“Of that there is no doubt, Shehzada. We are all run low on patience. I…” She stopped, thinking it was not yet time to make that particular offer.
“What is it, Nur?”
“Shehzada, I…” He is not ready, but you’ve given him the opening.
He cocked a brow. “You are not one to speak unless you wish to say something in its entirety.”
“Shehzada, a question, first.”
He gestured her to proceed.
Nur took a moment to marshal her thoughts, as the proposal was dangerous to even think of, let alone discuss.
“Speak. Your hesitation makes my teeth itch,” Aurangzeb said.
Nur could not tell if he joked with her or not, and so continued: “I may have the means, Shehzada, to provide an opportunity…”
“That is as vague a statement as I have ever heard from you, even knowing your penchant for indirectness. Cease these prevarications and tell me what it is that makes you dither so.”
“I have someone in a position to place something in Shuja’s food or drink.”
“Something? You mean poison.”
Nur shook her head. “Something so obvious as a deadly poison would surely mean an end to the servant if they could be deceived into doing such a thing. And if they are caught, then more of the network I have built for you will be exposed than would be prudent, Shehzada.”
“Then what?”
“If he were to become so intoxicated that he acted outside the bounds of propriety, before witnesses…” She trailed off, wondering if Aurangzeb would recognize the danger: Shuja could simply order his death in a drunken rage.
“The emperor sets the standard for propriety,” Aurangzeb said, shaking his head.
“A low bar, then,” she said, forcing a smile.
He did not return it.
“We would have to choose the timing most carefully,” he said, surprising her.
“Most carefully,” she agreed. “And yet I cannot help but think this may be the time God has chosen.”
“Oh?” he said, managing his tone and expression with admirable control.
“Make no mistake, I claim no special ability to divine God’s plan, but…I am ready for God to present the moment you will step forward and take what we have worked so hard to obtain.”
Speaking so openly of his desire, and of the delays God had seen fit to set in their path, put a fine crack in his self-control. She, who had spent so much time observing him and attempting to gauge his mood and mind, recognized it the moment Aurangzeb looked away.
Having stoked the fires of his ambition, she set about putting any unease to bed, adding: “And I shall be certain the substance is only placed in those beverages forbidden to good Muslims, thereby making Shuja the author of his own fate…” Nur winced inwardly, wishing she’d used different phrasing…
“A man’s fate is as God wills it.”
Nur was relieved that Aurangzeb’s correction was automatic and devoid of heat, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.
“What, then, is in the letter?” he asked, eyes falling on the note in his hand.
Smiling was less of a trial this time. “Good news, Shehzada. News that may address your concerns regarding timing…”
“Is it too much to ask that you stop playing, even for a moment?”
“What game do you believe I play, Shehzada?”
“The only one that matters.”
“Then, with respect, you answer your own question, Shehzada.”
Carvalho’s guns, siege lines
Carvalho spat as the remnants of his second gun fell to earth about the emplacement twenty yards to his left. He didn’t curse aloud, though. In truth, he was surprised they’d made it this long without a failure. The heaviest of his guns had been hard-used these last weeks, and one was bound to fail at some point.
A ragged, jeering cheer rose from within the fortress as the defenders watched the aftermath of the explosion.
Carvalho was happy he could not understand the Rajputs, but it was easy enough to guess what they were cheering about. The garrison was no doubt happy to see the gun visit destruction upon its crew after so long suffering under their fire.
“Not like you had anything to do with it!” Carvalho bellowed at the defenders as he ran over to check on his crew. He’d silenced the last of the fortress’s big guns last week, and was within a few days of reducing the gate to rubble, so he only had to brave a few shots from a few long arquebuses to get there.
Rodrigo, the mestiço bastard who captained Carvalho’s second gun, was dragging himself to his feet as his commander entered the smoking hole that used to be the gun emplacement.
“What?” Rodrigo shouted, eyes unfocused and blood sheeting down the side of his face.
Carvalho took Rodrigo by the shoulders and sat him, unresisting, on the ground. He stepped past, only to set a boot in the remains of one of the crew.
Rodrigo moaned, swayed, and fell back against the berm thrown up to protect the gunners.
“Christ!” Carvalho grunted. Slipping in gore and choking back the horror-spawned urge to vomit, he checked on the rest of the men. The examination only required a moment: No one had survived the breech explosion that sent two forearm-length shards of metal sweeping through the gun pit like twin reaping blades, removing limbs and disemboweling the man Carvalho had put his boot in.
By the time he returned to Rodrigo, the man was unconscious, though breathing. The head wound had almost stopped bleeding, too. He pulled the man up and drew him over both shoulders, carrying him out of the gun pit and toward the rear of the siege lines.
“Keep firing!” he shouted at the rest of his crews.
A ball from some skilled or very lucky arquebuser cracked against a stone at his feet, making his nuts draw up into his belly.
Fucking useless, unnecessary siege! Had I wanted this kind of fight, I’d have stayed in Europe.
No mercenary gunner—and Carvalho was still a mercenary at heart—enjoyed a siege. The daily cost in money, material and men, not just from combat, but from the sickness that
