Shadow Princess

by Indu Sundaresan

  “Tell her of your news, Mirza Najabat,” Dara said.

  Jahanara heard him say, “I dare not, your Highness. It is better coming from you, in any case. You are too kind in allowing me to speak with her Highness, but it is not my place.”

  “News was brought to Bapa, Jahan,” Dara said, “and he has to decide what to do about it. The Portuguese grow too conceited. Bengal does not belong to them; they forget this and assume that they can bully the Empire’s subjects and we will do nothing about it.”

  “It is not merely that,” Jahanara said thoughtfully, and she sensed that both the men outside had come closer to listen. “They are being disrespectful to Bapa. Do you remember that they had kidnapped Mama’s slave girls and refused to return them when Bapa asked?”

  “During his flight from Emperor Jahangir, your Highness,” Najabat Khan said to Dara.

  “Mama was furious; I don’t remember her being as angry before. She did not care very much for the slave girls—it was the insult. Since Bapa was in hiding from his father, they thought they would be safe from retribution. But Bapa,” Jahanara said, “has a long memory.”

  “And so do you,” Dara said.

  “Some things you must always remember, Dara. What does Bapa say?”

  “He waits to talk with you, your Highness,” Najabat Khan said, and she noticed that he did not falter this time. He had the voice of a poet, she thought, with music threaded into it. It was an unreal conversation to Jahanara, for she could now see Mirza Najabat Khan more clearly. His face was open, and when he smiled, his teeth flashed white against his skin. He could not see her, did not know what she looked like or how she carried herself, but he had heard her voice, which was more than most of her father’s courtiers had done until now. She let him see her hand by reaching out to arrange the curtains, unable to resist this small vanity. Then she yanked her hand back inside, flushing, furious with herself. Now that Mama was dead, who would remember that a marriage had been considered between Mirza Najabat Khan and Jahanara? Would Dara know? Would Bapa even allow it? How could she speak of it herself? All of a sudden, Jahanara wanted to marry Najabat Khan. The small conversation they had had was enough. She had looked at him, seen the strength in his face, felt herself glow when he smiled. And this was more than most other women were allowed.

  She put her hand over her chest, feeling her heart still thumping wildly within. Speak again, she could not. Dara and Najabat Khan kicked their heels into their horses’ flanks and rode on ahead.

  As they passed, Najabat said, “Your first instinct was right, your Highness. Whether this report has any truth to it or not, the Portuguese must be taught a lesson in Bengal. There is only one sovereign in Hindustan, and he is Emperor Shah Jahan.” He glanced at the palanquin as he said this, speaking to Jahanara now, rather than Dara, but it was Dara who nodded, who took the words to be addressed to him. Jahanara simply sat mute and watched until they were out of sight.

  They broke out of the laurels soon after this, and somewhere in the front of the procession, Jahanara heard a call to halt for lunch stringing down the line as one soldier sang the command to another and another. Musing, thronging with excitement, she did not notice that Roshanara’s palanquin had drawn apace and she too was looking out through the mesh of her curtains. Princess Roshanara asked a passing eunuch for the name of the man with her brother, and he told her. “Find out all you can about Mirza Najabat Khan,” she said to the man, and he bowed and left on his information-gathering mission.

  Later that night, as she listened to the eunuch, Roshanara brought out a map of the encampment and spread it on the carpeted floor of her tent. The royal family’s tents were clustered around the middle, stained red on the map, a color only they were privileged to use. Their tent poles stood the highest, and the tents themselves were elaborate two- and three-story structures with numerous rooms partitioned by thin wooden boards clad in gold and silver cloth, second-floor galleries screened with netting behind which sat the musicians, and thick Persian carpets flowing from one wall to another. Around the royal tents were the structures of the Diwan-i-am and the Diwan-i-khas—the halls of Public and Private Audience—for the business of the Empire could not stop merely because the Emperor was on a two-month journey. There were even special tented balconies erected for the jharoka appearances and a Naubat Khana—a drum room—which housed the imperial orchestra that announced Shah Jahan’s arrival at and departure from each ceremonial function.

  The amirs at court arranged themselves around the royal enclosure, depending upon their ranks and their importance to the Emperor.

  “Which one?” Princess Roshanara Begam asked quietly.

  In response, the eunuch knelt and laid a stubby finger on one tent, a quarter of a mile from the zenana tents.

  “Always?”

  “Of course, your Highness,” he replied in a wooden voice. “The Mir Manzil does not change this plan during the trip, unless some topographical deformity forces him to do so. And,” he said, when she raised an eyebrow at him, “he does not foresee any such problems.”

  Roshanara drew in a deep breath, a plan taking shape in her mind. She shook her head once. Such folly even to think thus. But then, what was the harm in it?

  She dipped her goose-feather quill into a jade inkpot, drained the red ink along the side, and unhurriedly marked a circle around the black tent the eunuch had pointed out to her.

  Eight

  We can only imagine Raushanara’s . . . spleen at having to play second fiddle to Jahanara. Raushanara exerts less influence, rates less privilege—not merely because she is younger, but because she is also less beautiful and less intelligent. By the time Raushanara emerges dramatically from Mogul history as more than a mere name, it is too late to find out how she evolved; in the climactic autumn of 1657 she will be forty years old, rigidly hardened into a scheming and ruthless virago determined to rule the Mogul harem.

  —WALDEMAR HANSEN, The Peacock Throne: The Drama of Mogul India

  Mandu

  Saturday, April 10, 1632

  20 Ramadan A.H. 1041

  Some three weeks after the departure from Burhanpur, a girl walked alone through the vast encampment of the paish-khana. She was heavily veiled, clad in black, and nothing was visible of her, neither her feet nor her hands, which—if rough or silken—would indicate whether she was a noblewoman or a creature of the night. And yet, no one dared to accost her, for she was followed closely by two sturdy eunuchs, grim faced and unsmiling, their grasps on daggers tucked into their cummerbunds, their eyes examining every face with suspicion. The woman, the girl by her confident, swaying stride, ignored the men guarding her. She held her back rigid and her gaze ahead, weaving through the tents purposefully. The amirs had just returned from their nightly audience with Emperor Shah Jahan, and this girl had come almost at their heels, so behind her a straight line of torches still blazed into the sky delineating the route to the Diwan-i-am. The air was beginning to thicken with thousands of cooking fires from every nobleman’s chula. In an hour, the smoke would smother the camp, and on a night such as this, with little or no breeze, the fug would wrap tightly over the encampment, dense as fog rolling off a cold ocean. Men and women routinely lost their way from their tents to their privies and back and spent the rest of the hours either roaming around blindly or huddling in a corner to await dawn. And so few ventured out unless it was necessary.

  But the girl was bold, her steps assured, her head held high on a slender neck. As she passed the torches along the street, their heated flames seemed to touch her cheek, and she lifted her hand to cool her brow. In twenty minutes, the street was deserted, except for the oil boys toting long-spouted oilcans, with which they kept the rag heads of the torches burning through the night. The oil boys did not dare bother her either—when one tried, pursing his lips in a whistle, a eunuch smacked the sound from his mouth and he tumbled to the ground. After that, she went on unmolested.

  When she slowed her steps, one of her guards came
close to her and said, “The tent on the right, your Highness, is the one belonging to Mirza Najabat Khan.”

  She nodded, turned smoothly to the tent’s entrance, lifted the flap, and entered.

  Najabat Khan was seated in the middle of his tent eating his dinner. Like the Emperor, most of the amirs at court had their own miniature paish-khanas, so that they too could arrive at the next halt and find everything in readiness for them—their sleeping quarters set up, their kitchen tents erected, the chulas burning, the privies dug behind the tents. While they were forced to accompany Emperor Shah Jahan on foot or on horseback during the actual travel and spend as many hours in an uncomfortable saddle as if they were on a hunt or at war, they were given the privilege of preparing for their night’s rest in advance. A few simple rules had to be followed. None of the amirs’ tents could be red—that color was reserved for Shah Jahan and those ladies of his harem whom he chose to honor. None of their tents could be pitched on higher ground than the Emperor’s—and this was the Mir Manzil’s duty in assigning places in the encampment. None of their tents could be bigger or decorated more lavishly than the Emperor’s—and this last rule was relatively easy to follow, for no single person in the Empire was possessed of as much wealth as his Emperor.

  Earlier in the day, Najabat Khan’s servants had put up his tent and then sprinkled the ground with water to settle the dust. Upon the earth, they had laid out jute mats, their edges overlapping, and atop the mats, three thick cotton mattresses, one upon another. The very top layer was covered with Persian rugs.

  When the girl came into the tent, she found to her surprise that, as richly as it was appointed, it was but one big room with a few windows woven into the corners, now with their flaps down for privacy. Why, she thought, her own tent had three rooms—an entrance hall; a sitting room, where she received her guests; and a sleeping room beyond. She entered, her feet sinking pleasurably into the thick Persian rugs, and stood there awhile watching Najabat Khan eat. She thought that a man’s nobility, his grace, could be demonstrated only when he was at his meal, and Najabat Khan ate exceptionally well. He chewed his food carefully, his head bowed over his plate; he did not lick his fingers; and when he was done he made a small movement with his head. A male servant appeared to bear away the plate and bring him a finger bowl of warm water with a wedge of lime.

  She started when Najabat Khan spoke harshly. “Who are you? What are you doing here, wench?”

  He had not seen her properly, she thought, as she stood in the gloom of the doorway, and so she came forward and began to lift her veil. Then, realizing what she had been about to do, she dropped the fabric over her hands again.

  Najabat had risen, grabbing his sword in the same instant. He hesitated; his breath caught in his throat when he saw her more clearly. He sheathed the sword again and killed the silver light that had darted around the room from the blade’s reflection.

  “Your Highness,” he said, and performed the chahar taslim as he did for his Emperor, stooping, placing his right hand on the floor and raising it to his forehead four times. “I beg your pardon, I had no idea it was you. I thought you were some errant woman who had strayed into my tent . . . like the others who have—” He caught himself in time, felt a flush warm his face, and said again, “Pardon me.”

  “Did you not expect to see me?” the girl said, and Najabat glanced at her with a mild surprise. Her voice was different from the one he had heard in the laurel forest, a little higher, the tone a little more unsure, but even then he had caught only snatches of her conversation; the rest had been muffled by the sounds of their horses’ hooves and the palanquin bearers’ concerted panting as they trotted along.

  “No,” he said honestly. For who could have anticipated something like this? He had been diffident in speaking with her, in public, her brother by his side, and to see her appear in his tent at night . . . and alone . . . His face began to perspire, and his neck felt very tense on his shoulders. If someone were to see them together, to catch them in conversation like this, his life would be worth less than an ant’s, squashed under the heel of the Emperor’s wrath without a thought.

  “You must leave, your Highness,” he said. “It is . . . this is a great honor for me, but you must now depart. Allow me to escort you back into the royal enclave. It is the least I can do.”

  “Will you not ask me to sit, Mirza Najabat Khan?”

  “Please.” He gestured toward a divan and remained standing as she settled upon it.

  “Tell me about your family, Mirza Najabat.”

  “Your Highness wants to know about my background?”

  “Tell me.”

  Deeply uncomfortable, he complied, though he did not know then that the princess in his tent knew all about him already. Najabat Khan’s family also descended from Timur the Lame, much as the Mughal kings were, and could trace their lineage back to Tamerlane for eight generations of sons and sons of sons. Closer in that timeline to Najabat, his grandfather Ibrahim had married Emperor Babur’s widowed daughter-in-law, and that union had resulted in the birth of Najabat’s father, Shahrukh. So there was this tenuous imperial link also to the Mughal royal family; they were related not by blood but because Najabat’s grandmother had once been a royal princess.

  Najabat’s great-grandfather had been the ruler of Badakhshan—one of the many Timurid princes like Emperor Babur to be given small kingdoms in far-flung places—and some relation of his from that connection still ruled Badakhshan. So he was royalty also, of a minor sort, nowhere near as grand or wealthy as the Mughal kings. His grandfather had been in service to Emperor Akbar, and so also his father, both in fairly elevated ranks at court—holding mansabs of five thousand horses each. Najabat Khan, twenty-five years old at the time he narrated this family history to the veiled princess seated on his divan, was merely a noble in the Emperor’s court. He could not inherit either his title or estates from his grandfather or his father—such was the rule in Hindustan—but he had to work to prove his loyalty to his new sovereign, create his own alliances, forge his own way at court. However, the ancestral connections to the Mughal courts were not all for naught—both the men before him had built up enough goodwill to have Najabat accepted readily in Shah Jahan’s regime and, more important, to bring the imperial couple’s glance upon him as a prospective suitor for their daughter.

  They had found out about his connection to Emperor Babur and the light strain of royalty that ran through his veins, but what had impressed them most was that the family had always been dedicated subjects to the Mughal kings. He was a deeply handsome man, with a physique muscled and strengthened from his hours in the saddle, a clean-cut and honest face, capable hands, and light blue eyes that bespoke his Timurid ancestry. Jahanara, Mumtaz Mahal had thought, would fall in love with him, and because he had strength of character, he would match her feisty daughter well.

  When Najabat finished speaking, he stood dry mouthed and shaking. He had been enchanted by the glimpse of Jahanara’s slender hand through the curtains of the palanquin, had appreciated her fine mind and her decisiveness when confronted with the Bengal problem, but this—coming to his tent to scrutinize him in person—was absurd. She had put him in jeopardy by such foolhardiness; she had most probably caused a raging jealousy among the nobles who had seen her come here. She was veiled, true, and in black, in contrast to the imperial mourning white, but he had known who she was after a moment—there was something in her carriage, the way she held her head, her haughty walk. Najabat Khan, who had never seen a woman from the imperial zenana before, let alone a royal princess, had even so immediately recognized one when he glanced at her. There were many other men who would have also. Najabat knew nothing of his dead Empress’s interest in him as a husband for Princess Jahanara—such talk had not reached his ears, and, in the normal course of events, he would only have received from the Emperor an order for marriage, one he would have obeyed unquestioningly. Taken as he had been by Princess Jahanara a month ago, he felt a small se
nse of repulsion toward the girl on the divan.

  He had stopped talking and stood in the center of the tent, looking down upon her. She rose and said, “Thank you, Mirza Najabat Khan. That was all I wanted to know. Perhaps we will meet another day, who knows?”

  With that she left, even before Najabat had a chance to bow to her. He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his qaba, and it left a damp spot of sweat upon the silk. He had heard of Princess Jahanara’s strong will, more so since her mother had died. There were whispers of her being supreme in the zenana now, in possession of the royal seal, and growing more powerful each day. But no one had mentioned to him that she was also a stupid girl.

  Princess Jahanara Begam, however, was not dim-witted, not given to act on impulse, did not lack a keen sense of self-preservation. Whatever she did, she deliberated carefully upon, and in the coming years this purposefulness would be the cause of strife between Najabat and her—because she knew what was right, what wrong, and what her role was in the Empire. But it would be a while before Najabat would realize that while he had been correct in thinking that one of his Emperor’s daughters had come to visit him, he had not been right about which one.

  • • •

  The girl stole away through the congealing smoke of the kitchen fires, finding her way to the royal tents by the Akash-diya—the light in the sky—an enormous lantern set on a forty-foot-high pole in front of Emperor Shah Jahan’s Diwan-i-am which burned night and day, formed the center of the Emperor’s camp, and could be seen from miles away on a dark night to guide lost contingents back to their sleeping quarters.

  When Princess Roshanara had reached her tent, she slipped inside quietly and lay down on her bed. She would be fifteen years old this year, the same age Mama had been when she had been betrothed to Bapa. They could have been married soon after. So why not Roshanara? She had first been curious about Mirza Najabat Khan because she had seen him talking with Jahanara—that in itself was an unusual occurrence; neither Dara nor any of the other brothers had brought a strange man into their sisters’ company before. That last made her sit up. Was it deliberate then on Dara’s part? Under normal circumstances, mention of Najabat Khan in the imperial zenana would have come from Bapa, though the brothers could well have brought up the topic, as could their uncles—any men connected with and invested in the imperial family. But so soon after Mama’s death, Bapa would not have been interested in marriage alliances for either his sons or his daughters.