‘My wife, Her Highness Nadira Begam,’ Dara said to the chief, who looked a little taken aback but then bowed low before her.
Standing very erect Nadira spoke, her voice so hoarse that Nicholas strained to catch her words. ‘You are an honoured visitor to our camp. As a Baluchi you may not know the ancient customs of my people. Please let me explain. In this bowl is water in which I have washed my breasts. I offer you a cup to drink in token of my husband’s esteem for you. By drinking this — the symbol of my milk — you become a proxy member of the imperial Moghul family and my husband’s own brother.’ Slowly and gracefully, Nadira dipped the cup into the bowl her servant was holding and offered it to Malik Jiwan. After a moment’s hesitation he took it, sipped from it and with a courteous inclination of his head handed it back. Then he turned to Dara. ‘It is a great honour, Highness. I do not know what to say …’
‘There is no need for you to say anything. You have responded to my call at a time of great need and I have conferred on you the greatest gift I can offer any man — one that creates a lifelong bond. When, with your help, my cause prospers, my father the emperor will heap gold and silver on you, my new brother. Now let us relax together.’ As Nadira returned slowly to her tent, her progress interrupted by a bout of coughing, Dara put his arm round Malik Jiwan and led him to where carpets and cushions had been spread. They were soon deep in conversation.
The next morning, Nicholas woke to the sound of neighing horses and jingling bridles. In a moment he was on his feet, sword in hand, peering through the pale dawn light. He had spent a restless night dreaming the camp was being overrun. Still half asleep, for a moment he’d thought that that was indeed happening. Then in the light of the already smoking cooking fires he saw that Dara’s bodyguard were stowing possessions in their saddlebags and that the grooms were readying their mounts. As he looked round, puzzled, Dara — fully dressed with his riding cloak over his arm — came striding towards him, his face exuding a once more recovered confidence.
‘What’s happening, Highness? Are we striking camp?’
‘No. I am taking Sipihr and my bodyguard and accompanying Malik Jiwan to his fort, where he tells me he has already begun mustering troops. I wish to see with my own eyes what calibre of soldiers they are and how well equipped. He has also suggested that if I and my son appear before them it will encourage others to answer his call. I am leaving you in command of the camp.’
‘But you’ve only got about fifty bodyguards mounted and ready to go with you. Wouldn’t it be better to take your entire force?’ Nicholas looked round, then lowered his voice. ‘What if Malik Jiwan is trying to trick you? Are you so certain he’s to be trusted?’
‘You saw what happened yesterday. I know you’ve lived in Hindustan for many years but perhaps you still don’t understand our ways. The honour you witnessed Nadira confer on Malik Jiwan is a rare one. He is now bound to me by ties that can never be broken.’ Suddenly Dara reached forward and placed his hand on Nicholas’s arm. ‘I don’t mean to give offence. In fact, I have a great service to ask of you. My wife is feeling no better. In fact she is worse, alternately sweating and shivering. I want her to stay here and rest. May I entrust her to your care? Make her safety your first priority. Promise me that you will guard her and her honour well.’
‘I promise.’
Fifteen minutes later, flanked by Sipihr and Malik Jiwan, and followed by his bodyguards and the Baluchi’s escort, Dara trotted out of the camp and was soon lost to view among the deeper shadows of the trees.
‘It’s Her Highness … she has an even higher fever.’ Nicholas, who was squatting on the ground cleaning the barrel of his musket, looked up to find one of Nadira’s attendants — an elderly woman called Selima who had been nursemaid to Sipihr — standing before him. Above her white cotton veil, her old eyes looked anxious.
‘How bad is she?’
‘During the night her cough grew worse and she began thrashing and crying out. Her clothes and even her bedding were wet with sweat. I tried to calm her but it was useless, and in a few more hours she became delirious. She no longer knows me or where she is. She thinks she’s back in the haram in Agra. She keeps asking for things I can’t bring her. I don’t know what to do …’
Nicholas got to his feet. In truth, neither did he. When he’d promised Dara to keep Nadira safe he’d meant protecting her in the event of an attack … not from illness. They had no hakim with them. If she’d been a man he could at least have taken a look at her himself — he’d seen plenty of cases of fever among his soldiers on campaign — but if Nadira’s condition was really so serious, he’d have to try to get help from one of the settlements they’d passed. That would take time and it would also be risky, but he had no choice. In the meantime he must think what else might help. The leaves of the wormwood tree were said to be good for fever — on campaign he’d watched doctors pound the leaves and then pour boiling water over them to make tea. He’d also watched hakims make a paste of neem leaves to smear on the sufferer’s tongue.
‘Go back to your mistress. Give her plenty of water to drink and keep fanning her. I will send men to fetch assistance from one of the villages, also look for herbs that may help.’ Should he send a rider to find Dara, Nicholas wondered as Selima hurried off. But the prince had already been gone for three days and would surely soon be returning. Also, Dara’s description of the location of Malik Jiwan’s fort had been vague. He would be foolish to weaken the camp’s defences by sending out men on what might be a pointless quest. No, it was better to focus his attention on finding a doctor. Putting down his musket he went to look for two scouts — Amul and Raziq — he knew he could trust.
Fours hours later, with the sun beginning to dip in the sky, Nicholas made his way back towards the camp with the long, pointed wormwood leaves he’d finally managed to find piled in the crown of his broad-brimmed hat, which he was carrying carefully in both hands. He’d no idea if wormwood tea really worked but it was worth a try. In his long experience of Hindustan it had often seemed to him that the best hope of fever sufferers was their own constitution. Nadira was still quite young, he reflected hopefully. Her own strength should carry her through. All the same, his spirits rose when, as he passed through the cordon of pickets stationed around the camp’s perimeter, he saw that one of the two scouts, the tall Punjabi, Amul, had returned and was waiting for him outside his tent.
‘So, Amul, you must have had good luck?’ called Nicholas. But as he came closer he saw the Punjabi’s grim expression. ‘What is it? How is Her Highness? Not worse …?’
Amul shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that. But I have something to tell you in private.’
Pulling up the flap of his tent, Nicholas ducked inside and gestured to Amul to follow. With the light fast fading outside, Nicholas lit an oil lamp that sent inky shadows dancing over the tent’s hide walls and ceiling. Then he pulled the flap closed.
‘What is it, Amul?’
‘To avoid being seen, we were keeping among the trees flanking a road that we hoped would lead eventually to a settlement. We’d not been gone from here more than a couple of hours when we spotted a long caravan of horses, mules and camels making its way slowly westward. Knowing that such caravans often have hakims with them, we approached. We’d invented a story that we were on a hunting expedition and that one of our number had fallen ill. But before we could recount it, the elderly cafila bashee, the caravan leader, had a story of his own to tell us. He said that on the previous day his caravan had been passed by a group of soldiers taking two prisoners to Delhi. The soldiers stopped to buy camel meat and milk from the caravan and one of them boasted to the cafila bashee that the prisoners they were escorting were no ordinary men but the son and grandson of the emperor, being sent as a gift by the chieftain Malik Jiwan to Princes Aurangzeb and Murad. The cafila bashee said he saw the two princes with his own eyes, tied to their saddles with their hands bound behind their backs.’