Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth (36 page)

Nicholas couldn’t understand why this was happening. Khalilullah Khan had never hung back in the battles in the north. As Nicholas continued to watch the gap began to grow. To his horror Khalilullah Khan and his men were turning away from the battlefield, deserting Dara’s cause. This must have been pre-planned. Khalilullah Khan had been close to Aurangzeb during the campaign against Samarkand and Nicholas had been a little surprised to find him among Dara’s forces. When they had talked briefly Khalilullah Khan had said simply that he owed his loyalty to the crowned emperor whatever his past regard for Aurangzeb’s abilities. He had clearly been dissimulating, biding his time until his defection could be most lethal.

As if to underline that Khalilullah Khan’s desertion was prearranged, Nicholas saw a division of rebel horsemen charge immediately for the gap in Dara’s advance, sweeping along the flank of Khalilullah Khan’s departing forces, clearly aware that they need take no precautions against them. Dara must have seen Khalilullah Khan’s defection because his elephant was turning in that direction, followed by his bodyguard. Nicholas gestured to his men to mount and to move out. He knew now what their duty was – to rally to Dara and help him to plug the breach in his lines.

Within two or three minutes Nicholas was galloping through the thick smoke drifting across the battlefield and stinging his eyes and nostrils. Through the breaks he could see that Dara’s elephant had halted three or four hundred yards ahead. As he drew closer, urging on his horse with hands and heels, he saw why. Dara was climbing down from the howdah. As soon as he was close enough to be heard above the crashes and screams of battle, he shouted to a captain of Dara’s bodyguard, ‘What’s the matter? Why is the prince dismounting? Is the elephant wounded?’

‘No, the elephant is fine. His Highness wishes to change to a horse so he can move more quickly about the field to meet the unexpected threat from Khalilullah Khan’s treachery.’

Within a minute or two, Dara was mounted on a black stallion with a distinctive white blaze on its forehead and galloping towards the crisis on the left flank, followed by his bodyguard and Nicholas and his men and leaving the
mahouts
to turn the imperial elephant with its empty howdah back towards Dara’s camp.

Soon Dara, Nicholas and their followers were charging a large phalanx of well-equipped rebel riders who were arrowing their way into Dara’s ranks, hacking and thrusting as they rode. Nicholas drew his long double-edged sword and slashed hard at a rebel fighter as their horses passed. The man knocked Nicholas’s blow aside and in the same movement aimed a swing with his scimitar at Nicholas, who in turn swayed back in his saddle to avoid the blade as it carved the air in front of his nose. Almost immediately, the rebel had turned his nimble horse – which was little larger than a pony – and was once more attacking Nicholas, who remained slightly off balance from his first assault.

Seeing this, and eager to finish his opponent, the rider carefully drew his arm back behind his head to deliver a decisive blow with his scimitar using all the power he possessed. His deliberation gave Nicholas just the short pause he needed to recover and to exploit the reach his height and the exceptional length of his sword gave him by thrusting the weapon into the rebel’s unprotected armpit. The man screamed and swerved away, dropping his scimitar. A second rebel thrust at Nicholas with his lance but its tip splintered against Nicholas’s strong steel breastplate and Nicholas succeeded in slashing into the man’s upper arm with a hurried sword stroke. This rebel too sheered off, throwing down his now useless lance as blood from his wound coursed down his arm.

Looking round, Nicholas saw that Dara’s bodyguard and his own mercenaries were steadily pushing back Aurangzeb and Murad’s troops, several of whom lay sprawled dead or wounded, but there had also been casualties among his own men. A Burgundian who had served with him for many years was lying face down in a pool of blood with his brains spilling into his ginger hair from a great gash in his skull. Nicholas was preparing to re-join the fight, determined to avenge the waste of his comrade’s life on those who by rebelling had caused it, when he heard above the general din of battle a drumming of many fast approaching hooves behind him. Turning, he saw a group of horsemen with a green banner galloping wildly for the rear, all clearly Dara’s men. He shouted to the leading riders, ‘Why are you retreating?’ The first few who passed him were too intent on securing their safety even to respond, but one horseman, who appeared little more than a youth, reined in for a moment. ‘Prince Dara is fleeing, so we must too. So should you if you value your life.’

‘But the prince has not fled,’ Nicholas shouted back.

‘You’re wrong. We’ve seen the imperial elephant head for the rear.’

‘But didn’t you see the howdah was empty?’

‘No. But in that case the prince must be dead.’ With that and before Nicholas could utter another word the young man dug his heels into the flanks of his blowing horse and urged it after his quickly disappearing comrades. Nicholas looked round to see where Dara was but he had been carried away from him by the press of the fighting. Even as his eyes searched the heaving, sweating battle line in front of him, he heard more horses galloping behind him. Turning once more he saw the oncoming riders were also from his own side and fleeing headlong.

‘Prince Dara is safe! We are winning the fight!’ he yelled at them as they passed, knowing that even if he could be heard he would be unlikely to be heeded. He was right. The group passed quickly without even a glance in his direction, all except for one green-clad horseman whose mount stumbled over the body of a dead rebel and fell, throwing the man from the saddle to land in a crumpled heap. As he struggled to rise he was knocked down and trampled by the riders following, who in their fear did not even seem to attempt to avoid him.

Dara needed to show himself and soon or it would be too late. The battle would be irretrievably lost and the road to Agra open for Aurangzeb and Murad. As Nicholas scanned the fighting he suddenly saw the black stallion with the white blaze emerge from a melee about two hundred yards away. It was limping and had a great bleeding gash in its rump but no one in its saddle. Dara must have been knocked or fallen from the animal. Nicholas urged his horse towards the place where he had first seen the stallion. Getting closer he saw three of Dara’s green and gold-clad bodyguards, still mounted, trying to protect a recumbent figure in a gold breastplate lying motionless on the ground.

Almost immediately one of the guards dropped from his saddle, hit by a stroke from a black-clad rebel rider. Only a few moments later a second fell forward on to his horse’s neck, clearly wounded. The third fought on against four attackers. Yelling as loudly as he could for all his men to rally to him, Nicholas kicked towards the action, fearing he would be too late. Suddenly he remembered his brace of pistols. Throwing off his heavy gauntlet, he pulled one from his sash. His sweaty hand slipped on the rounded handle but he quickly restored his grip, levelled the weapon and fired. One of the rebels flung up his arms and fell from his horse, hit by what Nicholas knew was a lucky shot at a distance. As he grabbed for his other pistol, the bodyguard knocked another rebel from the saddle with a sword stroke.

Levelling the second pistol, Nicholas fired at one of the two remaining enemy fighters but as he did so his horse skittered and he missed the rider and instead hit his horse in the rump. The rebel lost control as his frightened and wounded animal twisted and reared, running from the battle, but it only covered a short distance before collapsing, trapping the rider beneath it. That only left one man, but as Nicholas closed on him he knocked the remaining bodyguard from his horse with a stroke of his sword. By then Nicholas was up with him. The man thrust hard at Nicholas. Nicholas still had one of his pistols gripped in his hand, and he reversed the weapon and smashed its bulbous handle into the rebel’s mouth. Frothing blood and broken pieces of tooth mingled with the man’s black beard, and before he could recover Nicholas threw aside the pistol, drew his sword and with a reverse stroke slashed into the nape of his adversary’s neck just beneath his helmet, crunching into bone and sinew. The man fell.

As more of Nicholas’s own troops as well as of Dara’s bodyguard arrived Nicholas jumped from his horse and ran across to Dara’s motionless form. Turning the prince on to his back, Nicholas quickly examined his body. There were no obvious wounds beyond a large and swollen bruise on his forehead. Pray God he was merely knocked out. Pulling his water bottle from his belt, Nicholas unstoppered it and tipped some of its contents over the face of Dara who seemed to stir, then carefully poured a little of the liquid into the prince’s mouth. Dara began to cough.

‘He’s alive,’ Nicholas shouted to the men now surrounding him. ‘Whoever’s got the best horse, dismount and we’ll use it for the prince. That rider, double up with someone else. See if any of the three bodyguards have any life left in them. If so, get them on horseback too, even if you have to tie them across your saddles.’

Grabbing the pistol he had discarded, he slipped it back into his sash with the other one and looked round. Everywhere as far as he could see through the drifts of smoke Dara’s men were retreating. That was the polite way of putting it. Most were fleeing for their lives. Nicholas knew that there was no chance to rally them with Dara at best semi-conscious. The prince’s only hope was to reach Agra and the
hakims
and survive to fight another day.

‘Mount up,’ Nicholas yelled, ‘and head for Agra as quickly as we can.’

A
lone on the sandstone battlements of the Agra fort Shah Jahan scanned the sun-scorched countryside. The dust cloud rising for the past hours on the horizon confirmed the reports brought by messengers that the two armies had engaged. If only he could be there himself, with the bitter smell of cannon smoke in his nostrils and the energy of battle in his veins. Instead his years and his health had decreed his fate was to wait for news, impotently hoping that it was good. As if his thoughts had conjured them, he began to make out riders approaching on the far side of the Jumna. As they came nearer he saw that some had other soldiers mounted behind them or what looked like badly wounded men slung across their saddles. As they forded the river and approached the fort, their dress told him they were Dara’s troops. The trickle of horsemen quickly became a steady flow. What did it mean? Had they left the battle because they needed the attention of the
hakims
or were Dara’s men fleeing the field?

A coldness gripped his stomach as he made out the glittering steel breastplates of some of the imperial bodyguard. A group of about two dozen of them was slowly approaching in close formation. Among them he noticed Nicholas Ballantyne but then forgot everything else on seeing Dara at their centre, slumped forward over his saddle pommel, the reins of his horse held by a
qorchi
riding close beside him. Shah Jahan could wait no longer. Turning away, he hurried along the dusty battlements to a dimly lit seldom-used staircase spiralling straight down to the main courtyard. He had to brush cobwebs from his face as he descended the narrow, sharp-edged steps. He reached the courtyard just as Dara and his escort were emerging from the tall carved gateway. Seeing his father, Dara straightened himself and tried to speak, but then shook his head as if words were too much. His dazed-looking face was heavily bruised and there was congealed blood on his right temple.

The prince dismounted slowly, and as his feet touched the ground he swayed a little. Hurrying forward, Shah Jahan put out an arm to support him. Attendants ran up to assist too but Shah Jahan waved them away. He could help his own son. Conscious of the many eyes upon them in the courtyard and anxious not to reveal his terrible anxiety about both his son and the outcome of the battle, Shah Jahan called to a
qorchi
to summon his
hakim
. Then, an arm round Dara’s shoulders, he walked slowly with him across the courtyard towards the broad main staircase leading to the imperial apartments.

As father and son entered, Jahanara, who had been waiting there for news, ran forward. Together she and Shah Jahan lowered Dara on to a stool. Moments later the
hakim
arrived. He stooped over Dara and stared hard into his eyes, examining his pupils. Then, rinsing a piece of cloth in a basin of warm water, he washed away the dried blood so he could examine his temple. At last he straightened up. ‘The wound is superficial, Majesty. The prince has suffered no lasting injury, though he seems disorientated. What happened to him?’

Nicholas, who had followed them into the room, answered. ‘He was knocked from his horse and fell hard.’

Dara himself nodded and tried to get to his feet but Shah Jahan placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Father … we were betrayed … Khalilullah Khan deserted us at the height of the battle. Our troops began to panic. I dismounted from my war elephant because I wanted to ride among them on horseback and encourage them to fight on but it was a mistake … My men didn’t understand what I was doing. When they saw I was no longer in my howdah they thought I’d been wounded or killed … even that I had fled the fighting. I could hear the panic-stricken cries all around. I tried to show I was still with them but it was too late … they were already fleeing … and then I was felled from my horse. Father, I’ve failed you … Aurangzeb and Murad can’t be far behind. It’s all over.’ Dara put his head in his hands and seemed about to weep.

‘Please leave us,’ Shah Jahan ordered the
hakim
. ‘You as well,’ he said, turning to the attendants. As soon as the doors closed, Shah Jahan knelt by his son’s side and shook him gently by the shoulders. ‘You haven’t failed me … you could never do that.’ For a moment he enfolded Dara in his arms but then rose and addressed Nicholas, who was standing near the door, unsure whether to go or stay.

‘What is the situation? Is the battle indeed lost as my son believes?’