The Twentieth Wife Read Free

the chai.”
    As he was leaving, Masud said, “I am on my way to India. Would you like to accompany my caravan, Mirza Beg? I cannot offer you much, only a tent and a camel to carry your belongings. But it is well guarded, and I can assure you that you will be safe on the journey.”
    Ghias abruptly turned back and sat down, his face mirroring the shock he felt. “Why?”
    Masud waved the question away. “I will be going to pay my respects to Emperor Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri. If you follow me that far, I may be able to present you at court.”
    Ghias stared at him, unable to believe what he had just heard. After so much trouble, when one problem seemed to come at the heel of the other, here was a gift from Allah. But he could not just accept this offer. He had nothing to offer in return. And as a nobleman’s son, and a nobleman himself, he should never be indebted to another for kindness. Why was Masud doing this?
    “I . . . ,” he stammered, “I do not know what to say. I cannot—”
    Masud leaned forward across the rutted wood table of the shop. “Say yes, Sahib. Perhaps if I fall to ill times in the future you can assist me.”
    “That I would, Mirza Masud, without hesitation, even if you did not do this for me. But this is too much. I am grateful for the suggestion, but I cannot accept.”
    Masud beamed. “For me this is nothing much, Mirza Beg. Please agree. You will give me the pleasure of your company on the journey. It has been lonely since my sons stopped traveling with me.”
    “Of course I will,” Ghias replied. Then he said, smiling at the merchant’s insistence, “Any thanks I can give will be inadequate.”
    Masud gave Ghias the directions to his caravan, and the two men parted in the bazaar. During the next few hours, as Asmat and the children packed their meager belongings, Ghias sat outside the tent, thinking of his meeting with Masud. Once, a long time ago, Ghias’s father had told him that a nobleman was as gracious in accepting help as in giving it. Remembering his father’s words—the only memories he had now of Muhammad Sharif—Ghias thought he would accept Masud’s help and repay him later.
    Ghias and his family took leave of the kuchi who had sheltered them. In a fit of reckless generosity, Ghias gave away his last three gold mohurs to the kindly but poor nomads. They had sheltered hisfamily when no one else had. To them was his first debt of gratitude, to Masud a lifelong one. He had kept the money to pay for their passage to India; now it was no longer necessary. They made their way to Masud’s camp. There, they were provided with a fine tent, and food from the common kitchen until Asmat was well enough to cook for them.
    The caravan, winding almost one kilometer from head to tail, started toward Kabul. As the weeks passed Asmat slowly recovered her strength, color blooming in her cheeks again, her hair regaining its shine. The older children were well fed and happy, sometimes walking along the caravan, sometimes climbing up on the camels to rest. But all was not well. Ghias still had no money to pay a wet nurse, and though Mehrunnisa did drink some goat’s milk, she was growing more and more feeble each day. He thought with a pang of the three gold mohurs; they would have been useful now. But then, the kuchi, poor as they were, had been helpful to his family . . . no, it had been the right decision. When Asmat asked after the money, Ghias said so, firmly, not looking at his daughter.
    One month after Mehrunnisa’s birth, striking eastward from Kabul, the caravan pitched camp near Jamrud, south of the Hindu Kush Mountains in the Khyber hills. The day was just failing, the clean sky ochre-toned. The colors of the land were muted: dull white of snow, smudged blue-black of rocks and boulders, dry brown of dying grass. The slow, biting cold of winter crept in through layers of wool and cotton shawls. Near the camp, lights twinkled from the last village they would come upon for