“Tell me of his wife,” said Velvet innocently, forgetting the eunuch’s reference to Akbar’s many princesses.
“Wives, princess! The lord Akbar has thirty-nine wives at last count, and several hundred concubines. In all, the zenana of my master contains close to five thousand women, including female relatives, slaves, and others!” He chuckled. “Wife! Ha! Ha!” Then he turned serious. “You, my princess, I suspect, shall be the lord Akbar’s new favorite. You do not look like our women, but you are very, very beautiful. He cannot fail to love you.”
Velvet looked positively shocked.“I wasa married woman, Adali,” she said seriously. “I am only here because the Portuguese kidnapped me!”
Before the eunuch could reply, the door to the chamber opened and Akbar entered the room. Adali threw himself to the floor in a gesture of total and complete obeisance. “Rise, Adali,” said the emperor, “and fetch us refreshment.”
The slave scrambled to his feet and scampered out the door. Then to Velvet’s surprise the emperor settled himself upon the bed facing her. He studied her carefully for a long moment, bringing a deep blush to her cheeks.
“I do not mean to embarrass you,” he apologized, “but you are incredibly fair. Never have I seen such exquisite beauty in any woman, and I have certainly seen many beauties in my lifetime. I have never, however, seen eyes like emeralds or hair the rich reddish color of newly turned earth.”
“Most of the women in my land have fair skin, sire,” Velvet replied, “and many, though not all, have light-colored eyes. My mother’s eyes are the blue of the sea.”
“And your mother, does she have hair the color of yours?”
“Oh, no, sire. My parents both have dark hair. I have inherited my hair color from mygrandmère, the Comtesse de Saville.”
He smiled at her. “Tell me about your homeland, your England.”
“It is a cool, green land of hills, orchards, and fields, lakes and rivers, and a great city called London. The queen is most wonderful, and the wisest and bravest of rulers. All the kings of Europe stand in awe of her.”
“Not the Portuguese.” Akbar chuckled.
“The Portuguese!” Velvet sniffed, outraged. “Lackeys of Philip of Spain who would usurp our queen’s rightful place. A place even her sister, Queen Mary, who was King Philip’s wife would not deny.”
He was enchanted; enchanted by her obvious intelligence, her quick speech, and the way her straight, little nose wrinkled in scornful distaste of the Portuguese. He wanted to know more about her; a great deal more. “You love your England, I can see. Tell me then how it is you came to India.”
Adali reentered the room, bringing with him wine and cakes, which he placed on a small footed tray by the bed. Then he tactfully departed.
Velvet’s face had grown sad. Where could she begin? she wondered. She took a deep breath. “The queen very much wants to trade with India, sire. When the Newbery-Hawkins expedition did not return after a reasonable time, Her Majesty asked my mother if she would send some of her vessels to Cambay. My mother, who in her youth amassed a great trading empire, and my father mounted an expedition and set sail. As they neared the end of their journey they were blown off course in a brief but fierce storm and, losing their rudder, were forced to land at Bombay. There the Portuguese took them and my older brother into custody, and were my family not members of the holy mother church, they would surely have been killed. Instead, the Portuguese demanded a heavy ransom, which my mother and father agreed to pay. My brother sailed back to England to raise the ransom, and when he returned here I came with him.”
“Why?” demanded the emperor. “Was such a trip not dangerous for you?”
“Sire, my husband had just died, and I could not bear to stay at court with all its reminders of my Alex.” A single, bright tear slipped down her face, and without realizing the intimacy of the act he reached out and brushed it from her cheek.
“Don’t weep,” he said quietly.
“It was a useless death, sire. My husband was killed in a duel of honor that neither he nor his opponent wished to fight. He came from a country to our north, Scotland. We had only been married a few months and had no children. Because of me his line has died, and I must live with that the rest of my life!” Her beautiful eyes brimmed with tears, and, unable to contain himself, Akbar reached out and took her hand in an attempt to soothe her.
“It was not the will of God, else your husband would have left you with a child in your womb,” he comforted her.
Velvet was too overwrought and ashamed to admit to him why she had not conceived, and so, regaining control of her emotions, she continued her tale. “We did not follow the route the Portuguese usually take in their sea travel to India,” she said. “My mother’s ships are protected in their southern travel by the Dey of Algiers, and so we were able to hug the coast of Africa without fear. It cuts a month off the voyage, you know. We were a fleet of several ships, and we sailed under most favorable conditions. The storms we encountered were mild, and we reached Bombay easily.
“Murrough, my brother, is a very clever man, and he had our fleet wait just over the horizon while we entered Bombay on the flagship to be certain that Mother and Father had not been harmed and were alive before we handed over all that gold to the Portuguese.”
“Do you know how much gold?” asked the emperor casually.
“It was, my brother told me, two hundred and fifty thousand coins’ worth of pure gold. It was distributed among the fleet so unless you had all the ships, you didn’t have all the gold.” Velvet smiled a small smile. “Murrough is very clever,” she said. “He is very like our mother in that.”
“What happened when you got to Bombay?” asked Akbar.
Velvet shivered despite the heat. “Before we even docked,” she said, “we could see a small group of Portuguese soldiers upon the docks …”
Her eyes clouded with the memory. The day had been incredibly hot, and the bright sun mirrored the heat of the busy harbor. The noise and the smells were varied and overwhelming as virtually naked, sweating men secured the heavy lines from the ship to the pier.
“You’re to stay in the cabin,” Murrough had warned her. “I’ll not have the Portuguese seeing you. There aren’t too many European women here. I want to make sure Mother and Adam are safe before I signal the others to come ashore.”
“We’ll die of the heat in here,” Velvet protested. “Why can’t I go with you? I want to see Mother and Father!”
