Rodrigo, who was with me when I jumped ship in Goa and first came to Mughal lands. Rodrigo, who saved my life twice, no, three times, at least…
Minutes later he staggered, panting, into the tent Aurangzeb had set up for the relief of wounded men. He passed Rodrigo into the hands of someone who might be able to help.
God knew he could not.
He stood in the entrance of that tent and stared at his hands. Shaking, bloody and clenched into fists, they offered no answers.
Much later, Aurangzeb found him standing there. Found him, and, in a vastly unusual move, took Carvalho’s fisted hands in his own. He said something, something that penetrated the darkness filling the ferenghi umara’s heart.
The eyes Carvalho stared at Aurangzeb with were full of desperate hope.
The prince repeated himself, the words for Carvalho’s ears alone, and they lit a fire in the artilleryman’s heart.
The Red Tent, Shuja’s camp
“The ferenghi wizards have killed themselves, and with them all Dara’s remaining hopes!” Shuja gloated, wine dribbling through his thin beard and onto the naked chest of the dancing girl on his lap.
Occasioned by the news of the setback Dara’s cause had suffered, the festivities had grown in intensity in the hours since, Shuja leading the debauchery with drink after drink.
“Sultan Al’Azam, may I depart?” Aurangzeb asked for the second time, striving to keep his tone neutral and his expression blank.
Shuja pretended not to hear.
Aurangzeb raised his voice slightly and again asked the emperor leave to depart, adding that it was nearing time for prayer.
That gained Shuja’s attention. He surged to his feet and turned to face his brother.
The dancing girl stifled a squeak as she fell from his lap to the carpets, her lustrous black hair coming loose.
Stumbling slightly, Shuja caught himself, one boot coming to rest on the dancing girl’s long, unbound hair.
Shuja smiled bitterly. “I wonder,” the elder brother slurred.
Aurangzeb did not respond.
The festivities, losing momentum without the continued attentions of the emperor, stumbled to a lesser tempo, spreading silence in a circle radiating from the brothers like the ripples caused when a stone was dropped in a still pool.
“I wonder,” Shuja repeated into the ever-greater quiet, “how Father sired such a bloodless pair as you and Dara. The one wants nothing but to hide behind his wife’s veils and the other…the other”—he spilled wine over Aurangzeb’s crossed legs as he pointed down at him—“the other”—he hiccupped—“the other would spend his time praying for victory.”
Be calm. God fashions each moment like stepping-stones to knowledge of His will; do not miss your step for anger or pride.
“I do not know what you mean, Sultan Al’Azam. I have only ever done as you commanded.”
Another gesture of the cup made the emperor sway.
“And if I command you to drink?” Aurangzeb felt those of the umara who kept God’s law as written by His Prophet tense on hearing Shuja’s words.
Even those of the umara who were neither Muslim nor devout, but yet remained sober enough to think, had misgivings. Commanding a man to act against his religious conviction was simply not done. Certainly not by one of the descendants of Akbar.
“Then I will beg forgiveness,” Aurangzeb said, hiding satisfaction.
“Of whom?” Shuja asked.
“Sultan Al’Azam?”
“Who will you ask for forgi—” Shuja’s swaying reached a critical mass, forcing him to adjust his footing. One slippered foot caught in the dancing girl’s hair. The emperor threw out both hands to save himself from a fall, his goblet striking Aurangzeb in the face before he could raise a hand to guard it. Wine splashed his eyes, blinding him.
The dancing girl shrieked.
When he wiped away the wine, Aurangzeb saw only the bottom of his brother’s feet. One slipper had come off, and both heels drummed the carpets, along with his other foot. His gaze traveled up his brother’s supine form and saw purple-red froth about Shuja’s mouth.
Aurangzeb blinked in momentary confusion, mind failing to apprehend what was before his eyes.
Nur’s poisoner wasn’t supposed to kill him, just make him more drunk.
No. This looks like the seizures he used to have after the fall in Lahore, when I was a baby.
This isn’t the result of poison, it’s a seizure!
He’s having a seizure, just like when he was a boy.
I thought he’d recovered…
Merciful God!
He sat up, aware he must seize the moment God had laid before him, and do so immediately.
The tent was now entirely silent, aside from the choking gasps of Shuja’s breathing and the whimpering of the dancing girl who thought herself the cause of Shuja’s fall.
Fitting, that.
“God!” someone’s startled cry rent the near silence.
“No!” Aurangzeb cried, improvising as he, still on his knees, went to his brother’s side. “None shall say my brother was struck down by God! It was a simple accident brought about by too much drink, nothing more!”
Several of his followers shouted support, providing a cloak to cover his true intent.
Islam Khan, one of Shuja’s more prominent, and supposedly devout, commanders, was shaking his head.
Aurangzeb pointed at the man. “You shake your head in denial, but I beg you, do not think ill of my brother! It was a simple fall, not God’s justice.”
Islam Khan’s face, made florid by drink, went stiff under his beard as he realized that whatever he’d been shaking his head about, it had been made to serve Aurangzeb’s purpose.
Aurangzeb hid exultation behind a facade of care for his stricken brother as the umara began to mutter, then declaim, then bellow at one another. For it was apparent that, despite Aurangzeb’s protestations, Shuja’s sudden fall and subsequent seizure were clear and obvious signs from God of the emperor’s fall from grace.
Shuja relaxed into the deep, exhausted slumber that had always followed one of his seizures. Had he not been drinking, or dosed with whatever Nur’s agent had placed in his drink, he might have
