The Feast of Roses

by Indu Sundaresan

  She turned to him, her eyes tearing up. “What have the hakims done before, Hoshiyar? They have hesitated and consulted each other, and looked ponderous and knowledgeable. Yet, not one of them has given his Majesty advice that was actually usable. They are all afraid that if they misdiagnose the illness and the Emperor dies, the weight of his death will lie over them. What use are they?”

  He argued more with her; Mehrunnisa did not listen. She would make Jahangir better. He would not die. He could not die.

  So she sat by his bedside through the night and waited and watched. The sun came up as it did always, rising, then blazing at the center of the skies to send shadows scurrying into their owners, and then slipped toward the west. Mehrunnisa knew none of this. She did not move for hours except to wash down the fever. Finally, as night came again, the Emperor opened his eyes. She fed him with some fresh khichri and some water, but he vomited it all over himself, too weak to even rise from his bed and lean over the side.

  Then he slept, but Mehrunnisa did not. Jahangir’s fever came and went. She heard the sounds of the night watchman’s tapping stick, the song in his voice as the hours turned. Two o’clock. Three o’clock. Then four and five. Mehrunnisa did not speak, and would not allow anyone into the Emperor’s bedchamber.

  She put out a prayer rug and knelt on it facing west toward Mecca. Allah, let him be better. She would not ask for Jahangir’s life, that no one was going to take from her, she prayed that he would get well. That was all she wanted. The tears came too, all through the night, drenching her face. She was afraid, terribly, terribly afraid. Questions swirled in her head. What if she had been wrong in not calling the hakims? What if Jahangir did . . . no, she would not take that word even into her thoughts. Mehrunnisa climbed into the bed, over the Emperor, and laid herself on him, her face dug into his shoulder, her toes touching his feet. His skin was no longer hot, but now it was chilly. This was not the smell of his skin, the taste of his neck. He moved then, uncomfortable under her weight, and she slid off to lie next to him, deeply ashamed. He was ill, unwell, and here she was draping herself over him so she could be at ease.

  “Mehrunnisa.”

  She clutched his arm and raised herself to look into Jahangir’s face. He had woken again. “Your Majesty.”

  “You are here.” And then he closed his eyes again.

  Mehrunnisa called out for Hoshiyar, but the eunuch had gone to rest. She started to pace, hope filling her at the only sound she could now hear. Jahangir drew in breath after breath into his tired lungs and then let it cleanly out. He still breathed through his mouth, but the pitch was easy. Mehrunnisa leaned against a wall and then slid down to sit. Still listening to the Emperor’s breathing, she fell asleep where she sat, her arms resting on her knees, her head upright, one ear awake.

  When she woke in an hour, it was to a request. Prince Khurram demanded an audience, your Majesty. Mehrunnisa crawled to the Emperor’s bedside and touched his arm. The fever had returned, and his skin was on fire. She ordered more cold water and again cleansed the fever, moving slowly, now without hope. Allah, what was happening here? Why give her this hope and then wrench it away? What was happening? When the eunuch asked again about Khurram, she snapped at him to send the prince away. He was coming to gloat, to see if his father was really dying, to see if the empire was now his.

  By this time, the next morning, the whole zenana knew, of course. What exactly had happened to the Emperor, no one was sure of, for Nur Jahan Begam would not permit anyone to see him. So rumors started to diffuse through Ajmer. She was poisoning him slowly. The Emperor’s asthma had come back and this time he could not even breathe, so a copper tube was put into his nose to help him. He was dying, hovering on the edge of life, kept alive only by the sorceries Mehrunnisa practiced in his apartments. She was battling the demons who had come to take the Emperor away. Amid all these wild stories one theme was constant: What would happen to them?

  If Jahangir died, and so soon, without naming an heir, without settling his affairs, what would happen to them?

  • • •

  Prince Khurram was thinking this very thought as he walked back from the Emperor’s apartments. If Mehrunnisa denied his entrance, matters must be very serious indeed. Would his father die? He sent eunuchs and slaves all through the day to Mehrunnisa, demanding, begging, pleading for some information. She returned his every request unanswered.

  As he waited, Khurram sent some men to Khusrau’s apartments and others to see where Shahryar was. Parviz was in the Deccan, quite probably in a drunken haze right now, unaware that their father was dying. Khusrau was walking in the gardens, alone, and Shahryar was practicing at the firing range.

  That evening, Khurram called some of the nobles at court to his reception hall at Ajmer. They talked for a few hours before he asked them for their support should the crown suddenly find itself without a head underneath it. His words brought the silence of shock. Surely, the Emperor was not going to die? No, he assured them. Not now, but if . . . The prince did not forget the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa either. A hundred and twenty Indian ships had been burned in the harbor, but not one had been Khurram’s. He wrote to the Viceroy again, requesting passes and protection for his ships, and in return, he promised his patronage when he became emperor.

  The fever raged for the next twenty days, fed by Jahangir’s debilitated body and the large quantities of wine and opium he still consumed. Mehrunnisa did not want to stop the wine or the opium suddenly, fearing the withdrawal would kill him. After that first day of a deathlike stillness, Jahangir often lapsed into a state of delirium, shouting nonsense and flinging his arms and legs about until he had to be forcibly restrained. He did not recognize Mehrunnisa, and she clutched his feet in tears and sobbed through the hours of darkness as the palaces slept uneasily around her.

  On the twentieth day, little rashes bloomed under the Emperor’s skin and littered his entire body. The smallpox, Mehrunnisa thought in horror. Could it be this? He would never recover, no one ever did. Now, for the first time, she summoned the physicians.

  They came in like frightened animals, tails between their legs. They hovered over Emperor Jahangir with silk handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. Mehrunnisa watched them in disgust. These were the men appointed to drive away ailment from human bodies? What of the oaths they had taken? They were afraid of being exposed to the smallpox; she herself had spent twenty days with Jahangir, barely leaving even to bathe or eat. As the flesh had worn away from Jahangir’s stout frame, it had fled from Mehrunnisa’s smaller one too, until her arms were like twigs, her waist nonexistent, her choli hanging loose on her shoulders. But her will had not gone. Through all these days, when hope had visited and fled, her resolve had remained strong. The Emperor would live. The Emperor must live.

  The hakims, old and bearded, with mournful faces, bent over Jahangir’s still body, checked his pulse. Hakim Abdullah turned to Mehrunnisa, accusation in his eyes. “We should have been summoned earlier, your Majesty.”

  “Is it the smallpox?” she demanded, waving aside his gaze. “What does the Emperor have? Can you cure this?”

  Abdullah shook his head, and for a brief moment, Mehrunnisa’s heart stopped. There was no cure. He was going to say that there was no cure. She ran to Jahangir’s bedside and beat the men away. They must not touch him anymore. No one but she must touch her husband’s body. And in this fog of grief, she heard the hakim’s voice. “Not the smallpox, your Majesty. But the Emperor has suffered for too long, if the fever does not break in a few days—”

  “Not the smallpox!” Mehrunnisa caught him by his bony shoulders and shook him. “Not the smallpox? Are you sure? Absolutely?” His head flopped, and his long, gray beard flew up and down. She pushed him toward the door. “Go. Go. All of you. Leave here now. And, thank you.”

  Then she ran back into the room and knelt by Jahangir’s side again. Four hours later, when he opened his eyes, for the first time in the last twenty days she saw reason in them.
“Are you here, Mehrunnisa?” he asked.

  “Where else would I be, your Majesty?”

  From that day on, the Emperor’s condition improved. Slowly, day by day. He ate more, listened to her when she said he must not drink too much wine. Her faith in his wellness was better medicine than anything the hakims could have prescribed. A month after the first bout of fever, Jahangir was well enough to go to the jharoka.

  The courtyard below was packed with nobles and commoners. They cried out as he appeared before them. “Hail to the Emperor! May he live long!” That afternoon, the Emperor had his ears pierced in thanksgiving, and drew two pearls through the holes. It would soon become a new fashion, as all the men of consequence imitated Jahangir’s new mode of adornment.

  Mehrunnisa went back to her apartments and slept during that day, knowing that her husband was well again, and that now, finally, she could close her eyes without waking to fear.

  Emperor Jahangir came to her in the night, while she still slept, slipped into her bed and drew her into his arms. He did not remember much of the past month, just little snatches of consciousness when he had seen Mehrunnisa’s face. He had always seen her there, not once had he woken to a room empty of her presence. She looked so tired now, as though she had given her strength to him when the fever attacked.

  Then his mind turned to the Portuguese issue, but only briefly, for news had come again. An English captain called Downton had met the Portuguese in the Suwali channel off the coast of Surat, defeated them, and burned their ships. Sometime during his illness, Mehrunnisa had demanded compensation for the burned Rahimi, and the Viceroy had sent three hundred thousand rupees to Ruqayya. She had also asked for more passes. But those were not necessary anymore, were they? Jahangir thought. This last defeat by the English, it bode well for the empire. Let this ambassador come, he was said to be only two sailing days away. Let him come, and Mehrunnisa and he would handle this matter together.

  Jahangir thought of Khurram too, but angrily. How had Khurram dared to defy Mehrunnisa and say that he would not marry Ladli?

  The Emperor kissed Mehrunnisa’s forehead gently, and she smiled in her sleep. He had asked her why she had been with him all these days. And she had said that in his well-being came hers. Despite all her power, all the riches she had, all the armies she could command, the courtiers who bowed to her—in the end, it was simple as that.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Knowe yee therefore that, for the Confidence and Trust which We have in the Fidelity and Discretion of the said Sir Thomas Rowe, We have constituted, appoynted, ordayned and deputed, and hereby do constitute, appoynt, ordayne and depute the said Sir Thomas Rowe our true and undoubted Attorney, Procurator, Legate and Ambassador.

  —WILLIAM FOSTER, ed.,

  The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India

  “We have arrived, sire.”

  The Lion’s anchor chain clanked and rattled its way into the waters on the bar off the coast of Surat. Two sailors, their shirts stripped from their backs, unwound the heavy reel of chain, their muscles rippling and gleaming with sweat.

  Roe peered toward the shadowy coast, his heart banging with excitement. There was not much to be seen, a few trees on the coastline, junks and frigates anchored near the mouth of the Tapti, and one large white tower signifying a native temple.

  He turned away and leaned against the deck rails. Was that all there was to the land of the great Mughal? Where were the fantastic palaces from the Arabian nights, the bejeweled women, the crowded bazaars? He had hoped his first view of India would have been more heartening after all the time spent traveling at sea. The journey from England had taken seven months, and it had been a long, grueling trip. For so many days there had been nothing but water—everywhere—capped only by a sometimes calm sky, a sometimes purple thunderous sky. He had learned to walk on the deck of the Lion without retching, and he had prayed on his knees for hours when a storm had tossed the ship and he had been consigned to his quarters, wondering if he would go to a watery grave without even being given a chance to swim.

  Still, the appointment to the court of the Mughal Emperor could not have come at a better time. Roe’s luck had been at an all-time low, both personally and politically. The meager inheritance that he had been left with had diminished into nothingness. His two friends at court, Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, were gone—the prince dead, the princess married to the Elector of Bohemia. Roe had been a member of Parliament for Tamworth when the East India Company had offered him the post of ambassador to India. It had been a blessing.

  For their part, the Company could not have chosen a better representative. Roe was in the prime of his life, in his mid-thirties, ready for a suitable change. He was eloquent and had a dignified bearing and a commanding presence, all qualities fit for a diplomat and an ambassador.

  Roe turned to look at the other members of the fleet that had accompanied him from England. The Peppercorn, the Expedition, and the Dragon swayed gently in the calm waters off the bar at Surat. The fleet was the finest and best equipped of all that had so far been sent out to India by the East India Company.

  He ran a finger around his tight collar in hopes of easing the discomfort. What kind of a heathen land was this, where the very heat sapped strength from limbs? It was barely eight o’clock by his fob watch, and already sweat stewed inside his clothes. The Lion’s captain had tersely told him to leave off the adornments, and that though land was sighted, it would be a few days before they would actually step on it. Still, Roe was dressed in what he considered his official ambassador’s regalia, his boots spit-shined, his shirt pressed, his cuffs snowy and flowing. Just in case someone had an eyeglass on the Lion, they would not sight the ambassador dressed like a common sailor. Now Roe eyed the captain jealously; he was sweating too but seemed more comfortable in his loose white shirt and trousers. Roe sighed. This was not the least of his troubles. He had had a lot of time to think during his journey here, reading and rereading journals of previous merchants to India and the Company’s briefings. The Emperor had made it absolutely clear that he would not accept a mere merchant as an ambassador and his equal at court. It was rumored that William Edwards, chief of factors and present at Ajmer right now, was styling himself as ambassador. Hawkins also called himself thus, and if Middleton or Best had found their way to Jahangir’s presence, they too would have given themselves that lofty title. So where did it leave Roe? He came with that highly suspect title of “ambassador” too.

  But Roe had no intention of being thwarted. The official document from King James crackled in his breast pocket as he straightened up from the railing. He was the first official ambassador from England, and he was determined to be accorded all the rights and respect that would be bestowed upon his king, for he came as a representative of the English court. Roe had with him not only a letter authorizing him as a representative of England but also a missive from James to Jahangir and a letter of instructions to Roe, wherein James outlined his duties in the foreign court. None of the other merchants had this, but Roe was deluged with royal favor and would use any or all of it to prove he was better than Hawkins and Edwards.

  In thought, Roe leaned over the deck railing and suddenly found the water rushing up to meet him as his feet lifted into the air. A hand grabbed his coat; he felt the cloth strain over his throat as his arms and legs flayed before he was thumped on the wooden boards of the deck.

  “Ere, watch yerself, mate,” a huge sailor yelled in Roe’s ear as the deck resounded with laughter. Roe rose and dusted himself in as dignified a manner as he could, blood rising to color his overheated face. It had been like this all through the journey, this familiarity, this unwanted intimacy. Now he had finally arrived in the empire, and his life could follow the strict formality of the court.

  Sir Thomas Roe expected too much and too soon. He came laden with signs of official patronage, true, but there was to be no good reception.

  • • •

  The town of Surat in the p
rovince of Gujrat lay under the jurisdiction of Prince Khurram, who had now openly allied himself with the Portuguese. Since Khurram supported the Portuguese, they allowed his ships to trade unhindered in the Arabian Sea but threatened retaliation if the English were allowed to establish an embassy at the Mughal court.

  News of the defeat of the Portuguese by Downton, which had so delighted both Mehrunnisa and Jahangir a few months ago, reached both Khurram and Roe when his fleet met with the Merchant’s Hope, one of Downton’s ships on her way back to England from India. While Roe was happy at the news, Khurram was not. The prince did not wish to allow the English to formalize a trading agreement at court, but while he was still a prince, there was very little he could do to stop it. There was, however, one way he could exert his influence—by making sure that Roe did not set foot on Indian soil and by forcing the fleet to return to England divested of its rich cargo.

  So the next week exercised all of the ambassador’s diplomatic skills to the utmost. The ships were searched from mast to hull, and duties were levied according to their cargoes. The crew were also strip-searched for contraband. Roe sent various letters to Muqarrab Khan, governor of the province, insisting upon his rights and demanding that he and his possessions be left unmolested. Roe maintained that in his capacity as ambassador, he alone was exempt from the normal practice of a thorough customs search.

  Muqarrab immediately sent back a polite letter indicating that all goods had to be thoroughly searched but that he would make an exception in the case of the personal belongings of the ambassador, provided the customs clerk could seal them at the dock and then inspect them at Roe’s residence at Surat. They talked back and forth thus, in flowery and meaningless phrases, until Roe had to give in. Once he did, Muqarrab had no other arguments to keep the ambassador from coming ashore, and so eight days after the Lion anchored off the bar at the mouth of the Tapti, Sir Thomas Roe landed on the coast of India.