Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World by Alex Rutherford Read Free Book Online Page B

knelt. Akbar hesitated, then took her hands and pulled her gently to her feet. She stood motionless before him but he could hear her soft, rapid breathing. As he pushed back her hood, long black hair gleaming like silk spilled out and he caught the scent of jasmine. She was still looking down but now he took her face in his hands and raised it.
    Eyes black as ebony gazed back at him and her full lips, reddened with the salve he had seen his mother apply, were smiling. After a few moments, as if she sensed his uncertainty, she gently guided his hands to the silver clasps of her robe between her breasts. As he released them, her robe fell to the floor and lay in a dark pool around her. Beneath she was naked except for a golden chain set with tiny rubies around her slender waist. Her hips were voluptuous, her breasts round and high, the nipples rimmed with henna.
    As Akbar stood motionless, lost for words, she stepped back. Running her hands through the magnificent veil of hair that fell almost to her buttocks, she revolved slowly before him. ‘I think you like me, Majesty,’ she whispered. Akbar nodded. She stepped towards him and he felt her begin slowly, teasingly, to loosen his own garments until he too was naked. After gazing at his taut and muscular body for a moment, she smiled. ‘Come, Majesty. Be my stallion.’ Placing her fingers on his arm she led him to the bed, and when he lay down beside her she took his hand and guided it between her thighs. ‘See, Majesty, the
mandir mandal
, the moist temple of love, which soon you will enter. This is what you must do . . .’
    Six hours later, Akbar was lying on his back, the girl beside him, both their bodies beaded with sweat. She was sleeping now, arms and legs spread, her breasts rising and falling and her lips half parted. As he turned his head to watch her, he thought how strange it was that in such a brief time his life had changed for ever. She had introduced him into a whole new world of sensual experience in which to lose himself. They had already made love three times, from his first, tentative, then eager thrustings and almost instant climax when, under her instruction, he had pulled himself on top of her, to the other more subtle, imaginative and slightly longer-lasting ways she had begun to teach him, which seemed to give her as much sublime pleasure as him. At the thought, desire rose within him again. Reaching out, he stroked the soft velvet curve of her hip. Sleepily Mayala opened her dark eyes, then smiled languorously. No one would ever doubt his manhood, thought Akbar, young hips thrusting joyously and vigorously as he mounted her once more.

    The Jumna river curling away beneath the walls of the Agra fort was a faint gleam in the light of the new moon but as Akbar walked the battlements he barely noticed the beauty of the night. Over two years had passed since his triumphant progress through Hindustan after defeating Hemu. Ten days ago, on 15 October, he had celebrated his seventeenth birthday in this great brick and sandstone fortress with its courtyards, fountains and lofty
durbar
hall. His decision to make Agra – not Delhi, 120 miles upstream to the north – his capital had been deliberate. Agra had been his grandfather Babur’s capital and it would have been his father Humayun’s had death not robbed him of it. His mother, aunt and milk-mother had all approved his decision, as had his commanders and councillors. Only Bairam Khan had been against it, insisting that Delhi was better placed strategically to deal with any revolts or invasions. Not wanting to be seen to argue with the emperor in public, he had come to Akbar’s private apartments, but Akbar had refused to be swayed, adamant that he was the emperor and of an age to take his own decisions. BairamKhan had stalked out pale-faced from the first real dispute they had ever had.
    At the recollection, Akbar frowned. Matters hadn’t improved over the intervening months. He was finding Bairam