The Enchantress of Florence (4 page)

In the melancholy after battle, as evening fell upon the empty dead, below the broken fortress melting into blood, within earshot of a little waterfall’s nightingale song—
bul-bul, bul-bul
it sang—the emperor in his brocade tent sipped watered wine and lamented his gory genealogy. He did not want to be like his bloodthirsty ancestors, even though his ancestors were the greatest men in history. He felt burdened by the names of the marauder past, the names from which his name descended in cascades of human blood: his grandfather Babar the warlord of Ferghana who had conquered, but always loathed, this new dominion, this “India” of too much wealth and too many gods, Babar the battle machine with an unexpected gift for felicitous words, and before Babar the murderous princes of Transoxiana and Mongolia, and mighty Temüjin above all—Genghis, Changez, Jenghis, or Chinggis Qan—thanks to whom he, Akbar, had to accept the name of
mughal,
had to be the
Mongol
he was not, or did not feel himself to be. He felt…
Hindustani.
His horde was neither Golden, Blue, nor White. The very word “horde” struck his subtle ears as ugly, swinish, coarse. He did not want hordes. He did not want to pour molten silver into the eyes of his vanquished foes or crush them to death beneath the platform upon which he was eating his dinner. He was tired of war. He remembered the tutor of his childhood, a Persian Mir, telling him that for a man to be at peace with himself he must be at peace with all others.
Sulh-i-kul,
complete peace. No Khan could understand such an idea. He did not want a Khanate. He wanted a country.

It wasn’t only Temüjin. He also sprang by direct descent from the loins of the man whose name was Iron. In the language of his forefathers the word for iron was
timur.
Timur-e-Lang, the limping iron man. Timur, who destroyed Damascus and Baghdad, who left Delhi in ruins, haunted by fifty thousand ghosts. Akbar would have preferred not to have had Timur for a forebear. He had stopped speaking Timur’s language, Chaghatai, named after one of the sons of Genghis Khan, and adopted, instead, at first Persian and later also the bastard mongrel speech of the army on the move,
urdu,
camp-language, in which half a dozen half-understood tongues jabbered and whistled and produced, to everyone’s surprise, a beautiful new sound: a poet’s language born out of soldiers’ mouths.

The Rana of Cooch Naheen, young, slender, and dark, had knelt at Akbar’s feet, his face hairless and bleeding, waiting for the blow to fall. “History repeats itself,” he said. “Your grandfather killed my grandfather seventy years ago.”

“Our grandfather,” replied the emperor, employing the royal plural according to custom, for this was not the time for his experiment with the singular, this wretch did not merit the privilege of witnessing it, “was a barbarian with a poet’s tongue. We, by contrast, are a poet with a barbarian’s history and a barbarian’s prowess in war, which we detest. Thus it is demonstrated that history does not repeat itself, but moves forward, and that Man is capable of change.”

“That is a strange remark for an executioner to make,” the young Rana said softly, “but it is futile to argue with Death.”

“Your time has come,” the emperor assented. “So tell us truthfully before you go, what sort of paradise do you expect to discover when you have passed through the veil?” The Rana raised his mutilated face and looked the emperor in the eye. “In Paradise, the words
worship
and
argument
mean the same thing,” he declared. “The Almighty is not a tyrant. In the House of God all voices are free to speak as they choose, and that is the form of their devotion.” He was an irritating, holier-than-thou type of youth, that was beyond question, but in spite of his annoyance, Akbar was moved. “We promise you,” the emperor said, “that we will build that house of adoration here on earth.” Then with a cry—
Allahu Akbar,
God is great, or, just possibly, Akbar is God—he chopped off the pompous little twerp’s cheeky, didactic, and therefore suddenly unnecessary, head.

In the hours after he killed the Rana, the emperor was possessed by his familiar demon of loneliness. Whenever a man spoke to him as an equal it drove him crazy, and this was a fault, he understood that, a king’s anger was always a fault, an angry king was like a god who made mistakes. And here was another contradiction in him. He was not only a barbarian philosopher and a crybaby killer, but also an egotist addicted to obsequiousness and sycophancy who nevertheless longed for a different world, a world in which he could find exactly that man who was his equal, whom he could meet as his brother, with whom he could speak freely, teaching and learning, giving and receiving pleasure, a world in which he could forsake the gloating satisfactions of conquest for the gentler yet more taxing joys of discourse. Did such a world exist? By what road could it be reached? Was there such a man anywhere in the world, or had he just executed him? What if the Rana of the mustache had been the only one? Had he just slain the only man on earth he might have loved? The emperor’s thoughts grew vinous and sentimental, his eyes blurring with drunken tears.

How could he become the man he wanted to be? The
akbar,
the great one? How?

There was nobody to talk to. He had ordered his stone-deaf body-servant Bhakti Ram Jain away, out of his tent, so that he could drink in peace. A body-servant who could not hear his master’s ramblings was a blessing but Bhakti Ram Jain had learned to read his lips now, which undid much of his value, making him an eavesdropper like everyone else.
The king is mad.
They said that: everyone said that. His soldiers his people his wives. Probably Bhakti Ram Jain said that as well. They did not say it to his face, for he was a giant of a man and a puissant warrior like a hero out of the ancient tales, and he was also the king of kings, and if such a one wished to be a little nutty then who were they to argue. The king, however, was not mad. The king was not content with being. He was striving to become.

Very well. He would keep his promise to the dead Kathiawari princeling. In the heart of his victory city he would build a house of adoration, a place of disputation where everything could be said to everyone by anyone on any subject, including the nonexistence of God and the abolition of kings. He would teach himself humility in that house. No, now he was being unfair to himself. Not “teach.” Rather, he would remind himself of, and recover, the humility that was already lodged deep in his heart. This humble Akbar was perhaps his best self, created by the circumstances of his childhood in exile, clothed now in adult grandeur but still present nonetheless; a self born not in victory but in defeat. Nowadays it was all victories but the emperor knew all about defeat. Defeat was his father. Its name was Humayun.

He didn’t like thinking about his father. His father had smoked too much opium, lost his empire, only got it back after he pretended to become a Shiite (and gave away the Koh-i-noor diamond) so that the King of Persia would give him an army to fight with, and then died by falling down a flight of library stairs almost immediately after he regained his throne. Akbar didn’t know his father. He himself had been born in Sind, after Humayun’s defeat at Chausa, when Sher Shah Suri became the king Humayun should have been but wasn’t capable of being, and then off the deposed emperor scurried to Persia, abandoning his son.
His fourteen-month-old son.
Who was found and raised by his father’s brother and enemy, Uncle Askari of Kandahar, wild man Uncle Askari who would have killed Akbar himself if he could ever have got close enough, which he didn’t, because his wife was always in the way.

Akbar lived, because his aunt wanted him to.

And in Kandahar he was taught about survival, about fighting and killing and hunting, and he learned much else without being taught, such as looking out for himself and watching his tongue and not saying the wrong thing, the thing that might get him killed. About the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlessness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defenses of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility, and good peripheral vision. The many lessons of lessness. The lessening from which growing could begin.

There were things, however, which nobody thought to teach him, and which he would never learn. “We are the Emperor of India, Bhakti Ram Jain, but we can’t write our own damn name,” he shouted at his body-servant at dawn, as the old man helped him with his ablutions.

“Yes, O most blessed entity, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, handing him a towel. This time, the hour of the king’s levee, was also the hour of imperial flattery. Bhakti Ram Jain proudly held the rank of Imperial Flatterer First Class, and was a master of the ornate, old-school style known as cumulative fawning. Only a man with an excellent memory for the baroque formulations of excessive encomia could fawn cumulatively, on account of the repetitions required and the necessary precision of the sequencing. Bhakti Ram Jain’s memory was unerring. He could fawn for hours.

The emperor saw his own face scowling back at him from his basin of warm water like an augury of doom. “We are the king of kings, Bhakti Ram Jain, but we can’t read our own laws. What do you say to that?” “Yes, O most just of judges, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, warming to his task.

“We are the Sublime Radiance, the Star of India, and the Sun of Glory,” said the emperor, who knew a thing or two about flattery himself, “yet we were raised in that shit-hole dump of a town where men fuck women to make babies but fuck boys to make them men—raised watching out for the attacker who worked from behind as well as the warrior straight ahead.”

“Yes, O dazzling light, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being, Sublime Radiance, Star of India, and Sun of Glory,” said Bhakti Ram Jain, who might have been deaf but who knew how to take a hint.

“Is that how a king should be raised, Bhakti Ram Jain?” the emperor roared, tipping over the basin in his wrath. “Illiterate, ass-guarding, savage—is that what a prince should be?”

“Yes, O wiser than the Wise, father of many sons, husband of many wives, monarch of the world, encompasser of the earth, ruler of all that is, bringer together of all being, Sublime Radiance, Star of India, Sun of Glory, master of human souls, forger of thy people’s destiny,” said Bhakti Ram Jain.

“You are pretending you can’t read the words on our lips,” the emperor shouted.

“Yes, O more insightful than the Seers, father of many—”

“You are a goat who should have his throat slit so that we can eat his meat for lunch.”

“Yes, O more merciful than the gods, father—”

“Your mother fucked a pig to make you.”

“Yes, O most articulate of all who articulate, f—”

“Never mind,” said the emperor. “We feel better now. Go away. You can live.”

{
4
}

And here again with bright silks flying

A
nd here again with bright silks flying like banners from red palace windows was Sikri, shimmering in the heat like an opium vision. Here at last with its strutting peacocks and dancing girls was home. If the war-torn world was a harsh truth then Sikri was a beautiful lie. The emperor came home like a smoker returning to his pipe. He was the Enchanter. In this place he would conjure a new world, a world beyond religion, region, rank, and tribe. The most beautiful women in the world were here and they were all his wives. The most brilliant talents in the land were assembled here, among them the Nine Stars, the nine most brilliant of the most brilliant, and with their help there was nothing he could not accomplish. With their help his wizardry would magick all the land, and the future, and all eternity. An emperor was a bewitcher of the real, and with such accomplices his witchcraft could not fail. The songs of Tansen could break open the seals of the universe and let divinity through into the everyday world. The poems of Faizi opened windows in the heart and mind through which both light and darkness could be seen. The governance of Raja Man Singh and the financial skills of Raja Todar Mal meant the empire’s business was in the best of hands. And then there was Birbal, the best of the nine who were the best of the best. His first minister, and first friend.

The first minister and greatest wit of the age greeted him at the Hiran Minar, the tower of elephants’ teeth. The emperor’s sense of mischief was aroused. “Birbal,” Akbar said, dismounting from his horse, “will you answer us one question? We have been waiting a long time to ask it.” The first minister of legendary wit and wisdom bowed humbly. “As you wish,
Jahanpanah,
Shelter of the World.” “Well then,” said Akbar, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Birbal replied at once, “The chicken.” Akbar was taken aback. “How can you be so sure?” he wanted to know. “
Huzoor,
” Birbal replied, “I only promised to answer one question.”

The first minister and the emperor were standing on the ramparts of the city looking out at the wheeling crows. “Birbal,” Akbar mused, “how many crows do you imagine there are in my kingdom?” “
Jahanpanah,
” Birbal replied, “there are exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.” Akbar was puzzled. “Suppose we have them counted,” he said, “and there are more than that, what then?” “That would mean,” Birbal replied, “that their friends from the neighboring kingdom have come to visit them.” “And if there are fewer?” “Then some of ours will have gone abroad to see the wider world.”

A great linguist was waiting at Akbar’s court, a visitor from a distant Western land: a Jesuit priest who could converse and dispute fluently in dozens of languages. He challenged the emperor to discover his native language. While the emperor was pondering the riddle, his first minister circled the priest and all of a sudden kicked him violently in the backside. The priest let out a series of oaths—not in Portuguese, but in Italian. “You observe,
Jahanpanah,
” said Birbal, “that when it’s time to unleash a few insults, a man will always choose his mother tongue.”

“If you were an atheist, Birbal,” the emperor challenged his first minister, “what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?” Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, “I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them.” “How so?” the emperor asked. “All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own,” said Birbal, “and so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.”

The first minister and the emperor were standing at the Khwabgah, the Place of Dreams, looking out over the still surface of the Anup Talao, the monarch’s private, formal pool, the Pool Without Peer, the best of all possible pools, of which it was said that when the kingdom was in trouble its waters would send a warning. “Birbal,” said Akbar, “as you know, our favorite queen has the misfortune not to exist. Even though we love her best of all, admire her above all the others, and value her above even the lost Koh-i-noor, she is inconsolable. ‘Your ugliest, most sour-natured shrew of a wife is still made of flesh and blood,’ she says. ‘In the end I will not be able to compete with her.’” The first minister advised the emperor, “
Jahanpanah,
you must say to her that it is precisely
in the end
that her victory will be apparent to everyone, for in the end none of the queens will exist any more than she does, while she will have enjoyed a lifetime of your love, and her fame will echo down the ages. Thus, in reality, while it is true that she does not exist, it is also true to say that she is the one who lives. If she did not, then over there, behind that high window, there would be nobody waiting for your return.”

Jodha’s sisters, her fellow wives, resented her. How could the mighty emperor prefer the company of a woman who did not exist? When he was gone, at least, she ought to absent herself as well; she had no business to hang around with the actually existing. She should disappear like the apparition she was, should slide into a mirror or a shadow and be lost. That she did not, the living queens concluded, was the sort of solecism one had to expect from an imaginary being. How could she have been brought up to know her manners when she had not been brought up at all? She was an untutored figment, and deserved to be ignored.

The emperor had put her together, they fumed, by stealing bits of them all. He said she was the daughter of the prince of Jodhpur. She was not! That was another queen, and she was not the Maharajah’s daughter, but the sister. The emperor also believed his fictitious beloved was the mother of his firstborn son, his long-awaited firstborn son, conceived because of the blessing of a saint, that very saint beside whose hilltop hovel this victory city had been built. But she was not Prince Salim’s mother, as Prince Salim’s real mother, Rajkumari Hira Kunwari, known as Mariam-uz-Zamani, daughter of Raja Bihar Mal of Amer, of the Clan Kachhwaha, grievingly told anybody who would listen. So: the limitless beauty of the imaginary queen came from one consort, her Hindu religion from another, and her uncountable wealth from yet a third. Her temperament, however, was Akbar’s own creation. No real woman was ever like that, so perfectly attentive, so undemanding, so endlessly available. She was an impossibility, a fantasy of perfection. They feared her, knowing that, being impossible, she was irresistible, and that was why the king loved her best. They hated her for her theft of their histories. If they could have murdered her they would have done so, but until the emperor tired of her, or died himself, she was immortal. The idea of the emperor’s death was not beyond contemplation, but so far the queens were not contemplating it. So far they bore their grievances in silence. “The emperor is mad,” they grumbled inwardly, but sensibly forbore to utter the words. And when he was galloping around killing people they left the imaginary consort to her own devices. They never spoke her name.
Jodha, Jodhabai.
The words never crossed their lips. She wandered the palace quarter alone. She was a lonely shadow glimpsed through latticed stone screens. She was a cloth blown by the breeze. At night she stood under the little cupola on the top story of the Panch Mahal and scanned the horizon for the return of the king who made her real. The king, who was coming home from the wars.

Long before the unsettling arrival in Fatehpur Sikri of the yellow-haired liar from foreign parts with his tales of enchantresses and spells, Jodha had known that her illustrious husband must have had witchcraft in his blood. Everyone had heard about Genghis Khan’s necromancy, his use of animal sacrifice and occult herbs, and how with the help of the black arts he managed to sire eight hundred thousand descendants. Everyone had heard the tale of how Timur the Lame had burned the Qur’
n and after conquering the earth had tried to ascend to the stars and conquer the heavens too. Everyone knew the story of how the emperor Babar had saved the dying Humayun’s life by circling his sickbed and luring Death away from the boy to the father, sacrificing himself so that his son might live. These dark pacts with Death and the Devil were her husband’s heritage, and her own existence the proof of how strong the magic was in him.

The creation of a real life from a dream was a superhuman act, usurping the prerogative of the gods. In those days Sikri was swarming with poets and artists, those preening egotists who claimed for themselves the power of language and image to conjure beautiful somethings from empty nothings, and yet neither poet nor painter, musician nor sculptor had come close to what the emperor, the Perfect Man, had achieved. The court was also full of foreigners, pomaded exotics, weather-beaten merchants, narrow-faced priests out of the West, boasting in ugly undesirable tongues about the majesty of their lands, their gods, their kings. Through a stone screen covering a high window on the upper story of her quarters she looked down at the great walled courtyard of the Seat of Public Audience and watched the thronging aliens strut and preen. When the emperor showed her the pictures they brought with them of their mountains and valleys she thought of the Himalayas and Kashmir and laughed at the foreigners’ paltry approximations of natural beauty, their
vaals
and
aalps,
half-words to describe half-things. Their kings were savages, and they had nailed their god to a tree. What did she want with people as ridiculous as that?

Their stories didn’t impress her either. She had heard from the emperor a traveler’s tale of an ancient sculptor of the Greeks who brought a woman to life and fell in love with her. That narrative did not end well, and in any case was a fable for children. It could not be compared to her actual existence. Here, after all, she was. She quite simply was. Only one man on all the earth had ever achieved such a feat of creation by a pure act of will.

She wasn’t interested in the foreign travelers, though she knew they fascinated the emperor. They came in search of…what, exactly? Nothing of use. If they had possessed any wisdom, the inutility of their journeying would have been obvious to them. Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and it spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.

Yes: this place, Sikri, was a fairyland to them, just as their England and Portugal, their Holland and France were beyond her ability to comprehend. The world was not all one thing. “We are their dream,” she had told the emperor, “and they are ours.” She loved him because he never dismissed her opinions, never swatted them away with the majesty of his hand. “But imagine, Jodha,” he told her while they slapped down
ganjifa
playing cards one evening, “if we could awake in other men’s dreams and change them, and if we had the courage to invite them into ours. What if the whole world became a single waking dream?” She could not call him a fantasist when he spoke of waking dreams: for what else was she?