1637: The Peacock Throne, стр. 19
“Regardless of what we decide on her request,” Gervais said, “we need to finish going over the rest of the intelligence we have to present at the weekly meeting.”
Bertram nodded. “Asaf Khan was my priority this week, but there’s not a lot to report: word has it that his army is still inching its way back from Bengal. We have slightly more detail on Aurangzeb and his army, reports indicating his forces are somewhere south of Shah Shuja’s in the Deccan. This is particularly alarming as Shah Shuja alone has three times the men Dara has raised so far, and if his younger brothers join forces against Dara, he will be unable to meet them in the field.”
“Can we count on them to come to blows before they get here?” Gervais said.
“One can hope.” Bertram shrugged. “I can see Aurangzeb handling it one of two ways: either he tries to bring Shuja to battle immediately and—if his victory is incomplete or Shuja evades battle in the first place—run the risk of starvation while chasing his brother. Then again, if they do meet, they may not have a pitched battle, but rather form up and negotiate some kind of disposition.
“Or he could hole up in one of the former Deccan sultanates and try to gather power to himself. But the governors assigned to the southernmost Subahs of the empire who served Shah Jahan have declared for Dara, so anything that allows Dara time to consolidate power is probably not Aurangzeb’s first choice of strategy.
“Both ideas carry risks, and it’s hard to say which way he’ll decide, but everyone seems to agree on one point: Aurangzeb is the greater threat, even with Shuja athwart his logistics train.” Bertram used the up-timer term with ease, knowing his audience would understand.
Gervais looked a question at Monique.
She nodded. “That’s the essence of what Jahanara’s people are saying as well.”
Of course, it went unsaid that Dara’s people were also Jahanara’s, though Dara could hardly say the same about Jahanara’s people. With Nadira Begum entirely occupied with Dara’s care, and Dara himself still unsteady from his head injury, Begum Sahib Jahanara had become the power behind the throne—a status Monique and the other ladies of the Mission were entirely comfortable with but that the other ladies of the court were still adjusting to.
“Does anyone have any idea which way Aurangzeb will jump?”
“No,” Monique and Bertram said, at almost the same time.
“And what about improving our knowledge of the whereabouts, goals, and condition of Asaf Khan and his army?”
“Certainly seems to be a great number of armies running about, eh?” Bertram said with a smile.
Monique had what she hoped would be, if less humorous, than at least more helpful, to offer: “Jahanara thinks we can help Dara on that particular score.”
Chapter 7
Agra
Red Fort, Diwan-i-Khas
“We are most pleased to raise you to the rank of one thousand zat and five hundred sowar, Abdul Khan.”
Jahanara, shielded from the court by jali, winced. Dara had reversed the ranks he’d agreed, in consultation with his advisors, to give. Setting the young Afghan’s salary at one thousand zat put him among the most respected of courtiers, while settling the maintenance salary for the number of sowar under his command at only five hundred meant Abdul Khan would not be obliged to recruit any of the additional men Dara—and his supporters—needed to bolster his forces. To be sure, Abdul Khan wouldn’t have easily recruited enough kinsmen to fill his sowar in any reasonable timeframe anyway, but Dara’s mistake had just removed the formal requirement for any further recruiting on Abdul Khan’s part. Afghan fighting men were scarce on the ground at the moment, and not just from the recruiting Salim and his kinsmen had done, but from the large armies both Dara’s brothers had drawn up for their Deccan campaign…and then there were those recruited into Asaf Khan’s army.
Dara only seemed to realize he’d made some error when Kwaja Magul shifted his bulk. Even then, he only glanced around and licked his lips, confusion scrawled across his features. Even from her place, Jahanara did not miss the glazed look in her brother’s eyes.
She bit her lip in frustration. Dara was still having bouts of dizziness and terrible headaches from the mostly healed head wound concealed under his turban, but there was nothing for it. He’d had the khutba read in his name, and the coins struck. If a new-made emperor was uncertain, he must not be seen to be. And if he was weak, he must not show it. If Dara was to rule, he must be seen to publicly wield the power and majesty of the dynasty. To do otherwise was unthinkable.
And yet, Dara’s thinking was slower. He was easily confused and quicker to anger than ever before. He was trying, but his efforts often led to frustration when progress wasn’t as quick or as great as he believed it should be.
The emperor’s closest advisors and family were left with a situation that, as the up-timer John Ennis had put it to his wife, was a matter of fake it until you make it. While she found the up-timer’s speech often lacked the poetic beauty of the average courtier’s, certain of their sayings were colorful, memorable, and, in this case, entirely apt.
The ceremony of elevation completed, Kwaja Magul led the freshly made courtier to his proper place in the ranks of nobles, adjusting on the fly to the emperor’s departure from his plan. The heavy eunuch had remained with Dara after Father’s assassination, and was already enjoying the traditional rewards of such loyalty: increased salary and power, not to mention increased proximity to the emperor’s person.
Jahanara was reasonably sure the eunuch could be relied on, but the court’s loyalty had yet to be tested. She suspected most of those bureaucrats of the imperial apparatus Father had appointed