The Feast of Roses

by Indu Sundaresan

  The four English ships were decked in their best finery. Colorful pennants, flags, and ensigns hung from the masts. A hundred English soldiers equipped with muskets had gone over earlier in the morning. They stood in two rows dressed in full military regalia to form the Court of Guard to welcome the ambassador. The cannons aboard the fleet boomed out their salute as Roe disembarked from the boat, along with the four captains of the fleet.

  The English soldiers saluted smartly as Roe passed them on his way to a huge open tent. Carpets were laid on the ground in profusion, and under the great silken canopy some thirty Indian nobles were assembled, waiting to welcome the ambassador.

  Roe stopped and frowned upon coming to the tent. “Why are the Indians still seated?” he demanded.

  “My lord ambassador, it is the custom in these heathen lands,” one of his men whispered.

  “This is ridiculous. I am a representative of King James. Would these men dare to sit in the presence of a great king?” Roe said irritably. “I will not enter until they stand.”

  One of his attendants ran to inform the gathered Indians of Roe’s demands. They talked with each other, while Roe stood outside the tent, his face reddening with anger. Finally, one of the men rose, and the rest of the assembly rose along with him.

  Somewhat appeased, Roe marched into the tent and went up to the center. One of the Indians made a sign to the interpreter, who started a long speech in broken English with a heavy accent. Thirty horses with fine saddles were brought forth as a present to Roe, and he was also given slaves for use in his personal household. Roe graciously accepted the gifts, inclined his head, and marched down to the pier on the Tapti, where he was to be escorted to the house that had been found for him in Surat.

  Upon arriving there, he found that, contrary to the governor’s assurances, his belongings had not been brought to his residence. The ambassador was told that his luggage had been sealed in the customshouse until such time that it could be thoroughly searched. So here he was, in an empty house, with no furnishings or even his bedclothes. A jute-strung cot was found for him and put in one of the rooms. He sent for his dinner from one of the Armenian public houses in Surat’s main street and ate the fiery food washed down with huge glasses of water. Just as he was retiring to his room, a messenger came running in.

  “My lord ambassador, your cook has been arrested.”

  Roe jumped up from his cot, retying the laces on his boots. “Why? Where is the man?” He had brought an English cook along with him, unsure of how he would take to native food, and with good reason, Roe thought, flinging on his coat, if this night’s meal was any indication of what he would have to eat.

  “He is in prison, my lord. It would be better for you to free him tonight, for these heathens do not believe in either long prison terms or in trials. The cook will be sentenced to death in the morning.”

  Roe groaned. Would his ordeals never end? The cook had been sent beforehand to the house at Surat to prepare for the ambassador’s arrival. On his way through the city, the man had chanced upon an Armenian wine house and there had spent the next few hours getting drunk. Toward evening, the cook had suddenly recalled his responsibilities and had been wandering through the bazaar in search of Roe’s house when he had met the governor’s brother and his men. The cook had immediately put his hand on his sword and yelled, “Now thou heathen dog!”

  The governor’s brother had been puzzled, what was this firangi saying to him? So he had asked, “Kya kahta?”

  The cook, too inebriated to attempt an answer, had drawn his sword out of its scabbard and had ineffectually waved it in the air. Although the governor’s brother did not understand English, he had recognized the cook’s actions as belligerent. His men had immediately fallen upon the cook and thrown him into prison.

  When the messenger arrived at this point in the story, Roe turned around and went home. He sent word to the governor’s brother to do with the cook as he pleased, shrugging off any blame in the matter. The cook was clearly in the wrong, he thought, and if he made too much of a fuss, this small incident could very well blow up into an international affair. After a few hours of deliberation, the man was released and came back to his master’s residence much chastened, and unhurt, as a courtesy to Roe from the governor’s brother.

  Roe’s trials were only beginning. The language barrier, the heat, the unfamiliar customs, would all prey upon him in the coming days. The English had been here before, true. But none of their accounts prepared Roe for India. He sent for Jadu, the broker who had served other English masters in Surate, and talked with him for long hours. He heard stories about the Emperor, his recent illness that had so nearly driven him to his death, his four sons, all of whom had equal claims on the throne. Jadu told him about these four princes, how they all wanted the throne, how only Prince Khurram had any authority at all at court, like he did here, in the province of Gujrat where Surat lay. What of the others, Roe asked? Parviz and Shahryar were weaklings, sire, Jadu said. But Prince Khusrau . . . at one time he had had everything, now it is all gone. Only a miracle would put him on the throne. Though who knew, miracles did occur.

  The days passed thus as Sir Thomas Roe, the first official ambassador from England, lived in his empty rooms with his cot and his cook. His furniture rotted in the customshouses, and he conversed often with the very courteous governor Muqarrab Khan. But his hands were so woefully tied, Muqarrab said; he could do little about releasing the ambassador’s effects. A few more days of waiting, perhaps? So Roe waited, wondering if Surat was to be his first and last stop in India.

  It was doubtful he would even reach Emperor Jahangir’s court.

  • • •

  Prince Khusrau peered at the book in his hands. The words on the page swam, flitted, grew bigger and then smaller. He held his right index finger steadily on the paper, and bent his head close. His mouth formed the word. “Willow.” Then laboriously, his finger moved to the next word, and he strained to read it. The beginnings of an ache started in his forehead and wound its painful fingers around his skull. His vision blurred, and Khusrau wiped his left eye over and over again. Finally, he had one sentence. “Under the nodding willow the poppy lies in blood.”

  The prince put the book down and lay back on his divan. This was the only sentence he would read today, and every day, although Khalifa read to him, he forced this exercise upon himself. He thought about that arduously gained sentence and saw in his mind the tiny new leaves of a springtime willow, shivering in the breeze, a carpet of poppies—blood—beneath it, the perfume of violets in the cornfields. It was from Bahar’s poem The Miracle of Spring. Khusrau liked this poem because, unlike others he had read, it painted pictures in his head of what he had once seen. Some of the others were epics, stories of fathers and sons and grandsons, all mighty, all engaged in some battle that won them glory.

  A little prick of restlessness ignited something deep within him. Khusrau held himself rigid on the divan, but the feeling spread from his fingers to his hands and arms, through his body, until he was shaking. He felt for a cushion, picked it up, and threw it from him. There was a soft thud, and then the tinkling crash of glass breaking. Tears came to his eyes, Khusrau doubled over and began to bawl. Some part of his mind stayed sane, but it was such a weak part, and this was so overwhelming, that Khusrau could only howl, beating his fists upon the divan, ripping through the cover with his nails, flinging himself to the ground. He began whacking his head on the floor, again and again.

  Khalifa came running into the room, her veil flying off her hair. She rushed to Khusrau, fastened her arms around his shoulders, and pulled him onto her lap. He still flayed about, still yelled, his shouts echoed in her ears, but Khalifa held him fast.

  “Hush, my lord. Hush.” She said little else, just this, until Khusrau quieted. His wet face was buried into her chest, he gripped her ribs with his hands until a burning spread over Khalifa’s skin. But she still held onto him and rocked him.

  “Why?” Khusrau
asked.

  “I do not know, my lord,” Khalifa said, then her voice became hard. “The Emperor does as he pleases. Blinding you has pleased him.”

  They sat like that on the Persian carpets, hand-woven in the finest workshops in Agra, their design so intricate that it seemed as though rubbing the delicate white jasmine buds would release their fragrance around them. But Khusrau could see none of this.

  Khusrau was born in 1587 to Man Bai, Jahangir’s first wife. He was the first son, the cherished and beloved heir to the empire. There were few in the realm who had forgotten Akbar’s heartache and their desperation for an heir before Jahangir’s birth. So Khusrau was a blessing.

  When Khusrau was seventeen he was married to Khalifa, whose father was the Khan Azam, the first lord of the realm, a minister with a long-standing relationship with Akbar, and a man of enormous influence. Khusrau’s maternal uncle was also a man with no little authority at court—Raja Man Singh was a brave soldier, an able commander, and his power was molded through years of experience and service to Akbar.

  These two men, father-in-law and uncle to Khusrau, watched the ferocious sparring between Jahangir and his father. So even before Akbar died, they presented Khusrau to the nobles as the next heir to the empire, bypassing his father completely. Old and ailing as Emperor Akbar was, as much as he was resentful toward Jahangir during the last years of his life, he was insistent upon one thing—the crown belonged to Jahangir. Not Khusrau.

  The prince lifted his face finally from Khalifa’s chest and peered at her face. His hands no longer trembled, that terrible hopelessness that made him act so madly had gone. He could not see much of his wife. A smile? He touched her mouth, and his fingers moved over smooth teeth that glimmered liked pearls through the fog of his vision.

  “I give you so much trouble, Khalifa,” he said.

  “No, my lord.” She smiled again, and this time he could hear it in her voice. “Nothing you do gives me pain. I only wish that you were more easy within yourself.”

  The prince put his face against Khalifa’s. He had given her a rotten life. She should have been an Empress, ruling over the imperial zenana, and their two sons should have worn the proud marks of heirs on their foreheads. Instead, they lived like this, on the fringes of the court. Once, he had been lauded as the next emperor, now he was nothing. Half-blind—with only memories of how the sun streaked gold and yellow at setting or the gleaming coat and magnificent lines of his favorite Arabian horse—half-demented too. It was said that there was a strain of madness in his mother’s family. Khusrau believed it, especially when the attacks of desperation came upon him, every single day. Through all this, the only one constant was Khalifa.

  The princess pushed Khusrau to lean against the divan, picked up his book, and began to read to him. He heard the wonders of spring and heard how the line he had so tormentingly read came somewhere in the middle of the poem framed thus: Bright with a myriad jewels the wheat-swept fields are starred. Under the nodding willow the poppy lies in blood—sudden the blow that smote her, drenched her in crimson flood.

  A message came to them then. Raja Man Singh had died in the Deccan fighting alongside the Khan-i-khanan and Parviz. Sixty of his wives had jumped into his funeral pyre and burned themselves to death, becoming Sati. Khusrau had not seen his uncle in the past few years; Jahangir deliberately kept them apart.

  The prince started to howl again, hugely, his madness coming upon him once more. His uncle was dead. His father-in-law had been stripped of his titles and sent to live in his jagir to be a landlord. Who would now help him become emperor?

  They all said Khurram would be the next emperor. But what of his claim? Why not Khusrau instead of Khurram? He yelled and screamed, and Khalifa tried to pacify him. She too was frightened. She had little trust in her father, having had more confidence in Khusrau’s uncle. Now he was gone. They were alone.

  But they were not entirely alone. In another part of the palaces, a woman thought of them. She was determined that Khurram would never wear the crown. And her daughter needed to marry a royal prince. Raja Man Singh was dead, the Khan Azam lived in ignominy; Khusrau had lost his two most ardent supporters. But he still had some charm, some standing in the empire. The nobles did not so easily forget his birth, and Mehrunnisa could now give him consequence.

  • • •

  Sir Thomas Roe was miserable.

  He held on listlessly to the reins as his horse ambled down the large unpaved road, gutted here and there by the wheels of carts and carriages. A sudden gust of breeze blew dust into his eyes. Roe pulled his scarf close around his face, covering his mouth and nose.

  This was the only concession the ambassador had made so far against the heat and dust of India. Despite suggestions from his native servants, he insisted on retaining his English garb, entirely unsuited to the climate. He was dressed in the manner of an English courtier—silk shirt with an embroidered collar, a waistcoat and a long jacket, tight knee breeches and stockings on his legs. His feet were clad in half-length boots reaching to his knees.

  Roe moaned as he looked down at his shoes. The black glossy shine from the morning was now dull with dust. His collar had wilted in the heat, lying about his neck like a dying snake, and his maroon coat was a drab brown. It was the month of November, but in the plains, the afternoon sun was blistering. Someone, and Roe searched through his steaming brain for who, had written home that in India there were only two seasons. The hot weather, and the less hot weather. Roe undid the top buttons of his waistcoat and wiped a grimy hand over his forehead.

  “When are we going to stop for lunch?” he asked Jadu.

  Jadu was a small, wiry man with a huge, ever-present smile. He grinned at Roe, showing yellow teeth stained with tobacco and a large gap in the front where a tooth had been knocked out during a fight.

  “Soon, Sahib. Perhaps you would not feel the heat so much if you dressed like me,” Jadu said slyly, gesturing at his own clothes.

  Roe stared at him in disgust. How could he dress like a heathen? He was the official ambassador to India and as such had a dignity to maintain, and that did not include dressing like the natives. Roe looked around him. He was accompanied by an odd assortment of soldiers and servants. Roe had hired fifty Pathan soldiers at Surat to guard him during the journey to Ajmer. Jahangir had promised the ambassador protection, but Roe did not trust anyone in India yet, so he had hired his own guards to protect him from bandits and the Portuguese. It was Mehrunnisa—Roe thought it was Jahangir from the official farmans that made their way to him—who had scolded Muqarrab Khan for the ambassador’s delay in presenting himself at court. Roe found himself once again in possession of his luggage, and completely intact, the seals from the customs dock still unbroken. Muqarrab Khan had also sent Roe many gifts, among them oxen with bags of skin to carry water during the trip, baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a few chickens for meat. Roe had also accepted a camel from the governor to carry his luggage. It was all very bewildering; after forcing him to stay at Surat, watching his every move, all at once it was Muqarrab’s hand that bade him the most enthusiastic farewell. Roe was suspicious. Why? Was he safer at Surat after all? But he could not stay there, of course—he was here to meet Emperor Jahangir.

  The party trudged up the road, raising a mountain of dust in their wake. They crested the rise and Burhanpur came into sight. Roe’s heart plummeted. What sort of a town was this? Most of the houses were of mud with thatched roofs, or of an indifferent sun-bleached brick. In the center stood a huge red sandstone castle, which was home now to Prince Parviz, Jahangir’s second son. Burhanpur was said to be one of the strongholds of the Mughal Empire—it was from here the Deccan campaigns were mounted. Hills scorched of vegetation rose in the distance, naked and an unpleasant brown. Then Roe looked down into the valley again. The plains were lavish with a serene green, fed by the river Tapti. As far as his eye could see, on either side of the road, the fields were emerald with wheat and barley. Gray partridges ran ar
ound in the fields, feeding on the ripening crop.

  A breeze came sweeping up from the valley and sent cool fingers of air over Roe’s face. He prodded his horse to a trot, heading down the road to Burhanpur. In the city, they found the sarai, the rest house, where he had been promised accommodation. Roe was given four brick-walled rooms with small windows, but the heat was so overwhelming inside that he decided to pitch his tents in a nearby garden.

  A few hours later Roe was relaxing in his tent when Jadu came in. The broker grinned at him. “Are you feeling better, Sahib?”

  “Much better. The heat is terrible.” Roe sighed. “When should I visit the prince? And what should I take for him?”

  “You should see him tomorrow. He has heard of your arrival and is waiting for you. It will be better to observe court etiquette during your visit. Prince Parviz holds court here just as the emperor does in Ajmer. It will be a good practice for you for when you go to see the Emperor.”

  “I know how to conduct myself in court,” Roe replied crossly. “Remember that I come from the court of—”

  “The great King James of England,” Jadu completed for him patiently, having heard that refrain many times. “Yes. Yes. I know that, Sahib. But the rules and customs are different here. It is better if you are familiar with them. You will have to take rich gifts to the prince if you want him to notice you. You see . . . ,” Jadu hesitated, “your honor depends upon the richness of your gifts. The more expensive they are, the more you are deemed to respect our imperial family.”

  “I see.” Roe rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “I wish to ask Prince Parviz for permission to set up an English factory here. The sword blades made in Burhanpur will serve the English army well.”

  “If you please the prince, he will be happy to grant your request.”

  The next morning Roe arose early. He went to the fort with his guards but was forced to leave them at the front gate. This he was told politely by the imperial guards—no one was to enter the prince’s presence with his own escort; he would be safe enough inside. So the presents Roe brought changed hands, and the royal servants followed behind him.