drinkers clustered around to ask about my sorrows. I told them I had lost a treasured woman, and then they all wept with me, for who hadn’t? Mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters—we had all lost someone dear.
Early in the morning I awoke on the tattered cushions, my head burning. My hair was matted with blood. All the other men were gone, and my money purse was gone, too. I lay there for a moment, wondering if I could arise without pitching over, and then I remembered the furtive maid and her account of what had happened to Pari. Oh my esteemed lieutenant! Oh my battered heart!
I arose unsteadily, found my feet, and walked back to the palace in the cold. My turban had been stolen along with my warm outer robe, but the men had not wished me to freeze to death, as they had left me my shoes. The snow was thick and white on the ground. I hurried through the frozen streets. When I arrived at my room, I opened the door and was surprised to see that although Balamani was gone, a tiny figure was huddled on my bed. It was Massoud Ali. He woke up, rushed toward me, threw his arms around me, and howled, his tiny face collapsing with grief. I deeply regretted not having been there to comfort him.
“My child, my child!” I said. “Don’t swallow so much sorrow.”
“What will become of us?” he asked between sobs. “Where will we go?”
I did not have an answer.
“Who will take us into their service now?”
“Her mother,” I replied promptly, trying to comfort him.
His sobs became huge.
“She has been killed as well.”
I felt as if I had been stabbed with a sword. No wonder the boy messenger had never returned.
“May God protect us. An old woman!”
Massoud Ali sobbed harder all of a sudden. “And a little child has been killed, too!”
“Who?”
“Shoja.”
By God above, they had not even spared an infant. Poor Mahasti! Pari had offered to send her child away from the palace to protect him, but Mahasti had refused.
“Don’t worry,” I said. I wanted to sound calm and to reassure the poor child, who was quaking with fear. “We will find a new protector, I promise you.”
“The princess was kind to me,” he said, still weeping. “Who will be kind to me now?”
“I will,” I replied. “I promise to be kind to you always. Now come sleep, and we will sort all of this out later.”
I led him to my bedroll, tucked him in, and held his small hand until he fell asleep. As I sat listening to Massoud Ali breathe, his mouth slightly open, his cheeks salted white from his tears, I knew that he had reason to be scared. We had been the closest servants of a princess who had fallen into the deepest disgrace. Would the new shah look upon us as traitors? We could not know. Our survival depended on being thought humble and powerless, but what if Mohammad and his wife judged us otherwise?
My father’s death came to my mind as freshly as if it had just happened. I had become, once again, the closest servant of someone whose star had plummeted into the sea. My heart was torn anew, and I wept as if I were a young man again facing the rest of my life all alone.
CHAPTER 9
BREAD AND SALT
Fereydoon trussed Zahhak, threw him onto a donkey, and rode with him to the foothills of Mount Damavand. He intended to kill him there, but an angel instructed him to stay his hand. Instead, Fereydoon climbed the mountain until he came upon a cave populated by boulders. Slinging Zahhak over his back, he scaled the tallest boulder, threw Zahhak onto the rock, and pounded nails into his arms and legs until he dangled over the middle of the cave.
I suspect that Zahhak did not die. He and his snakes are eternally suspended, awaiting the moment when the forces of evil unleash their powers again.
After Massoud Ali fell asleep, I bathed at the hammam, dressed in a black tunic and trousers, black robe, and black and brown sash, and walked to Pari’s house near the Ali Qapu. My head was pounding from my excesses of the night before, and the wound near my temple had swollen. Azar Khatoon opened the door clad in a dark mourning robe, her eyes red from weeping.
“I take refuge in almighty God,” she said, her voice trembling. A tear slid down her cheek and coursed over