He left them feeling the situation was now once again under control.
After he was gone Rugaiya Begum and Jodh Bai signaled to a slave woman to freshen their teacups.
“He is as eager as a youth,” remarked the older Rugaiya Begum.
“He was eager once with all of us. Remember when he desired Almira?” Jodh Bai sipped her tea delicately.
Rugaiya Begum chortled. “What I remember is the look upon the face of her first husband, the old shaikh, when Akbar told him he must divorce Almira.” She cackled lewdly. “The old devil had watched Almira from childhood planning on the day when he would pierce her tender young yoni with his lusty old lingam. He had nurtured her like a gardener nurtures his favorite rosebush, and then to discover he’d nurtured her for someone else! It broke his heart, and he died before he could divorce her. What irony! He had even married her when she was still a child in order to see that no one else possessed her!” She popped a pastry into her mouth and chewed it vigorously.
“It is different this time,” Jodh Bai said. “This time I think he is in love. Some he has lusted after, others he has lain with out of sense of duty, some like ourselves he is even genuinely fond of, but never do I believe that Akbar has been in love. Never until now.”
“Do you fear she will have a son who will supplant yours?” Rugaiya Begum inquired slyly. She herself had had no children.
“No,” replied Jodh Bai. “The old Moslem saint who predicted Salim’s birth also predicted that Akbar would only have three living sons. So it has been. First my Salim, then Almira’s Murad, and finally Roopmati’s Daniyal. Daniyal was born over seventeen years ago. Since then there have been no more sons, only daughters. I don’t fear for Salim especially since he already has one son of his own.”
“Perhaps then it is for yourself that you fear, Jodh Bai. Perhaps you fear that Akbar’s new love will supplant you in his affections.”
Jodh Bai smiled ruefully. She and Rugaiya Begum were good friends of long standing; if anyone knew her as well as she knew herself it was Rugaiya Begum. “Perhaps I am jealous,” she admitted.
“Then you must do what I did in my youth to overcome the jealousy I felt each time Akbar took a new wife—particularly you.”
“Me?”Jodh Bai was surprised. “You were jealous of me?” She had been Akbar’s wife for twenty-seven years, and she had never even suspected such a thing.
Rugaiya Begum laughed. “I was indeed. Remember that I am Akbar’s first wife. I was married to him when I was just nine years old. He was the cousin that I adored, and has been the only man I have ever known. When I was fifteen he married another of our cousins, Zada Begum, and when neither of us produced children he wed with Salima Begum, Bairam Khan’s widow. She was already the mother of a son, but she could only give Akbar his eldest daughter, Shahzad-Khanim Begum.
“Then you, Princess of Amber, were wed to our lord. Zada and Salima were outraged for you were a Rajput and not a Moslem. Remember how they shunned you when you first entered our zenana?”
Jodh Bai nodded, her dark eyes remembering the hurt of their rejection. She had been so young and so very frightened, marrying a powerful man who was of a different culture than hers. “You were kind to me, Rugaiya.”
“I was the senior wife. It was my duty, but do not think because I was kind that I was not jealous. I am big and plain and have always been so. Neither Zada nor Salima are beauties; pretty enough, but not beauties, and both were tall. The difference between us seemed little. You, however, were different. You were tiny and exotic and so lovely. It was clear to us all that Akbar was drawn to you in a way he had not been drawn to any of us. I lay awake during the nights that Akbar visited you and finally decided that I would rather be your friend if Akbar cared for you than be your enemy. I was glad afterwards for I shared in the joy of your first pregnancy with you.”
“And you shared my sorrow when my twin sons, Hasan and Husein, died at only a month old,” remembered Jodh Bai. “What you are saying to me, Rugaiya, is that I can conquer my fears of this English girl by making friends with her. How can I, though? She does not speak our language.”
“She will learn,” said Rugaiya Begum. “She will eventually have no choice but to learn, and we will help her because she will need our friendship. How fortunate we are in comparison to this girl, Jodh Bai. This is our land. We have our families about us; you have your son, Salim. What has this girl? She is virtually alone but for her servantwoman. She is in a strange land, and it is unlikely she will ever see her own people again. How hard it must be for her.”
“You are so good, Rugaiya!” said Jodh Bai. “You can always see the other person’s side of an issue. I can’t. Yours is a rare virtue. No wonder all our children love you!” She smiled at her friend. “Very well, we shall make friends with the foreigner. I only hope she will want to be friends with us.”
“The women servants have brought us reports of how loving and attentive she is to her serving woman, and of how that young woman loves her mistress,” Rugaiya Begum reminded Jodh Bai. “She has been polite to us both whenever we have chanced to pass her in the zenana. Her character, I can tell, is a good one. This last year has been a bad time for Akbar. He has not been well, and there have been other problems. This girl is the first thing I have seen him take a deep interest in for many months. He is happy again.”
“But for his inability to bed her,” Jodh Bai giggled.
Rugaiya Begum chuckled richly. “A little chase and tussle does not hurt a love match. She unknowingly whets his appetite by her reluctance. The Pillow Book you plan to send will do the trick, I have not a doubt!” She chuckled again. “Poor girl! I imagine she has never seen a Pillow Book before. Remember how shocked the holy fathers of the Christians were when Prince Murad purloined Shahazad Khanim’s Pillow Book after her wedding and showed it to them? I cannot understand why the Europeans do not accept what is natural between a man and a woman.”
Jodh Bai joined her friend in laughter. “The holy fathers were not so upset that they did not look long at that Pillow Book. Remember how their robes thrust forward with the rising of their lingams as they turned each page?”
Rugaiya Begum was now laughing so hard that the tears were flowing freely down her face. “And Akbar said that seeing it he saw that they were like other men, and he was relieved to find that they, too, had unruly lingams! Ah ha ha ha ha!”
“Perhaps the English girl will not want to be our friend when she learns what a Pillow Book contains,” said Jodh Bai, sobering.
“More than likely she will thank us when she learns how magnificent is our lord’s passion,” said the more practical Rugaiya Begum. “I have never known another man, but I am certain that no other could be the lover that Akbar is.”
Jodh Bai nodded her agreement, and the two women began to gossip on another topic of interest to them: Prince Salim’s soon-to-be-born second child. Both were certain that it would be another prince.
They also looked forward to returning home to Lahore. Fatehpur-Sikri depressed them with its dusty landscape, and they longed for the gardens and fountains of the royal palace farther to the north. They both wanted to be there for the birth, which would take place before the year’s end.
While Akbar’s favorite wives chatted amicably, the subject of their previous conversation tossed restlessly upon her silken mattress. Velvet could not sleep. She was in a quandary once more about her position in this strange world. What should she do? Was there any chance at all of her leaving India? She pondered the question for some time, finally deciding there was no hope at all. She would spend the rest of her days in this land. There was simply no choice.
Akbar was in love with her. Even Velvet with her small experience knew that. He was not unkind, but he was not going to be patient forever. Her only chance of happiness and of survival—hers, Pansy’s, and that of Pansy’s unborn child—lay in her accepting the inevitable. He had even married her according to the laws and a religion of this land. She was the Grand Mughal’s wife. If she was to have any life at all she must build it around that certain fact.
