A messenger came running into the courtyard. Sweat poured from him, drenching semicircles under his collar and both armpits. “Call for your master,” he gasped. “I bring important news.”
One of the grooms bolted upright and raced for the house. Ali Quli came rushing out in a few minutes, buttoning his qaba; he had been waked from his nap. “What is it?”
“Sahib, the governor of Bengal, Qutubuddin Khan Koka, is on his way here.”
Ali Quli frowned. What did Koka want? Was it possible he had got an inkling of his plans? Or was Koka coming to Bardwan because he hadn’t responded to his summons? Either way, there would be a confrontation, and Ali Quli was determined to be prepared for it. The servants watched him in silence; the only sound was of the messenger panting. Ali Quli looked at the man.
“Take him to the kitchens and give him something to drink,” he said curtly. He called for his eunuch. “Bakir! Send a message to the Amirs in the neighborhood that Koka is on his way here. They are to prepare their men for battle if necessary. I will give them the signal. Wait . . .” He turned to the messenger. “How far is the governor from Bardwan?”
“A day’s march, Sahib.”
Ali Quli nodded and turned back to Bakir. “Tell the Amirs to prepare themselves by tomorrow.”
Bakir ran off to do his bidding.
Ali Quli walked back into the house. When he entered his apartments he found his wife waiting for him. The noise in the courtyard had drawn her to the window, and she had heard the exchange between Ali Quli and the servants.
“My lord, don’t do anything rash. The governor may just be visiting you with a message,” Mehrunnisa pleaded. If only he would listen to her. . . . But Ali Quli was past listening to advice; he had caught the scent of battle, and it drew him inexorably into its embrace.
“Go back to your apartments. I will handle this matter,” Ali Quli said shortly.
“Please . . .” Mehrunnisa laid a hand on his arm. “If there is a difference of opinion, talk it over with the governor. He is an emissary from the Emperor.”
He flung her hand away. “What do you care? After all, I stand between you and your Emperor, the man who will make you Empress.” He glowered at her, and Mehrunnisa dropped her eyes to the ground.
“I see that I am right.” He smiled sarcastically. “Do not worry, dear wife. I will live for many years yet; it may be too many for your liking.” He pushed her toward the door. “Now go. I have plans to make.”
Mehrunnisa left his apartments slowly. Somehow, she had a feeling this would not end well.
• • •
“ATTACK!” HE YELLED, his sword raised. At his command, the army marched on and on. . . . Ali Quli opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling. Where was he? He heaved a sigh of relief as the room came into focus. It had been a dream. He turned over and became aware that the sound of marching footsteps was very real.
He jumped out of bed and staggered sleepily to the window. He peered into the darkness, listening, but all was silent. As he looked down, someone struck a match to light a torch. What was going on?
Ali Quli shook himself awake, grabbed his sword, and ran downstairs. Bakir met him at the front door.
“What is happening?” Ali Quli demanded.
“I don’t know, sire.” Bakir unlocked the door.
The two men rushed into the courtyard. More torches flared, illuminating the space. The courtyard was deserted of all but the grooms. Ali Quli breathed more easily. It had been a dream, after all.
Three men stepped forward from the shadows. Ali Quli tightened his grip on the sword when he recognized them. Qutubuddin Khan Koka, flanked by two Kashmiri servants, Amba Khan and Haidar Malik, bowed to Ali Quli.
“Al-Salam alekum, Ali Quli,” Koka said.
“Walekum-al-Salam,” Ali Quli replied, still clutching his sword.
Koka spread his hands out. “I am unarmed and come in peace.”
Ali Quli let his shoulders relax. A sudden movement caught his eye. One of the grooms had lit another torch and was carrying it to the far end of the courtyard. The gloom dispersed, and Ali Quli saw the imperial forces, in full armor, standing in orderly rows behind the governor.
He clenched his free hand into a fist and turned to Koka, an ugly look taking over his face. So this was the governor’s idea of coming in peace? The courtyard swam in a red haze before his eyes.
Koka had stepped forward. He said, “I come from the Emperor—”
Ali Quli gave a loud shout. It was the sound of rage, of broken sleep, full of all the injustice he had suffered in the past few years. Still screaming like an animal in pain, Ali Quli jumped on Koka. Before the governor had time to react, he plunged his sword into Koka’s stomach. Koka staggered back, reaching for his sheathed dagger. Ali Quli barged headlong into the governor and hacked wildly. Somewhere in his now deranged brain, he felt the satisfaction of making contact with Koka’s flesh with each stroke of his sword.
Koka’s guts spilled out, making a bloody mess on the floor. He put a hand to his stomach to hold in his bowels and fell to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Ali Quli saw Amba Khan rush at him with his sword raised.
Ali Quli turned on him. He lifted his sword and brought it down heavily upon Amba Khan, cleaving steel through Amba’s hair. The force of the action nearly took off Amba’s head, and he fell, dead before he hit the ground.
At the same moment, Haidar Malik and the rest of Koka’s army fell upon Ali Quli. Surrounded on all sides by the enemy, Ali Quli fought like a cornered animal, twirling his bloody sword and frothing at the mouth. He managed to kill two men, but there were too many of them.
Suddenly he felt a red-hot pain and looked down to see a sword sticking out of his stomach. His energy seemed to drain away with the blood that flowed from his body. He tried to raise his sword but could not. The pain was too intense. Koka’s army rained blows on him. His body seemed on fire and then . . . there was nothing.
• • •
MEHRUNNISA STOOD FROZEN at the window, her hand still raised to part the curtains. The stench of blood came up to her nose, and she gagged involuntarily, raising nerveless fingers to her mouth. She wanted desperately to look away from the carnage in the courtyard, but her eyes kept returning to it over and over again.
She watched in fascinated horror as Koka’s men pounced on her husband’s body and cut it to pieces, hacking wildly long after he was dead. They then turned on Bakir and the grooms. In a few minutes, the ground was drenched with blood, and dismembered arms and legs lay everywhere.
The men below had turned into savage animals excited by the smell and sight of blood. Their lust unsatisfied, they looked around for other victims.
“The house!” a man yelled.
As one, the men rushed toward the front door, pushing one another violently in their effort to get in. Mehrunnisa’s mind suddenly snapped into action. She ran to her daughter’s room and shook her by the shoulder. “Come, wake up. We have to leave.”
Ladli awoke slowly and stared at her mother. “Is it morning already?”
“There is no time to talk. Let’s go.” Mehrunnisa pulled a sheet around her daughter, picked her up, and ran to the door.
Below, the soldiers had entered the house. Slave girls screamed as they were dragged out of bed and raped. Vessels clattered to the floor, curtains were ripped, and furniture was broken.
“The wretch had a wife,” someone yelled. “Find her.”
Mehrunnisa heard the words and froze where she stood.
“Mama,” Ladli wailed.
“Hush!” Mehrunnisa said fiercely, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Keep quiet, or they will find us.”
They were coming upstairs now. She could hear footsteps pounding up to the landing. She turned and went back to the rooms. Perhaps they could climb down a window and escape. She rushed blindly and bumped into something. Two hands clutched her arms in a hard grip. Mehrunnisa’s heart plummeted as she looked into the bloodshot eyes of the sol
dier.
“Please . . .” But the words would not come beyond the plea.
He asked in a harsh whisper, “Are you Ali Quli’s wife?”
Dumbstruck with fright, Mehrunnisa could only nod. Her heart skipped a beat. For the first time in her life she knew pure, mind-numbing terror. The man was splattered with blood from a deep gash over his right eye that was bleeding down his face and onto his hands.
“Come.” He pulled her roughly.
“No!”
“Don’t shout; the soldiers will hear you. Come—,” he said again, as she pulled away from him. “I will protect you from them. You have to hide. They are bloodthirsty and will not rest until you are dead . . . or even worse.”
The sound of footsteps neared. The man hurried Mehrunnisa and Ladli into the large trunk in one corner where she kept her veils. He had barely shut the lid and turned the key when soldiers pounded into the room.
“Is she here?”
“No, she must have fled from the house,” the man answered. “She cannot have gone far on foot. Look outside.”
But the soldiers seemed not to hear the man. They rushed about the room, pulling open cupboards, spilling the contents, running their swords through silk and linen. One kicked the wood chest, and the sound rattled around her. Mehrunnisa cowered inside, holding fiercely on to Ladli. Then suddenly, they all rushed out of the room, leaving a dense, welcome silence. Inside the dark trunk, Mehrunnisa clutched Ladli to her and heaved a trembling sigh of relief as she heard the sound of receding footsteps. After a few minutes, the man unlocked the trunk and peered in. “You can come out. They have left.”
He helped them out of the trunk. As Mehrunnisa climbed out, Ladli whimpered, and she realized that she still had her hand clamped over the child’s mouth. When she removed her hand, it left a red imprint across her daughter’s face, blood streaking across her lips where her teeth had cut into skin.
“Who are you? Why did you help us?” Mehrunnisa asked, still shaking from shock.
“My name is Haidar Malik, Sahiba. I am a servant in the house of Qutubuddin Khan Koka. It would not have been right for the soldiers to harm you. Besides . . .” He hesitated. “The Emperor would never have forgiven me if anything had happened to you.”
Mehrunnisa stared at him, a jolt running through her body. Was Jahangir responsible for the attack on Ali Quli? Surely not even the Emperor had the right to order the execution of an innocent man. But Jahangir could not have had anything to do with the mayhem; she had seen the events progress with her own eyes. Koka had barely started to talk when Ali Quli had plunged his sword into his stomach, seemingly without provocation. She shivered and clutched her daughter tight.
“I shall take you to the camp.”
Mehrunnisa nodded and allowed him to lead her out of the house and through the deserted courtyard. She would have gone anywhere he wanted to take her. Thought was impossible now; too much had happened, too quickly, even before it registered fully in her mind. She followed Malik’s tall figure through the deserted streets of Bardwan. He was carrying Ladli as though she were a sack of feathers, slung easily into his arms. Mehrunnisa looked around her at the shut bazaar fronts, the street lamps wavering in the humid night air. She heard the scramble of pariah dogs in the shadows and recognized no sight, no sound. All her effort went into walking behind Malik, one foot placed in front of the other in a mindless fashion.
When the sun rose in the eastern sky, she was sitting wide-eyed in Malik’s tent, stunned and terrified. Her choli and veil were smeared with caked, dried blood where Haidar Malik had clutched at her. The odor brought bile rising from her stomach. A cock crowed in a neighboring house, and Mehrunnisa flinched. She started to tremble violently as she remembered how Ali Quli had died—like an animal brought to slaughter. There was little left of him now, little to show of the man who had once been her husband. Only Ladli. The child, with the resilience of youth, slept at her side, holding fast to her mother’s hand. Malik had returned to the house after posting guards around his tent.
Physicians were summoned to tend to the fallen governor’s wounds. A makeshift camp was erected in the courtyard, and the injured man was laid on a bed. Malik watched while the physicians sewed up Koka’s stomach. If only Koka survived, he thought, turning away from his master’s body, the lady in his tent would be safe. But the damage had been done, and though Malik kept vigil at Koka’s bedside, the governor never recovered consciousness. Before his family could come to him he died, twelve hours after the battle.
• • •
ASMAT AND GHIAS BEG were in their courtyard garden; he seated on a stone bench, she standing beside him. Night had closed around them a long time before; yet, they waited in the dark with their thoughts, the letter still in Ghias’s hands. It had arrived only that afternoon, but each word of the short message was imprinted on his brain. Someone named Haidar Malik had written the letter. Ghias looked down at the bright white sheet in his hands, not seeing the words. Mehrunnisa was with him, and Ladli too. Ali Quli was dead. Ghias shook his head in disbelief, the shock from three hours earlier not yet worn off. Why had Ali Quli attacked Koka? Why had he killed him?
His wife’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Will she be safe?”
Ghias sighed. “I don’t know, jaan. Her fate lies in Allah’s hands.”
Asmat Begam sat down by her husband and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Can you ask the Emperor to bring her here?”
Ghias put an arm around her and kissed her gently, wishing he could wipe away the worry lines from her forehead. “The Emperor is distraught at Koka’s death. And Koka was killed by our son-in-law.”
Why? The thought smote him again. Why? Never had he imagined this end when Jahangir had seen Mehrunnisa at Arjumand’s betrothal.
Asmat raised tearful eyes. “Mehrunnisa was not responsible for Koka’s death. She must come to us. Her life is in danger.”
“I know,” Ghias said. “I also know that Koka’s family has sworn vengeance on Mehrunnisa and Ladli. But until the Emperor summons her to us,” he spread his hands out helplessly, “we can do nothing.”
Asmat buried her face in her hands and wept. Ghias watched her in silence, forcing back his own tears. What good would crying do? Ease the heartache for a few hours, perhaps, but the worry would always be there. And Mehrunnisa was at Bengal, alone except for the protection of this Haidar Malik, a man they did not know. Allah, please, please look after my child. As he had said to Asmat, he could do nothing, only pray for his daughter’s safety.
He turned away from his wife. Another matter was troubling him. True, it paled to insignificance next to Ali Quli’s death, but it was important nonetheless. He did not have the courage to ask the Emperor to provide Mehrunnisa with an imperial escort to Agra because of Ali Quli and because of this other matter. But that too would soon come to light. Then he could well have no standing in the empire. Why Allah, why did trouble come to ambush when one was already down?
• • •
IN HIS CHAMBER, Emperor Jahangir sat staring at the flickering shadows on the wall. Around him the palace slept, peaceful and serene. He was thinking about Koka. There were many memories of his foster brother, almost from the time he had memories. Koka’s mother had been his wet nurse; they had both drunk her milk, both had lain against her breast sated and content. As children they had slept in the same bed, fought ferociously over the same slingshot, forgetting—as children always forget—that one was a royal prince, heir to an empire, and the other a commoner. Jahangir’s own brothers, Princes Murad and Daniyal, had grown up in other apartments, and he had not seen much of them as a child. When he was older, he had known them only as threats to his claim on the throne. But Koka: from Koka there had been no such danger, only a deep devotion. And now he was dead. The message from Bengal said he had died in great agony, calling out his Emperor’s name with his last breath.
Jahangir looked down as tears blurred his vision. There was no time even to grieve for him. Kings never
had time to grieve. The empire demanded his attention. A sudden wave of anger washed over him. The army should have brought Ali Quli back to him alive, so that he could have had him pulled apart by elephants. But Ali Quli was dead. And Mehrunnisa was at Bengal.
He wiped the tears from his face. Was his love for her worth so many other lives?
Even in this sorrow he could not stop thinking and worrying about her. Now she should be safe; now she must come to him. He would summon her when some time had passed. But . . . so much had changed. The manner of Ali Quli’s death had changed everything. He had been killed by Koka’s men, by the Emperor himself in some sense. Would Mehrunnisa think he had ordered Ali Quli’s death? Would she forgive him if she thought so?
SIXTEEN
Itimad-ud-Din, Diwan or Chancellor of Amir-ul-Umra, had a heathen in his service named Uttam Chand, who told Dinayat Khan, that Itimad-ud-Daulah had misappropriated 50,000 ropia. Dinayat Khan told the King whereupon Itimad-ud-Daulah was placed in the custody of this Khan.
—B. Narain, trans., and S. Sharma, ed., A Dutch Chronicle of Mughal India
A SLIGHT BREEZE WHISPERED THROUGH the still room, catching the lantern. The light flickered uncertainly, darting shadows around the room. The man at the desk put his quill down, rose from the divan, and went to the window. He shut the panes and leaned against the sill, resting his head on the glass.
Now the lantern spread its warm, comforting glow around the room, lighting up the low desk and the account books on it, smudged with figures and numbers. Ghias Beg drew a deep breath and went back to his place. Quill in hand, he started adding the rows and columns again, looking for a discrepancy, a fault.
A shadow fell across the doorway, and he stiffened, motionless but listening. Asmat Begam stood there, lines creasing her forehead above anxious eyes. After a few minutes she turned and left, the long skirts of her ghagara swishing on the stone floor. Ghias hunched over his books again, the numbers blurring in front of his tired eyes.
The Twentieth Wife Page 30