The Twentieth Wife (12 page)

“Mehrunnisa, I have found a bridegroom for you,” Ghias said abruptly.

“Oh.” Her hands left her lap to grasp the edge of the bench, her fingers clutching, slipping against the smooth stone. This could not be happening. Was she to be married already? What of Salim?

“He is a very handsome man, a brave soldier, a prince among princes.”

Mehrunnisa glanced up quickly, hope filling her. A prince? Surely, Ghias could not be talking of . . .

“His name is Ali Quli Khan Istajlu. Like us, he is from Persia. It is our good fortune that the Emperor himself has commanded this marriage. We are again given an opportunity to serve him. . . .” Ghias continued in the same vein, but Mehrunnisa heard him no more.

She stared unseeingly into the darkening garden. She was to be married to a common soldier. Gone were the dreams of being an Empress, of ruling the great Mughal Empire. How absurd her fantasies had been. They had been childhood dreams, better left in childhood.

Somewhere, far away, she could hear the lamplighters greeting each other in the street. The once pleasant perfume from the opening
rath-ki-rani,
Queen of the Night flowers, now hung stifling in the humid night air. The crickets had begun their incessant chirping,
sounding unnaturally loud in the silent courtyard. Her father droned on in the background.

“Mehrunnisa?”

She was suddenly aware that Ghias had finished talking and was looking at her expectantly. “You have not said anything, my dear.”

“Can I say no?”

Ghias frowned. “Have you been talking with your mother?”

“What does Maji have to do with this? I am the one who is to be married to a soldier,” Mehrunnisa said bitterly. “Why? . . .”
Why could it not be Salim?

Ghias stared at her until she lowered her eyes. “It would seem I was too indulgent with you, Nisa, have given you too many liberties. But in this matter there will be no argument. It is not your choice who you marry. I am telling you of the
rishta;
most fathers would not even have done this.”

With every word, Mehrunnisa felt shame and guilt flood over her. She had addressed her Bapa without respect. Ghias had never before spoken to her like this; he always hid his anger well.

“I shall do whatever you want.”

“Don’t you want to know more about your bridegroom, my dear?” Ghias asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

A flash of pain crossed Ghias’s features, so Mehrunnisa forced a smile on her face and added, “I do want to know, Bapa. Perhaps later. All this . . . it is so sudden.”

Ghias leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Yes. It is not every day a girl gets such a wonderful proposal of marriage. We are very lucky,
beta.”
He drew back. “Now go see that dinner is readied. I am hungry.”

Mehrunnisa wanted to fling her arms around her father’s neck and plead with him. Was it decided already? Just like that? Was the
rishta
fixed? Was there no turning back from it? When she looked at her father, his expression was forbidding. She could ask other questions—about
her husband-to-be—but not these. She rose tiredly from the bench. Her father’s voice stopped her. “You can tell your Maji that I will call upon Ali Quli tomorrow to discuss the marriage.”

“Yes, Bapa.”

Mehrunnisa stumbled to the verandah in a daze, her heart filling with despair. She turned back to glance at her father.

Ghias sat motionless on the bench, his shoulders hunched, a dissatisfied look on his face.

•   •   •

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Mehrunnisa went to the royal palace as usual to pay her respects to Ruqayya Sultan Begam. It seemed everyone knew of her pending engagement to Ali Quli. The guards at the
zenana
gate, tough Kashmiri ladies, smiled at her knowingly. The eunuchs giggled and called out Ali Quli’s name as she walked through the courtyard, and the slave girls smirked as she passed. Mehrunnisa ignored all the well-meant jibes and went swiftly to the Padshah Begam’s palace. Ruqayya was being attended to by three slave girls, who were massaging her body with perfumed oils.

“So, what do you think of your bridegroom?” Ruqayya demanded, lifting herself on an elbow.

“I have not seen him yet, your Majesty.”

“Of course not. No self-respecting girl sees her husband before the engagement. But tell me, what do you think of my choice?”

“Your
choice, your Majesty?” Mehrunnisa lifted surprised eyes at the Empress.

“Yes.” Ruqayya laughed with abandon, her plump face round with glee. “Have I not made a good selection?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” she replied in a low voice. So the Empress was behind the decision. Why? And why had Ruqayya not told her of this earlier?

“It is high time you got married, my dear. Ali Quli is a little older than you are, but he will mold you into the perfect wife. And he is a
soldier. Perhaps when he goes on campaign, he will leave you here with me,” Ruqayya said.

Now Mehrunnisa knew why Ruqayya had made such a choice. Her instincts, although charitable, were also somewhat selfish.

“I shall always be at your command, your Majesty.”

“Yes.” Ruqayya lay back and closed her eyes. She reached out for Mehrunnisa’s hand. “Now you shall always be with me. It is a good
rishta,
Mehrunnisa. The Emperor himself wants it.”

“I thought you . . .” Mehrunnisa started.

“What the Emperor wants, I want.” Ruqayya looked hard at her. “Are you unhappy? Is there someone else your heart fancies?”

“No, your Majesty. Of course not,” Mehrunnisa said quickly, turning away.

Ruqayya’s sharp gaze burned through her back. The Empress was very shrewd.

“Mehrunnisa,” Ruqayya said gently. “This is for the best.”

Mehrunnisa said nothing, busying herself with folding a veil that lay nearby. Ruqayya would never guess. It was unthinkable to the Empress that Mehrunnisa would want Prince Salim.

A few days later, Mah Banu, wife of the Khan-i-khanan Abdur Rahim, standing in as Ali Quli’s mother, came to Ghias Beg’s house with gifts for the bride and her family. Servants brought in brass trays loaded with silks, satins, and jewels of all kinds.

Mehrunnisa sat through the engagement ceremony in a stupor, a gold
zari
-embroidered pink veil covering her face. One look at her future husband had been enough. Ali Quli had come striding into the room full of battlefield bravado. He was a tall man, much taller than her father, but to see them side by side, one would think they were the same age. Ali Quli was only six years younger than Ghias. But there the resemblance ended. Ali Quli was every inch a soldier from his sunburned skin, unkempt beard, and harsh laugh to his callused hands more used to holding a mace or sword than a book of poems.

She watched her dreams slipping away as Ghias Beg solemnly promised to wed her to the brave soldier Ali Quli Khan Istajlu. All through the ceremony her father studiously kept his gaze from meeting hers.

•   •   •

P
RINCE
S
ALIM LIFTED
his turban and wiped his forehead with a camphor-doused handkerchief. There was not even the slightest breeze. He put a hand up to shade his eyes and looked at the sun. Two o’clock—the middle of the afternoon. He closed his eyes wearily. Why had he allowed himself to be persuaded into this?

“We shall be there soon, your Highness.”

Salim turned to Jagat Gosini. “Why couldn’t you have chosen the evening? It is much cooler then.”

“Now is the best time, my lord. Her Majesty, Ruqayya Sultan Begam, will be taking her nap, and we can spend some time alone with our son.”

“All right,” Salim mumbled, dragging his feet. He had drunk too much wine in the morning as usual and was feeling queasy in the heat. His head ached. The attendants who followed the royal couple were talking too loudly; their laughter grated on his nerves.

He would not have agreed to his wife’s suggestion if the Emperor himself had not hinted that he was being remiss in his fatherly duties. Salim grimaced. The Emperor was not as quick to point out his responsibilities to his other two sons, Khusrau and Parviz, only to Khurram. For it was Khurram whom Akbar saw most often, since he spent most of his time in Ruqayya’s apartments.

Since Akbar’s near-fatal brush with colic two years earlier, the Emperor could hardly look at Salim without suspicion. And though Salim felt remorse every time he considered that his father might have died as a result of Humam’s overzealousness, discontent still plagued him. He still had an undeniable, deep yearning to feel the weight of the crown on his head. Salim tried to be with his father
and learn from him, but between them hung the slivered threads of a shattered relationship, fragile as a broken cobweb. Between them also were Salim’s courtiers—Mahabat, Qutubuddin, Sayyid—men he had known since childhood, men he had known better than his own father. It was hard to resist them, or their influence.

Salim’s shoulders slouched as the entourage entered the silent courtyard outside Ruqayya’s apartments. He caught the flutter of white muslin through the corner of his eye and stopped short, lifting his head for a better look.

Ya Allah! Was he in Paradise? Words from the Holy Book came unbidden to his mind: “The believers shall find themselves reclining upon couches lined with brocade, the fruits of the garden nigh to gather; and will find therein maidens restraining their glances, untouched before them by any man or Jinn, lovely as rubies, beautiful as coral.”

She was all that and more. He stared at her, his gaze riveted, everything else fading around her. His attendants, chattering among themselves, fell silent, and glanced at him with curiosity. Jagat Gosini lifted a hand to Salim’s arm, but he was already moving forward, leaving her standing under the wide stone arch.

Salim tiptoed into the courtyard. He was afraid to make any sudden movement, afraid that she would fly away, and he would wake to find it all a dream.

The girl sat on the edge of a goldfish pond, her feet dangling in the water. It was a heat-smothered day, but the courtyard was cool. The stone floor was chilled by a running stream of water underneath, falling into pools dispersed artistically around the courtyard. Lotus flowers and lilies bloomed white and red in the reservoirs, and huge
banyan
trees provided shade. The hush was broken by the soothing drone of bees and the musical tinkle of water rushing through the channels.

Salim moved forward softly until he was by her side. He stood
looking down at a glossy black head of hair and long eyelashes against a porcelain-smooth cheek. A pink rose lay against her nape, its stem lost in her hair. It perfumed the air around them.

“Who are you, beautiful lady?”

Menhrunnisa looked up, startled.

Salim fell headlong in love with a pair of surprised blue eyes.

Mehrunnisa rose hastily, splashing water on Salim. A deep flush spread over her face and neck as she stood before him, slim and proud, her back straight.

Salim looked her over from the top of her head to her feet, the nails painted red with henna and still wet from the pool. His gaze moved slowly up, skirting the pleats of her long
ghagara,
spangled with shimmering white stars, past her waist hidden under the folds of a white chiffon veil, over the curve of her shoulders. Blood rushed to his ears as he saw the pulse fluttering at the slender throat partially hidden under a shroud of hair.

“I beg pardon, your Highness,” Mehrunnisa said in a low voice, so low that Salim had to strain his ears to catch the words. The musical tones enchanted him even more.

He reached for her hand, but she pulled away from him, turning her face as she did so.

“Don’t you know who I am?” he demanded.

“Yes, sire.”

“Your Highness.” Jagat Gosini came up to Salim, her face set in unyielding lines.

“Who is she?” Salim asked, still looking at Mehrunnisa. She had turned back to him now.

“The daughter of some lowly courtier, I believe,” Jagat Gosini said. “Who is your father, girl?”

The two women stared at each other, neither willing to break eye contact. Mehrunnisa smiled, a quick curving of her lips. “But your Highness knows who I am. We met once in these gardens.”

“Did we?” the princess said disdainfully. “I do not remember.”

“Ah, but you must remember, your Highness.” Mehrunnisa’s voice was brittle, each word enunciated carefully. Again that insult to her Bapa. Somewhere in her mind was the advice of caution, of not speaking rashly to Jagat Gosini. But anger overcame all that advice. “I look after Prince Khurram, Empress Ruqayya’s son.”

“My
son!”

Mehrunnisa turned toward Ruqayya’s apartments, the windows shaded under the
banyan.
“Yes, forgive me. Your son, of course. It’s only that he calls the Empress ‘ma.’ ”

Salim watched this interchange in bewilderment, looking from Mehrunnisa to Jagat Gosini. An admiration rose in him for this beautiful woman who sparred so brilliantly with his wife. She had courage. Few people dared to talk with his second wife in this manner. Who was she? How had he not seen her before?

He said quietly to Jagat Gosini, “Leave us, my dear. I wish to talk with her.”

Jagat Gosini flushed and drew herself up. “We must go to our son now, your Highness.”

“Go. I will meet you later.”

But the princess stood where she was.

Salim nodded with a sigh, realizing what he had just said to her. He watched as Mehrunnisa bowed to both of them and turned to leave. “What is your name?”

Mehrunnisa shook her head and walked away from them.

Salim took a step toward her, then stopped, torn between her and Jagat Gosini. He would find her again. Every woman in the royal
zenana
was accounted for. If she was not a member of the harem, the guards would know who she was and where she came from. A petal from the rose in her hair lay on the ground. Salim bent and picked it up, cradling it in the palm of his hand as though it were a precious jewel.

The petal fell from Salim’s hand into the pool. He watched as a goldfish came to nibble at it curiously.