The Feast of Roses

by Indu Sundaresan

  One evening, as Mehrunnisa had lain recovering on her divan after losing the child, Hoshiyar had brought Ladli to see her. Ladli had stood at the door to her apartments, eyes luminous with fright, tears trembling just behind, until Mehrunnisa had called to her. Then, she had run in to cling to her mother, so tightly that Mehrennisa could not breathe until the embrace ended.

  “I am sorry, Mama,” Ladli had said. “You really wanted this child, did you not?”

  “Yes,” Mehrunnisa had said, “Yes, beta. I wanted him very much.”

  With her face still buried in her mother’s neck, Ladli had said, “And would you . . . have loved him more, Mama?”

  “No,” Mehrunnisa had said automatically, only half-listening, starting to weep again.

  Her daughter had swabbed gently at Mehrunnisa’s face with her little hands and said, “Better to have a girl, Mama. A boy . . . he would have to fight for many things when he is older. Boys always fight, don’t they?”

  Mehrunnisa remembered now how she had turned from Ladli and called to Hoshiyar to take her away. And those words she had paid so little heed to—and would you have loved him more, Mama—came to crush her. She had thought Ladli not important, what kind of a mother was she? What kind of a person was she? No matter what happened now, she would always have Ladli. She started to cry, and in sleep Ladli patted her, reacting instinctively. Mehrunnisa closed her eyes after a long time, terrified and lonely. She was comforted by Ladli, but she also wanted the comfort of Jahangir’s presence.

  What was happening to them?

  • • •

  The eunuchs and slaves stayed in the reception hall only long enough to sweep up the shards of the wine cup and straighten out the divan and the carpets. They blew out the oil lamps and left the room in darkness. Then they ran through the palaces of the zenana, waking the women to tell them of what had happened. The story fled from ear to avidly listening ear, brought laughter and glee to faces. With each telling it took on horrific proportions, Mehrunnisa had slapped the Emperor, she had punched him in the stomach, he had hit her back—true, of course, but the tale became cheerfully embellished. They had said bitter things to each other. Jahangir never wanted to see her again. She was expelled from the harem, sent to live with her father and mother. The horse hooves heard in the street outside was the carriage carrying her away.

  The rumors found their way to Prince Khurram’s apartments also, where he lay in bed with Arjumand. They were to have their first child in two months, and unlike Mehrunnisa, her niece had no trouble keeping the baby inside her. Her stomach was hugely rounded, and she had all the satisfying symptoms of a healthy pregnancy—the bloated face, the heavy feet, the loss of hunger as the child grew within to compress her stomach.

  Arjumand woke to the voice of the eunuch who bent to fill Khurram’s ear about the fight before padding out of the room. She was turned away from her husband, her back to his, but she was listening nonetheless. Khurram put his arm around her and rubbed her stomach lightly.

  “Did you hear?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I have been awake.”

  “This is disgraceful,” Khurram said. “If you fought with me like this, I could not bear it, Arjumand.”

  She turned around, but laboriously, rising first to sit, then to turn, and then to lie down facing her husband. She touched his face in the dark with her fingers. “We are different, your Highness. You must know that I would never disrespect you like my aunt does the Emperor. My aunt does not do her duty; she is in the zenana to bear children, now they say there will be no more. I would never do this to you. I know my place.”

  “Yes, and this is what I love about you, my darling. Mehrunnisa emasculates my father, makes him less of a man by insisting that she play his role.” Khurram gathered her closer, as close as her distended stomach would allow him.

  Arjumand did what Khurram wanted her to do, what she had been taught a woman should. It was her duty to follow her husband’s commands, to be what he wanted her to be. It had surprised her at first that her submission was such a novelty for him. Then she realized that all the women around Khurram before her—Ruqayya, his mother, and Mehrunnisa—were used to demanding things that strained the binds of convention. He had thought this behavior natural, until Arjumand had taught him otherwise. She put Khurram on a pedestal, deferred to him, touched his feet every morning for his blessings on her day. Arjumand would never trample over her husband, this she had decided many years ago, for she saw what this did to a woman’s reputation. No one thought of Ruqayya or Jagat Gosini or Mehrunnisa as feminine, they were strident, troublesome . . . almost man-like. This, Arjumand decided, she would never be.

  “Khurram,” she said. “I do not like that you spend so much time in conversation with my aunt. Forgive me for saying this, but you must rely upon my father and my grandfather. They are men of experience and wisdom, they will definitely know how best to advise, much better than the Empress. Do you not think so?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But the Empress is in distress right now, Arjumand. The fight with my father cannot be very pleasant. What will happen to them? I wonder if this news is true, that she has been sent away. I cannot believe his Majesty will allow her to go, he was so anxious when she was unwell.”

  “Do not talk of her, Khurram.” A terseness came to Arjumand’s voice.

  “But she is your aunt, Arjumand. Don’t you care for her?”

  “Of course,” she said hastily. “I do worry about her too. But this predicament is of her own making. Had she respected the Emperor as she should have, this would not have happened. If she insists upon making trouble for herself, we can do nothing about it. Remember, my lord, that if she had the child, and if it had been a boy, she would not have been so pleasant to you.”

  Khurram laughed. “Arjumand, you worry too much. No one can take away my right to the throne after my father.”

  “It is not just your right anymore, Khurram. Think of the son I am carrying, your first son, the child who will be Emperor after you. I do not feel that the Empress would have taken either you or our son into consideration if she had one of her own.”

  He was silent, thinking about what she said. Arjumand’s breathing evened as she fell asleep. But for Khurram, rest did not come that night. It was all very well for them to form a junta, all very well to have Mehrunnisa at the head of it . . . until now. His own father had been held up to derision because of her. How long would it be before that extended to him? And the crown was uncertain, as much as he tried to convince himself otherwise—if the nobles at court thought him easily led by a woman, they would not support him. At least his father had the advantage of already holding the title of Emperor. Arjumand was right—she was an unnatural woman.

  So Khurram allowed himself to be led by yet another woman, but the hand was soft, the tug gentle, and he did not realize it was happening. Arjumand was outraged that Mehrunnisa would have so much power and authority despite being childless for the Emperor. Only the mother of the future heir could, and should, have any domination in the empire. So she told Khurram this, and neither of them remembered that had it not been for Mehrunnisa, that at one word from her, their own marriage—that gave birth to such ideas and the future sons for the empire—would not have taken place.

  During the next two weeks, just as there had been a hush during Mehrunnisa’s illness, mouths now flapped energetically. Jahangir did not visit his wife, and the Empress made no move toward an apology. It gave the gossips something to talk about, and it gave them hope that there would be a shift of power in the harem and more excitement in their lives.

  It was the end of the reign of the Empress.

  CHAPTER TEN

  But the queen, after the custom of petted women, showed herself more angry and offended than before. . . . In the end, through a third person, she gave Jahangir to understand that the only way of being pardoned for the affront was to throw himself at her feet.

  —WILLIAM IRVINE, trans.
,

  Storia do Mogor by Niccolao Manucci

  “All is well and it is time to rise!” the night watchman sang out. He tapped his stick on the hard dirt ground of the street outside the palace, one tap for each hour of the morning.

  In her sleep, Mehrunnisa heard those taps, and with her eyes still closed, she counted them. It was the second pahr of the day. She heard Hoshiyar come into the room, and she opened her eyes as he approached the bed.

  “How does it look today, Hoshiyar?”

  He touched the skin on her forehead, between her brows, and she felt his callused thumb rub over a ridge. “The colors are muted, your Majesty, but the scar will remain.”

  “Bring me a mirror.”

  When Hoshiyar held the mirror in front of her, Mehrunnisa sat up to peer into it. Outside, the sky was scrubbed with the pale grays of dawn, and only a little light came into her apartments. Her wounds had all healed, except for the gash on her forehead, where one of Jahangir’s rings had cut into the skin. This had bled for a day after, and then the skin had knitted itself tight, and when she spoke she could feel it strain on her face. It was not a big cut, less than the end of her little finger, and now, in healing, it puckered up, shaped like a spear.

  The other discolorations were gone. The Emperor’s hand had left its imprint on her cheek, near her hairline, four neat lines of fingers. She had bumped her head as they had rolled around and that had swollen over her eyebrow, shutting one eye. Mehrunnisa wailed at the sight of her face the next morning, she had lost everything now. How could she even go before Jahangir with this face?

  But Hoshiyar had worked miracles. He made her drink goat’s milk with saffron each morning, and he applied a thick paste of lime and chickpea flour on the skin. He also brought strange-looking, strange-smelling poultices that made her gag, but she submitted to them, sitting for hours as they dried to cake on her face.

  Now only the scar remained. And as Hoshiyar said, it would stay.

  “Is it time to dress?”

  “The nobles will be gathering at the jharoka in half an hour, your Majesty.” He brought her a copper vessel with water, and when she put her chin forward, he washed her face. Two slave girls came in silently and bowed.

  Mehrunnisa brushed her teeth and stood as they dressed her. This was an effort each morning; even waking up was an effort. She had returned to the jharoka audiences a few days after the fight. In the beginning, the crowds were thin, the nobles arrogant, their voices louder than usual, their bows much shallower. But she did not let them cow her. She kept her tone firm, no flattery pleased her, no disrespect made her lose her temper. But each day she came back physically exhausted. And each morning she forced herself to go again.

  As she walked down the corridor of her apartments, she looked across the courtyard at Jahangir’s palace. He would be awake too, and getting ready for his jharoka appearance. They had long settled into this routine where each of them gave audience in different parts of the fort, where they had different petitioners. Would she see him today? If she did, would he look at her? She stumbled, on nothing really but her thoughts, and Hoshiyar caught her elbow.

  “Courage, your Majesty,” he said in her ear.

  Mehrunnisa nodded. Courage she would have, after so many weeks of weakness. The child was gone, so what of that? She had Ladli. She had her pride. She was still Empress Nur Jahan. But . . . if only the Emperor would return, a voice inside her spoke. It was lonely and frightening to live like this. In the beginning she had still been angry, although most of that anger had been frittered away in the fight. She did not want to apologize, to be the first to bow her head, to acknowledge wrong. Everyone insisted on this, and her back grew rigid with each insisting. Bapa sent messages, Abul ridiculed her, and Ruqayya grew strident, thinking all her advantages lost. There had been other times, Mehrunnisa remembered these well, when again the weight of all opinions had tried to pin her down. But she had resisted, as she resisted right after the fight.

  The desolation crept in at night. Hoshiyar was there, Ladli came to share her bed sometimes, but it was Jahangir she wanted. The performance at the jharoka, the impertinence, was repeated every single day. Slaves backed out of the room only till the doorway before turning. Someone had moved the royal seal from her desk to under her desk, as though saying it would not long be hers.

  If she were to go to the Emperor and beg his pardon, there would be nothing left for her in the zenana, this much Mehrunnisa knew. Her name, her title, her possessing the royal seal—all these would mean little now. But she also knew she had done wrong, that Jahangir had been more than indulgent with her. She knew that she was stupid to stay away, and anxious that some other woman was right now capturing his affections. How would she bear this? After all these years of wanting to be Jahangir’s wife, how could she live with this? But then, how to go back and apologize without losing face? The Emperor had shown no indication that he would welcome an apology either . . .

  But that morning at the jharoka, Jahangir did show Mehrunnisa his favor. When she entered the balcony, she saw the Ahadis, the Emperor’s personal bodyguards, lined up on either side of the courtyard. The captain of the team announced her, the rest of the men watched the nobles as they bowed. She was announced three times, even though she stood in front of the men, until the captain was satisfied that the taslim had been performed as it ought to be, as it ought to be in front of Emperor Jahangir himself.

  When it was over, Mehrunnisa ran back through the corridors of the palaces, her veil streaming behind her, and rushed into Jahangir’s chambers. He had returned earlier and was now in bed again for his two-hour nap before the day’s duties began.

  She knelt before him and kissed his hands. “I am sorry, your Majesty. Please forgive me.”

  He touched the scar on her forehead. “Will that go?”

  “Hoshiyar says no. But I am now”—Mehrunnisa laughed and put her arms around him—“marked by you, your Majesty.”

  “You do not mind?” he asked.

  “Not if you don’t.”

  “I have been miserable without you, my love. Come to me as you will, with scars and warts and even grimaces, no perhaps not grimaces, but come to me as you will, and never go away.” Jahangir made space for Mehrunnisa on the divan.

  They lay together, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, with Mehrunnisa safe against Jahangir’s chest. The monsoon rains had begun, and outside the windows, it fell heavy and steady. Coolness swept into the room, and the curtains—of a light silk the color of pond water—crested inward and ebbed.

  “Mehrunnisa,” the Emperor murmured.

  She made a sound, lulled into lethargy by the rain.

  “Do what you will with Mahabat.”

  “Can I?” she asked, her voice drowsy.

  They slept then, as they had since they were married, their breathing hushed and comfortable, secure that no one was ever going to break them apart. But before their eyes closed, Mehrunnisa asked a favor.

  • • •

  When the rains broke late that afternoon over the Anguri Bagh within the Agra Fort, a few clouds still abided in the skies, dense with wetness. The lawns were damp, and the leaves of the tamarind and the champa glistened. Water in the square ponds lay rippleless, mists rising from the surface. The Anguri Bagh, the garden of grapes, was so named not because grapevines stretched around but because the bottom courtyard was laid with a honeycomb of brick plots filled with damask roses, mimicking a cluster of grapes.

  The roses were in full flower this summer, dead wood pruned carefully and lovingly, earlier in the year, by the royal malis. Each plot held just one plant of the Ispahan, the pink damask rose brought from the hillsides of Isfahan in Persia. The plots overflowed with the thick, green, shiny leaves and stems, crammed with the pink flowers turning their lovely faces to the sun.

  The women came out of the harem palaces in crowds. They sat on the stone steps that led into the courtyard, watched as their children swung from the lower branches of a tamari
nd, running away in glee as the leaves shed water. In the soft light of the monsoon sun, the Ispahan roses gleamed with drops of rain—diamonds scattered on pink satin. The zenana women leaned into one another, wondering why they had been summoned here. Whispers rose and hung in the washed afternoon air, passing from mouth to ear, mingling with the shrieks of children’s laughter. One word was oft repeated. Mehrunnisa. Something to do with Mehrunnisa . . . but what? Was she going to be publicly humiliated?

  The women fell quiet as eunuchs came into the Anguri Bagh, bearing large gold and silver platters heaped with pink rose petals. What was this? An offering for a prayer? A eunuch swept the marble pathway that cut across the center of the courtyard of brick plots, his broom moving in noiseless swishes. What was this for? Then, two eunuchs knelt on the eastern edge of the path and laid down the petals, each petal turned up. As they worked, another slave followed them, dripping a single drop of rose water into the center of every petal’s cupped and upturned face. The work was painstakingly detailed—the petals were inspected for bruises and marks, used or discarded accordingly, and laid exactly half an inch from each other until the path was no longer the white of unblemished marble but a pink, perfumed, glittering carpet cutting a swathe through the living Ispahans on either side.

  An hour passed, and then two, and the afternoon wore on. The women waited, sensing something was about to happen, something huge and significant. When the heat of the afternoon surged, the rose petals let loose their fiery aroma into the air, cloying and filling.

  The women did not see Mehrunnisa until she was among them. She stood at the top of the steps on the eastern edge of the fort, the Yamuna flowing behind her, the dusty plains in the background, and waited for them to look at her. Then, slowly, and with great deliberation, she went down the steps to the edge of the pathway. When her foot first touched the rose petals, voices rose within the women’s minds and hearts—careful, watch where you put your feet. These are the Ispahans. But not one word was spoken aloud.