Inevitably, she was more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to their own sowar rather than to those of the pretender. And if that strained the spirit of Mian Mir’s teachings, so be it. Rulership had its demands as well as its privileges. Whatever Dara’s faults might be, she had no doubt—had never had any doubt—that he would make a better emperor than either Shah Shuja or Aurangzeb.
There was another commotion at the pavilion’s entrance. She came over to find out what was causing it, but could not see over the heads of the guards clustering there.
“Follow me, Shehzadi,” said Firoz Khan. The armored eunuch started pushing his way through. Strong as well as fat, he had little trouble opening a way forward. Those who turned to snarl or curse at being pushed aside fell silent when they recognized Firoz—and she who came in his wake.
Moments later, Jahanara was past the throng at the entrance and into the garden beyond.
“Dara!” Her brother was sitting astride his warhorse, both hands clutching the ornate pommel of his saddle. His expression seemed vacant, his eyes staring at…nothing, so far as she could see.
She hurried forward, with Firoz Khan now following in her wake. “Dara!” she said, more loudly.
With a bit of a jolt, her brother’s head turned to look at her. His eyes seemed to come into focus. “Jaharana,” he said. That was almost a murmur; she could barely hear him.
She came alongside. From a quick examination, she was relieved to see that he seemed to be uninjured. She could see no blood, at least. He might be bruised somewhere. Probably was.
“Dara—”
“I can’t move,” he said, again in that semi-murmur. “If I try…I will fall off the horse. I’m…exhausted.”
Judging by the strained look on his face, Jahanara thought her brother was more than just “exhausted.” He seemed as brittle as thin glass.
She turned to Firoz Khan. “Can you…?”
The eunuch came forward. Jahanara stepped aside to give access to the emperor. Firoz Khan raised chubby hands and more or less lifted the emperor out of the saddle. It might be more accurate to say Firoz gave the appearance of assisting the emperor by turning Dara’s collapse into some semblance of a dismount.
Jahanara was pleased. Her brother’s dignity had been protected. Well enough, anyway. No one watching would think poorly of Dara; certainly not sowar who had their own experiences with battles.
“Get him into a litter and to the harem,” she said softly. “I will find Priscilla.”
* * *
Priscilla was where Jahanara had left her, still working on the wound in John’s back. Ilsa was there as well, hovering with her fists balled as if she might beat her own impotence into submission.
Jahanara was struck by memory then. Father as he stood waiting for the physicians to ease Mother’s pain, her cries growing steadily weaker and weaker until that horrible silence came.
Blinking tears and memory away, she crossed the last few steps to the trio.
“I need you,” Jahanara said to Priscilla. “Now.”
She turned toward Ilsa. “I am sorry. But…my brother. I must have Priscilla examine him.”
Ilsa drew breath, no doubt to shout a refusal, but Priscilla interrupted her, “Ilsa, you can handle the rest of it. The sutures are finished. None of what’s left requires me.”
She came to her feet. “Lead on, Shehzadi.”
Chapter 51
Red Fort
Harem
After rubbing her eyes to provide some ease, Jahanara looked back down at the note she’d started reading. It was perhaps the hundredth—so it seemed, anyway—she’d gotten from various commanders in the field or on the walls. Most of them were addressed to her brother, but Dara Shikoh had been in no condition to give any coherent responses, so Jahanara was handling it for him. Her eye strain was certainly not for lack of light—a sunlit balcony was always easy to find in the harem—but rather the result of poor penmanship from most of Dara’s subordinates. Usually they would use a munshi, but the crises of the last few days made everyone wish to use their pens, if only to hurry their reports along. Few such reports were directly military in nature, and those that were almost always addressed the needs of the fortress itself. Logistics was a subject she was quite confident she could handle—better than Dara Shikoh himself, actually.
The fighting had ceased entirely. While the cease-fire had ended the day before, Aurangzeb had begun withdrawing a few hours before it was over. Not thinking it wise to disturb her brother, Jahanara had ordered his officers to avoid any clashes unless they were directly attacked. Only two minor tactical questions had been raised in the missives, and in both cases her reply had been do what seems best to you.
None of the replies were sent in her own hand, of course. After she wrote them out, they were passed along to Dara’s munshi for copying and distribution. The officers would readily accept orders written in his hand, where they would question anything written in Jahanara’s. Most of them wouldn’t even recognize Jahanara’s handwriting unless they’d had commercial dealings with her or their wives had furnished some of her poetry for their pleasure.
It was an irritating subterfuge, but she had no choice. Dara Shikoh’s sally had gained him great prestige and stature among the umara and, perhaps more importantly, his sowar. Indeed, that he had gone against his advisors and prevailed was also a sign to Dara’s followers the emperor was his own man. For all intents and purposes, the shadow cast over him—not quite a stigma, but close—by his defeat the year before at the hands of the Sikhs had been erased. Completely erased, she thought; the fact that the Sikhs had proven reliable and incredibly effective allies had helped a great deal in the restoration of Dara’s military reputation. So much so that she expected some of Aurangzeb’s people to begin making discrete overtures to Dara soon.
Was it true that the Guru himself had been in the battle? she
