Beneath a Marble Sky (30 page)

He stroked my hair. “We’ll leave in the morning. I have a cousin to the south in Allahabad, a good man who owns a stable. He’ll—”

“I can’t go,” I interrupted sadly, remembering my promise to Mother, made so long ago.

“What?”

“You must flee with Arjumand. But I—”

He stepped back, his face wrinkling in consternation. “Are you mad?”

“I must stay.”

“Stay here and you’ll die!”

“I have to help Father.”

“By Allah, he’s the Emperor! He’s man enough to help himself!”

“He’s sick, Isa. And I can’t leave him.”

“Then take him with us!”

“And give the throne to Aurangzeb, who’ll destroy the Empire?”

“Better it than us!”

“Better neither!” I said fiercely. “I can’t leave him, Isa. And we have a good plan, one that will work. Once Aurangzeb is defeated, I’ll find you. Father has promised to send us to Varanasi, where we can live forever in peace.”

“He can promise nothing!”

“Listen!” I demanded, poking a finger into his chest. “If you love me, if you truly, truly love me, you’ll do this. Because if I left with you, and Father died at Aurangzeb’s hands, then my heart would die as well. I’d become a stranger to you and our love would never—”

“Survive? Then it’s a shallower love than I thought.”

I started forward as if to slap him but stilled my arm. “Don’t say that! You know it’s not true!”

“But how can you leave us?”

“Would you, Isa, let your father and brother die?” When he didn’t answer, I continued, “You think that I feel differently because I’m a woman, or that I might offer them less?”

“I’ve never treated you differently than any man,” he replied, his hawklike face gleaming in sweat. “Not once.”

“And I love you for that. More, it seems, than you think. But if you love me, you won’t ask me to abandon my family.”

“We are your family!”

“Don’t you think that I’m torn?” I pleaded.

“Your father—”

“Has given you everything, Isa. Everything! He let you build the Taj Mahal. He brought us together when our love could have destroyed him! Would you have me abandon him now, when he needs me most?”

“Then I’ll stay with you.”

“No! You must flee with Arjumand. She’s seen enough horror. More than enough.”

Isa cursed, which I had never heard him do. He pounded his fist against his hip. “Is there no other way?”

“None.” Isa started to shake his head, but I placed my hands on his cheeks, steadying him. “I’m sorry. I truly am.”

“As am I.”

“I know.”

He looked at Arjumand, avoiding my eyes. “If the fighting…goes badly, will you escape south to find us?”

“Of course. But it won’t.”

We stood still for a time. When he next spoke his voice was distant, as if he had already left me. “Why, Swallow, why must you save everyone?”

“Because I love them. I love them too much to let go.”

Chapter 16

Consequences

T
he next morning, we exchanged tearful good-byes. Though our separation distressed her, Arjumand wasn’t overly upset, for I promised to see her in a week. Isa and I, however, were hard pressed to subdue our emotions. Our farewell brimmed with as much torment as love, as much fear as hope.

Parting from them was a death of sorts. As I walked through the Red Fort’s corridors toward my room, I was consumed by doubt. Perhaps Isa was right, and I should have left in their keep, alongside the thousands of our people fleeing south. Despite my confidence in the coming battle, Aurangzeb could prevail. If he did, a swift boat would take Father, Dara and me southward. Unfortunately, Aurangzeb might anticipate such a flight and seal off our escape route. Capture would likely mean execution.

Missing them acutely, I entered my room and inspected the secret passageway. Apparently, Balkhi had shut the closet’s door after pursuing us through it, and as far as I could determine, no one had any inkling as to what kind of mayhem transpired in my room yesterday. Nor with Aurangzeb’s army approaching did anyone care.

Satisfied with the passageway, I stepped into Father’s sprawling chambers, where the stench of illness still hung. Curtains were drawn over his latticed windows and wind tugged at the fabric. I offered greetings to the young physician who had delivered Arjumand, and asked that we be left alone. Father smiled weakly as I knelt beside him. He lay on pashmina blankets and rested his head on plush cushions.

“You stayed.”

“My duty is here,” I said with little conviction.

“Are you sure, my child? For the Empire may perish but will always be reborn. It shall live long after you’re gone.”

“But you won’t. Nor will Dara.”

He coughed, gritted his teeth, then muttered, “I’m uncertain, Jahanara, that life is…worth living without your mother. Some days it is, but most, I’d rather be eating grapes with her in Paradise.” Father coughed again. He clutched at his chest. “You might be wise…to escape south. At least then you could live in peace, with those you hold dearest.”

I ran a hand through my hair, which today bore no veil or jewels. “Please, Father! Do not make this harder than it is. Dara needs me. He’s—”

“A tiger with no teeth?”

“Not a man of war.”

“Nor are you.”

“But I may be of some use. And how can I leave when that possibility remains?”

Father nodded reluctantly. He fought back a cough, then said, “Tell me, my child, of what happens.”

As I straightened his bedding, trying to make him comfortable, I passed along what I’d been told. Nizam and twenty thousand horsemen had thundered south in the day’s first light. I added that Dara gathered his forces and would soon march his army north, later positioning it atop a nearby, but vacant, knob of land. It had been raining incessantly since last night, and Nizam expected the storm to cloak his movements. Our scouts reported Aurangzeb’s force to be a half-day’s march from Agra. If my brother fell for our ruse, he’d likely attack our army late in the afternoon.

“Dara should leave now…give himself time to set his cannons,” Father said.

“He soon shall.”

I finished arranging his cushions and knelt again at his side. As much as I tried to ponder all that needed doing, wrenching my mind from Arjumand and Isa was impossible. Where were they? Had they made it to safety or had Allah abandoned me?

“You don’t think of marching with Dara?”

“No,” I replied hastily, perhaps too hastily. “I’d be of little use in such a battle.”

“That’s truer…than you realize,” he muttered, as harshly as his feeble voice permitted. “I want you here with me. Dara and his officers are better off alone.”

I had never disobeyed Father, but as I sat in that foul room, I heard few of his words. How could I remain here, when the fate of the Empire was to be decided outside Agra? Would Mother have stayed? She never had, and though only Father’s authority had allowed her to accompany him to battlefields, where women would never be welcome, he’d told me on several occasions that her advice had saved lives.

Though I am no military genius, I had recognized this morning that one element of Nizam’s scheme required my presence at the battle. If I wasn’t there to ensure a fight, Aurangzeb might simply march to Agra and conquer an unprotected Red Fort. Of course, I hadn’t told Isa of my plan to visit the battlefield, for he’d have thrown me over his shoulder and carried me to Allahabad.

“I shall return,” I said softly.

“Don’t stray far, child. I might need your counsel.”

“As you wish.”

But I lied then, for the sun had barely climbed halfway up the sky when I found myself on the best stallion in Father’s stables. In a nearby courtyard I quickly located the clothing of a soldier. After Dara marched, hundreds of his warriors must have extracted themselves from hiding places and joined the exodus south, for their discarded weapons and uniforms littered the square like leaves after a storm.

Normally, the courtyard brimmed with humanity. Today, only a bare-chested Hindu priest moved amid the rain. I jumped from my mount and slipped the yellow tunic of an officer about me. The garment was far too large and fit me more like a dress; but once atop my horse, with the tunic gathered about my waist, no one would be the wiser. Like all warriors, I’d attached a shield, quiver, bow and sword to my saddle. I couldn’t use these weapons, needless to say, but after my hair was swallowed up in a black turban, at least I looked the part of a soldier.

Beyond Agra’s cobbled streets the road north turned into an endless bog of mud. Following the tracks of forty thousand men and a thousand war elephants was hardly difficult, even if visibility diminished as the rain strengthened and drove itself against the land. An unwavering wind pummeled me. It had arisen swiftly from the southeast, giving me alarm as the worst typhoons often surged from Bengal.

My mount, so stout and strong, quickly caught Dara’s army. I smelled it before I saw it—the odors of dung, hay and unwashed men lingered even in the storm. I stayed at the army’s rear, trying not to think of my loved ones and watching foot soldiers struggle through ankle-deep mud. Deerskin drums beat morosely as we marched. Officers yelled at men as elephants pulled scores of cannons. Other elephants bore wooden platforms draped in bright fabrics and usually holding one or two musket-wielding officers.

Fortunately, the journey to the knoll that would serve as our battleground was brief. It was only a slight rise, perhaps as long as the Red Fort, albeit not nearly so high. Almost devoid of trees, the mound boasted a few clusters of rock and sad-looking shrubs. Though my eye was untrained, shelter appeared scant.

Our army briskly prepared its defenses. I watched from afar as our men, with the rain thrashing them, cut down the few trees present and used elephants to arrange the trees between boulders. Smaller branches and shrubs were shoved into gaps. This barrier, even if incomplete, would protect some of our men. Our cannons, numbering perhaps fifty, were then placed behind the wooden wall. Thus we created a vast circle of men, beasts and cannons surrounding the base of our knoll.

It took some time for me to find Dara, who looked like a stranger in his helmet and chain mail painted with diagonal red and black stripes. He rode a magnificent elephant and was ordering the construction of additional barricades. His elephant wore armor over its skull, and its tusks were encased within silver casts ending in wicked points.

Few horses were present, for most of our cavalry had secreted itself away to the north. And so after my mount neighed, Dara turned to me, expecting an officer of some rank. When I pulled off my turban, he froze in surprise, as did dozens of men about him. I spurred my horse toward his war elephant, which was clad in purple tapestries.

“Why, why in Allah’s name are you here?” Dara demanded from his perch.

I pulled on my reins, stopping a spear’s length from his elephant. “How soon,” I asked, “until Aurangzeb arrives?”

“But why are you here?”

Suddenly I was tired of being treated like a child, or a dog that might be kicked about. Just because Allah had made me a woman, could I contribute nothing to this cause? “Because it is my wish!” I countered.

“
Your wish? Does Father know of this wish?”

Dara wasn’t above having me tied to a horse and returned in shame to Agra. And so I lied. “I am to leave once the fighting starts and tell him how it began.”

“I have messengers for that!”

“But can you spare them?” He started to nod, but I cut him off, finally voicing the real reason I had come. “Did you ever think, Dara, what might happen if Aurangzeb simply decided to march around your little hill and capture an unprotected Agra? Why should he attack you here, where you’re fortified, when he can grab the Peacock Throne and deal with you later?”

“His honor dictates—”

“You think that rat has any honor?” I interrupted. Though as women we were taught to subdue our emotions, I was too aggravated to quiet myself. In some ways, Dara’s naïveté vexed me more than Aurangzeb’s treachery. “Are the heads of your officers so deep in this mud that they can’t guess what he’ll do?” I asked scornfully. “Surely he’ll avoid attacking you here! I would, and I know nothing of war.”

“And yet you propose?”

“He hates me the most, Dara. He always has. And when he comes to us with his terms for our surrender, I’ll ensure he attacks.” I spurred my horse closer to him. It took immense will, but when I next spoke my voice was much lower. “I love you, Dara, but are you so blind as to not see that neither good, nor honor, dwells in him?”

My brother grimaced, as if he’d just been wounded. Then he asked, “Do you think, Jahanara, that I walk an easy road? That only you have sacrificed?” When I offered no answer, he absently fingered the hilt of his sword. He pursed his lips. “I have been blind, yes. And I’ve made mistakes that…mistakes men will die for, mistakes that keep me from sleep, night after night.”

“But if you knew of this blindness, why didn’t you open your eyes? Why didn’t we talk about it?”

“I thought we would. But time moved too quickly.”