Amar’s first genuine expression of the day was a smile that made his mustaches quiver at their waxed tips.
“No, Sultan Al’Azam Aurangzeb bears too much respect for you and your followers to ask you to betray his brother.”
“What, then, is the purpose of your visit, if not to entice me to abandon honor?”
She found his betel-stained smile less than fetching, but returned it nonetheless. “We return, then, to the friendship and love of the Sultan Al’Azam, Aurangzeb.”
“An emperor whose friendship and love will prove expensive to Rajput honor.”
She pretended ignorance. “In what way?”
He sighed, set his goblet down. “He must ask that I abandon honor if I am to surrender this garh to him, whatever he told you to tell me.”
“And if I told you that Aurangzeb knows the predicament honor and duty place you in?”
“I would not be surprised. He may be young, but I remember no talk at court of him ever playing the fool.”
“No, never that.”
“Well, then?”
“He has come upon a solution that preserves honor and does him great service.”
“I will not abandon—”
Nur waved him down, not wishing to allow him to verbalize—and therefore reinforce—the position he had already claimed to hold. “Such will not be required. No, Aurangzeb has something different in mind, something rather…brilliant.”
“Brilliant, you say?”
“Indeed. It has to do with prisoners—”
“I have taken no prisoners from his army,” he interrupted, picking up his drink with an air of disappointment. “So I have none to exchange.”
Nur smiled again, knowing she—and Aurangzeb—had him. “The Sultan Al’Azam does not have an exchange in mind.”
“Oh?” he asked, no longer trying to hide his thoughts, which were obviously bewildered.
“What if I were to tell you that all Aurangzeb wishes of you is that you follow Dara’s orders and hold this fort for him?”
“For him? Aurangzeb?”
“No, Dara.”
“But that—makes no sense…”
She could see his confusion, and it warmed her heart.
“God willing, there will come a time when you will serve Aurangzeb, but for now, he requires only that you continue in your duty to Dara. And one thing more.”
His smile grew wry, dark eyes glittering with humor. “And here is the moment where you ask for the first small transgression. The one that hardly counts, being so small,” he said, delivering the words as though he were a would-be lover asking a reluctant bedmate for some special, forbidden act to show her love.
She hid her pleasure at winning against such a game opponent and sat up straight, as if offended at the very notion. “Nothing of the sort, I assure you. Indeed, Aurangzeb believes that, should you agree to this thing, your duty to Dara will require your continuance in your duties at the fortress here.”
He shook his head, confusion on open display. “I confess, I do not understand what it is he desires, and cannot see any way a warrior can serve two masters honorably.”
“Not two. Just one. Dara has commanded you here in order to garrison the garh and hold it against all enemies, no?”
“Of course.”
“And if some of Dara’s enemies should fall into your hands, what would Dara’s orders require of you?”
“That I keep them until such time as he decides their fate.”
Trench lines outside Asirgarh
“He denies us audience?”
“Only for the time being,” Carvalho said, and not for the first time this morning. Methwold suspected the Portuguese gun captain’s patience grew less from any practiced virtue than the distraction provided by the goings-on at the foot of the fort. If so, the Englishman did not think poorly of him for it. It was hard to ignore the pomp and ceremony of the ritual going on in the no-man’s-land between the fortress and the entrenchments it had cost so much time, treasure, and blood to build.
De Jesus was scowling. “How long must we endure this?”
“As long as necessary,” Methwold snapped. He regretted speaking so harshly the moment the words escaped him, but the papist’s constant petulance set his teeth on edge. “We are closer now than ever before to getting what was promised.”
Carvalho turned his gelding’s head toward camp and without another word, rode off.
“What has him so surly?” De Jesus asked.
Oh, I don’t know, perhaps your constant whinging?
“It seems the fortress, so long his nemesis, has fallen, and not under the weight of fire from his guns culminating in a storm, but to a simple overture from Aurangzeb.”
“Oh?”
“With respect, my young friend: if you complained less, you might hear more,” Methwold said, striving to keep his tone light yet convey some urgency.
The priest opened his mouth to answer only to clamp it shut with a wet clomp. From the deepening color of his cheeks, Methwold surmised the priest was struggling to contain a bitter retort.
He turned away, ceding the priest a moment to master his anger and hoping—against all previous experience—the man would learn something from the experience this time. The imperial panoply on display provided excellent distraction: elephants, banners, streamers, drums, all of it made for a most impressive show. He squinted, but the scene was too crowded to determine who was at Aurangzeb’s side as he greeted the garrison commander, a Rajput named Lahore Rathore.
Perhaps it was Nur Jahan with the fresh-made emperor. It was rumored she’d been instrumental in the negotiations. He looked for the great beast with the ornately decorated howdah Nur used perched on its broad back. Sure enough, the enormous bull elephant Aurangzeb had gifted her upon her escape from Agra was partially blocking their view of the proceedings.
On second thought…He squinted bad eyes, and when that proved insufficient, shaded them from the unrelenting sun with one hand. The lady’s howdah had the heaviest of its curtains drawn back to reveal a vaguely feminine silhouette seated within, leading his thoughts to linger on her…
It was rumored Nur was as beautiful as she was clever, having survived the turmoil in the wake of the deaths of two—no, three—emperors now. Certainly her voice and manner had been cultivated and graceful, leading his thoughts astray when
