‘No, I didn’t plan it. It was natural Nasreen and I should talk when she visited the fort and when I saw your letter it required no explanation. I knew at once that it was my duty to take it to our father.’ Roshanara turned but Jahanara moved quickly to stand between her and the door. She would not permit her sister to leave until she had answered all her questions.
‘I’m not a fool. Nasreen has been in my household for two years at least. All that time you must have been hoping she’d bring you some evidence to use against me. What I don’t understand is why. You’re my sister. I’ve always done my best for you!’
‘Have you? For years you’ve either patronised or ignored me as if I were nothing beside you, the great First Lady of the Empire. You’ve always been by our father’s side, behaving as if you were the new empress and the rest of us just your acolytes. That night at our mother’s urs when our father left the mausoleum to cross the river to the moonlight garden you told me only you need follow, as if I were of no account and only you had the right to go and only you could bring him comfort.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be like that … I’m truly sorry if it seemed so.’ Seeing sudden tears in Roshanara’s eyes, Jahanara tried to take her in her arms but Roshanara jerked away, dashing the back of her right hand across her eyes and smudging the kohl rimming them.
‘Don’t!’
Jahanara’s arms fell back to her sides. ‘Ever since our mother died I’ve tried hard to look after you all … to do what was in your interests …’
‘If you think that, it’s only because you’ve never troubled to see things from our point of view. You were so certain you knew best that you never asked us what we thought or wanted. Now you’ve got what you deserve for playing the great lady while all the time conducting a squalid liaison with a foreigner … Now you will know what it feels like being excluded from everything that matters.’
‘There is — there was — no liaison. Not ever! I wrote to Nicholas Ballantyne asking him to visit me because I was worried about Aurangzeb. I knew he’d quarrelled badly with our father over the failure of the northern campaign. Nicholas was on that campaign. I hoped he could explain what had happened and help me put matters right between Aurangzeb and Father.’
‘I don’t believe you. That’s just a story you’ve invented to save yourself.’
‘You don’t understand … Nicholas Ballantyne had my confidence because he’d helped me before. When Father appointed Murad commander of the northern army, I summoned Nicholas and asked him to try to advise Murad and keep me informed of the campaign. He didn’t fail me and I knew I could trust him over Aurangzeb.’
‘If that’s true, why did the infidel flee Agra?’
‘Because our father would have had him executed if he’d stayed because he didn’t believe my story any more than you do now.’ Jahanara’s voice was rising and it was only with the greatest of efforts that she was remaining as calm as she was. ‘You deride Nicholas as an infidel — you call him a guilty man. That’s all too easy, labelling him rather than trying to understand. Don’t you remember how good he was to us as children … his loyalty and courage when we were all hunted fugitives? Our family has given him very shabby thanks and that makes me ashamed, as you should be.’ Tears ran down Jahanara’s cheeks. Sometimes the weight of everything that had happened was too heavy to bear. At least Nicholas was safe. Satti al-Nisa had brought her a letter he’d written from Gujarat where he was thinking of taking ship from Surat for England.
‘It’s not only that Nicholas Ballantyne ran away.’ Roshanara’s tone was more confident now that her sister’s anger had turned to tears. ‘I’ve seen how you’ve looked at him, heard your voice soften when you talk about him, as it did just now. Earlier you told me not to take you for a fool. Well, I could say the same thing!’
‘You’re wrong if you think I have feelings — feelings like that for him …’ But Jahanara blushed nevertheless.
‘Am I? Anyway, if you would please move out of my way it’s time I returned to my place at our father’s bedside.’
Startled by a sudden urgent rapping at the outer doors to her apartments, Jahanara put down her book of reflections by her favourite preacher, the twelfth-century mystic Abdul Qadir-al-Jilani. A visitor at this late hour — it must be nearly midnight? Surely her father hadn’t relapsed? It was more than two months since he had first fallen ill and he had been recovering, if only slowly. She had only just got to her feet, pulses racing with anxiety, and taken a few steps forward towards the doors when they were flung wide to admit a tall cloaked figure. As he pushed back his hood her heart soared.
‘Dara!’ She rushed into his embrace. ‘I’m so glad you’ve returned. How I’ve waited for this moment!’
‘I came straight to you,’ Dara said, releasing her. ‘Our father doesn’t know I’m here yet. How is he? It’s some days since I received any report on his health.’
‘The news is good. Satti al-Nisa tells me he has been keeping up his improvement. Recently he’s been strong enough to get up for three or four hours a day — and he’s eating better, not just the mint and manna soup which was all he would take at first. He is still frail, though, and the hakims are insisting that he is not troubled by any affairs of state.’
‘Then he doesn’t know …’
‘Know what?’
‘As soon as it’s light I must go to him. I’ve news that he must hear and soon, however frail he is.’
‘What is it, Dara? What’s happened?’
Dara hesitated and in the flickering candlelight she saw the strain in his face. ‘I know you’ve had your own troubles, but there is no way of breaking this to you gently. Aurangzeb, Shah Shuja and Murad have risen in revolt, claiming our father is too sick to rule. They are preparing to march on Agra with their armies.’
‘But that can’t be true …’ Jahanara stared at Dara, aghast. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I found it hard to credit myself when the initial reports reached me. Many roads meet near Gwalior. The first news I received was that Aurangzeb was returning to Agra. I thought he must wish to be at our father’s side — as he did to be at yours after your accident — and, being further from Agra than I, had not heard the reassuring news about his recent improvement. So I thought little of it. The next day, a cossid bringing a birthday message to the ruler of Gwalior from his eldest son, our governor at Allahabad, told one of my qorchis of rumours that Shah Shuja was also heading for Agra but with an army. Alarmed, I immediately sent relays of messengers down towards Allahabad to investigate. Thirty-six hours later the true position became clear. My vizier’s son rode into my camp demanding to see me. He had been serving at Aurangzeb’s headquarters in the Deccan and knowing that I was at Gwalior had ridden night and day to alert me. He told me that Aurangzeb was claiming to his senior officers that our father was dying or more probably already dead and that I was concealing the fact to strengthen my grip on the succession. Therefore he was marching on Agra to save the empire from me. He claimed that he was acting in concert not only with Shah Shuja but with Murad too.’
Jahanara felt so numb with shock she could scarcely think, let alone speak. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her reunion with Dara would be. Many times she’d dreamed of telling him of her innocence, knowing he’d believe her, of how he would go to their father and explain, how Shah Jahan would return with him to her apartments to beg her forgiveness. Now, with her father still sick, three of her brothers in arms against him and the empire perhaps about to dissolve into civil war, her own problems suddenly diminished. ‘I’ve heard nothing,’ she finally whispered. ‘Even though I’m confined to these rooms Satti al-Nisa visits me every day. She’d have told me at once if such rumours had reached the court.’