Ruler of the World

Malwa and Gujarat were true Murad was growing ever fonder of drinking and squandering his chance to impress his father in the post that Salim had so desired. Surely he had deserved the opportunity more, he thought. Why had his father and Abul Fazl deprived him of it? He was more of a man than his half-brothers and as much of a man as his father, despite all the latter’s exercising. All he wanted was to prove himself so.

Salim’s resentful eyes returned again and again to the glittering figure of Akbar as the feast progressed. Musicians from Gwalior, famed for their skill, were coaxing soft, haunting sounds from their flutes and their stringed instruments, the big-bellied tanpura and the two-bowl rudra- vina. Every few minutes a qorchi ushered forward a courtier wishing to present a Nauruz gift to the emperor. The attendants were bringing yet more food — almonds and pistachios wrapped in gold and silver leaf, pale green grapes and wedges of orange-fleshed musk melon resting on crushed ice from the fort’s ice house where giant chunks carried by mules down the passes from the distant northern mountains were stored — and ewers of cool, scented sherbets. Salim looked up into the soft night sky and at the sliver of moon whose silvery light was far outshone by the mass of candles arranged around the courtyard. Sometimes these feasts could go on until dawn. He wondered how soon he would be able to slip away.

The musicians were putting down their instruments and bowing low before Akbar. It must be time for some other entertainment, thought Salim — fire-eaters or rope-climbers or perhaps a fight between wild beasts released into the same cage.

Akbar rose, and instantly a hush fell across the courtyard. ‘Tonight is the high point of our Nauruz celebrations. Though we have already exchanged many gifts of jewels, I have one priceless gem I wish for a short while to share with you. Two months ago, the Turkish sultan sent me a dancing girl of rare skill and beauty from Italy, a land far from our own. I have called her Anarkali, “Pomegranate Blossom”.’ He turned to the attendant at his side. ‘Summon Anarkali.’

Even when Akbar had sat down, the silence continued as the guests waited, eyes bright with anticipation. Salim’s own curiosity was whetted and he decided to remain for a while longer. He had only seen portraits of European women before, presented to his father by travellers. He had of course heard of Italy from the Jesuits, some of whom had been born there, but had learned little of its luxuries — or its women — from their ascetic sectarian discourses.

Glancing at his father, Salim saw a well-pleased, even self-satisfied smile curve his lips as he listened to the excited buzz of anticipation from his courtiers while attendants spread yet more carpets over the fine kilims already covering the courtyard. As soon as they were finished, other servants carrying gilt incense burners suspended from chains on their wrists began running round and round the courtyard, pale fragrant smoke trailing behind them until they had created such a cloud that Salim could barely make out his father on his dais. Suddenly, at a signal from Akbar, further attendants darted forward and extinguished all the candles. No one spoke in the soft scented darkness. Then, just as abruptly, the candelabras were again ablaze and there in the centre of the courtyard, amid the remaining wisps of smoke, stood Anarkali, wreathed in a long veil of semi-transparent gauze which emphasised rather than concealed the outline of her full breasts and opulent hips. Her head beneath the circlet of pearls securing the veil was erect.

She raised her arms and began to sway. No music accompanied the sinuous motion of her body, only the clash of her heavy bracelets and anklets. Her movements became freer and wilder. She began tossing her head from side to side and then started to spin, breasts swaying and bare feet stamping on the dark red carpet as she turned. Salim watched mesmerised, like all the guests. First one man, then another, began beating on the table before him with his fist. The noise grew thunderous as Anarkali whirled yet faster, arms outspread. Then with a cry she ripped the veil from her body.

There was a collective gasp. It was not just the perfection of her voluptuous body, naked except for her tight jewelled bodice and almost sheer muslin pantaloons. It was her hair. The colour of palest gold and falling to her waist, it flew out in a shimmering mass around her as she continued to whirl. Suddenly, dramatically, she stopped. She was smiling, fully aware of the sensation she had caused. Then, approaching the dais, she dropped slowly to her knees before Akbar and with two flicks of her head sent her glorious hair flying first forward over her breasts and then back. Arms outstretched towards the emperor, she leaned further and further backwards, arching her supple spine until her head touched the ground behind her.

In the flickering candlelight Salim was close enough to make out Anarkali’s features. Her face was oval with a cleft chin and a small straight nose, and above them the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen — somewhere between dark blue and violet. He also saw his father’s fond complacent gaze as it rested on his prized possession. Salim’s own pulses were pounding and his mouth was dry. He must have Anarkali, he would have her. .

‘Highness, the risk. . Anarkali is at present your father’s favourite concubine. Discovery would mean death beneath the elephant’s foot or worse for me and for her. In the seven years I have been superintendent of your father’s haram no one has ever asked such a thing of me.’ The khawajasara, a small, beak-nosed woman, looked terrified. Salim could see a vein beating in her right temple beneath her thinning grey hair, but he could also see how tempted she was.

‘Name your price. I’ll give you whatever you ask.’ Salim reached inside his tunic for a silk pouch hanging round his neck from a hide thong. Loosening it, he drew out a ruby. As he held it up to the light of an oil lamp burning in a niche in the small court behind the elephants’ stables to which he had summoned the khawajasara, the uncut gem glowed. ‘This is the pick of my jewels — a ruby of the first water worth one thousand gold mohurs. Do what I ask and it is yours. You and your family will be wealthy for generations.’

‘But how can I, Highness?’ The khawajasara stared at the gem as if unable to tear her eyes away. ‘Only the emperor can enter the imperial haram.’

‘You are the superintendent and go to and from the haram all the time. You could smuggle Anarkali out disguised as your attendant. The guards will not suspect or challenge you.’

‘Highness, I’m not sure. ’ the khawajasara said miserably. ‘The emperor sends for her all the time. .’

‘Three days from now my father departs on a long hunting expedition. Bring her to me the first night he is away and the ruby is yours.’ As Salim waited, he turned the gem so that its heart flashed like fire. The khawajasara bit her lip but then seemed to make up her mind.

‘Very well, I will do as you ask.’ Pulling her dark shawl over her head as she spoke, she immediately turned and hurried away, merging into the purple shadows, her bare feet padding away over the stone paving still warm from the day’s heat.

The time before Akbar’s departure passed slowly. Salim could think of little but Anarkali — those violet eyes, that golden hair. She was like a jewel herself but one made of soft, living flesh, not hard stone. He half expected his father to change his plans but at dawn on the third morning he watched Akbar, accompanied by Abul Fazl and a few of his inner circle, ride through the palace gates to the deep booming of the gatehouse drums. He was planning to be away for three weeks and fifty bullock carts loaded with tents, cooking pots, chests of clothes, bows, arrows and muskets followed the procession of guards, huntsmen and beaters, raising a cloud of white dust that spiralled into the air long after the procession had wound out of the city and into the plains.

That night Salim waited in his apartments. The candles his attendants always lit at sunset — fetching the flame from the palace fire-pot, the agingir — were half melted and the palace had fallen still and quiet around him when, an hour after midnight, he at last heard a gentle knocking on the door.

‘Highness.’ It was one of his guards, face creased with the sleep from which he had just been roused. ‘Two women are here.’ Salim had told his men that he had summoned a girl from the bazaar. It was not the first time he had done so and they had not looked surprised.

‘Send them in.’

Moments later, two heavily veiled women stood before him. The khawajasara at once uncovered her face and Salim saw sweat beading it. ‘All went as it should, Highness. No one questioned me.’

‘You’ve done well. Now leave us and return an hour before dawn.’

‘My reward, Highness. .’

Eyes fixed on the motionless figure of Anarkali, Salim pulled the pouch containing the ruby from his neck.