Shadow Princess (17 page)

And they both thought of the vast plans that the architect had drawn up for Emperor Shah Jahan and the exquisite miniature model he had made of the Taj Mahal’s complex, intricate in every detail, attention paid to every facet.

The complex was to be in three parts—the tomb itself on its red sandstone platform at the edge of the river, flanked by a mosque on one side and an assembly hall on the other. Its gardens, with a red sandstone reflecting pool along the center, would be in front of the tomb—landward, naturally. At the southernmost end of the gardens was to be a massive gateway in red sandstone—the main entrance to the tomb. This gateway was part of a forecourt called the Jilaukhana, and this was the second of the three parts—on the land for which the first
‘urs
for Mumtaz took place.

The third part, beyond the southern gateway to the Jilaukhana, was to be the Taj Ganj—a mammoth square complex that housed bazaars and four caravanserais, the incomes from which would fund the care and upkeep of the tomb and the forecourt.

The tents for the first
‘urs
were pitched on a flattened piece of land, ready and awaiting the building of the Jilaukhana. The forecourt would be a rectangular courtyard, built especially for the purpose of allowing visiting nobles to dismount, tether their horses, and refresh themselves before entering the tomb’s gardens. It had four gateways—east and west, from which, down a long corridor of verandahs, there were two bazaar streets; and the southern gateway, up a short flight of stairs because of the slope of the land, which eventually gave out into the Taj Ganj. But the courtyard, the other three ancillary gateways, the bazaar streets trimmed with red stone
chajjas
or eaves that sluiced rainwater down into the yard—everything paled in comparison to the northern gateway, the
darwaza-i-rauza.
Quite simply, the entrance to the tomb, but really called the Great Gate.

This
darwaza
was to be a magnificent structure, seated on its own sandstone platform, the floor of which was inlaid with white marble. It would have a high central arch flanked by four smaller arches, two on each side, and every arch would actually be a rectangular portal culminating in a peak on top. There would be four engaged minarets on the four corners, octagonal in shape, topped by white marble cupolas, and the front and back portals were to be capped by eleven freestanding marble cupolas. The building would house a central hall, decorated with marble inlay, with tiny transom windows along the roofline to let in natural light, and when it was completed, a shimmering Aleppo glass chandelier, lowered for lighting by thick chains, hung in the center of the ceiling.

The front of the
darwaza
would also be built of the red sandstone so prolific in the quarries around Agra but inlaid with white marble, into which would be carved, in calligraphic script, the eighty-ninth
sura
from the Quran, which invited believers to step into Paradise.

“There’s hardly anything here now,” Aurangzeb said. “But the architect’s model was meticulous. Mama would have liked it, but then, she liked anything Bapa did.”

Abul Hasan nodded, his heart brimming. Even in times of such plenty, he could not forget those early days of the flight from Persia or his envy when his sister became an Empress. Now his child would lie for eternity in splendor; one day her husband would join her here, or he would perhaps construct a tomb for himself elsewhere; such were the privileges of royalty. Something his grandson took so much for granted, mocking him when he spoke of being grateful. He studied the boy next to him and felt an abrupt tug of fear. These children his Arjumand had borne, each was an independent, fiery spirit. At times he wished she had had only one son; then there would be no question of succession, no fighting, no fragmenting of the family. But he was nonetheless thankful that she had been so fertile—four sons, three daughters, these were all good, wanted, blessings from Allah. Though he was still uneasy, somewhere inside, knowing Aurangzeb well. The boy was affectionate and could be kind if he wanted, all hidden, alas, under a mask of strictness and rigidity, so unappealing in someone this young.

Unaware of his grandfather’s ruminations, Aurangzeb listened to the chanting, joining in, falling silent. He desperately wanted to be king after his father, and he wanted them
all
to agree to this, even Dara, who thought himself secure and the position rightfully his. And he wanted his beloved Jahan to laud him, to put her hands on his face and smile as she did upon Dara and Shuja. But as he sat through that night, he was afraid, because he knew that none of this would be easy and that, like his father, he might have to wash—forever—the blood of his brothers from his hands.

As day dawned, fifty thousand rupees were distributed to the destitute who clamored outside the chintz screens which had kept the ceremony from the view of the common people. The men left an hour later, and the grounds were cleared of every living person before the ladies of the
zenana
came into the enclosure to perform their own
‘urs.
This went on, also, a day and a night, and in the end, Princess Jahanara and Princess Roshanara gave out an equal fifty thousand rupees, with their own hands, and from their own incomes, to the poor women assembled.

And so ended the first
‘urs
in the Jilaukhana, the brilliant entrance to the tomb.

Emperor Shah Jahan viewed the final resting place for his wife thus, a little slice of Paradise, set in lush gardens. He had thought of everything in designing the tomb, consulted for hours with his architects on the buildings that would decorate the waterfront and house the grave of his wife, so the entrance to the gardens could not be any less grand for this Luminous Tomb.

His Majesty also plays at chaugan in dark nights, which caused much astonishment even among clever players. . . . It is impossible to describe the excellency of this game. Ignorant as I am, I can but say little about it.

—
S. L. GOOMER
(ed.)
AND H. BLOCHMANN
(trans.),
The Ain-i-Akbari, by Abul Fazl Allami

Agra

Monday, December 22, 1632

10 Jumada al-thani
A.H
. 1042

B
y the time the male players had left, the
ghariyali
was ringing in the end of the second watch of the night. It was so quiet that the sound of the brass gong being struck by the leather-headed mallet rolled cleanly over the walls of the fort and into the
chaugan
field. The
ghariyali
paused for five seconds when he had concluded measuring out the
gharis,
seven in all, and then lifted his mallet to follow up with two more strikes in quick succession to indicate the end of the second watch. Midnight. And the moon was centered in the sky, its pearl-like face streaked by wisps of thin clouds.

Jahanara stood alone in the middle of the polo grounds, a silver brilliance of moonlight around her. Dara, Shuja, and Aurangzeb had played here earlier in the evening, and Roshan and she had watched from a
zenana
enclosure on one side of the field. Aurangzeb’s team had won—Dara and Shuja had played on the opposite side, but they were no match for their brother. When they had been younger, he had run faster than all of them, pumping his arms and legs, his face red with effort; he could ride better, straddling a horse as though he had been born on one; his mouth, even, was quicker to retort. So Aurangzeb had won, because he had
wanted
to win, and because he had not been expected to do so. Dara was slothful, assured of his position and so uncaring about “little” wins and losses, as he termed them.

Then they had all left. The torches lining the length of the
chaugan
field had been extinguished, the slaves and servants had carried away the refreshments, the noblemen watching had gone to their homes and their beds, and the moon had climbed higher, breaking through the low clouds that thronged the horizon. When Roshanara had ascended into her palanquin, Jahanara had made as if to follow her, then slipped back quietly.

Around her, a few men pounded divots of tufted grass back into the steaming earth, which still seemed to throb from the reverberation of the horses’ hooves. Their heads were bent doggedly to the ground, and they kept their distance, for behind her Ishaq Beg, her Mir Saman, Master of the Household, ranged along the perimeter of the field. Jahanara turned to him finally and beckoned. When he had run up to her, she said, “Is he here?”

“No, your Highness.”

The moon was directly overhead now, flooding them with light—but it was a strange blue-black light that cast heavy shadows where it did not touch and set the diamonds in Jahanara’s hair to such a glittering sparkle that it was as though her head was aflame with an icy fire. She could see little of Ishaq’s expression, but she knew he was fretting, even angry. She knew him well, almost as well as Dara and Shuja, for Ishaq had been brought into Shah Jahan’s
zenana
when he was still very young, a boy of less than ten perhaps (for his parents were too poor or too indifferent to keep measure of time or dates), to be brought up there as a servant, and since he could not have stayed on in the women’s quarters once he hit puberty, he was made into a eunuch.

“I have to see him, Ishaq,” she said.

“This is not right, your Highness,” he mumbled, gazing around him into the murk of the
kinshuk
trees in the distance and the looming bulk of the Agra fort, from where an upturned bowl of light from the streetlamps embraced the skies. “There are other ways to meet a man. He could come into the
zenana
perhaps . . . but no”—he checked himself—“that would not be correct either. Marry him, your Highness, if your need is so great, then you can visit with him for as long as you like.”

“I intend to,” Jahanara said. “And I will, one day, but not for some time to come yet; I am wanted in the imperial harem.”

Ishaq Beg glanced at her in surprise; despite what he had said, this was the first he had heard of her wanting to marry. He had spoken to her as no other man would have dared—not her father or her brothers—chastised the propriety of what she was going to do, suggested a marriage instead, but Jahanara did not mind. There was little Ishaq and she had not talked about when they were growing up together. He had sat by her when the
mulla
came in for lessons, adjusting her veil, helping her with pronunciations; he had lain by her feet when she was unwell, grasping the heated skin of her shins and calves; he, not her mother, had held and pacified her at the sight of that first monthly blood, though he had not known what it was or why it had happened. A few years ago, curious, Jahanara had asked him what it was like to have no . . . feeling, no tug of the sensual, the sexual being within. He shrugged and gazed into her eyes directly, with no sense of embarrassment. “It happened before I knew very much about it. I know no other life but this one. I’ve seen other men maddened by their lust for women, blinded by it, so perhaps I am better off.”

“Do you regret it, Ishaq?”

It had taken him a long while to respond to that question, months, in fact, but Jahanara had not forgotten that she had asked it of him. And when he said, “No, your Highness, for I would not then have had the privilege of serving you,” she knew it was nothing other than the truth. Even with astounding candor such as this, neither of them had forgotten their place in the world—she was a royal princess and Ishaq Beg her eunuch, her slave, and her servant.

They were, Jahanara thought now, as close as two human beings could be, with an undefined friendship. He was not her brother, her father, her mother, or her sister, and yet he was all of these, in some ways more devoted because his life was hers. And yet, she had not said anything to him of meeting Mirza Najabat Khan in March, nor that she had thought of him every day, watched for him as Bapa sat in the imperial court, and finally sent him this summons because she could not bear not being near him any longer. Ishaq, who had been her mother’s favorite eunuch, and still
her
closest friend in the imperial
zenana,
had not known until this moment that his princess had fallen in love with a courtier.

“He is here, your Highness,” Ishaq said, turning toward the right end of the
chaugan
field, where a man waited, his horse’s reins held secure in his hands, the animal quiescent and obedient. “And I will be within call.”

“I do not fear him, Ishaq,” Jahanara said softly. She raised her right hand and snapped her fingers. Two grooms, their eyes to the ground, brought a gleaming white Badakhshan horse up to her and fled as soon as her hand had touched its bridle, not even daring to stay on to help her into the saddle, though it had been many years since she had needed such assistance. But they ran because she had shed the long length of her white chiffon veil on the earth before she walked to the middle of the field, was clad now only in a white silk
choli,
which hugged her figure, the sleeves caressing her wrists, and a pair of pantaloons gathered at her waist in folds which narrowed down to her ankles. Her hair, rolled and pinned neatly at her nape, was studded with diamonds, and the stones glittered on the silk of her outfit also. Jahanara laughed, the sound breaking out of her as she put her foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. She had ordered specifically for this horse to be brought from the imperial stables for her tonight because it was from Badakhshan, where Mirza Najabat Khan also found his lineage, and because of the spray of black, like an ink spot, on its pristine white forehead—the only color it had anywhere on its body.