Read Online Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne by Alex Rutherford - Free Book Online

her already vivid imagination, suggesting life was laden with possibilities far beyond loveless couplings in the commander’s
haram
in Gaur or the domestic pleasantness of her parents’ home.
    Suddenly she heard a commotion in the square below. Walking swiftly across to the red and orange cotton screen that shielded the area of the roof bordering the square from passers-by, Mehrunissa peered down. A line of mounted imperial soldiers led by an officer and a banner-bearer was entering the square. As the soldiers dismounted her father’s grooms hurried outside to take the reins and moments later the tall, thin figure of Ghiyas Beg himself appeared. Brieflyinclining his head and touching his breast with his right hand, he led the officer inside. What did they want? she wondered.
    The other soldiers began strolling around the square, talking and laughing and nibbling walnuts they had bought from the old vendor – his features as wrinkled as the nuts he sold – who habitually sat there. But however much she strained she couldn’t catch their words. As time passed and the officer remained with her father, Mehrunissa descended again to the women’s courtyard, sat down on her stool and picked up her book once more. The shadows were lengthening and two attendants were lighting oil lamps when Mehrunissa heard her father’s voice. Glancing up, she saw he looked agitated.
    ‘What is it, Father?’
    He gestured to the attendants to withdraw then squatted beside her, long fingers twisting the gold-set amethyst ring that for as long as she could remember he had worn on the third finger of his left hand. She had never seen her father – normally so calm and controlled – like this. He hesitated briefly, then began in a voice that was not quite steady. ‘Do you remember the letter I wrote to you in Gaur? That I was surprised by the emperor’s goodness in sending imperial soldiers to escort you home . . . ?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I was not being entirely frank with you . . . I did have an idea what the emperor’s motive might be.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Some years ago something happened here in Kabul – something to do with you. I never told you because I thought it better you shouldn’t know. Had events turned outdifferently I alone would have taken the knowledge of it to my grave . . . When the emperor was still a prince, banished here to Kabul, he and I found much to discuss. Though I was only his father’s treasurer, I think he appreciated me as an educated man – even came to regard me as a friend. That was why one night I asked you, as my only daughter, to dance for him. My single thought was to pay him the greatest compliment within my power. But soon afterwards – perhaps even the next day, I’m not sure – he came to see me . . . Do you know what he wanted?’ Ghiyas Beg’s look was penetrating.
    ‘No.’
    ‘He asked for you as his wife.’
    Mehrunissa stood up so abruptly that her stool toppled sideways. ‘He wanted to marry me . . . ?’
    ‘Yes. But I had to tell him you were already betrothed to Sher Afghan – that I could not in all honour break that contract . . .’
    Mehrunissa began to pace the courtyard, hands clasped. Her father had refused Jahangir . . . Instead of being the wife of the cold, brutish Sher Afghan in the fetid heat of Bengal she could have been a prince’s wife at the Moghul court, close to the heart of everything that mattered. Why? How could he? What could have motivated him to cut her off from so much? He would have benefited, as too would all the family . . .
    ‘You are angry with me and perhaps you are right to be. I know your marriage to Sher Afghan was unhappy, but I couldn’t have predicted that. I felt I had no choice except to act as I did. After all, the prince had been exiled by his father. He would have needed his father’s permission to marry youand was unlikely to obtain it. At that time he was as likely to have been executed as to become emperor. To be