The Feast of Roses (9 page)

“Welcome, your Majesty,” she said.

Jahangir smiled to himself. She greeted him as if he were preparing for a campaign, invoking her Hindu Gods to protect him.

Empress Jagat Gosini ushered Jahangir into her reception hall, standing back to allow him to enter. She had outdone herself. The room was sweetly perfumed with civet from incense censers and coal braziers smoking with tiny slivers of sandalwood. Carpets lay thick across the floors, edge to edge, until there was no glimpse of the marble underneath. Divans lay piled in a semicircle on the farther end, and slave girls waited, demure, eyes cast down, their veils of thin muslins in green and blue, holding softly luminous peacock feather fans.

And so the evening passed, wine appearing at his elbow without request, Jagat Gosini by his side, playful and pleasing. The Empress wore her new pearl necklace, and Jahangir reached out to touch it against her throat.

“It becomes you, Jagat,” he said.

“Thank you, your Majesty,” she replied, her eyes glowing.

After dinner she turned to him. “May I request something, your Majesty?”

“Of course,” he said. Inside he was guarded. What could she want? He remembered that early in their marriage she had always asked for things. Not jewelry, or grants of land, or a palace, or a swimming tank in her apartments, but other, little things. These came in the guise of helping him, according to her notion of what her duties were.
Allow me to choose the woman who will most please you tonight, your Majesty. Or a man of your ancestry, descended of Timur the Lame himself, could not possibly like the guavas from this orchard, but that one will do very well indeed.
These were strange requests, taking from Jahangir the will to make his own decisions. He had let her, for they had seemed like simple requests. They had showed an affection, a liking for him that he had not expected from a wife, only a mother. But he had realized over the years that there was no real affection. They did not fight; she always acquiesced at everything he said, her voice at times too soothing. When his father, Emperor Akbar, had commanded their son be taken from Jagat Gosini and given to the care of Ruqayya, she had said nothing. Not one word. Jahangir had known she was upset, but she had been taught, and too well, not to show it to him.

“What is it you want, Jagat?” the Emperor asked.

“Our son, Prince Khurram, begs an audience, your Majesty,” she said, rising from the divan to clap her hands.

“Bid him in,” Jahangir said, but she had already done so. The wooden carved doors to the reception hall swung open, and Khurram came in eagerly. He almost ran the length of the room, came up to his father, and, dipping his right hand to the ground, he bowed from the waist. As his back straightened, his hand came up to touch his forehead in the
konish.

“Bapa, your Majesty, I trust you are well.”

Jahangir rose to embrace his son, kissing his smooth forehead. He drew back to look at him. He was a handsome boy, no, now a handsome man, already married, with a child born two months ago. His eyes were a clear black, glittering like the depths of an inkwell; they were his mother’s eyes. He had Jagat Gosini’s eyebrows as well, and her chin. Khurram had grown up with Emperor Akbar. In the years that Jahangir had spent away from court, either on campaign in Mewar or rebelling against Akbar by establishing his own “throne” at Allahabad, Khurram had stayed with Ruqayya. Jahangir did not know Khurram very well, but he was an endearing boy, always ready with a smile, always respectful and courteous.

Khurram turned to his mother and bowed. “Your Majesty, thank you for allowing me to pay my respects to my father.”

She nodded, her face grim, but her hand went involuntarily to ruffle his hair, and he moved away. This was done very imperceptibly—Khurram moved his head to turn his eyes to his father, but Jagat Gosini stiffened. When he entered, Khurram had flown to Jahangir, as a boy child must to his father first, but Jahangir had been “Bapa,” and she was “your Majesty,” not “ma.” Khurram still called Ruqayya “ma.” Jagat Gosini had asked him once, when he was eight or ten, to call her ma instead and he had replied with a great deal of seriousness and some surprise, “But I already have a ma, your Highness.” After that, she had said no more, could not bring herself to ask again. Could not shout that
she
was his mother.

And so the evening passed into night. The music played, the girls danced, inviting and pouting. The three of them sat on the divans in an uneasy triangle, full of thoughts, smiling at each other until Jahangir rose to leave for his apartments.

“Will you stay the night here, your Majesty?” Jagat Gosini asked, her hand on Khurram’s arm, stopping him from leaving with his father.

“Not tonight, Jagat,” Jahangir said. He walked away rapidly, before she could say more.

The Empress said nothing; she let him go. Her fingers tightened on Prince Khurram’s arm, and he gently pulled them away. “Your Majesty.”

Jagat Gosini looked away. “I apologize, Khurram. You must go if you need to also.”

He stayed, though. For just a few more minutes. Prince Khurram talked about his daughter, Jagat Gosini’s granddaughter, that she was feeding well, that his wife was pleased with her progress, that they had found a reliable wet nurse for her. Jagat Gosini nodded, not listening to him. In her mind, she watched Jahangir walking to Mehrunnisa’s apartments. She saw her welcoming him. It had been a frightful evening, full of silences and some feeble conversation. Through all this, Jagat Gosini was aware that the Emperor had been thinking about Mehrunnisa. Nothing she had done had taken his attention from her, not even bringing Khurram into his presence, not even showing him the son they had made together, the son who would be Emperor next.

When Jahangir left her, he went not to Mehrunnisa but to his own apartments. He was tired, his head ached from the wine and the smoke of incense and the
hukkah,
and he had eaten too much at dinner.

The Emperor had spent five hours with Jagat Gosini, five hours during which she had not reproached him even once for not coming to her earlier. And the evening was the same as all their evenings had been—with music and dance and a general noise and chatter to drown out all other conversation. Seeing Khurram there had made his heart lighten with affection. He was delightful, awkward in movement still, like a young foal, but his very bumbling, his calling him “Bapa,” had been charming. Khurram was open, easily deciphered, like Mehrunnisa. And so, as they always did, his thoughts turned to the woman he loved—not because she was his wife or his concubine but simply because he had wanted her for seventeen years before he married her. And having married her, he wanted her still.

In Mehrunnisa there was no deceit. None that he could find, anyway. When she wanted something, she asked for it, not afraid of seeming selfish or grasping. When she was reading, she did not want him to disturb her, and he liked that concentration in her. She did not treat him as a child. She loved him, and she showed it. And if she disliked what he did, if she did not tell him so plainly, she found a way to tell him without words. There was no subterfuge in her.

He undressed for bed slowly, slipping out of his embroidered
qaba
and pajamas, replacing them with a crisp cotton
kurta
and pajama. Jahangir rubbed his hand over the cotton thread embroidery over the front. Was this the
kurta
Mehrunnisa liked to wear? He held the cloth up to his face, but he could not smell her essence; the
dhobis
had washed it too well, and instead it smelled of the Yamuna River, of soapnuts, of the sun that had dried it. Jahangir lay back on his bed, watching as the
punkah
on the ceiling swung back and forth in a dark, rectangular shadow. Mehrunnisa wanted what Jagat Gosini had. She wanted to be Padshah Begam. She wanted to possess the royal seal. His giving her the title of Nur Jahan, one that no other woman in his
zenana
possessed, was a public declaration of his love for her. And he could give her this too.

His word was never questioned, and if he wished for Mehrunnisa to be supreme in his harem, he could make her so. But before he gave her what she wanted, she had to earn it. To prove she was worthy.

W
hen Emperor Akbar first came to Agra, he found at the banks of the Yamuna River a small fort with crumbling walls, indifferently and haphazardly built. The fort was destroyed, and in its place, for its situation was excellent, a new fort was built with three gateways. At its longest, along the river, the fort stretched one and a half miles. The walls, made of red sandstone from local quarries, rose seventy feet from the banks of the river. Akbar had intended, in demolishing the previous fort, to build one instead whose very appearance would speak of the might of the Mughal Empire. And he succeeded. From the outside, the walls rose sheerly vertical, topped with pointed merlons, awesome in their grace, frightening in their majesty. A moat curved around the fort on the land side, almost as deep as the walls were high, and it was dry—water was a luxury not to be misused, even by great Emperors. But scrub and hardy bushes filled the moat, subsisting on rain, giving shelter to snakes and the occasional tiger. At night, jackals, greatly daring and with a courage they did not have in the light of the day, would howl at the moon, sending their voices bouncing off the walls of Agra Fort. The guards along the top, mostly to keep awake, would send arrows whizzing into the darkness in the direction of the howls—target practice for the blind.

The
zenana
quarters, Emperor Jahangir’s palace, and various other palaces and pavilions fronted the Yamuna, their filigreed screens greeting the morning sun as it woke to first touch the waters of the Yamuna, then to send fingers of light through the marble latticework of royal bedchambers. The waters of the Yamuna cooled during the months of harshest sunshine, and even in years of capricious monsoons, the river glowed blue, a giver of life along its banks, a symbol of stability.

On the western side, away from the Yamuna, was the main entrance to the fort, the Hathi Pol—the public doorway to the Red Fort. It stood high above the ramparts, ablaze in sandstone inlaid with white marble and blue tile. An open gallery of arched verandahs decorated the top, and this was the Naqqar Khana, the drum house that seated an imperial orchestra. The Hathi Pol was visible from miles away, almost the first glimmer of Agra itself, but as a traveler neared, he would see that it was not as welcoming as it seemed. All three gateways of the fort had false facades—a tiny gate in front, dwarfed into inconsequence by its more magnificent cousin, or a series of gates with steep ramps, bordered by high walls, herding pens to slaughter unwelcome visitors.

Just outside the Hathi Pol, stretching into the vast bareness of the Indo-Gangetic plains, were the shooting ranges of the imperial palaces. The ranges were in an enclosed
maidan,
blighted of vegetation and rocks. The earth was baked mud here, dust rising at the slightest breeze to thicken the air. At its edge, the lifeless circle gave way to forests of stunted trees that tenaciously clung to life, their roots plunging into the ground in search of water. Within the
maidan
itself, and in its periphery, no birds roosted in the trees, no animals wandered into the patch of bare earth, for fear that a marksman might use them as shooting practice.

Mehrunnisa stood at one end of the grounds, matchlock loaded and raised to her shoulder, waiting for a signal from the Mir Shikar.

“Now!” he yelled.

At the far end, a servant flipped a clay pigeon into the air. It arced over the trees, catching a glint from the perishing sun. Mehrunnisa swung with her shoulder, carrying the six-foot length of the matchlock with her body rather than her arms. Her eyes were on the sight, following the path of the pigeon. The wick of the matchlock, dipped in saltpeter, smoldered on top of the barrel, acrid smoke from it filling her nostrils. Then her finger pressed the trigger. The wick bent into the barrel and ignited the gunpowder. The matchlock boomed, slamming against her, as the explosion sped the bullet out of the barrel and on its way. The clay pigeon flew harmlessly as the bullet shot past it, falling on the ground with a dull thud, kicking up dust.

Mehrunnisa sighed and gratefully let the musket fall. Another shot missed. Just as she had missed time and again during the hunt. She rubbed her shoulder. She knew that tiny pinpricks of blood clots would already be forming under her skin, like the skin of a freshly plucked chicken; she had seen this after the hunt when she had taken off her clothes and stood in front of the mirror. Her muscles flared with pain. Her right arm was numb, fingers nerveless, the ache riding up her shoulder to her neck and down her back.

“Beta.”

She turned around. Ghias Beg stood there, his hand raised to shade his eyes from the sun.

“Bapa,” she said. Mehrunnisa’s father came near and put his arm around her. He drew her in for a kiss on the forehead.

“You are tired. Come and sit for awhile.”

“All right, Bapa. But only until the Mir Shikar reloads the musket.” She handed the gun to the man and followed her father to the shade of a
jamun
tree. Purple fruit hung in bunches from the tree, their smell heightened in the heat of the sun. A carpet had been laid under the branches. While she had been shooting, a servant had climbed the tree to pick the fruit and pile it in a silver bowl. Mehrunnisa sat down on the carpet with Ghias Beg and offered him the bowl. They ate in silence, biting into the flesh of the fruit, letting the indigo juice slide down their arms.

Ghias reached over to rub Mehrunnisa’s neck. She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Why tire yourself so much, Mehrunnisa? Is it worth it? Your Maji tells me you have been at the shooting ranges every morning for the last week. Look at you.” He pulled her hands forward, palms decorated with angry red blisters. “Are these the hands of a queen? An Empress?”

“Bapa,” she said, “did you hear what happened at the hunt? I wake at night, every night, with the lion plunging through the air at the imperial elephant. The
howdah
tilts . . . I fall from it . . .” She pressed closer into him, and he held her tight, as he had when she was a child.

“Why dwell on what did not happen?”

“I try, but I cannot help it. These are dreams, Bapa, they do not obey me.” Mehrunnisa pulled away and looked at her father. When had those worry lines come to pattern his face? And his eyebrows were winged with white too. Ghias Beg took off his turban and laid it on the carpet. She reached for his forehead with a light touch.

“You are losing your hair, Bapa.”

“Signs of wisdom,
beta.
The white hair, well, no hair even. The wrinkled skin. All these show I am an old married man, father of an Empress, a grandfather many times over,
diwan
of the Mughal Empire. I could not, with all these accomplishments behind me, show to people an unlined face and hair as dark as these
jamuns.
They would laugh at me. They would not take me seriously.” Ghias Beg’s eyes sparkled.

Mehrunnisa turned away and looked into the distance at the figures on the other end of the
maidan.
The sun had set, and the grounds were awash with the smudged blue haze of twilight. “I did badly at the hunt, Bapa. The Emperor is pleased with Empress Jagat Gosini.” Her voice dipped. “He has not come to see me, not in some time.”

“Look at me, Mehrunnisa.” When she turned to him again, her eyes filling, one tear rolling slowly down her cheek, he reached to wipe it with the back of his hand. “Is this what I have taught you? To flee from obstacles? To give up even before the fight has started? Yet you are here, have been here at the shooting ranges practicing your shooting for the last week.”

“And I am no better than I was a week ago. You saw me miss the shot just now. So it has been almost every day. I stand here, the gun raised to my shoulder, following the path of the pigeon, missing most times. If I cannot hit a clay pigeon, what chance do I have against a live one?”

“One day you will hit the clay pigeon, Mehrunnisa. The day after that the live one. But it won’t happen unless you try. Unless you keep trying. Think of how much we have gone through these last few years, when every day was an effort, when we fell into disfavor with the Emperor, when it seemed we would never rise again to our former positions of glory. Today, we are much more. You are an Empress, married to the most powerful man in the empire. A man on whose life our lives depend. I did not think this would happen when I came to India from Persia. All I had expected was notice from Emperor Akbar, perhaps a small position at court. Mostly, an opportunity to feed my family.”

“And everything has come through you, Bapa. I had hoped that once I became Empress I could do more for our family. But you were
diwan
before I married the Emperor. I have done nothing.”

Ghias laughed and picked up another
jamun.
“Nothing? A new title for your brother Abul. A larger
mansab
for me. These are nothing? I have seen the Emperor after his other marriages. With no other wife has he been so enticed, so much in love.” This time his laugh bordered on the edge of embarrassment. “Look, I speak to you of the Emperor’s love, such talk as a father should not have with his daughter. I must know of this and that is enough. You must know too, Mehrunnisa. Do you not know that Emperor Jahangir loves you?”

“Yes,” she said. “But . . . he has not come to me . . . I am lonely, Bapa.”

Her words hung in the air, as forlorn as what they said, and a deep ache came over Ghias.

The cicadas chirped, first one, then all of them, in a grand cacophony of an orchestra. Ghias wanted to reach out to Mehrunnisa again, to tell her everything was going to be all right, to tell her she could come home so she would no longer be alone. But he hesitated, knowing that she was now a grown woman, and his love, her mother’s love, was no longer enough for her. In the four years that Mehrunnisa had been a widow, a thin skin of hardness had come over her. He had wanted, had insisted, that she come to live with him—where else would his child live but with her father? But she had gone to the imperial
zenana
to serve Dowager Empress Ruqayya. She had earned money sewing and designing clothes; she had kept away from them, and he had let her be. For it was what he had taught her, not to beg favors of anyone with an open palm. Mehrunnisa would not come home now,
this
was her home, here, by the side of the Emperor. It was just a quarrel, surely, a simple mistaking of intents. Surely. Yes, this had to be so. He brought her to him then, let her cry into his shoulder, and her tears soaked into his cotton
qaba.

He said quietly, “You may never be as good as Empress Jagat Gosini at the hunt, but you will be almost as good as her. I know you can do this. You must not think otherwise. Even when I almost abandoned you as a baby, you yelled loud enough to be found again. Do you remember that story?”

After a long while, Mehrunnisa said, “Tell me again.”

So he did, reliving the winter sandstorm at Qandahar when Asmat had lain down to have Mehrunnisa. He remembered how he had sat in the shelter of a rock, the sand whirling around him, laced with cold, how the wind had stopped for a moment and he had heard her first cry. A few weeks later, even as they had been on their way to India, he had thought it best to give her away. She had been feeble, not taking to the goat’s milk, Asmat could not feed her, and a wet nurse cost money they did not have . . . problems had come to ambush him. So he had left her wrapped in his shawl under a tree, a village in sight, praying with all his heart.
Allah, let someone find my daughter and give her a good home. Let them be kind, Allah.
Someone had found her and brought her back to him. It had not happened that simply, but it had happened.

When Ghias Beg finished the story, Mehrunnisa picked up his hand and kissed it. She asked, “How do you know it was your daughter who was returned to you, Bapa? Maybe it was another baby, born to some poor peasant in the countryside.”

The
diwan
shook his head vigorously. “But you have your grandfather’s blue eyes. You have his smile. You have your brother Abul’s stubborn spine.”

“And of you, do I have nothing of you?”

“My wisdom.”

She laughed then, the sound spilling over the silence of the
shikar
grounds. “And of Maji?”

Ghias thought of his wife. “Maji gave you her gentleness, her soft speech, her kindness.”

“Do I have anything of me, Bapa?” They played this game each time he told her the story. Of late he seemed to tell her the story more often, marveling at how far they had come. He would say that he had had four gold
mohurs
tucked into his cummerbund the day she was born. The day he gave her away, his cummerbund was empty. The moment she came back, their hearts were full, their lives brimming with wealth.

“You have in you the ability to be anything you want,
beta.
”

She drew back to glance at her father. Ghias had never ended the story this way before. For the first time, he told her she could do what she wanted.

“Your Majesty,” the Mir Shikar said. They both turned to see him standing there, holding a loaded matchlock.

Mehrunnisa rose from the carpet. Her tears were gone, and in the half-light from the torches dug into the ground, she knew her face would show nothing. “I must practice now, Bapa.”