising a triangle into the stone. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Making my mark. This is the greatest project of my life and I want to leave some sign that it was my work.’
‘Other masons have been doing the same, Majesty. I saw no reason to forbid it.’
‘And I don’t either. I’m pleased the craftsmen have such pride in their work. Here, take this.’ Shah Jahan handed some coins to the mason. ‘Thank you for your dedication and your skill.’ Then he turned away. ‘Ustad Ahmad, you’ve created a design of great beauty, but something is still lacking.’
‘Majesty?’ Ustad Ahmad looked more surprised than disturbed.
Ever since his dream of a bejewelled Mumtaz standing in the doorway of her tomb, Shah Jahan had been thinking how best to put his vision into effect. ‘I want more ornament for the tomb. I want gems inlaid into the marble. Few people know more about jewels than myself. I will select the best from my treasure houses. If there isn’t enough of any stone — green jade, perhaps, or dark blue lapis lazuli — I’ll import it from beyond my borders. When I have chosen the materials I will have some of my Hindu subjects who are, I know, skilled in the art they call panchi kura — the inlaying of stone — do the work. I may also employ European craftsmen — I remember two Italians who visited my father’s court when I was a boy. They brought pictures of the city of their birth — Florence, they called it — which looked like paintings but in fact were composed of tiny pieces of semi-precious stones.’
‘What patterns do you want inlaid into the marble, Majesty? Geometric designs, perhaps?’
‘No. Flowers, green leaves and curling tendrils that look as real as if they were truly growing over the mausoleum, so that my wife’s tomb becomes a living thing. I want some further decoration too. I wish other craftsmen to breathe life into the cold marble walls with relief carvings of tall irises and slender-stemmed tulips bending in the breeze as they do in Kashmir. I know it can be done.’
But O thou soul at peace,
Return thou unto thy Lord, well pleased, and well pleasing unto Him,
Enter thou among My servants,
And enter thou My Paradise.
‘What do you think, Father? Have Dara and I chosen well from the Koran? It wasn’t easy.’ Jahanara spoke softly.
Shah Jahan nodded. Soon after returning to Agra he’d asked his two eldest children to suggest some wording. The verse was exactly right to inlay around the frame of the gateway, reminding visitors that they were entering both a spiritual place and an earthly heaven. ‘I’ll order Amanat Khan to lay out the words for the stonecutters to chisel out.’
‘He is a true artist. His calligraphy is so fluid.’
‘That’s why I summoned him from Shiraz.’ Shah Jahan looked down at the table on which stood a wooden model of the entire complex. The four white minarets — one at each corner of the marble plinth — were an inspired touch. In his excitement to convince him they would enhance the design, Ustad Ahmad had called them ‘ladders to heaven’. Just to look at the model gave Shah Jahan pleasure, but then his smile faded. ‘It will be many years, of course, before the tomb is ready to receive your mother’s body. Meanwhile I can do little except inspect progress and authorise the payment of the bills my treasurer keeps presenting.’