Ruler of the World

Akbar was still musing when later that night, returning to his apartments, he saw an old woman waiting outside with his qorchi. ‘Majesty, this woman has been appointed the khawajasara, keeper of the haram here in the palace, and she wishes to speak to you,’ said the squire.

The old woman’s raisin eyes were still bright in her wrinkled face and there was a smile on her lips. ‘I served your father, Majesty, and I tended his concubines when he was a young prince,’ she began. Then she paused, and it seemed to Akbar that she was scrutinising him with some interest.

‘Have you something you wish to say to me?’ The night air seemed hot and heavy, and Akbar was tired. For a reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he felt uneasy under her penetrating gaze.

‘Majesty, you now have many women in the haram here, sent in recent weeks by chieftains and rulers wishing to win your favour. You have a physique that is the envy of many grown men and admired by every woman. I thought you might wish me to send one of the girls to you, or perhaps you would prefer to choose one for yourself?’

Akbar stared at her, blushing and shifting from foot to foot. It was a standing joke of his milk-brother Adham Khan that although nearly fifteen Akbar hadn’t yet lost his virginity. Plenty of young women — even his mother’s attendants — had tried to catch his eye in recent months. Each time he had felt bashful. He wasn’t quite sure why. Was it because as emperor he didn’t wish to appear inexperienced or foolish in front of anyone, even a concubine? Yet time was moving on. He had fought his first battle as emperor and was becoming a man. It was time to enjoy a man’s pleasures and also to satisfy the curiosity that Adham Khan’s endless smutty jokes and boasts of his own sexual prowess had roused in him. The khawajasara’s eyes were still fixed on him and he sensed that she too knew he’d not yet been with a woman.

‘Let me choose for you, Majesty,’ she said.

Akbar hesitated, but with pulses racing and a hardening in his groin, only for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said in what he hoped was a measured, experienced manner.

‘Will you come to the haram, Majesty?’

Akbar thought about all the eyes and ears that would be watching and listening if he did. The haram here in the Lahore palace was where all the women of the imperial household were lodged, including his mother, his aunt and his milk-mother. At the thought of their amused speculations, however affectionate, he flushed again, ardour cooling. Then he made up his mind. Now was the time. ‘No. Send her here, to my apartments.’

The old woman padded briskly away down the long corridor, torchlight from sconces on the walls lighting her way. Perhaps she had been a beauty once, maybe even one of his father’s concubines. Akbar had often heard that before his marriage to Hamida, whom he had loved to the exclusion of all others, Humayun had been a great lover of women, with many concubines.

Dismissing his attendants, he waited alone, pacing his apartments gripped by a mixture of excitement and apprehension. As the minutes passed his nervousness began to get the upper hand. He would send word to the haram that he had changed his mind, he decided. He was just moving towards the tall double doors of polished mulberry when they opened and his qorchi stepped inside. ‘Majesty, the girl is here. The keeper of the haram says she is a former concubine of the Raja of Talkh who prized her greatly and sent her hoping she would please you also. Her name is Mayala. Shall I send her in?’

Akbar nodded. A moment later a tall, slim form wrapped in a hooded dark purple robe slipped in through the doors, which closed behind her. The hood was pulled low so her face was in shadow as she came towards him and knelt. Akbar hesitated, then took her hands and pulled her gently to her feet. She stood motionless before him but he could hear her soft, rapid breathing. As he pushed back her hood, long black hair gleaming like silk spilled out and he caught the scent of jasmine. She was still looking down but now he took her face in his hands and raised it.

Eyes black as ebony gazed back at him and her full lips, reddened with the salve he had seen his mother apply, were smiling. After a few moments, as if she sensed his uncertainty, she gently guided his hands to the silver clasps of her robe between her breasts. As he released them, her robe fell to the floor and lay in a dark pool around her. Beneath she was naked except for a golden chain set with tiny rubies around her slender waist. Her hips were voluptuous, her breasts round and high, the nipples rimmed with henna.

As Akbar stood motionless, lost for words, she stepped back. Running her hands through the magnificent veil of hair that fell almost to her buttocks, she revolved slowly before him. ‘I think you like me, Majesty,’ she whispered. Akbar nodded. She stepped towards him and he felt her begin slowly, teasingly, to loosen his own garments until he too was naked. After gazing at his taut and muscular body for a moment, she smiled. ‘Come, Majesty. Be my stallion.’ Placing her fingers on his arm she led him to the bed, and when he lay down beside her she took his hand and guided it between her thighs. ‘See, Majesty, the mandir mandal, the moist temple of love, which soon you will enter. This is what you must do. .’

Six hours later, Akbar was lying on his back, the girl beside him, both their bodies beaded with sweat. She was sleeping now, arms and legs spread, her breasts rising and falling and her lips half parted. As he turned his head to watch her, he thought how strange it was that in such a brief time his life had changed for ever. She had introduced him into a whole new world of sensual experience in which to lose himself. They had already made love three times, from his first, tentative, then eager thrustings and almost instant climax when, under her instruction, he had pulled himself on top of her, to the other more subtle, imaginative and slightly longer-lasting ways she had begun to teach him, which seemed to give her as much sublime pleasure as him. At the thought, desire rose within him again. Reaching out, he stroked the soft velvet curve of her hip. Sleepily Mayala opened her dark eyes, then smiled languorously. No one would ever doubt his manhood, thought Akbar, young hips thrusting joyously and vigorously as he mounted her once more.

The Jumna river curling away beneath the walls of the Agra fort was a faint gleam in the light of the new moon but as Akbar walked the battlements he barely noticed the beauty of the night. Over two years had passed since his triumphant progress through Hindustan after defeating Hemu. Ten days ago, on 15 October, he had celebrated his seventeenth birthday in this great brick and sandstone fortress with its courtyards, fountains and lofty durbar hall. His decision to make Agra — not Delhi, 120 miles upstream to the north — his capital had been deliberate. Agra had been his grandfather Babur’s capital and it would have been his father Humayun’s had death not robbed him of it. His mother, aunt and milk-mother had all approved his decision, as had his commanders and councillors. Only Bairam Khan had been against it, insisting that Delhi was better placed strategically to deal with any revolts or invasions. Not wanting to be seen to argue with the emperor in public, he had come to Akbar’s private apartments, but Akbar had refused to be swayed, adamant that he was the emperor and of an age to take his own decisions. Bairam Khan had stalked out pale-faced from the first real dispute they had ever had.

At the recollection, Akbar frowned. Matters hadn’t improved over the intervening months. He was finding Bairam Khan increasingly irksome and interfering. It seemed that as he himself was gaining in confidence and seeking a greater role in governing, Bairam Khan was actively trying to frustrate him. With every rebuff his conviction that he must be free to take the government into his own hands was growing.

So far he had kept his thoughts to himself, conscious of all Bairam Khan had done to secure the fragile boundaries of his empire, but the need to confide in someone — someone he could trust completely — was growing overwhelming. Perhaps his mother with her astute mind would know how to advise him? Descending the winding stone staircase from the battlements he made his way through a flower-filled courtyard to the main haram where Hamida, as befitted the mother of the emperor, had the best apartments, with a balcony projecting out over the Jumna where she could catch the refreshing breezes. Tonight, though, the air was cool and he found her in her sleeping chamber, which was lit by oil lamps and wicks burning in diyas, saucers of scented oil placed in carved niches in the walls. She was reading her favourite book of Persian poems but put it aside when he entered.

‘How is it with my son?’ The warm sandalwood scent of her enveloped him as she embraced him. When he didn’t answer, she stepped back and looked hard into his face. ‘What is it? You look troubled.’

‘I am, Mother.’

‘Sit down and tell me.’