Wild Jasmine (16 page)

“I will see Yasaman before I go,” Salim said, realizing that there was no escape from his father’s will, save rebellion. It was not worth it. Not this time. Yasaman would be here in Kashmir for him whenever he wanted her. Besides, he would have this afternoon and this evening with her, and he would ensure it was a pleasurable time for them both.

“Please do not see my daughter, Salim,” Rugaiya Begum said. “It will upset her to know you are going and that you will not be here for her wedding day. You know how very much she dotes upon you, but if you truly love her, you will leave her in peace.”

“Your aunt is correct, my son,” Akbar agreed. “It is better you go now while your sister is distracted with the preparations for her wedding.”

He knew! His father knew!
Salim was suddenly certain.
But how?
How could he possibly know? He couldn’t! I’m imagining it, Salim decided. Akbar may be all-powerful, but there is no way under heaven that he could be privy to my secret thoughts. I have been very careful. No one saw me entering or leaving Yasaman’s chamber the night of her birthday.
No! He does not know. He cannot!

“If you would prefer that I not see Yasaman, then so be it, dear aunt, my father. I would not want to be the cause of my sister’s unhappiness at a time when she should be happiest. Give her my love and tell her I wish I might be with her, but my duty rules otherwise.” Salim bowed politely to his elders and then took his leave of them.

But Salim had certainly not understood, Rugaiya Begum knew, even as she lied to Yasaman. However, it did not matter any longer. He was gone! Yasaman was safe from his incestuous lust and would shortly be the wife of Jamal Khan. Salim would eventually lose interest if his sister was happily married and he rarely saw her. Their lives would proceed smoothly forward.
Perhaps she would never even have to see her nephew again, Rugaiya considered. She saw no necessity to ever travel south now that her daughter was to be settled here in Kashmir. Yasaman’s deep sigh drew her attention again. “Salim knew his duty, my daughter,” she said.

“I know, Mama Begum,” Yasaman agreed, “but I am still sad that my brother cannot be with me on so important a day.”

“As is he,” Rugaiya said with a degree of truth, “but fate has decreed it otherwise. You must always accept what fate offers you and make the best of it that you can.”

“And fate,” Akbar said, entering the chamber, “has decreed that tomorrow be our Yasaman’s wedding day!” He put an arm around them both and chuckled benevolently. There was no mistaking the fact that the Mughal was vastly pleased.

“
Tomorrow?
” Yasaman cried. “It is so soon! Why tomorrow?”

“Because the Mehr has been agreed upon, and a most expensive young lady you are, my daughter.” He chuckled again and then said, “My astrologer has carefully compared your natal chart with that of Prince Jamal. He declares tomorrow is the only day for the next several months that the signs are propitious enough for this wedding to take place. So tomorrow we will have a wedding.”

Rugaiya Begum heard the qualifying note in her husband’s voice, but she waited until Yasaman had gone to bed that evening to discuss it with him. “
Propitious enough?
What did your astrologer mean by that, my dear lord? What is wrong? Are they still ill-suited? I do not want Yasaman in a bad marriage even in order to allow her to escape Salim’s advances.”

Akbar sighed and, lying upon his back, his arms beneath his head, said quietly, “Ali says they are well-matched in every aspect. There will be no trouble in the mating, and there will even be love between them. There is, however, in Jamal’s chart a hidden danger, but Ali could not say what it was. It is, he says, blurred, as if fate had not yet decided Jamal’s kismet or did not wish to reveal itself.”

“And Yasaman’s chart? What does it say?” Rugaiya Begum asked nervously.

“Ali says there is great happiness in store for Yasaman, but tragedy as well. He says there are several children ahead for Yasaman. Rugaiya, my love, let us not think on the future tonight. Let us think on the present. Happiness. Tragedy. Children. Is that not all our fates?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“When will the prince arrive?” Akbar asked her, taking a lock of her silvery hair in his hand and kissing it.

“In late afternoon, my lord. We will have the Henna-bandi ceremony first, and then the qazi will perform the ceremony. Then the prince will be introduced to his bride. There will be feasting, and dancing and other entertainments. Then Yasaman and her husband will leave for his palace across the lake,” Rugaiya Begum concluded.

“Hmmmm, that is good,” he said absently, and she could hear the weariness in his voice.

“Go to sleep, my dear lord,” she said softly. Rugaiya Begum knew that within a day or two of their daughter’s marriage, Akbar would gather up his household and begin the trek south for Lahore and Agra. It was rare he remained in any one place for very long. She wondered if once she remained in Kashmir, she would ever see Akbar again in this life. Then she chided herself for being a foolish old woman. Nothing would keep Akbar from Kashmir and the grandchildren Yasaman would have. Yes, everything was going to be all right now, Rugaiya Begum thought. The Salim matter was settled, to her deep relief. She slept the sleep of a woman at peace.

Outside the small palace, the moon played upon the still, dark waters of the lake. The night air seemed perfumed with the thousands of flowers in the gardens. Yasaman had slipped from her sleeping chamber to walk upon the terrace. She knew that she should be sleeping, but she could not. Her mind hummed along like a hive of bees. Tomorrow she was to be married. It had happened so quickly. She was not really prepared for it, but her father was not well. Mama Begum had told her that quite frankly. Her father wanted her settled with a good husband. He wanted to see her children before he died. It was only natural, she supposed. Her father was known to be a very doting grandfather to the children of his sons and daughters.

Children
. Yasaman knew how children were conceived and born. Every young girl did. There was no mystery about it. Was she expected to copulate with a stranger, she wondered, even if he was her husband? Would she be allowed time to get to know this stranger? Her father had not forced Candra to his bed, she knew. He wooed her and won her with passion and with deep love, Rugaiya Begum had told her.

Love
. Another variable. Would she and Jamal Khan learn to
love one another? Would they even like one another? Dear lord! She prayed they would. Her mind was filled with so many questions to which she had no answers.

She walked to the edge of the terrace and saw that Ali, the fisherman, was almost directly below. “Good evening, Ali,” she greeted him. “Are the fish running well tonight?”

Looking up, he flashed her a smile. “Always in a bright, full moon, gracious lady,” he told her.

“I am to be married tomorrow, Ali,” Yasaman told her friend.

“
Married?
” The fisherman was surprised. He had heard no word of a royal marriage. The marriage of the Mughal’s daughter should be a great time of rejoicing, not some secret ceremony as this obviously was to be.

“Yes, Ali,” Yasaman continued. “I am to be married to Prince Jamal Khan. What think you of that?” Perhaps the fisherman would tell her something of her husband-to-be, who had also, like Ali, lived his whole life in Kashmir. Peasants lived for gossip.

“The son of Yusef Khan?” the fisherman asked.

“Yes,” Yasaman answered him. “Is he handsome? Do people speak well of him? You must tell me what you know.”

“Yes, my princess, I have seen the prince. He is taller than your father and very handsome, all the ladies think. I have heard nought of evil about him. He is an obedient son to his father.”

“Oh,” she said. That was not particularly promising. In fact, it was dull. She had hoped Ali knew some interesting fact that would help her to understand this stranger she was to marry tomorrow.

“Good night, Princess. May Allah bless you with many sons, gracious lady,” the fisherman said, and he began to row away from her, eager to return to his village and spread the news.

“Thank you, Ali,” Yasaman said forlornly, and moved back from the edge of the parapet. Stretching out upon a silken couch on the terrace, she gazed up at the full August moon, thinking a thought she had often had. Candra sees this same moon.
Candra
. The woman who had given her life.
Her mother
. No, Candra was not her mother, Yasaman decided. A mother was someone who stayed with her child no matter what. Rugaiya Begum, the gentle and loving woman who had raised her, who had always been there for her, was her mother.

But she had always been curious about the English woman, Yasaman admitted to herself. To the best of her knowledge they had told her everything that they knew, but it was so little. Yet there was still a tie of sorts between them. Candra’s family had never lost interest in her.

Each year, her father sent the most beautiful, flawless pearl he could find to Candra’s mother through the factor of her trading company in Cambay. Her English grandmother, Yasaman knew, also had yearly correspondence with her father. What would they think of this marriage? she wondered.

“My child, what are you doing up so late?” Father Cullen Butler was suddenly by her side, his dark robes making a slight breeze. “Are you troubled in some measure?”

“I was thinking of Candra, Father,” Yasaman answered. She motioned him to a comfortable padded stool by her side. “Sit down, Father.”

The priest seated himself, asking as he did so, “Do you think often of Candra, my dear lady?”

“Only sometimes,” Yasaman revealed candidly. “I know that I have been told everything about her that my father knows; but sometimes I wish I knew more. About her family. Mama Begum says that Papa corresponds with my other grandmother. Yet never have I been shown one of those letters. What do they write about? Does my grandmother write about Candra? Does Candra ever ask about me?” She sighed deeply. “Now that I am to be married and will eventually, God willing, become a mother myself, this other part of me somehow seems more important than it ever has before.” Then she laughed ruefully. “Alas, that you cannot tell me what I need to know, Father, but you were not here when my … when Candra was here.”

For a moment it seemed as if the priest was debating something with himself. Then he said to Yasaman, “It is true that I was not here when Candra was, my lady, but I can shed some light on that which you desire to know.”

“
You can?
” Yasaman sat up and, leaning forward, demanded, “Tell me what you know, Father! Oh, please tell me!”

“I have been privy to your maternal grandmother’s correspondence with your father. As you know, the Mughal can neither read nor speak Candra’s tongue. They communicated in French. Your grandmother de Marisco also writes to your father in French. But though your father speaks French, he cannot read it, and he does not wish his Jesuit friends to be
cognizant of the letters. As you know, I am just a simple priest and not a member of that revered order of the religious. I read your grandmother’s letters to him.

“Your grandmother, Lady de Marisco, is not English born. She comes from an island nation to the west of England called Ireland, but she has not lived there since her girlhood. Although of the noble class, she has a great natural instinct for the business of trading. Many years ago she went into partnership with a friend of her second husband. That gentleman is now deceased, but the company name remains the same. It is the O’Malley-Small Trading Company. Your grandmother has become very wealthy through it.

“Each year, as you know, she writes your father to tell him she has received the pearl he sends her. Sometimes she writes of Candra, who as you now know was reunited with her first husband. They have several sons now, which means you have other brothers. Lady de Marisco always asks after you. Are you pretty? How do your studies go? Do you look like your mother? Do you ever ask after them? Each year it is the same, and she ends the missive by sending her love to you.”

“What does my father reply?” Yasaman asked, curious.

“Nothing, my lady,” the priest said. “He will only send the pearl to your grandmother so that Candra will not worry about you; so that they know you are alive and that you flourish. Candra did not, as you know, wish to leave you. Because he loved her, the Mughal cannot bear the thought of her suffering needless anguish over your fate, which is why he maintains this tenuous contact at all.

“Why does Papa send the pearl to my grandmother and not to Candra?” Yasaman wondered aloud.

“If the Mughal sent it to Candra, it would but open old wounds between them. Then, too, you must remember that Candra is married. It is certain that her husband does not want to be reminded of that period in Candra’s life when, thinking him dead, she wed another man and bore that other man a child. I have taught you the tenets of the Holy Mother Church, my dear lady. You know that a woman may only have one husband, as a husband must cleave only unto one wife.”

Yasaman nodded and then she said wistfully, “I wonder if Candra ever thinks of me, Father Cullen. Do you think she would like me? I wish I could tell her of my marriage. If I wrote her a letter, would you see that it was sent off?”

“I do not think that would be wise, my dear lady,” the priest
replied gently, feeling absolutely wretched at the look of disappointment that came to the young girl’s face. “I will personally see that your grandmother de Marisco knows of your happiness. Both she and Candra would be very proud of you, Princess, if they could know you, but, alas, they cannot. Better to leave things the way they are. You have never really been unhappy over the loss of the lady who bore you, for you did not know her. Rugaiya Begum has been a good and loving mother to you. You owe her respect, loyalty, and your love.”

“She has it,” Yasaman said. “Do you really think I will be happy, Father Cullen?” she queried him anxiously. “I wish this marriage were not so hurried an event.”