Page 32 of This Heart of Mine (O’Malley Saga #4)
Allah! he thought. Beneath all that dirt she is pretty. He was suddenly even more curious than before to learn just how pretty. “Your journey of the last several weeks has been long, and hard”
he said, “and I do not doubt that you are exhausted. Let me have Ramesh take you to a comfortable place where you can bathe and eat. Then I will come, and you will tell me of your travels and how it is you have come to Fatehpur-Sikri.”
“You are kind, my lord, and I thank you,”
said Velvet. She had been very frightened, but now her fears had lessened for this king did not seem a cruel man.
Once more the emperor clapped his hands, and then ordered the answering servant to fetch Ramesh. Then he turned back to Velvet. “Ramesh is the khan-i-saman of my household. You would call him a lord high steward. You need not fear him, and he will see that you are made comfortable.”
His words were barely finished when Ramesh hurried into the audience chamber and bowed before Akbar. “How may I serve you, Most High?”
“The woman is English, Ramesh, and I suspect the Portuguese have done something that they ought not have by sending her to me. Still, she is here now, and she has suffered. I have already given orders that her beloved servant who is ill be cared for, and now I would have you take her to the women’s quarters so that she may bathe and eat. Give her her own room and be sure she is kindly treated, for I do not want her frightened further. Then see if you can find someone among my servants who can speak the tongue of the Franks. If there be a eunuch or maidservant who knows it, then transfer them from their current duties to serve this woman. I will visit her later to learn her full history.”
“It will be as you desire, Most High,”
replied Ramesh, bowing low again. He looked at Velvet and gestured her to follow him.
“Go with him,”
said Akbar. “He has been ordered to treat you gently.”
He smiled reassuringly at her, showing strong, very white teeth.
Velvet stood and, clutching her cape about her, followed Ramesh from the room. She followed him down a wide corridor and out into the hot, cloudy afternoon, then across the square to a beautiful, two-storied, carved sandstone building. Ramesh gestured her inside. Velvet hurried through the doors. It had now begun to rain.
I wonder where I am, she thought. Thanks to the emperor she knew that the name of this town was Fatehpur-Sikri, but was it a town? There didn’t seem to be any townspeople in evidence. What was this building to which she had been escorted? To her amazement she saw that there were women soldiers guarding it. As she followed Ramesh up a flight of stairs and through the building, she caught glimpses of other women and at least one small child, a little girl with big dark eyes who seemed startled at Velvet’s appearance. The building did not have windows as she knew them, but rather arches, some fitted with carved screens and some open, through which she could see the rain falling in sheets across the great square.
Ramesh stopped before a door and, opening it, gestured for her to enter through it. For a moment Velvet hesitated. Why was he not entering the chamber? Then as she fought back her rising panic she remembered Akbar’s promise that Ramesh would treat her gently. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she entered the room and heard the door close behind her. Turning, she saw that she was alone, and, frightened again, she ran to the door and tried the handle. It turned. With a sigh of relief she left it shut and set about to explore her new surroundings.
It was a large single room, the walls of which were painted with wonderful scenes of Indian court life. There were hunting scenes that showed the king upon an elephant, with all his court, the beaters fanning out in the tall grass to ferret out the tiger, a wonderful creature of fierce proportions who hid not too successfully from them. There were scenes showing dancing girls performing before the king, their colorful skirts whirling gracefully so that their brown legs showed. Then there was the king upon a horse, his hunting cats loping by his side; the king upon his dais listening to petitioners; and the king seated with his women about him. The colors were bright and fresh upon the sandstone walls.
The rest of the chamber was just as lovely. Upon a red-painted platform with square gilt feet was a mattress covered in sky blue silk, and above it, held up by delicate, twisted red posts at each corner of the platform, was a blue and gold canopy. There were colorful pillows strewn at one end of the bed, which had been placed in the center of the room to catch the breezes. Beyond the platform was an open doorway that led out on to a veranda that was filled with plants of all descriptions, including two red rose trees. The greenery grew in crockery planters of all sizes and shapes. Velvet could only stand and look at it through the gauze curtains as the rain was heavy.
Turning back to the room after a moment, she saw that there was a large, engraved brass table, actually an enormous tray that was set upon wooden supports. About it were more pillows. Other than that and the bed the room was empty.
The door opened, and a woman beckoned her toward the hallway with an impatient motion. Without even thinking twice, Velvet followed her. She had no other choice, and she was once more beginning to feel frustrated by her lack of ability to communicate. The woman, obviously an upper servant, led her to what she quickly realized were the baths. As more women hurried forward to aid her, Velvet blushed at their nudity. Her cape was taken from her, and the women immediately set about to make her presentable once again.
For a brief moment the bath mistress stared at Velvet as if she couldn’t decide where to start. Then with a sharp order to her helpers she pointed to Velvet’s head, and they mercilessly went to work washing her hair and scrubbing her scalp until she feared that they meant to make her bald. One washing was not sufficient, nor was two. Not until they had soaped, scrubbed, and rinsed her head three times did the bath mistress evince any sign of satisfaction. Next Velvet found her skin being washed vigorously, and before she could protest a rose-colored paste smelling of almonds was smeared beneath her arms, on her arms and legs, and, to her mortification, upon her Venus mont, which she had been unable to pluck free of hair these last weeks.
By means of hand signals they indicated to her that she was to stand still, and while she did a girl began to towel her hair damp-dry. When the bath mistress deemed it time, the almond paste was rinsed from her skin, and to her surprise she found her entire body now hairless. Velvet was quite fascinated, for although she had never thought to denude her arms and legs of their body hair, it was a tiresome chore to pluck her Venus mont free of its silky growth. Still, Mama had always said that no lady would allow such a growth upon her private person.
Once again she was washed, but this time they scrubbed her gently, using soft cloths and scented soap. Nothing was overlooked, and several times Velvet found herself reddening with embarrassment, but protests were useless. They could not comprehend her words, nor could she understand them. In the end she bore the treatment stoically.
Afterwards she was led to a marble bench and gestured to sit. While one girl cleaned and pared her fingernails, another, kneeling before her, sighed and tsked over the condition of Velvet’s feet as she pumiced and cut the calluses from them, then finally cleaned and pared the toenails.
Smiling now, the bath mistress herself led Velvet into another room that contained a large pool. Gesturing her toward the wide steps that led down into the pool, she waved her into the water. Velvet gladly complied and to her delight found the pool both warm and deliciously scented. “Oh.”
She sighed, her pleasure evident, and the bath women giggled behind their hands, happy that she was pleased with their treatment of her. Feeling better than she had felt in months, Velvet swam and paddled about the bathing pool like a little girl released from tedious lessons.
Above her, hidden behind a carved screen, Akbar watched her frolic, gaining pleasure from the sight of her firm, young breasts, her sleek flanks, and wonderfully long legs. “Well, Ramesh,”
he said to the steward who stood by his side, “what do you think of the Portuguese gift now? The woman is beautiful! Look at that skin! It is as white as the snows of Kashmir! I want her kept from the sun, and see that lemons are brought from the bazaars in Agra to bleach her hands and feet and face. Never have I seen a woman so fair! Never have I possessed a woman so fair, but possess her I shall!”
“She will not be easy to win over, Most High,”
observed the lord high steward. “She is a European and not familiar with our ways.”
“I want her kept from the other women for the time being,”
said Akbar. “I don’t want her becoming like them. Her value to me is in her very difference. See that every effort is made to cure her servant, for if she remains lonely she will be easy prey for the other women of the zenana for a woman needs another woman to talk with. In the meantime, is there anyone in my service who can speak the tongue of the Franks?”
“When you asked me, Most High, I thought you had set me an impossible task, but I have actually found someone. He is a young eunuch of the lowest rank. His mother was a girl of Cambay and his father a French sailor. The boy is one of many children, and in the last famine was sold into service and gelded for a eunuch. His name is Adali. He claims to speak good French.”
“Bring him to me and we will see. I do not want to send him to the woman only to disappoint her. She is very brave, but I do not think she can take much more.”
Ramesh nodded. “The eunuch could be merely seeking to advance himself. If he has lied I will personally see that he is flayed alive.”
“Let us hope he has not,”
returned Akbar, and then with a final glance down at the bathing pool he regretfully turned away and hurried from the zenana, Ramesh at his heels.
Because the emperor would not trust himself to test the eunuch personally, a French Jesuit who traveled with the court was sent for to speak with Adali. “His French, Majesty, is of the lower classes, but intelligible,”
the Jesuit announced and was thanked for his trouble.
Akbar looked at the eunuch. Adali was short and already plump as many were in his position, but his brown eyes were intelligent. “You have been chosen for a very special assignment,”
said the emperor. “You are to care for a European lady who has entered my zenana and cannot speak our language. Answer all her questions and be loyal to her. She has a female servant, but the girl is ill at this time, and the lady has had no one to speak with during most of her trek from Bombay. She is still fearful, and you will reassure her that no one here will harm her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Most High,”
the eunuch said.
The emperor turned to Ramesh. “Take him to the English woman’s quarters.”
Velvet had been fed a light meal of tender baby lamb, saffroned rice, melon, and a light fruity wine. She was slightly uncomfortable in her new clothes, which consisted of a pale green skirt, its hem edged in gold, which hung to her ankles and a matching blouselike top. When the women had put the blouse on her she had at first thought the garment too short, for despite its modest, high, round neckline, it fit her tightly and only covered the tops of her breasts to the nipples, leaving the fullness of her lower breasts bare. The bath women had laughed, however, and putting on their own blouses had shown her that the garment was as it should be.
Velvet sighed at the strangeness of it all, but meekly followed one of the women back to her own chamber where, to her surprise, a short, plump little man in white Turkish trousers and a sleeveless white vest awaited her.
“I am Adali,”
he said in careful French. “I have been assigned to serve you, princess.”
“I am not a princess,”
said Velvet.
“You must be,”
said the smiling eunuch, “for I could only serve a princess.”
“I am Velvet Gordon, the Countess of BrocCairn, Adali.”
“I do not know what a comtesse is,”
he returned, “but I do know what a princess is, and you are as beautiful as any princess I have ever seen. You must therefore be a princess.”
Velvet laughed. She liked this fat little man with his snapping, merry brown eyes. “And how many princesses have you seen in your life, Adali?”
“Well,”
he considered, “there is the Amber Princess who is the emperor’s favorite wife. Then there is the Princess of Khandesh, the Princess of Bikaner, the Princess of Jaisalmer, the Princess of Puragadh, to mention but a few of the lord Akbar’s other wives. It seems that every time a king makes a treaty of peace with another king there is a nubile princess involved in the transaction! Now why was I not born a king also?”
He gave a watery chuckle that was so infectious in its mirth that Velvet laughed again.
She settled herself in the middle of the pillows upon the bed and looked at Adali. “Your French is terrible!”
she scolded him. “Where on earth did you ever learn it? I am going to have to teach you to speak properly, Adali.”
“Oh, yes, princess! I should very much like to learn whatever you can teach me. My father was a simple sailor from Brittany who married my mother, who is a Muslim, and settled in the city of Cambay. They own a small shop on the waterfront where they repair sails. It is from my father and his sailor friends that I learned to speak the tongue of the Franks. They are simple men, princess.”
For a moment Velvet felt ashamed at having teased him. She was fortunate that Adali spoke French at all. “Forgive me, Adali,”
she said humbly. “I have been unkind, and the truth is that I am very grateful you can speak to me.”
“It is nothing, princess,”
he answered her graciously. “I am your slave, and you may do with me as you will.”
Her honest apology had won him, and he would serve her with loyalty always.
Velvet found his words rather startling. She had never owned a slave before. To cover her confusion she said, “Sit down and answer the many questions that I have, Adali. What is this place, this Fatehpur-Sikri? It seems a city, and yet it does not.”
A smile split his round face. “When the rains stop I shall show you Fatehpur-Sikri,”
he said, “for it is indeed a city. It was built by the lord Akbar, and for over ten years it was his capital. He abandoned it five years ago in favor of Lahore to the north. Many say it was because Sheikh Salim, the holy man who lives here and who predicted the birth of the lord Akbar’s three sons, disliked the bustle and noise of the capital. It disturbed his meditations, they say.
“That, however, is not so. The lord Akbar abandoned Fatehpur-Sikri because of a water shortage. We are on the edge of the great Indian desert here, and as there are not enough natural springs to supply a city we have to depend upon reservoirs and catch basins. And it does not rain enough here except in this the monsoon season. There isn’t really enough water to supply the city, to keep the gardens, and to supply the fountains. That is why the lord Akbar left Fatehpur-Sikri. Still, it is his favorite place, and occasionally he cannot resist returning. The last time was over three years ago.”
“So that is why it seems deserted,”
said Velvet.
Adali nodded. “There is no longer a large population here,”
he replied.
“Does the lord Akbar’s whole court travel with him like our English queen’s does?”
Adali chuckled. “Sometimes and sometimes not. This is one of those times when the lord Akbar wished to be by himself for a short while.”
The eunuch grew somber and lowered his voice. “It has not been a good year for my master. His eldest son, Prince Salim, is now twenty and chafes against his father’s control. His two half brothers are nineteen and seventeen. They are the princes Murad and Daniyal. They, too, resent their father, but they resent each other as well. The two younger sons have too great an addiction for sweet wines, and it is said that Prince Salim is an opium-eater as well. None of them are really like their father. He loves them, but I think they sadden him.
“He is a great king, the lord Akbar. Under him almost all of India is now united. The laws, the judgments, and the taxes are finally fair. The roads are safe to travel. He loves and encourages musicians and artisans. He is a man of great intellect and curiosity. He built a house here in Fatehpur-Sikri and then invited priests of all religions, including the Christians, to come here and discourse with him and with each other. He holds no prejudices like our past rulers. He even lifted the special tax from the Rajputs! He is a wonderful and good man, but he has not been well, and so he has come to Fatehpur-Sikri once again to regain his strength.”
“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 was a 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 my grandmère , 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!”
“There will be some hard bargaining first, poppet, and Adam would have my hide if I put you in any danger. I want you and Pansy safe.”
“Very well.”
She sighed. “If we must stay here, then we must. Get the chess set out again, Pansy, and we’ll play a game while we wait.”
“Yes, m’lady,”
replied Pansy. “Would it be safe for us to open the bow windows, Master Murrough? Perhaps there might be a breeze. Lord almighty, I’ve never felt such heat before. I feel positively weak in me knees.”
“Aye,”
Murrough agreed with her. “ ’Tis debilitating, lass, and that’s a truth. Open the windows, and it will help, I promise. Now that we’re landed you can drink all the water you want, too.”
He smiled at both women as they reluctantly settled themselves, and then hurried from the cabin. When he was gone, Velvet rose and crossed quickly to slip out after him. Once on deck, she hid behind a barrel that gave her a good vantage point.
The ship had been made firmly secure and the gangway lowered so that the severely correct Jesuit priest might board.
“You have returned quickly, Captain O’Flaherty,”
said Esteban Ruy Ourique, the governor’s personal advisor, as he gained the deck.
“Where are my mother and her husband?”
demanded Murrough. “That was part of the bargain, that they would be awaiting me on the docks of this pesthole so that I might be certain that they were alive and safe. I do not see them anywhere.”
“There has been some difficulty,”
began the Jesuit smoothly, “but did I not personally give you the church’s word that no harm would come to them, Captain?”
“Then where are they, Father Ourique?”
Murrough’s gaze swept the pier and as it did something suddenly struck him. When he had sailed for England his mother’s damaged vessel had been moored at this very dock. Now it was nowhere to be seen. In a flash he knew what had happened. They had escaped! His mother and Adam had seen some opportunity and had seized it! “They are gone!”
he said triumphantly.