The Moghul

without guards, and he wandered back to the square to look once more at the pit where the funeral pyre had been. All that remained of the bodies were charred skeletons.
    An hour ago there was life. Now there's death. The difference is the will to live.
    And luck. The turn of chance.
    Was Jamshid Beg right? If not, God help me . . .
    He knelt down beside the pit. To look at death and to wait.

    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    Prince Jadar passed the signal to the waiting guards as he strode briskly down the stone-floored hallway and they nodded imperceptibly in acknowledgment. There was no sound in the torch-lit corridor save the pad of his leather-soled riding slippers.
    It was the beginning of the third pahar , midday, and he had come directly from the hunt when the runner brought word that Mumtaz had entered labor. It would have been unseemly to have gone to her side, so he had spoken briefly with the dai , midwife. He had overruled the Hindu woman's suggestion that Mumtaz be made to give birth squatting by a bed, so that a broom could be pressed against her abdomen as the midwife rubbed her back. It was, he knew, the barbarous practice of unbelievers, and he cursed himself for taking on the woman in the first place. It had been a symbolic gesture for the Hindu troops, to quell concern that all the important details attending the birth would be Muslim. Jadar had insisted that Mumtaz be moved to a velvet mat on the floor of her room and carefully positioned with her head north and her feet south. In case she should die in childbirth—and he fervently prayed she would not—this was the position in which she would be buried, her face directed toward Mecca. He had ordered all cannon of the fort primed with powder, to be fired in the traditional Muslim salute if a male child was the issue.
    Preparations also were underway for the naming ceremony. He had prayed for many days that this time a son would be named. There were two daughters already, and yet another would merely mean one more intriguing woman to be locked away forever, for he knew he could never allow a daughter to marry. The complications of yet another aspiring family in the palace circle were inconceivable. The scheming Persian Shi'ites, like the queen and her family, who had descended on Agra would like nothing better than another opportunity to use marriage to dilute the influence of Sunni Muslims at court.
    Allah, this time it has to be a son. Hasn't everything possible been done? And if Akman was right, that a change of residence during the term ensures a male heir, then I'll have a son twelve times over from this birthing. She's been in a dozen cities. And camps. I even tested the augury of the Hindus and had a household snake killed and tossed in the air by one of their Brahmin unbelievers, to see how it would land. And it landed on its back, which they say augurs a boy. Also, the milk squeezed from her breasts three days ago was thin, which the Hindus believe foretells a son.
    Still, the omens have been mixed. The eclipse . Why did it come a day earlier than the Hindu astrologers had predicted? Now I realize it was exactly seven days before the birth. No one can recall when they failed to compute an eclipse correctly.
    What did it mean? That my line will die out? Or that a son will be born here who will one day overshadow me?
    Who can know the future? What Allah wills must be.
    And, he told himself, the meeting set for the third pahar must still take place, regardless of the birth. Unless he did what he had planned, the birth would be meaningless. All the years of planning now could be forfeited in this single campaign.
    If I fail now, what will happen to the legacy of Akman, his great work to unify India? Will India return to warring fiefdoms, neighbor pitted against neighbor, or fall to the Shi'ites? The very air around me hints of treachery.
    With that thought he momentarily inspected the placement of his personal crest on the thick wooden door of the fortress reception hall and pushed it wide. A phalanx of guards trailed behind him into the room, which he had claimed as his command post for the duration of his stay in Burhanpur. The immense central carpet had been freshly garlanded around the edges with flowers.
    The fortress, the only secure post remaining in the city, had been commandeered by Jadar and his hand-picked guard. His officers had taken accommodations in the town, and the troops had erected an enormous tent complex along the road leading into