The Feast of Roses (20 page)

It was as though a blight had come over Agra. News traveled through the bazaars in the city of Mehrunnisa’s death, and then of a miraculous revival. Potions and poultices were discussed.
Surely if she took a little bit of turmeric and ginger in buffalo’s milk it would bring down the fever. Or her Majesty’s stomach would be settled with some
ajwain
water, the seeds roasted on a dry pan and then boiled with water and jaggery to take away its bitterness.
For every ailment possible, a cure was brought forward from remedies handed down from one generation to the next, and from travelers and merchants from countries around the world. No one really knew what had happened. The imperial palaces and courtyards were usually like a reed fishing basket, pouring water when raised—there were so many people going in and out of the fort that news was always plentiful.

But since Mehrunnisa’s fall the palaces had shut down. No music was played, hence musicians sat idle outside the walls, no business was conducted, so the
zenana
stewards waited for their mistress’s summons, no runners were allowed in. Every detail of Mehrunnisa’s illness was pure conjecture. The night she had fallen, the royal
hakims
had been summoned—so far they had not come out of the
zenana
palaces.

In Mehrunnisa’s apartments, the hush that seemed to weigh down the empire was at its quietest. It was midafternoon, and drapes of a thick blue velvet had been drawn over the windows. The cloth did not quite meet in the center, and an arrow of sun slanted its way into the room.

When Mehrunnisa’s eyes opened, the light was what she first saw. It came through in a straight line and then inched its way up the divan. She put her hand into it and watched the diamond rings on her fingers glitter. She was lying on her stomach, her face turned toward the windows. At some point, yesterday, the day before, she had woken from this interminable sleep to tell Hoshiyar to always let some light in.

The Emperor was next to her, by her feet. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a book on his lap, his eyes on the pages, but his lips were moving. Jahangir was praying. She watched him for some time, turning her head slightly on the pillow to look down at him, a deep and immense love flooding over her. How could she ever repay this devotion? For devotion it had been. Every day and night when she had woken, Jahangir had been there by her side. In the beginning, for the first few days, the pain overwhelmed every other sensation. If the
hakims
came to ponder over her, she neither saw nor heard them. Hoshiyar, and sometimes Jahangir, forced
khichri
and water into her mouth, and she ate and drank because they said so. Not because she wanted to. Ladli was brought to see her too, and she ordered that her daughter was to be kept away until she was better. Mehrunnisa had no time for Ladli right now and did not know how to wipe away the fright in her daughter’s eyes. Every thought, every wish was given over to the child inside her.

She put her hand under her, to her belly. But even as she lay there, she knew the dampness between her legs was unnatural. For the first few days there had been some bleeding, it was inevitable, the
hakims
had said. But even now . . . tears came sliding down her cheeks, soaking into the silk of the pillowcover. Even now it had not stopped. Her stomach cramped, her insides felt raw, the life inside her had been beaten out like clothes on a stone on the banks of the Yamuna. Why, Allah? Why did this have to happen?
Why did this have to happen again?

“Mehrunnisa.” Emperor Jahangir put down his book and slid up to her. He knelt by her side and put his face into the curve of her neck. Then he wiped away the tears that came as fast as he could extinguish them. “It is all right. Shhh . . .”

Jahangir did not know what else to do, what to say to her. The
hakims
had told him that the only way for her to let go of the sorrow was to let it escape. That she must cry, that the pain would eventually wane. But it had been days and this had not happened. And when Mehrunnisa cried, as she did almost each time she woke, it broke everything in him. He was helpless. He watched her, he murmured words of comfort, or what he thought were words of comfort, he held her to his heart. And she cried on. Jahangir put his face to hers again and felt the jut of her cheekbones in his skin. She had no will for anything anymore, she looked at him, dim and uncomprehending, as though he were a stranger.

He climbed up on the divan next to Mehrunnisa and put a leg over her. This time, she turned into him, grasped the collar of his
nadiri
coat, and in a few minutes her sobs weakened and then shut down until he could just hear her breathing. Jahangir smoothed her hair from her forehead; it lay in dank strands, thick with sweat, and dulled from not having been washed.

“Your Majesty . . . ,” she said, and looked up at him with a question.

The Emperor shook his head. “No. There has been too much bleeding.” He was terrified that she would give in to the sorrow again, that it would take her from him, that this wretched illness would be her death. But he would not lie to her; she did not expect it from him, so he would not lie.

But she did not cry again. “I see . . . how did I slip?”

This was the question Jahangir most dreaded. But again, he would not lie. “The verandah floor had been oiled, Mehrunnisa, with sesame oil.”

“Ah . . . someone did it then.” For the first time in days, anger reared itself. Mehrunnisa could not stop the trembling that beset her. How did they dare this? Who had dared this? It had been hard enough for her to keep a child inside her—Ladli was a gift from Allah, a miracle after so many other miscarriages. Someone had
oiled
the floors, that was why they had gleamed on a night with no moon, that was why she had been left with the smell of sesame seeds just before escaping into unconsciousness.

“Who?” she asked, a fire in her eyes.

Jahangir shook his head. “But it will not happen again, Mehrunnisa. I promise you this.”

She pulled away from the Emperor and tried to sit up, but her limbs were too heavy, too unused from lying down all these days, and she fell back.

“Rest, my dear,” Jahangir said. “I am here to watch over you. Will you eat something?”

“Yes.” Mehrunnisa did not feel like eating, but she did feel like living. She would hunt down the people who had done this to her, have them buried in the ground in the summer sun so that the heat could broil their brains in their heads, so they would die knowing that Empress Nur Jahan was not to be trifled with.

When the food came, she ate obediently, sitting up to lean against Jahangir as Hoshiyar fed her with his hands. Then the Emperor ordered her to sleep again, and she slept, because she needed it to gain strength, not because she feared being awake.

Mehrunnisa slept through the rest of the day and the night, and Jahangir stayed by her, leaving only for his own night’s meal. Hoshiyar came and went from the room, no one else was allowed in. The Emperor watched his wife by the light of the evening oil lamps. Her breathing was even, she did not move in sleep unless it was to shift her head to a more comfortable position. She slept as she should, from fatigue and not from illness.

When the muezzins from the mosques around Agra called the faithful to the last prayer of the day, Jahangir laid out his prayer rug facing west toward Mecca.
Allah-u-Allah-u-Akbar.
There was peace in their liquid voices during this last prayer, when the sun was setting, the skies painted with gold and orange, fires for the evening meal filling the streets of Agra with the scent of woodsmoke.

When he finished, he stayed kneeling on the rug, his hands resting on his thighs. For the last few days, he had stormed about the
zenana
palaces in a rage. Every single woman in the harem was questioned, where she had been that night, who she had talked with, who her visitors were for the past month, who had sesame oil as part of her toilette kit. There were many of the latter, of course, but Hoshiyar had asked each of them for samples of the oil, and they had been compared with the one on the floor. Jahangir had been disbelieving at first. Who would have dared to try and harm his wife? Who had done this? Why had no one seen this happen? Someone had actually taken a bucket of oil and mopped the floor with it—this was the only way it could have been done.

Jahangir had not slept in many nights. And he made sure every single person in the harem—wives, concubines, slaves, eunuchs, and guards—did not have a second of rest either. He slashed all their incomes in half, so they would feel pain. Not the pain Mehrunnisa felt, but still. He tripled
her
income—gave her more
jagirs
and districts as she lay on the divan, ordered three more ships to be built in her name in the dry docks at Surat. Jahangir did all of this openly, advertising his favor for Mehrunnisa.

He rose from the prayer rug and rolled it up. Then he went to sit by the window, looking out at the wedge of the moon in the sky. Where had it been the night Mehrunnisa had most needed it? Where had he been? Asleep in his apartments, thinking her asleep near him too. He had failed in his duty to look after her. He had promised her this, and he had failed. But it would not happen again. He bent his head.
Thank you, Allah. Thank you for bringing her back to me.

The Emperor went to lie down by Mehrunnisa, and in sleep she turned to him. His eyes closed, his heart was light for the first time in days. There was to be no child. The
hakims
had said there would be no more children.

But he had Mehrunnisa. And that was enough.

•  •  •

“Where is her Majesty?”

“She has gone to visit her mother,” the guard replied.

Mahabat Khan felt a glow of exultation. Surely, this was a good omen. With Mehrunnisa out of the palace, he could more confidently present his case to the Emperor.

“You can go in now,” the guard said, opening the doors to Jahangir’s apartments.

Mahabat entered and performed the
konish.
When he straightened, he noted with surprise that Jahangir looked healthier than he had seen him before. This was his first private audience with the Emperor in months. Once, Sharif and he had had free leave to come and go from Jahangir’s apartments as they had wanted. They had not needed permission to visit. Mahabat stood where he was, watching his Emperor. Jahangir had not looked up from his book yet.

The Emperor’s face had a hearty glow, not the sickly red of too much opium; his eyes shone bright from under bushy eyebrows, for once not unfocussed by liquor. Mahabat hesitated, already unsure of himself. If Mehrunnisa was capable of regulating Jahangir’s intake of wine and opium, she was indeed capable of performing miracles. What chance did he have against such an adversary?

“
Al-Salam alekum,
your Majesty.”

“
Walekum-al-Salam,
” Jahangir replied, and then he raised his eyes. A smile lit his face. “Mahabat, I am pleased you are here.”

“Your Majesty commanded my presence?”

“Yes,” Jahangir said. “Come in, dear friend, and sit down. We have much to talk about.”

Mahabat quickened his steps. The Emperor spoke to him with such affection, as he had before. And to be asked to sit in his presence was a great honor indeed. This meant a long talk. He bowed again and sat down on the edge of the divan.

“How have you been, Mahabat?” Jahangir asked.

“Well, your Majesty,” Mahabat replied. “And you are looking well too, with Allah’s grace. It has been hard to tell this from the
jharoka
or the
Diwan-i-am
audiences, and I am grateful for these summons.”

Jahangir bent his head. “I have much to thank Allah for. These are joyful days, Mahabat. Her Majesty has recovered.”

“Your Majesty, the empire rejoices with you,” Mahabat said cautiously. He spoke with courtly etiquette, but inside Mahabat a little spurt of fear reared its head. What would he say? Was it better not to say anything, as Sharif had suggested? Guilt came to nag him at the thought of Sharif, for the Amir-ul-umra did not know that Mahabat planned to disregard his advice yet again.

“I have been neglectful of my duties, Mahabat,” Jahangir said, “which was why I commanded you here. Have you heard the latest news of the affairs in the Deccan?”

“I have, your Majesty. Ambar Malik has successfully repulsed all efforts to recapture Ahmadnagar,” Mahabat Khan replied.

Ambar Malik had been an Abyssinian slave in the service of Chingaz Khan, the conqueror of Berar, south of the border of the Mughal Empire. He had risen in the ranks and proved himself to be a soldier of astonishing capability and bravery. Ever since Jahangir ascended the throne, he had made surprise attacks on the Mughal army guarding the southern border of the empire.

The threats were inevitable. With the empire as vast as it was, a change of the crown from one head to another seemed to provoke every enemy king into action. They sent messages of congratulations, of course, writing with one hand while the other rested on a sword. They searched for a weakness in the new regime, a wavering on the part of the new Emperor, anything that would expand
their
borders. And so it had been a year after Jahangir’s coronation on the northwestern frontier of the empire. The Shah of Persia had called Jahangir “brother” and written him a cloyingly sweet letter while his governors had raised their war standards on the boundary. So Jahangir had sent a mighty Mughal army on a “visit” to the border town of Kabul, merely, he had suggested to his brother the Shah, to recuperate and be put through their training.