Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne (38 page)

As Khurram rode towards the Jesuits’ compound after a pleasant few hours hunting along the banks of the Hooghly he saw a youth running towards him whom he recognised as one of the priests’ servants. He was a Christian convert and instead of a cotton
dhoti
was wearing a European-style jerkin and trousers.

‘Your wife has gone into labour,’ the lad shouted as soon as Khurram was in earshot.

Khurram stared at him, one thought only forming in his mind – it’s too soon . . . much too soon . . . Riding quickly into the compound, he dismounted and ran up the wooden steps to Arjumand’s room. He paused outside the closed door, listening for the usual cries of pain, but instead there was silence and it chilled him. Then the door opened and one of the Portuguese maids came out. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded, but she looked at him uncomprehendingly. He pushed past her into the room. Arjumand was lying in a pool of blood and the midwife was wrapping something small and still in a piece of cloth.

Slowly he approached the bed, afraid of what he would see. Then he heard her voice.

‘Khurram – I’m sorry. We’ve lost our son . . .’

It was a moment before he could speak and even then his voice trembled. ‘All that matters to me is that you are alive . . . This is my fault. You should never have had to endure so much. I should have let my father arrest me in Agra rather than drag you and our children across Hindustan
till we became nothing more than hunted beasts with the dogs snapping at our heels.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t say such things. At least we are together, and as long as we are together we can hope.’

Khurram embraced her and said no more, but bitterness welled within him. His father was to blame for the loss of his son as surely as if he had killed him with his own hands. Had it not been for Jahangir’s persecution of him and his family, Arjumand would never have had to flee, would never have suffered the accident in the river that had left her too weak to carry their child to full term.

‘You cannot mean it.’ Khurram’s voice as he looked at Father Ronaldo was incredulous.

‘I’m sorry. We have done our best. We have given you our hospitality for over three months and now you must depart.’

‘My wife has just miscarried. She can still barely stand . . . she is in no condition to travel.’

‘Charity and compassion made us hold our hand until your wife’s pregnancy reached its term . . . we have already done more for you than we should.’

‘I don’t believe you. What has happened to turn you against us?’ Khurram asked bluntly.

For a moment Father Ronaldo looked a little embarrassed, but then he drew up his thin frame. ‘The emperor your father knows that you are here at Hooghly. Two weeks ago one of our ships brought a letter from the court. It told us that unless we expel you the emperor will send his troops against us and burn down our settlement. We cannot allow
that to happen. We have God’s work to do – souls to save from the darkness . . .’

‘And profits to make,’ cut in Khurram angrily. ‘For all his faults my father had the sense not to be taken in by your hypocritical and self-seeking speeches. Where’s the Christian charity you’re always talking about, the loving mercy? You’re asking me to set out into the wilderness with a sick woman who nearly died three days ago.’

‘I’m sorry. The matter is out of my hands. The head of my order and the president of our merchants decided it at one of our council meetings.’

Without realising what he’d done Khurram found himself fingering the hilt of his dagger. How he’d like to silence that oily, self-justificatory voice. ‘This letter you mention – was it signed by my father?’

‘No.’ The priest looked down at his dusty sandals. ‘It was signed by the empress and bore her seal with the imprint of her title Nur Jahan, Light of the World.’

‘I tell you this and you should remember it. The empress is no friend to you. She despises all Europeans as no more than pariah dogs vying with each other for scraps from the Moghul table. You may escape her ire by obeying her command but you’ll have no reward. And when one day I sit on the Moghul throne – as I will – I won’t forget your callous indifference.’

As soon as the priest had scurried away, no doubt to report the conversation to his colleagues, Khurram went straight to his camp, thinking quickly. His three hundred men should be enough to repel any assault by the Portuguese soldiers guarding the settlement if they were foolish enough to try anything – like attempting to take him prisoner so
they could hand him over to his father. He would post a double line of pickets round the camp’s perimeter, he decided, and tonight he, Arjumand and their children would sleep in the camp, not in the priests’ compound. Later he must go to her and tell her gently what had happened, but first there was something else he had decided he must do.

After giving the necessary orders, Khurram made his way to his own quarters and sat down cross-legged in front of his low desk. After thinking for a while, he took a piece of paper, dipped his ivory-tipped quill pen into his jade ink bottle and began slowly to write, weighing every word with extreme care. When he had finished he reread what he had written several times. Then he stood up, and ordered one of his guards to send Nicholas Ballantyne to him. Five minutes later, the
qorchi
appeared, his bright hair concealed beneath the tightly bound black turban he had taken to wearing.

Khurram grasped him by the shoulder. ‘Before he left Hindustan, your master Sir Thomas Roe told me that if I took you into my service you would be loyal and true. Was he right?’

Nicholas’s wide blue eyes showed his surprise. ‘Yes, Highness.’

‘Listen to me – I am going to speak very frankly. We cannot remain at Hooghly. The Portuguese fear my father’s retribution if they harbour us any longer and have told us to go. I also know we can’t just go on wandering. It wouldn’t be long until my father’s armies caught and crushed us. We could take ship from the coast to Persia or some other country, but I don’t want to be driven from my homeland. Also, my wife is frail. I must think of her. So I have decided
to write to my father asking for a reconciliation. I don’t know whether he will listen, but I must try. My question to you is, will you be my messenger? As a foreigner and also as one who served Sir Thomas Roe, who was my father’s friend, you will be safer from my father’s vengeance than any Moghul emissary. You also know the court and how it works. You will stand a good chance of getting the letter into my father’s own hands.’

‘Of course, Highness.’

In the paradise world of Kashmir everything was purple – the fields of saffron crocuses stretching down to the Dal lake, the waters of the lake themselves glinting amethyst in the sunlight, the peaks of the encircling mountains . . . Jahangir was lying on his back among the crocuses, breathing in their sweet pungency and now and then plucking petals and throwing them into the air so that they drifted around him like snowflakes. How contented he felt . . . he could lie here until the real snows began to fall, shrouding his body with their soothing icy flakes . . .

‘Majesty.’ A voice and reality intruded into his dream. Jahangir turned over with a groan on the cream brocade-covered divan on which he was lying in his private apartments in the Agra fort. Then he felt a hand gently shake his shoulder. ‘Majesty, a messenger has come from Prince Khurram.’

At the mention of his son’s name, Jahangir opened his
eyes and slowly sat up. The exquisite, softly muted world of his wine- and opium-fuelled dreams faded and he rubbed his eyes. In the shafts of light filtering through the carved
jali
opposite his bed everything looked too stark, too bright. His eyes fell on the jewelled cup on a low table by the divan in which some dark red wine still remained. Reaching for it with a shaking hand he took a sip, feeling the bitter liquid coat the back of his throat. He started to cough, and drank the water that the young servant who had woken him hastily poured out for him.

‘What did you just say?’

‘Your son, Prince Khurram, has sent a messenger. He is asking to see you.’

Khurram? Jahangir pondered for a moment. Sometimes in his richly textured dreams he saw his third son but always at a distance – on the opposite banks of a river, or high on the battlements of a castle or galloping on horseback amid a cloud of dust – always too far off for Jahangir to call to and seemingly oblivious of him anyway. Over the years since he had last seen Khurram he had often thought of him in his waking hours as well, hurt and anger at his behaviour mingling with regret for times past when the prince had been the loyal son of whom he had felt so proud that he had showered him with gold and jewels . . . Even with his mind fuddled with wine and opium he realised that a message from Khurram now, with Mahabat Khan and his army closing in on him, could mean only one thing – capitulation.

‘I will come to the Hall of Public Audience,’ he told the servant, his voice low. ‘Summon the court and send word to the empress. She will wish to listen from the women’s
gallery to what the messenger has to say . . . And take this away,’ he added, handing him the jewelled wine cup.

Nearly an hour later Jahangir took his place on his throne and at his signal a trumpeter put his brass instrument to his lips to signal in a series of short blasts that the emperor was ready to give audience. Glancing up at the grille high in the wall to one side of the throne Jahangir thought he detected the gleam of dark eyes beneath a diadem of pearls. Good – Mehrunissa was there.

He watched as Khurram’s messenger, preceded by four guards in Moghul green, slowly approached. Jahangir couldn’t make out his face, half hidden as he was by the soldiers who, when they were twenty feet from the throne, moved smartly to either side. A little clumsily, as if he wasn’t used to it, the man flung himself on the ground, arms outstretched in the formal salutation of the
korunush.
Beneath the black turban, Jahangir saw red-raw skin. The messenger was a European.

‘You may rise,’ he said, leaning forward for a closer look. As the man got to his feet and raised his head Jahangir saw a pair of blue eyes in a young sunburned face. It was familiar but his mind was still partially clouded and he stared at the man in puzzlement. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Nicholas Ballantyne. I was once squire to Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador to the Moghul court from the King of England.’ As Nicholas finished speaking he made the low bow, right leg extended in front of him, that Jahangir remembered Sir Thomas so often making. What a long time ago all that now seemed . . . Jahangir thought fondly back to his evenings with Roe.

‘I am now in the service of your son, Prince Khurram, who has entrusted me with a letter for Your Majesty.’ Reaching into a red camel-leather satchel hanging from his shoulder, Nicholas took out the letter. Jahangir could see his fingers shaking a little with nerves though when he had spoken his voice, with its oddly accented Persian, had been clear and steady.

‘I will read what the wretch has had the audacity to say.’ Jahangir nodded to his vizier Majid Khan, who stepped forward from where he was standing to the right of Jahangir’s dais and took the letter from Nicholas to hand to him. Slowly Jahangir broke the seal, opened it and glanced down at the close-written lines. His own father Akbar – unable to read or write himself – had been proud of Khurram’s elegant calligraphy. In his mind’s eye he suddenly saw Akbar leading the elephant carrying the four-year-old Khurram in triumphant procession through the streets of Lahore to his first day at school while he himself had stood to one side, excluded from the moment by both his father and his son.

His head was aching but he made himself concentrate on what the letter said, reading silently and slowly.