The Feast of Roses (23 page)

It was the end of the reign of the Empress.

“A
ll is well and it is time to rise!” the night watchman sang out. He tapped his stick on the hard dirt ground of the street outside the palace, one tap for each hour of the morning.

In her sleep, Mehrunnisa heard those taps, and with her eyes still closed, she counted them. It was the second
pahr
of the day. She heard Hoshiyar come into the room, and she opened her eyes as he approached the bed.

“How does it look today, Hoshiyar?”

He touched the skin on her forehead, between her brows, and she felt his callused thumb rub over a ridge. “The colors are muted, your Majesty, but the scar will remain.”

“Bring me a mirror.”

When Hoshiyar held the mirror in front of her, Mehrunnisa sat up to peer into it. Outside, the sky was scrubbed with the pale grays of dawn, and only a little light came into her apartments. Her wounds had all healed, except for the gash on her forehead, where one of Jahangir’s rings had cut into the skin. This had bled for a day after, and then the skin had knitted itself tight, and when she spoke she could feel it strain on her face. It was not a big cut, less than the end of her little finger, and now, in healing, it puckered up, shaped like a spear.

The other discolorations were gone. The Emperor’s hand had left its imprint on her cheek, near her hairline, four neat lines of fingers. She had bumped her head as they had rolled around and that had swollen over her eyebrow, shutting one eye. Mehrunnisa wailed at the sight of her face the next morning, she had lost everything now. How could she even go before Jahangir with this face?

But Hoshiyar had worked miracles. He made her drink goat’s milk with saffron each morning, and he applied a thick paste of lime and chickpea flour on the skin. He also brought strange-looking, strange-smelling poultices that made her gag, but she submitted to them, sitting for hours as they dried to cake on her face.

Now only the scar remained. And as Hoshiyar said, it would stay.

“Is it time to dress?”

“The nobles will be gathering at the
jharoka
in half an hour, your Majesty.” He brought her a copper vessel with water, and when she put her chin forward, he washed her face. Two slave girls came in silently and bowed.

Mehrunnisa brushed her teeth and stood as they dressed her. This was an effort each morning; even waking up was an effort. She had returned to the
jharoka
audiences a few days after the fight. In the beginning, the crowds were thin, the nobles arrogant, their voices louder than usual, their bows much shallower. But she did not let them cow her. She kept her tone firm, no flattery pleased her, no disrespect made her lose her temper. But each day she came back physically exhausted. And each morning she forced herself to go again.

As she walked down the corridor of her apartments, she looked across the courtyard at Jahangir’s palace. He would be awake too, and getting ready for his
jharoka
appearance. They had long settled into this routine where each of them gave audience in different parts of the fort, where they had different petitioners. Would she see him today? If she did, would he look at her? She stumbled, on nothing really but her thoughts, and Hoshiyar caught her elbow.

“Courage, your Majesty,” he said in her ear.

Mehrunnisa nodded. Courage she
would
have, after so many weeks of weakness. The child was gone, so what of that? She had Ladli. She had her pride. She was still Empress Nur Jahan. But . . . if only the Emperor would return, a voice inside her spoke. It was lonely and frightening to live like this. In the beginning she had still been angry, although most of that anger had been frittered away in the fight. She did not want to apologize, to be the first to bow her head, to acknowledge wrong. Everyone insisted on this, and her back grew rigid with each insisting. Bapa sent messages, Abul ridiculed her, and Ruqayya grew strident, thinking all her advantages lost. There had been other times, Mehrunnisa remembered these well, when again the weight of all opinions had tried to pin her down. But she had resisted, as she resisted right after the fight.

The desolation crept in at night. Hoshiyar was there, Ladli came to share her bed sometimes, but it was Jahangir she wanted. The performance at the
jharoka,
the impertinence, was repeated every single day. Slaves backed out of the room only till the doorway before turning. Someone had moved the royal seal from her desk to under her desk, as though saying it would not long be hers.

If she were to go to the Emperor and beg his pardon, there would be nothing left for her in the
zenana,
this much Mehrunnisa knew. Her name, her title, her possessing the royal seal—all these would mean little now. But she also knew she had done wrong, that Jahangir had been more than indulgent with her. She knew that she was stupid to stay away, and anxious that some other woman was right now capturing his affections. How would she bear this? After all these years of wanting to be Jahangir’s wife, how could she live with this? But then, how to go back and apologize without losing face? The Emperor had shown no indication that he would welcome an apology either . . .

But that morning at the
jharoka,
Jahangir did show Mehrunnisa his favor. When she entered the balcony, she saw the Ahadis, the Emperor’s personal bodyguards, lined up on either side of the courtyard. The captain of the team announced her, the rest of the men watched the nobles as they bowed. She was announced three times, even though she stood in front of the men, until the captain was satisfied that the
taslim
had been performed as it ought to be, as it ought to be in front of Emperor Jahangir himself.

When it was over, Mehrunnisa ran back through the corridors of the palaces, her veil streaming behind her, and rushed into Jahangir’s chambers. He had returned earlier and was now in bed again for his two-hour nap before the day’s duties began.

She knelt before him and kissed his hands. “I am sorry, your Majesty. Please forgive me.”

He touched the scar on her forehead. “Will that go?”

“Hoshiyar says no. But I am now”—Mehrunnisa laughed and put her arms around him—“marked by you, your Majesty.”

“You do not mind?” he asked.

“Not if you don’t.”

“I have been miserable without you, my love. Come to me as you will, with scars and warts and even grimaces, no perhaps not grimaces, but come to me as you will, and never go away.” Jahangir made space for Mehrunnisa on the divan.

They lay together, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, with Mehrunnisa safe against Jahangir’s chest. The monsoon rains had begun, and outside the windows, it fell heavy and steady. Coolness swept into the room, and the curtains—of a light silk the color of pond water—crested inward and ebbed.

“Mehrunnisa,” the Emperor murmured.

She made a sound, lulled into lethargy by the rain.

“Do what you will with Mahabat.”

“Can I?” she asked, her voice drowsy.

They slept then, as they had since they were married, their breathing hushed and comfortable, secure that no one was ever going to break them apart. But before their eyes closed, Mehrunnisa asked a favor.

•  •  •

When the rains broke late that afternoon over the Anguri Bagh within the Agra Fort, a few clouds still abided in the skies, dense with wetness. The lawns were damp, and the leaves of the tamarind and the
champa
glistened. Water in the square ponds lay rippleless, mists rising from the surface. The Anguri Bagh, the garden of grapes, was so named not because grapevines stretched around but because the bottom courtyard was laid with a honeycomb of brick plots filled with damask roses, mimicking a cluster of grapes.

The roses were in full flower this summer, dead wood pruned carefully and lovingly, earlier in the year, by the royal
malis.
Each plot held just one plant of the Ispahan, the pink damask rose brought from the hillsides of Isfahan in Persia. The plots overflowed with the thick, green, shiny leaves and stems, crammed with the pink flowers turning their lovely faces to the sun.

The women came out of the harem palaces in crowds. They sat on the stone steps that led into the courtyard, watched as their children swung from the lower branches of a tamarind, running away in glee as the leaves shed water. In the soft light of the monsoon sun, the Ispahan roses gleamed with drops of rain—diamonds scattered on pink satin. The
zenana
women leaned into one another, wondering why they had been summoned here. Whispers rose and hung in the washed afternoon air, passing from mouth to ear, mingling with the shrieks of children’s laughter. One word was oft repeated.
Mehrunnisa.
Something to do with Mehrunnisa . . . but what? Was she going to be publicly humiliated?

The women fell quiet as eunuchs came into the Anguri Bagh, bearing large gold and silver platters heaped with pink rose petals.
What was this? An offering for a prayer?
A eunuch swept the marble pathway that cut across the center of the courtyard of brick plots, his broom moving in noiseless swishes.
What was this for?
Then, two eunuchs knelt on the eastern edge of the path and laid down the petals, each petal turned up. As they worked, another slave followed them, dripping a single drop of rose water into the center of every petal’s cupped and upturned face. The work was painstakingly detailed—the petals were inspected for bruises and marks, used or discarded accordingly, and laid exactly half an inch from each other until the path was no longer the white of unblemished marble but a pink, perfumed, glittering carpet cutting a swathe through the living Ispahans on either side.

An hour passed, and then two, and the afternoon wore on. The women waited, sensing something was about to happen, something huge and significant. When the heat of the afternoon surged, the rose petals let loose their fiery aroma into the air, cloying and filling.

The women did not see Mehrunnisa until she was among them. She stood at the top of the steps on the eastern edge of the fort, the Yamuna flowing behind her, the dusty plains in the background, and waited for them to look at her. Then, slowly, and with great deliberation, she went down the steps to the edge of the pathway. When her foot first touched the rose petals, voices rose within the women’s minds and hearts—
careful, watch where you put your feet. These are the Ispahans.
But not one word was spoken aloud.

Mehrunnisa wore white—a widow’s color—her
ghagara
made of chiffon was peasant-plain. Her
choli
was white too, but this was thickly studded with diamonds, and her face glowed in the reflected light from the stones. The women watched, mouths watering, eyes greedily catching the brilliancy of the diamonds. Mehrunnisa wore no veil, nothing else to cover her but her hair, which went down in a smooth sheet of soot black to her waist. As she walked, the skirts of her
ghagara
swirled over the rose petals, destroying their careful arrangement on the marble slabs. Mehrunnisa went up to the center of the pathway and stood waiting in the sunshine. The diamonds on her twinkled with every breath, capturing the light from the sun.

Emperor Jahangir entered from the other end, the western end of the courtyard. He did not notice, and did not acknowledge, the bows of the women of his
zenana,
nor did he reply to the salutations. He too walked down the steps to the yard below, weaving his way through the crowds, and went down the pathway to meet Mehrunnisa.

The women leaned forward in their seats. This was so obviously staged, so patently a drama of some kind, a ritual, but what was it? They watched as Jahangir moved closer to Mehrunnisa, his shadow moving gracefully ahead of him. He stopped, perhaps just a carpet-length from her, and his shadow stopped with him. They stood looking at each other, and ears strained to hear words. But no, there was no sound. Only . . . the Emperor started to move forward again, and every woman shouted out the same phrase in her mind.
Move away, Mehrunnisa. Move away. Step aside.
But she did not move. She did not look down either as Jahangir’s shadow—just his head and chest—draped over the bottom half of Mehrunnisa’s
ghagara.

A deep sigh drifted through the courtyard as every eye there gazed upon the dark gray shadow across Mehrunnisa’s feet. So sacred was the Emperor’s person that even his shadow could not fall upon anyone near him. If it did, it meant he had fallen at their feet, bowed before them—it was unthinkable.

Mehrunnisa stepped away and went to her husband. As they stood there, now side by side, letting the
zenana
see them together, she said, “Thank you, your Majesty. You have restored my name to me.”

He clasped her hand and they went back to their apartments, scattering the rose petals as they walked. “Let them all know, Mehrunnisa, that there is no one quite as important to me as you are. It shall always be thus.”

The women of the imperial harem left the Anguri Bagh, overwhelmed by what they had seen and filled with yearning. Each had wanted to walk upon the rose-strewn pathway, each wanted to feel the soft bruise of the petals under her feet, to stand in the bright sunlight and have Jahangir’s shadow cast its darkness upon her. To be the most brilliant rose among the royal damasks. To be literally
feasted
thus, so sumptuously, with roses. This was a banquet like none other. The flowers were used, of course, to adorn marriage beds, or sling about necks in garlands or nestle in hair. But this—to so negligently strew them on the floor, and in such large quantities so as to divest a whole garden, and simply for treading upon with feet—this was unprecedented.