Free The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan

Majesty.”
    Jahangir threw the man some rupees, showering silver over his head. He scrambled in the dust for the coins and counted them surreptitiously. Fifteen rupees! It would feed his family for a few months.
    The elephant carried the Emperor and his wives into the forest. When they had reached the soldiers guarding the enclosure with their nets, the Emperor signaled them to move on inward.
    The forest was thick and dense with vegetation, overhead the trees formed an awning from the rising sun. It was cool and damp in the shade, redolent of rotting leaves. All was quiet except for the sound of twigs and grass crackling under the feet of the soldiers as they moved forward. A quail flew out of the grass, squawking, a group of gazelles flew nimbly across an open expanse. Muskets rose to shoulders and then fell. The lion was the prey.
    Jahangir leaned back on his cushion and closed his eyes. He would normally be alert, watching for a sign of the lion, a flash of a golden mane in the green of the forest. But today, the two women who sat ahead of him, their backs rigid, leaning over the edge of the howdah, were the hunters. Since Mehrunnisa had come to him, he had been filled with happiness. If he could rub her shoulders now, take away the tension, he would do it. But there were other women in his harem who had a claim on him, as Jagat Gosini was demonstrating. He knew that Mehrunnisa wanted the royal seal, and the title of Padshah Begam, but she would have to earn it. Jahangir would not interfere in the matters of the zenana, even though he had the power to give Mehrunnisa anything in the world.
    Mehrunnisa swayed with the rhythm of the howdah. She breathed in the smells of the forest, listened in the unnatural stillness for sounds of game. Her palms became clammy, and the musket slipped from her hand. She wiped her hands on her pajamas and picked up the gun again. She did not look at Empress Jagat Gosini. They had not talked since their greeting. Words were useless, for they each knew what they wanted. And only one of them would get it.
    By her side, Jagat Gosini sat forward, her eyes moving through the shadowed and lit undergrowth with practiced ease. Her hands gripped her gun, right finger loosely curled around the trigger.
    The breeze shifted direction imperceptibly; the women did not notice it. But the elephant twitched its long trunk, moving it up and to one side, then the next. It stopped, and the mahout said over his shoulder, “It senses the lion, your Majesties.”
    The two women tensed, bringing up their muskets. But the grasses lay still, unruffled, nothing to indicate that an animal moved within them. The elephant started to quiver, and they felt the vibrations that shuddered through its large body. The lion was close, that was for sure, but where? And they waited, the soldiers quiet behind them, the elephant trembling, the Emperor watching them.
    Then they heard the voice of the lion, to the right of the royal elephant, there, at the rear of a large rock. It was not a loud roar but a questing one, yet it fractured through the silence in the forest. Drugged, its senses dull, the lion had not seen them yet, or heard them, or smelled the scent of their skins. It came around the rock and froze where it stood. It saw the elephant, the humans atop it, the humans around it. All the soldiers had their muskets raised by this time, sighted steadily on the lion.
    Mehrunnisa flinched. She had seen a lion once, in the royal zoo. Then it had looked so scrawny, so pallid, pacing its cage. This one was three times the size of the royal lion, gold-tufted and heavily muscled. This was a lion in the wild? She watched, mesmerized, as the lion shook its head to clear its drugged brain, then leaped through the air, going for the royal elephant.
    The elephant immediately reared back, trumpeting in fear, lifting its forelegs and almost displacing the howdah. As the howdah tilted, Mehrunnisa jammed her shoulder against one of the posts