The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan Read Free Book Online

alone here in the semidark room lit only by shards of sunlight from above, while slave girls and eunuchs watched her with deep-eyed curiosity.
    “Al-Salam alekum, your Majesty.”
    Mehrunnisa,” Ruqayya said, leaning back against a pillar. “It is a pretty name. Sit.”
    Mehrunnisa came near her and sat down. Ruqayya reached out a hand to touch her dense black hair.
    “Such lovely eyes. You are Persian?”
    “Yes, your Majesty.”
    Ruqayya’s round face creased into a smile. “Who is your father?”
    “Mirza Ghias Beg, your Majesty.”
    “Who is your grandfather?”
    And so they talked for five minutes. Mostly, the Empress asked the questions—about Mehrunnisa, about Asmat, Ghias, her brothers. What they did, which mulla they studied with, what she had read recently. The Empress was not so frightening after that conversation. Her voice slipped into low, slumberous tones as the robe was removed and the slave girls massaged her with jasmine oil. Mehrunnisa watched as a slave girl’s brown fingers, glistening with oil, moved over Ruqayya’s large body. The slave kneaded the musclesin Ruqayya’s shoulders, and the Empress’s head fell forward with a sigh. The slave’s hands slid over the slope of her breasts, around her stomach, over her thighs, her movements quick with practice.
    Then the Empress rose to descend into the pool slowly. Her hair swirled around her, loose from its usual bun. Mehrunnisa watched as the slave girls, still clad in cotton pajamas and cholis, went into the water with the Empress. Ruqayya lay back in the water as they soaped her, their palms frothing with wet soap nuts, then washed her hair and rinsed it.
    At one point, the Empress sat up and said sharply to one of the slaves, “Did you bathe today?”
    The girl, very young, and frightened now, stammered, “Yes, your Majesty.”
    “Let me see,” Ruqayya commanded, sniffing at the girl’s hands, at her hair, under her armpits. She turned away and said in a menacingly quiet voice, “Get out. Now. And don’t ever come into my bath water unless you have bathed first.”
    The girl scrambled out of the tub, dripping water over the floor and fled from the room, leaving wet footprints in her wake.
    Mehrunnisa shuddered at the venom in Ruqayya’s voice. Goosebumps crawled up her back. She cowered into the shadows of the room, hoping the Empress would not notice her. There she sat in silence for the next two hours as Ruqayya finished dressing, throwing back one outfit, then another at the eunuchs until one finally pleased her. When the Empress left the room, she looked back at Mehrunnisa and said, “Go home now. Come again tomorrow.”
    That was all.
    Over the next few months, Mehrunnisa went when Ruqayya called for her, talking when the Empress wanted to talk, sitting in silence next to her when she didn’t. She saw that most of Ruqayya’s tantrums were just for pretense. The slave girl had insolenteyes, Ruqayya had told Mehrunnisa later in passing. But it had been no such thing. The girl had been too callow and too timorous to raise insolent eyes at the empress. Sometimes, though, Ruqayya was truly roused to anger, but mostly the Empress raised her voice just because she could. The title of Padshah Begam was not lightly bestowed nor lightly taken. Everything that happened within the harem walls, and quite a bit that happened outside, came to Ruqayya’s ears through various spies. Nothing was too big or too small for the Empress’s notice. Every illness, every pregnancy, every missed period, court intrigues, squabbles between wives and concubines or slave girls—every bit of information found its way to her palace.
    Mehrunnisa began to look forward to these visits with Akbar’s favorite wife. She was fascinated by Ruqayya’s chameleonic moods, her calm and quiet, her fiery rages. She was fascinated too by how important she was, and thrilled that Ruqayya found her interesting.
    But it was Salim she wanted to see. One day, as Mehrunnisa