After a long, uncomfortable moment, Ghulam cleared his throat. “It seems I cannot please. What I intended to say was that I was never in a position to observe any of Shuja’s accomplishments.”
“Accomplishments, you say?” Aurangzeb said, feeling a smile threaten to break his firm demeanor. “I think that might be the very first time anyone has mentioned my brother and accomplishments in one breath.”
Ghulam, fighting to keep a smile off his face, said, “And there is the first reason I serve you and not him today.”
“God willed it,” Aurangzeb said, retrieving the coin and rolling it across his knuckles to examine both sides.
“God willed it,” Ghulam Khan confirmed.
“This is excellent work. Convey my congratulations and contentment to the craftsmen.”
“I shall, Sultan Al’Azam. Thank you.”
Feeling he had the man’s measure, Aurangzeb dismissed his newest diwan.
He sat a moment, brow furrowed in concentration, as the umara departed. Shuja was much on his mind. A prickly problem that would not, could not, be resolved comfortably.
I can’t exile him. He would only return and drain my strength as the first group of umara disaffected with my decisions would rally around him, not to mention what the Safavids might do with a pet pretender to the throne in their hands…
Yet, there has to be a solution that does not include fratricide, even at the hands of those not specifically ordered to it, as Father’s umara presumed to when Father ordered his cousins imprisoned. Besides, I am not in a position to leave him in some fort where my own best supporters might repeat history and ki—
The firing of one of Carvalho’s guns interrupted his thoughts. Not in anger, but signaling the dawn, as one of his first commands as emperor had been a cease-fire and an invitation to talks with the garrison commander, Lahore Raja. The man was a Rajput, and considered prickly in his honor. He was older than any of the imperial family, but not by much, yet had obtained a fine martial reputation for good service with Father’s forces from Bengal and the Afghan territories. The Rajputs wouldn’t have been in the fort, but for Shuja’s insistence on reducing Burhanpur when he could have negotiated a settlement and moved on, pressing the timetable…
But he is in the fort. A loyal, proven general. One of the few Dara has at his disposal.
Aurangzeb paused. Felt his way around the edges of an idea, gently nudging it rather than trying to seize it and lose it all.
Oh.
Of course.
Shuja cannot die in my custody. Not at the hands of my supporters.
Aurangzeb considered the idea, bringing all his mental resources to bear. And still could not find a flaw.
God inspires.
He praised God and called for Nur.
There was much to organize, and time was in short supply.
* * *
“The boy wants what?” Amar Singh Rathore said, twisting one end of his majestic Rajput mustaches into an even tighter curl.
“The emperor Aurangzeb only wants to be your friend, Amar Singh Rathore,” Nur corrected, her enjoyment of the moment unsullied by Rathore’s weak attempt to belittle Aurangzeb by calling him a boy. Amar Singh’s mother had been a member of Jahangir’s court when the prideful Rajput princeling had been but a spoiled and somewhat sickly child, so she knew better than to engage him further on a point they both knew to be of very little import. No, she was enjoying herself too much.
That negotiating on behalf of kinsmen was a traditional role for senior Mughal women made little difference. The exercise of real power was the only thing that mattered, the only intoxicant that enticed her. These moments were as the pipe was to the opium addict: a tool to reach the place where the gods dwelt.
“He wants to be my friend, you say?” he asked.
“He does, and I do,” Nur replied, waving off a slave presenting her with a tray laden with food. Her host had already offered refreshment and been refused, but the repeated offerings were Rathore’s attempt to gracefully indicate the fortress was in possession of all the stores necessary to last any but the longest siege.
According to Aurangzeb’s reports, he was also overstating the garrison’s supply situation, but such was expected of a besieged commander.
She was less sanguine about the finger he waggled at her. “Does he think me so without honor that I would abandon my sacred duty simply for the mere promise of coin? Because it is just that, a mere promise. He has no mint, barely a treasury to supply cash payments, and no access to the proper imperial bureaucracy in order to administer and distribute the jagirs he claims to possess. Even the experienced men of his personal staff have less than a decade in service.”
“All true. You are most perceptive, Amar Singh.” She kept a straight face as she delivered the words. She was here to broker a solution, not pour oil on a fire, and flattering a man’s wisdom could be almost as effective as flattering his manliness.
He sat back, trying to cover a suspicious glance with another drink.
Nur smiled. He was fairly astute, but young. She would best him as she had so many others.
“Your suspicious glances lead me to believe you think I but flatter you. I do not. Nor do I dissemble or seek to inflate your sense of self-worth. Everything you have said about the current state of the emperor’s court is true…” She let the statement trail off. Best to let the prey think it freely ran its own path than know the huntress lay waiting.
“What, then?” he asked, expressionless once again.
She waggled her head, made a face as if eating bitter melon. “As if Rajput honor could be purchased with coin!”
His smile was sly. “So he would give me title to more zamin?”
“No.” She pointed to Heaven with one hennaed hand, gold bracelets clinking. “For what is receiving land but coin in a different purse,
