Satti al-Nisa was right, Jahanara thought, as the older woman comfortingly stroked her hair in the way she had done when Jahanara was a child. But suddenly she jerked away as a new and terrible thought struck her. ‘If my father is angry with me, how will he feel towards Nicholas Ballantyne? He’ll have him killed … I must warn him.’
‘Yes, but no more letters, Highness. Let me be your messenger. Now that I have told you all I can I will return to the fort and go to his apartments. He knows me of old and will listen to what I say.’
‘Tell him to leave Agra immediately and to do so in disguise — to get as far away as he can, perhaps even to take ship for his homeland from the English settlement at Surat.’ For a moment she saw Nicholas’s frank open face beneath that unruly golden hair as he spoke his reluctance to communicate with her before he left for the north. He had become a familiar and trusted part of all their lives, yet by her thoughtlessness she had put his life at risk. ‘And tell him I am sorry … none of this is his fault. Go, Satti al-Nisa. Go now! I pray it’s not already too late.’
‘Approach no further!’ Shah Jahan was seated on a silver chair in his Hall of Private Audience beneath the green silk, pearl-sewn canopy. His stiff embroidered robes, the strands of emeralds and rubies round his neck, the jewels glittering on his fingers, told Jahanara how carefully he had prepared for this interview. She knew him well enough to realise that at his most distressed or vulnerable he retreated behind the magnificence of his imperial image. Though they were entirely alone with all the doors tight shut she felt as if the eyes of all the court as well as her father’s were watching her in judgement.
‘Father, you don’t understand …’
‘Silence! You will not speak until I give you permission.’ Jahanara was close enough to see the taut skin around his unblinking eyes and pursed mouth, the rapid rise and fall of the jewels on his chest and the tightness with which his hands gripped the lion’s head arms of his chair. Taken aback by the vehemence of his words and expression, she looked down at the floor.
‘Well may you bow your head in shame before me. I’ve known for some time that you once invited Nicholas Ballantyne to your mansion. Because I trusted you I assumed it was for innocent reasons. I refused to think badly of you and pushed the incident from my mind. Now I discover I was wrong. For two years at least letters have been passing between you and the Englishman and they were not innocent!’
Reaching inside his robe, Shah Jahan pulled out her latest letter and flung it to the ground. ‘You, an imperial Moghul princess, the First Lady of the Empire, write to a man of feelings and desires … In our ancestors’ days on the steppes you would have been killed at once for shaming our house. Jahanara …’ his voice cracked a little, ‘I trusted you, gave you everything you could desire … even your own mansion … and this wantonness is how you repay me.’
Jahanara wanted to shout out ‘It is only you who ever behaved wantonly, not I’ but knew she must not. In the effort to keep silent, she dug the nails of her manicured right hand into the palm of her left.
‘All night I sat up in my apartments wondering what punishment would fit the crime — and a heinous crime I consider it. One thing and one thing only has made me stay my hand from harsh measures — the knowledge that the physical scars you bear are my fault. My actions robbed you of some of your beauty and that loss has perhaps caused you to forget yourself and seek the touch of a man, however dishonourable and improper. At least that is what I have tried to tell myself as I struggled — still struggle — to find excuses for your immorality. Until I have considered further you will be confined in the imperial haram within this fort. As for Nicholas Ballantyne, this morning at dawn I ordered his arrest, but when my guards went to his lodgings he had fled … hardly the act of an innocent man. But I promise you this — he will be found and brought back to Agra where I will have him castrated before wild horses rip him apart.’ Shah Jahan rose from his chair and descending the shallow dais took a few steps towards her, his face an expressionless mask. ‘Now I have said what I wished to say, you may speak.’
Jahanara opened her mouth, but the will to defend herself and Nicholas was draining from her. What was the point? That her father could treat her like this hurt with a pain more deep-seated than that of her burns had ever been. He was judging her as arbitrarily and distantly as if she and Nicholas were strangers dragged before him, and what was more using the standards of his own moral weakness to do so. She’d done nothing to be ashamed of; just the reverse. Rather than indulging in selfish desires she had been trying to hold his family together. She would not stand abject before him. Neither, having done her best to secure Nicholas’s escape, would she plead with him. If he had so little trust in her, let him do with her what he would. Whatever happened she would keep her pride and her honour and one day her father would once more beg her forgiveness. She straightened her back. ‘I have done nothing to dishonour you or our family or — most important — myself. I swear so before God, my immortal judge. Do with me as you will.’ Jahanara’s eyes flashed defiance. ‘But before you do there is one thing I must know. Who was it who brought my letter to you?’
‘Someone with more regard for our family’s honour than you. Their identity is no concern of yours. Now go.’
As father and daughter turned stiffly away from each other both had tears in their eyes — in each case tears of righteous anger, betrayal and loss.
Chapter 16
Shah Jahan leant against one of the columns of the pavilion in his mahtab bagh, his moonlight garden across the Jumna from Mumtaz’s tomb. Here, among the waxy white champa flowers and orange trees, was one of the few places he could find peace. On nights like this he could almost imagine Mumtaz herself was beside him. What would she have said about the state of his relationship with their children? But that was a foolish question — if she’d lived their children would never have drifted so far away from him or apart from each other, and they themselves might have turned out differently.
As so often in recent days his thoughts returned to Jahanara. His initial anger had blunted a little over the week since he had confined her to the imperial haram, but he couldn’t forgive her behaviour with Nicholas Ballantyne. Of all his children she was the one he’d thought he’d understood the best, believing they had recreated the bonds that had existed before the incident leading to the fire. Clearly he had been deluding himself, seeing what he wanted to see rather than the reality. Wasn’t that what men often did as old age claimed them? Her duplicity had hurt him far more than if it had been Roshanara or Gauharara. Though his younger daughters were affectionate enough they’d never meant the same to him. He missed Jahanara … her daily visits, her companionship and wisdom.
At least Dara would soon return from his inspection of the new fortifications on the great trunk road near Gwalior. What would he make of the scandal that had enveloped his sister? As for his other sons, he’d not seen any of the three for many months. Aurangzeb was still in the Deccan. Despite his stubborn pride and confidence in his rigid view of the world, he was at least showing himself a diligent and effective administrator even if his reports were short and uninformative. Taxes from the wealthy south were flowing smoothly into the Moghul treasuries and for the moment the empire’s southern borders seemed quiescent. He was glad that his third son appeared to have at last put the humiliation of the northern campaign behind him. He must find some important honour to confer on him and summon him to court to receive it. Aurangzeb’s claim that he had never loved him still lingered … it wasn’t true and he would prove it to his prickly son …