Chapter 29
Palace of Hargobind Singh
May 1635
“You don’t understand. You’ve never been hurt like this,” Dara Shikoh’s petulant tone wasn’t lost on Gervais, who reined in his urge to slap the patient.
“Shehzada, you cannot have another pipe now.”
“But the pain—”
“Is not as bad as withdrawal,” Rodney said. Salim emerged from his giant shadow in the doorway of the sick room to translate.
Dara Shikoh turned his glassy eyes on the up-timer. “How would you know?”
“Trust me, I know. Last thing you want to be is dope sick.”
“Might be a bit too late for that, Rodney. The drug already has its hooks in him. Just look at his pupils.”
Rodney crossed the room and took out the tiny device for casting light into small spaces called a “pen light” and directed its beam into Dara’s eyes. “Dinner platter pupils, slow to respond to light stimulus. Oh, yeah, he’s chasing the dragon for sure.”
Salim waved a hand. “Many smoke the poppy. The prince was known to occasionally indulge even before his injury.”
Rodney muttered, in English, “One of the reasons we’re here, actually.”
“What was that, Mr. Totman?” Salim asked, a bit sharply.
“Poppies are the source of one of the best painkillers on earth, and as war generally means pain for the participants, we were sent to secure a ready source of opium.”
“I understand. But who, exactly, is your king going to go fighting?”
Rodney snorted. “Probably better to ask who isn’t attacking us. When we arrived in this time,” he waved a massive hand to encompass everything, “the status quo was severely disturbed.”
Gervais opened his mouth to explain the Latin term, but promptly shut it as Salim smiled. “No,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I just can’t see how that’s possible. It’s not like you brought profound changes with you, or something.”
“Right. So, in the two years before we left to come here, Gustavus Adolphus and the USE fought the French, English, Dutch, Spanish, various German states, the Danes…Help me out here, Gervais: I’m probably missing two or three different kingdoms that tried to get rid of us.”
“I think Salim gets the point, Rodney.”
“Oh, and that’s not counting the churches that want us—”
“I. Want. My. Pipe,” said Dara Shikoh, displeased at being ignored.
Gervais glanced down at the prince, and switched to Persian: “Be strong, Shehzada Dara Shikoh. What Rodney is talking about is your future health. The opium is slowing your recovery, and will prove difficult, even dangerous, to quit.”
“Very well, after this pipe.”
“Sorry, no.”
“I’ll see you—”
“Well rewarded for seeing to his health,” Salim said, deliberately mistranslating Dara Shikoh’s threats.
“You should rest, Shehzada. We are disturbing you.”
Dara Shikoh bit his lip, swallowed. “I’m sorry, this is not me.”
“We know, Shehzada. We’ll slowly wean you from the opium, try and keep you from getting too sick. But it’s not going to be easy or comfortable.”
“So…When?”
“Tonight, when you make ready to sleep.”
“And until then?”
“Would you care to get up and move around?”
“It hurts.”
“A certain level of pain is to be expected, and shows you are healing. Exercise, light exercise, should be good for you. We don’t want those scars,” he gestured at the puckered tissue, “getting too tight.”
“And the distraction should help keep your mind off the pipe,” Gervais added.
Shehzada Dara Shikoh visibly took control of himself. “Very well. I will do my best.”
“Thank you Shehzada. You will be better that much sooner.”
No Man’s Land
John reined in on the field that had become a no-man’s land between the Sikh town and the Mughal camp. He dismounted and joined Rodney for the walk back to camp. He didn’t have to ride out to meet Rodney, but it was a relief to get away from the camp, its smells and its spies, even if for just a short while.
Rodney’s companions, the emperor’s negotiators, rode on without sparing the two up-timers a glance.
“Nearly two months we’ve been sitting here, and still no real change. Well, aside from Wazir Khan arriving with that,” he nodded in the direction of the latest addition to the encampment, “huge army.”
“Yeah, never thought to see horses and men literally cover the earth for as far as the eye can see…Something almost, I don’t know, Biblical about it.”
“They do have some humongous armies.”
“Big place, India.”
“Yeah, drives it home, seeing this many people in one place.”
“Not just people. All the damn livestock: elephants, camels, oxen, and so many horses.”
Rodney nodded. “I haven’t seen this kind of crowd since leaving football.”
John hiked a thumb at the palace. “Any change in the prince’s condition?”
“Not so much a change as a problem. You remember me telling you the prince was using opium for pain management?”
“Shit.”
“It’s not all that bad. So long as we can control how much he’s getting, we should be able to get him off fairly safely. It’s not like he was mainlining it.”
“Rodney, I don’t know all that much about that stuff, but I thought it’s really hard to quit.”
“About as hard as cigarettes, but with nastier withdrawal symptoms.”
“But what if he loses his mind and orders your execution or something?”
Rodney gestured at the massive camp of the emperor. “Weren’t you just saying we’ve been sitting here for months with no change? We only need a week or so to safely drop off his intake. And if he orders it, the Sikhs ain’t likely to follow their hostage’s orders, now are they?”
“I suppose not. You sure you can get him off the stuff without too much trouble?”
“Now that he’s healed, more or less, he should be strong enough to kick it.”
“Should be, Rodney?”
“John, I can’t offer sure bets—I just don’t know. I ain’t a doctor.”
“Sorry, Rodney. We’re up shit creek if this goes wrong, you know?”
“Sure do.”
“So what about just leaving him on it?”
The look Rodney gave him was far more threatening than any physical display.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, stupid idea.”
“Damn straight it’s stupid, John. Not to mention just flat out wrong. Talking with Salim, it looks like Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir, was a total opium addict. His wife, Nur Jahan, who’s with the court somewhere, seized power while her husband smoked and drank himself to death. It was her that Shah Jahan seized the throne from, not Jahangir.”
“Wait, she’s still with the emperor’s entourage?”
Rodney shrugged. “So they tell me.”
“How does that happen?”
“Don’t ask me, John, I don’t know. But getting back to my original point: anyone with that much power”—he pointed at the army to the west—“struggling with addiction, is going to be a complete disaster for everyone in reach of his armies.”
“I get it, really. It was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say.”
Rodney blinked, looked away, and sighed. “Sorry for the sermon, John, but some of the guys I played ball with got hooked on painkillers the coaches and sports medicine staff pushed on them so they could play one more day instead of get healthy. One ended up dead, and all three of ’em shot their lives to hell, and that was just at my school.”
“I get it, man. I really do.”
Point made, Rodney changed the subject. “What’s this I hear from Priscilla about a Mission House?”
“Yeah, I wanted to run that by you. Salim says it’s exactly what’s expected of us, so the funds given to us by the emperor will have some use. He even says he knows some people in Agra that can start work on it now so we might be able to occupy it once we return.”
“Sure will make Priscilla happy, not having to deal with purdah.”
“Well, to an extent. It’ll be more of a change of scenery than a real change.”
“And we’ll lose our back channel to court.”
“Yep.”
“If Priscilla knew I even thought about denying her this chance at even limited freedom, she’d have my balls.”
“Yep.”
“Guess we’re buying a house in Agra.”
Dara’s Quarters, Palace of Hargobind Singh
A lifetime’s instinct of living in war camps spurred Salim to wakefulness, senses searching for the threat that drove him from slumber.
Nothing in here with me. The Sikhs had provided him a room attached to Dara’s quarters, with Gervais and Rodney occupying another directly across a common chamber from his.
Rodney had gone to camp to see his wife. Aside from Gervais and the servants, who had been relieved for the night, there were the guards on the entrance and in the gardens below.
Nothing unusual there, either.
Trusting his instincts, he steadied his breathing and listened carefully for a repeat of whatever had roused him. A faint noise came, from the chamber around which all the sleeping areas were arranged.
Perhaps…slippers on carpet? He got up as quietly as possible and retrieved his knife. Easing it from the scabbard, he padded to the exit on bare feet.
Reaching the curtained archway, Salim moved the curtains aside to look out into the common room.
Nothing moved in the silence.
A shadow dimmed the moonlight coming through the windows set high on the walls. He glanced up, saw movement along the wall.
A serpent?
No! He realized, too late, what he’d seen was the quickly disappearing end of a rope being retrieved from outside. He opened his mouth to shout an alarm, thought better of it, and charged toward Dara’s room.
He burst through the curtains in an low crouch, knife ready.
Dara struggled to his feet. “What is this?”
Thinking the assassins might have come in through the wrong window, and were even now readying themselves to strike, Salim rushed past Dara to the closest window.
“Salim?” Dara asked, then answered his own question: “Salim. What is going on?”
He heard scrabbling, realized Dara was trying to arm himself. He looked out without answering, saw no one but the guards.
Light flared behind him, Dara turning up the bedside lantern. “Down, Shehzada!” he hissed.
“What—”
“Turn the lantern down and stay away from the balcony.”
The light dimmed, then was snuffed out as Dara hurried to comply.
Several tense breaths later, Salim quietly answered Dara’s earlier question. “I don’t know. Someone was on the roof with a rope, and may have been inside. Not knowing who or how many, I thought it best not to raise the alarm.”
“What do we do now?” Dara whispered.
“I don’t know, wait?”
“Till dawn?”
Salim shifted his grip on the knife. “Unless you have a better idea?”
“Perhaps I should wake the palace and get Hargobind to double my guard.”
“Think on that, Shehzada.”
“You think he is behind this?”
“I just don’t know.” He looked across at Dara’s dim shadow, recalling how quickly the prince had responded to his entry. “You were awake when I came in?”
“The cravings woke me.”
“I see, Shehzada.”
A tense silence settled, Salim straining to hear some sign.
“Can I tell you something, Salim?” Dara asked, making the Afghan twitch.
“Of course.”
“I want the pipe even more, now.”
“Fight it, Shehzada.”
* * *
“What’s that?”
“We had visitors. You slept through it.”
Gervais blinked, yawned, and gave himself a good scratch.
“And I thought it was Rodney snoring loud enough to shake the pillars of heaven.”
“Oh, he snores loud enough, but he possesses an amateur’s instrument compared to this magnificent piece of art,” he pointed at his prominent, and very Gallic, nose.
Salim laughed. “I’m sure.”
“You said something about visitors?”
“Yes, most…I would say alarming, but I didn’t raise the alarm, so I suppose the word should be…intriguing.”
“What?”
“They came in the night, didn’t take anything as far as Dara and I can tell, and didn’t make an attempt on our lives.”
“Then what makes you think these ‘visitors’ are anyone but our hosts?”
“They entered from the roof.”
“Oh?” Gervais climbed to his feet.
“Yes.” Salim handed the older man his robe.
“Nothing was taken?”
“No.”
“Did you interrupt them, cause them to flee before they’d accomplished their design?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so.”
“How is the prince?”
“Fine, I just left him. He’s even up and around.”
Nothing taken, nothing changed, nothing…Gervais swallowed sudden fear, hurrying past Salim and into the central chamber. Dara Shikoh roused from the cushions. “Dr. Vieuxpont.”
“Shehzada. Pardon me.” He walked past Dara without correcting him and went to the small table that held the herbs and medications he and Rodney were treating the prince with. He studied it a moment.
“Is it that time, already?” Dara asked, eager.
“No, Shehzada. I am merely making sure of something.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing appears tampered with.”
“You think they were trying to poison me?”
Gervais examined each of the containers, starting with the cabinet of herbs. “Well, it stands to reason that anyone going to all the trouble of scaling the walls, climbing the roof, and avoiding all the guards must have wanted to do more than simply lower a rope into your quarters, Shehzada.”
“Yes, I can see that. I but wonder who it might be. And why so late?”
“Late, Shehzada?”
Dara Shikoh nodded. “I was far more vulnerable when you first came here. Why wait until now?”
“Unless they are new arrivals?” Salim asked. “Perhaps in Wazir Khan’s entourage?”
“My grandfather would not do such a thing to me.”
“No, but he marches with a substantial army made up of many men from all parts.”
Gervais, finished with the cabinet, examined the urn holding Dara’s opium.
“What cause have they to try and kill me?”
He held the urn up in the light. Something’s off…
“I don’t know, Shehzada.”
Gervais bent close and drew a deep breath through his nose.
What was that smell? Something different…He ran a finger into the urn, dragged it across the contents, examining the residue in the light.
Clever, clever bastards. It was lettuce opium.
“I am sorry, Shehzada, but it seems you are going to need to quit the opium a bit faster than we intended.”
“Why?”
Gervais wiped his finger. “I’m not absolutely certain of the method, but our nocturnal visitor appears to have added something to your opium. I suspect it is lettuce opium.”
The prince and Salim’s equally blank looks showed Gervais he wasn’t explaining himself well. “Sorry, an extract from a particular breed of lettuce, known for its effects on cramp, sleeplessness, and mild anesthetic qualities.”
“And how is that a problem?” Dara Shikoh asked.
“Alone, it isn’t. But combining it with real opium might slow breathing so much that the patient—in this case, you—expires.”
Salim shook his head. “Fiendishly clever.”
“I must agree. Someone has, at the very least, an advanced understanding of herbalism and a complete lack of morals.”
“Gervais, this isn’t just about poisoning the prince. They wanted him dead in a way sure to discredit Rodney and you—all of the up-timers.”
Gervais pulled at his lip. “Would have worked, as well, but for your light sleeping habits.”
Using his left hand, Dara snatched the urn out of Gervais’ hand, reared back awkwardly and hurled it at the wall. Shards of pottery exploded from the impact to patter against the carpets, the drug leaving a brown smear on the wall.
“Shehzada?” Salim asked, alarmed.
Eyes burning, Dara Shikoh pointed a finger at the mess. “They thought to use my own weakness against me! Planned for me to die in my sleep, victim of my own inability to bear the slightest pain. I will not be so weak again.”
“Shehzada,” Salim said, bowing.
Gervais followed suit and said, “We will do what we can to support you, Shehzada, but you will feel far worse before you are free of your need for the pipe. You will have to be very strong in the coming days.”
“So be it. God as my witness, I shall not touch the pipe again.”
“Good, Shehzada. You will need every bit of that resolve.”
A pair of their guards entered, drawn by the raised voice and breaking crockery.
One looked at the wall and back at the prince. With an expression Gervais translated as, Glad I’m not picking that up, the man turned and led his companion from the room.
“The question remains: who stands to gain?” Salim asked as the guards disappeared through the door.
“I can think of at least three people, all of them princes,” Gervais quipped.
“I think we can rule out Murad. Unless he is assigning assassins from the harem,” Dara Shikoh said with a wan smile.
“Of course, but you see my point?”
“Indeed I do.” His jaw working, Dara lowered himself onto a convenient cushion. “My death would also serve to enrage Father so much he would surely destroy the Sikhs, as he originally planned.” He looked at Salim, “I imagine some of the more hardline orthodox among Father’s subjects are not pleased with the current détente?”
Salim nodded. “To put it mildly, Shehzada.”
“And there are some others who fear and mistrust the up-timers?”
Another nod.
“And what have my brothers said?”
“As far as I know, since I first revealed you were alive, Aurangzeb has had no public disagreements with Shah Jahan. Shah Shuja seemed genuinely happy that you lived, and has made no comment on Shah Jahan’s negotiations with Hargobind Singh.”
“Do either of your brothers have an apothecary in their entourages?” Gervais asked.
Dara looked at Salim, received a tiny shake of the head and said, “Each prince that has his own household does, but there’s no one of particular note I am aware of.”
“Who does?”
“Father has many physicians and apothecaries serving him and the harem.”
“The harem?” Gervais mused.
Dara nodded. “And poisoning is, while not common, certainly not unheard of in harem politics.” Dara winced. “It is a favored method of removing rivals or their pregnant—Oh.” Dara swallowed, sweat beading his brow. He put a hand to his belly. “Uhh…”
It was coming faster than Rodney had thought it would, the onset of withdrawal. Rodney said it would likely take twelve hours, that it was safe for him to go see his wife. The opium must have been purer than they thought.
“Salim, I think our friend might need the use of his chamber pot,” Gervais said, helping the unresisting prince to his feet. “As the opium loosens its grip on him, so too will he lose his grip on his bowels.”
“Yet another indignity,” Dara panted.
Gervais smiled, “Ah, but are you familiar with the up-timer’s colorful vernacular regarding thrones?”
Dara, looking truly pale now, shook his head and spoke through gritted teeth. “No, Dr. Vieuxpont, I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Well then, allow me to tell you how you’re going to ascend the throne early.”