Mehrunnisa had not even been able to cry, for too many people had needed her. Ladli had been sad, Jahangir had fallen ill, Abul had come to her weeping, Ghias had broken away from his own life, a shallow shell of what he had been, lost without his wife. So Mehrunnisa had looked after them all. She had brought Ghias to Kashmir with them, but he had barely lifted his head to enjoy the spring cherry blossoms lading the trees with their frothy pinks and whites, or eaten the first strawberries, or sat outside in the gentle sunshine of the early mornings. He had stayed in his apartments, coming out when she had insisted, conversing with her, but without heart.
“Someone comes,” Jahangir said, pointing toward the camp with his riding whip.
“Bapa!” Mehrunnisa jammed her heels into the horse’s flanks and sped down the dusty plain, her veil unwinding from around her neck to swirl through the air to the ground. She could hear Jahangir a few paces behind.
“What news?” she yelled, pulling up near the man.
“The diwan ails, your Majesty,” the slave said, his eyes fixed at the level of her diamond-studded sandals.
She leaned down to shout in his ear. “He ailed this morning. Is he worse now?”
The slave did not move as Mehrunnisa and Jahangir cantered around him, and he would not answer.
Mehrunnisa looked up at the Emperor.
“Come,” he said, and turned his horse to pound toward the camp.
They came racing through the soldiers on the outside, past the makeshift Diwan-i-am, past the workshops and ateliers, and went to the tents in the very center of the camp.
Mehrunnisa swung off her horse and ran into the tent where her father lay. Inside, it was cool and glowing, the white canvas of the tent providing shelter from the sun, and in this light, she saw Ghias as she had left him in the morning, on the divan in the center of the tent. Abul knelt near him. He turned when he heard Mehrunnisa and put a finger to his lips.
“Is Bapa? . . .” Mehrunnisa said in a whisper. Was he dead? For she could see no rise and fall in his chest, just that deathly stillness. Ghias stretched out on the divan, the white of his hair melting into the satin pillow under his head, a sheet over his body, tucked under his arms. His hands, thin now from his self-imposed fast after Asmat’s passing, lay crossed over his stomach.
Abul shook his head. He could not speak either. Tears came down his cheeks into his beard, and he put out his arms. Mehrunnisa knelt by her brother and hugged him fiercely, and he started to cry into her neck. Neither heard Emperor Jahangir come into the tent. He went to sit on a stool at one corner, his back to the canvas.
Ghias moved, mumbling to himself, and Mehrunnisa and Abul looked up. She rushed over to the other side of the divan, and each held one of Ghias’s hands.
“Bapa,” Mehrunnisa said softly. “Are you all right? Rest now, I am here.”
They sat thus for the next few hours, hanging over Ghias, watching him, waiting for him to open his eyes and speak to them. They both rested their heads on the divan, hands still firmly clasping their father’s. The sun set, a slave padded in quietly to light the lamps around the tent and to hang a lantern from the central pole. He started and bowed copiously when, in the light from the lantern, he finally saw the man seated away from the others. The slave began to speak, but Jahangir waved him away with an impatient gesture.
Mehrunnisa felt Abul’s hand touch her head.
“How much longer, Nisa?”
She looked up at him and felt that sudden rush of affection she always felt when he called her by her childhood nickname. It had been so long since he had done so. Too much had come between them. Marriages, other responsibilities . . . yet Abul had been, was, her most cherished brother.
“He will not last the night, Abul.” Her voice was clear and unbroken. With her hands on her father, she felt that he would not live long. At least she, they, could be here with him. Ghias would go knowing that his children were together, by his side.
“Nisa . . .”
“What?”
Abul hesitated and moved away from the divan, imperceptibly. Seeing this, Mehrunnisa waited, the affection in her dying away. What did he want?
“Prince Khurram should be at court, Nisa,” Abul said in a rush. “He would want to be present at our father’s funeral.”
Mehrunnisa raised herself and sat up straight. “That is not possible, Abul. Khurram has other responsibilities in the Deccan. He has to make sure Ambar Malik does not rebel again.”
“Arjumand should be here for her grandfather’s funeral, Nisa,” Abul said doggedly.
“Why? Her place is with her husband. And where Khurram is, she must be.”
Abul was quiet for a while, picking at the embroidery on the coverlet. “When is Khurram to return to court?”
“I do not know.”
“But you do know, Nisa,” Abul said, raising his voice. “You are the one keeping him from the Emperor.”
In his corner, behind Abul, Jahangir moved, and Mehrunnisa’s gaze swung to her husband for a few minutes. He did not rise but settled more comfortably on his stool, and she nodded. She moved her eyes back to her brother. Abul now enjoyed the title of Asaf Khan, the fourth in their family to bear that name. His mansab was at twelve thousand horses, a grade shy of the royal princes, and he was merely her brother, or merely father-in-law to Khurram. He had no royal blood, would never have any, yet he held a lofty title and an impressive salary. Abul did not stop to think where this munificence came from—from her, because of her, because he was her brother. She had asked for these honors from Jahangir over the years for Ghias and Abul. Now, forgetting this, he dared to shout at her.
“Khurram is a fool, Abul,” she said quietly.
“Why?” he flared. “Because he would not marry Ladli?”
And so finally, things were to be said between them that had remained unsaid and festering for so long, Mehrunnisa thought. Now she would know where Abul’s loyalties lay. Their father would die tonight, and the calming influence, the voice of reason that had held them together, would be gone.
“Yes, that,” Mehrunnisa said finally. “Khurram should have married Ladli. You know this, Abul.” When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand. “Don’t give me that nonsensical story about him loving Arjumand too much to ally himself with another woman. He loves other women too. Your son-in-law enjoys his harem, he always will. And Ladli is no mere alliance; she is my daughter.”
Abul’s black eyes glittered at her. “I was not going to say this, Mehrunnisa, but I will now. Khurram is a man; it is a man’s privilege to enjoy his harem, and for Arjumand not to resist this. My daughter knows her place. She does not interfere with either Khurram’s pleasures or his work.”
“She does not?” Mehrunnisa said, almost shouting at him. “She was the one who made sure Khurram did not marry Ladli, Abul. You are a fool if you think otherwise. What had Khurram not to gain from an alliance with Ladli? Tell me this!”
“You are an evil woman, Mehrunnisa,” Abul shouted back at her. “Think what you like, but Khurram will be the next Emperor.”
They had both risen on their knees now and glowered at each other over their dying father. Abul held the blue fire in Mehrunnisa’s eyes with his own until he could no longer. She was right, he knew this. For many months he had tried to convince Arjumand and Khurram that he should marry Ladli. But Arjumand was jealous, whimsical, overwrought from all her pregnancies, terribly frightened that Khurram would love Ladli more. He had tried to tell her that Khurram could never love any woman as much as he loved her, but she would not listen. That marriage would have brought them together as a family, as they should have been. Now . . . with Ladli married to Shahryar, everything was changed.
“Do not fight.” Ghias’s voice, reedy and raspy, rose between the two, and their heads swung down to his. They both subsided by his side again, arms reaching over his thin shoulders, kissing his hands, speaking at once.
“Did you speak, Bapa?” and “How are you, Bapa?” and “Oh, Bapa,
talk again. What is it you want to say?”
But Mehrunnisa and Abul had also heard Ghias admonish them as he once had when they were children and would squabble with each other. Shame came to flood over them, but the anger did not subside—they still simmered on either side of the divan, pointedly not looking at each other.
“Where is the Emperor?” Ghias said, softly this time, almost in a whisper.
Jahangir rose from his stool and touched Abul on the shoulder. When he moved away, the Emperor knelt by Ghias’s side and held his hand.
For the next twenty minutes, Ghias talked, with Jahangir leaning in to listen. He would not speak to either of his children; he had nothing more to say to them. But Jahangir he thanked, over and over again, remembering, at this moment of his death, all the generosity he had enjoyed from Akbar and Jahangir over his lifetime. He had been a Persian refugee to India, adopted by this country as her own. But none of this—his daughter married to the Emperor, his granddaughter to a prince, he himself treasurer of the empire—would have happened if not for his Majesty. So Ghias said to Jahangir, comforted by his monarch, for he could not be comforted by his children.
He died thus, in midsentence, the breath in his chest stopped, halting the flow of his words. His eyes were still open; it was Jahangir’s hand that closed them. Angry, sad, and bitter at the same time, Mehrunnisa and Abul stayed where they were, she by her father, he standing at the back of the tent, where he had been relegated when Jahangir had taken his place at the divan. Jahangir rose to call the slaves to prepare the diwan’s body for its last rites. Then he led a stunned Mehrunnisa away to his tent. Abul, he did not even glance at once.
• • •
Following the rule of escheat, Ghias Beg’s estate, which was considerable, reverted back to the Emperor. The law of escheat was an old law—there was no personal property in the empire, nothing that did not belong to the Emperor. It kept prospective coups in check; where there was no private fortune, there could be no rebellion. If Jahangir decided, and he usually did so, he could donate the estate to the eldest son after making sure that the widow and other children had their allowances. The Emperor’s magnanimity toward the dead man’s family depended upon his relationship with the Emperor during his life. If it had been good, his family was well provided for, if not, they were given the barest sustenance.
So Ghias’s estate should devolve upon Abul Hasan, as the eldest surviving son. A few weeks after the minister’s death, Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunnisa lay in their apartments. Above them the punkah creaked steadily on slick hinges, back and forth, a long rope leading from it to the hands of the eunuch seated outside the room.
“Are you all right, Mehrunnisa?” Jahangir said, pulling her closer. He reached around her to touch her face, and felt the tears. Jahangir wiped the wetness from her skin and kissed her shoulder. A few stray jasmines, wilted now and brown with age, were caught in her hair. The Emperor pulled them out gently, without tugging at her hair, and threw them over the edge of the divan. In the light from the lantern the gray in Mehrunnisa’s hair glinted silver. Her hair was still thick, still to her waist, just as he liked it. But age had come to her as it had to him. Lines had formed on her face in two arched bows on either side of her mouth, they creased outward from her eyes and below them, they spread horizontally over her forehead. Jahangir knew every line, he watched her as she slept, waking early in the morning in the first glow of dawn before the jharoka to lean over his wife. He watched her while she read, when she was animated with laughter, when she was furious with anger—he never seemed to tire of this.
But he did not know what to say when she cried as she did now, with deep sobs from within her somewhere. He had worried when Mehrunnisa had refused to cry at Asmat’s death. And Mehrunnisa had not cried for a long time, her face hard, her eyes dry, until tonight. He was sad too at Ghias and Asmat’s deaths so close to each other.
He rubbed her arm in slow circles. Mehrunnisa’s breathing evened, and Jahangir turned on his back to look up at the punkah. He thought about Ghias’s estate, which had passed on to him. By law—well, by an unwritten law that he himself followed at all times—it should go to Abul. But Abul had made his feelings clear in Ghias’s tent, by brawling so shamefully with Mehrunnisa. She had not forgiven her brother; Jahangir could not do so.
Bitterness filled him. Runners from Burhanpur brought news that Khurram was playing at being Emperor in the Deccan. Jahangir had given him the title of Shah Jahan, King of the World, and now he acted as though he really was that, within his father’s dominions. Khurram was a bidaulat, a wretch, Jahangir thought. He moved closer to Mehrunnisa’s back and went to sleep. Heat hung inside the apartment, the punkah did little but spin the air around the room, but Jahangir could only close his eyes when some part of him was against her. They would each wake many times at night to find sweat thickly matted between their skins, but half-asleep they would wipe it away, find another position in which to lay their bodies, another place in which they made contact. An arm, a leg flung across, a shoulder lodged against a hip, even fingers touching, it did not matter, touch they had to.
• • •
The next morning, when Mehrunnisa came back to the palace from her jharoka appearance, she found Jahangir kneeling on his prayer rug facing toward Mecca.
“What is it, your Majesty?” she asked. “Did you not go to the jharoka?” She had left him on his way there.
He turned to her, stunned and in a daze. “A letter arrived . . . I could not go. Khusrau is dead.”
For a few minutes, Mehrunnisa was silent, then she held out her hand for the letter. Another death. How had Khusrau died? And why? He had been demented, but he had been healthy. Surely Khurram would not have dared . . . or had he? Jahangir gave her the letter he had been clutching to him, and she read it. Colic, she thought. Colic was a convenient excuse for unexplained death.
As they sat there, Hoshiyar knocked on the door and bowed. “Your Majesty, a runner has come from Burhanpur with a message from Matab Nuruddin Quli. He insists upon seeing you.”
“Later, Hoshiyar,” Mehrunnisa said.
“Now, your Majesty,” the eunuch said as he shifted on his feet. There was some important news.
Jahangir rose wearily from his knees and went to the reception hall. The runner, a young lad of eighteen or nineteen years, was sleekly muscled from his occupation. He was saturated in sweat; his kurta stuck to his chest, his pajamas to his shins. The boy quaked as he performed the konish and then knelt in front of the Emperor, proffering the letter above his head. He simply brought the mail to its destination, but Quli had been very specific in his instructions—the letter was to be placed in the Emperor’s hands.
“What is this?”
“Your Majesty,” the boy’s voice shook. “You are to read this.”
“Go to the imperial kitchens,” Jahangir said, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Get something to eat and drink. And rest before you leave again.”
The runner bent to the carpet and put his forehead on the floor. When he heard the sound of Jahangir’s footsteps fade away, he rose from his knees, his body trembling, and put his palm on his right shoulder. Still clutching the place where the Emperor had touched him, he found his way to the kitchens.
Jahangir walked back to his apartments, turning the letter over to look at Quli’s seal. The news would be unpalatable. But what could it be? He entered to see Mehrunnisa still on the floor. The Emperor slit open the letter and sat down next to her. They read it together. Khusrau had not died of colic; he had been murdered, his own brother’s hand had taken his life.
Jahangir shouted to Hoshiyar to bring him his writing materials, and sitting there, on the carpet, hardly able to hold the quill steady, he filled two pages of a letter to Khurram. His son was to order Khusrau’s body exhumed and sent to Allahabad, where he was to be buried next to his mother. And what of Khalifa and her two sons? Why were they still at Burhanpur? Send them to Lahore to live in the palaces of the f
ort there. Was there any truth in these dreadful accusations? Had Khurram really dared to kill his own brother? He had to leave Burhanpur immediately, upon receipt of this letter, and come to Agra to answer Quli’s charges.
Jahangir later commanded the new diwan to his presence and ordered that Khalifa and the boys were to have a large and steady income for the rest of their lives, and use of any of the imperial palaces whenever they wanted.
Mehrunnisa looked over Jahangir’s shoulder as he wrote. Stupid, stupid Khurram, she thought, to take away his brother’s life thus. Did he think he would be answerable to no one? Did he think he could flee from his father’s rage? Did he think his actions made the throne more secure for him?
• • •
Khurram read his father’s letter in Burhanpur. Most of his commanders had melted away from the fort, on their way now to visit Jahangir and tell him of their part in Khusrau’s death. The prince fretted for days, wondering how he was going to stand in front of his father and defend himself. He could not go to the Emperor. He had been witness to the punishment meted out to an insurgent Khusrau fifteen years ago, and that had been only for a simple rebellion—how would Jahangir react to murder?
So the prince wrote to the Emperor, explaining himself as best he could. He denied everything. Khusrau had died of colic pains, pure and simple. And he was unfortunately unable to leave the Deccan, Khurram said, the imperial armies had need of a commander.
The Emperor was furious. He wrote to Khurram again, demanding his presence at court, and if he did not come, the prince could consider himself without a family and without a father. Jahangir then gave all of Ghias Beg’s huge estate to Mehrunnisa. Abul would not have it, he decided, lest the minister chose to use that wealth to support that bidaulat. He also ordered that Mehrunnisa’s orchestra and drums be played at court after his own. She would not be visible, hidden behind the marble screen of the zenana balcony, but the nobles would have to acknowledge her presence nonetheless.
The Feast of Roses Page 38
