The Twentieth Wife

by Indu Sundaresan

  But . . . this was surely wrong. The Emperor would be devastated when he heard of Salim’s rebellion. The prince bent his head. As he did so, for a brief moment, he remembered Mehrunnisa. She must be a beautiful woman now. Ali Quli never talked of her anymore, not even in passing. Salim sometimes almost asked, then stopped himself. How did one man ask after another man’s wife? Yet, if things had been different, she would have been his wife. A defiant gleam came into Salim’s eyes. “You are right. It is time. The Emperor cannot treat me as a child any longer.” He turned to the three men. “We leave for Agra tomorrow. Go prepare for the march.”

  “As you wish, your Highness.” The three men smiled at one another and bowed out of the room.

  EIGHT

  The Prince, advanced by this favor and swelling with Pride, resolved . . . to go on the journey, answering he would treat of no Peace until he were in the field with his Army. . . . The ambitions of this young Prince are open, the Common talk of the People; yet his father suffers all . . .

  —William Foster, ed., The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India

  WINTER CAME TO LAHORE VENOMOUSLY cold, carrying with it a touch of frost from the north and the mountains. All through the rest of the year the city had baked in the heat of a blazing sun. The monsoons were late, then they did not come at all, and the Ravi did not flood its banks—instead, it lay parched at its edges, shallow and slow like a giant python in the heat. It was six months since Emperor Akbar had moved his court to his campaign in the Deccan, taking with him, it seemed, all the life from the city. It had been a brutal summer. Now, as the earth tilted away from the sun, dry, chilly winds whistled through the almost deserted streets and lanes.

  Only a few people braved the cold and the wind in one bazaar street that hugged the ramparts of the Lahore fort. Beggars huddled around rubbish-heap fires, rags gathered around their shivering bodies. A vendor broiled fresh ears of corn over a coal brazier, and then brushed over them a chili-and-cumin powder mixture to bring fire to cold bellies. A few intrepid men and women hurried through, shawls drawn tightly over their heads and shoulders.

  One woman walked slowly through the bazaar, her head bent, trying not to attract the attention of the men who passed. There was little to see, though, for she was clad in the deepest blue. Her veil was of thick, impenetrable muslin and fell in heavy folds almost to her feet. The swirls of her ghagara swept the cobbled street and muffled her footsteps. It was only when an errant wind breezed through that her clothes molded to her body. Then the men looked with ravenous eyes at the curve of her breast, at the dip of her waist, at the sway of her hips. But they did not approach her, knowing, without really being able to see, that she was not a common woman.

  But Mehrunnisa did not notice them. She stopped at one side of the bazaar and looked up at the red brick walls of the fort that rose to the blue-black sky above her. On the other side of these walls was her home. She put out a veil-clad hand and touched the pitted bricks, feeling the cold seep into her palm. For six months, since the Emperor had left, since Prince Salim had left, since her husband had left, she had roamed the bazaars of the city. Ali Quli would be horrified if he knew. Even Bapa and Maji would shudder. From Ali Quli would come Like a woman of the night, as if you had no protector, no husband. Other wives don’t do this; they stay at home where their men keep them. Why not you? From Bapa it would be You must take care, beta. It is an ugly world out there.

  And yet, Mehrunnisa could not have stayed at home without anyone to talk with, no one to visit, nothing to do. The imperial harem had moved away also, some with the Emperor to the Deccan, some back to Agra. Mehrunnisa had wandered into the bazaars with the servants at first, but they were always loud, quarreling, puffed with pride at their positions, and she had spent all her time trying to pacify them. Then she had forbidden all but two male servants from coming with her, and they had to follow at a discreet distance. They would keep her safe. The shopkeepers gave her curious glances but asked no questions; the gold mohurs in her hand kept them silent and grateful. It was, after all, the only thing she had to occupy herself with now that the city slept in the wake of the royal court.

  A tempting aroma filled the air, and Mehrunnisa turned to watch a vendor as he roasted peanuts and chickpeas, his metal spoon clanking against the sizzling tava. Suddenly feeling cold, she went up to him and offered him a few coins. His mouth broke into a wide grin, showing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, as he picked one coin from her hand, his grimy finger lingering longer than necessary on her palm. Mehrunnisa grimaced under her veil. It was an ugly world, but as long as these men looked and did not approach her, it was a small price to pay for such freedom. The vendor scooped the peanuts into a paper cone, twisted one end, and gave it to Mehrunnisa. She took it from him, careful this time not to let her hand touch his. Then, the cone warming her skin, she went down the street to the chai shop on the corner.

  The rest of the bazaar was shut. It was too cold for the shopkeepers to linger in their stores, too cold for shoppers to visit and haggle, too cold to do anything but drink chai and smoke beedis. Mehrunnisa went into the teashop and sat down on a bench. The owner, a fat unsmiling man, nodded briefly at her, then shouted, “Mohan!”

  A little boy came scurrying out from behind the shop, flapping his arms to keep away the chill, clad only in a tattered pair of shorts and a kurta. He went up to his master and waited until he had poured some tea into an earthenware cup. This he took slowly and with great concentration to Mehrunnisa. As he neared her, a customer leaned into him, and a few steaming drops spilled onto his hands. He looked up at her, his eyes huge in his small face. Mehrunnisa reached over and took the cup from his hands. “We won’t say anything about the spill.” She knew he would be beaten if the chai seller found out. The boy wiped his hand on the front of his already stained kurta and took the money from her. “Thank you, Sahiba.”

  Mehrunnisa sat in the shop listening to the men around her talk, sipping the heavily sugared chai spiced with cinnamon and ginger. Two days ago, there had been a letter from her husband, the first in all this time. In it, he had recounted his tale of saving Prince Salim from the tigress. He was now called Sher Afghan. Tiger Slayer. It was an impressive title. Salim would never forget him or what he had done; the name would be a reminder. Mehrunnisa laid the cup down on the wooden crate that served as a table and watched the steam condense in the air. Suddenly, she yearned to know whether Salim knew that Ali Quli was her husband.

  She leaned back against the soot-blackened walls of the chai shop. Ali Quli had said little else about the incident in the jungle, but she could picture it. Impetuous, rash Salim, rushing to pick up tiger cubs, aware that the tigress would be nearby. But he would still do it, even though he knew that a mother always protects her young.

  A piercing, brief pain flashed through her chest and brought sudden tears to her eyes. She let them blur her vision, then slip unnoticed down her cheek. A mother. How sweet that word sounded. For her the hardest part was to fend off the constant, prying questions and advice. Why? Take this powder mixed with milk every night. Fast on the night of the full moon. Be submissive. The pain was sometimes almost physical in its intensity. Her arms ached to hold her child.

  “Sahiba!”

  A firm hand on her shoulder jolted Mehrunnisa out of her thoughts. She looked around to see one of her maids crouched next to her. Her heart faltered. What had happened?

  “What is it, Leela?” she asked, rising as she spoke. There was a dense silence in the chai shop. All the men were looking at them. Mehrunnisa pulled the girl up and they hurried out of the shop, leaving her chai still sitting on the crate.

  “Sahiba, it’s Yasmin. Her time has come, but things are not right.”

  Mehrunnisa stopped and stared at the trembling maidservant. She was still very young, perhaps not even ten years old, but the servants did not keep note of their time of birth or death, so there was no way of knowing. Leela was still a child.

  “What is wrong?” she asked
.

  Leela shook her head, pulling Mehrunnisa by the hand toward the fort. “I do not know, Sahiba. The hakim is busy; there is no midwife to be found. I think they will not come because Yasmin is not married. She needs help, Sahiba.”

  Mehrunnisa still stood unmoving in front of the chai shop, looking down at the grimy street, the cobblestones smudged with winter dirt. Yasmin was one of her slaves, bought for a few rupees. She too was young, and pretty, with looks that had caught Ali Quli’s eye. Mehrunnisa had ignored the situation as long as she could until Yasmin’s belly had started to grow. Then she was left alone in Lahore, with nothing to do but watch her husband’s child in another woman’s body.

  “Come, Sahiba!”

  Leela now knelt in front of Mehrunnisa, a tear-smudged face against her hand. What did this child care about another slave in the household? They were not sisters, not related. They had only known each other for the last year. Yet, she pleaded for her life. Mehrunnisa turned away briefly and stared down the bazaar street. Then, her face unreadable, she looked down at the child in front of her.

  “Come,” she said, putting out a hand. The men in the shop leaned over their chai to watch as they fled down the street, hand in hand, Mehrunnisa’s veil swirling in a blue cloud around her. Her two servants, who had been smoking beedis by the shop, hurriedly flicked them to the side of the street and raced behind their mistress.

  When they reached the house, Mehrunnisa saw most of the servants gathered in a crowd in the front courtyard, their faces hostile. Some of these women were mothers themselves. Surely they would have more knowledge of childbirth and birthing than she did? Why did they not go to help Yasmin? It was nothing but prejudice and sloth and a small kind of meanness. Yasmin was an orphan with no protector, pregnant without being married. They had ostracized her for the last six months. And Mehrunnisa had allowed them to, angry herself, in a deep deep pain that this woman should carry her husband’s child, while she could not keep one within her for more than a few months.

  She pulled off her veil and glared at the huddled servants. Commands came out like musket shots. “Get hot water! Go look for a hakim or a midwife! No, no argument, tell them I have commanded their presence. Some clean bedclothes, sheets, towels, everything. Milk the goat for the child if it will not take to its mother’s breast. Now!”

  “It is of no use, Sahiba,” one old servant spoke up. “She has screamed for too long; the child is surely dead by now inside her. And she—she will not last long either. Better not to waste time.”

  “Why was I not informed before?”

  They all shrugged and looked away at the walls, at the cloudy sky, at the floor, not wanting to meet the blue fire in Mehrunnisa’s eyes. Just then, from behind the servants’ quarters, Yasmin screamed again. Mehrunnisa shivered. It was a low feral wail, unreal, inhuman. The sound stretched thinly through the house and wrapped itself around them before dying out.

  Snapping her fingers at the servants, Mehrunnisa picked up the skirts of her ghagara and ran to the quarters behind the house. They had put Yasmin in a shed where the hens were kept when her pains first started. Mehrunnisa entered the shed and almost gagged as the stench of stale blood rose to her nostrils. A red stain blossomed on the straw under the girl, seeping into the mud floor, the hens squawking and pecking curiously nearby. Bile shot up from her stomach, and Mehrunnisa ran back outside, throwing up the chai she had drunk. Still heaving, she wiped her mouth, covered her face with her veil, and went back inside.

  Yasmin lay motionless on the hay, her lower body uncovered, her stomach distended toward the thatched roof. Her arms flopped at her side, and her head was turned to Mehrunnisa, eyes huge and frightened. Sweat soaked through her hair and pooled in a dark circle on the pillow.

  Mehrunnisa put a hand on her forehead. “It will be all right, Yasmin.”

  A flicker of recognition flashed in the girl’s eyes. “Sorry . . .”

  Mehrunnisa shook her head. For what? She had had no choice. They were all—this slave girl, the servants, Mehrunnisa herself— the property of her husband. How could this girl have denied him anything?

  “Leela,” she said to the child, who had followed her inside and now stood near the door. “Take the hens out and clean out this shed. Open the windows a little to let the air in.”

  Just then another contraction racked Yasmin’s body, and the shed filled with her low howl. Her stomach shuddered and quivered, the child inside straining to come out, her body trying to expel it, neither effort successful. Mehrunnisa washed her hands in the pail of cold water used for the hens and knelt in front of Yasmin’s splayed legs. Something was wrong. Why did the child not come? Even if it were dead, it had to be removed or Yasmin would surely die. Mehrunnisa had watched enough births at home and in the imperial zenana to know what happened. She had seen the hakims and midwives battle to bring life back to the child, to the mother. With the fingers of one hand, she probed between Yasmin’s thighs, watching her face for signs of pain. But Yasmin was beyond pain.

  Mehrunnisa touched a rounded curve and drew back, her fingers coated in blood. The baby was already half out, but she had not been able to see it in the semidarkness of the hen shed. Almost dreading what she was to discover, she reached down again. Her hands slipped over a tiny smooth round bottom. Still kneeling there, Mehrunnisa closed her eyes. Sweat beaded her forehead even in the chill of the shed. The child was coming out bottom first. What could she do? Was there any way to turn the baby? Allah, come to our aid. Another contraction started, and Yasmin cried out again.

  Mehrunnisa felt the baby force itself against her hands.

  “Leela!” she called to the wide-eyed child who had just shooed the hens out of the shed. “Go and hold up Yasmin. Make her sit up. Don’t argue; do as I say.”

  Then, when a nearly fainting Yasmin sat looking at her, Mehrunnisa said, “The next time a pain comes, I want you to push hard. As hard as you can. Do you understand?”

  Yasmin stared at her blankly. Leela said, “I will help her, Sahiba.”

  Mehrunnisa turned back to the child. When Yasmin’s body shuddered again and she opened her mouth to let out an unearthly wail, Leela leaned into her and said urgently, “Push, Yasmin, push.”

  As the girl strained, Mehrunnisa reached inside, grabbed hold of one slippery leg, and gently pulled it out. The other leg was still folded near the head. Feeling inside Yasmin’s body, Mehrunnisa caught the other leg. A few minutes later, it too came out. Almost too easily, Mehrunnisa thought, for now the head, the hardest and largest part of the child, was yet to be delivered. A servant came in with a copper vessel of warm water and some cloths. She dipped a few towels in the water and wiped the little body. It was too cold and bluish gray; the umbilical cord was shriveled. Mehrunnisa kept the baby wrapped in warm towels, waiting for the contractions, praying it would come out safely. She, who had seen difficult births only from afar, seemed to know instinctively what to do. Where that strength or that knowledge came from she did not know.

  Thirty minutes went by before the child slipped out into Mehrunnisa’s exhausted hands. Yasmin lay back on her bed of straw, a pulse barely beating on her thin wrists, blood drained from her face. Surprisingly, the bleeding seemed to have almost stopped.

  Mehrunnisa looked down at the slippery, bloody, bawling infant cradled in her arms. It was a boy. Her husband had his heir . . . through another woman. It was a child he would never acknowledge.

  By this time, the rest of the servants had crowded outside the door of the shed, peering in curiously. The midwife came too, led by one of the grooms. Mehrunnisa nodded toward Yasmin. “Clean her up, and clean up the child too. There will be a reward for you.”

  Then she crawled to one corner of the shed and leaned against the wall, watching as the midwife wiped and swabbed at Yasmin, massaging her uterus back into shape, applying poultices to heal her skin. The baby too was cleaned and brought to Mehrunnisa. She sat there, holding the child, watching him sleep. Her hands were still caked
with dried blood, his blood, his mother’s blood. She traced his hairline with one finger, dabbed at the little nose, put his tiny curled fist against her lips. A huge pain came sweeping through her as she held the baby. When would she have one of her own?

  The midwife fed Yasmin some chicken and beef broth, took her payment, and left. Still Mehrunnisa sat there holding the child. Would Yasmin live?

  She put her head against the baby’s tiny one and closed her eyes. Among all the filth and blood of the shed, the smooth smell of newborn life rose and surrounded her. The baby slept in the crook of her arm, so tiny, so content, so unaware of his fate. What if she never had children? At the heel of that terrible thought came another, stronger idea. If Empress Ruqayya could command a child away from a royal princess, why shouldn’t she from a penniless, orphan maidservant? She could always pension Yasmin off and send her to some remote village. She would never talk. Mehrunnisa had brought the child into this world. He must belong to her.

  • • •

  PRINCE SALIM REINED in his horse, turned, and held up a hand for silence. Behind him, the sun glanced off the spires and minarets of the city of Agra.

  “We will rest tonight,” Salim announced, raising his voice. “Tomorrow, we shall storm the fort. Set up camp here.”

  Mahabat Khan came riding up, his lean, brown face taut with worry. “We must proceed to the fort immediately, your Highness. No time must be lost.”

  “Look at the men.” Salim gestured. “They are in no condition to go into battle.”

  Both men turned to look at the soldiers with their dust-grimed faces and dark circles under their eyes, their horses foaming at the mouth from the long, hard march. No one had slept much in the past few weeks. They had left in the middle of the night from Udaipur. Salim’s servants had been told to inform the army that he was ill and in bed, but that excuse would have worked for only a short time. Sooner or later, some commander would want to see him personally, and the pretense would be revealed. As they traversed the breadth of the empire toward Agra, Salim prayed that the news of his flight would not reach the Emperor until it was too late. Then all this—the hard riding through scorching days when the sun burned harsh on their skins; the brief rest stops to eat, rub down the horses, and feed them; the few precious hours of sleep—would come to naught.