The Feast of Roses

by Indu Sundaresan

  Mehrunnisa smiled. “Thank you, your Majesty.” Then she went away to her apartments on feet still unsteady from the effects of the bhang. In a few hours they would meet again, bathed and fresh, the colors of the gulag still glowing on their skins. Mehrunnisa chose a ghagara and choli that matched the colors of her skin so perfectly that it seemed as though she were clad in a skin of green. More bhang flowed, but Mehrunnisa did not drink any. She was thinking about Khurram.

  She knew her limitations, or was being fast made aware of them. Power—to speak at court, to change the dictates of a society that demanded obeisance from a woman, to rule over the zenana and its inmates—was a very fragile thing indeed. It would be hers as long as Jahangir gave it to her. But with Khurram by her side, more was possible. Courtiers and nobles already whispered about the succession—like Khurram, they had a vested interest in it too. Where the crown was involved, speculations would be rife about whose head it would adorn next, no matter if it had rested on the current head only for a few short years.

  Among the courtiers were some who looked upon Mehrunnisa with dislike, especially the Rajput soldiers who found their loyalties in Empress Jagat Gosini’s household. But they would support Khurram; he was Jagat Gosini’s son, so there was a natural inclination to do so. More important, if he were to become the next emperor, they would be fools not to have supported him early on.

  If Khurram came to Mehrunnisa’s side and she advocated his cause, these nobles would be forced to come to her too. This was logical thinking, with the hard head of a diplomat. There was another reason to play the role of Khurram’s advisor. Jagat Gosini would be furious, and Mehrunnisa wanted to keep her unsettled in anger, for the Empress would be more dangerous with a cool mind.

  Poor Khurram, Mehrunnisa thought as she listened to the imperial orchestra, the bhang glass untouched by her side. He had no idea just how important he was to her. And he would never know. Let him think that he needed her more, and at this moment, bareheaded with just the title of a prince, he did. She was planning for the future.

  But she did not want to do this alone, relying solely upon a prince in whom she had no faith yet. There were others whom she could call to her side. Bapa and Abul. Even if Khurram were to mislead her, these two other men, her father and her brother, could always be trusted. Their blood was hers.

  • • •

  And so a few weeks later, when spring had shed its first freshness and was lingering on the edge of summer, a palanquin stopped in the outer courtyard of Ghias Beg’s house on the banks of the Yamuna.

  The servants were all aflutter, shouting orders, the men averting their faces from the daughter of the house who had so suddenly, with the imperial turban on her head, a new title to her name, become unreachable. Her Majesty was here. Quick, get the horses out to the stables; find the guards something to eat; run to tell the master.

  Mehrunnisa ran into the house veiled, charmed by this attention, even from old servants who had scolded and petted her when she was young. She had asked for this meeting. It was easier for her to come to her father’s house than to have Abul and Bapa come into the zenana. For them to be in the family home would not cause talk. But Khurram’s presence was quite another thing. Abul was already there, the prince was not. They waited for him in the reception hall, talking of the family. Mehrunnisa saw Asmat flit by the open door anxiously. Her mother was not happy about this—covertness made her nervous.

  And then Khurram came in. He was shy at first, accepting homage from Ghias and Abul, giving it in his turn to his father’s wife. They all waited for Mehrunnisa to speak. It was up to her to tell them why they had been summoned in secrecy. But when Mehrunnisa started to talk, it was about commonplace things.

  “William Hawkins has left the court to return to his own country,” Mehrunnisa said. “He was fatigued here, the heat too much for him. What thin skins these firangis have.”

  So they talked of William Hawkins, a merchant who had styled himself as an ambassador from England and had wanted Jahangir to sign on trading privileges for the English. The three men knew that Mehrunnisa and the Emperor had flirted around the treaty, but lightly, and enough to keep the merchant in India. He had amused them, amused all of them with his fluent court-ready Turki, but his manners were coarse. He swore colorfully, he did not perform the taslim in court as many times as he should have, his voice was at times gruff. But on the whole he had been entertaining. When he wanted to leave, Jahangir had offered him an income and a house in Agra for as long as he wanted to live here. He was even given a mansab of four hundred horses and the title of an English Khan. But Hawkins wanted to leave, frustrated and no longer hopeful that Jahangir would sign a treaty. So he was let go, kindly and with many gifts.

  “What of the Jesuits, your Majesty?” Khurram said.

  “What of them, Khurram?”

  The Portuguese Jesuits had been in India for many years now, well before the first Mughal conquest of India. They were here to proselytize, or so they claimed. Their churches’ steeples rose in Agra, the money and the land for the building given to them by the Emperor. Their priests had converted three of Jahangir’s nephews to Catholicism, gaining a foothold into the royal family, but they would not advance further. And as Catholics, the nephews could not hope to raise their eyes to the crown of the empire. Despite all these outward signs of God, the Portuguese Jesuits manned the Arabian Sea routes, providing protection for the pilgrim ships traveling to Mecca and Medina, charging taxes and levies for that protection.

  “The cost of trade is too high,” Khurram said hesitantly. “But who else is there? Why is it that the empire cannot provide safety for its own ships? Why do we have to rely upon others?”

  “The English, perhaps?” Abul said. He had known William Hawkins well during his stay at Agra. And Hawkins had been full of stories of English power at sea—bragging about the defeat of the Spanish Armada twenty-five years ago. But twenty-five years was a long time back. What was it they could do now, and in waters foreign to their own, where different winds blew, and the earth took altered shapes?

  But they had all heard the stories of yet another Englishman, one who had barely touched the empire’s soil, a man called Henry Middleton. He was on his way back to England too, and he carried Hawkins with him. But when Middleton had first arrived, he had been allowed to unload his goods for trade at the dock at Surat and then been unceremoniously driven down the Tapti River into the Arabian Sea. Enraged, Middleton had assaulted—there was no other word for it—Indian vessels he had met in the Gulf of Aden on his way out to England, forcing a heavy ransom or trade in some very unfavorable terms. The ships had come limping back to port at Surat, riding lightly on the water, void of their cargoes but full of tales of bitterness against the English. Among those ships was the Rahimi, which could carry, with a full cargo, fifteen hundred passengers. In the royal palaces, the insult to the Rahimi was the greatest affront to the empire—Ruqayya owned this magnificent ship and had complained bitterly about her loss of income. Middleton undid all of Hawkins’s efforts at diplomacy.

  Mehrunnisa said, “Do not judge this Middleton too harshly. He was provoked, robbed of his own belongings here by Muqarrab Khan.”

  “John, Mehrunnisa,” Ghias Beg spoke for the first time. He had watched his daughter quietly all this while, admiring her knowledge.

  She turned to him. “I know, Bapa. Muqarrab has converted to Catholicism; he calls himself John now. He did what he did to Middleton because of the Portuguese. They do not want the English here.”

  “Why?” Ghias asked, and when Abul and Khurram motioned to speak, he held a hand up for their silence.

  “If the English are really that adept in the seas, if their navy is really that powerful, we can use them. They could protect our ships instead of the Portuguese, or rather, we can give both the firangis a chance for it—and profit from it. As long as the Portuguese are unchallenged, they grow arrogant,” Mehrunnisa said. Then she shook her head. “But Middleton’s beha
vior in the seas, against our ships, it does not bode well for a good relationship. Where is a demonstration of naval strength in that? He harassed defenseless trading vessels.”

  “But with reason, as you just said, your Majesty,” Khurram said. “If nothing else, we know to be uncertain of Muqarrab Khan’s loyalties. Let the English come back to India if they wish to. We will welcome them.”

  They talked into the night, and the candles burned low into their silver saucers. Most of the talk was about the firangis. They did not touch on the zenana, or Khurram’s claims to the throne, or what Ghias Beg and Abul Hasan wanted from this new rule. They all wanted something, even Ghias, who was not merely content that his daughter was powerful; he wanted the riches that power could bring. It was his one weakness, one that Mehrunnisa understood. For now, it was enough that they could talk, in private, in a place where the walls would not speak of their conversations.

  Thus the junta was born.

  And so Mehrunnisa stepped tentatively into history’s pages, dipping her foot into the ink that inscribed the names of men and writing her own.

  She had, perhaps, acted too hastily in forming this junta, in bequeathing her allegiance to Prince Khurram.

  For though no one knew yet, least of all Mehrunnisa, there could be another person who had the same claims as Khurram to the empire. And more, much, much more claim to Mehrunnisa’s affections and loyalty.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Few marriages in polygamous households have been so happy. . . . Arjumand Banu . . . surrendered her mind and soul to her husband Yet the marriage had primarily been a political one. It symbolized the alliance of Mehrunnisa, Itimad-ud-daulah and Asaf Khan with the heir apparent.

  —BENI PRASAD,

  History of Jahangir

  Court was in session in the Diwan-i-am, the Hall of Public Audience at the Agra Fort. Every day, except for Fridays, Emperor Jahangir held court here—here the official business of the empire was conducted, news brought from every corner of its vast lands, and petitions read. It was late in the afternoon, the sun tumbling westward in the sky, waning in its strength. Coming into the Agra Fort from the westward Elephant Gate the nobles and commoners passed by the guards first, their passes checked there, before they stabled their horses in a front courtyard and then walked up the cobbled ramp into the Diwan-i-am. They would find their places in the square marble hall, with floors of marble coated end-to-end with the finest silk carpets Persia could provide, and forty marble pillars holding up a sandstone ceiling covered with a thin leaf of beaten gold. They took off their shoes and sandals before entering the hall, and this was court etiquette.

  The Diwan-i-am was open on three sides. On the fourth it abutted the walls of the imperial palaces. Here Emperor Jahangir sat in a high marble throne with a canopy of gold cloth fringed with emeralds and supported by pillars of gold. On either side of the throne, built into the wall, were the zenana balconies, visible from the hall only as fine mesh screens of marble.

  Mehrunnisa had come to the harem enclosure before Jahangir, finding her seat up front, near the screen, so close that if she put her fingers through, she could touch the Emperor’s back. She leaned to look at the assembled nobles in the Diwan-i-am; they could not see her, of course. Just below Jahangir’s throne were the royal slaves, two boys of seven years each, standing on huge wooden elephants so that their fly whisks would reach the air around the Emperor. Near them were the attendants, and Mehrunnisa counted their numbers silently—the keeper of the imperial ensign, which was a gold ball clasped in gilt hands hanging from a chain, the imperial standard, which was a yak’s tail, the Emperor’s flag imprinted and embroidered with a lion crouching in front of a rising sun, and the other flags.

  The top nobles of the empire stood grouped around these men, Mahabat Khan and Muhammad Sharif, the other rajas of the empire—kings in name only, for their kingdoms belonged to the empire—and foreign ambassadors. Ghias Beg and Abul Hasan stood here too, just below Prince Khurram, two inches above Mahabat and Sharif; their places had been ordained the day Mehrunnisa married Jahangir. This was the exalted first tier of the empire, and they were separated from the second tier by a thick, hip-high silver railing. Beyond this railing was the next rank of people, merchants and businessmen, cut off from the commoners of the third tier by a red lacquered wood railing. Behind the commoners were the royal elephants, their mahouts seated atop their necks, awaiting the muster call.

  Awnings of gold cloth stretched over the outer yard to provide shelter from the sun for those who were not weighty or important enough to be placed either in the Diwan-i-am itself or even before the imperial beasts. And every day, no matter what the weather, whether it rained or the sun was particularly unforgiving in temper, the court appearance of Emperor Jahangir always drew crowds numbering over a thousand, sometimes two.

  The zenana balconies also bustled—every woman who could find a free hour from her siesta or her studies came to the court. Mehrunnisa had always come with Ruqayya, and then they had sat at the back, following the implicit hierarchy of the harem, the heads of other ladies blocking their view, the words from the Diwan-i-am coming splintered to their ears. Empress Jagat Gosini had sat in front, of course. And she did so still.

  Mehrunnisa turned to her. Jagat Gosini sat to the Emperor’s right, Mehrunnisa to his left, even though she thought that the premier position ought to be hers. The Empress did not turn to Mehrunnisa; her back stiffened though, and Mehrunnisa knew she was aware of her without moving her eyes away from the Diwan-i-am. What was she scheming? Did she know of Khurram’s defection?

  Mehrunnisa wanted to know the answer to this last question more than any other. For she had taken Prince Khurram away as surely as if she were his wife or his mother. And she was neither. She smiled to herself. Let the Empress meet with Mahabat Khan as much as she wanted, let her talk with him and even hold his hand in supposed flight and fright. If Mehrunnisa were to tell the Emperor of this, everything would be shattered for the two. She had no intention of telling Jahangir, not now anyway. But later . . . if she needed something from the Empress, or simply to break her.

  They had met to talk of her, this much Mehrunnisa knew, for her servants had repeated some of their conversation. Not very much, just as much as they could hear. Hoshiyar had brought her news of this meeting through Shaista Khan, Jagat Gosini’s eunuch. Did she know that a devil lived within her own walls? That it was Shaista’s step she had heard at Fatehpur Sikri?

  The kettledrums announced Jahangir’s arrival. They all rose in the zenana balconies, and all of them, the nobles in the courtyard, the war elephants, the women of the harem, bowed in the konish. When they raised their backs, Emperor Jahangir was already seated on the satin divan of the throne. The nobles did not sit. No one was given the privilege of bending his legs in front of the Emperor, and even in standing there was an etiquette. Their arms were clasped in front, the fingers of their right hands cupping the left elbow and the left hand the right elbow, splayed just so. Their necks would bend too, conveying submission even as they stood at attention. And no one spoke.

  Of the thousand people present at the Hall of Public Audience, not one voice made itself heard. They could speak only when directly addressed by Jahangir. They could not leave until he had left, for if they did, they would give up their places in the hall—and their heads, by sunset.

  This rigidity of rules was what kept Jahangir foremost in the empire. The Emperor was the empire. There was no mistaking that.

  Emperor Jahangir nodded at the Mir Tozak, the Master of Ceremonies. He bowed and unrolled his scroll. The first order of the court was to confirm that yesterday’s orders had been carried out. This done, news was read from around the empire.

  “In Lahore, your Majesty, a chick was born with three beaks, two on either side of the main one,” the Mir Tozak said.

  Jahangir leaned forward. “Where is it? Command it brought to court so all may see this unusual thing.”

  “It did not live beyond
two days, your Majesty. But the keepers are trying to mate the same hen and rooster again, so another such chick may be born.”

  “A chick with three beaks,” Jahangir said. “There has been no such thing before, has there?”

  The nobles all shook their heads, although the Emperor had unconsciously turned to his left, talking to Mehrunnisa, as if the entire darbar did not stand before him. Mehrunnisa smiled at Jahangir’s wonderment. She had once asked him why it was important for such trivialities to be brought to his notice in the Diwan-i-am—surely, only matters of state ought to be discussed here? Jahangir said that nothing was trivial. In him was vested every concern of the empire, small and large. The news from its farthest reaches, local and consequential only to its own district or jagir, had to be read in open court. For it was too easy for the nobles and amirs of the empire to be swept away by a sense of their own importance, to belittle what went on elsewhere, to think of Agra alone as being significant. It was easy for Jahangir to do so too, but he was not Emperor merely of Agra but also of every other village and town and settlement in the empire. The news brought notice of these little places. And again Mehrunnisa was reminded of what Ruqayya always said, that in knowledge lay true power.

  And so other oddities were read out, commented upon by Jahangir, acknowledged by the court. He gave orders on a few matters and simply talked about others. And then the petitions were read out, who was to be given a larger mansab, who was to be commended for bravery, who stripped of his lands and titles publicly. A few nobles came forward to beg Jahangir’s permission to marry their daughters. Alliances had been found and decided upon, but the Emperor had to bless any future union.

  In this he turned more often to Mehrunnisa. Once, he even used her name, saying, “What do you think of this, Nur Jahan Begam?”

  She said nothing, and the whole court strained to hear even a whisper. But her silence was enough, and Jahangir said to the supplicant, “Your daughter is too young, Mirza Chingaz Khan, perhaps you should wait a few more years.”