Empire of the Moghul: The Serpent's Tooth by Alex Rutherford Page B

for the first time a few days after the departure of Mumtaz’s cortège for Agra, but now he found that the excitement and risks of the search and ensuing pursuit were almost the only things that dulled his grief for Mumtaz, forcing him to concentrate his mind on present dangers rather than the past. He had been glad to embark on this, the third such sortie.
    ‘Majesty, you are outdistancing us. Rein in a little or we cannot protect you,’ he heard the captain of his bodyguard yell above the thunder of the charging horses’ hooves. He paid no attention. If his fate was to die so be it. He would join Mumtaz in the gardens of Paradise. Within moments he clashed with the foremost Bijapuran, a squat man on a white horse whose opening stroke with his curved scimitar whistled through the air above Shah Jahan’s plumed helmet as he ducked. Shah Jahan’s horse was galloping so fast that it carried him beyond the man before he could get in a stroke of his own. Another Bijapuran horseman thrust at him with his long lance but he turned it aside with his sword before giving a backhand slash with his own weapon which thudded into the rump of the rebel’s chestnut horse, causing it to rear and unseat its rider before bolting.
    Shah Jahan struck at a third Bijapuran but his blow glanced off the rebel’s breastplate. Moments later, he found himself alone on the far side of the Bijapuran ranks. Several enemy riders were wheeling to attack him. Realising the danger his impetuous and foolhardy charge had brought him into, he immediately headed, heart thumping, towards the nearest man, still battling to turn his horse, and before the rider could react thrust his sword deep into his abdomen below his steel breastplate. As Shah Jahan wrenched his weapon free his adversary collapsed on to his horse’s neck, dropping his short lance.
    A second Bijapuran had been quicker to turn and at once attacked the Emperor. His sword struck the pommel of Shah Jahan’s saddle as the emperor swayed back out of the way, simultaneously striking out with his own bloodstained blade and knocking the Bijapuran’s domed helmet from his head. Undaunted, the horseman rode again at Shah Jahan, this time joined by two of his comrades. Shah Jahan pulled back hard on his reins purposely causing his horse to rear up, front legs flailing. One of its hooves caught the foremost Bijapuran, who fell backwards. Immediately Shah Jahan, gripping his reins with his left hand to turn, slashed at the next rider catching him in the muscle of his upper right arm and forcing him also to drop his weapon. Struggling desperately to turn his horse to face the third attacker, the helmetless man, Shah Jahan realised that he was not going to be able to do so before the Bijapuran got in his blow. Instinctively he tried to make himself the smallest target possible. Then the Bijapuran’s head split before his eyes into a mess of blood and brains. The captain of his bodyguard had forced his way through the column and cleft the man’s unprotected skull in two. Others of his bodyguard were appearing and straight away charging into their enemies’ disintegrating ranks. The Bijapurans who could disengage themselves from the fight – by no means all of them – were beginning to kick their horses into a gallop to escape, leaving their fellows to die or be taken prisoner.
    Forty-eight hours later – a period during which he had scarcely left the saddle, never mind slept – Shah Jahan was standing with Ashok Singh on a flat outcrop of rock looking down on the small walled town of Krishnapur sited in the ox-bow bend of a dried-up river. From his interrogation of some of the Bijapurans captured during the earlier skirmish Shah Jahan had discovered that the town had become a base for their activities. Sparing neither himself nor his men, two hours earlier he had reached Krishnapur to find its gates firmly closed against him. His men now encircled the town.
    ‘No, Ashok Singh! I will not bargain