The Twentieth Wife (25 page)

“But if the Emperor dies? What then?”

“The Emperor will definitely name Prince Salim heir before he dies. His Majesty is well aware of his duties and responsibilities to the empire. If Khusrau fights the decision, there will be unnecessary bloodshed, and people will die fighting a lost cause, for Salim is the stronger of the two,” Mehrunnisa replied.

“Khusrau has Raja Man Singh on his side. Do not forget that the Raja is probably the most seasoned soldier in the whole empire: a skirmish between Salim and Khusrau will only end in Salim’s defeat.”

“But what of the people? And the other nobles at court? Do you think they will allow interference with the laws of succession the Chagatai Turks have followed for centuries?”

“Well . . .” Ali Quli demurred. He had not thought of the other nobles. True, Mirza Koka and Raja Man Singh were two of the most powerful nobles at court, but there were others whose support was necessary. Ali Quli flushed. Why couldn’t his wife be like other men’s wives? They were ready to follow their husband’s initiative without question; why not Mehrunnisa?

“Mirza Koka is even now canvassing the other nobles at court for their support. They will certainly favor our cause,” he said defiantly.

“Khusrau will clearly lose,” Mehrunnisa said, wanting to shout at him for being so obtuse. If Ali Quli had been less of a soldier and
more of a statesman, he would have seen the situation as impossible. How could a man who was so brave in battle be so stupid in all other aspects of life? Short of killing Prince Salim, there was no way that Khusrau would ascend the throne, and even if he did, he would not hold it long. “It is best to remain neutral at this time. We must wait and see how the events progress, my lord.”

“No!” Ali Quli said. “I have decided. My support will be for Prince Khusrau. That is the end of the matter.”

As he was leaving he turned again. “I did not come to you for advice, Mehrunnisa, merely to inform you of what I was doing. Even that seems to have been unnecessary—” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth. “Keep quiet and listen. Confine your interests to the house and the children you are supposed to have. This is man’s work. Just because you cannot fulfill your responsibilities as a woman does not mean you can interfere in this issue.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Mehrunnisa said. His words tore at her heart.

“I will talk to you as I wish. I am your husband. I know your father is a powerful courtier; I know he is respected by the Emperor. But it is under my roof you live. You are my wife, not anymore your father’s daughter. Is that clear?”

She stared angrily at him, despising him at that moment more than she ever had, every childhood lesson on being obedient to her husband forgotten. Ali Quli bent over her, took the book from her hands, and kissed her palms, one after the other. “It is good to see that you do not cringe at my touch.”

He stalked out of the room.

When he had gone, Mehrunnisa fell slowly onto the carpet, holding her hands in front of her. She spat on them and rubbed them furiously on the pile, erasing the memory of his touch. Then she collapsed and lay there, her hair shrouding her face. Her tears came unchecked, blocking her breathing, tiring her immeasurably. An
hour later she was still lying on the carpet, its pattern imprinted on her wet cheek. There was no turning back from this marriage, no escape from this life. It had to go on. She had to go on: one step in front of another, a smile on her face on family occasions.

Mehrunnisa turned and lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She touched her belly lightly through the top of her
ghagara;
then she put her hand inside and touched her skin. Five weeks now—and every day she watched for blood. Five weeks, and she had not told Ali Quli.

Her hand still on her belly, she thought of the man she was tied to. Three years ago, when Prince Salim had left Mewar to try and capture the treasury, Ali Quli had walked away from him at Agra, leaving the prince to go to Allahabad with the army. That had been a prudent move. It would have been unwise to defy the Emperor for the prince—even though in her heart, for all his mistakes, her loyalty skewed toward Salim. And it still was unwise to defy Akbar. For Mehrunnisa knew, from her conversations at the royal
zenana
and from the hints the ladies dropped, that despite all Salim might have done in the past, Akbar firmly supported him over Khusrau. To the Emperor, Khusrau was still very much a nonentity, a child, more a pest than a real threat. He could not countenance putting Khusrau on the throne over Salim, so he ignored him, even though the young prince was at court. But, Mehrunnisa thought, Salim still needed to be here at Agra to show himself. It was foolish to be away from the capital at this time.

Mehrunnisa rose from the floor as a sudden wave of nausea hit her. She ran outside to the courtyard and threw up her morning meal of
chappatis
and ducks’ eggs. Her stomach churned as she wiped her mouth against the foul smell. She stayed in the courtyard for a long time, not caring that a passing servant would see her leaning against the pillar, trembling and shivering.
Please Allah, please, let this one live. Let me fulfill my responsibility as a woman. Let me be a
woman.
For she knew she would never be considered one until she had a child.

Two weeks later, Prince Salim returned to Agra from Allahabad, as though in response to a silent summons from Mehrunnisa. He was received again in the
Diwan-i-am
by the Emperor. Again, Akbar took off his imperial turban in front of the whole assembly and placed it on Salim’s head. It was a warning to onlookers, especially to Raja Man Singh and Mirza Aziz Koka and eventually to all of Khusrau’s supporters, including Ali Quli. Akbar was ailing—of that there was no doubt—but he had risen from his sickbed to greet Salim in front of everyone.

This open show of affection sent the Khusrau faction into near panic.

This annoyed Akbar more; but his excitement was intensified, when at that moment Khursaw came up, and abused in unmeasured terms his father in the presence of the emperor. Akbar withdrew, and sent next morning for Ali, to whom he said that the vexation caused by Khursaw’s bad behaviour had made him ill.

—H. Blochmann and H. S. Jarrett, trans.,
Ain-i-Akbari

I
N
1605,
SUMMER CAME TO
Agra in a blaze of bright days. For months the Indo-Gangetic plains baked in the heat of an unforgiving sun. Rivers dried to a mere trickle, exposing huge, sandy, pebbly beds on either side. Fishermen despaired of making a living, and farmers watched the empty, cloudless skies with anxious eyes as the paddy fields became parched, leaving the seedlings yellow and limp. Even the river Yamuna, which flowed through the city in wide, smooth, clear-glass curves, became sluggish and muddy for want of the rains. The summer monsoons were late as usual; this year it seemed they would not come.

At the royal palaces in Agra, life went on with a semblance of normality. A hush had descended over the empire since Prince Salim’s return to Agra two uneasy months earlier. Akbar took to his bed more often now, rarely attending the daily
darbars
at the
Diwan-i-am,
and when the Emperor did make an appearance, he shocked courtiers and onlookers by the increasing pallor of his face and his gaunt, stooped bearing. The end was near. Even Akbar seemed to know it. So he made Salim sit next to the royal throne on a special
gaddi,
on his right, proclaiming his claim to the empire. Standing farther down, much farther down, was usually a fuming Khusrau.

The hot summer days passed slowly, listlessly. Within the
zenana
walls, gossips chattered at every corner—maids, slave girls, guards, eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting, ancillary aunts, cousins, daughters, wives, and concubines. No one even bothered to be circumspect anymore. Yet, all their lives depended on who ascended the throne. If it was Salim, his immediate harem of wives would rule the
zenana
; if Khusrau, then his wife, the daughter of Mirza Aziz Koka. It was a thought to be shuddered at. Surely Khusrau’s time had not come. And among all these women sat Ruqayya Sultan Begam. As Akbar’s Padshah Begam, she had the most to lose. Not only would her husband die, she would be relegated to the position of a Dowager Empress. There would perhaps be small luxuries still to be enjoyed—she would be allowed to keep her royal palace, her servants, even her income—but there would be no power any more. It would be an empty title, an impotent palace, and with it would come decreasing respect.

All that would go to Salim’s chief wife, Princess Jagat Gosini.

Only Mehrunnisa knew how much the Padshah Begam loathed the idea of Jagat Gosini taking her place in the imperial
zenana.
Mehrunnisa watched Ruqayya pine for her husband, for her position in the
zenana,
and for Khurram, who spent large parts of each day by his grandfather’s bed, reading to him, talking with him, or merely holding his hand as he napped. It was heart-wrenching to see young Khurram so gentle with Akbar, whom he knew better than either of his parents. During Salim’s absences on campaign at Mewar and at his estates at Allahabad, Khurram had continued to stay with Ruqayya in the harem.

Mehrunnisa kept away from the intrigues as much as she could, even though she visited the
zenana
every day. Of Salim she saw very little, for outside his public appearances at the daily
darbar,
he did
not come to the
zenana
very much. Everyone—even the emperor, it seemed—was waiting for something to happen. And that something happened one scorching summer day as the sun sloped in the west, sending burning rays into the city of Agra.

Irritated by the constant tension between Salim and Khusrau, Akbar commanded them to set up an elephant fight in the main courtyard of the Lal Qila. The courtyard was a large ground of flattened mud, bare of vegetation, in the northern corner of the fort. By three o’clock in the afternoon, the courtyard was packed with spectators and supporters of both the princes, dressed in their best finery. Jewels blazed on ears, arms, and wrists. The men, commoners and courtiers, filled three sides, and on the fourth side a marble pavilion stood raised from the ground, long and cool. The stone of the pillars and the floor was inlaid with flowers and leaves in lapis lazuli, carnelian, and jasper. It had sharply angled
chajjas
—eaves that rushed rainwater down and away from the flat roof of the pavilion, and four octagonal towers topped with beaten copper that gleamed orange in the light of the dying sun. The Emperor’s throne, also of marble, was built into the pavilion under the
chajjas,
protecting him from the water and the heat. One end of the pavilion was covered with a fine marble netting, the stone mesh slimmer than a woman’s finger in some places. The entire screen had been built from a single slab of marble. This was where the imperial
zenana,
safe behind the screen and therefore unveiled, had come for the event.

Mehrunnisa stood a little behind Ruqayya Sultan Begam, her hands clasped in front of her. Ruqayya sat in her usual arrogant style, leaning back on the divan cushions, the pipe of the
hukkah
smoking gently in her hand, her eyes watchful as ever. To her right sat Princess Jagat Gosini. The two women had barely acknowledged each other’s presence when Ruqayya came into the pavilion. Jagat Gosini had risen along with the other women. But there was resistance in every bone and with every bend of her head to perform the
konish,
and she seemed to make it clear that one day, very soon, it would be Ruqayya who would do this for her. Mehrunnisa, Jagat Gosini seemed to ignore.

Now the Empress leaned forward to look at Akbar through the screen, and with her Mehrunnisa looked too. For once the Emperor looked rested; he had had a good night. When he smiled, as he did at the twelve-year-old boy sitting next to him, his face lit up with its old charm, and Mehrunnisa sensed Ruqayya relaxing by her side. Seeing his grandfather smile at him, Prince Khurram reached out for his hand and kissed it. Akbar’s eyes filled with tears as he shakily patted Khurram’s head. The prince leaned into the Emperor. Then, as a gust of wind blew dust into the royal verandah, Khurram’s nose twitched, and he turned away to sneeze.

Behind the screen, the hands of both Ruqayya and Jagat Gosini went to their blouses, and they both pulled out silk handkerchiefs.

“Ma!” Khurram said, looking toward the harem, holding his hand to his nose.

“Here,
beta
.” Ruqayya signaled to a slave girl, who proffered her handkerchief to the prince through the gaps in the marble screen.

Khurram blew his nose, tucked the silk into the sleeve of his short coat, then said, “Thank you, Ma.”

Mehrunnisa watched as Jagat Gosini flinched and slowly put her handkerchief back into her blouse. The princess was trying not to attract attention, but every woman in the harem enclosure had seen that involuntary action in response to Khurram’s sneeze. Jagat Gosini sat frozen, her face immobile, washed with hatred. In the past few years, as Akbar and Salim seemed to come to a tentative accord and then break from each other again, the Emperor had asked Ruqayya to let Khurram spend more time with Princess Jagat Gosini as a gesture of goodwill. Ruqayya had agreed, but only reluctantly, still fiercely possessive of the boy she had brought up as her own. So Khurram knew that Jagat Gosini was the woman who had
given birth to him, while Ruqayya was “Ma.” He was a respectful child, so he treated the princess with courtesy, with affection, with respect. But his love belonged to Ruqayya, and as the months passed, Jagat Gosini was also painfully aware of this.