“A messenger.”
“From the pretender?”
She peered at the approaching rider before replying, “So it would appear, Sultan Al’Azam, though they are dressed like a ferenghi. An Englishman, I think.”
The elation he’d felt not long before was all gone now. My brother is sending a messenger to me, the traditional acknowledgment of defeat, yet I can think of nothing but the cost…the pain…
The headache was growing with every beat of his heart. Dara put away such thoughts and tried to focus on what he must do to retain the upper hand.
First, it would not do to appear or sound less than kingly before the messenger. Dara unhooked his chain veil with a hand that shook rather more than he liked and leaned over to spit. The lean threatened to turn into a fall. He jerked back, making his unfamiliar horse prance sideways with uneasy fear.
Atisheh reached out with an almost absent gesture and steadied her monarch, eyes still on the approaching messenger. “It is an Englishman. The one called Methwold.”
Dara patted his horse’s neck and, considering it best to appear the general before anyone coming from Aurangzeb’s camp, began issuing commands. “The Sikhs are to continue the withdrawal.” He paused, winced at the number of walking wounded among the infantry. “The wounded are to be given priority to pass through the gate. The Sikhs to rest until the next time my brother thinks to challenge my defenses.”
“Yes, Sultan Al’Azam!” one of his men said. The rider turned and set his tired horse in motion.
Dara turned a gimlet eye on Aurangzeb’s messenger. It was, indeed, Methwold. The man kept his eyes up and trained on Dara, probably to spare himself future memories of the dead and dismembered.
“You were exiled by my father, Englishman.”
The man had the good grace to blush. “I was. Your brother saw fit to pardon my transgression.”
“You address the Sultan Al’Azam! No other can lift your exile!” Atisheh growled.
Dara wished she had not. It only added to the throbbing pain in his skull.
Blushing scarlet, Methwold bowed his head in recognition of the point. “Forgive my error, Sultan Al’Azam.”
Dara waved the apology away. “Your message?”
“Th—” Methwold caught and corrected the error rather smoothly. “Aurangzeb declares his intent to agree to a truce to collect the wounded and the dead. Such truce to last until noon today.”
Atisheh’s chuckle was menacing and cold, yet managed to convey good humor. Dara glanced at her, uncertain what summoned the sound from her lips.
Meeting his eye, Atisheh punched her chin at the battlefield.
His thoughts were sluggish, but he understood the meaning of that gesture. While Dara’s wounded and dead could be easily recovered in the time covered by the truce, Aurangzeb’s far greater losses would require days, not hours, to see to.
Not making allowances to see to the dead and dying was bound to make his men unhappy. Why push such a timeframe, then?
Dara closed his eyes against the pain and wished his thinking unimpeded by his many hurts. Seeking an answer that made sense was hard enough when dealing with court politics, but now…
It can’t be that Shaista Khan approaches and Aurangzeb wishes to deny me a delay that might give us a chance to coordinate…
Hope soared in his breast, only to crash to earth.
No, we have heard nothing of Shaista, and just because I wish it true does not make Shaista’s arrival any more imminent. No, relief—if there is any—will not arrive in time to threaten Aurangzeb.
Is he that short of provisions?
No, with what the traitor gave him from Gwalior Fort, surely his army can hold for weeks, not days.
What, then?
Dara’s lip curled as he stumbled on what he felt must be the reason. Aurangzeb wished to make him appear heartless and cruel. Telling his men one thing whilst he sent this man to make a different offer, only to later blame Dara for his refusal to show courtesy to the dying and dead.
“President Methwold, did my brother not say why he wants his truce so short?” Dara asked, watching the man closely.
“No, your brother did not choose to reveal to me his reasons,” Methwold answered, expression giving nothing away.
Despite the clangor within his skull, Dara raised his voice and waved with feigned nonchalance at the battlefield. “He must not wish to see the great many dead his pretensions to generalship have caused this day, lest they ask him with their silence, ‘Why must we die to serve your false claims?’ No, my brother is fearful of the mute dead, not to mention the voices of his living wounded. That is why he seeks such a short truce.”
Dara’s sowar were moved by his words, some even shouting angry contempt at Methwold, who sat stone-faced through their cries and Dara’s diatribe alike.
Raising tired arms for a silence he ultimately decided he could not wait for, Dara shouted, “Tell my brother that, in direct proportion to his faithless nature, I will show mercy to those he would trample under the indifferent hooves of his ambition!”
The old wound throbbed with every shouted word, a saw-toothed dagger trying to carve his thoughts to bloody offal. He closed his eyes, sucked a deep breath in, let it out.
Dara’s men were silent, waiting, watchful.
The Sultan Al’Azam Dara Shikoh opened his eyes and locked gazes with Methwold. “By my command, my physicians will treat all those wounded this day, regardless of who they chose to follow into battle!”
Dara heard the expected protests from among his own men. They were not unreasonable fears: the wounded would be additional mouths to feed and possibly become a significant internal threat if inclined to repay his mercy with betrayal.
“Those whose only crime was to be led astray by the honeyed promises and false piety of the pretender,” Dara said, addressing their complaints but pointing at his brother’s position, “need not suffer under his hand any longer. My closed fist, having struck so many down today, is once more opened—opened to
