‘I wish to see Princess Jahanara as soon as possible. I must be sure you are treating her with the respect due to her rank.’
‘I can assure you your daughter is in good health and being well treated. It isn’t for me to say when you will be permitted to see one another. Please listen to what your son Aurangzeb has commanded me to tell you. He has ordered you to be confined here in your apartments. He has also instructed me to post guards outside day and night to ensure your safety.’
‘I have always had guards at my door to protect me. I assume these are to prevent me from leaving?’
Makhdumi Khan said nothing.
‘And why have my attendants and qorchis been replaced? I do not wish to be served by strangers I neither know nor trust.’
‘It was on His Majesty’s orders …’
‘What do you mean, “His Majesty”? Who are you talking about?’
‘The Emperor Aurangzeb.’
‘There is no such person. I, Shah Jahan, am Emperor of Hindustan and no other.’
‘I am only the bearer of His Majesty the Emperor Aurangzeb’s messages. I cannot debate with you,’ Makhdumi Khan said awkwardly.
With an immense effort of will, Shah Jahan had been speaking slowly and calmly, masking emotions still in turmoil even though it was nearly three weeks since he had been confronted by Dara’s rotten head and the awful reality of his murder. After he had ordered the fort’s surrender he had retreated to his rooms. There he had contemplated ending his life and only the thought of Jahanara, whose distress he knew would be as great as his own and whom he could not desert, had stayed his hand. As the days had passed, a determination to defy — and ultimately to defeat — his traitorous sons had begun to strengthen him. He had waited with growing impatience for the moment when he could confront Aurangzeb and Murad face to face, rehearsing again and again the words he would use to them. But neither had come to him. Instead, cowards as well as traitors, they had simply sent soldiers to occupy and garrison the fort.
Suddenly something else about the commander’s words struck Shah Jahan. ‘At least tell me this. Why do you only mention Aurangzeb? What about his ally in rebellion, my son Murad?’
Makhdumi Khan looked surprised. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘How can I know anything when I’m kept in seclusion like this?’
‘I thought an attendant would have told you … Not long after Aurangzeb returned to Agra he ordered Prince Murad to be arrested.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘That while he was your governor in Gujarat he murdered his finance minister, Ali Naqi. Aurangzeb said that it was a crime before man and before God and his conscience could not allow it to go unpunished even though it was committed by his own brother.’ Shah Jahan almost smiled. He had wondered how Aurangzeb would get rid of his rival. The hypocrisy was breathtaking — Aurangzeb himself had ordered Dara’s murder yet he could pretend to be shocked by his brother’s killing of an official. ‘Didn’t Murad resist?’
‘He didn’t understand what was happening until too late. Aurangzeb invited him to his tent in his camp a mile or so away from his own to celebrate their victory alone together. While refusing it himself on account of his strict religious beliefs he ordered his brother to be plied with wine, then called for a concubine to massage the prince and lie with him. While the prince was naked and off guard in his brother’s tent, Aurangzeb’s guards came for him.’
Aurangzeb had foolishly feared to be alone with Dara in his underground room. Why had Murad not had the sense to beware being alone in Aurangzeb’s tent, knowing he had killed his older brother, thought Shah Jahan. ‘Surely Murad’s own soldiers fought to defend him when they learned what was happening?’
‘That is where His Majesty was so clever.’ Despite himself the Uzbek’s face cracked into a smile that showed deep admiration for Aurangzeb’s cunning. ‘The prince knew his brother would not be missed until the morning and had previously ordered four near-identical elephants to be readied with their howdahs closely curtained. While most of the camp slept he had Prince Murad, still bemused from the effects of the wine, placed in one of the howdahs. Then, to confuse those of his brother’s followers whom he had not already secretly won over with promises of money and advancement and hinder them from rescuing him, while it was still dark he despatched each elephant to a separate point of the compass with a strong escort. In fact, the elephant bearing Murad headed south, making for the fort at Gwalior. By the time his few loyal commanders had discovered what had happened pursuit was impossible and they were easily persuaded to accept the inevitable.’
Gwalior … The huge cliff-top fortress with its many-turreted and brightly painted walls was a formidable prison. Many of the Moghuls’ enemies had disappeared into its deep dungeons, seldom to see daylight again.
‘I heard that he is in a cell near your grandson Prince Sipihr,’ the governor went on.
‘Sipihr?’ So Dara’s younger son was still alive … Shah Jahan gave private thanks to God.
‘Yes. Aurangzeb has not yet decided his fate.’
‘What about Murad? What is to happen to him?’
‘His Majesty says that he does not wish to spill the blood of a brother who fought beside him against the heretic Dara. Therefore he has not had him executed. Instead every day he is to be fed pousta.’
Shah Jahan stared at the Uzbek. They both knew perfectly well what that meant. Pousta was a concoction made from the milky juice of the opium poppy, so potent that any man dosed on it turned first into a mumbling idiot before eventually — and it could take years — dying. It was a terrible and protracted end — better by far to perish on the battlefield. For a moment, Shah Jahan thought of Murad as he had been in his childhood — so good-looking and full of energy and daring. A son any man could be proud of. Yet this was what he had come to — first treachery against his own father, then cold condemnation by his brother to a slow death that would rot both body and mind. The burst of compassion he was experiencing at Murad’s plight and his own inability to help him was hard to reconcile with his anger at his previous behaviour. Perhaps it was proof that a father’s feelings for a son, especially the instinct to protect, never entirely dissipated whatever the circumstances … however badly the child behaved. Perhaps in his heart his own father Jahangir had felt the same towards him.
‘I have further orders from the emperor.’ Makhdumi Khan broke into his thoughts. ‘Your steward has already given me the keys to the imperial treasury, but you are to hand over to me your personal jewels since living a life of retirement you will no longer need them. In particular, you have a gold ring that once belonged to Timur the Great. I am instructed to be sure that the ring is included among the jewels you are to relinquish.’
‘No! I will hand over nothing — not the smallest diamond or pearl. And if my son covets Timur’s ring he must come to me and cut it from my finger himself!’ Shah Jahan’s eyes blazed defiance as he locked his left hand over the middle finger of his right hand on which he was wearing the heavy ring engraved with its snarling tiger. ‘Tell my son he is no more than a common thief stealing from his lawful emperor and that as the good Muslim he claims to be he should know there will be a reckoning in the next life if not in this.’
‘I will tell your son that you refuse, and ask for his further instructions.’
Shah Jahan saw that the Uzbek’s expression was more respectful than at the start of their interview and drew himself up, conscious that though a prisoner he still retained the aura of imperial authority his grandfather Akbar had so strongly urged him to cultivate. The governor hesitated, then said softly, ‘You maintain that you are still emperor, but if you watch from your terrace this evening towards sunset you will see that age and events overtake everyone.’
‘What do you mean?’