This Heart of Mine (68 page)

“Sweet child, I have come to take
you
home,” said Michael O’Malley.

Velvet laughed merrily, and then, reaching out, she drew Akbar to her side. “No, Uncle Michael. I am not returning to England. When you tell my parents how happy I am they will understand, and I know that my lord husband will allow them to come visit me here at Lahore or at my palace in Kashmir. They must see their granddaughter. Pansy! Pansy! Come quickly!”

Another young woman hurried into the room, and Michael vaguely thought that she resembled Skye’s Daisy. “Yes, m’lady?”

“Pansy, this is my uncle, Michael O’Malley, the bishop of Mid-Connaught. He is going to take you and little Dugie home! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Oh, m’lady, I can’t leave you!” Pansy protested.

“Yes, you can! Oh, Pansy, you’re not like me, widowed and beginning a new life. Dugald is alive, and you both have the right to your happiness together. Little Dugie has the right to know his father. You have tried for my sake, I know, but you are not happy here. I want you to go home with Uncle Michael.”

“Oh, m’lady …” Pansy began to sniffle.

“She’s Daisy’s daughter,” said Velvet to her uncle. “She is as loyal to me as her mother is to my mother. It will pain me to part with her, but it is for her own good. Her little boy does not tolerate well the heat of our summers.”

“Velvet, my child, you have not heard me,” said Michael O’Malley. “You, too, must return with me to England. Your husband is alive and anxious for your corning.”

“My husband is by my side, Uncle.”

“It is not this great king to whom I refer, Velvet, but to your lawful husband in the eyes of our church. It is Alexander Gordon who awaits you.”

“Alexander Gordon is dead, Uncle Michael. He died two years ago. He wasted his life for the honor of a strumpet,” Velvet said sharply.

“No, my child, Alexander Gordon is very much alive. He
was only badly wounded, but in the excitement that followed his injury someone was heard to say he was dead, and your brother, Padraic, without verifying the facts, rushed to tell you that you had become a widow.”

“No!”
Velvet’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. “No! He is dead!
He is dead!”

Akbar caught her to his chest and held her close. “Don’t, my beloved, do not make this harder than it already is. This man is your uncle, the brother of your mother. Has he ever been a man of deceit, of subterfuge? Would he lie to you about something so important?”

She shook her head and then, looking up at Akbar asked, “What does all this mean to us? I was only wed to Alex Gordon three months. I have been your wife for over a year. We have a child. I will not leave you!” Her eyes were filled to overflowing with her tears.

“I cannot take the wife of a living man for my own wife, Candra. You are no longer mine. You are
his
, and I must send you back to your own people, to your own land. I must do it though it be my death blow.”

“No! No! No!” She shook her head violently, and her hair came loose, the pins flying in all directions. Clutching him, she slid to her knees, her arms about his legs. “Do not send me away, my lord. I will be your concubine if I cannot be your wife. I will be the humblest slave in your palace, but do not send me from you! I love you! I love you too much to be separated from you.” Her eyes pleaded with him as eloquently as her voice did. “Ah, I cannot bear the pain!” She wept.

Once again Akbar felt the shortness of breath that had afflicted him earlier. She was breaking his heart, for he loved her above all other creatures in this world, even his own children. He did not know how he would survive without her, but he would have to, for God had decreed that she not be his. Gently he raised her up, brushing the hair from her face. Then signaling for Michael O’Malley to remain behind, he led her into their bedchamber where Yasaman lay sleeping in her cradle near their bed. He poured two goblets of fruity, sweet wine, and when he was certain she could not see him, he flipped a secret catch on one of his rings and dumped an instantly dissolving white powder into one of the goblets. Then, turning, he handed it to her. Drawing her down, they reclined together upon the bed.

Looking into her wonderful eyes, he toasted her, and they drank. “Fate has played us a cruel trick, Candra, but if we did not obey God’s laws, then we should be no better than
the animals, should we, my Rose? We must both be very brave, but you, my darling, will have to be the bravest, for I cannot let you take Yasaman.”

“You cannot mean to separate me from my baby?” she whispered piteously. “She is not even six months of age yet. How will she know me if you take her away from me?”

“Think Candra!
Your clever mind is the first thing about you that attracted me. What kind of a life would she lead in your England? Would your husband accept her? I think not. I have studied your Christianity, and my child would be considered a bastard in your land. Could all your love make up for the cruel taunts and the wicked whispers that would surround her all her life? How would your other children feel about a bastard sister? No, Candra. Yasaman has the right to grow up surrounded by love and security. She is an imperial Mughal princess, and I will raise her as one! I will allow no one to hurt her, and though I am forced to part with you, my dearest English Rose, I shall not part with the fruit of our love for one another.”

She heard his words, and she understood the sense of them, but still her heart cried out for her child. “Do you not think I feel the same way? If I am to be torn from you, why can’t I have our child to comfort me?”

“You will love again, Candra. You will learn to love your Alex again as you once did, and there will be other children of your body to fill that void in your life. There will be nothing for me, my beloved. Without Yasaman you would be only a dream to me. Besides, for the child’s sake it is better that she remain with me.” His tone was determined.

Velvet wanted to protest further, but suddenly she could not gather her thoughts into a coherent pattern. Gazing into her wine goblet, she saw dregs in its bottom and realized what he had done. Marshaling every ounce of her strength, Velvet pulled herself out of his embrace and slid her body off the bed. Her arms and legs were fast becoming leaden, and she could barely keep her eyes open. Still, she fought her way along the few feet separating her from the cradle where her infant daughter lay peacefully sleeping. Gaining her objective, she pulled herself up and stared down on the child.

Oh, Yasaman, you are so beautiful
, she thought.
I
have been a good mother to you the short time I have had you, but you will never know that, my baby. I love you, Yasaman! I love you!

Then Velvet raised her eyes to Akbar and said distinctly, “I shall never forgive you for this.”

He was by her side in an instant, his arms tight about her. “Remember that I love you,” he said. “That has not stopped, nor will it ever.”

“And I, God help me, love you, my lord Akbar.” Her eyes were beginning to close. “Do not forget me,” she whispered to him.

“Never!”
he promised.

Her eyes fluttered open just a moment more, and she gazed at the wonderful design he had created on the wall behind their bed. Then she drew his head down to her lips. “Once the Wheel of Love has been set in motion,” she murmured against his mouth, “there is no absolute rule.” Then her lips touched his in farewell as she slid into her drug-induced sleep.

He sat for several long minutes holding her slumbering form, memorizing every line of her face and body. His sorrowing dark eyes went from her to their child. How like her the baby was. Would Yasaman forgive him someday when she learned that he had separated her from Candra, her mother? With a sigh Akbar stood, lifting Velvet in his arms. Slowly he walked to the door that Adali, who had been hidden in the shadows, hurried to open.

“When you return from Cambay, Adali, you will become head eunuch to Yasaman Kama Begum. You will have charge of her whole household.”

“My lord is gracious,” came the eunuch’s reply, but Adali’s face was sad as he opened the door, then took the precious burden that Akbar gave him.

“She is drugged into sleep,” said Akbar to Michael O’Malley, who was waiting in the corridor. “This is Adali, her eunuch, who will accompany you to the coast. He is fluent in French. Go now before my heart overrules my conscience!”

“I will tell them of your greatness in England, Most High,” Michael said.

Akbar allowed a small smile to break through his heartache. “Two last things, priest. Tell Candra that I have given Yasaman to Rugaiya Begum to bring up. It will ease some of her sadness to know her daughter is safe with her close friend. Then when you return to England, tell your queen that I will soon allow England to trade with my country. I grow tired of Portuguese arrogance.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Michael could scarcely believe the emperor’s generosity and England’s luck at such an outcome.

Akbar nodded, then gently touched Velvet’s cheek a final time. “Farewell, Candra, my English Rose, my heart and my life.” Then he turned and left them.

* * *

The Grand Mughal climbed to a tower room at the highest point of the palace, a room overlooking the coastal road to the port of Cambay, some several hundred miles away. There he stayed, watching as Velvet’s caravan departed in the early, gray hours of first light. He watched until his eyes ached with the strain, imagining her fair form behind the gauze curtains of the litter, until finally the procession was no more than a puff of distant dust upon the horizon. About him the sky was golden with the promise of a new day, but Akbar saw it not. He remained alone, locked in the tower room without either food or drink for the next three days, coming out at last only so as not to encourage his sons to new rebellions. And when he reentered the world of the living, his long dark hair and his moustache had turned snow white, and he was suddenly an old man.

But true love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead
From itself never turning.

—Sir Walter Ralegh

T
he wind, which had been blowing all day from the north-northeast, suddenly shifted to the east. It was almost as if it wanted to aid the
Sea Hawk
as she ploughed her way through the deep swells of the English Channel up into the Strait of Dover, around Margate Head, and into the Thames estuary. The sky was as flat and as gray as slate, and a fine mist of rain had begun to fall. England! As green and lush as only it could be in early August. How Velvet had dreamed of the soft green hills of her homeland those blazing hot days in Lahore, and now that she was faced with the reality it was like bitter ashes in her mouth. She was glad that Alex had not wasted his life in the foolish duel, but, oh, what unhappiness that prideful action had wrought, and he would never know the real truth of it.

Leaning over the ship’s rail, she looked down at the dark, swiftly moving water. How easy it would be, she thought, and then the mewling cry of a gull made her raise her head to the sky, and the softly falling rain mixed with the tears on her cheeks. How could she even consider such a thing? Death would change nothing for her. She would still be separated from Akbar and her daughter, Yasaman. It took far more courage to live, and she was, after all, her parents’ child.

Velvet remembered little of her departure from India. After Akbar had drugged her, Adali had kept her in a sleeping state for most of the several weeks it took to reach Cambay and the coast. The eunuch had seen her aboard Murrough’s ship, settling her in her quarters as his last service to her. She had been awake then, but very weak.

Tucking her into bed, he had said to her, “My lord has told me several things to say to you, things to ease your fears. The little princess has been given to Rugaiya Begum who will raise her as if she were her very own. She will be instructed secretly in your faith, for our lord Akbar thought you would want that. I am to be Yasaman Kama Begum’s eunuch and head of her household. He thought that would please you. Among your
belongings you will find a thin gold chain upon which there is one pink pearl. Each year to celebrate the little princess’s birthday another pink pearl will be delivered to your father. In this way you will know that the child lives and thrives.”