Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part Two
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Three
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part Four
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Five
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part Six
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Seven
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Eight
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Part Nine
Chapter 55
Glossary of Terms
Cast of Characters
1637
THE PEACOCK
THRONE
ERIC FLINT
GRIFFIN BARBER
1637: The Peacock Throne
Eric Flint and Griffin Barber
The assassinated Shah Jahan lies entombed beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal, while their progeny drag the Mughal Empire into a three-sided struggle over the succession to the Peacock Throne.
The diplomatic and trade mission from the United States of Europe is openly siding with Princess Jahanara and her brother Dara Shikoh. The mission, made up largely of Americans transplanted in time by the Ring of Fire, is providing the siblings with technical assistance as they prepare to fight their rivals for the throne, Aurangzeb and Shah Shuja. Meanwhile, the Afghan adventurer Salim Gadh Yilmaz, confidant of two emperors—Shah Jahan and now his son Dara Shikoh—has been elevated to the position of general. He has great challenges to face, not the least of which is resisting the fierce and forbidden mutual attraction between himself and Princess Jahanara.
As the conflict deepens, the junior members of the mission are sent east to buy opium needed by the USE’s doctors. Their guide, merchant Jadu Das, has an agenda of his own, one entrusted to him by Jahanara: seek out her great uncle, Asaf Khan, and promise whatever is needed to bring his army over to Dara’s side.
The USE’s mission was sent to India in search of goods needed in Europe. But now they find that straightforward task has become enmeshed in a great civil war—for control of the Peacock Throne.
THE RING OF FIRE SERIES
1632 by Eric Flint
1633 by Eric Flint & David Weber
1634: The Baltic War by Eric Flint & David Weber
1634: The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1634: The Bavarian Crisis by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce
1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce et al.
1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1635: The Dreeson Incident by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce
1635: The Eastern Front by Eric Flint
1635: The Papal Stakes by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint
1636: The Kremlin Games by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint & David Carrico
1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1636: The Viennese Waltz by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint & Walter Hunt
1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis
1636: The Ottoman Onslaught by Eric Flint
1636: Mission to the Mughals by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber
1636: The Vatican Sanction by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1637: The Volga Rules by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
1637: The Polish Maelstrom by Eric Flint
1636: The China Venture by Eric Flint & Iver P. Cooper
1636: The Atlantic Encounter by Eric Flint & Walter H. Hunt
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon
1636: Calabar’s War by Charles E. Gannon & Robert E. Waters
1637: The Peacock Throne by Eric Flint & Griffin Barber
1635: The Tangled Web by Virginia DeMarce
1635: The Wars for the Rhine by Anette Pedersen
1636: Seas of Fortune by Iver P. Cooper
1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz by Kerryn Offord & Rick Boatright
1636: Flight of the Nightingale by David Carrico
Time Spike by Eric Flint & Marilyn Kosmatka
The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
The Macedonian Hazard by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett
Grantville Gazette volumes I-V, ed. by Eric Flint
Grantville Gazette VI-VII, ed. by Eric Flint & Paula Goodlett
Grantville Gazette VIII, ed. by Eric Flint & Walt Boyes
Ring of Fire I-IV, ed. by Eric Flint
1637: The Peacock Throne
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Eric Flint and Griffin Barber
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2535-6
eISBN: 978-1-62579-806-0
Cover art by Tom Kidd
Maps by Michael Knopp
First printing, May 2021
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Flint, Eric, author. | Barber, Griffin, author.
Title: 1637 : the Peacock Throne / Eric Flint and Griffin Barber.
Other titles: Peacock Throne
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2021] | Series: The Ring of fire
Identifiers: LCCN 2021005965 | ISBN 9781982125356 (hardcover)
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3556.L548 A6186927 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005965
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
To my parents, Bill & Donna,
for giving so much down the years
—Griffin
To Professor Stanley Wolpert,
December 23, 1927–February 19, 2019.
Stanley Wolpert was my professor of Indian history at UCLA and the person who introduced me to that immense and fascinating field of the human past. I’ve now written eight novels which are in one way or another set in Indian history—the six-volume Belisarius series which I co-authored with David Drake and the (so far) two volumes set in my Ring of Fire series—and any number of other works in which Indian history and culture figures to some degree. That never would or could have happened without the impact and influence that Prof. Wolpert had on me as a young man. I have been thankful to him for decades and remember him very well, even though I never saw
