Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,156

weight in turquoise. Now our job is to convince those around Mohammad Khodabandeh that you are loyal. I will speak with Anwar. You need to do your part by singing the praises of the new Shah.”

It was exactly the type of thing I had advised Pari to do, and it filled me with dread.

“Don’t let your feelings for the princess impede what you must do,” Balamani chided. “What is wrong with you? Why is your heart so bruised?”

“It is a matter of justice,” I said angrily. “It riles me to see men winning high position because they’re bullies and blackguards, while they send Pari to an early grave.”

“She played a man’s game and fell with honor. Your only mistake was that you loved her.”

“A man has to love someone.”

“Perhaps you are no longer suited to palace life.”

“What else is there for me? I have no male family and no other employ.”

“I know.”

“I miss her. I keep thinking I hear her voice.”

“Are you forgetting your place? Your job is to serve the shah, no matter who it is.”

“Balamani, please stop. You sound like a sycophantic slave.” I turned away in disgust.

Balamani grabbed my sash, bringing me to a halt.

“I intend to say whatever is required to save you,” he said, and in his eyes I saw the goodwill of a longtime friend.

Because there was to be no public mourning ceremony, there was no place to grieve. Nor could I speak about Pari except in whispers because it was dangerous to show such partisanship for an executed princess. My grief felt as explosive as gunpowder packed in a cannon. Now I was mourning two treasures, Khadijeh and Pari, and thoughts of one would lead me to thoughts of the other until my heart felt pounded blue.

The palace women asked me repeatedly to describe what had happened to Pari. I told the story without sparing the details so that everyone would know how the princess had been butchered.

The younger women were frightened by the story. “That is what happens when you act like a man,” Koudenet said, a shiver running through her. “She should have married and contented herself with raising a family.”

Sultanam, who had come from Qom for her son’s coronation, was more thoughtful: “If she hadn’t been so powerful, they would have sent her into exile. She terrified them.”

To compound my grief, the loss of Pari’s patronage meant that my plans for bringing Jalileh to court had turned to dust. I suspected that if I wrote my cousin the truth—that my patron had died—she would give up hope and sacrifice Jalileh. Instead I gathered all the money I had and sent it as a gift, describing it as a foretaste of the reward I would provide when I was able to bring my sister to Qazveen. I wrote to Jalileh separately, hinted at my difficulties, and urged her to resist their marriage plans.

This fresh defeat upset me deeply. If Jalileh were to suffer more bad luck, there would be no reason for me to awaken in this world. But I had no idea what I could do to save her.

The day we went to Forty Columns Hall to witness Mohammad Khodabandeh taking the crown, I felt nothing but cynicism. A slightly different group of mullahs and nobles than the last time approached the throne in order of highest rank and kissed the feet of the man who would henceforth be known as Mohammad Shah. When Mirza Salman strutted self-importantly to the throne in his dandified clothes, a burst of loathing seized me like the trembling that comes from the plague. As I swore loyalty to the Shah with the others, I dared to glance into Mohammad Shah’s dark eyes. They looked vacant and empty of feeling.

In the days after the coronation, the few remaining princes, the nobles, and the highest-ranking palace employees began to be summoned one by one to see the Shah and given their posts and promotions. Anwar instructed me to report to him until it was my turn, which was likely to take weeks. He told me that my interim assignment would be to read the princess’s mail, which was still arriving at the palace in great quantities, and to inform him of any important news. For the sake of courtesy, I was also to write to correspondents of significant rank and announce her death; otherwise, they would be insulted that their letters had gone unanswered. “She was unparalleled,” Anwar whispered to me sympathetically, “and all of us