Page 41 of This Heart of Mine (O’Malley Saga #4)

“Enough!”

roared Adam de Marisco at his two stepsons. “Your squabbling isn’t going to bring my daughter back. Get out, the pair of you!”

The two brothers bowed politely to their stepfather and then, still throwing black looks at each other, quickly left the room.

Skye opened her arms to her husband, and for a long moment they stood clinging to each other. If they had made one mistake with Velvet it was that they had loved her too well, and had overprotected her. Finally Skye said quietly, “She’ll survive, my love. Is she not made up of a little bit of us both? Are we not survivors ourselves, my darling Adam? Velvet will come home to us! I know it!”

“Do you know what she’s going through?”

He groaned. “My God, Skye! She’s so innocent!”

“She’s a married woman, Adam,”

Skye reminded her husband. “She’s no longer totally innocent.”

“My little girl,”

he murmured, “my poor little girl.”

“Adam!”

Skye’s voice pierced through his distress.

He looked down at her, and there were tears in his smoky blue eyes.

“Oh, Adam,”

Skye said softly, “she’s my little girl, too, and as precious to me as any of my children, perhaps even a little more so because her birth was such a miracle for us. She will come back to us! I am certain of it!”

A knock upon the door brought Bran Kelly, Skye’s senior captain, into the room. “Daisy’s told me,”

he said, looking every bit as haggard as Adam did. “It’ll be quicker if I ride for Devon and ship from there, m’lady.”

Skye nodded. “Agreed!”

“I’ll be on my way then, m’lady,”

said the captain, and, bowing to them both, he was gone.

Bran Kelly rode without rest from London to Bideford where he took command of one of the ships of the O’Malley-Small fleet to sail across the Irish Sea, around Cape Clear, and up the western flank of Ireland to Innisfana Island where he knew he would find word of Michael O’Malley, who was now bishop of Mid-Connaught as his late uncle Seamus had been before him.

As luck would have it, the bishop was visiting his stepmother at his ancestral home. Learning of his niece’s fate and that of Bran Kelly’s daughter, Michael O’Malley packed at once, and two weeks after he had left London, Bran Kelly returned with Skye O’Malley’s younger brother.

The bishop of Mid-Connaught, once a tall, thin youth with pink cheeks and an earnest air about him, had grown into a bluff, hearty man with twinkling blue eyes, his dark hair very closely cropped as befitted a churchman, and a worldly air of assurance about him. His cheeks, however, were still pink from his heritage. His sister Skye had, fifteen years earlier, passed on her title “the O’Malley”

to him despite his clerical standing. It always amused Michael that he had ended up with the responsibility that had actually been rightfully his all along. His father had died when he was just a small boy and, knowing Michael’s desire to be a priest, had passed him over in favor of his sister, Skye. Skye, however, had given him back his inheritance after bearing the family responsibilities upon her own shoulders for many, many years. Michael, in turn, had chosen a nephew who would eventually supplant him, but which nephew he would not tell for fear that the boy would become big-headed by knowing his future position. Privately he had discussed his choice with Skye, and she had agreed that their half brother Brian’s second son, Ahern, was the perfect choice. Michael O’Malley would pass on his authority when he thought his nephew ready, but for now he retained it and allowed the boy the opportunity to grow and to savor life.

“Don’t you ever change?”

he now demanded of his sister, giving her a bear hug that suddenly reminded her of their father.

Gazing at him, she realized that his increased girth made him look very much like their father as well, although she had never noticed it until now. “You suddenly resemble Da,” she said.

“Aye, so Mother Anne tells me. Our stepmother sends you her greetings.”

He paused. “I hear I’m to go to Paris.”

“And afterwards to India, brother,”

she said quietly.

“For a man who’s never been out of Ireland but for a bit of study in Rome and Paris ’tis a big leap, sister Skye.”

He plumped himself down into a comfortable chair by the fire and took a goblet of wine from the servant who preferred it.

“You’re our only hope, Michael. If the Mughal’s capital were on the sea, or even near it, I should not need your help; but ’tis hundreds of miles inland. The Jesuits are in great favor with Akbar. They must understand that ’twas one of their order who involved my child in this disaster, and now they must aid us in retrieving her.”

“You’ll be expected to pay, Skye. You know that?”

Skye raised an eloquent eyebrow. “I always pay for what I seriously desire, Michael, but I’ll pay not a penny piece into the Jesuit coffers until I know that my child is safe! Make sure your friends in Paris understand that, Michael.”

“What of my niece’s husband? Is he anxious to have his wife back from what is certain to be a very carnal captivity?”

“Yes,”

said Skye tersely, in a tone that decided Michael O’Malley to press his sister no further on that point.

“I am not quite certain,”

he said, “that I fully understand how Velvet got herself in this position. What was she doing in India with Murrough, and where was her bridegroom?”

“The situation in which Velvet finds herself was brought about by a mixture of stubbornness, pride, gossip, misinformation, and the usual sort of general mayhem that in another case could have caused a war!”

A deep rumble of laughter rocked the bishop. “In other words, sister, the human condition. Say on!”

Skye launched into the tale of Velvet’s troubles. Michael listened with rapt attention, not interrupting until she came to the Portuguese governor’s act of sending Velvet to the Grand Mughal as a gift.

“What possessed the governor to do such a terrible thing?”

wondered Michael aloud.

“When Adam and I were imprisoned in Bombay by the Portuguese, they separated us for a time. The governor placed me in his house, where he made indecent overtures toward me that I most firmly rebuffed. I was then put back with Adam in the local prison, a disgusting place, but far preferable!”

“Your rebuff of that proud don must have been a fierce one that he would take such a revenge as to send your child, a Catholic noblewoman, into such a degrading situation.”

“My rebuff of him was no more than he deserved!”

snapped Skye.

“I’ve not a doubt,”

replied her brother, his bright blue eyes atwinkle. “Well,”

he said, sighing, “now I see the matter clearly, sister Skye, but ’twill take a great deal of clever negotiation on our part to get the Jesuits to aid us. To begin with they will deny any responsibility.”

“Michael, I don’t care how you do it! You’re the youngest bishop Ireland’s ever had, and I’ve always contended that you’re wasted there when your talents could be put to better use in Rome. You’ve a friend, I remember, who is high up within the Jesuit ranks, and I know that he’s in Paris.”

“Bearach O’Dowd.”

Michael smiled with the memory. “His aunt was married to a distant O’Malley cousin who lived on Innisfana, and he used to come to visit in the summers with his sister, Caitlin. We used to take her fishing with us and then make her clean our catch. Bearach and I studied for the priesthood together in Rome. Aye, he’s a Jesuit, and he is in Paris. Bearach always had a taste for the finer things.”

“Will he help us?”

Skye asked.

“Aye. He’s an honest man, though clever. He’ll be shocked by Father Ourique’s behavior, but I’ll wager he’ll end up with at least part of your Portuguese ransom for the Paris order, probably from the Portuguese governor’s portion, as well as whatever we pay him!”

“Do not delay, Michael. Every day that passes Velvet is further lost to us. She believes Alex is dead, and the Grand Mughal, I am told, is a kind man. If she falls in love with him, she will suffer not only from losing him, but from her guilt at returning to Alex with knowledge of another man.”

“Perhaps you worry needlessly, my sister,”

the bishop counseled. “Do not Eastern potentates have vast harems? In all likelihood Velvet has lost herself in the crowd.”

“As a European woman Velvet would be a rarity to the emperor of India, Michael. I will wager he has never seen one before. To ignore her would be to insult the Portuguese governor’s gift, and he would not do that. No, my child has already been in his bed. I can only hope she does not love him so there will be no pain in leaving him. Any guilt she may feel I will assuage and help her to overcome, but first you must get her back for us, Michael!”

Michael O’Malley heard the agony in his sister’s voice. He had to accept her words as accurate, for if anyone knew the East it was Skye by virtue of the two periods in her life when she had lived in Algeria and Morocco. “I’ll get her back,”

he said quietly. “Never fear, sister. I will bring our Velvet safely home. Poor child! How she must be pining for her homeland!”

But Velvet had not given a thought to England for several weeks now. Pansy had recovered quickly from the ordeal of her childbirth, and they had left Fatehpur-Sikri with Akbar and all his household to return to the capital of Lahore.

Velvet felt a small pang as she passed by the great chessboard with its red sandstone squares for the last time. The huge court of the Panch Mahal gleamed brightly in the morning sun as they passed beneath the lovely entrance gate. From the vantage point of her gaily decorated howdah atop a plodding female elephant, Velvet turned to catch a final glimpse of the former capital of the Mughals in all its abandoned splendor. Then with the resilience of youth she looked only ahead.

They traveled in a crescent-shaped formation, Akbar followed by his cavalry and then his elephant corps. Mounted archers and pikemen guarded the enormous convoy. Before Akbar went drummers and trumpeters upon elephants; only one sounded his drum at specific intervals. In the middle of the caravan rode those wives and favorites of Akbar who had accompanied him from Lahore. The consorts were all mounted upon elephants, their serving women riding behind upon camels. The women were guarded by armed eunuchs who drove all away from the line of march. Behind them came the treasury and the baggage train, which included the tents and furnishings, all packed into mule-drawn carts and accompanied by soldiers, water-carriers, carpenters, tent-makers, torch bearers, leather workers, and sweepers.

Velvet quickly realized that she should have no fear of attack, for no one would dare to accost Akbar. It was simply to be a tedious journey, but at its end he had promised her gardens and fountains. The monsoons were over, and the cold season was coming. In Lahore, he said, her life would be perfection, and so she dreamed the hot days away snug in her howdah. When the evenings came, however, she was escorted from the women’s tents to the large two-story pavilion where Akbar slept to partake in exquisite nights of passion with this powerful man who had become her husband.

She was no longer segregated from the other women, though only Jodh Bai and Rugaiya Begum approached her. They had begun to teach her Persian and a little Hindi so that she might communicate with those about her. With Adali acting as her translator, Velvet struggled to learn, though not with too great a success. She managed enough vocabulary so that she could gossip with the two women, but often Adali was called upon to explain words Velvet could not comprehend.

“I feel so stupid,”

she complained to her two friends one evening, “but the sounds are so different from the tongues of Europe.”

“We think you clever,”

answered Jodh Bai. “We cannot learn any of your language. It confounds our brains!”

Velvet chuckled. “I think you are just being kind, Jodh Bai.”

Jodh Bai smiled back at Velvet. “It is not difficult to be kind to you, Candra. Your nature is most sweet.”

Candra. It was strange, Velvet thought, to have been given a new name at this time in her life, but indeed she had been. Before they had departed Fatehpur-Sikri, Akbar had spoken to her of it. “The women in my household do not know what to call you, my Rose. You must have a name that they can understand. I have therefore taken it upon myself to rename you Candra. You will answer to it from this time forth.”

“I will do what pleases you, my lord,”

she replied sweetly, “but does the name have a meaning?”

“It means moon, or moonlike, in the ancient Sanskrit language. Your skin is so white that it can be compared to the moon, and therefore I consider it very fitting that you be called Candra.”

So she became Candra Begum, the Rose Princess, among those who lived at the court of the Grand Mughal. The women of the zenana treated her with respect for the most part, but kept their distance. With Jodh Bai and Rugaiya Begum for friends she felt no lack of companionship, but she often saw some of the other wives eyeing her with jealousy.

Zada Begum, Akbar’s second wife, was a gray-brown mouse of a woman with no children to keep her company. She was close friends with the third wife, Salima Begum, mother of the Mughal’s eldest daughter, Shahzad Khanim. Both women were haughty and held the rest of the zenana’s inhabitants in contempt. They were much avoided by the others.

Jealousy, however, held in its grip four of the more important consorts: Almira, mother of Prince Murad; Leila, the Princess of Khandesh whose daughter was Shukuran Nisa; Roopmati, the Princess of Bikaner, mother of Prince Daniyal; and Kamlavati, the Princess of Jaisalmer, who had miscarried twice. Akbar no longer visited Kamlavati’s bed, which embittered her greatly, especially considering that a mere concubine named Waqi had borne the last of Akbar’s children, the little Princess Aram-Banu. Each of these ladies eyed Velvet constantly with black, unfriendly glances and gossiped meanly amongst themselves.

“She has eyes the color of a cat’s,”

said Kamlavati.

“And her hair,”

murmured Almira. “It is the shade of the plowed earth. I certainly never saw hair that color! It’s disgusting.”

“ ’Tis her white skin I find so ugly,”

piped up Roopmati. “It looks like a fish belly.”

“She is enormous in size,”

said Leila. “Why, she can look our dear lord directly in the eye. That is most unfeminine. I cannot understand what it is about her that he finds so attractive.”

“Perhaps it is her sweet nature.”

Rugaiya Begum, who had overheard the others, chuckled. “None of you can lay claim to that particular nicety of character. Candra is as sweet as honey, and Akbar, a wise old bee, has grown tired of your sour fruits.”

As Rugaiya Begum was Akbar’s senior wife they did not dare to turn their backs on her or to refute her words. The older woman offered them an arch smile and then strode away.

It took a month for them to reach Lahore, and as Velvet viewed the surrounding landscape she was not encouraged. The region was positively parched and grim. Her heart sank. How could there possibly be gardens and fountains in this barren brown place? She sighed and for a moment was melancholy for her beautiful green homeland.

Pansy, however, had recovered her former robust health and seemed to thrive as she cared for her son, who grew larger daily on his mother’s rich milk. Velvet had seen several handsome soldiers eyeing her tiring woman with a look akin to lust. Pansy had seen them, too, but she just shrugged and said dryly, “Eventually I’ll take another husband. There’s many a likely lad amongst them, I can see, and virginity ain’t so much to a man as a woman who can have sons. But now is not the time. Besides, as your tiring woman I don’t have to let myself go cheap.”

Finally Lahore loomed before them, surrounded by a great fortifying wall and accessible only through its thirteen gates. It was set upon the banks of the Ravi River, which had its birth high in the purple Himalaya Mountains. They could see the mountains to the distant north. As they came closer to the city, the landscape grew greener the nearer to the river they got, and, looking closely, Velvet saw that the land was irrigated by narrow canals that drew water from the river inland a short distance. From their howdahs they could see in these fields the peasants with their bullocks plowing the tall rows of grain to remove the weeds and keep the topsoil turned.

The Mughal’s great caravan was now strung out along the main road into Lahore. The single drummer thrummed his monotonous cadence as they moved steadily toward the city. Forced to the side of the road by Akbar’s passage were great commercial caravans of heavily ladened camels, smaller caravans that were donkey-borne, peasants, merchants, and nobles astride fine mounts, their women in carefully curtained palanquins. Past them all rode the Grand Mughal and his household, moving majestically through Lahore’s main gate and into the city, where the caravan wended its way through narrow streets, past great mosques and minarets, past the Mughal fort, to the northwest corner of the city where the palace was located.

Here the section of the caravan carrying the women and their servants was brought directly through the main courtyard of the palace and into the women’s portion of the building. The camels knelt so that the occupants of the palanquins could disembark. The elephants, however, were brought one by one to a high mounting block where each howdah’s occupant was assisted out. As Akbar’s newest wife, Velvet was the last to leave her elephant.

“I should be glad,”

she said, laughing to Jodh Bai and Rugaiya Begum as she joined them, “that our lord did not bring all his wives else I would have been here the entire night!”

“Youth and beauty are not always first and foremost.”

Rugaiya Begum chuckled. “It is a good lesson for you to learn, Candra.”

“Are you as eager for a bath as I am?”

asked Jodh Bai. “Those birdbaths we were permitted along the way were only frustrating. I wonder if I shall ever get the dust out of my hair and off my skin. I am certain it has bored right into my face!”

“Must I be the last to the baths as well?”

asked Velvet with a mournful face.

“Not if we hurry while the others are busy greeting their friends and relations,”

said Rugaiya Begum with a mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes. “Each wants to be the first to spread the news of Akbar’s bride and new favorite. Look! Already you are being cast envious looks.”

She took the others’ hands and hurried them into the palace. “Come! We will be steaming and soaking before they can decide which one of them is clever enough to take Akbar from you.”

“Oh, Rugaiya! I should die if my lord deserted me now,”

wailed Velvet nervously. This was something she had not thought of, and suddenly she realized it could happen. She cast a backward glance at the clustering women behind her. “I have not half the beauty those women have,”

she said, worried.

“Little silly!”

said the practical Rugaiya Begum. “He loves you! Do you not believe it? I do, and I have been with him longer than any of the others. There will be times he will turn to the others to assuage his manly lusts and desire for variety, but that is only natural in a man. Not yet though. You occupy his thoughts constantly, Candra. Remember you were the only woman he called to him each night along our line of march, except for the nights you were unclean.”

“There are few he really cares for although he is kind to them all,”

put in Jodh Bai, understanding Velvet’s need to be reassured. European women, Velvet had told them, did not share their men. The Christians permitted their men only one wife, something Jodh Bai personally thought appalling. How could one woman be all things to a man? It was barbaric and impossible, not to mention very unfair to the poor wife who must be at her lord’s beck and call at all times. Once sweet Candra saw the advantages in being one of many wives she would appreciate it greatly. Jodh Bai smiled to herself, her smile broadening as they reached the baths. “Ah, at last,”

she said as a cloud of perfumed steam hit her.

The three women were divested of their dusty clothing by clucking, fussing bath attendants and were halfway through their ablutions by the time the other travelers arrived. The latecomers eyed the three sourly.

“Hah!”

teased Rugaiya Begum. “How did you manage to pull yourselves away from the other gossips?”

“Someone had to explain who the ugly foreigner was,”

replied Almira. “After all, a woman with skin like sour milk and hair the color of cattle dung is unusual.”

Velvet flushed, understanding enough of Almira’s words to comprehend the insult, but before either of her two friends could defend her, she said slowly in Persian, “In my country … we know how to … make … strangers welcome … even if they do not look … like us. You are very … rude, Almira.”

Then she turned her back upon the woman and continued her bathing.

Almira gaped in surprise at this rebuke, her face growing mottled as the women with her tittered behind their hands, and both Jodh Bai and Rugaiya Begum grinned openly, pleased with the success of their new friend and protégée. Then they, too, returned to their washing.

“Well done, Candra,”

whispered Jodh Bai. “She is over-proud despite the fact that Akbar grew tired of her long ago!”

“Aye, his passion cooled quickly with her.”

Rugaiya Begum chuckled. “She was fortunate that she was with child and bore Akbar his second son, else he would have never looked at her again.”