The Twentieth Wife

by Indu Sundaresan

  It had been impossible to think in the zenana. Before then she had been nobody, not worthy of notice. In the past week, the slaves, eunuchs, scribes, and even the cooks found the time to stop and stare at her. Ruqayya was not above this scrutiny, either. Each time she looked at Mehrunnisa, a little smirk of triumph lit her face. From every person there were expectations: that she would marry Jahangir, that when she did it would benefit them somehow. So people were nicer than they had been before, more deferential, and—to Mehrunnisa’s mind—more false. She was no longer certain of what she wanted.

  Mehrunnisa sat up in the bed and tucked the razai around her knees. What was it she wanted? Jahangir? Yes. Of that there seemed to be no doubt. It was what she had wanted when she was eight, and that want had been unwavering even through the years of her marriage to Ali Quli. Now she could have him; she only had to say the word. And a life of unimaginable luxury—one she had witnessed from the fringes—would be hers. Then why did she falter?

  There was already talk about her wiles in capturing the Emperor’s interest and holding it for so long. She was a sorceress; she had cast a spell on him. These rumors were hurtful and mean, but they came from mouths that were otherwise filled with envy. And despite Jahangir’s station in life, his calling as Emperor, Mehrunnisa did not see why his love for her could not be as strong as hers for him.

  But her life would be different. She would have to learn to share Jahangir with others, to defer to more senior wives, to establish her place in the hierarchy of the zenana. Of the three, it was the first that gave her pause. Mehrunnisa did not want to share Jahangir’s affections with anyone else—his time, perhaps, but not his thoughts. Those should be hers. She did not know how to react to this man whose laughter made her smile inside, whose presence lightened her heart. The power of her feeling for him terrified her, more now than ever before, since there were no more obstacles to their being together. But he had been her choice when she was eight, was still her choice when she was thirty-four, and would be equally important to her for the rest of her life. If she were to survive him, there would be no other man. Of this she was certain.

  Mehrunnisa wove her hair around her fingers, pulling at it. She was frightened that perhaps his love would die, that in sharing himself with the others, he might find another more beguiling. She could not bear that thought. But she also knew that her happiness lay in him. It was a chance she had to take.

  She would not marry Jahangir for Ruqayya, or for her Bapa, or for anyone else who might profit from it. If, after all this time, she were to marry again—when she was no longer dependent on a man for money, no longer faced the pressure to marry or to have a child—it would be because in the end, she loved him as she had loved no other man.

  A wry smile crossed her face. She must be the only woman in the empire to have ever given so much thought to marrying its king.

  The door of her room opened. Ghias came in carrying a cup of chai.

  “Did you sleep well, beta?”

  “Yes, Bapa.” Mehrunnisa twisted her hair into a loose chignon. “Bapa, I must tell you why I came back. I—”

  “I think I know,” he said gently, offering her the cup. “Maji told me of your meeting with the Emperor at the bazaar. I know through courtiers of the gifts he sent you. Why did you send them back?”

  Mehrunnisa shook her head. “I could not accept them. There is yet no standing between the Emperor and me. He came to see me the next day, Bapa. But it was so hard, there were so many people. What should I do, Bapa?”

  “That you must decide, beta. Wait; only time will tell what must be done. I trust you to make the best decision. But think before you decide anything, Nisa. Remember, it will not do to anger the Emperor. I will say no more. Here.” He took out a letter from the pocket of his kurta. “This came for you at daybreak.”

  Mehrunnisa took the letter and turned it over. The red seal on top was frozen in the shape of a crouching lion with the sun ablaze behind it. Emperor Jahangir’s seal. She watched her father leave. Then, taking her chai to the window, she used a gold-plated letter opener to cut through the royal seal.

  • • •

  THE SUN STRUGGLED through the persistent mist, sending golden shafts over the royal palaces at Agra. In the distance, from the mosques around the city, came the melodious call of the muezzins for the first prayer of the day.

  Jahangir rose from his divan, pulled out a prayer rug, and laid it on the ground. He knelt on the rug facing west toward Mecca, raised his hands, and followed the prayer of the muezzins. When it was over, he touched his hands to his eyes and face and sat back on his heels, his mind temporarily at peace.

  Then thoughts of Mehrunnisa came rushing back unbidden, occupying his mind as they had for the past week. He had never known a woman so lovely, so charming, so quiet, so secure in her beauty. So much a woman. It had been years since their last meeting, and she had been full of life then, teasing, with a quick wit. But she had hardly spoken during their walks at the bazaar, and later at the zenana gardens. He had not felt it necessary for her to talk. It was enough to know that she was there, with him, by his side. He studied her intently, seeing the way her lashes curved on her cheek like a half moon, wanting to touch the pulse at her throat, desperately wishing for even a tiny smile from those blue eyes.

  Jahangir rose and went to the window, looking out at the smoothly flowing Yamuna river. He leaned against the windowsill and watched the sun chase away the morning mist. Now she must have received his letter. Now she must be reading it. What would she say? Would she send him away again? He put his throbbing head against the shutter and closed his eyes.

  Upon his return from the bazaar, he had summoned Mahabat Khan to ask whether she was married, and waited anxiously to hear the reply. She was not. Ali Quli had been dead for four years. She could come to him, to his zenana, soon. Yet, she had sent him away, almost crying. What had he done wrong? He thought back to their walk in the gardens. Everywhere their steps took them, they stumbled over someone. Jahangir did not care about the people; that was a king’s life, there was rarely any time to be alone. Even now, behind him, slave girls and eunuchs straightened out the apartments. Just outside the door were ministers waiting for a morning audience. What he ate, when he slept, where he bathed—nothing was secure from an audience. And how did it matter, anyway? But did it matter to her?

  He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly. All week he had thought of her almost every moment of the day, knowing she was so close by and yet he could not be with her. Then, last night, the zenana servants had brought news that she was leaving. He had let her go. What else could he do? No woman had ever denied him anything before. And there was no one to talk with, no one to ask. Whom did a king turn to for ideas on how to woo his love? So he wrote her a letter, faltering over the words, not wanting to show his fear that she would say no again.

  Four nights earlier, at the evening meal, Empress Jagat Gosini had uncovered a dish of lamb pulav garnished with raisins and sultanas. She offered him the pulav, saying distinctly, “Mirza Qutbuddin Koka loved sultanas. He always asked for a dish of sultanas when he was a child.” Jahangir had not thought of Koka for some time, but at Jagat Gosini’s words the memories of his foster brother came flooding back. He had always teased Koka that the overeating was making him fat and would take him from this world sooner than he ought to go. But it was not the overeating that had taken him away; Koka had died at Ali Quli’s hands. Suddenly suspicious, Jahangir looked at his second wife. But she had turned away from him and was talking with the head server.

  More recently, Jagat Gosini had invited him for a havan. As Jahangir sat before her altar of Hindu gods, the Empress had put a tikka—a red vermilion mark—on his forehead. “This puja is to thank Lord Krishna for keeping you safe from assassins, your Majesty. These are difficult times. Why once, even the son of the diwan Mirza Ghias Beg conspired against your life.”

  Jahangir nodded, leaving his wife’s apartments deep in thought. The Empress wa
s warning him against Mehrunnisa. Why? What did she care? She had never shown any enmity toward his other wives or concubines. She had been born a royal princess and knew that the marriages were important politically. But this was no political marriage. Was that it?

  It had not mattered, though. His mind had been too full of Mehrunnisa to give much consequence to Jagat Gosini’s attempts to deflect him. He had written her a letter, thinking long and hard through the night. Unusually for him, he was afraid that she would not come to his zenana. Could she possibly think he had ordered Ali Quli’s death?

  “Your Majesty.”

  Jahangir turned to see Hoshiyar standing next to him, a silver tray in his hands. In the center of the tray lay a small folded note. He reached for it and waited for Hoshiyar to bow his way out of the room. With a heart that suddenly raced, the Emperor opened the note. In it was one word. He put his lips to the paper; her hands had touched the same spot not long before. “Come.”

  • • •

  MEHRUNNISA WAS WAITING for him alone in an inner courtyard in Ghias Beg’s house. It was later that afternoon. The sun, which now hung low in the sky on its way to the horizon, had burned the mists away. Outside, it was still breathtakingly hot, but in the courtyard, the brick floors were cool, the verandah shadowed. A champa tree gracefully spread its arms in the center. Mehrunnisa sat on the round brick platform around the base, leaning against the trunk. She looked up at the tree; it had bloomed for the first time, seven years after it was planted; its flowers were cone shaped with a tight circle of creamy petals. The air in the courtyard surged with the heavy perfume of the champa, sweet and almost cloying.

  She sat quietly, her hands clasped in her lap, listening for the Emperor’s footsteps. Ghias Beg had insisted on having a few maids present when Jahangir came to visit. Mehrunnisa said no. She had to see Jahangir alone, without an entourage. She and her father had their first argument in years. What about the scandal, Ghias had asked. But Mehrunnisa did not listen, would not explain. Some inner voice told her to be alone with Jahangir.

  An outer door slammed, and she looked up, the prayer on her lips dying away. The carved wood door to the courtyard opened, and Jahangir entered. He stopped there, framed by a bougainvillea creeper that spilled delicate maroon and white flowers over the doorway. Mehrunnisa rose, touched her fingers to her hair, and bent her head in the konish. “Welcome, your Majesty.”

  She straightened and met his gaze, overwhelmed by his presence. Every other thought evaporated from her mind.

  “Thank you,” Jahangir said. He stumbled over the next words. “Please . . . sit.”

  “I hope this will do, your Majesty.” She gestured around her.

  He barely looked. His eyes were hungry on her face. “It will. Sit, Mehrunnisa.”

  She sat down on the platform, suddenly shy. She had wanted to be alone with him; now alone, she did not know how to form words to speak what filled her. “Thank you for waiting for me, your Majesty.”

  “I would have waited longer if you had wished.”

  Then he sat next to her, took off his embroidered silk turban, and laid it by her side. “I come to you, not as a king, but as a suitor. If you will have me.”

  If she would have him. Her heart skittered. And she knew there was nothing else she wanted. She sat looking at him—at the hair on his head, more gray than black; at the high cheekbones that defined his Timurid ancestry; at the stubble of beard on his chin. His hair was flattened where the turban had sat on it, a ring indenting his forehead. He was changed from the slim, impetuous boy she had met in Ruqayya’s gardens. He was quieter, more leisurely in his movements, now a mature man. His hands were strong, a warrior’s hands more than a king’s, with a dusting of white hair. Yet the years seemed to melt away between them; it was like the first love, with the same passion and the same aching, but tempered with patience.

  Reaching into the inner pocket of his qaba, Jahangir brought out a slim book, bound in red leather, Persian characters embossed in gold on the cover. “This is for you. I did not know what to bring . . . I thought perhaps you have read Firdausi. . . .”

  She took the book from him and turned the gold-tipped pages. “From the imperial library.” Her voice was hushed.

  “My father, Emperor Akbar—”

  “I know who your father was, your Majesty.” Her eyes danced with laughter.

  “He had this edition in the library. I thought you would like to read it. It tells the story of Rustem, the great Persian king. Your history, Mehrunnisa.”

  Mehrunnisa touched the pages reverently. The Emperor’s library was famous for its huge collection, its bindings, and its exquisite calligraphy. Some of the library was housed in the imperial zenana, some outside, but Mehrunnisa had not been able to get permission to go into it while she was in the harem. Prose and poetry in every language conceivable—Hindi, Persian, Greek, Kashmiri, Arabic—lived within the library. “It is a beautiful book, and I know the story of Rustem, the king who was cut from his mother’s womb because he grew too heavy inside.” She rushed on in excitement, pleased to be able to hold in her hands a book from the library. “But she survived, healed by a poultice of musk and milk and grass. He was a gift for her from Khuda, the brave son of Zal, the grandson of Saum.”

  “But he killed his own son one day.”

  “Yes, but it was a son he did not know existed, whose birth was hidden from him by his wife. So when they met in the battlefield, they met as strangers.”

  “But Sohrab asked him time and again if he was the great warrior Rustem, and Rustem denied it.”

  Mehrunnisa turned to the end of the epic poem by Firdausi and pointed to a page. “See—his mother laments Sohrab’s death and wonders why he did not tell Rustem that he was his son. She asks why he did not show him the bracelet that would have proved their kinship. Why he was so stubborn, why time and again he met his father in the battlefield and on the wrestling mat and did not tell him.”

  The Emperor smiled at her and leaned back on the champa tree. “I see you have read the poem. It is not so easy sometimes to speak of what is closest to your heart.”

  She looked at him. “You did, your Majesty, in the letter you sent me.”

  Thus they talked in Ghias Beg’s inner courtyard, safe from prying eyes. The days passed in that way: slow summer days replete with love. They mostly talked, rarely touched. Every now and then Mehrunnisa would lean forward for a kiss, trembling at the touch of his lips, drawing back with exhilaration at her power over him. Once Ladli had come rushing into the courtyard, wondering where her mother was. When she had satisfied herself that Mehrunnisa was still in the house, she climbed onto Jahangir’s lap and pulled at his moustache to see if it was real.

  “Ladli!” Mehrunnisa said, shocked.

  “Let her be,” Jahangir said, laughing, turning his face this way and that from the child’s hands. He finally allowed her to tug at his moustache, grimacing in mock pain.

  “Oh, it is real,” Ladli said, disappointed. “I have to go tell my Dadaji. He said it was not.” She ran off, her long plait swinging behind her.

  “Your Majesty, I apologize, my Bapa would not have—” Mehrunnisa stopped, her face red. The child talked too much. She cursed herself for having never before curbed Ladli’s tongue.

  Jahangir said, still laughing, “I know, Mehrunnisa. She probably misunderstood what Ghias Beg said. Do not scold her tonight. I remember so little of the childhood of my sons. She must be a blessing to you.”

  “After losing many before,” Mehrunnisa whispered, more to herself than to him.

  Jahangir stopped laughing and turned to her. “What? I did not know.”

  She wound one end of her veil around her fingers. “How could you have known? It was no secret, but I did not talk about it much. And then Ladli came, and there was no point in talking about it. But I sometimes wonder who they would have been, what they would have become, what joys and sorrows would have painted their lives.”

  “How many?” Ja
hangir asked.

  Mehrunnisa bent and put her face in her hands. When she spoke her voice was muffled. “Two. Two before Ladli. None since.”

  Jahangir put an arm around her shoulders and bent close to her face, still shielded from him by her hands. “It would not have mattered to me. You were all I ever wanted.”

  He kissed her gently on the forehead, and she leaned into him, knowing that what he said was true. He had sons from other wives, but from her all he would have asked was that she love him. In return he would have given her his love. Jahangir rocked her gently in his arms, then pulled her onto his lap. Mehrunnisa let the tears flow for those spirit children of hers, glad to be able to do so with someone at last. She had tried not to cry in front of Maji and Bapa; it would have hurt them deeply. In front of Ali Quli she had not been able to cry—not for this reason, anyway. When her sobs died down, Jahangir lifted her chin and held his handkerchief to her nose.

  “Blow,” he commanded.

  Mehrunnisa backed away. “Your Majesty—”

  “Don’t argue, Mehrunnisa. You argue too much. Listen to your Emperor and blow your nose.”

  She did as she was told and smiled at him through her tears, at this man who treated her with such kindness. Then she kissed him, their lips meeting with fire, her tears smudging his face.

  The next day the Emperor gave her another gift, brought in not on a gold tray by attendants but by himself. Twelve emerald-studded bangles, thin as wire, glittered in the sunshine.

  “For you, Mehrunnisa,” he had said simply, watching for her response with anxious eyes.

  She held out her hand for them, saying nothing, and he set them down to slip them one by one over her hand, his fingers lingering on her knuckles. Six on each wrist. Mehrunnisa reached out slowly to touch his hair, the bangles tinkling as she moved.

  “Come back to the zenana, Mehrunnisa. I want you there. I want to look after you, to take care of you. Come to me, my darling. Please say you will come.” He smiled and went on, “All this courting is tiring me. I am not young anymore. I need you with me.”