Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,118

by your chador, like the moon by a cloud!” she teased.

“Don’t the poets describe the fairest men and women in exactly the same way?” I teased back. “They have rosebud lips, cheeks as red as apples, large, soulful eyes, dark velvety eyebrows, curly black hair, and a beauty mark just like yours.”

Her long, throaty laugh kept me company as she descended the stairs. As it faded I wondered, if boys and girls were so similar as love objects, both in painting and in poetry, why were they treated so differently when they grew into men and women? What was the difference between having a tool and not having one? Even I could not say.

I had just finished my meal when the heavy wooden door to Hassan’s house creaked opened, and Hassan, the Shah, and their men, all in disguise, entered their courtyard and walked toward the wall with the secret door. I rushed downstairs to tell Pari.

“They have gone out,” I said, hearing the excitement in my own voice.

“I will summon Fareed,” Pari said, her hands trembling as she smoothed the hair at her temples.

“I will go to the passageway to await him.”

Just then my stomach roared nervously.

“Wait!” Pari commanded. She bent down to a tray and wrapped some bread and cheese in a cloth. “At least take this.”

I opened my palms and bowed to accept her offering, touched to the core of my heart. No doubt Pari had never handed food to a servant before. Her kind gesture acknowledged the risk I was taking on her behalf.

From the Promenade of the Royal Stallions, I found the small park, disappeared behind the trees, and descended into the dark with the key to the passageway’s doors at hand. For a moment, I felt I had lost my sight, and not knowing the way as well as Pari did, I groped around the passageway and its many offshoots, but soon my feet remembered our previous walks and carried me along until the ground sloped upward and I felt the bag of money against my toe.

Once I had assured myself that no one was near, I removed the tile and placed the box of digestives and a bag with half the money on the floor of the pavilion in the next room. Descending again, I pulled the tile into place above me, sat down in the passageway, and listened for footsteps. If there were more than one pair, I would know that we had been betrayed, and I would flee through the passageway and warn the princess.

I ate my bread and cheese and prepared for a long night. The damp underground air seeped into my skin, as if I had been buried in my grave. I went over every detail of our plans in my mind, plagued by the one thing that could mean our doom: The box would not bear Hassan Beyg’s seal. I began thinking about what would happen if we were to get caught. Of course we would be killed, but before we died, we would be tormented in ways too terrible to contemplate. I imagined how the soles of our feet would be beaten until they bled, our eyes burned with hot irons, our backs broken.

The sound of running made my hair stand on end, and my ears went on full alert. A deep scraping noise made me worry that someone was trying to remove the tile. Something brushed my knee, and I leapt to my feet, stifling a cry. Pulling my dagger out of its scabbard, I thrust it before me, determined to strike first. My dagger made contact with something firm, and I grunted with satisfaction and relief. I groped for my prey, but my fingers found only the dirt wall. Angry squeaks in the distance made me realize that I had been startled by rats.

I don’t know how much time passed before I heard footsteps. They paused in the room where I had left the box. The coins jingled, then fell quiet. Wood scraped against the tiles. Then the footsteps retreated.

I waited until the only sound I could hear was my own pulse before I lifted the tile and looked around. The box and bag were gone. I descended back into the passageway to await Fareed’s return. Now my agitation came back. Would Fareed perform his mission as he had promised? If he were caught, how quickly would he betray us? Had he already sent someone to investigate the pavilion? The scuttling of small animals in