The Twentieth Wife (17 page)

When she reached her house, she went through the courtyard to Ali Quli’s room. Qasim, his manservant, lay snoring across the front of the door. Mehrunnisa bent and shook him by the shoulder.

He woke with a shout from an unfinished dream and stared at her.
“Sahiba,
when did you come back? The
Sahib
does not expect you. I will let him know—”

“No need,” Mehrunnisa said.

“But,
Sahiba . . .”
Qasim scrambled to his feet and hopped around like an injured cat. “It is best . . .”

By then Mehrunnisa had thrown the door of Ali Quli’s room open. She stopped abruptly. Ali Quli slept in the bed in the center of the room, his leg thrown over a slave girl, one arm encircling her, his chin buried in the curve of her bare shoulder.

Mehrunnisa felt as though she had been shot at with a matchlock, a huge part of her blown apart at the sight of her husband with the slave girl. Ali Quli woke then, slowly, and looked at Mehrunnisa standing at the door to his room. He slapped the slave girl on her rump to wake her and said, “Get out.”

The girl woke, saw her mistress, hurriedly pulled on her
choli,
and fled out of the room, slipping past Mehrunnisa with downcast eyes. When she had gone, Mehrunnisa slammed the door on Qasim’s curious face.

Ali Quli propped himself on an elbow and said, “She was just a slave girl, Mehrunnisa. Be thankful I do not take another wife.”

“And when would you have time for another wife, my lord?” Mehrunnisa asked, bitterness staining her voice. “When would you see her? When would you talk to her? Another wife would take too much time away from your campaigns. She would be demanding, want new clothes, want you to admire her in them.”

“As you do.” Ali Quli sat up on the bed, pulling the blue calico sheet over his hips.

Mehrunnisa slid down the door to the floor and put her face in her hands. “I ask for so little from you. But this, in my own house—this is too much. I do not complain when you go to the
nashakhana
or visit the
nautch
girls. Why in my own house, in the bed I have slept in?”

“A bed that is not fruitful,” Ali Quli yelled, rage suffusing his face. “How dare you talk to me like this? Question my motives? I married you because I was ordered to by Emperor Akbar. Does he now have to order you to bear a child?”

Mehrunnisa looked at him, struck dumb by his words.
But I carry your child. I come to tell you the news that I carry your child, and I find you in bed with another woman.
Why did it hurt so much? She knew of his dalliances with the
nautch
girls, knew that sometimes he even took the slave girls of the house into his bed, but this was the first time she had actually seen it. Maji said she must tell her husband. Even Maji could not want her to tell him under these circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “Perhaps it is better you have another wife.”

Ali Quli laughed as he lay back on the pillows and put his arms behind his head. Behind him the sun streamed through the latticework frame of the windows. He watched her distraught face through half-closed eyes. “Perhaps I will.”

A fighting spirit rose in Mehrunnisa. His mockery was too much for her. This was the first real conversation they had had in four years, almost the first time they had talked for so long. She said, her words brittle, “Would you like me to choose her for you, my lord? What is it you want? Long hair, a slim body, eyes a poet would laud? A good family? Perhaps her father should be an important minister at court? Surely an alliance like that would bring you good fortune.”

Ali Quli whipped out of bed, tying the ends of the sheet around his waist. He strode over to Mehrunnisa and grabbed her face in one of his large hands. His face close to hers, his morning breath souring the air around them, he said in a hoarse whisper, “You talk too much for a woman, Mehrunnisa—as if you were a queen, as if you expected to be a queen. Yet where is the gold in your veins? Who are your ancestors? What lands did they conquer? Where are the monuments to their lives, the tombs of their deaths? And who is your father? A Persian refugee. A man who fled his country with the clothes on his back, shredded by the time he got to India.”

Mehrunnisa wrenched at his hand with both of hers, but he held her too tightly, his grip bringing an ache to her jaw. It was difficult to talk, but she managed a few words. “You are also Persian, my lord. Do not forget that. If my father found refuge in India, so did you. Under the same circumstances.”

“But I am a soldier, Mehrunnisa. I fight in battles. I kill other men. There is iron in my blood. And what is your father? Nothing better than a lowly
vakil
who works with numbers.”

Mehrunnisa mustered all of her strength and tried to push Ali Quli off. But he was much stronger. Suddenly, just as suddenly as he had leaped from the bed, he let go of her face and sat back. Their knees now touched. Mehrunnisa rubbed her cheek, knowing his fingers would have left their mark on her skin. She could not go to Manija’s wedding—people would talk. Maji and Bapa would be deeply concerned.

“My father is the
Diwan-i-buyutat—
the Master of Works in charge of the imperial buildings,” she said, “not some lowly
vakil.
You know that. It is because of his position at court that you enjoy privileges. A raised
mansab,
command of an army division—all these are because of him.” She knew she should not be talking to him like this, that women did not talk to their husbands thus. Maji never had to Bapa, at least not in Mehrunnisa’s hearing. But at this moment she despised Ali Quli, cringed at the thought that she was carrying his child, never wanted to see him again no matter what recriminations it brought upon her. How dare he insult her Bapa? Who was
he
to insult her Bapa?

Ali Quli made a sudden movement with his hands, and Mehrunnisa cowered, hating that she did so. But he had never yet hit her, and he did not now. “I know you think you married beneath yourself,” he shouted. “Your Bapa and Maji think so also. Because I came here without a family, because the Khan-i-khanan’s wife had to stand in as a mother for me during the wedding ceremony. Because I was a
safarchi
to the Shah. A table attendant. For four years I have withstood this treatment from your family.”

“Bapa and Maji have never said a word,” Mehrunnisa cried.

“They did not need to. Their mannerisms, their looks, their actions around me speak volumes. Yet, who are you, Mehrunnisa? You behave as though you were royalty. But what silks and velvets covered your mother’s bed when you were born? What trumpets played and cannons boomed the news of your birth? What
bawarchis
sweated over
chulas
to make delicacies that sweetened the mouths of people who came to ask after your birth? What beggars did your father clothe and feed as an indication of his joy at your coming? What can you claim of these festivities? A bare tent, a winter storm. A mother who almost died giving birth to you. A father who decided you would be better brought up by someone else.”

Mehrunnisa stared at him for a long time, the pain of his words
searing through her as if her skin had been slowly set on fire. Somewhere through that agony she realized how ironic it was that his words were almost poetic when he was most angry. When she spoke, her voice was toneless, devoid of energy. “Why don’t you divorce me, my lord? All you have to do is say
talaq, talaq, talaq
in front of two witnesses.”

Ali Quli shook his head. “No. Your father, though I think of him only as a
vakil,
still has some use. It would seem that being Ghias Beg’s son-in-law commands respect. So,” he leaned forward and touched her face, gently this time, “it is not as easy as you think. Nothing in life is. We will be married for the rest of our lives, my dear Mehrunnisa. Think about it: for the rest of your life you will be nothing but the wife of a common soldier. Pray Allah I get a promotion soon, or you will never be able to hold your head up in your illustrious family.”

With that he rose from the floor, bent to move Mehrunnisa to one side, opened the door, and left the room, calling out as he did, “Qasim, get my
chai
ready.”

Mehrunnisa sat still, looking down at her hands. She had not had the opportunity to tell Ali Quli why she had come to his room so early in the morning. Around her she could hear the household stirring as the maids drew water from the courtyard well, as the sweepers swept the stone corridors of the verandah. She had no feeling any more, no sorrow, no heartache, just a dullness.

As she sat there the first pain came. Just like the others, it stormed down her lower back and belly, like a hand gripping her in a vise. Mehrunnisa closed her eyes as the pains flooded through her. Now she would not have to make up an excuse for not attending Manija’s wedding. Now Maji would not ask why she did not come. She clutched her hand to her front, doubling over on the floor, her face flat against the cool stone. Another child gone, barely inside her, barely alive, now gone.
It could not be so.
It was unimaginable—this
life without a child, this life Ali Quli had sketched out for her as the barren wife of a common soldier.

Her lips moved in a soft prayer, even as tears blurred the room and her breath stuck in her chest.
Please Allah, not again, let me keep this one. Please.

But then there was the warm swamp of blood between her legs.

•   •   •

B
Y THIS TIME
, 1599, the Mughal empire stretched vast across the map of Hindustan, embracing Qandahar and Kabul in the northwest, Kashmir in the north, Bengal to the east, and south to Berar. The
khutba,
the official proclamation of sovereignty, was read before the noon prayers every Friday in the melodious voices of the muezzins from mosques around the empire.
All hail Akbar Padshah, lord most mighty.
In Central India, the Emperor had managed to subdue even the Rajput kings, valiant warriors and a fierce, proud race. As each kingdom was conquered, its daughters, sisters, cousins, and nieces were given in marriage to the imperial family, cementing newly formed alliances and ensuring against further rebellions.

One kingdom still held out. Udaipur lay southwest in Rajput land—a rugged, harsh land of low-lying mountains, bare plains, and scrub. Water and rain were a distant memory; the scorching Thar desert lay to the north. But Udaipur, under a brutal burning sun, stood on the banks of the Pichola lake. Around it, replete with the waters of the lake, the land was fertile, green, and lush, surrounded by the bare hills of the countryside. Here Rana Pratap Singh had ruled with a stubbornness and arrogance that could only come from being a Rajput—proud of being from an unconquerable people, and angry at the presumption of anyone, even a great Emperor, at thinking of
his
land as part of a larger empire.

Rana Pratap Singh died in a hut on the banks of the lake. Through the windows of his shack he could see the brick and mortar walls of the palace a previous Rana had commenced building, but
during his reign there had not been enough peace to complete the palace. His sons stood around him as he lay on his hay-stuffed mattress, vowing to continue Pratap Singh’s fight against Akbar, swearing that until every last breath left their bodies they would not give up their land to be swallowed by the widespread Mughal empire. As the eldest of his seventeen sons and his heir apparent, Amar Singh, came through the doorway to pay his last respects to his father, his turban caught on one of the slats of the roof and was wrenched off his head. So Pratap Singh, that mighty Rana who had staved off the Mughal Empire, died with this image in his mind: that his son, turbanless and so relaxed, would live a life of ease. That he would not rule for very long. That he would lose this beloved kingdom.

•   •   •

E
MPEROR
A
KBAR SAT
by the window in Ruqayya Sultan Begam’s apartments, the leather-bound and gold-embossed copies of the
Akbarnama
in his lap. He touched the raised surface of the engraving on top. Abul Fazl had said that the three volumes covered his reign, the first two consisting of the history of his rule, the third—the
Ain-i-Akbari
—an account of daily life. His fingers skimmed over the unfamiliar letters of the first page. Akbar’s grandfather had written the
Baburnama.
His father’s reign was covered by his aunt Gulbadan Begam’s
Humayunama.
Now this: a first-hand account for posterity of his rule. Flowery, full of praise, and sometimes pompous in his attempts to please, Abul Fazl had yet managed to capture the essence of his life.

Outside the windows, the palace guard walked through the night, his melodious voice singing out the hour. “Two o’clock and all is well!”

The Emperor laid the
Akbarnama
next to him on the divan and slowly unwound his turban, wrapping the piece of embroidered silk into a ball as he did so. It was late and time for him to sleep. Tiredness crept over him as he undressed slowly, unlacing his
qaba,
replacing his silk pajamas with cotton ones and a loose, white cotton
kurta.

He blew out the oil lamp by the window. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he went up to the bed and stood there, looking down at the two shapes. Empress Ruqayya slept aslant on the bed, and Prince Khurram had his little arms tight around her neck. The cotton sheet that covered them had slipped off, so the Emperor bent and pulled it over them gently.

Murad.
His son’s name flashed through his mind, and he sat down, letting the tears come for the first time since he had heard the news. After all those years of wanting sons, being blessed with three, now he was left with only two. Murad was dead.

Akbar had sent Murad a few months ago to oversee the campaign in the south, hoping and praying that command of the imperial army would take his mind off drink and drugs. But that had not happened. Like Daniyal before him, Murad was a weak leader, unable to control the men. Petty fighting had broken out among the army commanders. Then news had come to Akbar that Murad was very sick and dying from excessive drinking. So the Emperor had sent Abul Fazl, head chancellor of the empire, to nurse him back to health. But Fazl arrived too late. Murad had fallen into a coma, and on the fourth day after Fazl’s arrival, on the second of May, 1599, he died.