The Feast of Roses (36 page)

Roe frowned. “I cannot do that. As ambassador of King James, I represent him. How can one royal prince pay obeisance to another in such a manner?”

The official tried to convince Roe, shrugged, and melted to the back. Roe marched on, until he reached the end of the courtyard. Three stone steps led to the raised verandah where Parviz sat on a throne.

“I bring you greetings from his royal Majesty, King James of England. We come in peace, to foster a friendship with his Majesty, Emperor Jahangir.”

“You are welcome to India,” Parviz replied in a weak voice.

Roe looked at Parviz in amazement. This was a royal prince? His skin was flushed, his eyes bloodshot, his bones sticking out
everywhere
—in thin wrists, a scrawny neck, a prominent forehead. His jeweled turban was so huge that it fell over his eyes from time to time. His coat hung grotesquely loose on his emaciated frame.

Roe’s gaze turned to the man standing next to the prince. This must be the Khan-i-khanan, Abdur Rahim, who was the prince’s official guardian. The Khan-i-khanan was an old man, at least in his fifties. His hair and beard were completely white, startling against his thickly brown skin, but he held himself erect, and keen, intelligent eyes surveyed Roe. Jadu had said that it was Abdur Rahim and not Parviz who ruled Burhanpur; Roe could see why. The Khan-i-khanan was evidently a man of strong character, one well used to controlling people around him, as he did the prince. Parviz leaned toward Abdur Rahim for approval each time he spoke.

“Tell us about your king,” Parviz commanded.

“What would you like to know, your Highness?”

“Everything.”

Roe described court life in England briefly and as well as he could, the person and family of King James. After a few minutes Roe became flustered and his speech faltered. He had been kept standing. Did the prince not have the courtesy to offer him a seat?

“Your Highness,” Roe said to Parviz. “It is customary in my country that an ambassador is treated equal to the king he represents. I ask permission to ascend the steps and come closer to you so that we may be at the same level.”

Parviz glanced at the Khan-i-khanan. Abdur Rahim’s head shifted in a no.

“That is not possible,” he replied brusquely. “Why, even if the kings of Persia or Turkey came to visit me, they would stand where you are now.”

“But you would rise from your seat and come
down
to meet them, your Highness. Why should it be different with the ambassador of the court of England?” Roe said a little heatedly.

“It is not different. You are accorded all the courtesies that would be given to them.”

“I beg pardon, your Highness. But at least, order a chair for me, so that I may sit down.”

“No one sits in the imperial presence, that is the rule of the court,” Parviz said. As the prince spoke, his eyes alighted on the packing cases behind Roe, presents from England for the prince. His tone softer now, the prince said, “I give you leave to come closer to the throne as a courtesy. You can stand near the pillar.” He indicated one of the pillars that held up the silver canopy above his head.

Roe had to give in. He could not very well argue with a royal prince. Roe went to the pillar and slid down against it until his knees were bent. If he would not be given permission to sit on a chair, he would sit on his feet.

A small murmur of amusement brushed through the courtyard. The
firangi
was stubborn. What would he do at the imperial court, where the Empress set the tone of the proceedings?

Parviz continued to talk to Roe. Finally Roe asked his favor. Would his Highness grant permission to set up an English factory at Burhanpur?

“Certainly,” Parviz said. He looked around for his
bakshi,
his paymaster. “Prepare a
farman
allowing the ambassador to set up an English factory here. Bring it to me for the seal.” Parviz turned back to Roe. “I will retire now to my private apartments and send for you in a few minutes. There, you can sit in my presence and we will talk some more about England.”

“As you wish, your Highness.” Roe bowed to Parviz as he left the courtyard.

Two hours passed and Roe sat in the courtyard awaiting Parviz’s summons. Servants ran around busy with their work, but when Roe asked them about the prince, they merely shrugged and gave him a smile. Toward noon, someone brought Roe a plate of food. He ate it and waited . . . and waited. Finally, at sunset Roe saw the Khan-i-khanan striding toward him.

Abdur Rahim bowed. “Ambassador, the prince sends his regrets. He will not be able to see you today. He is . . . ah . . . incapacitated.”

“What happened?” Roe demanded.

Abdur Rahim spread his hands out in an expression of regret. “The prince found one of your gifts to be . . . shall we say, highly intoxicating?” Rahim smiled. “He has been put to bed and can unfortunately meet no one today.”

Among Roe’s gifts was a case of English brandy. The dissolute prince had been drinking from the time he had left the court and was now lying in his apartments in a drunken stupor. Disgusted, Roe left for his camp.

That night, tired from waiting in the hot sun and moving to where the shade fell, Roe fell ill with a fever. He lay in his bed for days, not knowing where he was, delirious from the high temperature. Missives came from Emperor Jahangir commanding his presence at court, but Roe could barely read them, let alone rise from his mattress and mount a horse. When the fever abated slightly, Roe gave orders for the move. He was still weak, his arms and legs turned to water by the fever, but he insisted upon continuing on his journey to the court of the Mughal Emperor at Mandu.

T
he man glanced around the tree, his heart banging loud in his chest. The sound seemed to reverberate in the still night air. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. The two Kashmiri guards seemed oblivious of his presence. They stood in front of the entrance to the
zenana
with spears in their hands. If they caught him here . . . It had been absolute luck that had brought him so far, past the Ahadis and the Rajput guards outside the palace. He wiped his sweating brow with the back of a grimy sleeve. How was he to get inside?

Just then, someone called out to the two women. They turned to the intruder, their spear tips horizontal with the ground, their feet astride.

“Who goes there?” one of them shouted.

“It is I.” A man came into view. The guards relaxed as they recognized a friend.

The man behind the tree listened to their conversation. The guards laughed and chatted with their friend and in a few minutes were persuaded to leave their post to get a cup of
chai.

As soon as he saw his chance, the man slipped from behind the tree and ran to the entrance. The door handles were fastened with a massive iron chain and a lock. He looked around. The
zenana
wall was not very high, and along the wall were niches to hold oil lamps. The man heard voices. The guards were coming back. Within a few seconds, he had scaled the wall, using the niches as footholds. He dropped silently on the other side just as the guards came back to their posts.

Nizam leaned against the wall, his ear to the stones, and listened intently. The guards had noticed nothing. He grinned to himself. He was now within the walls of the exalted
zenana,
the abode of the royal ladies, where few commoners had set foot before him. The gardens at the entrance stretched in the darkness, bushes and trees shielding the buildings from view.

Nizam frowned with concentration, trying to recall his conversation with the
nautch
girl. He had visited her a month ago for the first time, and she had gloated of her success in the
zenana.
She had serviced the Emperor himself, she had said. Probably an idle boast, Nizam thought, for it was well known that the Emperor had over three hundred women at his harem, and would he have left Empress Nur Jahan’s bed for even one night? For a common
nautch
girl? However, that boast allowed the woman to increase her price—a lot of men wanted to sleep with the woman who had slept with the Emperor.

He had gone to her out of curiosity. At first, the woman had been coy, but a few cuffs on her head had straightened that. She had not seen the Empress but had ventured throughout the
zenana.
In a few days, the prostitute had given Nizam all the information he had wanted, the layout of the
zenana,
where the guards were positioned, and, more important, where Mehrunnisa’s private apartments were.

Nizam stayed where he was until his heart calmed down. If he returned tomorrow after having glimpsed Mehrunnisa’s face, he would win his bet. His friends had dared him to go into the
zenana
to see the veiled Empress. The price was one hundred gold
mohurs,
a small fortune.

There was a half-moon tonight, just enough light to see but not so much that he would be seen. He was dressed in black anyway, and if any woman looked out of her windows, she would only see the shadows move. Nizam had also blackened his face and hands with coal shavings. He moved away from the wall, his bare feet light on the grass, and came to an open courtyard. At one end a large palace rose to the sky. This was the Empress Jagat Gosini’s palace. The corridor along the face of the building was lit with torches, and two eunuchs marched up and down the length of it. Nizam circled the building and came to another garden. Was this it? No, further down, the
nautch
girl had said.

Finally he came to a small mosque set in an artificial pond. The white marble dome gleamed in the light of the moon. Nizam swiftly circumvented the pond and reached its eastern side. From there he could see Mehrunnisa’s palace. It was a huge sandstone building built around a central courtyard. Four minarets rose from the corners, each topped by a circular balcony with a guard in it. The Empress’s private apartments were on the eastern side. Nizam had to enter the palace and somehow gain access to the central courtyard, where he could hide himself. He sped along the lit corridor, darting behind the pillars whenever he heard a sound. The main doorway was open, and he slid through it to the courtyard.

Stone steps led down into the garden. A fountain spewed water in a comfortable gurgle in the center. Nizam found a stone bench to sit on. From there, he could look up to the first floor, where, he had been told, Mehrunnisa slept. Now that he was here, there was no fear in him anymore. He was so close to the Empress. A few more steps and he would be in her bedchamber. He pulled his shawl close around him and huddled in one corner. As the night wore on, Nizam slept.

•  •  •

Mehrunnisa opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. The door opened softly, and Hoshiyar Khan put his head around it. “Are you awake, your Majesty?”

“Yes. Come in. What is on the agenda for today?”

Hoshiyar pulled out a piece of paper from the sleeve of his
qaba
and started reading. Mehrunnisa listened with half an ear as she looked out toward the verandah. The eastern wall of her room merged into the verandah. Stone arches lined the wall, curtained with thin silk. The sky lightened into shades of pink and red as the sun prepared to rise.

“Good.” Mehrunnisa cut Hoshiyar short. “Call for my toilette. I will listen to the rest while I am dressing.”

“As you wish.” As soon as Hoshiyar left, two pretty slave girls came bustling in. They helped the Empress wash her face and brush her teeth. She was alone this morning; Jahangir had been hunting and had sent word late yesterday that they were delayed and would spend the night at a
sarai.
So today she would sit at a common
jharoka
balcony, where both the Emperor’s and her supplicants would come. It would be a long and tiring day.

“Shall I prepare your clothes for the
jharoka
?” a slave girl asked.

“Not yet.”

Mehrunnisa went out into the corridor and walked up to the edge, from where she could look over into the garden. The palace was just stirring. She put an elbow on the parapet and leaned her chin against her hand as she gazed down into the garden. She stood watching the goldfish swimming in the pools of water, the dew on the leaves, breathing in the earthy smells of the early morning. It was a small moment of peace, snatched from a day filled with duties of state and the other thoughts that troubled her. How was she to approach Khusrau for Ladli? What would he say? He would be grateful, of course, because if her favor shone upon him, he would be elevated out of his worthless existence and given prominence once more. But she would do this carefully. Somehow, things had gone wrong with Khurram. The rot had begun inside their
junta,
within them, long before the nobles at court were aware of it. But Mehrunnisa knew that rumors swirled around the court that Khurram no longer had her support, and that he no longer gave her his endorsement. He had called a conference of sorts during the Emperor’s illness. The fool. Had he not learned anything from Khusrau? Hadn’t he stopped to think what would happen if Jahangir recovered?

The Emperor and she said nothing to Khurram about this, but they watched him with care. Uppermost in both their minds was the thought that if Khurram was this hasty in wanting the throne while his father lay ill, would he be as scheming now that his father had returned to health? One result of Khurram’s actions was that the rift between them was no longer a secret. The nobles and commanders knew, the
zenana
knew, and so the empire knew. Cracks had begun to appear in the
junta
’s solid front. As yet there were no repercussions. Not even in the
junta
itself. Bapa said little, he had grown too old to assert his will. Khurram still came to the meetings, but with each one, another invisible brick built up a wall between them through which only polite phrases passed. And Abul . . . Mehrunnisa always thought long and hard about her brother’s loyalties. Abul and she were bound by blood, but Khurram was his son-in-law . . . it was an uneasy relationship now.

She leaned her head against a pillar.

•  •  •

Nizam awoke with a start as he tumbled off the stone bench. He shook his head to clear his sleep-fogged brain and stared around him. Where was he?

He heard the tinkle of gold bangles and parted the leaves of a jasmine bush. A woman stood in the upper balcony. Nizam’s breath choked in his chest. Was this the Empress? From this distance, he saw the slim figure, hands clad in diamond and sapphire rings, and hair that shone like ebony cascading over her shoulders. The lady moved, and her bangles tinkled again. She rubbed her eyes with her palms and then stretched, raising her arms over her head. Nizam gawked, mouth open. Now he could see her eyes, they were the blue of a finely etched turquoise. This had to be the Empress. He had seen her!

•  •  •

Mehrunnisa straightened from the parapet and rubbed her neck. She had slept awkwardly. The bed had been empty beside her, too large and uncomfortable without Jahangir to edge her to one side. So she had slept aslant, cast the pillows off, waking several times with the dampness of sweat in the folds of her elbows and knees. She lifted the heavy mass of her hair from her nape. If she could cut it off, thin it somehow, these summer months would be more bearable. But the Emperor would not listen to even a suggestion about this; he wanted her hair long. She started to turn away; it was time to dress for the
jharoka,
the nobles would be waiting.

A movement caught her eye. Mehrunnisa gazed intently at the bushes to her left. The leaves rustled again. Who was in the garden early in the morning? She moved away from the parapet, as though she were going, and slid behind the pillar and waited. When she put her head out after a few minutes, she stared in shock as a man came out from behind the bushes. Who was he? Not one of the eunuchs, and no other men were allowed this far into the
zenana
apartments, not into her apartments anyway. The man knelt by the pool, dipped his hands in the water, and washed his face.

“Your Majesty.”

“Hush,” Mehrunnisa whispered as she put a finger to her lips and beckoned. Hoshiyar came to stand by her.

“Who is that person?” Mehrunnisa pointed to Nizam.

Hoshiyar gazed at him in surprise. “I don’t know, your Majesty. He is not one of the staff.”

“An intruder?”

Hoshiyar’s glance was troubled. “This is impossible, your Majesty. Who would dare enter the imperial
zenana
without permission? Does he want to die?”

“Bring me my quiver and bow. Quick!” Mehrunnisa hissed.

Hoshiyar ran into the adjoining chamber and came back with a gold quiver and bow. The arrow shafts were made of silver, and the tips of gold. She put an arrow on the bow and pulled back the string. She nodded to Hoshiyar Khan.

“Hey you!” Hoshiyar yelled.

Nizam looked up. The expression froze on his face when he saw Mehrunnisa, her bow drawn. Before he had time to react, the arrow left the bow and hissed as it cut through the air. It struck him squarely in his chest and went right through his heart.

The garden was soon full of people. Eunuchs, slaves, and attendants rushed out upon hearing Hoshiyar’s shout and arrived just in time to see Nizam frantically clawing at the arrow sticking out of his breast. As they watched, Nizam toppled over into the pool. The water dyed a deep red, and his body floated in the pool facedown.

“Find out who he is and then feed his corpse to the dogs,” Mehrunnisa said curtly. She went back to her bedchamber to dress for the
jharoka.
By the time she came out, the body had been taken away and eunuchs were carefully draining the bloody water out of the pool. When the Empress returned to her palace after the
jharoka,
the pool was clear again and the goldfish swam about undisturbed.

The day passed, and whispers grew into a forest of noise in the imperial
zenana.
Mehrunnisa had forgotten that all she needed to do was stumble just a little.

And many hands would flinch from aiding her. Too many feet would willingly stomp on her while she was down.