Beyond them were more men, perhaps another two thousand, with more traditional arquebuses and a level of training and expertise she knew to be less than professional. Still, they were here to make good on their duty to the Sultan Al’Azam.
She rode across in front of the men to where the Sultan Al’Azam, Dara Shikoh, sat a magnificent Marwari stallion that had been caparisoned in chain and silk.
Behind the Sultan Al’Azam, several hundred sowar sat their mounts, each armored and armed in the fashion of their people. More were riding up every moment from those walls where the fighting had finished, gathering around their individual umara; commanders of one hundred, even fifty.
A glance at the men surrounding Dara Shikoh confirmed her belief she was the highest ranking umara present. A lowly commander of five hundred sowar the senior ranking warrior? That was a problem. Mughal tactics did not rely on discipline so much as bravery and something John called “volume of fire,” but Dara and John’s plan did require they engage superior numbers at a specific moment in time that depended on some confusion in Aurangzeb’s army to work.
To her mind, this chaos was not conducive to success.
Men.
Dara’s impatience was palpable. The emperor’s horse, sensitive to his rider’s mood and already prepared to fight for dominance of the growing herd about him, tried to bite the head from a messenger who stepped too close while reporting to Dara. The messenger dodged aside, but the horse took some hair along with the man’s turban.
And it wasn’t just Dara’s horse that was threatening to get out of control. The lack of organization among the riders was an almost painful contrast to the disciplined stillness of the Sikhs. Someone needed to get control of this…what was the word John used that so disturbed his wife?
“Clusterfuck…” she muttered.
Such was her luck, however, that as she uttered the word there came one of those silences that happen at the most inopportune moments. It seemed to her that even the distant guns stopped firing in order to reveal her words to the emperor.
“What was that, Atisheh?” Dara asked. His jaw was set, and there were rings beneath his eyes that bespoke sleeplessness.
“Sultan Al’Azam, forgive me, I was asking where John Ennis is?” She felt no guilt for the lie, as there was no time to explain the saying.
“I sent John to Lahore Gate, where we are sore pressed.”
And what lunacy possessed you to send the sole commander of five thousand within these walls to stand a post like a common sowar?
She swallowed bitter anger, remembering that John was no horseman, and therefore unqualified to lead this sally anyway.
“When do we sally, Sultan Al’Azam?” she asked, trying to convey with her tone that now would be better than later.
“Bidhi Chand has yet to arrive,” Dara said, oblivious to the nuance of her message.
“Sultan Al’Azam, please heed me. Some of his best men were at Lahore Gate. Is it possible that he took personal command there when the fighting grew thick?”
Dara was nodding, but his eyes had that vacant look they got when he was having one of his spells. His mailed hand tried to steal to the scar at his temple but bonged against his helmet instead.
Another messenger ran up and bowed.
Dara managed a slow nod for him.
“Commander of one thousand, Bidhi Chand begs leave to sally, Sultan Al’Azam.”
“Where is he?” Dara asked, looking at the motionless block of infantry.
“Over there, Sultan Al’Azam,” the messenger said, pointing.
A man emerged from the infantry and waved his sword.
“Well, bring him here,” Dara said.
Gritting her teeth, Atisheh hauled on her reins and turned her horse for the Sikhs. Dara might complain that she hadn’t asked for leave to depart, but she could feel the weight of time they didn’t have fleeing from them like water from between the fingers.
A moment later she was reining in before the man the messenger had pointed out.
He was not Bidhi Chand.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“Bidhi Chand is fighting at Lahore Gate”—the man’s Persian was unexpectedly fluid and almost without accent, more cultured than her own had been when first she arrived at court—“and gave orders for us to go without him should he fall or otherwise not be among us.”
“And who are you?” she asked, suspicious.
“A common warrior of my people, sister, chosen, like you, to lead others into battle in defense of what we love and cherish,” the man said, smile emerging from a thick, luxuriant beard.
She liked his voice, though it seemed, from the length of his answer, that he liked it well enough for the both of them.
It was then she noted the man wore two of the full-length swords in the style the Sikhs preferred.
Merciful God! How long has he been here?
She swallowed, said respectfully, “I will inform the Sultan Al’Azam you are ready to march, Guru.”
“I trust you will do so without mentioning me by name or title?” he asked with a waggle of his head. “I do not wish to steal any glory from Dara Shikoh.”
“As you wish,” Atisheh said.
“Go with God, sister.”
“And you,” she returned, the benediction somehow more meaningful than ever. Atisheh turned her horse again and galloped to rejoin Dara.
“Bidhi Chand begs you to begin the sally, Sultan Al’Azam, before it is too late!” she shouted as she rode up, figuring the more public the pressure, the more likely Dara would be to act without questioning.
Yonca and Damla and thirty other harem guards had joined the sowar surrounding the emperor in her absence. She was comforted by their presence even as she mourned the empty saddles of women and eunuchs she knew would have to be either wounded or dead to miss the glory that was to come.
Dara’s
