The Feast of Roses (19 page)

She put her foot on the top stair and it gave way. Hoshiyar had come up behind her. “What is it, your Majesty?” he asked.

Mehrunnisa cried out as her body lifted into the air. Her hands scrambled for Hoshiyar’s
qaba.
She caught the front lapel, and the buttons came ripping into her fingers. She slid down the length of the verandah, Hoshiyar following her, for she had knocked him off his feet. The stones were cold under her back, and too, too smooth. Mehrunnisa finally collided into the pillar on the farther end, her right ankle twisting under her thigh, her knee smashing into stone, the jolt traveling through her stomach to her chest. She heard Hoshiyar crash also, somewhere close to her.

Even through the pain she could smell something odd, something different. The aromas of the garden at night, the sun-fired essence of the brick pathways, the cool scent of marble . . . but also something else. Something from the kitchens, from the cosmetics case, from the bath for lustrous hair. It was the acrid tang of sesame oil.

How strange, Mehrunnisa thought as her body started to shut down in response to the pain to give her the relief of unconsciousness. As she drifted away, another ache came, huge and overwhelming. Her lips moved. “My child.”

“S
hall I order you another sherbet, friend? With fresh ice?”

Mahabat Khan looked up from his goblet at the sound of the Amir-ul-umra’s voice. “Yes, please.”

Muhammad Sharif signaled to the attendants. A pretty slave girl came forward to do his bidding.

Mahabat Khan moodily swirled the
khus
sherbet in his goblet, tracing patterns on the frosted silver with his finger. He dipped his hand into the goblet, pulled out a shard of ice, and sucked on it, letting the cool water run down his throat. It tasted of the mountains in the north, the Himalayas, abode of King Himavat. Whose daughter—and so the Hindus would have it—was the wife of Lord Shiva.

But here there were no mountains, no mounds of earth to guard from the sun. The Indo-Gangetic plains stretched vastly, arid and open. The night air was still, pregnant with expectation of yet another monsoon. Heat lay cloaked over the city of Agra, stifling every breath, dulling the senses. Mahabat wiped his perspiring brow and looked up at the starlit sky. A few more days, he thought, for the monsoon rains to come to the plains. The rains would fall in a deluge, soaking the thirsty, dry, cracked earth, giving life to the countryside. Fields would be green again, flowers would bloom, and people would be happy, their moods lifted. The monsoons sustained them all. If they were late, the rice crop, which depended on the rainfall, would be harvested late, which would mean bad-quality rice, or worse still, a failed harvest.

The two friends were seated in an outside verandah at Sharif’s house overlooking the garden. Colored paper lanterns hung on
chenar
trees cast a soft glow. In deference to the heat, the stone floor was covered only with reed mats. Every half hour, a servant sprinkled perfumed rose water on the mats, and for a few minutes coolness rose around them, until the heat sucked it away.

Three dancing girls swayed in front of Sharif and Mahabat. They seemed miserable as they languidly moved their arms about, sweat pouring down their lithe bodies. They moved out of step with the music, like puppets on indifferent strings, jerking about without grace or rhythm.

“That’s enough. Go to the kitchens and get something cool to drink. I don’t want you to die of a heat stroke,” Sharif said. It was tiring even to
look
at them.

“Send the slaves away too,” Mahabat said.

Sharif indicated with his head. All the slaves left the courtyard.

“What is bothering you?” Sharif asked. “You have been restive ever since you came to dinner. Is it the heat?”

Mahabat lay back on the divan. His voice was peevish. “The heat will dissipate with the monsoons. But my problem seemingly has no solution.”

“Oh?” Sharif raised an eyebrow. “A woman? A married woman?”

“Yes,” Mahabat Khan said morosely, then, seeing the smile on his friend’s face, he added hastily, “no, no. It is not a romantic attachment. I am talking of another woman, one who has successfully made my life hell. My standing with the Emperor has been lost because of her.”

Sharif became grim. “Be careful, friend. What you are saying is treason.” He looked around cautiously. “If someone was to hear . . .”

“Who will hear?” Mahabat demanded. “Aren’t you safe even in your own house?”

“Yes . . . ,” Sharif said slowly. “But she has great resources, she knows everything.”

“
Sahib,
a message from his Majesty.”

Both men whirled around. An attendant was standing behind them with a letter in his hand.

“Don’t sneak up like that,” Sharif said angrily, reaching for the letter. He glanced at Mahabat, and the same thought crossed both their minds. Had the man overheard their conversation?

Sharif read the letter. “Mahabat, it is for you,” he said. “The Emperor commands your presence in the
zenana
next week.”

“Tell the Emperor I shall be there,” Mahabat said to the attendant.

When he left, the two ministers fell silent. Much had changed since Mehrunnisa had married Jahangir. She now completely ruled the Emperor and, in consequence, the empire. It was too much. For six years they had been the two most important men in the Empire, second only to Jahangir, and then, in one day, they were relegated to minions. Jahangir no longer came to them for advice, he did not consult them on matters of state; all affairs passed through Mehrunnisa’s hands. Now a new treaty was finding its way to the English captain’s hands, signed by the Emperor himself. They had had no knowledge of it until the runner had dashed out of Agra with the
farman
rolled into a silver baton.

“I went to see Empress Jagat Gosini again, Sharif,” Mahabat said.

The Grand Vizier of the Mughal Empire did not look at his friend as he spoke. “You are a fool, Mahabat. A fool twice over. I know you went into the
zenana
this time, into her very apartments and sat before her. Do you think there is no danger of your being found out? And what purpose have these futile meetings served?”

Mahabat turned to Sharif with surprise. So much fury, and so many words! Sharif rarely talked, preferring to let his glance, the language of his body, do the talking instead. In all the years Mahabat had known him, in all the years of their friendship, the voice had belonged to Mahabat. What he said, Sharif did. If Sharif protested at all, it was but a bland protest. “You call me a fool, Sharif?” Mahabat said quietly. He drew his dagger out of its sheath and laid it on the divan between them.

Sharif laughed, quite unpleasantly. His own dagger came out of its home, bigger, squarer, the blade thicker, the ends double-edged and so honed that when he flipped it on the divan next to Mahabat’s, it cut an opening in the velvet covering. “If you had listened to what I said, you would have seen yourself for the fool you are, Mahabat.”

They held each other’s gaze for a few moments, Mahabat itching to lay hold of his dagger, but he knew that Sharif’s hand was swifter, his movements faster. Friendship or not, Mahabat could find his hand nailed to the divan with the tip of Sharif’s dagger between the bones. Still, he wanted to fight. The heat made him unreasonable, made them both unreasonable, else why would Sharif snap at him thus?

“You are right,” Mahabat’s voice was subdued. “I wanted to go into the
zenana,
into the Empress’s apartments . . . it was a momentary thrill. I went to console Jagat Gosini on Khurram’s marriage. But Sharif,” he waited until the minister had sheathed his dagger until moving his hand to his own, “Empress Nur Jahan is pregnant.”

“Why did you go then, knowing this? Mahabat, have you no children?”

“You know I do, my friend.”

“And what were your women during those months? And what were they for months afterward with a mewling baby to look after?”

Mahabat smiled. He did this so rarely that his face fell into unused lines, and when at rest, which was almost always, no wrinkles came to mar his smooth brown skin. “Hoydens and witches. They did not want to be touched; I could not talk to them, and if they talked it was to whine and groan and fuss about the heat, or that they could smell too keenly, or that they were hungry when food lay aplenty in front of them. I had to banish them from me, to return only when their good humor returned, and only when they could pay more heed to me than the child.”

“Really?” Sharif lay back on the divan and raised his head just enough to sip at the
khus
from his goblet. “The way you worry about the new Empress’s pregnancy, I thought your women had all been angels.”

“What? . . .” Mahabat said, and then he stopped. This time the smile was genuine, one of pure delight. “The Emperor would never put up with this. He dislikes it when his women complain, and once they are sent away, they never return.”

“His Majesty does have a large number to choose from, Mahabat, unlike you and I,” Sharif said.

“So let her be, you say. Why didn’t I think of this before?”

“Because you want to act on every change, Mahabat, without pausing to reflect if it should simply take its course. Without wondering whether that change will be to our advantage,” Sharif said gruffly.

Mahabat put an appeasing hand on his friend’s arm. “I apologize for pulling the knife. We are both irritable today.”

“And what did you say to Empress Jagat Gosini?”

“I told her of the pregnancy.” Mahabat’s voice fell. “I told her, no, I suggested that there might be ways to end it. The other women will be jealous, and envy lends courage to even the weakest enemy. Something will happen—”

“You are an idiot, Mahabat,” Sharif said abruptly. He sat up and pulled the cloth of his white
kurta
from his back, where it lay stuck with sweat.

“Now, something will happen. The women will try. The Emperor will be dragged into their quarrels, and do you think he will have much time for us then? Why bring his attention unnecessarily to his new Empress?”

“Enough with calling me a fool and idiot, Sharif,” Mahabat said, raising his voice. “What if she does have the child? And it is a boy? He will be the next heir, and she will have far more power than she does now.”

“Think, Mahabat.” Sharif put his face close to his friend’s. “Think for a moment of what you are saying. Even if the child is a boy, he has at least fifteen years to grow up to manhood, before that he is only the promise of an heir. And who is going to protect the child in the interim? The Emperor’s other sons are much older, do you think Prince Khurram will allow his claims to the crown to be so easily dissolved?”

“I should have said nothing,” Mahabat said quietly.

They sat in silence for a while more, Mahabat now ashamed of his actions. What Sharif said was true, let Mehrunnisa have the child, and she would find herself more and more occupied with it, leaving her little time to meddle in court affairs. The other day, in the
Diwan-i-khas,
Jahangir had made a shocking statement. He had said, “Before I married her, I never knew what marriage really meant, and I have conferred the duties of government on her.” All the nobles had hushed after that. What was there to say? To give a mere woman so much power, even though she was an Empress, was offensive.

“You were right, Sharif, about my meeting with Jagat Gosini. I should have gone to the Emperor himself,” Mahabat said, thinking out loud. “Yes,” he nodded to himself, “the Emperor is the one to approach.”

“Don’t,” Sharif said as he laid a warning hand on his arm. “The Emperor is blind when it comes to Empress Nur Jahan. Say nothing against her.”

“Someone has to make him see reason.” Mahabat jumped up and started pacing around, hands clasped behind his back. “You know what the Emperor said in front of the nobles. You know how they laughed at this obsession. I must tell him of this. He must realize how much he has become an object of ridicule at court.” Mahabat stopped in front of Sharif and flung his arms out.

“See where we are now, Sharif. You are the Amir-ul-umra of the empire, the Grand Vizier. And what decisions do you make? Have you had any say in court appointments lately? All you do is decide budgets for the
zenana
—that too approved by the new Empress. Are these the duties of a Prime Minister? If the Emperor is now ludicrous, we are even more so, bested by a woman.”

Sharif looked at Mahabat. He was so restless that he could not even stand still, shifting his weight from one foot to another. Mahabat had always been thus, never content until he was
doing
something. Never content, and this was ironical, until he was at worry about something or the other, wondering how to fix things, unable to even take the word patience into his mouth. And so here he was barging ahead into another indiscretion.

“Sit down and give me the courtesy of listening to me,” Sharif said. Mahabat shook his head vigorously, so Sharif continued, “Do not talk with the Emperor about Empress Nur Jahan. When have we ever been able to sway him once his mind was made up? Wait awhile, let matters follow their own paths, let us see what happens.”

In reply, Mahabat paced the courtyard again, his bare feet not making a sound on the red sandstone slabs. Sharif watched his friend whip himself into fatigue for several minutes until at last Mahabat said, “All right. I will wait.”

“Let us go to bed,” Sharif said. “It is late.”

An attendant came into the verandah, and this time, they both saw him. He had another message. It was addressed to Mahabat in a woman’s hand, but not Empress Jagat Gosini’s. He read it out loud to Sharif, without reading it first by himself. Mehrunnisa was seriously ill; she had slipped and fallen in the
zenana
at night. The royal
hakims
were not optimistic about the survival of either the child or the new Empress.

•  •  •

The next few days passed slowly. Little was done at the morning and afternoon
jharokas,
less at the court in the
Diwan-i-am.
The first two days, for the first time since he had sat on the throne, Emperor Jahangir did not come to the
jharokas.
It was awkward and frightening for the nobles and commoners who came to the morning audiences. The Emperor was always there—whether he was unwell or not, whether he had slept or not, he would be at the balcony, unshaven, irritable, or just plain sick with such a fever that it marked his forehead with a pale, unhealthy glow. They were so used to seeing Jahangir and Mehrunnisa by now that they waited for the two hours of the audience and then went home, and during the time they waited, they stood as though in the presence of royalty, and not one word was spoken as usual.