Shadow Princess

by Indu Sundaresan

  Roshanara reached out a hand to the delicate china cup and sipped her chai; it had cooled in all of their talking, though not even enough to form a skin of cream. It was still hot, not the blasting heat that would come later in the day, but enough for a bead of sweat to break from her forehead and run down the side of her nose. “Will we”—she hesitated—“you and I, have what they had, Jahan? Will you find this sort of happiness with the amir Mama mentioned—what was his name, Najabat Khan?”

  “I would hardly speak to you of it, Roshan,” Jahanara said with asperity. “You should not take his name. He is my intended.”

  “Oh?” Roshanara raised her eyebrows. “So it is settled, then?”

  A horn blasted in the courtyard, low and sweet, its sound floating up to them, and they both pulled their veils over their heads to just below their chins. In the six months since their mother had died, the color at court and in the imperial zenana had been predominantly white—a blinding, snowy white that allowed for no relief. Emperor Shah Jahan still refused to wear any other color, steadfastly showing the world that he had not stopped grieving. But a month ago, Jahanara had sent orders to the cloth karkhanas—the imperial ateliers—to brush her whites with a tinge of crimson. She wore rubies in her hair, their colors so washed out that they were more pink than red, and her tight choli, which left her slender waist bare, was trimmed on the sleeves with tassels of red. A few days later, Princess Roshanara had sent a similar order—her clothing was of the palest green, emeralds glowing upon her person. The Emperor had seen but said nothing to his daughters when they altered the prevailing fashion. They were young, he had thought.

  When the sound of the horn melted away, the sun broke free from the horizon and cast its low rays over them all, bathing them in a golden, liquid light.

  “Not settled,” Jahanara said in a flat voice. “Nothing is decided yet about Mirza Najabat Khan. We have had no time for festivities, Roshan.”

  “I know. Shall I talk to Bapa?”

  “You?” Jahanara swung around quickly, smiling below her veil. “What would you say to him? Why would he listen?”

  “Who then?” Roshanara asked. “Would you dare yourself? Ah”—she paused—“you think Dara will. Why do you like him so much, Jahan?”

  “This is a stupid question,” Jahanara said slowly. “It is not any of your business whom I marry or how the alliance comes to life. And Dara”—she searched her sister’s face under the sheer covering of chiffon—“he is our brother. He’s the heir to the Empire and we love him. Or we should. What kind of a question is that?”

  Now they both saw the crowd in the courtyard below clearly. Splendid Arabian horses from the imperial stables, all black with white fetlocks, their bridles and saddles picked out in silver and velvet, stood right in the front. The men mounted on them, the Ahadis, who were the most elite of the imperial bodyguards, held aloft their spears and also the Emperor’s standards and banners. Behind them, and for a mile or so that Jahanara and Roshanara could see, were ordered rows of camels, elephants, and men on foot—all carrying burdens, wrapped in cloth, strapped on their backs in howdahs or baskets. This was the paish-khana, the advance camp, which was leaving Burhanpur three days before the royal party departed, with a complete set of tents, cooking vessels, chairs and tables, bed linen and bedding, vegetables and spices. When they reached their first halt in the journey, this city of tents, glittering with silk and damask, the floors smothered by the finest Persian carpets, would be waiting for them.

  “Do you remember when Bapa almost gave up the throne, Jahan?” Roshanara said as the elephants, a hundred in all, lumbered by. They transported the heaviest equipment of the Emperor’s camp—the tents, the tent poles, and the furniture. “Aurangzeb thought that he ought to be considered . . . for the position. It was not wrong of him to think so; he has as much right to the crown as Dara, doesn’t he?”

  Jahanara held her hand over her nose and mouth as the elephants’ passing raised a fine mist of dust. When it had settled, they saw the white cows and gray bullocks swing through; they provided the milk, cream, yogurt, buttermilk, and ghee for the imperial kitchens. The most well fed of them went into curries and biryanis. “He does, by law, such as it is. But it was Bapa’s dearest wish that if he gave the throne to anyone, it would be to Dara. I think he was right.”

  Roshanara’s mouth twisted. “Why do you like him so much?”

  Jahanara shrugged. “He is my brother; that should be enough. For you too, Roshan.”

  Just then, the thud of hooves quieted and four horsemen drew under the balcony where they stood. One of the two in the center was mounted on a magnificent white horse, its head plumed with a heron feather. The rider was similarly clad in white; Prince Aurangzeb had not dared to follow his sisters’ example and show in open court that he disregarded his father’s mourning for his mother. The man next to him, an amir of the court who had been asked to accompany him, rode a few paces behind, and flanking them were the two other horsemen—canopy bearers—who held long poles over their heads linked by the thick white cotton of an awning fringed with white silk tassels. As they passed under the princesses, the canopy bearers reined in their horses, and for a moment, Aurangzeb and his companion were visible. The prince looked up, smiled, and raised his hand. Jahanara and Roshanara answered his salute and saw the amir glance up in surprise, then quickly drop his gaze to the ground when he realized who they were.

  They went on, followed by five hundred camels and the four hundred bullock- and ox-drawn carts. A hundred men had been employed for the special purpose of carrying the fine china that they ate from, the gold and silver vessels they served themselves from, the earthenware matkas that bore water from the holy Ganges River—the only water they drank.

  When they left on their journey back to Agra in a few days, they would travel in an enormous entourage with at least as many animals of burden as the paish-khana. So long was their procession—for it could hardly be called by any less lofty name—that it would take twelve hours for the horses, the camels, the elephants, and the foot soldiers to pass by one single point, even given that they would travel with a considerable breadth about their forces, not just this mammoth length. When they encamped, the traders accompanying them would set up bazaars in an orderly manner wherever the Mir Manzil, the Quartermaster of the Empire, had determined the shops to be, and in these bazaars—which would each serve the nobility, the soldiers, and the more common people who accompanied the camp—there would be found every necessity: milk, ghee, eggs, meat, spices, cloth, needles and thread, grains, flour, jaggery, toys for the children, jugglers for entertainment, indigo for dyes, carpet weavers and coppersmiths.

  The encampment would stay at a place for a few days, perhaps a week, and then move on to the second paish-khana—which had left Burhanpur a few days before—so that all they had to do was descend from their horses, camels, and palanquins and find their accommodations exactly similar to those they had left behind in the day’s journey. At any given time, the Emperor’s campsite would accommodate about four hundred thousand people.

  The first major city they would reach would be Mandu, then Ajmer, and then Agra. But along the way there would be other, frequent stops wherever they found water in the form of a lake, a river, a pond, and where the land could be flattened out to pitch their camps.

  “How long will we be on the road?” Roshanara asked.

  “Two months, perhaps more; if Bapa wishes to take us to a hunting ground for some new game, we will be longer. It all depends on him.”

  “And you?” Roshanara said.

  “And me, Roshan,” Jahanara said firmly. In the past few months, despite frequent skirmishes, they had settled into an amicability that had been surprising. But one day, without any warning, Roshan had stopped arguing with her, and Jahanara, preoccupied with her mother’s duties, had not initially noticed. Of all her siblings, she loved Dara the best; why was hard for even her to articulate—especially under such persistent questioning from R
oshanara. Perhaps because they were closest in age, or perhaps even because they were alike in temperament. But now, with Mama dead, it had suddenly become important for Jahanara to have an ally in the zenana, and who better than her own sister? So Roshan’s unexpected calm had been a blessing. Jahanara sighed. She was very tired, exhausted almost, burdened with too many tasks.

  “I heard Satti calling you Begam Sahib,” Roshan said. “Are you the Padshah Begam now, Jahan? What of Bapa’s other wives?”

  Jahanara smiled with a little, wry upturn of the edges of her lips. Satti Khanum had stayed back at Agra after accompanying their mother’s body to the work site of the tomb, and Shuja had returned in early February—this Jahanara had wanted, and she had petitioned their father to order it. Satti had been, still was, the first lady-in-waiting in the imperial zenana, perhaps almost as authoritative as Mama had been. And when Mama had died, Satti had transferred herself to the same role to Jahanara, supposedly that of a friend and an adviser. But the relationship was not the same. Jahanara, used to having her way in most matters, found Satti Khanum’s presence too cloying, too domineering, almost too condescending because Satti was older. Satti had thought that this difference in her behavior would not be noticed, and though she would never have dared to take liberties with the Empress, she did with the princess. So Jahanara had waited with a patience she had taught herself, to find the appropriate time to send her caretaker away and to teach her a lesson in humility. For as valuable as Satti’s role had been in going to Agra to accompany Mumtaz’s body, her staying was a definite statement.

  “Do you know why Satti called me Begam Sahib?” she asked. “It was in jest, a comment on my supposed arrogance in giving the order for her to go to Agra and wait for us there.”

  “Was it good to anger her, Jahan?” Roshanara’s face was suddenly very young, anxious.

  “Roshan . . .” Jahanara paused to choose words carefully. “We are . . . supreme now. Bapa’s other wives had little consequence when Mama was alive, and while they might have risen somewhat in eminence now, the plain truth is that he does not love them. Not as much as he loves us. Would you want them to order us around?”

  “Of course not. But only one of them has a living child, and a daughter; where is the value in that?”

  Jahanara smiled. They were girls also, but what Roshan meant was that they had living brothers who would inherit the throne, so their positions in the imperial zenana were assured—they were women with power, and Bapa’s other wives, loved but with affection and not passion, could not create trouble for them with that lone daughter, who would be married and have children and die one day, without ambitions.

  “Satti needed some time away from here,” Jahanara said, “so that she can learn to really call me Begam Sahib when we return. She must know never to cross me again.”

  “No one must?” Roshanara said faintly.

  “Not even you.”

  They were silent for a while after this. Jahanara had decided to travel by palanquin for the first few days, so Roshanara had decided likewise. It would be a leisurely journey—the distance from Burhanpur to Agra had been accomplished by Emperor Shah Jahan’s runners in a little more than two and a half days; by Prince Shah Shuja, traveling back on his horse and stopping merely for the night, in about fifteen days; and by them, moving in a huge mass of men, livestock, artillery, and the imperial zenana, in something more than two months.

  “That amir,” Roshanara said as she turned to leave her sister still at the ramparts. “The one by Aurangzeb’s side—that was Mirza Najabat Khan.”

  Jahanara caught her arm and pulled her back. “How do you know?”

  “As I know most things, Jahan. You are not the only one in the imperial zenana with resources.” She wrenched her arm from her older sister’s grasp and ran over the brick terrace toward the staircase. Perhaps that noble had been Najabat Khan, or perhaps not. The little lie would keep Jahan thinking for a while—thinking about opportunities missed, a glance at a lover lost—and she would perhaps, just perhaps, not be so strident and demanding in the harem.

  • • •

  A little before noon, the palanquin entered a stand of dying laurel trees, too small to be called a forest, too large to circumvent. The laurels were leafless now, bare branches extended overhead in a cobweb, linking one into the other, but the unremitting sun seared through every gap. No escape from the heat here, Jahanara thought, wiping her forehead and neck, her hand coming away wet with sweat. She picked up the gleaming peacock-feather fan and waved it ineffectually, moving the burning air around the confines of her palanquin. The curtains, of a glowing silk weave in chartreuse, were closed. Inside was a fine netting of English lace that some traveler had brought from England as a gift for Emperor Jahangir—ten bolts of it, distributed casually among the wives and sons. He, and Jahanara strained to remember his name, Sir Thomas Roe perhaps, had come as an official ambassador from the court of a King James, striving for a trade treaty for the peppercorns, the indigo, the fragrant sandalwoods, and the calicos of Hindustan. But he had not lasted for long—much like Emperor Babur, she thought with a smile; he had hated the heat in India (because he still insisted upon donning his English gear: stockings, doublet, fitted coat, a frilled and close collar), and they, the Mughals, were much more refined at diplomacy than the English. Roe did not get his treaty, though he got many assurances of affection from Jahangir. So he went home. Since, the English had not sent any more ambassadors, but they were still here in Hindustan, setting up “factories,” which were merely warehouses to collect and store goods until they could be laden on ships to England.

  In the early days after Shah Jahan had become Emperor, he had considered briefly the value of the English on Indian soil. Why not drive them away? Jahanara had asked. And he had said that the foreigners—the Portuguese Jesuits, the Dutch, the English—all served a purpose to the Empire. They wanted Indian goods, poured millions of rupees’ worth of gold and silver into the treasuries in return, and keeping them all in Hindustan was a surety against any one of them becoming too powerful or too demanding. Look at the trouble Emperor Jahangir had with the Portuguese, he had said. And that too was well-known history. Jahanara drew her knees up and tucked her chin over them. At first, the Jesuits had controlled the trade routes in the Arabian Sea, to the extent that even pilgrims from India traveling on the Haj to Mecca had their passports stamped with pictures of Jesus and Mary. The Emperor had deemed it a small price to pay for security from piracy. But then, in retaliation for the privileges being given to the English at court, the Portuguese viceroy had captured and burned a hundred and twenty Mughal ships—not ships of the navy, for the Empire had no navy and so had to rely on foreign help, but trade ships—in Goa’s harbor. That was when Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunnisa had crushed them, taking away treaties, restricting their movements within the land. Now this new problem.

  She pulled the lace curtains apart, their aroma sweet in the fiery heat, since they had been washed, as the merchant had suggested, in goat’s milk and hung to dry in the sun until they gleamed like snow. Then she reached out and parted the silk and realized that she was alone for the first time in so many days. The laurels had been planted, or had taken root, close to one another. Once, in full leaf, they would have provided shade and shelter to animals. Now there was little left other than their branches and their trunks—the bark patterned in scales like a crocodile’s back. And so the eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting, and aged amirs on horseback who were her companions and her guard were spread out among the trees. As the four bearers of her palanquin jogged in an unsteady rhythm, bending here to duck a low-lying branch, cracking branches like twigs there, the others moved alongside but blessedly away, unable physically to come any closer.

  Somewhere up ahead was the imperial elephant that Bapa rode upon, seated in a silver and gold howdah, surrounded by the nobles at court, all jostling for a position close to him, hoping for a benevolent glance, a dropped word that would change their fortunes
forever. Dara, Shuja, and Murad had decided to ride their horses also; Roshanara was somewhere behind, and the baby, Goharara, had been sent ahead with her wet nurses a few days ago.

  Princess Jahanara gazed out into the patchwork of light and shadow cast by the trees, and she heard the soft pants of the palanquin bearers, smelled the metallic odor of the sweat that poured off their bodies. Strewn around her were books from the imperial library, but she did not want to read now, she desired only to exult in this freedom—the ability to put her face through the curtains, to watch the light, feel the heat, and know herself alone and yet protected.

  “Jahan,” someone said. She sighed.

  “Did Bapa send you with a message?”

  “No,” he said, and as he leaned in toward her, his horse stumbled on a stone.

  Jahanara screamed, “Dara!” and lunged out to grasp his collar as Dara slid from her view. Just then, another strong hand clasped Prince Dara’s arm and held him upright. Half in and half out of the palanquin, and aware that she was unveiled, Jahanara pulled herself back to the safety of the curtains. Who was that man? Then, when Dara spoke again, she knew.

  “Jahan,” Dara said, panting, “Mirza Najabat Khan says that there will be trouble in Bengal. The Portuguese are creating terror among the people; they’ve raided their houses, kidnapped their children and their women for slaves, and captured their lands.”

  “How does he know this?” Jahanara asked, clasping her shaking hands tightly in her lap. So Roshan had lied about his having left with Aurangzeb and the paish-khana. It didn’t surprise her. Her heart hammering, she peered out carefully and saw a tall, sunburned man who had an easy seat on his horse. He had an angular face, a jutting chin adorned with a short, clipped beard, a beaked nose in profile, a thin neck. His forearms were muscled and scattered with hair, and he wore a red string around his right wrist—for what? Jahanara wondered. The hands that held the reins were large, with a single gold ring on his right index finger. He had fallen back again, and Jahanara had to turn her head and lean forward to see him better. But he kept his head bowed and his gaze stolidly away from her.