Wild Jasmine (26 page)

Akbar was not so trusting this time. “You always say that you regret your bad behavior, Shaikho Baba, but I note you only regret it when you are caught and brought to account for that behavior.”

“It is true, my father,” Salim admitted, squeezing a few more tears from his eyes. “I seem slow to learn, but this time
I swear I have done so. Never again will you have cause to chastise me.”

“What kind of a ruler will you be,” Akbar wondered aloud, “if you constantly give in to your own desires over the knowledge of what is good and right? Power is a gift, my son, but use that gift for ill rather than good, and eventually you will find your power taken from you. I have built this country province by province using all kinds of methods to gain my ends. Some pieces of land have cost me in the blood of my fighting men. Others I have won with the virgin blood of former enemies’ daughters or sisters whom I have taken to wife.

“No ruler ever maintains total peace, Salim, and so he must be at peace with himself at least. The religious war constantly for men’s souls and for the power it brings them. The Mughals and the Rajputs are never entirely comfortable with one another. The different castes struggle against each other. Now the Europeans have come, and I must balance them along with all the rest. It has never been easy, Shaikho Baba, but I have maintained control by virtue of my own self-discipline. This is a strength that you seem to have difficulty marshaling.”

“I really will try harder, Father, I promise you,” Salim said, his voice dripping with sincerity.

Akbar laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. Then he said, “And I will help you, Shaikho Baba, as I have always helped you.” He signaled to the two guards who had brought Salim to him and had been discreetly awaiting his direction. “You have your orders,” the emperor said. “Take the prince now.”

Salim flung himself at his father’s feet, his heart pounding. Had he finally gone too far? “Father!” he cried out, frightened. “Do you mean to murder me?”

Akbar looked pityingly at his eldest child. “No, Shaikho Baba. I will not harm you, but for your own salvation you will be locked away with my physician and two servants until such a time as I truly believe you have indeed repented your evil ways.”

Salim looked to his mother, and when she smiled reassuringly, he let himself be led off, for of one thing he was certain. Jodh Bai had never in his life lied to him. So he was to be incarcerated for a brief time. It would not be difficult to endure, and then his father would be satisfied.

Salim quickly found, however, that his imprisonment was not to be one of luxurious restraint. He was brought to a marble
bathroom which had been outfitted with several pallets for sleeping and nothing more. The food brought him was simple. Rice. Boiled chicken. Fresh fruit. Bread.
There was no wine
.

“I want wine,” he demanded of his captors.

“The emperor has ordered that your system be purged of all evil humors, my lord,” the physician, Sali-Vahan, told him. “He believes that wine and opiates cause a rotting of the brain. Your younger brother, Prince Murad, died of an excess of wine; and your youngest brother, Prince Daniyal, is so addicted to wine that he sees things that others do not see. Some of them are quite frightening, I am told. You may have either water or hot tea to drink.”

“
Wine!
” shouted Salim. “
I demand you bring me wine!
”

The two servants restrained the prince, pinning him to his pallet as he first raved and demanded, then wept and tried to cajole, and finally threatened them with the most horrible of tortures if they did not instantly obey him. Dr. Sali-Vahan sat cross-legged next to his patient and began reading to him from the Koran.

For the next few days Salim alternated between anger and despair. Self-pity overwhelmed him for a time as, forced to face himself, he felt serious guilt over Man Bai’s death. He wept for her, and he wept for himself. He thought of Khusrau, their son. He remembered the tears of joy she had cried upon his birth, proud to have given her husband a healthy son and heir. He recalled how loyal Man Bai had always been to him. He always came first with her. Once when he had been angry over some slight he imagined his father had given him, she had said, “Your father is India, Salim. One day you will be India and you will do things differently.” There was a lesson to be learned here.
India must come first
. Man Bai had said it, and his father had said it.
It had to be right
.

Jodh Bai came to visit her son and was shocked by his drawn appearance. “What has happened to him?” she demanded of the doctor.

“Do not worry yourself, gracious lady,” Dr. Sali-Vahan told the prince’s mother. “He had become dependent upon the delights of wine, and now that it has been taken from him, his body rebels. Soon both he and it will be in concert once again. When that happens, he will gain weight and be well.”

“I will die from this treatment, Mother,” Salim complained. “If I could just have but a tiny sip of wine to strengthen me.”

Reassured by the physician, Jodh Bai was not taken in by
her son’s plea. “Wine is not good for you, Salim. We all know it.” Then she said brightly, “Preparations have already begun for your father’s fiftieth-year celebration. Yasaman and her husband are coming from Kashmir for the event.”

“
Yasaman is coming?
” Salim’s eyes visibly brightened.

“Yes,” his mother told him. “You want to be well and healthy for your sister, don’t you? She would be very distressed to see you in this condition. I know you will be pleased to learn that her marriage to Prince Jamal is a very happy one.” Jodh Bai looked closely at her son, wondering if he still harbored a secret passion for his sister, as Rugaiya Begum had once claimed he did. Salim, however, showed only brotherly interest in the fact that Yasaman was coming.

“It will be good to see my little sister,” he told his mother. “I look forward to meeting her husband. If my little monkey loves him, then he must be a good young man.”

Jodh Bai was satisfied that whatever romantic notions Salim had once entertained for his half sister were now gone. “Tell me, Doctor,” she asked the physician, “may the other ladies of the zenana visit with my son?”

“I think their visits would do him good, gracious lady,” the doctor agreed.

Shortly thereafter, Akbar found himself assailed each time he visited the women’s quarters by his wives, his daughters, his various female relatives, and his slave women. They pleaded with him to release Salim from his incarceration. The prince had at last learned his lesson, they argued. Too much more of the harsh treatment, and he would be a broken man. He must be released, the women chorused daily to the emperor.

Finally Akbar gave in, for he was weary of their constant pleas and growing short-tempered with their inability to comprehend that what he was doing to Salim, he was doing for his own good. The prince was paroled in the company of Dr. Sali-Vahan and rowed across the river Yamuna to his own palace, where he was, his father told him, to live in peace and sobriety or be disinherited. One more incident, the Mughal warned his heir, was all it would take. Salim swore he was a reformed man. Akbar, nonetheless, kept his eldest son under surveillance.

He need not have bothered, for having been forced to regain control of himself, Salim meant to remain in control, because his time was coming. The women in the zenana had been quite chatty. His father was not well at all, although he strove to hide it. Soon, Salim thought, I will be the Mughal.
And
Yasaman was coming!
He did not want to be like his youngest brother, Daniyal, who was now so addicted to wine that despite his attempts to give it up, he could not do so. A man not in control of himself could not enjoy the power of the Mughal.
And Yasaman would be disgusted by a drunkard
.

The delegation from Kashmir arrived in Agra the first week in March. They were housed in a guest house within the palace grounds. Their quarters overlooked the Yamuna River and had terraced gardens that descended to the water. Jamal Khan was astounded by Agra, for he had lived his entire life in Kashmir and had never seen a great city. Kashmir’s own capital of Srinagar could not begin to compare to Agra.

It was a very ancient town, having been in existence in one form or another for over a thousand years. The major portion of the city was located on the east bank of the river and was made up of three- and four-story buildings. It was densely populated, and its streets were dirty. The warm climate encouraged whatever lay rotting in the streets to quickly become odoriferous. There were no city walls, but Agra was surrounded by a wide moat, and entry to it could only be gained by six gateways that had been erected by Akbar.

Every sort of business operated within the city. There were artisans of all kinds, iron workers, jewelers, miniaturists, goldsmiths and merchants who sold anything a person could desire. There were bazaars and shops of every description. The traffic, both two-footed and four-footed, was crowded and constantly on the move.

Yasaman hated it. Jamal Khan, however, was mightily impressed; and suddenly very aware of the total power his father-in-law wielded. He had never before realized Akbar’s true strength. Now he was certain he should be a little afraid of this man who welcomed him so warmly, calling him “my son.”

Jamal was particularly impressed by the great red sandstone fort that Akbar had caused to be built on the west bank of the river. It had been erected on the foundations of an older fort. The Mughal himself proudly showed his son-in-law the structure.

“The foundations go very deep, and the outer walls are nine feet in thickness,” he told the Kashmiri prince.

“How high are the walls?” the younger man asked, craning his neck to look up.

“One hundred and eighty feet,” Akbar said. “They are utterly
impossible to breach, and there are only two gates: a private gate on the south side for the family, and the public Delhi Gate on the west.”

Jamal Khan admired the Delhi Gate, which was made up of two octagonal-shaped towers separated by an archway. The interior side of the gate had a beautiful facade with arcaded terraces above it, and soaring pinnacles, and kiosks atop the terraces. It was all highly decorated with patterns of white marble inlaid in the red sandstone. Above the gates the walls rose rife with battlements, breastworks, and loopholes for archers.

Red sandstone from Fatahpur-Sikri and gray stone from nearby Delhi had been used in the construction of the fort. It was surrounded by a moat sixty feet wide and thirty feet deep. Within the walls were five hundred separate buildings in the styles of Bengal and Gujarat. They housed the government and the court.

“I have never seen anything like this,” Jamal Khan told his father-in-law. “It is magnificent!”

“Yasaman hates it,” Akbar told him. “She has never really liked Agra, which is why she has spent most of her time in Lahore or Kashmir. She seems to have inherited her mother’s constitution and dislikes the hot, sticky weather we have here in Agra.”

“Yasaman does not like cities at all, I have discovered,” Jamal Khan replied.

Akbar smiled at the young man and said, “Have you fallen in love with my daughter, Jamal Khan? When you speak of her, a soft look creeps onto your face and your voice is somehow different.”

The prince flushed beneath his golden skin. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I do love her, my lord.” Then he smiled and a small chuckle escaped him. “I certainly must love her. Did you ever hear the tale of how Yasaman sold off my zenana women?”

Akbar burst out laughing. “No,” he said, “I did not hear that story, but I cannot deny that it sounds just like the sort of thing she would do, my son.”

“Yes, my lord. That sweet innocent you gave me as a wife can be a fierce, wild creature,” Jamal Khan said. “You did not tell me that when you dangled her beauty before me. Oh, yes, I love her!”

“Tell me about the sale of your zenana women,” Akbar said.

Jamal Khan proceeded to do so, first describing in detail
each woman and her sexual prowess. When he finished, the emperor was laughing harder than ever.

“She used the profit to decorate her rooms!” he wheezed, delighted. “Her mother, Candra, had just as hot and spicy a temper,” he told his son-in-law. “Ahh, I miss her!” Then he grew suddenly silent as sadness crept into his dark eyes.

For a moment Jamal Khan feared he had somehow offended the emperor. He did not know what to say.

The Grand Mughal broke the spell. “You will bring Yasaman to see me tonight? My son, Salim, will be with me. You have not yet met Salim. If you are to be the Imperial Mughal governor in Kashmir, you and Salim must like each other.”

“I am certain we shall,” Jamal Khan assured the emperor. “Yasaman loves him very much, and how can I fail to like someone whom my beloved so adores? With your permission, my gracious lord, I will pledge my fealty not only to you, but to Prince Salim as well.”

“It is good,” Akbar said, nodding.

In the evening, Yasaman, gowned in a rich, deep purple sari banded in gold, a necklace of large amethysts set in gold about her neck, went with her husband to visit her father. All of the Mughal’s wives, surviving children, and grandchildren were also there. Yasaman was warmly welcomed, and her husband, particularly handsome and dressed all in white, was admired and fussed over. Rugaiya Begum beamed proudly as her daughter introduced Jamal Khan to her two elder sisters, Shahzad-Khanim Begum and Shukuran Nisa Begum, who had not been at her wedding nineteen months ago.

“He is beautiful, I will admit,” Salima Begum said, coming to stand by Rugaiya Begum, “but you should have been a grandmother long since.”

“Yasaman was just thirteen when they wed,” Rugaiya Begum reminded her fellow wife. “They waited a time before consummating the marriage.”

“Aiiiii!” Salima Begum sighed lustily. “The way he looks at her! Did Akbar ever look at any of us that way?”

“He looked at Jodh Bai and Candra that way,” Rugaiya Begum said, her tone amused. “I remember it well.”

“You remember the pain it caused in your heart,” Salima Begum said low. “It is always that way when a first wife loves her husband too well. You do, old friend, but then our dear
lord loves you back. He loves you enough to let you remain in Kashmir with Yasaman.”