The Twentieth Wife

No, no, don’t touch your mother just before the baby is born. Now it will be a girl child, because you are one. Run along now. Take your evil eye with you.” “Ghias, we must be careful not to teach the girls too much. How will they ever find husbands if they are too learned? The less they know, the less they will want of the outside world.

This great Mughal Emperor [Akbar] was illiterate; he could neither read nor write. However, that had not stopped Akbar from cultivating the acquaintance of the most learned and cultured poets, authors, musicians, and architects of the time - relying solely on his remarkable memory during conversations with them.

He sent her the keys to the imperial library; to thank him she roamed the vast rooms looking for a book to send to him. She found a Persian translation of the Jataka tales. He came furtively to visit that night, and they sat on either side of a silk screen, delighted like children breaking a rule, obeying the spirit of the law if not the law itself. They took turns reading from the book, growling like the lion and squeaking like the monkey in the stories. As they passed the book under the screen, their hands touched, and they kissed with the cloth between them.

As he left, Jahangir turned back for a moment. "Wait for me, Mehrunnisa?" She laughed again in happiness. He might not remember, but she did. He had used those very words that day in the zenana gardens when he had asked her to wait for him. And she had not waited then. "I will be here, your Majesty," she said softly. "I will be here when you return.

With a heart that suddenly raced, the Emperor opened the note. In it was one word. He put his lips to the paper; her hands had touched the same spot not long before. "Come.

Emperor would need a wife who was a companion, one with whom he could converse knowledgeably, one who would excite not only his passions, but also his mind.

If one did not know how to follow orders, one would not know how to give them.

front courtyard of his house. In an inner courtyard,