Alex Rutherford - Ruler of the World

Salim could find no answer to what his milk-brother had said. ‘And you shame me, Suleiman Beg,’ he replied at last. ‘You are right. I mustn’t let self-pity destroy me. I will try to give up opium and drink, at least for a while, but I will need your help. .’

‘Of course. The first thing is to consult a hakim . I have already summoned one — a discreet man who is waiting outside.’

‘You were very sure you could convince me. .’

‘No, but I hoped I could.’

Half an hour later the hakim had finished pulling back Salim’s eyelids, checking the colour of his tongue and scraping it with a thin metal spatula, taking his pulse and running his hands over his body and back. During the examination he had said little but had looked increasingly concerned.

‘Highness,’ he said, closing up the leather bag in which he carried his instruments, ‘I won’t hide the truth from you. You tell me that last night you took a very large amount of opium. I can see that from your dilated eyes. But I can also tell that you drink to excess. You must give up both strong drink and opium, Highness, or you will become very ill. You might even die. Even now your hands are shaking.’

‘No!’ Salim held them out in front of him. He would show the hakim . But the doctor was right. They were trembling, his right hand worse than the left. However hard he tried, he couldn’t control the tremors.

‘Don’t despair, Highness. We are in time and you are young and strong. But you must do exactly as I say. Will you put yourself in my hands?’

‘How long will it take?’

‘That depends on you, Highness.’

Salim and Suleiman Beg were galloping along the banks of the Ravi beneath a pale November sun. Behind rode Salim’s huntsmen, every man looking cheerful at the prospect of a good day’s sport ahead. Suddenly a snipe flew out of the tall brown rushes. Salim rose in his stirrups and almost in a single movement reached for an arrow, fitted it to his double bow and fired. His hands were steady now and the snipe fell from the sky, wings fluttering futilely. It was six months since the night he had collapsed — six difficult months, particularly at first when his resolution had often faltered and he had returned to the twin consolations of opium and wine. However, he had struggled hard. Even now he occasionally lapsed, usually when his father had been particularly arrogant or dismissive. . But as he replaced his bow Salim vowed he would be strong, whatever the future held, whatever disappointments and setbacks he might suffer.

‘I now know my father will never give me any post of real responsibility even though, like my grandfather and my great-grandfather before him, he was emperor when he was half my age.’ Pulling the ornamental dagger that hung at his waist from its scabbard, Salim stabbed at the pink silk brocade cover of the divan on which he was lounging in the late afternoon heat in the fortress-palace at Lahore. The blade had been blunted, but even so the dagger cut through the delicate cloth and penetrated the cotton padding. ‘I’ve waited and waited and to what point? Absolutely none! No command, no governorship, no prospect of anything. Rarely even a kind word. What am I to do?’ he demanded of Suleiman Beg, who was lying propped on one arm on an adjacent couch, a glass of mango juice in his other hand. ‘I’m not sure,’ said Suleiman Beg thoughtfully. Then, taking another sip of juice, he continued, ‘But in matters of succession I’ve often heard it said that time and patience are the key.’

‘Although he’s in his late fifties, my father’s health has never been better if that’s what you mean. I’m not even sure he’s mortal — the way he guards his power and gives no thought to his successor makes me think he at least does not recognise his mortality. Age just seems to confirm him in his belief that he alone knows best.’ Salim struck at the divan again, this time more violently, raising dust as he did so.

‘But if there is no immediate prospect of your father taking his place in Paradise, you cannot say the same of your half-brothers — your rivals for the succession. They’ve both given in entirely to alcohol, haven’t they? If they continue to behave as they do, they cannot be long for the world, even if they have the constitutions of oxen.’

Salim smiled to himself as he recalled Daniyal’s and Murad’s behaviour ten days before. Akbar had summoned all three of his sons without prior warning to the vast dusty parade ground in front of the palace just after dawn, while the white mist still cloaked the Ravi river and only the earliest of Lahore’s cocks had roused themselves to crow. Luckily the previous evening had been one of those during which Salim had steeled himself to follow the hakim ’s advice to avoid the lure of opium and alcohol. Instead he had gone to the haram . Though his longing for Mehrunissa had never left him, he had determinedly pushed her from his mind. For the first time for some while he had spent the night with Jodh Bai. She had teasingly complimented him on his renewed virility as they lay together, naked and sweat-soaked, after their second bout of love-making. Salim had had to admit to himself that abstinence from alcohol and opium increased his sexual appetites. Pondering the point had rekindled his vigour, leading him to make love to Jodh Bai for a third time. Therefore he had been relaxed and sober, if tired and bleary-eyed, when he emerged on to the parade ground to answer his father’s dawn summons.

As soon as they had appeared, it had been obvious that neither Murad nor Daniyal had been as abstemious as he had the previous evening. As Murad had come through the tall stone gateway on to the parade ground, one of his attendants had still been attempting to tie his sash. Murad, square jaw jutting, had brushed him aside, swearing for all to hear that he had no need of such fussing attentions while roughly knotting the sash himself. When Daniyal had entered, he had done so with the slow, exaggeratedly steady gait of the drunk trying to suggest he was anything but. He had kept his head unnaturally still and his bloodshot eyes fixed firmly in front of him as he approached his father, but he had still stumbled as he took the last few steps and tried to bend into the required low bow.

Akbar had then ordered all three of his sons to mount their horses, held ready by waiting grooms, and lead some of their bodyguards in attempting to spear watermelons from the saddle with their lances. As he tried to mount, Murad’s badly tied sash had come loose and he had stumbled over the trailing cloth, entirely unable to prevent himself sprawling face down in the dust. When he had been helped up and on to his mount and had eventually set it into motion, he had galloped only a hundred yards before slipping once more from the saddle on to the ground.

Daniyal had done rather better, succeeding in mounting and getting his horse to gallop without difficulty. But then, as he attempted to bend to spear the melon, he too had fallen. Staggering to his feet, he had vomited copiously through the gloved hand with which he had tried to stem the noisome stream.

Salim meanwhile had succeeded in spearing the watermelon. His father’s response had been not praise but to say, ‘I see that you for once have not been drinking, Salim. Remember this will not be the last time I will put you through such a test. You are dismissed.’ As Salim left the parade ground he had heard his father order his half-brothers back to their quarters and then command some of his most trusted bodyguards to make sure that the two did not leave their rooms for fourteen days and that no one took alcohol in to them. At the end of that time they were to be kept under close observation to ensure that they remained abstemious.