‘Nasreen!’ she called to her attendant. ‘Come quickly. I have a task for you.’
As he often did, her father had ordered that he was not to be disturbed that evening, but the piece of smooth ivory-coloured paper in her hand gave Roshanara the confidence she needed.
‘I have information for my father that cannot wait,’ she told the captain of the Turkish female guards who protected the main entrance to the emperor’s apartments from the imperial haram. The Turk — broad-shouldered and muscular as a man in her tightly belted leather jerkin — hesitated a moment then bowed her close-cropped head. At her signal the guards flung open the silver-clad doors to admit Roshanara into a long torchlit corridor at the far end of which was a second set of doors, also flanked by Turkish haram guards.
Accompanied by the captain of the guard, Roshanara took her time as she made her way towards them, the hem of her turquoise silk robe rustling as it brushed the ground. After all, she’d already waited long enough … indeed she’d even begun to think that Nasreen would never obtain any useful information, but finally her patience had been rewarded. She had something to dislodge Jahanara from her patronising pedestal and prove to her father that he should not have treated her so roughly when she had first voiced her suspicions. She paused while the captain of the guard tapped on the second set of doors and informed the haram eunuch who appeared that the Princess Roshanara had urgent business with her father.
A few moments later she was in his familiar apartments overlooking the Jumna. Shah Jahan was on the terrace where he often stood at night, gazing across the river at Mumtaz’s mausoleum by the light of an almost full moon.
‘What is it, Roshanara?’ He looked tired, but there was no reproach in his voice for disturbing him so late.
‘I thought you should see this, Father.’ She held out the piece of paper.
‘What is it?’
‘A letter from Jahanara to Nicholas Ballantyne. Yesterday Jahanara asked her attendant Nasreen — the one I spoke about to you before — to take it secretly to Nicholas’s lodgings. However, anxious that her mistress seemed to be conducting a clandestine correspondence with this man and afraid that she might be blamed for helping, she brought it to me unopened. At first I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I remembered that when I told you Nicholas had visited my sister in her mansion you said I’d been right to tell you … I opened the letter, hoping and believing I would find it was nothing, but I confess the contents shocked me. I knew it was my duty to bring the letter to you at once.’
‘What does Jahanara say?’
‘You should read it yourself, Father. Here.’
Shah Jahan took the letter and moved closer to a torch burning in a sconce. The flickering orange light danced across the page as he read. At first he couldn’t believe what he was reading, the words jumping before his eyes, jumbled up and making no sense. He took a deep breath to steady himself and looked again. This time his daughter’s elegant script — written in the pale blue ink she always used — stood out only too clearly, though the hand in which he was holding the letter was beginning to tremble. How can a woman living such a protected life as I understand fully what is in men’s hearts — their thoughts and feelings, their true desires … Please, I must see you …
Shah Jahan shook his head. Could this be anything but a letter from a woman to her lover? How could Jahanara bring shame on herself and her dynasty like this? He closed his eyes but all he saw was his daughter’s face as it had been before the fire, smiling at him just as Mumtaz had used to smile. He had lost the dearest thing to him on earth — his wife — and now by her own thoughtless and disgraceful acts he was losing Jahanara … For a moment he pressed his knuckles to his eyes as if by so doing he could drive away the images in his mind.
‘Father, are you all right?’
Shah Jahan struggled to speak but his emotions choked the words. Shock and doubt whirled in his head but as the letter’s contents sank in he felt something else — a scalding anger such as he’d not felt for many years, perhaps not since the time when Mehrunissa had demanded two of his sons as hostages. In those days he had been forced to submit to what could not be helped but no longer — he was an emperor whose word was life or death to a hundred million people. No one — not even a much-loved daughter — could escape his anger when they had transgressed.
He opened his eyes again to see Roshanara standing before him with a half-smile on her face. This was nothing to smile at. He took her none too gently by the shoulders and pulled her towards him so that her face was only inches from his. ‘Does anyone else know the contents of this letter?’
She shook her head, her smile banished. ‘No. Only I read it and I told no one.’
‘Good. So it must remain. I’ll not have your sister’s reputation dragged through the mire of court gossip any more than I can help. Return to your apartments and act as if nothing had happened. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’ Roshanara was trembling in his grasp. She had expected her father to storm and rage but his voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper and there was a coldness in his eyes. For the first time she realised how merciless he must have looked on the battlefield, or as he was about to pronounce death on a traitor in the court of justice. She almost regretted what she’d done. She’d wanted to see Jahanara humbled in their father’s eyes and to pay her back for her disparagement of Aurangzeb. Now she wondered what she might have unleashed on her sister.
‘Highness, please, you must wake up.’
Jahanara opened startled eyes to see Satti al-Nisa bending over her, lined face anxious. ‘What is it? Has something happened to my father?’
‘No, it’s not that. It concerns you. Someone has betrayed you. As soon as it’s light the emperor intends to summon you to the fort to account for yourself.’
‘What do you mean? You speak as if my father suspects me of some crime.’ Jahanara sat up and pushed her long hair back from her face as she struggled to make sense of Satti al-Nisa’s words.
‘He does, Highness. If what I heard tonight in the haram is true he has come by a letter written by you to the Englishman.’
‘My letter to Nicholas Ballantyne? How did my father get it?’
‘One of my oldest friends told me your attendant Nasreen claims you gave her a letter to take to him but that instead she made sure it found its way to the emperor. She is saying that he is your lover and boasting she’s to receive a rich reward.’
‘My lover …’ Jahanara gasped and gripped Satti al-Nisa’s arm. ‘But it’s not true. How could anyone think such a thing … there was nothing in that letter. All I said was that I wanted to talk to him about Aurangzeb … to understand more about the northern campaign and what caused my brother to act as he did.’ Still dazed, Jahanara got up. Though the night was warm, shock and dismay chilled her as for the first time she considered how others might interpret her words. How could she have been so careless? But she had never expected one of her servants to be so deceitful. Anyway, she tried to comfort herself, when her father understood that only anxiety about her brother had made her write in that way surely he would forgive her … After all, what was there to forgive?
‘I must go to my father at once and explain.’
‘No! Be careful, Highness. Though I have admired your father for many years — even before he became emperor — I can’t be blind to his faults. His bitterness against the world since your mother’s death still eats away at him. He has turned in on himself and does not always react rationally. Of all his children he loves you and Dara the most — that is common knowledge — but if he feels that one of you, his special ones, has let him down, his rage will be all the greater. Remember you have further to fall than either of your sisters.’ Satti al-Nisa took Jahanara in her arms. ‘After Mumtaz’s death, while you were trying to be a mother to your brothers and sisters, I tried to be a mother to you. And it is in that role that I came here tonight — to counsel as well as to warn you. Do not rush to the fort. Allow your father’s anger time to cool and give yourself time to think what you will say.’