The Twentieth Wife (20 page)

As Salim was mulling over his problems, Mahabat Khan came to him with his request for a private audience. Until now, Salim had felt the throne secure for himself, especially since Murad was dead
and only Daniyal was left in contention. And then Koka languidly pointed out that Prince Daniyal was in the Deccan with Akbar. Who knew how close they had become?

Salim grew cold at the thought. Would his father pass him by and leave the empire to Daniyal? Could he afford to take that chance? All these years he had wanted—no, yearned desperately—to be on the throne; and it seemed as though after all that, Daniyal, who had equal rights under the law, would take away his life’s ambition. At that point he started listening to what his friends had to say. Capture the treasury and the empire would indisputably be his, for the life of the empire lay in its rich treasury.

Salim finally looked up from the amber wine in his goblet. “How can I capture the treasury at Agra? It is well guarded.”

Mahabat, Koka, and Abdullah smiled at one another.

“There is only a skeleton army left at Agra,” Koka said slowly. “The rest of the imperial army is here, or in the Deccan with the Emperor.”

Salim shook his head. He was being asked to rebel a second time against his father. And this time, there would be no turning back. At least with the poisoning incident, Akbar had merely been suspicious; he had had no real proof. But capturing the treasury—that would be an open act of mutiny.

“The time is ripe, your Highness,” Abdullah urged. “We must act now. Who knows how long the Emperor will live? It may be years before he dies and you ascend the throne of Hindustan.”

“Why wait, your Highness?” Mahabat Khan chimed in. “His Majesty has clearly stated that he wishes you to be heir. If you capture the royal treasury, the Emperor will acknowledge you as the next king and retire from court life.”

Salim shook his head again. “I don’t know whether it will work. This is a big step to take.”

“The right step, your Highness.” Koka smiled under his moustache,
sensing victory. “You reached manhood ten years ago. But does the Emperor admit it? No. Instead, he treats you like a child. He gives you no responsibility.”

“He did send me to subdue the Rana of Udaipur,” Salim said haltingly.

“A lost cause, your Highness. His Majesty should have sent you to the Deccan. But he went there himself, not trusting your command,” Mahabat replied.

Salim bit his lip. “I cannot,” he moaned. “What if the Emperor finds out before we reach Agra?”

“We will travel in the greatest secrecy, your Highness,” Koka said. “We can send out word that you are confined to your bed with an illness. No one will know you are not here. Think of the riches of the royal treasury.”

Salim’s head jerked up from his cup. He could see the huge vaults at the fort. Thick strands of swan-white pearls, glittering rubies, diamonds and emeralds. Teak chests spilling with gold and silver coins, all sitting at the treasury, gathering dust. At the last counting, the treasury accountants had put the figure at two hundred million rupees.

But . . . this was surely wrong. The Emperor would be devastated when he heard of Salim’s rebellion. The prince bent his head. As he did so, for a brief moment, he remembered Mehrunnisa. She must be a beautiful woman now. Ali Quli never talked of her anymore, not even in passing. Salim sometimes almost asked, then stopped himself. How did one man ask after another man’s wife? Yet, if things had been different, she would have been
his
wife. A defiant gleam came into Salim’s eyes. “You are right. It is time. The Emperor cannot treat me as a child any longer.” He turned to the three men. “We leave for Agra tomorrow. Go prepare for the march.”

“As you wish, your Highness.” The three men smiled at one another and bowed out of the room.

The Prince, advanced by this favor and swelling with Pride, resolved . . . to go on the journey, answering he would treat of no Peace until he were in the field with his Army. . . . The ambitions of this young Prince are open, the Common talk of the People; yet his father suffers all . . .

—William Foster, ed.,
The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India

W
INTER CAME TO
L
AHORE VENOMOUSLY
cold, carrying with it a touch of frost from the north and the mountains. All through the rest of the year the city had baked in the heat of a blazing sun. The monsoons were late, then they did not come at all, and the Ravi did not flood its banks—instead, it lay parched at its edges, shallow and slow like a giant python in the heat. It was six months since Emperor Akbar had moved his court to his campaign in the Deccan, taking with him, it seemed, all the life from the city. It had been a brutal summer. Now, as the earth tilted away from the sun, dry, chilly winds whistled through the almost deserted streets and lanes.

Only a few people braved the cold and the wind in one bazaar street that hugged the ramparts of the Lahore fort. Beggars huddled around rubbish-heap fires, rags gathered around their shivering bodies. A vendor broiled fresh ears of corn over a coal brazier, and then brushed over them a chili-and-cumin powder mixture to bring fire to cold bellies. A few intrepid men and women hurried through, shawls drawn tightly over their heads and shoulders.

One woman walked slowly through the bazaar, her head bent, trying not to attract the attention of the men who passed. There was little
to see, though, for she was clad in the deepest blue. Her veil was of thick, impenetrable muslin and fell in heavy folds almost to her feet. The swirls of her
ghagara
swept the cobbled street and muffled her footsteps. It was only when an errant wind breezed through that her clothes molded to her body. Then the men looked with ravenous eyes at the curve of her breast, at the dip of her waist, at the sway of her hips. But they did not approach her, knowing, without really being able to see, that she was not a common woman.

But Mehrunnisa did not notice them. She stopped at one side of the bazaar and looked up at the red brick walls of the fort that rose to the blue-black sky above her. On the other side of these walls was her home. She put out a veil-clad hand and touched the pitted bricks, feeling the cold seep into her palm. For six months, since the Emperor had left, since Prince Salim had left, since her husband had left, she had roamed the bazaars of the city. Ali Quli would be horrified if he knew. Even Bapa and Maji would shudder. From Ali Quli would come
Like a woman of the night, as if you had no protector, no husband. Other wives don’t do this; they stay at home where their men keep them. Why not you?
From Bapa it would be
You must take care, beta. It is an ugly world out there.

And yet, Mehrunnisa could not have stayed at home without anyone to talk with, no one to visit, nothing to do. The imperial harem had moved away also, some with the Emperor to the Deccan, some back to Agra. Mehrunnisa had wandered into the bazaars with the servants at first, but they were always loud, quarreling, puffed with pride at their positions, and she had spent all her time trying to pacify them. Then she had forbidden all but two male servants from coming with her, and they had to follow at a discreet distance. They would keep her safe. The shopkeepers gave her curious glances but asked no questions; the gold
mohurs
in her hand kept them silent and grateful. It was, after all, the only thing she had to occupy herself with now that the city slept in the wake of the royal court.

A tempting aroma filled the air, and Mehrunnisa turned to watch a vendor as he roasted peanuts and chickpeas, his metal spoon clanking against the sizzling
tava.
Suddenly feeling cold, she went up to him and offered him a few coins. His mouth broke into a wide grin, showing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, as he picked one coin from her hand, his grimy finger lingering longer than necessary on her palm. Mehrunnisa grimaced under her veil. It
was
an ugly world, but as long as these men looked and did not approach her, it was a small price to pay for such freedom. The vendor scooped the peanuts into a paper cone, twisted one end, and gave it to Mehrunnisa. She took it from him, careful this time not to let her hand touch his. Then, the cone warming her skin, she went down the street to the
chai
shop on the corner.

The rest of the bazaar was shut. It was too cold for the shopkeepers to linger in their stores, too cold for shoppers to visit and haggle, too cold to do anything but drink
chai
and smoke
beedis.
Mehrunnisa went into the teashop and sat down on a bench. The owner, a fat unsmiling man, nodded briefly at her, then shouted, “Mohan!”

A little boy came scurrying out from behind the shop, flapping his arms to keep away the chill, clad only in a tattered pair of shorts and a
kurta.
He went up to his master and waited until he had poured some tea into an earthenware cup. This he took slowly and with great concentration to Mehrunnisa. As he neared her, a customer leaned into him, and a few steaming drops spilled onto his hands. He looked up at her, his eyes huge in his small face. Mehrunnisa reached over and took the cup from his hands. “We won’t say anything about the spill.” She knew he would be beaten if the
chai
seller found out. The boy wiped his hand on the front of his already stained
kurta
and took the money from her. “Thank you,
Sahiba.”

Mehrunnisa sat in the shop listening to the men around her talk, sipping the heavily sugared
chai
spiced with cinnamon and ginger.
Two days ago, there had been a letter from her husband, the first in all this time. In it, he had recounted his tale of saving Prince Salim from the tigress. He was now called Sher Afghan. Tiger Slayer. It was an impressive title. Salim would never forget him or what he had done; the name would be a reminder. Mehrunnisa laid the cup down on the wooden crate that served as a table and watched the steam condense in the air. Suddenly, she yearned to know whether Salim knew that Ali Quli was her husband.

She leaned back against the soot-blackened walls of the
chai
shop. Ali Quli had said little else about the incident in the jungle, but she could picture it. Impetuous, rash Salim, rushing to pick up tiger cubs, aware that the tigress would be nearby. But he would still do it, even though he knew that a mother always protects her young.

A piercing, brief pain flashed through her chest and brought sudden tears to her eyes. She let them blur her vision, then slip unnoticed down her cheek. A mother. How sweet that word sounded. For her the hardest part was to fend off the constant, prying questions and advice.
Why? Take this powder mixed with milk every night. Fast on the night of the full moon. Be submissive.
The pain was sometimes almost physical in its intensity. Her arms ached to hold her child.

“Sahiba!”

A firm hand on her shoulder jolted Mehrunnisa out of her thoughts. She looked around to see one of her maids crouched next to her. Her heart faltered. What had happened?

“What is it, Leela?” she asked, rising as she spoke. There was a dense silence in the
chai
shop. All the men were looking at them. Mehrunnisa pulled the girl up and they hurried out of the shop, leaving her
chai
still sitting on the crate.

“Sahiba,
it’s Yasmin. Her time has come, but things are not right.”

Mehrunnisa stopped and stared at the trembling maidservant. She was still very young, perhaps not even ten years old, but the servants
did not keep note of their time of birth or death, so there was no way of knowing. Leela was still a child.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

Leela shook her head, pulling Mehrunnisa by the hand toward the fort. “I do not know,
Sahiba.
The
hakim
is busy; there is no midwife to be found. I think they will not come because Yasmin is not married. She needs help,
Sahiba.”

Mehrunnisa still stood unmoving in front of the
chai
shop, looking down at the grimy street, the cobblestones smudged with winter dirt. Yasmin was one of her slaves, bought for a few rupees. She too was young, and pretty, with looks that had caught Ali Quli’s eye. Mehrunnisa had ignored the situation as long as she could until Yasmin’s belly had started to grow. Then she was left alone in Lahore, with nothing to do but watch her husband’s child in another woman’s body.

“Come,
Sahiba!”

Leela now knelt in front of Mehrunnisa, a tear-smudged face against her hand. What did this child care about another slave in the household? They were not sisters, not related. They had only known each other for the last year. Yet, she pleaded for her life. Mehrunnisa turned away briefly and stared down the bazaar street. Then, her face unreadable, she looked down at the child in front of her.

“Come,” she said, putting out a hand. The men in the shop leaned over their
chai
to watch as they fled down the street, hand in hand, Mehrunnisa’s veil swirling in a blue cloud around her. Her two servants, who had been smoking
beedis
by the shop, hurriedly flicked them to the side of the street and raced behind their mistress.