The Feast of Roses (10 page)

“Do so,” he said. He put out a hand to her. She clasped his elbow and helped him up. “But in moderation. Don’t tire yourself out too much, Mehrunnisa.”

Suddenly, by his saying so, she was tired. A wave of nausea came to slap her in the stomach, and she felt the
jamuns
rise up her throat. Her limbs were loose and heavy, moving with slowness. She took the matchlock from the Mir Shikar and hauled it up to her shoulder again. When the Mir Shikar shouted out his order, the servant set fire to the round wedge of
palas
wood used for night practice. She watched as he moved his arm, first below his waist, then above his head, clutching the burning pigeon in his mail-clad hand. The pigeon shot out into the night, smearing the darkness with a streak of gold. It spun in circles. Mehrunnisa traced its path, and as it went downward, she pressed the trigger. The shot bolted from the matchlock, the recoil almost knocking her off her feet, but she kept her eye on the ball of fire. It seemed to be suspended for a moment, and then it exploded, sending shards of burning wood in all directions—a thousand pieces of gold.

Mehrunnisa looked back with a delighted smile to see if Ghias Beg had been watching. He had. She saw him raise his hand in a wave, and his voice came across the dusty grounds. “Now hit ten more in a row,
beta.
Then you will truly have reason to celebrate.”

•  •  •

The next day, as court matters were being wrapped up in the
Diwan-i-am,
the Hall of Public Audience, Ghias Beg came forward and performed the
taslim
in front of the Emperor. He did this four times, not lifting his gaze until the last.

“Mirza Ghias Beg?” Jahangir said from his throne.

“Your Majesty,” Ghias said, “I beg pardon, but may I beg a private audience? It is not a court matter.” He was uncomfortably aware of the curious glances from the other nobles in the hall. Mahabat Khan and Muhammad Sharif were a few feet from him. They too were attentive, clad in the etiquette of the court, but their eyes questioned. Ghias had spoken in a low voice, as near to the throne as he dared to be. He had not known how else to approach Jahangir other than at court. He was the Emperor’s father-in-law, but so new at his position that he did not realize he could have sent a message directly to Jahangir.

“Of course,” the Emperor said immediately, rising as he spoke. “You can accompany me to the
zenana
and talk as we walk.”

They went back through the arched corridors leading to the harem quarters. Ghias Beg walked a few steps behind Jahangir; the servants were ordered a few more paces away. They walked in silence for a while, Ghias worrying with the words in his head. How was he to say what he wanted to say? Suddenly, Jahangir stopped and turned to his minister.

“How is Mehrunnisa? I hear you visited her at the shooting ranges yesterday. Does she keep well? She looked tired after the hunt.”

“She is well, your Majesty. But . . .”

“But what? Tell me, Ghias Beg, does something ail her? Do the servants bother her?”

“It is not the servants, your Majesty,” Ghias Beg said carefully. He paused. How did a father plead his Emperor to return to his daughter?

“It must be the servants,” Jahangir said firmly. “If I am not at her apartments, they do not perhaps listen to her orders.”

“That can be easily remedied, your Majesty.”

“Yes.” Jahangir turned to one of the maids dawdling in the corridor. “Send a message to Nur Jahan Begam that I will visit her this evening.”

“Thank you, your Majesty.” Ghias bowed and backed out of the corridor. It had been so easy to ask this favor without even asking for it. He had fretted all night about his daughter. She had been unhappy when he had seen her. She had pretended otherwise, but she had cried, and Mehrunnisa cried so little, unlike other women, whose tears were at a rush to come for demands and wants and fears. Or if she did, Ghias never saw that sorrow. Not when she had had the miscarriages, not when Ali Quli had died . . . although that last, it had been a freedom of sorts. And so, in the morning, after a night spent thinking these things, Ghias had decided he would speak to the Emperor.

When he left, Jahangir went down the marble steps into one of the courtyards. The slaves, eunuchs, and concubines lounging under the shade of the mango trees rose to melt away. He waited until they had all gone and then sat down at the edge of a pond. The carp in the pond came to nibble at his shadow, greedy and waiting to be fed. He waved a hand over the water and watched as they skittered in the direction of his hand, mouths open and gulping.

Here was a chance to see Mehrunnisa again. Again and at last. In this last week, he had not known how to go back to her. Every morning he woke to an empty bed by his side, an emptiness around him. And his days were then filled with state duties, visits to Empress Jagat Gosini’s apartments at night to take part in interminable entertainments and cups of wine. His head ached from wanting to be with Mehrunnisa. Jahangir had his eunuchs tell him every detail of her days, he knew she went to the
jharoka
balcony on the two mornings he had not gone, that she spent the rest of the day in the shooting ranges. He listened to all of this with a calm face, but inside a hunger rioted.

Jahangir removed his imperial turban and laid it on the stone edge of the pool. The afternoon sun stood guard over him, reflecting off the slabs of marble in the courtyard. He would have to wait till the evening to see Mehrunnisa. Why had he said evening, why not right now? Surely, twenty minutes would have been enough for her to prepare herself.

Once, Mahabat, Sharif, and even Jagat Gosini had tried to keep him from Mehrunnisa, to keep him from seeing her, from marrying her, citing her family’s disloyalty to the throne, her husband’s perfidy, saying that for sure she would harbor resentment against him. All these reminders had returned in the past week, borne on a breeze of slyness. Mahabat’s and Sharif’s voices had taken on a strength that had waned after Mehrunnisa’s first
jharoka,
and Jagat Gosini had solicitously showed him the imperial
farmans
she had signed with the royal seal. But they had not been able to see that their Emperor was grieving. It was Mahabat’s and Sharif’s behavior that was unsettling. What was it they feared? A rise in status in her family? Mehrunnisa’s voice at the
jharoka
? But why?

He sat there for a long time, his head uncovered, his hair soaking up the heat of the sun. After his evening prayers and the final audience at court, Jahangir bathed and dressed in a hurry, shouting orders at his servants. He went to Mehrunnisa’s apartments and she was there, waiting for him, serious. She had done nothing to apologize for. As Emperor, he could not apologize either. There was no fault in either of them.

He carried with him an embroidered bag of velvet as a gift. Earlier in the afternoon, he had sent for this most precious piece of metal in the empire. Jahangir put the bag in her hand and enclosed her fingers over it.

“What is it?” she asked.

He said nothing at first, a curious light of excitement in his eyes. Then, “What you have wanted, Mehrunnisa.”

“I have you.”

Again he was quiet, watching her. “Without it you do not have me completely.”

Could it be . . . no, but this was so soon, so sudden . . . Mehrunnisa glanced down at the bag in her hand. Whatever was inside was heavy, tiny but heavy. Through the cloth she felt its smooth and round edge. She laid the bag against her chest, and the coolness of the metal seeped through the weave.

“Thank you,” she said, numb of all other feeling, without any other words to speak of her enormous gratitude. With this piece of metal, she
owned
the empire. Possessed power over every corner of its lands, all of its people, why, even the earth on which it rested and the sky above it.

Jahangir stayed the night in Mehrunnisa’s apartments. They slept wrapped around each other, frightened by what had happened this last week. A fight . . . a non-fight . . . a misunderstanding. How easy it was for this to happen, how easy to inflate a small incident out of all proportion, to bring a wedge between them.

Every night a sword was brought to the Emperor’s sleeping chamber, a different one each night, the scabbard encrusted with rubies and pearls, or pearls and emeralds. Jahangir slept with it by his side—this was a ritual his father had begun, that a Timurid Emperor never closed his eyes without protection, no matter how heavily guarded he was on the outside. And so this night, the sword found its way to Mehrunnisa’s chambers and lay within Jahangir’s reach by the bed.

When the eunuchs returned from this errand, they talked in the
zenana.
Lamps that routinely waited to be extinguished only after news of Jahangir’s whereabouts were now put out, and the women went to bed knowing that somehow, with some sorcery, the newest Empress had once again managed to beguile the Emperor.

And so Mehrunnisa’s star rose again.

•  •  •

Abul Hasan leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, watching his sister’s profile outlined against the window. The sun lit up circles around her, escaping through the pattern of the filigree work of the wooden shutters. She was reading an embellished scroll held up to the light. Abul waited for her to speak, as patiently as he could.

“What is it?” he asked finally, with a note of fretfulness in his voice.

Mehrunnisa looked up, her face aglow. “A royal
farman.
”

“What has the Emperor given you this time?” He bent to pull it from her hands and frowned. “An order for a
mansab
to one of the courtiers. Why do you have it? What does it have to do with you?”

“Everything, my dear Abul.” Mehrunnisa patted the divan. “Sit down.”

He sat and then saw the little green Malacca velvet sack, embroidered with pearls. Even as she read, Mehrunnisa had her hand on the bag, her fingers rippling over the pearls. “What is that?”

Mehrunnisa smiled. “So many questions, Abul. You ask too many questions. Tell me, what does it feel like to be allowed to enter the hallowed walls of the imperial
zenana
?”

A week earlier, she had sent instructions to the guards to allow Abul in. Every mole on his face, every hair on his head, every bend of his limbs was described in detail. As Abul stood outside the gates, the Kashmiri guards and the Ahadis examined him minutely, and then sent a message to Hoshiyar Khan inside the
zenana.
Hoshiyar came and conducted his own thorough examination. The eunuch studied him carefully, asked a series of questions about his uncles and grandfather—where they lived at different times of their lives, which women they had married, who had given birth to those women. A thick shawl was brought to cover Abul’s head and the upper part of his body, and then Hoshiyar led Abul in this half-darkness, with only the vision of his own feet to guide him, through sandstone courtyards, gardens with lawns glittering with morning dew, and marble floors so sleek he slip-slid his way over them. A woman passed by once, silently, but her curiosity was vastly evident. She hesitated near him, the bottom edge of her silk
ghagara
’s skirts swishing to a halt. He saw the pleats settle into folds, saw the sun pick out the hundreds of ruby buttons nestled in the gold embroidery. She stood very close, and even in the sweating heat of the shawl, Abul could smell the jasmines in her hair, and something else, some undefinable, unreachable perfume. Hoshiyar had his fingers tight around Abul’s elbow, but his touch made Abul stop, and for this woman. Who was she, that she might command the direction of Hoshiyar’s steps? A few long moments passed. The woman and Hoshiyar Khan did not speak with words, and if otherwise, Abul had no idea of what they said. He thought she was looking at him as one did in the camel markets, scrutinizing the shape of the camel’s hump, the health of its legs, the grace of its stride. Abul did not dare to lift his shawl and look at her. He might be the brother of Nur Jahan Begam, but his head was still not worth too much.

This was an enormous amount of fuss, Abul thought, and just to see his sister. He could remember her birth well, although he had been only four that winter evening in the desert outside Qandahar. He could remember his fear, fed by hunger and fatigue, as the storm howled about them, as his mother’s whimpers broke through the canvas of the tent into his ears. This was how Mehrunnisa had come into the world. In the beginning, he hated her for this, for being so demanding, for crying all the time, for creating worry for them all.

Of when Bapa gave her away and brought her back, Abul had no memory, for it happened in the span of a few hours. Only later, at Agra and Lahore, as they followed Emperor Akbar’s court where he went, did he begin to notice her, to teach her
gilli-danda,
or laugh at her attempts to climb a tree, her
ghagara
tucked
dhoti
-like between her legs. They had grown apart from each other, of course, as a boy and a girl brought up in the same house do, stretching their love and liking for one another over years and miles.

“You have changed, Mehrunnisa,” Abul said softly. Even as he spoke, his hand reached to her side to the embroidered bag.

She slapped it away. “Why? Does this”—she waved around the cool room—“and this”—she touched the turban on her head decorated with a long heron feather, and only those in favor with the Emperor were allowed to wear it—“make me different?”