Beneath a Marble Sky Chapter 4

Darkness

• Jahanara gets married. She is not happy.
• Jahanara's new husband is Khondamir, a wealthy silver merchant with ties to Persian trade. He's also a major status seeker and social climber. He's twice Jahanara's age, fat, and just gross. Gee, thanks, Mom and Dad, you're quite the matchmakers.
• Jahanara survives her miserable wedding day by getting drunk.
• Khondamir rapes Jahanara on her wedding night. No amount of booze will make that a better situation.
• At first, Jahanara tries really hard to be a good wife. But Khondamir is a cad—to him, she's just a new possession to be used. He just wants her to have his babies.
• Eww.
• When Jahanara doesn't please Khondamir, he forces her to watch him do it with concubines. Nice guy, that Khondamir.
• Jahanara's family members are all travelling on their military campaign to the south against the Deccans, and apparently experiencing war with them is something Jahanara would prefer over married life. Yikes.
• Finally, Jahanara works up the nerve to make a deal with her husband: if she tells him how to save his fruit trees (which are very obviously dying from being over-watered), would he let her ride a horse to visit friends?
• Jahanara's cleverness gains her permission to go visit Ladli in the Red Fort.
• Ladli tells Jahanara about her love affair with the son of a fisherman. She sees no reason to keep herself untouched for some still-hypothetical husband.