Wild Jasmine (2 page)

His face felt wet. Reaching up, he realized that he was silently crying. He had not wept since he was a very small boy, he thought, surprised. Tears were not an integral part of his personality, although he was a kind and gentle man. He stared for a long moment at the evidence of his sorrow shining damply on his fingertips. Then he rubbed his chest, for it ached almost unbearably. His eyes scanned the road again, straining in the vivid light, seeing nothing.
She was gone
.

With this reality hammering in his brain, Akbar, the Grand Mughal of India, turned from the window and sat heavily upon the only piece of furniture in the small room—a long couch with an open end, which was covered in a red- and deep blue-striped brocade. He was numb with the pain of his great loss.
Candra
. His beautiful and most favorite young wife. Torn from his side by a cruel twist of fate. The ache in his chest grew and deepened, and Akbar did not know if he would survive it.
Candra. Candra. Candra
. Her name pounded in his head, and his senses swam dizzily.

When he came to himself again, he was amazed to find that it was night once more. Moonlight silvered the room where he sat in his painful desolation. His mouth was incredibly dry and, despite the heat of the season, he was still cold. The Grand Mughal attempted to marshal himself. Candra, his English rose, was gone. But for their daughter, Yasaman, it was as if she had never even existed. He shivered with the eerie thought. Candra had indeed existed. She had been warm and vibrant,
and so alive with the joy of living. Perhaps it was just her youth—but no, it was not simply that.

The English girl, brought to him as a captive by the Portuguese, had been brave and intelligent. Although it had not been easy for her, she had come to accept the fact that she was thousands of miles from her homeland and would never see it again. She had made peace with that fact and, having done so, had been content to make her life with him. He had loved her. He still did, and he believed that she had come to love him. She had said she did, and Candra was not a woman to dissemble.

The warm night wind brought the scent of jasmine to his tower room, and Akbar sighed deeply as if in pain. Jasmine, called Yasaman in the Indian tongue, had been Candra’s favorite. She had even named their child for the flower.
Their child!
What was to become of her?

When Candra’s priestly uncle had arrived to take her home, Akbar had been forced to relinquish the woman he loved to her family, to another husband thought dead, but now, by some miracle, alive and desirous of regaining his wife. He had had no choice but to send Candra back, but he would not allow her to take their child, for he was older and wiser than she was. Yasaman would have been considered ill-born by Candra’s family. God only knew what would have happened to the child. Here with her father, however, she would be raised the royal Mughal princess that she was. She would be happy, and she would be loved. Akbar knew that Candra’s world could not guarantee that future for his youngest child.

Candra had not left her daughter willingly. Akbar had had to drug her, and when she realized it, she had crawled from her bed where they had lain together to Yasaman’s cradle. She had stared down at the sleeping baby for a long, deep moment, and then Candra had raised her beautiful emerald-green eyes to him and said,
I shall never forgive you for this
. Her words could have destroyed him, had he not realized they were only a means of venting her frustration.

Remember that I love you
, he told her.
That has not stopped, nor will it ever
.

And I, God help me, love you, my lord Akbar
, she had replied.
Do not forget me
.

Never!
He had said the word then, and now, alone in his tower, he repeated it fiercely. “No, my beloved and beautiful English rose, I will never forget you!”

Once the Wheel of Love has been set in motion, there is no absolute rule
. He could even now hear her voice as she had whispered that last farewell to him before falling into her drugged slumber. He had held her sleeping form in his arms for some minutes before surrendering her. Now, as the memory of the moment returned so vividly to him, Akbar felt the tightening in his chest once more, and a sudden, sharp pain in his head sent him sliding into unconsciousness.

“
Akbar! Akbar! Open the door!
” A furious pounding finally aroused him, and stumbling to his feet, he saw that it was once again day.
But what day?
He remembered his pain, but he had absolutely no idea for how long he had lain stricken. Was someone calling him, or were his befuddled wits playing a jest upon him? With strangely clumsy fingers he unbolted the door and opened it.

“
My son!
”

Shocked, he recognized his mother standing before him. What was she doing here? She did not live in his palace.

“
My son!
” Hamida Banu Begum, known to her intimates as Mariam Makani, was a slender, elegant woman to whom age had been quite kind despite the harsh life she had lived in her youth. The black hair of her girlhood had turned silver with the years, but for one ebony lock that ran directly down the center of her head as if dividing it. Her face was little lined, and her black eyes intelligent. Now those eyes brimmed over with sympathy. Akbar might be the most powerful ruler in the east, but he was first and foremost her son. His sorrow was her sorrow.

“Mother, How came you here?” he asked her softly.

“Your wives Rugaiya Begum and Jodh Bai sent for me to come, my son. They have told me of Candra’s fate. I weep with you.” Mariam Makani reached up with a gentle hand and stroked her son’s face. Then she gasped. Akbar’s turban was not upon his head. His long hair hung down his back. When she had last seen him, that hair had been shining black. Now it was snow white, as was his facial hair.

“It was not necessary for you to come, Mother,” he said. “I know how you dislike travel.”

“Akbar, my son,” his mother said gently, “have you no idea how long you have been in this room? Candra’s caravan left here four mornings ago.” He looked at her, astounded, as she continued. “Although they respect your grief, Rugaiya Begum and Jodh Bai grew frightened when you would not respond to
their calls. They did not dare to have the door broken down, and so they decided to send for me. You have been known to grieve hard in the past, but always in sight of those who love you best. This time you locked yourself away. They did not know what to think. Then, too, we would not want my dear grandson, Salim, to gain the wrong notion regarding your sorrow. He is a charming boy, but given to jumping to conclusions.” Her eyes twinkled gently up at him.

Akbar, however, was not amused. “Salim is a rash man, and you are correct, Mother. He would use any excuse to usurp my place in this land; but he shall not. He will not be ruler here until I am dead.”

“I did not mean—” Mariam Makani began, shocked, but Akbar interrupted her.

“My heir is what he is, Mother. Rash. Impatient, and eager to step into my boots. It is the truth, and we both know it. You see it even if you will not admit directly to it. Salim wheedles ’round you, and has always been able to do so. You dote upon him, even as you dote upon me. Since your youth you have a weakness for Mughal men, my mother.”

Mariam Makani chuckled, but then she grew serious again. “What is to happen to the tiniest of my grandchildren? What of Yasaman?”

“I have given her to Rugaiya Begum to raise,” he answered. “She has longed for a child of mine for all the years of our marriage. She is the first of my wives, but until now I could not fulfill her only desire of me because she is barren. She was Candra’s friend, and she has loved Yasaman since the day my daughter was born. She will be a good mother to the princess.”

Mariam Makani nodded, satisfied with his decision. “Will my granddaughter grow up believing Rugaiya Begum is her natural mother?” she asked him.

Akbar shook his head. “No,” he said simply, and then he continued, “It is important that Yasaman know her heritage. The English will soon be trading with India.”

“Aiiieee!” his mother cried, beating briefly upon her breast. “Are the Portuguese and their arrogance not enough of a plague upon this land, my son? You would admit more barbarians?”

“The Portuguese have grown arrogant with my kindness,” Akbar told his mother. “Some behave as if they are conquerors instead of here on my sufferance. I will introduce the English into India, and instead of giving us difficulty, they will give
each other difficulty as they strive for supremacy over one another. From what Candra told me, the English are a fair-minded and honest people.” He patted his mother’s hand. “You simply do not like foreigners and their ways, Mother. Admit to this failing, you who have virtually no faults.”

“I do not count it a blemish upon my character that I do not like foreigners and their foreign ways,” she told him sharply. Then she tapped his cheek with a long finger. “Do not presume to criticize me, Akbar. In your lifelong search for the truth, you have forgotten that according to the Holy Koran: Paradise lies at a mother’s feet. Now you must cease to grieve for your English wife and come out of here so that you may go about the business of ruling your realm. You are Akbar, the Grand Mughal, not some lovelorn boy, broken-hearted over his first romance. Go and get your turban. It has fallen from your head. Your hair has gone white in your sorrow, my son. You do not want to startle anyone.”

“I will shave it all off,” he said, “as proof of my grief over Candra’s loss.”

Mariam Makani nodded. “Your moustache too,” she told him. “I will go myself and get the razor and the basin. No one must see you like this, my son.” She turned to go, her plum-colored silk robes swinging gracefully about.

“Bring me a change of clothes as well, Mother,” he called after her, and then he moved back into the tower room to gaze a final time out of the window. The day was bright and hot, as it had been four mornings ago when his beloved had been taken from him. The coastal road was empty. The insects hummed in the trees about the palace. Akbar sighed. Candra was gone. He would never see her beautiful face again. He would never love her exquisite body again. He had nothing but his memories. His memories and their daughter, Yasaman. In a perverse way, he had failed Candra; he had been unable to change her fate. He would not fail Yasaman. The child was all he had left of their brief but extraordinary love. No, he would not fail Yasaman.

Part I

Y
ASAMAN

India
1597–1605

Chapter 1

A
giggle, with a distinctly mischievous ring to it, came from somewhere near the tall orchid trees that soared gracefully into the late spring afternoon.

“
My princess!
Where are you?” The head eunuch of Yasaman Kama Begum’s household staff moved anxiously through the Grand Mughal’s gardens. “Where has that imp of Azrael gotten to?” he muttered crankily to himself. He stopped to listen, but only the noisy chatter of birds met his sharp ears.