‘Leave us,’ Akbar ordered the maid. As soon as they were alone, he asked, ‘Is it true? You really are pregnant?’
‘Yes. Surely the khawajasara told you.’
‘I wanted to hear it from my wife as a husband should. Hirabai — you are carrying my child, perhaps the future Moghul emperor. Is there nothing I can do or say to make you look more kindly on me or to make you happier?’
‘The only way would be to send me back to Amber, but that is impossible.’
‘You will be a mother soon. Does that mean nothing to you?’
Hirabai hesitated. ‘I will love the child because the blood of my people will flow through its veins. But I will not pretend to feelings for you that I can never have. All I pray is that you take other wives and leave me in peace.’
‘Bear me a healthy son and I promise never to lie with you again.’ Hirabai said nothing. ‘I want you to make ready for a journey a week from now.’
‘Where are you sending me?’ For the first time her cold demeanour faltered and she looked anxious.
‘Don’t be afraid. I wish you to go to a place of good omen — Sikri. I did not tell you this before because I know you distrust my religion, but a Muslim mystic lives there. He predicted you would bear me a son and asked me to send you there, to a monastery where you will be well tended until the child is born. I will send the best of my hakims with you and you may take all the attendants you wish. The air is good there — cooler and healthier than in Agra. It will be beneficial for you and the child you carry and you may worship your own gods there.’
Hirabai looked down at her hands folded on her lap. ‘It will be as you wish, of course.’
‘Shall I send word to your brother?’
Hirabai nodded. Akbar waited a few moments, hoping she might say something else. ‘I will love the child,’ she had said, but would she? If she hated the father, what affection could she feel for the son? For a moment he pondered the Sufi’s warning. Was his wife’s hostility one of the distant shadows he had glimpsed? With a last searching look at Hirabai’s half-averted face, he left her. Free from the frigid aura surrounding her, he felt the warmth of his happiness returning. He was going to have a son. .
‘I name you Salim after the holy man who predicted your birth.’
Holding the squirming body of his new-born son in the crook of his left arm, with his right hand Akbar picked up a saucer of small gold coins and poured them gently over the baby’s head. Salim threshed about, flexing tiny fists, but though he screwed up his face he didn’t howl. Smiling with pride, Akbar lifted Salim high so all could see him. Then he placed him on a large green velvet cushion held by his elderly vizier Jauhar. It was the turn of the black-turbaned Shaikh Ahmad, head of the ulama, to speak. What did he really think about blessing the child of a Hindu mother? His face, bland above his bushy dark beard, gave nothing away. Whatever his inner feelings, he and his clique had lost the battle — defeated by the birth of this child who as yet knew nothing of the tensions of the world.
After thanking God for Salim’s birth, the priest said portentously: ‘We whom His Imperial Majesty have summoned here to Sikri hail the auspicious birth of this world-illuminating pearl of the mansion of dominion and fortune, this night-gleaming jewel of the casket of greatness and glory. Prince Salim, may God guide you and pour an ocean of divine bounty upon you.’
Later that night, Akbar slipped from the huge many-canopied brocade tent specially erected in Sikri for the feast celebrating his son’s birth. For a while he had joined in the slurred singing, circling arm in arm with Ahmed Khan and his other commanders in some semblance of the old dances of the Moghul homelands — not that many could remember the steps. But now there was something he felt he must do. Calling for his horse, he mounted and taking only a few of his guards, rode slowly through the warm night air, scented by the still-smoking dung fires over which the villagers of Sikri had cooked their evening meal, towards the nearby monastery where Hirabai was still lodged. Glancing up it seemed to him that the stars, so beloved by his own father Humayun, had never seemed so numerous or so lustrous. It was as if they had found a special radiance to shed upon the earth that now held his son — the son he must do everything to protect. Even now, at a time of so much happiness, he could not forget the Sufi’s words of caution. .
‘It is the emperor!’ shouted one of his guards as the arched entrance of the monastery appeared before them. Orange-clad Rajput soldiers from Amber to whom Akbar had awarded the honour of protecting the Empress stood to attention and their captain stepped forward.
‘Welcome, Majesty.’
Akbar dismounted and tossing his reins to his qorchi walked through the gateway into a small, dimly lit courtyard. As the cry went up again, ‘It is the emperor!’ one of Hirabai’s Rajput maids appeared through the shadows carrying an oil lamp whose tiny flame flickered and danced.
‘Please take me to my wife.’
Hirabai was lying propped on blue cotton cushions on a low bed. Salim was feeding at her breast and Akbar saw a contentment in her face he had never witnessed before. It was so unexpected it made her seem almost a stranger. But as she looked at him, the glow faded. ‘Why have you come? You should be at the feast attending to your guests.’
‘I felt a sudden need to see my son. . and my wife.’
Hirabai said nothing, but took Salim from her breast and handed him to her maid. The baby began to cry, angry at having his feeding so abruptly ended, but Hirabai signalled to the maid to take him away.
‘Hirabai — I have come here to make one last appeal to you. For the rest of our lives Salim will be a link of flesh and blood between us. Can’t we forget the past and begin again for him? Let all my sons be yours too so that in later life they can support and help one another as full brothers.’
‘I have done my duty. As I have already told you, I wish you only to leave me alone. You promised that if I bore you a son you would do so. Let other women father your sons.’
‘Salim’s position will be less secure if he has only half-brothers. They will feel less loyalty to him. Have you considered that? Don’t you owe it to your son to make his position as strong as possible?’
‘My son has Rajput blood in his veins. He will trample any rival into the dust.’ Hirabai raised her chin.
Frustration at such heedless, stubborn pride, such a narrow view of the world, filled Akbar. For a moment he wondered whether to tell her of the Sufi’s warnings of what might lie in the future, but he knew she wouldn’t listen. So be it, but he would not leave his son to be brought up by such a woman.
‘Very well, I will respect your wishes. But there is a price for what you ask. Though you may see Salim whenever you wish, I intend to place him in my mother’s care. Moghul princes are often reared by senior royal women rather than their birth mothers. She will appoint a milk-mother as is also the Moghul way. My son will be brought up as a Moghul prince, not a Rajput one.’
Hirabai stared at him. If he had anticipated grief, remonstrations, he was wrong. The only sign of agitation was a slight tautening of her jaw. ‘You are the emperor. Your word is law.’ Her tone was contemptuous, insolent even. He had come to her tonight to give her one final chance, but, as he had known in his heart, she had utterly closed her mind against him.
Chapter 10
‘You have done me a great honour and given me a great responsibility, Majesty.’