The Moghul

and mules carrying the remainder of the baggage and tents.
    Some of Jadar's zenana women traveled in gilded chaudols carried on the shoulders of four bearers and shaded with netting of colored embroidered silk. Others were transported in enclosed palanquins, also covered with silk nets decorated with gold fringe and tassels. Still others chose to ride in swaying litters suspended between two elephants or two strong camels. A female slave walked near each litter carrying a peacock tail to brush off dust and keep away flies.
    Jadar's first and favorite wife, Mumtaz, seemed to scorn all these comforts, displaying herself regally all day long from atop her own personal elephant, riding in a gold howdah shaded by a vast tapestry umbrella. Her elephant was festooned with embroideries, yak tails, and large silver bells; and directly behind her, on six smaller elephants, rode the women of her immediate household. Her eunuchs rode clustered around her on horses, each carrying a wand signifying his office and sweating profusely beneath his jeweled turban. A vanguard of footmen with bamboo canes walked ahead of Mumtaz's elephant clearing a path through the crowds.
    Jadar himself traveled mainly on his favorite Arabian horse—except when passing through cities, when he would switch to a conspicuously bedecked elephant—surrounded by the high-ranking nobles. Trailing out behind this first circle were the ranks of the lesser mansabdars , who rode in full military dress, displaying swords, bows, shields. While this procession inched along at its regal pace, Jadar and his nobles frequently paused ostentatiously to bag tiger or chase stripe-eared antelope with the prince's brace of hunting chitahs .
    A complete set of tents for Jadar and his zenana traveled a day ahead, to ensure that a fully prepared camp always awaited him and his women when, at approximately three in the afternoon, the procession would stop and begin to settle for the night. Each of his larger tents could be disassembled into three separate sections, and all of these together required a full fifty baggage elephants for transport. Moving the smaller tents required almost a hundred camels. Wardrobes and kitchen utensils were carried by some fifty mules, and special porters carried by hand Jadar's personal porcelains, his gilt beds, and a few of his silk tents.
    The procession was a lavish display of all the wealth and arms Jadar had remaining. And nothing about it hinted that his was an army on the run . . . which in fact it was.
    Hawksworth puzzled over Jadar's extravagant pomp for several days, finding it uncharacteristic, and finally concluded it was a deliberate Indian strategy.
    Jadar has to raise another army and quickly. He'll not do it if he has the look of a fugitive and loser about him. He's managed to hold the Imperial army at bay for a while, wound them enough to escape entrapment. But he's wounded too, and badly. The Imperial army may be shattered for the moment, but Jadar's lost half his own men. The winner will be the one who can rebuild first and attack. If Jadar doesn't make some alliances and get some men soon, Inayat Latif and the queen will chase him from one end of India to the other.
    Along the way a few independent Rajput chieftains had come to his banner, but not enough. When Hawksworth asked Shirin what she thought Jadar's chances were of raising a Rajput army large enough to face Inayat Latif, she had made no effort to conceal her concern.
    "The greatest Rajput nobles are waiting to see whether Maharana Karan Singh of Udaipur will decide to openly support him. He's the leader of the ranas of Mewar, which is the name for the lands of Rajputana around Udaipur, and they're the highest in rank of all the Rajput chieftains of India. If Maharana Karan Singh agrees to support him with his own army, the other ranas of Mewar may follow, and after them perhaps all of Rajputana."
    "What do you mean? He's providing Jadar a place to stay, or at least to hide while he licks his wounds. That looks like support to me."
    Shirin had tried to smile. "Permitting Prince Jadar to camp in Udaipur doesn't necessarily imply support. It could also be interpreted merely as traditional Rajput hospitality. It's one thing to open your guesthouse to a son of the Moghul. It's something quite different to commit your army to aid his rebellion." She drew her horse closer to Hawksworth's. "You see, Maharana Karan Singh and his father Amar Singh before him have had a treaty