The Feast of Roses

by Indu Sundaresan

  “Come here.” Jahangir pulled her onto his lap, and she wrapped her legs around him. He framed her face with his hands and pulled it close to his own. “It is never nothing with you, Mehrunnisa. What do you want? A necklace? A jagir?”

  “I want them out of here.”

  “They are gone,” he replied, knowing what she meant. Jahangir did not look back as one of his hands left her face to signal the eunuchs in dismissal, but Mehrunnisa clasped it and pulled it back.

  “I want to do this, your Majesty.”

  “You have as much right as I do, my dear.”

  Still looking into his shadowed face, she raised her hand. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the eunuchs tense, hold still, then glance at each other. They had strict orders not to leave the Emperor’s presence unless commanded by him . . . and only by him. No wife, no concubine, no mother had that power. But this wife, she was different. So they waited for a sign from Jahangir. But he did not move, did not nod his head in assent. A minute passed thus, then one of the eunuchs stepped out of line, bowed to the royal couple, and shuffled out of the verandah. The others followed, hearts suddenly wild with fear—afraid of obeying, yet more afraid of disobeying.

  Mehrunnisa dropped her hand.

  “They have gone, your Majesty,” she said, wonder in her voice.

  “When you command, Mehrunnisa,” Jahangir said, “do so with authority. Never think you will be ignored, and you will not be ignored.”

  “Thank you.”

  The Emperor’s teeth flashed. “If I were to thank you for all you have brought to me, I would be doing so for the rest of my life.” His voice echoed near her ear. “What is it you want? Tell me or you will fret for it.”

  She was silent, not knowing how to ask, not really knowing what to ask for. She wanted to be more of a presence in his life, and not just here, within the walls of the zenana.

  “I wish to . . . ,” she said slowly, “I wish to come with you to the jharoka tomorrow.”

  Early on in his reign, Jahangir had instituted twelve rules of conduct for the empire. Among those rules were many he did not obey himself—prohibiting consumption of alcohol was one. But these, he thought, would provide a framework for the empire, not for himself. He was above those rules. Wanting to be fair and equitable to his subjects, he imposed the ritual of the jharoka, something his father, Emperor Akbar, had not done, something that was exclusively Jahangir’s.

  He called it thus—a jharoka—a glimpse, for it was to be, for the first time since the Mughal conquest of India around a hundred years ago, a personal viewing of the Emperor by any subject in the empire.

  The jharoka was a special balcony, built into the outer bulwark of the Agra fort, where Jahangir gave audience to the people three times a day. In the early morning, with the rising of the sun, he presented himself at the balcony on the eastern side of the fort, at noon on the south side, and at five o’clock in the evening as the sun descended into the west sky, on the western side. Jahangir considered this his most important responsibility. It was here the commoners came to petition him, here he listened to their appeals, important or not. And in the balcony he stood alone, his ministers and the commoners below him. It cut away the pomp surrounding his crown, made him less of a figurehead on a faraway throne.

  “But you do come to the jharoka with me, Mehrunnisa,” Jahangir said. Something more was coming. He was wary, watchful now. For the past few weeks, Mehrunnisa had stood behind the balcony arch, along with the eunuchs who guarded his back, listening, talking with him later about the petitions.

  “I want to be with you in the balcony, standing in front of the nobles and commoners.” She said this softly, but without hesitation. Ask with authority and she would not be ignored, he had said.

  Clouds began to move across the skies, blanketing the stars. Lightning flashed behind them, branches of silver light blotted by gray. She sat in his arms, unclothed, covered only by her now-dry hair that tumbled over her shoulders down to her hips.

  “It has never been done before,” Jahangir said finally. And it had not. The women of his zenana, whatever their relationship to him, had always stayed behind the brick walls of the harem. They were heard outside, in the orders they gave through stewards and slaves and eunuchs, heard also when he did something they wanted. “Why do you want this?”

  She asked a question in response. “Why not?”

  The Emperor smiled. “I can see that you are going to cause trouble for me, Mehrunnisa. Look,”—he raised his eyes to the sky, and she followed his gaze—“do you think rain will come?”

  “If it does . . .” She paused. “If it does, can I come to the jharoka tomorrow?”

  The clouds had now covered the skies above their heads. They looked like the others had, fat and thick with rain, sometimes pelting drops of water on the city of Agra. And then, some errant wind would come to carry them away, clearing the skies for the Sun God to ride his chariot again. Mehrunnisa was commanding the monsoon rains. She smiled to herself. And why not? First the eunuchs, now the night sky.

  He said, “Close your eyes.”

  She did. With his eyes shut too, with her aroma to lead him, Jahangir bent to the curve of her neck. She wrapped her hair around them. She did not open her eyes, just felt the warmth of his breath, sensed him tasting a line of sweat that escaped from her hairline down her face to lodge itself against her shoulder blade, shivered as the rough of his fingertips scraped against the sides of her breasts. They did not speak again.

  And afterwards, they slept.

  • • •

  The sun, a flat line of gold behind purple clouds against the horizon, woke them the next morning. Mehrunnisa lay with her head against a velvet pillow looking up at the play of light against the sky. The clouds hung dense above her. But there was no rain. Moisture in the air, but no rain.

  The eunuchs were back in their positions in the verandah arches, slave girls moved in on noiseless feet carrying brass vessels of water. Mehrunnisa and Jahangir brushed their teeth with a twig from the neem tree, and when the muezzin’s voice called for prayer from the mosque, they knelt side by side on prayer rugs and lifted their hands toward the west, toward Mecca.

  And then, as they had all these days past, the Emperor and his new wife left their apartments to wend through the palace corridors for the first jharoka of the day.

  They walked in silence, hand in hand, not looking at each other. The servants behind them padded on soft bare feet, Mehrunnisa’s ghagara swished over the smooth marble floors. She could not talk, could not bring herself to ask again—would she be standing behind the arch of the balcony or with the Emperor? In a sudden flight of superstition, she looked again at the sky as they passed, but no, the clouds lay massive and unwilling. A weight settled over her and her feet dragged.

  They reached the entrance to the balcony, where the eunuchs of the imperial zenana spread out from the doorway in two lines. When Jahangir entered the balcony, they would close ranks behind him.

  Hoshiyar Khan stood in front, taller than most of the other men around him. He was dressed, even this early in the morning, as immaculately as a king. His hair was smoothed down below his turban, his face grave with responsibility, his manner impeccable. Hoshiyar had been head eunuch of Emperor Jahangir’s harem for twenty-five years now. For a long time, almost all that time, Hoshiyar had been Empress Jagat Gosini’s shadow, by her side, advising her, lending her his support. A month before her wedding, Mehrunnisa, greatly daring, asked for him to be her personal eunuch. So Hoshiyar had come to her side, and willingly, for had he not wanted to be here, he would have found a way to disregard even Jahangir’s orders.

  He bowed. “I trust your Majesties had a good night?”

  He would know of all that passed, know also that Mehrunnisa had dismissed his men from the verandah, know that they had left at her command and why. It seemed to Mehrunnisa that he nodded briefly, just a flicker of an eyelash, with a smile more on his countenance than on his lips bef
ore he turned to the Emperor.

  Hoshiyar leaned out of the arch and raised his hand. The royal orchestra started to play, announcing the Emperor’s arrival. The shehnai trilled, the drums were beaten, and in the distance, a cannon let out a harmless boom.

  Mehrunnisa almost spoke again, opened her mouth, and then closed it. With the noise of the orchestra echoing around them, the Emperor reached behind her head. Her indigo veil lay shawl-like over her shoulders, and he raised one end and brought it over her face. As Jahangir stepped out into the balcony to the glow of the lightening eastern sky, he tightened his grip on Mehrunnisa’s hand and pulled her with him.

  Almost the first sensation she experienced, one utterly irrelevant, was that the marble ledge of the balcony, carved with thin vines of jasmine flowers, came up to her waist. It hid their hands, still linked together. Then Mehrunnisa looked down at the expanse of inclined backs, clad in thin cottons embroidered with gold zari, bowed in unison. The nobles and the commoners, the orchestra itself to one side, the slaves and guards armed with spears and muskets—not one eye was raised to them.

  Even the Mir Tozak, the Master of Ceremonies, had his head bent. His was the first to raise though, the first to see the Emperor and the lady by his side. His voice, when he found it, came in an uneasy quaver, “All hail Jahangir Padshah!”

  The nobles straightened up and saw the veiled figure at Jahangir’s side. Involuntarily, most of the men drew in breaths of astonishment. In the silent courtyard, stilled of drums and trumpets, the noise was like a rush of wind, gone in an instant.

  Mehrunnisa held on tight to Jahangir’s hand. Unsaid between them was that Jahangir was granting her a privilege, and Mehrunnisa acknowledged it in silence. It was not a privilege she would misuse. It filled her heart that he would take her into the jharoka despite the chaos it would cause.

  Mehrunnisa watched the men below, knowing no one could see her face. This life of hers, behind a veil, had its advantages. Her hands were cold. It was the first time a woman from the imperial harem had appeared in public, veiled from view, but boldly present. Jahangir stepped ahead of her, holding his back straight, his shoulders thrown back, his imperial turban sitting squarely on his head. For these minutes of the jharoka, he was the Emperor, no longer the man who slept with such comfort in her arms. These were lessons she was fast learning, on how to have a private face and a public one.

  “My good people,” Jahangir began, his voice strong with authority, “as you can see, I am well and have had a good night’s sleep.” He turned to the Mir Arz, the Officer in Charge of Petitions. “Bring forward the petitioners.”

  For the next thirty minutes, the Mir Arz called out the names of the nobles gathered in the courtyard to present petitions to the Emperor. They came forward, performed the taslim thrice, and then presented the Emperor with a gift. Depending upon the gift’s value or uniqueness, Jahangir would signal his consent for them to speak. As for the common people, he chose his petitioners based on their looks, or perhaps the color of a turban or where they stood in the courtyard or whether they faced east or west. This whimsical culling out of the supplicants was the only way to hear as many petitions as possible in the limited time allowed. Given the sheer numbers, most were turned away, and they would return day after day, hoping that eventually the familiarity of their faces would catch the Emperor’s eye.

  Mehrunnisa was silent, watching the two men on the right side of the jharoka. Mahabat Khan and Muhammad Sharif were the two main players at court. They were powerful, in both position and influence over the Emperor. Mahabat Khan was an intelligent man, grasping and cunning. It was said he had refused the rank Sharif now held, that of Amir-ul-umra—Prime Minister and Grand Vizier—preferring to rule without a title.

  A petitioner came forward. Mehrunnisa listened to what he had to say, thinking all the while that his name was familiar. Ah, he was Mahabat Khan’s cousin. And so it had been during the daily darbar also. Cousins, friends, brothers, all had been granted honors, estates, and contracts while others had been turned away.

  Unable to restrain herself, Mehrunnisa put a hand on Jahangir’s arm. “Your Majesty.”

  The Emperor turned to her.

  “Perhaps it would be best if this matter was decided later on. There are others, more needy. This man already has a mansab of six hundred horses, raising it now would do little good,” she said. She spoke softly. Jahangir hesitated, then allowed his gaze to fall back on the Mir Tozak. This was the Mir Tozak’s cue to dismiss the petitioner.

  In the courtyard below, anger lit Mahabat Khan’s face, and he whipped around to Mehrunnisa. From under her veil, Mehrunnisa held his gaze, forcing herself to keep from flinching.

  When the jharoka was over, Mehrunnisa and Jahangir left together, the audience quiet, cautious. She went back to her apartments immersed in thought. She had raised her voice against Mahabat Khan. It was not something he would easily forget, this public denial of a request. Mahabat would be a dangerous enemy, one to be regarded with care.

  Her step faltered. Why had she spoken at the jharoka? It was a small thing—this touch on Jahangir’s arm, this murmur in his ear, but played out under frighteningly huge circumstances. Mahabat’s flare of wrath at her, as though he could see through and beyond the cover of her veil, proved this. But to Mehrunnisa, standing there alone, among those powerful men of the empire, above those men, this blatant demonstration of her power had been irresistible. Mahabat would never forget this morning’s jharoka. And neither would she, Mehrunnisa thought.

  She went through the wide doors of her apartments and stood with the docility of a tame fawn as the slave girls undressed her for a bath.

  Hoshiyar had told her once that Mahabat had tried to stop the Emperor from marrying her. Why? What did Mahabat care about the women of the imperial harem? He had no enmity against her father or her brother . . . yet he had spoken against her. Why?

  It was almost as though Mahabat was the Emperor, not Jahangir. He held no special title. Yet there had been times when he had cleverly overruled Jahangir’s intentions. One word from Mahabat, and the empire stopped in its tracks, righting itself in whatever direction he pointed. This Mehrunnisa had forgotten in her haste to speak during the jharoka. It did not matter, she told herself. It could not matter. If she were to be supreme in the zenana and at the court, she would make enemies. That she had always known.

  Coolness flitted over her skin and she turned to the window. One of the slave girls, about Ladli’s age, ran excitedly to the balcony. Clouds blotted out the weak morning sun, enraged and black. They seemed to suck out the heat from the palaces. When Mehrunnisa stepped into her bath, it started to rain. No mere sprinkling—this was a violent, war-filled rain, thronging with the sound of a thousand drums.

  As she lay there, listening to and watching the rain outside, Mehrunnisa’s heart became light. It would not be easy to break the hold Mahabat had over the Emperor. Theirs was a connection that went back many years. But, Mehrunnisa thought, so did her understanding with Jahangir. All things could be broken in the end.

  • • •

  Before the jharoka was over, the whole zenana knew of Mehrunnisa’s presence at the balcony. The eunuchs and attendants had been very busy. Even as the new Empress left the balcony, word fled throughout the palaces of this unprecedented occurrence.

  The palaces of the imperial harem were many and scattered, connected by a maze of exquisitely wrought brick courtyards and lushly verdant gardens, all inside the Red Fort at Agra. Within the harem lived the three hundred women connected with the Emperor.

  The hierarchy was simple. The reigning Emperor’s wives took precedence over all the other women in the zenana. Of them there would be one dominant one—the Padshah Begam. With that title came supremacy over the entire zenana, the power to watch, to weave intrigues into the women’s lives, to control their finances, their very lives.

  Empress Jagat Gosini, Jahangir’s second wife, had married him twenty-five years earlier, when he had s
till been a prince. Then, Jagat Gosini had been a young girl with classic features and a haughty countenance. Emperor Akbar’s ruling Padshah Begam, Ruqayya, had seen the stiffness in Jagat Gosini’s spine as she bent to perform the taslim in front of her, the raising of an eyebrow when something disgusted her, and she had viewed this arrogance with wariness.

  And so a feud had started between the two women. They never fought openly; instead, they waged a subtle campaign for supremacy, tormenting each other with sarcastic, hurtful comments delivered on the sly. As long as Emperor Akbar had been alive, Ruqayya had been absolute in the zenana, but once Jahangir ascended the throne, she had to give up her place to Jagat Gosini. For though Jahangir had married many wives by the time he became Emperor, Jagat Gosini, a princess in her own right, born to a mighty king, easily established herself paramount in his harem.

  The evening of the momentous jharoka, Mehrunnisa went to visit the Dowager Empress in her palace. There were six palaces fronting the Yamuna River at Agra within the walls of the fort, and each had a unique style reflective of its occupants. Some had marble balconies and verandahs built into the battlements of the fort, and some were made of the same red sandstone that graced the fort’s walls. Mehrunnisa did not have one yet; but when the time came, she wanted it to be hers, with her voice directing the laying of each stone, and supervising the polishing of the marble floors.

  Among the symbols of imperial esteem, this mansion of brick, sandstone, marble, enamel, and mirrorwork was paramount in the zenana’s world. The abodes, though, were merely loans during the Emperor’s lifetime; sometimes, if a woman was stupid enough to lose favor, for less than the Emperor’s lifetime. And as the crown moved to the heir, his harem would chase out the current occupants.