So be it. Without protest, she turned and left.
Red Fort
Water Gate
“Aurangzeb will have me beheaded!”
Jahanara nodded, pitiless. “Yes, that is quite possible.”
Nur glared at her. “And that is your intent.”
“No. That is a possible outcome—and one I have no difficulty accepting. But I would actually prefer it if he spared you and sent you back with a reply.”
“He might send my head back with a reply—a reply carried by another emissary.”
Jahanara found herself enjoying Nur’s fear, and strove to suppress the feeling. Mian Mir would not approve of that. Nor did she herself, in her better moments.
“Yes,” she said. “That would also tell us something.”
Nur Jahan shifted her glare to the boat where her few remaining guards and servants sweltered in the sun, as did she herself. Jahanara had insisted on conducting this meeting in the open, above the dock that had been thrown up in the wake of the battle—where she was being shaded by a parasol in the hands of a large eunuch.
It was hot.
Nur had no choice, and she knew it. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing she hadn’t been bested by Dara. No, it was another woman who had come up with this clever and cunning scheme. Bad enough to have a man cut her head off; worse still if she were forced to explain to the man exactly why and how he’d been maneuvered into the action in the first place.
“Very well,” she said between gritted teeth.
There followed a rather long period of instruction, wherein Jahanara explained to a sweating Nur exactly what was expected of her.
“I will carry your words to Aurangzeb…I will return in two, perhaps three days. If I return at all.”
She didn’t bother to add any curses. The young princess she’d so badly underestimated would probably deduce something from those as well.
Jahanara had certainly come into her own. She was…
Impressive.
* * *
After Nur Jahan boarded her boat and was being poled to Agra, Jahanara watched her for a while—not so much to be sure the woman was leaving, but simply because she was reluctant to start walking again. Her feet were still very sore. She had gotten little exercise for quite a while now because of the demands of the crisis. Even when her life had been more active, that had usually meant she was on horseback. She’d spent all day on slippered feet yesterday, from dawn to well past midnight. There hadn’t been a single day in her previous life when she’d ever done that, so far as she could remember. Not even as a child.
When Nur Jahan’s boat was a mere speck on the river, Jahanara blew out a soft sigh and began to turn back toward the gate. Looking down at the wide Yamuna, a thought came to her. A wish, really. To be able to sail away. She stared down at the slow-moving waters of the great river winding toward the sea, mind racing.
Of course.
Red Fort
Harem
As soon as Jahanara returned to Dara Shikoh’s private chambers, her brother burst out angrily.
“You have done nothing but deceive me!” With a sharp jerk of his head, pointing with his chin, he indicated his wife. “And you drew her into your schemes as well! You talked me out of executing Salim on the grounds that I needed to be merciful. The teachings of Mian Mir, you said. But all the while you and your lover were scheming!”
Her own long-suppressed anger boiled over. “Scheming? Scheming to do what? All Salim and I did was plan a maneuver that would cripple Aurangzeb’s supply lines from the Portuguese! A maneuver which may have preserved the Peacock Throne for you!”
This time she wasn’t going to wait for any invitation. Even after resting on the litter Firoz had summoned for her, her feet were still sore. She folded herself down on a cushion. “And it is a lie that Salim is my lover!”
That itself was what Priscilla’s husband Rodney would call a bald-faced lie, but she was too furious to care. “I am tired of your false accusations!”
Nadira tried to intervene. “Husband, everyone is crediting you with what Salim did. ‘A masterful stroke,’ some have been heard calling it.”
“Oh, splendid!” Dara Shikoh threw up his hands. “So now you have ruined my reputation as well as hers! Everyone thinks I have no respect for my own honor, now.”
Jahanara had calmed down enough to speak in a level tone. “Brother, the supposed ‘honor’ of an emperor means less than nothing if he loses the throne, his family, and his means of bestowing honors on his subordinates. Every diwan, umara and zamindar with any experience knows that—and all but a handful will admire an emperor who knows it as well. Better still, an emperor who knows it and is willing to act accordingly. If you did not let your emotions cloud your good sense—”
She bit that off. Dara was clearly about to explode again. “Let us be done with this! I realize there is a problem and the solution is clear and obvious: I will go on Hajj. As soon as possible.”
Dara’s mouth, which he’d opened to shout, was now simply agape. So was Nadira’s, although she managed somehow to do it prettily.
“Hajj will solve everything, I think. Even your issue with my contact with Salim. Even though there is and was absolutely nothing scandalous or improper in my conduct with Amir Salim Gadh Visa Yilmaz—none whatsoever and never has been!—”
She hoped it was not pride that led her to believe she was actually as good at telling the bald-faced lie as recent experience had made it seem. Perhaps it was Nur Jahan’s influence; certainly her interactions with her eldest female relative had proven she’d some ability at dissembling.
“—if it is obvious to everyone that I no
