‘We’ve made good progress today — we’ll definitely be in Burhanpur by sunset.’ Shah Jahan reined his horse back to keep pace with the litter-bearers.
‘Good. I’ve been noticing how parched everything looks.’
‘Last year’s rains were poor … they tell me famine’s breaking out. I’ll learn more in Burhanpur.’
‘Shah Jahan …’
‘What?’
‘Does returning here seem strange to you? These past days I’ve felt it more and more. Everything — the smell of the dust, the way the red sun looks ready to explode just before it sinks, the stark beauty of these hills — rouses memories. The first time we came here we were young and life seemed very simple. It makes me sad to realise how swiftly time passes.’
‘We are still young.’
‘Are you sure?’
As he rode on, Shah Jahan pondered Mumtaz’s words. The past — the good as well as the bad — was a dangerous place best left unvisited. Last night, with Mumtaz already asleep beside him, he had reread by candlelight some words of one of Akbar’s chroniclers:
They told the great emperor that Burhanpur was a place of sinister reputation, ill-omened and dark, where no man could prosper but he laughed at their superstitions and captured it for the Moghuls, saying that he would make it a place of glory and victory … and so he did.
He had always relished this reminder that from Akbar’s time Burhanpur had indeed been a place of Moghul triumph. As a young prince he himself had ridden out from here to military victory — as he had every intention of doing again. Yet this time, instead of images of battle he had seen something else — purblind Khusrau, lying helpless in his Burhanpur dungeon and starting as the door had creaked open. What had gone through his mind during those last moments of life? How would it feel to realise you were about to die and know that it was by your own brother’s orders? He’d pushed the thoughts away, telling himself not to give in to weak sentimentality, especially when everything he had ever wanted was his. But now he felt a fresh unease. Had be been wrong to come to Burhanpur? He could easily have made his command centre somewhere else — Mandu perhaps …
A violet dusk was descending as Shah Jahan, again riding close by Mumtaz’s litter, passed through Burhanpur’s ancient gateway surmounted by two stone war elephants locked in combat, features blunted by the violence of sandstorms and monsoon rains. Reaching the inner courtyard of the haram where a fountain bubbled listlessly, Shah Jahan dismounted. Drawing back the curtains, he lifted the sleeping Mumtaz from her litter and slowly carried her inside.
Chapter 3
A musket ball whistled past Shah Jahan’s head as, turning in the howdah of his war elephant, he shielded his eyes against the blazing sun, attempting to get a better view of the fighting suddenly erupting towards the rear of his force. Moments later another ball hit the mahout sitting behind the ears of his elephant in the throat. The man slipped slowly sideways, blood pumping from the wound, before falling to the stony ground. The elephant’s pace faltered as it raised its trunk, trumpeting in alarm and swinging its head from side to side. As Shah Jahan grabbed the side of his swaying howdah for a moment to steady himself, the second mahout, who had been perched behind the first, quickly slid lower on to the beast’s neck and leant forward to speak into its right ear. ‘Calm, calm, Mover of Mountains,’ he said, pressing his anka, the iron control rod, against the wrinkled grey hide of its shoulder. Reassured, the elephant lowered its red-painted trunk.
All around, the whole column was coming to a halt in disarray. Musketmen were jumping from their saddles and pushing powder and shot down the barrels of their weapons with steel ramrods, preparing to fire. A little way in front of Shah Jahan’s elephant a junior officer — a squat man in a green tunic — was shouting orders to his small group of foot soldiers to form up. Shah Jahan heard another volley of shots and two of the infantrymen twisted and fell. One was immediately still. The other lay sprawled, heels twitching. One of his fellows, an elderly man with a thin grizzled beard, bent to help him but he too was hit. Dropping his spear he slumped over his comrade’s body.
Everywhere was noise and confusion. Unless he acted quickly to master the situation panic could follow, thought Shah Jahan. And to do that he must dismount from his elephant and switch to horseback. Without waiting for the surviving mahout to bring the elephant to its knees, he climbed over the side of the jewel-encrusted howdah and dropped to the ground, bending his own knees to soften the impact. Landing lightly, he shouted to his qorchi, ‘Bring me my horse!’ But before the squire could do so a group of horsemen appeared through the dust and musket smoke, riding hard at the infantrymen in front of Shah Jahan. Encouraged by their green-clad officer, the foot soldiers stood their ground. At his command they crouched down in a rough V formation, their short spears ready to thrust at the horsemen. As the riders — a group of perhaps twenty — galloped closer, one, a slim figure with long black hair streaming behind his helmetless head, outdistanced the rest on his sweat-soaked grey charger. Although the soldier at the head of the V formation bravely held his place his spear was shaking so much in his nervous hands as he thrust at the Bijapuran that he missed. His attacker’s grey horse immediately rode him down, leaving him crumpled on the ground, his skull shattered by one of the horse’s hooves. The soldier behind and to his left was made of sterner stuff. He waited until the last moment and after taking careful aim stabbed upwards from his kneeling position with his spear. As he intended, it caught the horse in the throat. Immediately it stumbled and fell, sending its rider somersaulting over its neck to crash headfirst to the ground where he lay still, blood and brains spilling into his hair.
Where was his own horse? Shah Jahan looked around to see his qorchi running towards him leading his chestnut stallion. Seizing the reins he leapt into the saddle and yelled to his bodyguard, ‘Follow me.’ Drawing his sword, he charged towards the enemy horsemen who were now surrounding the surviving foot soldiers. One of the attackers pulled so hard at his mount’s reins to wheel it to face the new threat that his horse reared and threw him backwards. Another rider armed with a long lance turned his black horse successfully and kicked hard towards Shah Jahan. When they closed the man made a wild thrust at Shah Jahan which missed, but Shah Jahan’s did not. As their horses passed he caught his enemy’s arm with a slashing stroke of his sword. The rider dropped his lance and began to lose control of his horse which careered off, cutting across the path of another enemy rider who could not prevent the bolting animal from crashing into his own mount so hard that both horses fell, taking their riders with them.
A third horseman waving a long curved scimitar wildly above his head rode at Shah Jahan, who saw him only just in time to sway back in the saddle to avoid his flashing blade. However, recovering more quickly than his opponent, Shah Jahan thrust with his sword at the man’s groin. At the last moment the Bijapuran parried the blow with his scimitar but the weapon snapped as he did so. Shah Jahan tried again. This time the thrust got through, penetrating his enemy’s abdomen, and the man fell. Reining in, Shah Jahan saw that others of the attacking horsemen were now turning and beginning to gallop back in the direction from which they had so recently come.