The Twentieth Wife (6 page)

As they were leaving, Ruqayya said, without looking in their direction, “The child amuses me. Bring her to wait upon me soon.”

Mehrunnisa and Asmat Begam bowed low to the Empress and let themselves out.

The wedding parties continued for almost a week, but Mehrunnisa, frightened after her encounter with Ruqayya, refused to go for the festivities. The concubine had merely made her angry; the Empress, with her glittering eyes and her aura of power, alarmed Mehrunnisa. Asmat Begam and Ghias Beg went every day to pay their respects to Akbar and his queens and to take part in the rejoicing.

A few days later, Ruqayya sent an imperial summons commanding Mehrunnisa’s presence at the royal
zenana.

This Begam conceived a great affection for Mehr-un-Nasa; she loved her more than others and always kept her in her company.

—B. Narain, trans., and S. Sharma, ed.,
A Dutch Chronicle of Mughal India

A
TALL EUNUCH WITH A
wilting moustache met Mehrunnisa and Asmat at the entrance to Empress Ruqayya’s palace. He put a hand out to Asmat.

“Only the child,” he said. Then, seeing the sudden spurt of apprehension in Asmat’s eyes, he relented a little and added, “She will be sent home safely, but only the child must enter.”

Asmat nodded. It would have been futile to argue in any case. She leaned over to whisper, “Be good,
beta.
You will be all right, don’t worry.” Then she was gone. Mehrunnisa watched her mother leave, wanting to beg her to stay. How could she leave her alone here with the funny-looking man?

When she turned around, she found the eunuch scrutinizing her.

“So you are the child she likes,” he said, his voice a growl. He stepped back to allow her to enter into a dark antechamber. Beyond in the courtyard a rectangle of sunshine slanted through. The eunuch stopped Mehrunnisa’s progress with a hand. “Turn around.”

Mehrunnisa turned slowly, feeling the unnatural weight of her embroidered
ghagara
swirl around her. The blouse was loose; it hung about her shoulders even though it was laced tightly at the back. At home she wore thin muslin
ghagaras
and
salwars.
For the Empress, Asmat had dressed her in her best outfit, even though it was only a
morning visit and not even a day of festival. The eunuch put a finger to her nape and turned her around until she stood facing him.

He pulled Mehrunnisa’s plait over her shoulder, checking its length against her hip, and touched her cheeks. Then he pinched her skin and peered at her teeth. Mehrunnisa pulled back, her face flushing, as his head loomed in front of her. What was she—a horse for sale?

The eunuch laughed, showing
paan
-stained red teeth. “So thin, so scrawny.” He poked her in the ribs. “Look at the bones sticking out here. What, don’t your parents feed you? Was that woman your mother? Now,
she
is pretty. But you—even your teeth have a hole in them. I wonder what she sees in you. She will tire of you soon. Come,” he said, pulling her by the arm, his nails digging into Mehrunnisa’s flesh. “Now remember not to repeat what I just said. Perhaps this should be your first lesson, girl. Never talk of what you hear in the
zenana.”

Still laughing, he half-dragged, half-pulled Mehrunnisa down the corridor to the bathhouse. Slave girls bowed to the man as they passed. Her heart thumping, Mehrunnisa saw this and didn’t pull away from him. Maji was not here; she was all alone with this strange, pasty-faced, limp-moustached creature. Who was he? And why did he have so much power here, in this harem of women?

The Empress was preparing for her bath when Mehrunnisa entered the
hammam.
By this time a thin film of sweat had coated her forehead and dampened her armpits. If this man was so strange, how would the Empress be? She had been even more frightening the other day. The eunuch let go of Mehrunnisa’s arm and bowed deeply to Ruqayya.

“The child is here, your Majesty.” Then, not waiting for Ruqayya’s reply, he slid backwards out of the room.

Mehrunnisa was alone. She stood still, blinking in the sunlight that pooled around her from an overhead skylight, throwing lattice patterns
on the ground. A tinkle of gold bangles made her look to one corner of the room. The Empress sat on a stool as sleekly muscled slave girls, their skins colored with the brown hues of the earth, took off her jewels. A eunuch stood nearby, holding a silver tray on which the jewels were laid. In the center of the room was an octagonal pool carved into the floor. A wooden bench ran along the inside of the pool.

“Come here, child.”

At the sound of the Empress’s voice, Mehrunnisa moved to the corner of the room where Ruqayya was seated, wearing a peacock-blue silk robe ablaze in gold
zari.
Her arm still hurt from where the eunuch’s fingers had pinched, but she suddenly wanted even his presence. She didn’t want to be alone here in the semidark room lit only by shards of sunlight from above, while slave girls and eunuchs watched her with deep-eyed curiosity.

“Al-Salam alekum,
your Majesty.”

Mehrunnisa,” Ruqayya said, leaning back against a pillar. “It is a pretty name. Sit.”

Mehrunnisa came near her and sat down. Ruqayya reached out a hand to touch her dense black hair.

“Such lovely eyes. You are Persian?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

Ruqayya’s round face creased into a smile. “Who is your father?”

“Mirza Ghias Beg, your Majesty.”

“Who is your grandfather?”

And so they talked for five minutes. Mostly, the Empress asked the questions—about Mehrunnisa, about Asmat, Ghias, her brothers. What they did, which
mulla
they studied with, what she had read recently. The Empress was not so frightening after that conversation. Her voice slipped into low, slumberous tones as the robe was removed and the slave girls massaged her with jasmine oil. Mehrunnisa watched as a slave girl’s brown fingers, glistening with oil, moved over Ruqayya’s large body. The slave kneaded the muscles
in Ruqayya’s shoulders, and the Empress’s head fell forward with a sigh. The slave’s hands slid over the slope of her breasts, around her stomach, over her thighs, her movements quick with practice.

Then the Empress rose to descend into the pool slowly. Her hair swirled around her, loose from its usual bun. Mehrunnisa watched as the slave girls, still clad in cotton pajamas and
cholis,
went into the water with the Empress. Ruqayya lay back in the water as they soaped her, their palms frothing with wet soap nuts, then washed her hair and rinsed it.

At one point, the Empress sat up and said sharply to one of the slaves, “Did you bathe today?”

The girl, very young, and frightened now, stammered, “Yes, your Majesty.”

“Let me see,” Ruqayya commanded, sniffing at the girl’s hands, at her hair, under her armpits. She turned away and said in a menacingly quiet voice, “Get out. Now. And don’t ever come into my bath water unless you have bathed first.”

The girl scrambled out of the tub, dripping water over the floor and fled from the room, leaving wet footprints in her wake.

Mehrunnisa shuddered at the venom in Ruqayya’s voice. Goosebumps crawled up her back. She cowered into the shadows of the room, hoping the Empress would not notice her. There she sat in silence for the next two hours as Ruqayya finished dressing, throwing back one outfit, then another at the eunuchs until one finally pleased her. When the Empress left the room, she looked back at Mehrunnisa and said, “Go home now. Come again tomorrow.”

That was all.

Over the next few months, Mehrunnisa went when Ruqayya called for her, talking when the Empress wanted to talk, sitting in silence next to her when she didn’t. She saw that most of Ruqayya’s tantrums were just for pretense. The slave girl had insolent
eyes, Ruqayya had told Mehrunnisa later in passing. But it had been no such thing. The girl had been too callow and too timorous to raise insolent eyes at the empress. Sometimes, though, Ruqayya was truly roused to anger, but mostly the Empress raised her voice just because she could. The title of Padshah Begam was not lightly bestowed nor lightly taken. Everything that happened within the harem walls, and quite a bit that happened outside, came to Ruqayya’s ears through various spies. Nothing was too big or too small for the Empress’s notice. Every illness, every pregnancy, every missed period, court intrigues, squabbles between wives and concubines or slave girls—every bit of information found its way to her palace.

Mehrunnisa began to look forward to these visits with Akbar’s favorite wife. She was fascinated by Ruqayya’s chameleonic moods, her calm and quiet, her fiery rages. She was fascinated too by how important she was, and thrilled that Ruqayya found
her
interesting.

But it was Salim she wanted to see. One day, as Mehrunnisa ran back to the
zenana
gates after spending time with the Empress, she entered the grounds of an adjoining palace by mistake. It was not until corridor after corridor had led her deeper into the palace that she realized she was lost. It was late in the afternoon, and the palace was silent. Even the omnipresent maids and eunuchs were hidden in the dark shadows of the bedchambers, waiting for the sun to wane. Mehrunnisa looked around and tried to retrace her steps. The gardens she passed were immaculate, the grass green even in the heat, the bougainvillea vines drooping with watermelon-colored flowers. She came to an inner courtyard paved with marble, a rectangle of blue sky above. The four sides of the courtyard were enclosed with deep, many-pillared verandahs. The pillars were also of marble and glowed a cool white in the heat of courtyard. Mehrunnisa slipped her arms around a pillar, reaching only halfway, and laid her sweating forehead against the stone. Perhaps
in an hour someone would find her and show her the way out. She was too tired to wander any longer.

Even as she stood there a man came into the courtyard carrying a silver casket. He was dressed simply in white: a loose
kurta
and pajama, his feet in leather sandals. Mehrunnisa straightened from the pillar and started to call out to him. Then she drew back. It was Prince Salim. She slid down behind the pillar and peeped around it. Why was he alone, without attendants?

Salim went to the opposite end of the courtyard and sat down on a stone bench under a
neem
tree, its branches heavy with grapelike yellow fruit. He made a clicking sound with his tongue. Mehrunnisa almost fell into the courtyard in surprise as hundreds of pigeons roosting in the eaves came rustling out and flew to the prince. They swarmed about his feet, their throats moving furiously under a ring of iridescent green feathers. Salim opened the casket, dipped his hand inside, and threw a handful of wheat into the air. The grains caught the golden light of the sun as they showered onto the marble paving stones. The birds immediately began pecking at the wheat, their heads bobbing up and down. Some turned expectant looks at the prince.

He laughed, the sound echoing softly through the silent courtyard. “You are spoilt. If you want some more, come and get it.”

He held out the next handful on his palm. Undetected, hidden behind the pillar, Mehrunnisa watched the birds waddle around him as though undecided. Then, with great daring, one pigeon flew up to Salim’s shoulder and sat there. He stayed perfectly still. Soon the pigeons swarmed all around him, their gray and black bodies almost covering the prince.

“What are you doing here?” A hand caught Mehrunnisa by the shoulder and spun her around. Mehrunnisa stood up and dusted off her
ghagara,
lifting her face to meet the gaze of the eunuch.

“I’m lost.”

“Silly girl,” he whispered fiercely, pushing her from the courtyard.
“You are in the
mardana.
Don’t you know it is forbidden to come into the men’s quarters? Go now, before Prince Salim sees you. He does not like anyone around him when he feeds the pigeons.”

“What are
you
doing here then?”

The eunuch raised his eyebrows. “I am Hoshiyar Khan.”

Mehrunnisa raised her eyebrows in response. “And I am Mehrunnisa. But who
are
you?”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “I . . . it does not matter. You have to go now, girl.”

Mehrunnisa turned for one last look at Salim before she left. He sat on the bench, crooning softly to the pigeons. When one lit on his hair, he laughed again, trying to look at it without tilting his head.

“Come on, come on,” the eunuch said impatiently. “No women are allowed in the
mardana.
You know that. The Emperor will have your head if he finds out.”

“He will not!” Mehrunnisa said. “I got lost. I did not come here deliberately.”

“Bap re!”
Hoshiyar sighed, still pushing her in front of him until she almost tripped over the skirts of her
ghagara.
“She argues, too. I find her making moon eyes at Prince Salim, and she tells me she was lost.”

He took her out of the palace and pointed to the gates. “Go—and don’t let me see you here again, or
I
will have your head.”