Shadow Princess

by Indu Sundaresan

  At that thought, Jahanara picked up the skirts of her ghagara and fled down the dim corridor in search of her father, and when she reached the end, someone put a hand across, halting her progress. She stopped, breathing hard from the running.

  “What is it, Aurangzeb? Why are you awake? You should be in bed, this is women’s work.”

  Her brother’s figure detached itself from the shadows. At thirteen he was already almost at her height. Aurangzeb was as thin she was, but whereas her gait and her carriage were assured, he was at that awkward, dangling age with his torso not grown into his long arms and legs.

  “Is Mama all right, Jahan? Can I go and see her?”

  Jahanara drew back from him, outraged. “Mama has asked for Bapa—I’m on my way to get him, and even he should not be in her apartments now. How can you think you would be allowed?”

  He shook his head absentmindedly, as though he had not heard her. “Why would I not be allowed? You are. What is wrong? Is the child born? Why is it taking so long?”

  He still had his hand on her arm, and Jahanara shook him off with an impatient gesture. In the semidarkness of this outer corridor of the palaces at Burhanpur, Prince Aurangzeb’s mouth twisted for a brief moment with pain. It was not as though they all did not like him, Jahanara thought. Aurangzeb was one of them; they shared the same father and mother—and this in itself was so unusual in these times, when Bapa could have had numerous wives and concubines—nothing diluted their ancestry. But a minor sliver of irritation lay between them and Aurangzeb. It was . . . his intensity, his supreme confidence (so misplaced in her mind; he was a child, had done nothing yet, and would probably do nothing in the future), his insistence on what he thought was right and what wrong.

  She said, as forcefully as she could, “Don’t be foolish enough to enter the birthing chamber, Aurangzeb. Remember that you are a royal prince and must follow convention.”

  Her brother had turned to the doors at the far end of the corridor, but at Jahanara’s words he paused. She left him and ran to her father, knowing that nothing but the casual mention of propriety (which to Aurangzeb was akin to something holy and held in reverence) would have stopped him. She ran swiftly, her heart surging in her chest, not seeing the eunuchs on guard along the way who bowed to her. Where was Bapa? Where was he? She burst into her father’s apartments and shook him awake.

  “Mama wants you,” she said, sobbing now. “Go to her. She is dying.”

  • • •

  By the time Emperor Shah Jahan entered the apartments, Mumtaz had given birth to their fourteenth child and was asleep. Jahanara and he had stood outside for twenty minutes, their hands linked, listening to the Empress’s cries, and then the wail of the child. The Matron of the Harem, Satti Khanum, had put her head out when they knocked and said, “Her Majesty is fine, your Majesty. Silly child”—this to Princess Jahanara—“to rouse your father from sleep with fears such as these.”

  “I want to see her, Satti,” Shah Jahan had said.

  “Soon, not now. You cannot watch the birth itself. Stay outside, your Majesty, I will call for you.”

  And so they had been left at the door, leaning with their ears flattened against the wood. They had heard the child bawl, a sigh from Mumtaz, a quietness as she slept. And then Satti had opened the door for her Emperor.

  The baby, a girl, was in a gold and silver cradle in one corner of the room. The women around—midwives and slaves—melted away to make themselves inconspicuous as Shah Jahan bent perfunctorily over the child. She was awake, and her vivid blue eyes looked out at him from the folds of silk swathed around her little body.

  “Did her Majesty give the child a name before she slept?” Shah Jahan asked.

  “She suggested—” Roshanara came flying to her father’s side and clasped his arm around the wrist. “She suggested Goharara, Bapa. Do you like the name?”

  “Whatever your mother wants is what will be, my dear. Go.” He nudged her away. “I must be alone with her.”

  He went to the bed and sat down on a low stool someone had set there for him, his knees raised level with his chest, his hands on his thighs. For a long time, as the dark of night wore out and the light of day came to claim its share of time, he gazed at his wife, noted the rise of her chest as she breathed, marveled at the sheer beauty of her features. He would never tire of this simple act. He placed a broad hand on her brow, but she did not stir. Her skin was too warm, he thought, and snapped his fingers once, without turning around. A slave brought a bowl of water scented with the attar of roses and a soft towel, which he dipped into the water and laid on her forehead.

  “You must get well soon, my love,” he said gently. “We have to enjoy the throne of Hindustan, now, when we finally have what I have labored for.”

  Four years ago, Shah Jahan had fought a bloody and terrible battle for this Empire. He had killed his brothers, his cousins, his nephews without a thought for mercy, for he had known that if they in turn had the throne within their grasp, none would have been shown to him. Minor rebellions still abounded, to be sure, and one such had brought them to the southern boundaries of the Empire, all the way here to Burhanpur, where they had once spent years in a sort of semiexile, where some of their other children had been born, where the throne—set so far away at Agra, hundreds of miles to the north, with its immense treasury of jewels—had seemed unreachable. But Mumtaz and he reigned now over this mighty, stupendously prosperous land, and their names would forever be etched in history, and when posterity spoke of the Mughal Empire, it would be in hushed tones of awe and reverence. And his name, and his beloved’s name, would come to signify everything Mughal. There was very little of the self-effacing in Emperor Shah Jahan—in any case, it was not humility which had put the crown upon his head when his own father had designated another son as heir and chased him out of India.

  On the bed, Mumtaz Mahal stirred. It was a little, restless movement, caught by everyone in the room watching their Emperor at the bedside of the woman who was his world, who had been similarly taught to consider their Empress as constituting the entirety of their world. It was not a difficult task for these retainers, for in following their Emperor’s wishes came some wealth, some influence in the imperial zenana, and the simple ability to preserve their heads on their shoulders so that they might see another day.

  When her breathing evened again, Shah Jahan captured his wife’s wrist and laid his lips upon the skin on the inside of her elbow. The child in the cradle raised a tiny voice, and a wet nurse with engorged breasts rose to feed her. Earlier in the day, this woman had been chosen from the many others who had presented themselves at the palaces, their persons neat, their hair combed, their teeth brushed rigorously with twigs from the neem tree. For to nurse a royal offspring meant riches, unimaginable affluence, perhaps even devotion from the child. Who, if a boy, could one day wear the crown of Hindustan, and who would remember even in adulthood the woman who had nursed him in infancy. Satti had picked this fortunate woman, with her thick peasant face, her lush and rounded body, her clean mouth, and her honeyed milk, which Satti had tasted herself.

  “Is she all right, Khurram?”

  Shah Jahan stumbled in his haste to rise from the stool and kneel by his wife’s bed. He laid his arms over her waist and thighs. “Yes, Arju. Are you, my love?” So he also called her, Arju, short for Arjumand, the name she had been born with.

  She seemed to wait a long while before answering. “I’m tired. It was . . . harder this time. I’m glad for this moment when I can see you.”

  “What sort of talk is this?” he asked lightly, even as his heart began a mad thumping within his chest. So something was wrong. Arjumand had never before been so distressed. The birth of a child was an occasion of joy, and no matter how much she had suffered, she had been smiling and happy when he came to her. The fears evoked by his daughter’s distraught words, laid to rest by Satti Khanum at the door, came flooding back in him. When his wife’s lips moved, he bent over her and l
aid his cheek by hers, not allowing her to speak. She would be fine, surely.

  “Let me call for the hakims,” he said.

  “Wazir Khan?” Her voice was barely audible. “He knows nothing about women’s matters, and he has never been allowed into the imperial zenana before. What would he do?”

  “But you—”

  “I am all right, Khurram. Tired, that’s all. All right now that I have seen you. Will you stay here?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and then he felt the brush of her eyelashes upon his skin as she closed her eyes and slept.

  When day broke over Burhanpur and the muezzins’ voices floated over the air to call the faithful to prayer, Shah Jahan left Mumtaz still asleep and went to his chambers to pray. He moved slowly through the zenana, worn from his vigil by his wife’s side. In the last hour, Jahanara had come to sit by him and had put her head on his shoulder as they watched Mumtaz Mahal. When he departed, he left his daughter by her mother’s side. She was sleeping also, still sitting on the floor, leaning against the mattress, her face against Mumtaz’s hand.

  Two hours after Emperor Shah Jahan left his wife in her apartments, Princess Jahanara woke with a feeling of dread. Her mother’s hand was cold. Jahanara scrambled up and saw that her chest was stilled of breath, her face calm, as though she was still asleep.

  “Bapa,” she howled. Her voice brought the women of the zenana flocking into the apartments. She pushed them aside and ran out again, tears streaking her face. Down the corridors, into her father’s room, where he was resting. She did not know what to tell him, how to tell him of this. Even as she ran, she knew that something had changed in their lives from this moment. Who would look after them now? Who would look after Bapa? He was the supreme ruler of the Mughal Empire, but he would not think his life worthwhile without the woman he loved.

  Two

  And that treasury of modesty and coffer of chastity was buried according to the custom of temporary burial (amanat) in the building (‘imarat) inside the garden of Zainabad at Burhanpur, which is situated on the other side of the river Tapti; and the said building is constructed in the midst of a tank.

  —From the Padshah Nama of Abdal-Hamid Lahauri, in W. E. BEGLEY AND Z. A. DESAI Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb

  Burhanpur

  Wednesday, June 17, 1631

  17 Zi’l-Qa’da A.H. 1040

  The child who had entered the world and sent her mother from it had been taken away, her whimpers fading with the wet nurse’s footsteps. Rain came soon after the second pahr of the day was struck, after the noon hour. The day had begun clear as a diamond of the first water, the sun brilliant, the heat suffocating in its intensity. Then the skies had gathered a fistful of clouds over Burhanpur, ominously dark, laden with rain. The first streak of lightning outlined the somber black stones of the fort at the banks of the Tapti, the first boom of thunder rattled the windowpanes of the chamber where Mumtaz Mahal had lain on the birthing bed.

  Then, the skies opened up, and the rains, mild at first, raged into a fury. A few short hours after the Empress had drawn her last breath, she was laid in the ground and covered with the wet earth—Muslim strictures and the heat did not allow for delays in burial.

  They stood in a line behind the imam, linking hands: Jahanara, Dara, Shah Shuja, Roshanara, Aurangzeb . . . and even Murad, who was only seven years old. Murad moved closer to Jahanara. His greatest worry was that the egret feather Bapa had given him two days ago—to plume in the pearl aigrette on his turban—would be in a sad state of drooping. He touched his head surreptitiously. His turban felt tight on his forehead. He wiped his nose, and the imam droned on. His sister’s hand clutched his a little too tightly. As he wriggled his fingers, Jahanara said, “Quiet, Murad. Pay attention to the imam.”

  She shivered, and by her side, Aurangzeb said, “Yes, listen to the prayer for our Mama.”

  Jahanara had chosen this spot where their mother was to lie in Zainabad Bagh, on the eastern bank of the Tapti and across the river from the fort. If she turned her head, she could see the windows of the apartments where Mama had died, and, as that thought came, she did turn to look and saw the lone glimmer of white in the massive courtyard of the fort, built twenty feet up from the water level. Bapa. Also standing in the rain, watching them all from afar. He had refused to come for the burial, refused as Murad had initially, choked with grief, with disbelief, with the conviction that if he did not attend this hurried funeral, he would find his wife alive again.

  There had been no such luxury for Jahanara, for even as her mother died, she had become Padshah Begam, the chief lady of the harem, in her place. The shift of status was almost unnoticed, from that first moment when she had run down the corridor, leaving the door to her mother’s apartments open behind her. “The Empress is dead,” attendants had wailed. In a gossamer deference, eunuchs had bowed more deeply to her. Her father had been rising from the bed when she flew into the room. She had not been able to speak, only mouth this, Mama is dead, Bapa. He had fainted, falling with such abandon that his right elbow would ache for the next week. An hour later, questions had begun quietly in her ear.

  Where should her Majesty be buried, your Highness? Jahanara had lifted her gaze to the vista beyond the windows, to Zainabad Bagh, to the pond in the middle of the gardens with its flat-roofed baradari where Mama had ordered entertainments for them all—music, dance, wine, and food—on moonlit nights.

  She had washed her mother’s body herself with Satti Khanum. The tears had come, again, as she wiped Mama’s face with the pure Ganges water they used for drinking. Once. Twice. A third and final time with little cubes of camphor powdered in the water to perfume the body. Three silk shrouds, scattered with a hundred tiny diamonds, were wrapped around Mumtaz Mahal. The strictures demanded that the cloth be plain, but Jahanara had set twenty seamstresses to embed diamonds into the silk. Mumtaz’s hair had been smoothed down and coiled behind her head. Jahanara had left on her mother a pair of diamond studs, the diamond ring that pierced her nose, twelve bangles with diamonds on each of her wrists, refusing to listen to any reason about divesting her of her jewelry.

  “She is an Empress,” she had said. “She cannot go to her grave like a pauper.”

  No one had argued with her beyond that, not even Satti Khanum, whose voice rose in the zenana on all occasions, who had had Mumtaz Mahal’s ear in every matter, who was almost as powerful in the imperial harem as the Empress herself.

  Jahanara then had gone in search of her brothers and found them huddled outside their father’s apartments. Dara sitting on the floor, watching his hands. Shuja weeping in one corner. Murad rolling a wooden toy horse and cart on the carpet. And Aurangzeb pacing so furiously that his bare feet slapped on the stone floors of the outer chamber.

  “The funeral will be after the second watch,” Jahanara had said.

  “I will not go.” This from Dara, his face pale, his eyes a dull red, his whole frame shaking.

  “Nor will I,” Murad had cried. “Mama will come back if I do not go for her funeral.”

  “We will all be there,” Jahanara had said, almost shouting. Her eyes had smarted with a flash of tears, but she had brushed them away impatiently. She did not have the time for this sort of weakness; who would look after them if she began to cry again? “Bathe first, you must be clean, and eat a little, and when we go to Zainabad Bagh to lay our mother in the ground, we will conduct ourselves with the dignity befitting our rank and our status. Dress simply, in white.”

  At the sound of her sharp tone, all their heads had snapped around, and they had stared at her in disbelief. “Bapa will not even come out,” Dara had said.

  Jahanara had felt a slight chill. The skin on her palms was still wrinkled from having been immersed in the water used to bathe her mother’s body, and an arrow of pain seared a previous cut on one index finger, which still throbbed even after she had washed the camphor out of the wound. But her tears were stanched, because she seemed to be the only one who had some c
ontrol over what was happening. With their mother’s unexpected, so unwanted death, the rest had all disintegrated.

  “I will go talk with him,” she had said. But the conversation had led to nothing other than an overwhelming sense of fear. Jahanara had never seen such utter hopelessness in her father before—the thickness of his voice, the debilitated movements of his arms and legs, which could not be quieted, the strange laughter at inopportune moments—it had left her afraid for all of them. To the boys waiting outside, she had simply said that their father would not be there when their mother was laid in the earth. He had not even questioned this simple burial for Mumtaz.

  She turned back toward the baradari on the pond. It was a small building, perhaps thirty feet long on each side, with a flat roof and sets of three cusped arches per side. The island itself, in the middle of the pond at Zainabad, was barely bigger than this baradari that perched on most of the land, leaving a thin skirt of grass and mud around it. And it was on this slender patch that they all stood. The center of the pavilion had been dug up, the flat black stones that paved its floor removed, mud loosened and heaped to one corner. The imam who was leading the funeral prayer for their mother stood on the first step leading up.

  When he had finished, Aurangzeb went up to the man and tapped him on his shoulder. The imam bowed to his prince and walked backward until he was behind the five of them. He did not lift his head once, acutely uncomfortable and disapproving in the silence that swelled around them.