Ricky smiled at the look Jadu gave his friend.
Bobby rarely chooses to give voice to his thoughts, but when he does, then Mom’s old adage about still waters running deep comes to mind.
“What?” Bobby asked, looking from Jadu to Ricky.
Jadu recovered smoothly. “It is only that I had not expected your thoughts to mirror my own so perfectly.”
“So either you’re both right or both making the same errors in our assumptions,” Ricky said.
“As you say, it is possible we are both wrong, but I think we are right. Especially in light of news I received from the horse market outside of town.” He gestured at the notes on his desk. “It was nearly silent, not because there were no horses to be bought, but because all of them had been spoken for already.
“It seems that whatever infighting or confusion there was in Asaf Kahn camp is over, and whoever won is making ready to move.”
“But where?”
“That, my friends, is the question.”
Chapter 22
Asirgarh
The Red Tent
Shuja’s camp
“I will leave behind a force sufficient to continue the siege here and take the rest to advance at all speed toward Agra,” Shuja said, putting his wine cup down. He looked as if he would continue, but just then the siege cannon thundered in a lingering barrage, a stuttering roar barely muted by both distance and the heavy material of Shuja’s Red Tent.
At great cost of powder, blood, and guns, their fire was slowly chipping away at the walls of Asirgarh fortress. Aurangzeb was certain there was a metaphor or something to be drawn from the ineffectiveness of the guns despite their loud bellows, but could not be bothered to pin it down, not when Shuja gestured to what amounted to his inner council and said, “I would have your advice here and now, and invite you to give me your best counsel, so that you may better know my mind and carry out my orders when I have decided upon a course of action.”
Aurangzeb felt his brother’s gaze drift to him as he made this pronouncement, but felt their stare as anything but an invitation to conversation.
No, he does not want to hear what wisdom I might have, not at all.
Ah well, “wish in one hand,” as they say.
With a final unspoken prayer, he said aloud, “We need not press so quickly, Sultan Al’Azam.”
There was a long, shocked silence at this apparent reversal of position.
“So quickly? So quickly?” Shuja sputtered, words steeped in derision. He gestured, presumably at the siege lines outside the tent, and went on: “First you say we go too slow, yet now you say too fast? Which is it, brother?” He shook his head as if gravely disappointed. “You speak like a woman: uncertain of her desires and like to change her mind with the next breeze to touch her intimate parts.”
A few umara chuckled. Most simply listened.
Aurangzeb felt the sting of their amusement despite having repeatedly steeled himself against the slings and arrows of his brother’s limited wit.
When he failed to answer, Shuja continued. “If we strike straight at Agra with all speed, we will prevent Dara from buying more allies like the Sikhs he has already purchased with Father’s treasury, not to mention additional time for his pet sorcerers from the future to create more weapons to use against our brave sowar.”
Aurangzeb nodded even as he disagreed. “He can buy all the Sikhs he wishes; they are but farmers. As to the weapons they plan to use against us, all reports indicate they are refinements of common fowling pieces, allowing one to reload from a prone position.” That such would improve the survivability of infantrymen under fire wasn’t worth mentioning to the emperor. Shuja spared little enough concern for his sowar, let alone the common men that constituted the majority of infantry forces.
“No, what I am most interested in is the whereabouts of Asaf Khan and the army he commands. An army that was the same size as yours is now, and that before Father’s death. He has had many weeks to add to his forces now, and was always a competent general.”
Far more experienced than all of the princes combined, if not known for any particular genius, Asaf Khan was the single greatest threat to the dynasty, let alone its individual factions. He was, as long as he did not declare for one or another faction, a knife at everyone’s throat.
“We have received word from several friends at Red Fort that Dara does not know any more about his whereabouts than us,” Shuja said, dismissive.
Fool. Ignorance does not equate with absence. He is out there, readying himself to strike.
Feigning agreement, Aurangzeb nodded. “I have heard the same from my sources.”
“Well, the—” He stopped, seeing his younger brother’s raised hand and waggling head. With ill grace he waved Aurangzeb permission to continue.
“What if our informants have been deceived? What if our wily great uncle merely waits to spring some devastating trap upon us?” He looked at the faces of the men of Shuja’s inner circle, seeing many expressions of interest and concern. “I needn’t remind any here of what he, with his experience and intellect, has proven himself capable of.”
The nods this wisdom solicited among his brother’s advisors were no surprise to Aurangzeb. Brother to an empress, father to another, vizier to two emperors, successful general, and favored great uncle to all of Shah Jahan’s children, Asaf Khan and his extended family had cast a long, deep shadow over dynastic politics over the last three generations. His name was the perfect lever for conjuring fear and concern among Shuja’s advisors.
“You shelter his sister, do you not?” Shuja asked.
“I do,” Aurangzeb
