The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan Read Free Book Online Page A

and the wife of another, should.
    So Jagat Gosini had bided her time. Years passed, and she consolidated her position as Padshah Begam, during which time her spies kept her informed of Mehrunnisa’s activities. She embroiders, reads to her child, weeds the imperial gardens. Harmless activities, she had thought. Let her spend time in the sun, it will age her.
    But it had not aged Mehrunnisa. If anything, now that she was older, there was a certain loveliness about her that time brought to only some. Jahangir remained entranced, talked of bringing her into the imperial harem. Jagat Gosini suggested he take her as a concubine, thinking that if Mehrunnisa was going to have a place in Jahangir’s life, at least it would be a lowly one. The Emperor simply said this, “She will be my wife, nothing else.”
    At those words, after fighting against it for many years, a deep sadness came over Jagat Gosini. She was defeated.
    Jagat Gosini had always known she would be Padshah Begam of Jahangir’s zenana. She had worked hard for the position, kowtowing to senior princesses, learning of their power so she might have it one day. She studied with the mullas so she could talk intelligently with Jahangir. She learned to shoot and use the bow and arrow, for he was fond of hunting. Most importantly, she had given him Khurram. Beautiful, bright-eyed Khurram, who would one day wear his father’s crown. And as his mother, she would rule too. But she had kept her power in the zenana, not interfering too much in court politics or appointments. How could she have foreseen that this commoner would nudge her, Jagat Gosini, daughter of a raja, from her position?
    Shaista Khan, her new eunuch, coughed at the door to attract her attention. She turned from the window, rubbing her arms. She could already feel pits in the flesh where her nails had pinched. She pulled the sleeves of her choli down her arms.
    “What news?” she asked sharply.
    “Your Majesty,” he hesitated, “it is not good.”
    “Go on.”
    “The Empress was not a silent spectator at the jharoka. The Emperor turned to her for advice on decisions regarding the petitions and the gifts. True, she did not speak aloud in public, but her influence was visible. And your Majesty, Mirza Mahabat Khan begs an audience.”
    The Empress bowed her head, only half-listening to Shaista as she fought not to let anger overcome her. Matters had gone too far out of hand. Mehrunnisa had to be stopped somehow. “You may go now.”
    Shaista Khan bowed and left the apartments, tripping over the edge of the rug on his way out. Jagat Gosini clicked her tongue in irritation. Shaista was a new eunuch, and she was unused to his ways. She missed Hoshiyar Khan, head eunuch of the harem, who had been at her side for twenty-five years. Hoshiyar was an extremely intelligent man, gentle in his ways, smooth in his talk, cruel when necessary. Jagat Gosini remembered when Hoshiyar had knifed a dog. The dog had barked half the night, and she had sent him out to silence it. The Empress had only meant for Hoshiyar to take the dog away to another location. Instead, he had calmly held its diamond collar and sliced its neck, stepping fastidiously out of the way when the blood spurted out. The next morning, the princess who owned the dog had cried out for justice, but when she had found it was Hoshiyar who was responsible, she had kept quiet. The Emperor never heard of the incident. In this harem of women, Hoshiyar Khan was the silently acknowledged master.
    There was only one woman he had listened to, one woman he had respected almost as much as he respected himself. Empress Jagat Gosini. Together, they had been powerful, for Hoshiyar could go where she could not go, see things she was not privy to. And then, a week before Jahangir’s twentieth marriage, he had slipped out of her apartments with a small apology. “The new Empress commands me, your Majesty.”
    He had gone to Mehrunnisa and left her with the idiot Shaista