Shadow Princess (6 page)

“I know, your Majesty, and apologize for my role,” Mahabat said. After his near exile to Kabul as a so-called governor, he had come back to court, begging for an audience, and then Mahabat had surprised himself and almost everyone else he had known by effecting a coup and imprisoning Emperor Jahangir and the Empress. But he had been a weak leader—and that woman indeed had had crafty ways, for even under guard she had managed their escape. Then it was Mahabat’s turn to flee from the royal couple. He later agreed to hound out of the Empire the son who was giving them so much trouble. Long before he had become Emperor, Shah Jahan had forgiven Mahabat, but he was not above remembering or reminding him of it. Even in the typical, much convoluted, loyal-one-day-blithely-unfaithful-the-next history of Mughal nobles, Mahabat’s fortunes had swung so wildly, he himself could not believe he was still alive.

“I was destined to be Emperor,” Shah Jahan continued, his voice much smoother now, and Mahabat realized this was the first time in days that his Emperor had talked to anyone. “I was fated to be a great ruler. But there are times, Mahabat, when there is a reason to step down and give up ambition. Without”—and he hesitated again, as he had before, not willing to call out his wife’s name in front of another man, a mere minister—“her.” Shah Jahan passed a hand over his eyes.

Someone sneezed in the next chamber, and Mahabat’s head whipped to the door through which Jahanara (or so he thought) had left when he entered. She had shut the door, he had seen her do it, though now it was ajar by a few inches. But she had not made that sound—it was a man’s sneeze. One of the princes? Either them or one of the eunuchs, but no one other than the royal offspring would dare be caught listening at the entrance to the Emperor’s chambers. Which one? Mahabat thought. And then Shah Jahan said, “Which one of my sons do you think should rule in my stead, Mahabat Khan?” And he knew why he had been summoned to his Emperor.

Dara was sixteen years old; Shuja fifteen; Aurangzeb thirteen; and Murad a laughable seven. Mahabat Khan had opinions about the Emperor’s sons that he kept to himself. Dara was a disrespectful puppy, too inclined to think only of himself; Shuja was merely a puppy—he followed and he could not lead; Aurangzeb was a leader, but he was inflexible and resistant to advice, dangerous qualities for a leader to have; and Murad was . . . well, Murad was nothing yet, unformed and little.

Mahabat Khan did not think the Emperor had, yet, one son who could rule the Empire. What was Shah Jahan’s purpose in calling him here? To offer him a regency? How could a son rule when his father was still alive? It went against all Mughal law; to whom would the people bow their heads—the boy king or the Emperor who had willingly ousted himself?

Mahabat Khan chose his words with care. “It is a difficult situation, your Majesty. I say, with all respect for your wishes, that your time to leave the throne has not come yet. You are our sovereign; in your happiness and well-being is ours. The Empire, as you well know, your Majesty, is a great responsibility also. There are millions of people who depend on you, who cannot live without the sight of your face in the mornings—as they wake to greet the sun so also they revere their Emperor. In these past few days, your absence from the
jharoka
appearances has caused unrest and distress among your subjects—”

“If you were to choose, Mahabat”—Shah Jahan cut into his minister’s speech and forced a decision from him—“which of my sons should rule after me?”

And so Mahabat Khan, Khan-i-khanan, aware of the partly open door to the next chamber and not knowing which of the four princes was behind it, responded the only way he could. “Your choice is mine, your Majesty.”

It was an unsatisfactory answer. But after so many years of intrigue and rebellion, the Khan-i-khanan of the Mughal Empire knew that the grasp on the world’s richest throne was tenuous at best, and any one of Shah Jahan’s sons could feel the weight of the crown on his head, and so he was not going to part his sixty-five-year-old head from his equally old body by words from his own mouth.

•  •  •

Prince Aurangzeb waited until he had heard Mahabat Khan leave and then grasped at the door’s handle.

His father’s voice, tired and barely heard, stayed his action. “Close the door and leave, Aurangzeb. You should be ashamed of yourself, listening at doors like a common spy. You are a royal prince.”

Aurangzeb flushed, and his hand trembled. Bapa did not like him; he had never liked him, not since his birth. It was Dara who was his favorite, Dara who could do no wrong, who was the crown prince, who would rule the Empire. How had Bapa known that he was there? He glanced around and realized that light poured into this room from an open window, and in leaving the door connecting to his father’s chamber ajar, he had let some little light seep into the murk in there. But how had Bapa known
he
was there? Aurangzeb thought for a brief while, pushed the door open a little more, and his father said, “Go. I do not want to see you now.”

At that, Aurangzeb stepped back into the room and shut the door gently. Blood rushed under his skin, and a fighting madness rose in him at the injustice of those words. His father could not possibly have known it was him. Emperor Shah Jahan had merely guessed which of the boys was at the door. But guessing was not definite knowledge. Let him think what he wanted; Aurangzeb could act better than anyone else he knew, and Shah Jahan would soon doubt his own thoughts, and . . . begin to cast suspicion upon the other sons. Perhaps even the much indulged Dara.

He slipped out of the room and ran fleetly through the
zenana
apartments in search of Jahanara. He went to the series of rooms she now occupied, which had once belonged to their mother. Among so much else, Jahanara had now gained possession even of these rooms in the fort at Burhanpur, and this Aurangzeb did not mind, for he thought it her right. But one person minded, very much, and when he burst into the innermost chamber, fronting the river Tapti, Aurangzeb saw Roshanara seated on the divan in the outer verandah, her hand shading her face from the harsh sunlight.

He stopped, panting. Her mouth drooped at the edges.

“What is it now?” he asked. It was always something with Roshan, some disgruntlement, some anger, some spite at quite anything. In that they were alike, this much he recognized, but Aurangzeb was a man (well, a boy yet who would grow into manhood), and he would fight in battles, own lands, rule lands, perhaps even this Empire of theirs. “Where is Jahan?”

“Why do you want her?” Roshan asked. “Am I not enough? What have you heard now?” For she also recognized a kinship between them. Dara and Jahanara were allied; she thought Aurangzeb and she should similarly be allied. To Shuja, older than Aurangzeb, she gave little importance; he was a nonentity.

Aurangzeb walked across the room toward his second sister, mulling over in his head what he had heard of the conversation between Shah Jahan and Mahabat Khan. If Bapa were to leave the Empire to one of them now, it would be to Dara. Dara, who was sixteen, old enough to be king, though not old enough to rule the Empire—that would mean a regency. Would Mahabat Khan be made regent? But Mirza Mahabat Khan was more
his
friend. He sat down beside Roshanara and told her what he had just overheard.

Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “One of us will be Emperor.”

“Dara,” Aurangzeb said shortly. He made an exclamation of disgust. “It will always be Dara.”

“And Jahan will rule beside him. She will be his Padshah Begam; she will rule over his harem, she will tell him what decisions to take at court.”

“There will be a regency; Dara is too young.”

“If only you could be Emperor, Aurangzeb,” Roshan said.

“Then you can be the head of my
zenana
?” he asked. “I am thirteen years old, Roshan. Why would Bapa even think of handing the Empire to me when Dara is there to take on those responsibilities? Where is Jahan?”

Roshanara shrugged. “Somewhere, doing something, being Padshah Begam already. She does not need Dara to be head of the imperial harem; Bapa has as much as given her that title already, just six days after Mama’s death. If only you paid attention to what was actually happening around you, Aurangzeb, you would know.”

“What has happened?”

As Roshanara began to speak, the door to the apartments opened and a young girl drifted in. The slave girls in the room, out of earshot of Aurangzeb and Roshanara, bowed to her, and she acknowledged the salutations with a wave of a hand. Nadira Begam was fifteen years old, her skin as fresh as a flower at the break of dawn, her figure softly rounded in the hips and the breasts. She moved with an innate grace, her eyes clear and untroubled when she came to sit beside them. Nadira was their cousin, daughter of Shah Jahan’s brother Prince Parviz. She had been born at Burhanpur and had lived all of her life here, since her father had been governor here during their grandfather’s reign.

They both looked at her with affection. If Nadira had been a male child, that affection would have been somewhat wanting, for in being a boy she would have been a threat to the throne and would have, perhaps, died in the battle for succession in 1627. But a girl child, left to be brought up by servants at the southern edge of the Empire, was not to be thought of as a hazard. Her father had been a wastrel during his life, succumbing to the lure of drink, as so many Mughal princes had. At one time, Emperor Jahangir had hauled up this sluggish son and sent him, under Mahabat Khan’s care, careening around the Empire in pursuit of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. But Shah Jahan could hardly hold a grudge against his brother’s daughter for her father’s faults—and if Parviz had lived until 1627, he might very well have died by Shah Jahan’s sword, but he had drunk himself to death, conveniently, and left behind this languid girl.

Roshanara continued to speak, ignoring Nadira seated at their feet, her face resting against her cousin’s thigh. “Bapa has increased Jahan’s income to one million rupees.”

“Mama’s income,” Aurangzeb said reflectively. “What will she do with so much money?”

“And he has given her most of Mama’s estates. Five million rupees are to go to her—all of Mama’s
parganas,
her lands, her jewels—and the other half of five million is to be divided among the rest of us, a million each.”

Aurangzeb grinned. “If Bapa could make Jahanara Emperor, he would. Dara would be nothing compared to her.”

“This is not funny,” Roshan said sharply.

“But so much money.” Nadira spoke for the first time, her little voice in a half sigh. “You are all so rich. My father was never anything compared to yours.”

“And now Dara will be Emperor,” Roshanara said.

“He will?” Nadira sat up and looked at the two of them. Then she collapsed back into her pose at Roshan’s side. “How nice for him.”

“I want to be Emperor,” Aurangzeb muttered, and when Nadira opened her mouth, he said, “Nice for me too, Nadira, but only one of us can be Emperor. If your father had had much more of a spine and less of a liking for wine, he could have been king himself.”

They continued talking thus for the next half hour, until Jahanara came back to her apartments. When she returned, Aurangzeb began to bring up the topic of his father’s conversation and found himself hesitating more than once. Closer in age than any of them, Jahan and Dara had a special friendship that he had not been able to break into. Jahanara was always kind to him, but it was not pity he wanted from her; he wanted her to respect him as she did Dara, he wanted her love and her affection, and he wanted all of that to be firm and unwavering.

So he did not talk to Jahan in front of Roshan and Nadira, waiting for a time when they would be alone, when the only voice she heard would be his. He was well aware that he was still considered a child, although he had moved out of the
zenana
apartments into the
mardana
quarters—the male half of the household. He had a better seat on a horse than Dara, he knew almost all of the Quran by heart, and he cultivated the nobles at court with an assiduity Dara should have employed but did not. He was cut from the cloth of kings, Aurangzeb thought.

“You must go now,” Jahanara said, sinking slowly onto a divan in one corner. “Draw the curtains.” This last was to the slave, who moved noiselessly around the room in response to her command.

“Are you tired, Jahan?” Roshanara asked, her voice tinged with more malice than sympathy.

“Yes. Go.”

“I want to see Bapa.”

Princess Jahanara raised her head from the velvet bolster and gazed steadily at the three of them. Roshanara, watchful, chewing her lower lip. Aurangzeb, all aglow with excitement, betrayed by the restless movement of his hands. Nadira, sweet and . . . well, stupid Nadira, looking away into the light beyond the thin muslin drapes.

“Bapa does not want to see anyone yet, Roshan.”

“He sees you,” Roshanara said bitterly.

“Because she comforts him, Roshan. Don’t be stubborn about this.” Aurangzeb put his arms around his sister’s and his cousin’s shoulders and shepherded them out. “Let’s go now. Rest, Jahan.” When Roshanara resisted his touch, he whispered in her ear, “Later, Roshan. This is not the time to fight. Later.”

And so they left Jahanara on the divan, alone in her room, wretchedly unhappy. She was exhausted and bewildered by the duties rapidly forced upon her. The harem scribes who came to her apartments every night to read from their journals—intimate and intricate details of all that had happened within the
zenana
’s walls. The begging for daily orders from the Mir Bakawal, the Master of the Imperial Kitchens—what delicacies should be prepared for the Emperor’s table, your Highness? The excessive obsequiousness from the slaves, eunuchs, and servants. The constant struggle to keep Bapa’s two wives appeased and Satti Khanum in her place.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm the riot of thoughts that thundered in her brain. There had not been a moment to think of Mama in these past few days, and she was crushed by the change in Bapa. He refused to eat; she had managed to coax a few mouthfuls of chicken
biryani
into his mouth, feeding him herself, and a couple of sips of wine. But he had had no interest in more. Of anything, it would seem.