“You have changed, Mehrunnisa,” Abul said softly. Even as he spoke, his hand reached to her side to the embroidered bag.
She slapped it away. “Why? Does this”—she waved around the cool room—“and this”—she touched the turban on her head decorated with a long heron feather, and only those in favor with the Emperor were allowed to wear it—“make me different?”
“No,” he said. Now he leaned forward and tipped a gold vase of yellow roses on the rosewood table beside him. The vase’s neck moved through the air as though it were bowing to royalty, and as Mehrunnisa lunged for it, Abul moved his left hand quickly toward the bag in her lap. “These are outward signs. Tributes from Emperor Jahangir. And good to have. But something else . . .”
Mehrunnisa had fallen across the carpet, holding the vase in her arms, the flowers thrust into her face, but when she moved, the bag went with her, still in her hand. Abul took the heavy vase from her and ceremoniously put it back on the table. She laughed, turned on her back, and put the bag on her stomach. Its drawstring was looped around her wrist. “Do you want to see what is in it?”
“Please.”
“All you had to do was ask, Abul.” She threw it at him, and he caught it eagerly and with surprise. It was heavier than he expected, and whatever was in it banged sharply against his palm.
Abul opened the bag, and a small, heavy, silver disc fell into his palm. He turned it over. Nine circles were carved on the front, and within each, etched in Persian, were the names of the house of Timur. The first read, “Amir Timur, Lord of the auspicious Conjunction, Lord possessor of the four Corners of the world” and so on until “Akbar Padshah, the Emperor most mighty,” and finally the ninth circle in the center of the disc, “Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir Padshah Ghazi, Light of Religion and Conqueror of the World.”
Abul’s hand shook. The metal was cool to his touch, and the carved writing was black, filled with the grit of ink. As his fingers moved, little flakes of dried ink came away on his skin. He put the disc to his cheek and then ran his tongue over its chilly smoothness. “The royal seal.” Abul’s voice was hushed and reverent.
“Do not eat it. It’s the only one I possess,” Mehrunnisa said from the carpet where she still lay, her hands light on her stomach. When Abul looked up at her, there were many expressions on his face, awe and wonder, of course, but also gratitude. He had heard of the seal—there was not one man of consequence in the empire who had not, and who had not wanted its imprint upon a farman or an edict addressed to him, which would be kept for years, from generation to generation.
“How? . . . Why? . . . Where did you get this from, Mehrunnisa?”
She turned to her side and raised herself on one arm. “Is it too soon? I did not ask . . . but I wanted it. And the Emperor wanted to give it to me. Should I have waited longer, Abul?”
Abul wiped the seal on the front of his qaba, and then he again rubbed it on his face, breathing in its metallic smell, wanting to absorb it into his skin. With it, mountains could be moved, cities devastated, rivers run off course. It would buy almost anything in the land, including the head of almost every noble. Such was its power. And now Mehrunnisa had possession of the seal. But how? It was said to reside with Empress Jagat Gosini, how did Mehrunnisa get it? He looked at her with suspicion.
“Don’t be an idiot, Abul. I did not steal it.” Mehrunnisa sat up. “Give it to me.”
“A few more minutes, Mehrunnisa.” Abul moved away from her hand and folded his arms, the seal resting in his armpit, solid and comforting.
“You can see it, hold it, even taste it”—this last Mehrunnisa said with a laugh—“whenever you want. I do not intend to lose it to another woman in the zenana. It will be here when you come to visit me.”
Abul put the royal seal in the palm of her hand and watched Mehrunnisa. She wet a lump of ink with some water from the vase, making a thick paste in the jade inkwell cup. The seal was dipped into the ink, drained on the side of the cup, and then pressed onto the farman. She laid a weight on each of the four corners of the farman for the ink to dry.
Abul stared at the glistening black imprint. “Are you the Padshah Begam, Mehrunnisa?”
She did not look at him. “That is just a title, Abul.”
Now his attention was finally diverted from the seal. He had heard the undertone of roughness in her voice. “Wait for a while then. Good things will come to you, Mehrunnisa. But they must come in little bits, too much and you will be bludgeoned with them. You will not know what to do. And the seal, you hold this, is it not enough for now?”
“For now,” she said. “For now it will do very nicely.”
“Tell me how.”
“You heard about the hunt?” He nodded and she continued. “When the Emperor came to my apartments later, the week after the hunt, he gave me the royal seal.”
Abul moved closer to his sister. “What did you say?”
“Nothing at first.” She bent her mouth to blow on the farman. “Well, nothing in the end either. I thought about it, whether I should have the seal now . . . or later. Whether I should wait until I had formed . . . connections in the zenana, when the women, the eunuchs, the slaves, and concubines all knew who I was.”
“They will now, Mehrunnisa,” Abul said softly. “No one will be able to ignore you now.”
As Mehrunnisa talked, Abul thought again of how much—and how quickly—she had changed. She spoke of the other farmans she had signed, of her ships. It awed Abul when she said this, her ships. Last month, she had sent Hoshiyar to Surat on the western edge of the empire, to the shipyards there to oversee the building of three ships. The money came from her jagirs, land that Jahangir had given her. And the Emperor had given Mehrunnisa the choicest districts in the empire, where the earth was lush and fertile, where wheat grew with a mere sprinkling of seeds and a clouding of the sky. She owned cities—the shops and bazaars, the houses, the fields around them, the people in them, everything. Sikandara, on the Yamuna River south of Agra, was a giant customshouse, and duties were collected on goods from all over the eastern wedge of the empire. And all this money came to Mehrunnisa.
Abul was envious; it was hard not to be so of so much good fortune. But there was also a part of him, a larger part, which was glad for Mehrunnisa. She shared her wealth with all of them. Because of her he had a new title, Asaf Khan. Their father had a larger mansab, more responsibility, and more visibility in the empire. Maji was Matron of the Harem. He knew that he only had to ask for something and she would give it to him. The years apart, when they had grown into adulthood as separate people, could not take away their childhood closeness.
He wondered if Mehrunnisa could do anything about his daughter. Arjumand was nineteen now, and of all Abul’s children, she gave him the most delight. Five years ago, because of Bapa’s standing at court, Arjumand had become betrothed to Prince Khurram. But in these five years so many things had happened to move the dirt from under their feet and throw it upon their family, to sully their name. The engagement had been forgotten. Abul had watched his daughter grow silent, the laughter inside her vanished as though swept away. She was still cheerful when he wanted her to be, still brought his chai to him when he returned home, still stood by his side asking how his day had been, but it was all done with a noticeable effort. Arjumand was a woman now and needed to be married. She had formed hopes when she saw Prince Khurram, perhaps even fallen in love with him, as a girl should when she first sees the man she is to marry.
Abul wanted to ask Mehrunnisa if the marriage could now take place. But he could not bring himself to ask. At least, not yet.
So he said instead, “I should leave now, Mehrunnisa. I was given two hours to visit you.”
She patted his arm. “Go then. And come back again soon.”
He unbent his knees and rose from the divan. Abul stood looking down at his sister, hesitation in every movement. His hand went to the little red cloth bag tucked into his cummerbund.
“What is it?” Me
hrunnisa asked, a sudden wariness in her eyes.
“Nothing . . .” Abul turned to go, and then turned back. He took the bag out of his cummerbund and held it where she could see.
“What is in the bag, Abul?”
In response, he undid the drawstrings of the bag and let its contents spill into his palm. The brown-black kidney-shaped seeds glowed against his skin like a hive of bees.
Mehrunnisa beckoned with her head, and Abul came up to his sister. She touched the seeds with her finger. “Datura,” she said. Then very quietly, “Are you asking for allegiance, Abul?”
His mouth dry, Abul said, “Yes.”
“Why? Have I not done enough?”
“Yes. But will you swear for me now, Mehrunnisa? Upon the seeds?”
Once, a long time ago, when they were both children, they had played this dangerous game, swearing loyalty to each other after some stupid incident that neither could talk of. What it was, Mehrunnisa could no longer remember . . . she rummaged through her memory now. Abul had visited the public houses? Or they had together? Something like that. Something neither Bapa nor Maji could hear about. Abul had offered her the white crushed powder from a single datura seed, and they had both eaten it. Bitter to the tongue and oily, for hours afterward they had swayed in almost-delirium, constantly drinking water, eyes shut against the painful light of the world. Mehrunnisa’s stomach had cramped, and that was when Abul had called for Maji. Their mother had given her a paste of tamarind and willow charcoal, and Mehrunnisa had vomited the contents of her stomach onto the stone floors of the central courtyard. And then only had the pain in her belly ceased, then only could she open her eyes to the light without cringing. Neither spoke of what they had eaten, though; they had promised not to.
“We could die, you know,” Mehrunnisa said. Now she knew that she had perhaps almost died from that taste of datura, that without knowing how much they should eat, she had overdosed on the powder.
“I know,” Abul replied. But he did not move to put the seeds away in the bag. “This is how we promise, Mehrunnisa. Are you now afraid?”
A little smile came upon her face. “No, I am afraid of very little, Abul. But we are much older now, and should know better.”
Abul opened another cloth shoulder bag that he had brought with him, and took from it a marble mortar and pestle. He placed one seed into the mortar and ground it to a powder. Then, dusting the residue from the end of the pestle, he placed it between them.
“We have a bond nothing and no one will touch,” he said. The same words he had spoken the first time, Mehrunnisa thought; Abul did not forget much. He wet his right index finger with his tongue and dipped it into the powder. Then he put his finger into his mouth.
Mehrunnisa watched him, waited until his finger came out of his mouth clean. Her heart hammering inside her chest, she said, “We have a bond nothing and no one will touch.”
With a finger that trembled suddenly, Mehrunnisa sponged up the gritty white powder and brought it to her mouth. The stinking, fetid smell of the datura plant assaulted her nostrils, but she did not waver. The powder dissolved on the tip of her tongue, still as bitter as she remembered it, with the undertaste of oil. When she lingered thus, Abul grasped her hand and pulled it out of her mouth to check whether she had eaten the datura.
“Now what, Abul?” she said.
He reached into his bag and brought out a jar filled with the paste of tamarind and charcoal. “Eat this, right away.” He fed her the paste and then scooped some into his mouth. A few minutes later, retches rose inside both of them, and they ran for the gold flower vase, tipped out the roses and the water outside the windows, and, one after another, with their heads bent toward the opening, emptied the contents of their stomachs into the vase.
Mehrunnisa leaned weakly against the wall, heaves still shaking her body.
“Are you all right, Nisa?” Abul rubbed her face and wiped away the sweat on her forehead. “Shall I call for a hakim?”
She started to laugh then, without control, her arms around her brother. “How stupid we are, Abul. We could have died, you know.”
“Thank you,” he said. Then he pulled away from her and looked into her smiling blue eyes. “Now I know, Nisa.”
Fifteen minutes later, their retching had stopped, but they could not help laughing. It was not, thank Allah, the mad laughter under the influence of the datura, but the mirth of defiance, of having seen death in the face and turned away from it.
The farman had dried; Mehrunnisa rolled and tied it up. Then she snapped her fingers, the door to her apartments opened silently, and Hoshiyar materialized in the doorway. He took the farman from Mehrunnisa and, without a change in expression, took the vase she handed him.
“Clean that, Hoshiyar.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” He held it away from his nose and stood waiting for Abul.
Mehrunnisa took her brother’s hand and kissed it. As he stepped out, she said, “I have not seen Arjumand in a few months. Will you ask her to come for a visit soon?”
• • •
A lot of people watched Mehrunnisa’s swift ascendancy with interest, both within and without the walls of the imperial zenana. For the harem’s inmates, it was a source of wonder. Most of the women had not even seen her, so vast were the women’s quarters, but they heard of her from the slaves and eunuchs. The women all steadily, one by one, fell into camps. There were those who approved of Mehrunnisa for whatever reason—she would benefit them, or they did not like Empress Jagat Gosini, or more probably because these women, whether they were other wives or concubines, mothers of Jahangir’s sons or not, did not have either the ambition or the tenacity to aspire for supremacy. So they were happy enough to let Mehrunnisa have it, as long as their lives went on with the same ease and comfort.
There were those, of course, who watched her with a growing dread and dislike. For Empress Jagat Gosini, the hurt was immediate, and it was accurately placed. Having been at the very top, she was losing the most when Mehrunnisa wandered near that position. So some of the other women in the imperial zenana gathered around Jagat Gosini, and were thus, by their very association, against Mehrunnisa.
And then there was the Dowager Empress, Ruqayya Sultan Begam. Still bitterly enraged at Jagat Gosini for slashing her income—from luxurious to merely lavish—Ruqayya was ecstatic about Mehrunnisa’s growing power. If she could not rule the zenana anymore, at least she would through Mehrunnisa. Or so she thought.
They met again over the next few months, either late at night or in the afternoon when the heat had driven most of the harem into their cool rooms for a nap. Ruqayya taught Mehrunnisa the value of diversifying her assets—some of her money should be in land, jagirs and such, some in the cities of great trade value, and some in the sea, ships that plied the Arabian Sea routes from India to Mecca and Medina.
As she sat in Ruqayya’s apartments, Mehrunnisa watched as a great many eunuchs and slaves came and went, bending to the Dowager Empress’s ear with whispers. Ruqayya would say then, “Did you know Mirza Kamran’s daughter, the one who is to be married in two weeks, has lost her dowry necklace? It cost fifty thousand rupees, and poof, now it’s gone. Their tailor’s son, the one who made eyes at her, who always lingered over her when taking measurements, has started constructing a new house though.”
Mehrunnisa would be bemused at this piece of information. Who was Mirza Kamran? Ah, one of the courtiers of the first tier in the Diwan-i-am. What other significance did he have? None that Mehrunnisa could think of, and yet, here was this intrigue that had somehow found its way to Ruqayya’s ears, and in all probability, Mirza Kamran still thought his tailor’s son was at the house only to stitch clothes for his family.
Ruqayya’s hand would flash, quick as a silverfish, into the bag by her side, and money would glitter in the informant’s palm—a gold mohur, a silver rupee, sometimes a bracelet or a bangle, depending on the weight of what she had heard. Ruqayya was normally stingy, normally bewailing her now-
straitened circumstances, but this was what money was for, Mehrunnisa, she would say. Not for ships or jagirs, gardens or sarais, but for knowledge. The most powerful weapon in any arsenal.
Outside the zenana walls also, among the courtiers of the empire, the English merchants in Agra, and the Jesuit priests, Mehrunnisa was much talked of. Here too there was marvel and disbelief. How could a mere woman have so much authority? That did not stop these men—who would not credit her with intelligence or influence—from thronging her jharoka appearances, deeply curious.
Much closer to home, in the mardana, the men’s quarters of the imperial palaces, Prince Khurram paid attention to Mehrunnisa too.
Khurram’s interest in Mehrunnisa was not merely incidental. There were four contenders for the throne, four sons of Emperor Jahangir: Khusrau, Parviz, Khurram, and Shahryar. All four had equal rights to the empire. With as many wives as their father had, many sons had been born. But survival was another matter. A son could be, and was, lost to something as flimsy as a fever. The year Shahryar was born, there was another son, Jahandar, but he did not live past a few months.
The four princes were each of them born to different women, the first three to imperial wives, and Shahryar to an imperial concubine who had been fortunate enough to please Jahangir for just one night. There was no explicit law of primogeniture in the Mughal Empire, either; as they reached manhood, as they waited for the end of Jahangir’s reign, all the princes would jostle for the crown. This had happened when Jahangir had come to the throne, and it had happened with their grandfather, Emperor Akbar, as it had with their great-grandfather, Emperor Humayun.
Now though, in the year 1611, the four sons had each a different history.
Khusrau was born of the ill-fated Man Bai, Jahangir’s first wife. He was the first son, the first heir to the throne, and his birth had been much awaited. And in his early years, he showed great promise. He was a fine young man, handsome to look at, gentle with his servants, a boy who spoke well, in whose person rested the future of the empire. Also, the prince had powerful connections.
The Feast of Roses Page 9