Ruler of the World

Fazl, and Salim saw annoyance cross his father’s face. The talk of the court was that the Jesuits were growing presumptuous and arrogant. Whatever Akbar allowed them to do — from processing through the streets of Fatehpur Sikri behind a giant wooden cross with candles in their hands on their saints’ days, to building chapels, to aggressively seeking converts — never seemed to satisfy them. They had even petitioned Akbar to appoint Father Antonio as one of the tutors to his son Murad and from courtesy he had agreed.

‘What does he want?’

‘He would not say, Majesty, only that it was a matter of great urgency.’

‘Very well. I’ll receive him here in my private apartments.’

As always, Salim was surprised by his father’s tolerance. None of his subjects, however mighty, would dare importune the emperor so frequently. He waited to see whether his father would dismiss him and was pleased when Akbar signalled to him to stay.

The Jesuit entered, bowed briefly then without waiting for Akbar to say anything burst out, ‘Majesty, I heard something today that I found hard to believe. Your mullah Shaikh Mubarak says that you intend to inaugurate a new religion.’

‘What you heard was the truth. At the next Friday prayers I will announce to my subjects the introduction within my empire of the Din-i-Ilahi — the “Religion of God”.’

‘What is this blasphemy!’ Father Antonio’s already bulbous eyes looked about to pop from his skull.

‘Take care, Jesuit. You have received nothing but patience and indulgence at my court. In return what have you preached but narrow intolerance? Nothing you have said has convinced me that your Catholic church has anything particular to commend it. Indeed, no single religion seems to me to eclipse all others in truth or divinity — not even my own Muslim faith. That is why I have decided to fuse what is best in all the different religions — Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim — into a new faith.’

‘And where does God sit in your structure — at your right hand, I presume, or will you allow him even that?’ Father Antonio was almost choking with indignation.

‘I am the focus of the Din-i-Ilahi as God’s chosen representative, his shadow upon the earth,’ Akbar said calmly but with a glint in his eye. ‘I do not intend to supplant God — that would indeed be blasphemy.’

‘If you persist in this misguided folly I and my fellow priests must withdraw from your court. I regret that I can no longer act as a tutor to Prince Murad.’

‘Leave if that is your wish. Your closed mind disappoints me. Indeed it makes me question whether I wish men such as yourselves to have even a toehold in my empire. Do not provoke me further if you wish your European adherents to retain their trading settlements.’

‘You have rejected the light and you will answer for it to one greater even than you think yourself.’ Father Antonio spoke with real venom in his tone. Then he gave a slight bow, turned and walked swiftly away through the open double doors past Akbar’s green-turbaned bodyguards.

Salim saw his father and Abul Fazl exchange amused smiles. Clearly they had anticipated the priest’s reactions. His own mind burned with questions and for once he did not lack the courage to voice them. ‘Why have you created this religion, Father? Won’t it anger the ulama?’ he asked.

It was Abul Fazl who answered. ‘Let the ulama think what they will. It is a natural progression. His Majesty is already, of course, the head of the Muslim faith within his empire but his subjects practise many religions. By creating the new faith, the Din-i-Ilahi, which will be open to all and calls upon no one to renounce his existing faith, His Majesty will become accepted by all his people as one of them — their rightful sovereign — and no longer be regarded like his grandfather and father as a foreign invader. Central to the ritual is the sun as the symbol of divinity. The Din-i-Ilahi will embrace the Hindu principles of reincarnation and that unification with the divine is the ultimate aim of the believer. Above all, the Din-i-llahi will teach men kindness, compassion, tolerance and respect for all living things. In so doing it will help them seek for spiritual truth but it will also secure the Moghul dynasty.’

Content to leave Abul Fazl to deal with Salim’s question, Akbar had already turned back to Tuhin Das’s drawing and didn’t see his son’s slight frown as he contemplated Abul Fazl’s words. To Salim it seemed a step too far. Surely this new ‘Divine Faith’ could alienate people just as easily as it could reconcile them to their Moghul rulers?

‘Majesty, an imperial post rider who passed by on his way to Fatehpur Sikri reports that the widow of a village headman is to be burned alive on his funeral pyre at sunset. You asked to be informed of all such incidents immediately.’

‘Where is this happening?’

‘In a village ten miles north of here.’

‘I have given explicit orders that I will not tolerate this barbarous practice of sati. How dare they defy me? I will go there myself. Have my horse saddled at once and detail a detachment of my bodyguards to accompany me.’

Salim had seldom seen his father so openly angry. Without waiting for attendants to help him he was already pulling off his silk tunic ready to change into riding clothes.

‘Come with me, Salim. It will be a valuable lesson. I allow my Hindu subjects complete freedom of worship except in this one thing. You know what sati is, of course, don’t you? They call these women “flaming torches of love and fellowship” but they are just victims, often coerced to die with their husbands by relatives out of some distorted perception of family honour.’ Akbar’s eyes were stern. ‘I thank God that our people have never practised such a thing. For the Moghuls, death on the battlefield is the most honourable thing for a man. Which of us would not, in his heart, choose to die in battle, rather than ingloriously in our beds? But which of us would find similar honour in the idea of our women committing suicide because we were no more? Don’t you agree, Salim?’ Akbar’s attendants were now dressing him in a tunic and pantaloons and fastening a green brocade sash round his still muscular waist.

Salim nodded. What he didn’t tell his father was how tales of sati victims both repelled and fascinated him. Death came so randomly — a friend of his own age had recently caught the spotted fever and died within two days. Mortality was hard to comprehend, especially when you were young. Perhaps that was why it held such a morbid allure. Despite himself, he always listened with half-guilty curiosity to descriptions of the women’s screams rising above the crackling of the blazing pyre and even of victims trying frantically to escape, hair and clothes already alight, only to be thrown back by their husbands’ relatives.

‘Quickly, Salim. The sooner we get there the better chance we have of halting this crime.’

Galloping by his father’s side out of Fatehpur Sikri, bodyguards in their green tunics behind them and four heralds with silver trumpets riding ahead to clear the way, Salim felt proud that his father had chosen him to accompany him, as well as a visceral thrill at the adventure ahead.

It was a hot afternoon in late March and puffs of pale dust rose from the hard-baked ground beneath the horses’ hooves. Squinting up into the clear, deep blue sky, Salim saw the sun was still high. If the funeral was to take place at sunset they had time, though Akbar showed no sign of slackening the pace. His chestnut stallion beneath its gold-embroidered saddle cloth was foamy with sweat and Salim saw that the coat of his own bay mare was mottled with it. Perhaps this was a little how it felt to ride into battle — something he had never done but longed for.

They were climbing now as they followed a track over land parched a deep gold. Ahead it narrowed, winding up to the top of a steep, flat-topped hill on which Salim glimpsed a collection of simple dwellings. Beyond, a column of brown smoke was rising almost vertically into the air.

He heard Akbar shout, ‘They’ve been warned of our coming and have fired the pyre. They’ll pay for this.’ Glancing at him, Salim saw his father’s strong-jawed face tauten with rage and frustration. As they urged their blowing horses towards the top of the hill, Akbar shouted to his men, ‘Quickly. No time to lose!’

Reaching the summit, Salim saw that they were on a plateau. To the left was a cluster of mud-brick huts around a well and on the right a larger house, also single-storeyed but enclosed by a low wall — probably the headman’s dwelling. No one was there except for two young children fast asleep on a string charpoy beneath a neem tree and near them a puppy which regarded the new arrivals without interest through half-closed eyes. But ahead, three or four hundred yards away, Salim made out through a tangle of spiny bushes a crowd of people in dun-coloured clothes. Beyond them rose the plume of smoke, now