The Englishman's Cameo

by Madhulika Liddle

Genres: Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

A poisoned paan, a non-government issue arrow and the cameo of a mysterious Englishman... Muzaffar Jang is that rare creature in Mughal Emperor Shahjahan’s Dilli – an aristocrat with friends in low places. One of whom, Faisal, stands accused of murder. When the body of Mirza Murad Begh is found stabbed in the chest, lying in a water channel in the Qila, poor Faisal is the only one around. But what of the fact that, minutes before his demise, the victim had stepped out of the haveli of Shahjahanabad’s most ravishing courtesan? Could not the sultry Mehtab Banu and her pale, delicate sister, Gulnar have something to do with the murder? Determined to save his friend, Muzaffar decides to investigate, with only a cup now and then of that new-fangled brew – ‘Allah, so bitter’ – called coffee to help him. A trail of clues leads him from Mehtab’s haveli out into the streets of seventeenth-century Dilli – rife with rumours of Dara Shukoh’s strange leanings and Prince Aurangzeb’s rebelliousness – into a conspiracy far more sinister than he had imagined...

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 288

Sample

The musicians had stopped playing, and the room had gone quiet except for the sound of the young girl trying to catch her breath.

‘You dance like a monkey on a rope.’

The girl, her pretty face flushed, stood in the middle of the room, waiting for her critic to continue. Above her, the tiny mirrors reflected the lamps lit all around. The room itself was plain – unornamented white stucco reaching up to the mirrored ceiling – except for the brocade drapes at the doorway.

A solitary figure sat resting languidly against gold-embroidered bolsters on a silk carpet, meditatively tracing arabesques on the thin muslin of her voluminous peshwaaz, its folds falling from a clinging bodice about her slender figure. Lustrous deep-brown hair, loosely plaited and threaded through with skeins of fresh jasmine flowers, fell forward across one shoulder. Heavy earrings inspired by the Peacock Throne, each a delicately curving peacock, its breast a mass of rubies and its tail a cascade of brilliant Kashmiri sapphires, framed a face chiselled out of marble – in which blazed a pair of kohl-rimmed eyes.

‘What are you staring at your feet for? No man is ever going to fall at feet so clumsy.’ The woman waved an imperious hand at the musicians to dismiss them. She then gestured to the girl, who, beads of sweat showing on her forehead, her bosom still heaving, approached hesitantly.

‘Now, let me– Yes, what?’ An old servant had appeared at the door, coughing discreetly. Someone was here to see madam, but he wouldn’t say who he was.

‘A tall man, I think Deccani. Hindu, at any rate. All he says is that he must meet you, and at once.’

The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment; then she got to her feet and made her way out in a perfumed whirl of pale green muslin. She walked quickly down the brightly-lit hall to a sumptuous room hung with crimson drapes.

A man in a dark cloak was standing by the window, and turned as she entered. He was lean and dark-skinned, with a prominent caste-mark flaring up between his brows to the edge of a snowy turban. Without a word, he reached inside his cloak to unhook a pouch of worn but strong brown leather from his belt, and handed it to her. The woman sat down on a cushion and pulled the drawstring along the mouth of the pouch.

A shimmering, tinkling mass of gold coins spilled into her lap, glowing in the warm light from the lamps around the room.

She reached out a beautifully bejewelled, hennaed hand for the coins and began to count them.

The gold coin, flung up into the air by Maa’badaulat, Al- Sultan al-Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Ab’ul-Muzaffar Shihabuddin Mohammad, Sahib-i-Qiran-i-Sani, Shah Jahan Padshah Ghazi Zillu’lah – the Emperor Shahjahan, fifth in line of the Mughal Sultans – spun momentarily, gleaming in the summer sunshine, before it fell with a clink to the floor at the Emperor’s feet.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes watched in anticipation as the Imperial Herald bent down, examined the coin, and then straightened to announce the outcome of the toss.

The older elephant, whose owner had issued the challenge, had won.

The mahout seated on the elephant’s back was a dark pigeon-chested man with burly arms. He glanced once towards his master, who stood, along with the rest of Dilli’s nobility, in the ranks below the Emperor, separated from the royal presence by silver railings. A brief nod, and the mahout indicated that his elephant would take the wall. Beside him, his assistant – who would take over should the mahout be badly wounded or killed in the course of the ensuing fight – clung nervously to the heavy rope wound round the animal’s middle. The opponent, a younger and less experienced elephant, shuffled impatiently on the other side of the broad mud wall that stretched from the fort down to the waters of the Yamuna. On the river bobbed boats packed with spectators; many more thronged the bank, watching with interest as the two elephants prepared for combat.

It was a hot day in 1066 of the Hijri calendar, or as the European merchants, mercenaries and adventurers in the crowd knew it, Anno Domini 1656. A blistering day, on the wane, but with the sun still beating down. Above, where the Emperor and his trusted omrahs sat, the floor had been sprinkled with attar, and fan-bearers now stood rhythmically swinging huge fans of peacock feathers. The riffraff in the jostling crowd below the ramparts had no such luxuries to boast of. The stench of horses, elephant dung, unwashed bodies and sweat hung about the area, and dust was beginning to rise in little puffs. Soon it would envelop them all.

The elephant was being goaded on by its mahout, who was using the hooked ankus and a volley of abuses to encourage his mount. The animal lumbered reluctantly forward towards the wall that separated it from its opponent.

‘Idiotic decision,’ grumbled an old man sitting in a ramshackle boat loosely moored to a pole driven into the riverbank. He was tanned a deep nut brown, grizzled and wiry, and wore a simple muslin jama and pajama, both well-worn. ‘It is foolish to tire out an animal by opting for the wall. By the time that elephant’s broken down the wall and got to the other side, he’ll be too tired to fight.’

A tall young man stood at the prow of the boat watching the spectacle. He was about twenty-five years old, broadshouldered and fine-featured. He wore no beard, and his moustache was short and well-trimmed. The rich green choga and the sturdy boots he had on marked him as an omrah, a nobleman; the unfashionable lack of jewellery and embroidery on his clothing marked him also as something of a maverick. He turned now to glance at the older man and grinned. ‘I had no idea you took such an interest in elephant fights, Salim,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter? Do you have a wager on that elephant?’

Salim spat into the river, drawing a disapproving glare from a merchant standing in the next boat. The old man ignored the glance and retorted, ‘Me? Betting? Muzaffar Jang, since when do you think I have any money to bet? I barely earn enough to keep body and soul together, and you think I – Uff!’ He winced as the older elephant barrelled into the mud wall with a loud thump, its head and shoulder taking the impact and loosening the mud. Cracks appeared in the wall, and the mahout dug in his ankus, urging his animal on. Beyond the wall, the other elephant had drawn back, waiting for the attacking elephant to break through the wall.

Again the elephant hit the wall, and again. With the fifth blow, the cracks ran together, and a section about six feet across crumbled away, disintegrating into a heap of rubble. The elephant scrambled over and into its opponent’s territory, and the fight was on in earnest. The two animals clashed, trunks twisting, tusks slashing, feet kicking out wildly. The men on their respective animals hung on for life, now not as intent on controlling their elephants as on staying atop them, and staying alive.

The crowd fringing the makeshift arena had been relatively quiet so far; now, with the fight turning serious, it began growing restive too. The subdued conversations and halfhearted calls of encouragement to the elephants and their mahouts grew louder. Someone from the anonymity of the crowd yelled out an obscenity, cursing the owner of the older elephant, describing in lurid detail the flaws in the omrah’s lineage. Further back, at the edge of the crowd, a tussle broke out between two groups who had betted on opposite sides.

Ten minutes into the fight, the older elephant bowed its head, almost going down on its knees, then swung up in a sudden, vicious jerk, its head tilting as it caught the other elephant in the side. Its tusk slashed through the younger animal’s stomach, puncturing skin and flesh, spilling guts and great torrents of blood. The injured elephant screamed, its trunk flailing uselessly as it staggered back, dislodging one of its mahouts. The man tumbled to the blood-soaked ground, his bare body and white loincloth turning a vivid scarlet as he rolled away, desperately trying to stay clear of the elephants. The man was able to escape; but the injured elephant, its entrails hanging and its neck now slashed from another swipe of the sharp tusks of its opponent, stood still for a few moments, staring wildly at the advancing elephant. Then, with a last sigh, it collapsed on the sodden ground. The victor, meanwhile, trumpeted triumphantly as it moved forward. The victorious mahout, his assistant grinning foolishly beside him, saluted his master and deftly caught the bag of coins that was flung from above.

‘Your theory didn’t quite fit there, Salim,’ Muzaffar Jang said as the crowd began to disperse. ‘That elephant fought well – and won – even though it had taken the wall.’

The old boatman sniffed in annoyance. ‘Stop your crowing,’ he said grumpily, untying the boat from its post, ‘and come and give me a hand with the oars. Let’s get out of here; they’re going to start cleaning up this place soon. Before you know it, they’ll be washing all that blood right into the river.’

He settled his bony rump onto the wooden bench and took the oars, then squinted up at the ramparts of the fort. Off to the left were the marble filigree screens of the Rang Mahal, the main palace of the Emperor’s seraglio. Muzaffar, his eyes following Salim’s, caught a glimpse of deep orange and the sudden glitter of a sequin as it shone in the sun.

‘Smile, Muzaffar,’ Salim said cheekily. ‘Maa’badaulat’s ladies are looking down at you.’

Muzaffar lowered himself onto the bench opposite Salim, reaching for the spare pair of oars. ‘I am quite certain they’re not,’ he replied, his mouth twisting into a lopsided smile. ‘But they may well be feasting their eyes on you, eh, Salim?’

The old man thrust out his chest and grinned, revealing paan-stained teeth. ‘And with good reason, my lad; with very good reason.’ He pulled away from the bank, his sinewy arms working the oars with a grace of movement that Muzaffar found difficult to replicate, until they had gone a little way upstream. When he had finally found his rhythm, he wiped his damp forehead with the back of a hand and asked, ‘And what good reason may that be?’

Salim blinked, mildly confused for a moment. Then his face cleared. ‘Ah. The women. Of course they’d look at me. Everybody knows Maa’badaulat has some of the most accomplished ladies in his harem; they know a good man when they see one.’

Muzaffar snorted. ‘Good man, my foot. Deluded man may be more appropriate in your case. Honestly, Salim: surely it’s wise to maintain some hold on reality?’

‘Reality? What does a stripling like you know about reality?’ Salim retorted, as the little boat pulled away between the two fortresses – the Qila Mubarak, where the Emperor lived and ruled, on their left; and on their right, across the river, the now largely deserted Salimgarh, built just over a hundred years earlier by Islam Shah. ‘The reality, my friend, is that I may have both feet dangling in the grave, but I still know what women want. I haven’t skirted my way around women, avoiding them like you do.’

‘Just because I haven’t married yet doesn’t mean I avoid women,’ Muzaffar replied. ‘Shouldn’t there be a difference between a woman one simply uses for pleasure, and a woman one has to spend the rest of one’s life with? A wife shouldn’t just be a pretty little ornament to amuse a man. There should be more: there should be substance.’

‘Of course there should. Long, lustrous hair, limpid eyes, deep dimples, a generous bosom. That’s what substance is all about.’

Muzaffar shook his head in resignation. ‘Salim, you’re a lecherous old bastard. How old are you? Sixty? Seventy? And how many wives have you buried in all these years?’

‘Who knows? And I’ll have you know, I’m not yet sixty. And, what’s more, even Mehtab Banu was impressed with me the other day.’

Muzaffar’s eyes narrowed. ‘The courtesan? Where did you meet her?’

The old man chuckled. ‘Ah. So you’re not as innocent as you look. Where did you meet Mehtab Banu?’

‘I haven’t met her,’ Muzaffar replied. ‘But I happen to live in Dilli, you know, and I doubt there’s a soul alive in this city that hasn’t heard of the woman. What I’m curious about is how a poor old boatman met her.’

‘This poor old boatman, as you call him, is a canny creature. He knows how to meet the right women.’ Salim winked, his face screwing up momentarily into an almost simian caricature of itself. ‘A boat had arrived at one of the ghats, from somewhere downriver. Banaras, I think. One of my friends knew the boatman. A proper country bumpkin, gawping at everything in sight – and terrified of everything in sight.’ He shook his head in disgust.

‘And?’

‘And this man was supposed to deliver a packet to Mehtab. Would you believe it, he begged my friend to go along to the qila with him? But my friend was going off to Panipat, so I got saddled with the task.’

‘So that’s how you met the lady. Is she as beautiful as she’s reputed to be?’

Salim hitched his grubby pajamas to his bent knees with a sudden yank of his scrawny hands, and snorted. ‘She didn’t do anything to me.’ He chewed his straggly grey moustache briefly. ‘Oh, she’s beautiful, there’s no doubt about that. Porcelain pretty, wavy brown hair down to her knees. Huge eyes and all that. But too cold. Nose in the air.’

‘I thought you said she was impressed with you.’

Salim looked balefully back at his friend. ‘Surely one is allowed to stretch the truth on occasion.’ He shrugged. ‘No, I suppose she wasn’t, really. She gave us one imperious glance, and that was it. Must have been because we were ordinary boatmen. Maybe she’s sweeter to people with the right sort of money.’

‘Maybe. I’m not particularly interested in finding out.’ Muzaffar glanced west, noting the position of the sun. It was still well above the horizon, even though the shadows were lengthening. ‘We have at least an hour before the sun sets,’ Muzaffar said. ‘And then I have to be making my way to Nawab Mukhtar Ali’s haveli for dinner. I’m parched. Let’s dock at one of the ghats and get off. Do you want to come along with me for some coffee?’

‘Coffee? That new-fangled drink they sell in those qahwa khanas of Chandni Chowk? I’ve never tasted it, but the stench is enough to put anybody off.’ Salim grimaced. ‘It’s evil, believe me. It won’t do you any good to be guzzling it the way you do.’

‘Evil? Haven’t you heard the tale about the Angel Jibrail, who gave the Prophet coffee to drink when he was sleepy?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ Salim retorted, stubborn to the end. ‘I’m sure that’s a story concocted by one of your type. No, give me something more wholesome, Muzaffar. Something that will warm the heart, and lift the spirit. Now, a good cup of wine…’ The old man’s voice was swallowed up by the cacophony of an approaching ghat, lost in the shouts of coolies, the conversations of merchants and traders supervising the loading and unloading of cargo, and the general noise of a city hard at work.

Muzaffar freely admitted that he was a nonconformist; but he drew the line at drinking wine. The thought that his elder sister, should she come to know of it, would be very disappointed, made him restrict himself to a glass of sherbet bought at a roadside stall whose owner, a crony of Salim’s, smiled knowingly as he poured out a generous goblet of wine for the old man.



Muzaffar’s decision proved on this particular day to be a wise one, for he needed all his wits about him when he got home half an hour later to a household in an uproar. A plump woman with five children in tow had planted herself at the front door. The best efforts of the doorkeeper, Muzaffar’s steward and a gaggle of lesser menials to dislodge her had failed. The woman was now sitting on the topmost step, her skirts and dupatta creating a concealing tent about her. The children, ranging from a seven- or eight-year-old with buckteeth and a stubborn cowlick to a pair of infant twins, were all about the place. One had even managed to make its way inside the haveli, and was being carried out by a servant with a look of poorly controlled annoyance on his face.

Muzaffar was taken aback but still unfailingly polite. His steward, Javed, came forward eagerly.

‘I didn’t think you’d want her physically thrown out, huzoor,’ said Javed, a look of utter relief on his face as he took the bridle from Muzaffar. ‘She’s been sitting on the threshold for the past two hours, and she refuses to talk to anyone but you, huzoor.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘She’s coming, huzoor,’ he added needlessly as the woman lurched to her feet, and having straightened her clothing and marshalled her offspring, moved purposefully towards Muzaffar.

‘Jang Sahib?’ Her voice was whispery and hoarse, muffled by the cotton dupatta that enveloped her.

Muzaffar nodded. ‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ he murmured, trying to avoid the disconcertingly unblinking stare of one of the younger children, who was peering out from behind his mother.

‘Oh. I – I am Faisal Talab Khan’s wife. You know him, I think, huzoor. He works at a jeweller’s shop in the Bazaar-e- Musaqqaf.’

‘Yes, of course. Faisal and I have been friends for years. I trust all is well?’

The woman had been dignified, almost timid, all this while in Muzaffar’s presence. At these words, however, all her selfassurance seemed to desert her. She pulled her children closer about her, dragging the gimlet-eyed child deep into her skirts. ‘No, huzoor. It is not. I –’ Her voice faltered and died out, and Muzaffar, with a sudden prescience, decided that it was time to move this particular interview indoors, into the seclusion of a quiet room where Faisal Talab Khan’s begum would not end up making a fool of herself in public.

‘Javed,’ he called out. ‘Take Begum Sahiba’s children to the garden and make sure they’re given something to eat and drink. And send some refreshments to the dalaan for us.’ He gestured to the woman to follow, and led her into the haveli, down a long corridor and into a dalaan – a verandah, bounded on three sides by columns and on the fourth by a wall of white marble decorated with a border of lapis lazuli irises, a deep, rich blue in colour. His guest hesitated on the threshold, obviously discomfited by the magnificence of the dalaan, but she made a swift recovery. On Muzaffar’s inviting her to do so, she lowered herself onto the mattress near the window and sat back, relaxing somewhat.

‘What is the matter? How can I help you?’

The last rays of the setting sun shone through the carved marble filigree of the window. A pattern of shifting stars and geometrical flowers fell across the woman’s dupatta as she turned her head towards Muzaffar. ‘Huzoor, your friend has been arrested for the murder of Mirza Murad Begh.’

Muzaffar was dumbstruck. ‘Faisal? Arrested for murder? But why –’

The woman’s awe of her noble host seemed to dissipate all of a sudden as she interrupted angrily, ‘He did not kill anyone, huzoor. You, who are his friend, should know that. He is innocent –’

‘I did not ask why Faisal committed a murder. I do not believe, any more than you do, that he could be capable of something like that. I was merely asking what happened.’

Before she could respond a servant came in to place a tray of peaches on the low rosewood stool next to Muzaffar. Another followed, bearing a pair of goblets and a long-necked, round-bellied pitcher of sherbet. Muzaffar indicated to his guest to help herself, but the woman shook her head and waited with ill-concealed impatience for the servants to depart. When the second of the two men had lit a lamp, placed it in a little arched niche near the window and bowed himself out of the dalaan, she turned back to Muzaffar.

‘I am not sure what happened, huzoor. A soldier came from the kotwali – perhaps three hours ago – to say that my husband had been arrested and imprisoned. I was told that Mirza Murad Begh had been found stabbed and his body dumped in a water channel inside the qila. Your friend was the only man known to have been in the vicinity at the time, huzoor. There was no-one else there, so they assumed that he is guilty…’ Her voice trailed off in an unhappy snuffle.

‘What does Faisal say?’

‘I have not met him, huzoor. I – I remembered him saying once that you knew someone in the kotwali, I think…? In any case, they will not pay me any heed. At least they will listen to you, huzoor; you are an important man.’

Muzaffar grinned ruefully. ‘No more important than hundreds of other men in Shahjahanabad.’ Which was true, of course, and perhaps even the woman realized it. Shahjahanabad, home to the imperial court ever since Maa’badaulat had uprooted it from Agra and shifted it north to Dilli, swarmed with noblemen. There were men in the city far richer than Muzaffar could ever hope to be. Men with havelis, splendid mansions a hundred times grander than Muzaffar’s; with vast land holdings, standing armies, even karkhanas or workshops where the cream of the country’s artisans churned out everything from carpets to turban ornaments for the pleasure of their masters.

Muzaffar, in comparison, was small fry. His lands, inherited on the death of his father, Mirza Burhanuddin Malik Jang, yielded an income that was comfortable but did not allow mindless extravagance. He owned no karkhanas; had few soldiers, mounted or on foot, to summon for duty; and patronized no poets, minstrels, artisans or courtesans. It was partly due to inclination, but even if he wished it, Muzaffar doubted if he would have been able to sustain such expenditure.

Faisal Talab Khan’s wife nodded. ‘I know, huzoor. I have heard enough about you from my husband to know that you dislike flattery, so I shall be blunt. I am sure there are many men more influential than you in this city. But none of them are bothered about what may happen to my husband. You are the only one I could possibly have come to for help.’

‘I shall go to the kotwali,’ Muzaffar replied. ‘And see what can be done – at the least, I shall find out what the matter is.’ He hesitated, a little embarrassed at having to ask the next question. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said finally, ‘but – are you sure there is nothing else I may do for you or your children? Would you need – um – financial assistance? Something to help look after the children?’ He had gone red in the face by the time he finished.

His question, far from offending Faisal’s wife, seemed to endear Muzaffar to her. He heard an unmistakable chuckle emanating from the depths of the dupatta. ‘Thank you, huzoor, but there is no need.’ She paused. ‘I beg your pardon. I should not have dragged the children along to your haveli, huzoor. It was just that I was so – so overwrought – that I did not know whom to leave them with while I came here. No doubt one of the neighbours would have looked after them –’

‘No doubt.’ Muzaffar rose to his feet. ‘Now, if you will excuse me. I had better set off for the kotwali. Will you allow me to send one of my men to accompany you and your children to your home? I shall send word of whatever transpires.’

The woman expressed her thanks, and having handed her, along with her offspring, into the silently disapproving custody of Javed, Muzaffar returned to the dalaan to write a quick apology to Nawab Mukhtar Ali. The dinner had been described by the nawab himself as ‘An informal dinner. Come if you can – it will be just a handful of friends.’ Muzaffar well knew what he could expect: a collection of some two dozen noblemen, with varying inclinations for debauchery, but nearly all of them accepting the invitation because they knew Nawab Mukhtar Ali would offer the best food and wine, the most tuneful musicians and perhaps even a dancing girl or two. Some would come mainly because the nawab’s serving boys were especially slim and beautiful.

With a sigh o. . .