Shadow Princess (16 page)

When Najabat finished speaking, he stood dry mouthed and shaking. He had been enchanted by the glimpse of Jahanara’s slender hand through the curtains of the palanquin, had appreciated her fine mind and her decisiveness when confronted with the Bengal problem, but this—coming to his tent to scrutinize him in person—was absurd. She had put him in jeopardy by such foolhardiness; she had most probably caused a raging jealousy among the nobles who had seen her come here. She was veiled, true, and in black, in contrast to the imperial mourning white, but
he
had known who she was after a moment—there was something in her carriage, the way she held her head, her haughty walk. Najabat Khan, who had never seen a woman from the imperial
zenana
before, let alone a royal princess, had even so immediately recognized one when he glanced at her. There were many other men who would have also. Najabat knew nothing of his dead Empress’s interest in him as a husband for Princess Jahanara—such talk had not reached his ears, and, in the normal course of events, he would only have received from the Emperor an order for marriage, one he would have obeyed unquestioningly. Taken as he had been by Princess Jahanara a month ago, he felt a small sense of repulsion toward the girl on the divan.

He had stopped talking and stood in the center of the tent, looking down upon her. She rose and said, “Thank you, Mirza Najabat Khan. That was all I wanted to know. Perhaps we will meet another day, who knows?”

With that she left, even before Najabat had a chance to bow to her. He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his
qaba,
and it left a damp spot of sweat upon the silk. He had heard of Princess Jahanara’s strong will, more so since her mother had died. There were whispers of her being supreme in the
zenana
now, in possession of the royal seal, and growing more powerful each day. But no one had mentioned to him that she was also a stupid girl.

Princess Jahanara Begam, however, was not dim-witted, not given to act on impulse, did not lack a keen sense of self-preservation. Whatever she did, she deliberated carefully upon, and in the coming years this purposefulness would be the cause of strife between Najabat and her—because she knew what was right, what wrong, and what her role was in the Empire. But it would be a while before Najabat would realize that while he had been correct in thinking that one of his Emperor’s daughters had come to visit him, he had not been right about which one.

•  •  •

The girl stole away through the congealing smoke of the kitchen fires, finding her way to the royal tents by the
Akash-diya
—the light in the sky—an enormous lantern set on a forty-foot-high pole in front of Emperor Shah Jahan’s Diwan-i-am which burned night and day, formed the center of the Emperor’s camp, and could be seen from miles away on a dark night to guide lost contingents back to their sleeping quarters.

When Princess Roshanara had reached her tent, she slipped inside quietly and lay down on her bed. She would be fifteen years old this year, the same age Mama had been when she had been betrothed to Bapa. They could have been married soon after. So why not Roshanara? She had first been curious about Mirza Najabat Khan because she had seen him talking with Jahanara—that in itself was an unusual occurrence; neither Dara nor any of the other brothers had brought a strange man into their sisters’ company before. That last made her sit up. Was it deliberate then on Dara’s part? Under normal circumstances, mention of Najabat Khan in the imperial
zenana
would have come from Bapa, though the brothers could well have brought up the topic, as could their uncles—any men connected with and invested in the imperial family. But so soon after Mama’s death, Bapa would not have been interested in marriage alliances for either his sons or his daughters.

Had Jahan spoken to Dara earlier and asked him to bring Mirza Najabat Khan to her? No, this was not likely. So openly, so much in public—Jahan would never give anyone an opportunity to gossip about her; she was too aware of what propriety demanded. Outside, the sounds of activity diminished until there was only the crackle of campfires and the subdued step of the watchman as he patrolled the lane. The torches, left burning all night, gave off a muted glow, their light seeping in through the material of her tent’s walls, palely blue. The acrid tang of the enveloping smoke came to her nostrils, and she flipped over and buried her nose in the pillow. Jahan could not want him, and there was no marriage contracted yet between them. And she had so much else; she could not possibly care about a man who had ridden a few yards by the side of her palanquin. If she did care . . . Mirza Najabat Khan would be the best judge of which sister he found most appealing. And there was only one way to give him that opportunity, by letting him see her. But at the tent, her courage had faltered and she had not been able to lift the cloth that covered her. She thought, though, that she had made an impression upon him, that he knew who she was—it did not strike Princess Roshanara Begam that Najabat Khan could have mistaken her for anyone else, for she was a royal princess, proud and certain that everyone who crossed her path would not only know her but remember her for the rest of their lives.

Lying on her bed, she made her plans methodically. She would have to wait until Jahanara married, as Jahanara was the older sister, but when she did, Roshanara was determined that, somehow, she would become the wife of Mirza Najabat Khan.

The Luminous Tomb

A period of one year had elapsed since . . . the sudden death of the Lady Mumtaz al-Zamani, and the time had arrived for observing the customary ceremony, known in this country as ‘Urs.

—From the
Padshah Nama
of Jalala Tabataba’i, in
W. E. BEGLEY AND Z. A. DESAI
,
Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb

Agra

Tuesday, June 22, 1632

4 Zi’l-Hijja
A.H
. 1041

P
rince Aurangzeb knelt, and beside him Abul Hasan and Muhammad Ali Beg went down on their knees also, much more slowly. The three of them closed their eyes, raised their hands, and recited the Fatiha. When they had finished, they sat back on their heels, reflective, and in a while, as the
imams
began to chant
suras
from the Quran, they settled more comfortably against the silk-upholstered bolsters which lay strewn on the divan.

The long night passed thus, voices raised in prayer and praise of Mumtaz Mahal on the first anniversary of her death, Aurangzeb upright in the main tent, flanked by his grandfather and the Persian ambassador. The tent was filled to thronging—all the important
amirs
at court, the
mullas
and Hindu priests, Buddhist and Jain monks, the Jesuit cleric Father Busée, who presided over the church in Agra that Emperor Jahangir had allowed the Portuguese to build. Aurangzeb stiffened and glanced at his hands, clasped rigidly in his lap. Bapa had been too tolerant in allowing these other men into the Jilaukhana of the tomb, where the
‘urs,
the anniversary, was being held. At other times, especially during Emperor Akbar’s rule, they had actually been invited to take part in religious discussions—to express the merits of their own religions and perhaps discount those of others. A philosophic conversation, Aurangzeb’s great-grandfather had called it. The prince reddened and covered his face. How could that even be? Islam was the one true religion, Allah the only true God—why even invite other talk?

There were arguments in favor, of course, that even Aurangzeb, only fourteen years old, understood. The acceptance of other faiths was necessary in an Empire that was largely populated by infidels—Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, the Christians whom the foreigners regularly converted—and it created the basis for political solidarity. He turned and scowled at the Jesuit priest again—he had forgotten his name, but Dara would know, because he was friendly with this man. The news from Bengal about Portuguese aggression on the Empire’s subjects had led Emperor Shah Jahan to retaliate—swiftly and powerfully—and yet this priest came with a put-on solemn face and listened to the holy words from the Quran. He came, Aurangzeb thought, not as a man of God but as a representative of the crushed Portuguese in Bengal begging for the Emperor’s mercy, insinuating himself into this sacred assembly.

“Are you tired,
beta
?” Abul Hasan asked, touching his shoulder.

“I think you must be, Nana,” Aurangzeb replied, turning to his grandfather and clasping his hand. Much to both of their surprise, he kissed Abul’s hand, then let go, his face crimson. “You loved Mama very much.”

“I did,” Abul said, wiping his eyes though he had not shed a tear. All of his crying had dried up in Burhanpur when he saw how his son-in-law and his Emperor had been devastated by Mumtaz’s death and how the children had begun to loosen their ties to the family and spiral out into minor acts of rebellion that their father had not noticed or tried to control. “It is terrible to lose a child before her time, worse yet to be sitting at her first
‘urs
knowing that she will never return to me . . . to us. If things had taken their proper course, I would have gone first and she would have done something like this in remembrance instead, as it should have been, Aurangzeb.”

They sat quietly awhile, Aurangzeb thinking that his grandfather was not so old yet, only in his sixties, but Mama’s death had aged too many people because she had been deeply loved.

“What are these
‘urs,
Nana?”

Abul turned to him in astonishment. “You don’t know? You should have asked the
mulla
at the mosque. It is a custom here in Hindustan, among the Chistis—the Sufi order in Ajmer—to celebrate death. Not a strange ritual if you think about it. The word
‘urs
come from Arabic, meaning marriage, a meeting between Allah and the soul of the departed.”

Prince Aurangzeb had been born in India, and he was Indian in every aspect—his knowledge of the countryside, the customs of the subjects of the Empire, the passing of time and seasons, the varieties of foods. He had not lived anywhere else or even visited anyplace where he could not claim to be master and of the royalty. And yet, when his father had chosen to mark the first anniversary of the death of his mother with a ceremony called the
‘urs,
he had not known what it was. His upbringing had been Persian and Turkish, much like those of his ancestors, and this was the first time that one of the Mughal Emperors of India—some one hundred years after becoming sovereigns here—was adopting one of the local death customs for his own. It was unusual enough that a royal prince had to ask for an explanation.

Upriver from where they sat, in the fort at Agra, Emperor Shah Jahan prayed alone, for the same amount of time as they did in public—as the
‘urs
ceremony recommended—one whole day and one whole night. At the end of which, they would distribute food for those who were assembled and alms to the poor who had been gathering outside the Jilaukhana.

Dara, the favored one, and Shuja, only a little less in favor, were with Bapa, and he, Aurangzeb, had been dispatched here. But he did not mind very much, for it gave him an opportunity to present himself to these grand and powerful men of the Empire, for them to see him and to know him in circumstances such as these. Aurangzeb knew, even this young, that if he was to become Emperor after his father and displace the much-lauded, much-blessed Dara, it would be with the help of these
amirs.

“Look how magnificent all this is, Aurangzeb, and remember to be grateful,” Abul said. He gestured around them at the silken tent, thirty feet by thirty feet, the first of three in the courtyard. There were twelve smaller ones around, all colored a pale blue—butterflies perched on the open earth left after the demolition of Raja Jai Singh’s
haveli.

“Grateful, Nana?” Aurangzeb said with a quick flash of a smile, which disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared. That little movement softened the burn in his normally intense gaze, made him look more youthful, more of the child he really was, his face smooth with its darkening of hair on the upper lip and the few hairs on his chin that he resolutely refused to shave. “Why?”

His grandfather took hold of his hand and drew him closer. “I can remember when my father, your great-grandfather, made us leave Persia in the middle of the night. And on the way, in the great desert, we were beset by dacoits. Somehow, we survived, but they took everything we had. And then Qandahar . . .” His voice trailed away, and Aurangzeb, who had heard this story in some form or another many times from this man, knew that he was thinking of his sister’s birth at Qandahar, of her marriage to Emperor Jahangir, of her perfidy toward Shah Jahan and toward her brother. “And then,” Abul continued, “we came to Agra. My father was nothing very much at court for a very long while, even though Emperor Akbar had noticed him, been benevolent enough to grant him a
mansab,
but he worked hard,
beta.
Well before my sister married Emperor Jahangir”—and this time he talked of her without flinching—“my father was made Treasurer of the Empire.”

“I know, Nana.” Both of them conveniently forgot other misdemeanors on the part of the family—Abul’s older brother Muhammad had tried to assassinate Emperor Jahangir, and his father had embezzled fifty thousand rupees from the treasury—all of which were magically forgiven when Mehrunnisa became the twentieth wife. They forgot that, responding to Abul’s pleas, she had made the marriage between Mumtaz and Shah Jahan happen. That she had built her father’s tomb north of where they sat, on the other bank of the river. But they did remember that it was this tomb—Abul’s father’s and Aurangzeb’s maternal great-grandfather’s—that had provided the plan, the sketch, the very idea for Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb.

“So this,” Aurangzeb said, looking around, though seeing nothing more than the walls of the tent, “is going to be the part of the complex where the Jilaukhana will be.”