The Twentieth Wife

by Indu Sundaresan

  “What are you doing here?” A hand caught Mehrunnisa by the shoulder and spun her around. Mehrunnisa stood up and dusted off her ghagara, lifting her face to meet the gaze of the eunuch.

  “I’m lost.”

  “Silly girl,” he whispered fiercely, pushing her from the courtyard. “You are in the mardana. Don’t you know it is forbidden to come into the men’s quarters? Go now, before Prince Salim sees you. He does not like anyone around him when he feeds the pigeons.”

  “What are you doing here then?”

  The eunuch raised his eyebrows. “I am Hoshiyar Khan.”

  Mehrunnisa raised her eyebrows in response. “And I am Mehrunnisa. But who are you?”

  He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “I . . . it does not matter. You have to go now, girl.”

  Mehrunnisa turned for one last look at Salim before she left. He sat on the bench, crooning softly to the pigeons. When one lit on his hair, he laughed again, trying to look at it without tilting his head.

  “Come on, come on,” the eunuch said impatiently. “No women are allowed in the mardana. You know that. The Emperor will have your head if he finds out.”

  “He will not!” Mehrunnisa said. “I got lost. I did not come here deliberately.”

  “Bap re!” Hoshiyar sighed, still pushing her in front of him until she almost tripped over the skirts of her ghagara. “She argues, too. I find her making moon eyes at Prince Salim, and she tells me she was lost.”

  He took her out of the palace and pointed to the gates. “Go—and don’t let me see you here again, or I will have your head.”

  Mehrunnisa stuck her tongue out at him and ran toward the gates. She looked back over her shoulder. Hoshiyar did not follow. He just stood there, and when she turned, he stuck his tongue back out at her.

  • • •

  “GOING TO SEE the Empress?”

  Mehrunnisa whirled around, her hairpins tinkling to the floor, some bouncing to camouflage themselves against the pattern of the Persian rug.

  “See what you have done!” she exclaimed, bending down to gather the hairpins. But a few were hopelessly lost, lying on the rug to poke bare feet at some later time. She straightened up and looked into the mirror.

  Abul was leaning against the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. Abul was fifteen years old now, old enough not to tease her. But she knew he had a free afternoon, and she was his best target. Saliha ignored him. Khadija and Manija cried when he approached because he invariably pulled their hair or wrapped their ghagaras around their heads so they could not see, and he had to beat a hasty retreat before Maji or Bapa scolded him. So he came seeking her when his male friends did not take him away hunting or to the public houses—this last without Bapa’s knowledge, of course. Mehrunnisa forgot Maji’s injunctions about how a lady should behave and scowled at her brother’s image in the mirror.

  Abul shook his head with a silent tut-tut. “Your face will freeze like that, and no one will marry you. You haven’t answered my question yet.”

  “I am not going to, Abul,” Mehrunnisa said, composing her face again. Allah forbid that what Abul said might come true. “It’s none of your business. Go away and leave me to do my hair.”

  “Come out with me, Nisa. We can play polo with mallets in the garden—without the horses, of course.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot. I am going to the palace. Don’t bother me now, Abul, or I will tell Bapa you went to the nashakhana last night.”

  “And I will tell Bapa that you went with me three nights ago. Dressed as a man, with a khol-painted moustache, and got drunk on three sips of wine. That I had to carry you home early. That my friends still ask after the pale-faced youth who has such a weak stomach that ‘he’ puts even a baby to shame.”

  Mehrunnisa ran up to Abul and pulled him into the room. She peered outside the door. No one was passing. She pinched the arm she was still holding. “Are you crazy? No one can ever know that I went to the nashakhana with you. You forced me to, Abul.”

  Abul grinned. “I did not have to force you very much, Nisa. You wanted to come. Be thankful Khadija did not wake up and wonder why you weren’t in bed. Bapa would have beaten you for sure if he found out.”

  Mehrunnisa shuddered. What stupidity that had been. Tempting, but stupid. “You must never tell anyone. Promise me that. Promise.” She pinched his arm harder.

  Abul pulled away, rubbing his sore arm. “All right, baba. I won’t. But come with me tonight. We can dress you up again and jump over the wall like last time.”

  Mehrunnisa shook her head and went back to the mirror. “Once was enough. I just wanted to see what it would be like. Why do you go to that place anyway? All those men getting drunk and lolling over the divans, the serving girls wearing next to nothing sprawling all over them. . . .” She shuddered. “It was horrible. Don’t go there again, Abul. It’s not right.”

  Abul wrapped a finger around her hair and pulled it. “That is none of your business, Nisa. You asked to go there; I took you. Now don’t tell me what to do. The promise not to tell Bapa only holds so long as you keep your moralizing tongue in your mouth. Is that clear?”

  Mehrunnisa glared at him, reaching for a comb. Her hand swept over the tray, and a bottle of kohl powder toppled over, sprinkling glittering midnight over the embellished silver.

  “You certainly are edgy today.” Abul grinned wickedly. “Would that have something to do with the wedding in the royal palace?”

  “What wedding?” Mehrunnisa asked, lifting her nose in the air. “Oh, Prince Salim’s wedding.”

  Abul sat down next to her.

  “Yes, that wedding. Prince Salim is getting married for the second time. To the princess of Jodhpur, daughter of Udai Singh. He is known as the Mota Raja, the Fat King. I’ve seen him; it is an apt name. I wonder,” Abul picked up a delicately fashioned glass bottle and pulled the stopper so that the scent of frankincense flooded the room, “if Princess Jagat Gosini is fat also.”

  Mehrunnisa slapped his hand lightly. “You will break the bottle.” She vigorously attacked her long tresses. When all the knots had been loosened and her hair lay about her shoulders in a sheet of shimmering silk, she divided it into three bunches and began to plait it.

  Abul raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so unsettled, my dear sister?”

  “I am not! The prince has a right to marry anyone he chooses.”

  “True.” Abul nodded. “And he is well on his way to assembling his own harem. Two weddings in two years, and he is only seventeen. He already has a child from the first wife, though only a daughter, but he will soon have sons for the empire if he keeps up this pace.”

  “So?” Mehrunnisa’s hands moved swiftly behind her head. When the plait had grown, she flipped it over one shoulder and continued down the front. “Why should it bother me?”

  Abul tilted his head back and laughed. “Everyone knows you go to visit Empress Ruqayya only so you can see the prince. Just what are you thinking? That you will marry him next? The prince would never marry you.”

  Mehrunnisa flushed, crimson staining her face and neck.

  “Why not?” She turned defiant eyes at him. “That is . . . I mean, if I wanted to marry him, what would stop us?”

  Abul roared again, almost falling off his stool. He held up his hand and started ticking off reasons. “First, you are too young. You are a baby, Mehrunnisa. Nine-year-old girls do not marry royal princes. Second, all the princes will make political marriages, and they will marry only princesses. Why would he want to marry you?”

  “I may be young now, but I will grow up. And Maji says not all royal marriages are for political reasons.”

  “But all Prince Salim’s will be. At least, as long as he is still a prince. The Emperor’s own zenana is filled with women connected to the vassal kings of the empire. That is how Akbar has managed to keep the empire together. You will never stand a chance.” Abul grinned. “Besides, by the time you grow up, the prince will be a dissolute young man.
Have you heard the latest news about him?”

  “What is it?” Mehrunnisa asked eagerly, despite her reluctance to talk to her brother about Prince Salim.

  “He has started drinking.” Abul lowered his voice conspiratorially. “They say he drinks twenty cups of liquor a day.”

  “That much!” Mehrunnisa gasped, her eyes wide. She knew Salim had started drinking because Ruqayya complained incessantly about it. The prince had always been temperate, but a few months ago, while on campaign near Attock to put down the Afghan rebellion, Mirza Muhammad Hakim had suggested that wine would ease Salim’s fatigue. Now he was addicted, according to Ruqayya, who when she was upset about something was not always a reliable source. But here was Abul saying the same thing.

  Mehrunnisa was silent for a few moments, her fingers tracing the engraving on a silver jewelry box.

  “What does that have to do with me?” she asked finally.

  “My dear Nisa.” Abul’s voice had taken on a mocking tone again. “If Prince Salim is going to marry you, he will have to wait. Who knows—in a few years he may be dead of drink. Then you would have to marry either Murad or Daniyal to be empress. It is a good thing the Emperor has two other sons who could be of service to you.”

  Mehrunnisa lifted her chin and looked down at him. “We are not talking about my life,” she said with dignity. “Go now. I must get ready. The Empress has commanded my presence.”

  “Yes, your Majesty.” Abul bowed to her, laughing, and backed from the room as though in the presence of royalty. Mehrunnisa picked up an ivory comb and threw it at him. It missed Abul, bounced off the door frame, and fell on the floor. Abul grinned, put his thumb on his nose, and waggled the rest of his fingers at her. He disappeared just as she was reaching for an enamel casket.

  Mehrunnisa turned back to the mirror, frowning. Why was it so inconceivable that she could marry a royal prince? After all, her father was a respected courtier; the Emperor valued his advice. And the Mughal royals married whomever they wished to marry.

  She changed her clothes swiftly, barely waiting to glance into the mirror. The Empress did not like to be kept waiting. The zenana would be rife with gossip about the new princess, the dowry, her father, what Salim thought or did not think of her. Every little detail would be picked over and analyzed and inflated, all with great enjoyment. Mehrunnisa wondered how this new princess would fare in the women’s quarters. The first wife was a little mouse, letting out a few imperceptible squeaks here and there, barely ruffling life in the imperial harem. This one, it was said, had more iron in her spine. It would be interesting to see her interact with Ruqayya. And if one day—not if, when—Mehrunnisa became Salim’s wife, this princess would be the one to watch.

  Mehrunnisa had no idea how all these dreams were going to come true, only that they should somehow, if for no other reason than to irritate Abul because he had made fun of her.

  She picked up her veil, draped it on her head, and went out of the house with Dai, who had once been her wet nurse. Maji was busy with her new brother, Shahpur, born a few months earlier. In the outer courtyard, Mehrunnisa climbed into the palanquin that would carry her to the royal palace to congratulate Empress Ruqayya on her newest stepdaughter-in-law.

  • • •

  THAT SAME YEAR Salim married again, this time to Sahib Jamal, the daughter of Khwaja Hasan. The next year, at Lahore, Salim’s first wife, Princess Man Bai, gave birth to a son named Khusrau. The Emperor was overjoyed at the birth of a new heir to the throne. Garden parties, galas, and festivities marked the week after the child’s birth.

  From Lahore, in the autumn of 1588, the imperial court shifted to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, for the first time. Kashmir had withstood Mughal occupation for long but had finally fallen to the imperial forces the previous year.

  Srinagar charmed the entire royal party. The city was set in a valley amid the Himalayan mountains. The air was pure and heady, like amrit, drink of the gods. The lower hills, clad in autumnal colors of fiery reds and browns, rolled gently down to golden fields of ripening wheat, broken only by the silver glitter of the Jhelum River snaking through the valley. Behind, snow-clad mountains reared their majestic heads to the vast blue sky.

  Upon the court’s return to Lahore the next year, Akbar promoted Ghias to diwan of Kabul. The appointment as treasurer was a great privilege, for Kabul, although provincial, was a strategic outpost in the northern Mughal Empire for trade and defense. Kabul lay in a triangular gorge between the steep and forbidding Asmai and Sherdawza mountains, and crowning the lower hills surrounding the city was a long, winding mud wall interspersed with towers.

  Ghias and his family moved to Kabul. His new duties kept him awake late into the night, as he went over the books from the treasury. Mehrunnisa usually came to him wanting to hear about his day’s work, the people he had met, what he had said to them and why. Sometimes she would sit by him quietly with a book. Sometimes he would turn to her with a column of numbers to add, or talk to her about the trouble the clerks gave him, or complain that the accountant of the army had come up short again on revenues. On one winter night as the cold seeped through the stone walls of the house, Mehrunnisa and Ghias sat huddled together for warmth. She was leaning against her father’s back, her feet stretched toward the coal brazier, when Ghias suddenly said, “A new Hindu priest has come to the city. I heard him reciting the Ramayana under the banyan tree to passersby as I came home. They tell me he knows most of Valmiki’s opus by heart.”

  Mehrunnisa whipped around to him, her eyes bright with excitement. “Bapa, can we go listen to him? Is it in Sanskrit?”

  Ghias grinned. “Your Maji would die a thousand deaths if you went out. Perhaps we should ask him to come home?”

  She clutched his arm. “Oh, Bapa, yes, please.”

  “I will talk to your Maji.”

  The next day Ghias talked with Asmat, but she was worried. How old was the priest, she asked. Would it be right to bring him into a house with young girls? What would people say?

  “But, Asmat, the children have a wonderful opportunity to learn. We must not deny them this,” Ghias said.

  Asmat frowned as she pulled absently at a lock of her hair. “Ghias, we must be careful not to teach the girls too much. How will they ever find husbands if they are too learned? The less they know, the less they will want of the outside world. Mehrunnisa already insists that she should be allowed to go out with you.”

  Ghias smiled slowly. “I know. She asks why a woman has to stay in the house when a man can go and come as he pleases.”

  An apprehensive look crossed Asmat’s face. “Do not encourage her, Ghias. We must be careful, so people do not think our daughters are too arrogant to make good wives.”

  “I will not. I promise. But it is a pleasure to have at least one child who interests herself in my work.” Ghias kissed away the worry lines from his wife’s forehead. “They will be confined behind the parda soon enough, Asmat, for the rest of their lives. What little we can give them, we must.”

  Asmat looked up at her husband. “Even I want to listen to the priest. Can I, Ghias?”

  “Of course. We will all gather around him.”

  So the Brahmin priest came to the house four nights a week. He was a thin, spare man, with ribs that stood out in his chest, and a shaven head with a small pigtail at the back. Even in this cold, he was clad in a chaste dhoti and not much else. He had a saturnine face that grew in mobility as he recited the verses from Valmiki’s Ramayana in his tuneful voice. When she had time, Asmat joined her daughters behind the thin silk curtain that separated them from the men. Mehrunnisa usually sat at the front, against the curtain, its folds molding against her face. She had to be behind the parda for the sake of propriety, but she asked the priest questions and listened as he gravely answered her, turning to speak to her as though she mattered.

  And the days passed. The children were all taught the scriptures, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the classics. When those studi
es were done, Asmat made sure her daughters also learned to paint, sew, embroider, and oversee the servants. While they were at Kabul, Prince Salim’s third wife, Sahib Jamal, gave birth to his second son, Parviz. Ghias returned home at the end of a day to find his wife and daughters seated on low divans busy with their embroidery.

  “The messengers have brought news from the court.” He held out the letter.

  Asmat glanced through the elaborate Turkish script, the language of the imperial court. Babur, Akbar’s grandfather and the first Mughal emperor of India, had adopted Turki, his native tongue, as the official language to keep in touch with his ancestry through Timur the Lame. That practice had continued through the generations. Both Asmat and Ghias had been unfamiliar with Turki upon their arrival in India but had taken great pains to learn the language. Around the courts, the nobles spoke Arabic and Hindi, which was Sanskrit based, with a liberal borrowing of Persian words. Asmat and Ghias now spoke all these languages fluently. At home, their conversation was a strange amalgam of Persian, Hindi, and Arabic, the children tending more toward the languages of Hindustan rather than the native Persian of Asmat and Ghias.

  “Let me see, Maji,” Mehrunnisa said.

  Asmat handed her the letter. Mehrunnisa read it rapidly, then returned to her embroidery. Prince Salim had another son. Two heirs to the empire already. Mehrunnisa had not heard from the Empress in all the time they had been at Kabul. Ruqayya was a poor correspondent, with little patience to even dictate to a scribe. In any case, the Empress could not be expected to write, so Mehrunnisa wrote to her every now and then. News of the harem came from other courtiers’ wives to her mother. They said that Princess Jagat Gosini, Salim’s second wife, was a feisty girl with a stubborn chin and a strong back, who would not be cowed by anyone. But there was no sign of a child yet. That kept her somewhat subdued.