Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,163
emotions playing over it, but I couldn’t read them.
“I know of one person who might have the information you seek.”
“Who is it?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said.
“If we are to be partners in this, I need to know who it is.”
“Never mind. Leave this to me.”
About a week later, Fereshteh sent a messenger to me requesting that I visit her immediately. On the pretext that I had an urgent errand to fulfill in the bazaar, I asked Rasheed Khan for leave in the middle of the day. He let me go, although I could see in his eyes that it was because he desired to help me, not because he believed me. Abteen Agha snorted at my back as I left.
When I was shown into Fereshteh’s private guest room, she was completely veiled; I couldn’t even see her face because she had covered it with a white silk picheh.
“You may leave us,” she told her maid, who shut the door as quietly as if it were a shadow.
“Fereshteh, is it you?” I said lightly. “I have never seen you so covered.”
She did not reply. A chill froze my heart as she slowly removed the picheh from her face. Her right eyelid was the color of a rotten pomegranate, and the area underneath it was yellow and black. Her bottom lip was swollen to twice its normal size and cleft by a dark scab. Her eyes glistened with what could only be tears.
“By God above!” I roared. “Who did this to you? I will kill him.”
Her hands were shaking, I suspect, from the pain. “Remember how I met Sultanam the first time?”
I thought for a moment before recalling that a client had beaten her so badly that she had gone to the royal mother and demanded her help.
“You went back to that terrible man?”
“Yes.”
Slowly she removed her outer robe, revealing that one of her pale arms and the top of her breasts were covered with eggplant-colored blotches.
“Fereshteh, who would do such an ugly thing? Tell me and I will petition to have the monster punished.”
She shuddered as one of her long sleeves grazed a tender part of her forearm.
“I feel much better today than I did a few days ago. The pain has hardly been the worst of it. It was what he insisted on doing while having sex. I will omit the ugly details. I have paid very dearly for the information you wanted.”
The pit of my stomach filled with bile. “I would never have asked you to sacrifice your person, not even to save my own life.”
“I know,” she said. “That is why I didn’t tell you my plans. I decided that a week of pain would be worth the chance to win my freedom. Perhaps I have.”
A smile of triumph illuminated her face and made her look almost beautiful again despite her ghastly injuries.
“Fereshteh! I would rather have sacrificed myself for you instead.”
“Never mind that now. Here is what I have learned,” she said excitedly. “When Mirza Salman was wooing Mohammad Shah and his wife, he was also working on a plot to elevate their eldest son, Hamza Mirza, to the throne instead. In short, he was betraying them.”
I was seized with hope. “Is there proof that would allow me to get Mirza Salman dismissed?”
“No one will come forth and admit it. The best thing you can do to get the mill is tell Mirza Salman you have proof without telling him from whom. I know enough details about the plot that he will realize your source is impeccable.”
“How do you know it is impeccable?”
“The nobleman I saw was in on the plot with him. He is angry at Mirza Salman because he relinquished the plan to elevate Hamza Mirza when the Shah and his wife offered to keep him as grand vizier. I shall not reveal the nobleman’s name for fear that he would kill me if it came out.”
A shiver of fear went through her. She shook it away and began narrating the details of the plan, which I committed to memory. When the pain became too great for her to bear, she ate a few poppy seeds to relax and rubbed some liniment onto her poor bruised body.
“Thank you, Fereshteh. Your sacrifice has been far greater than any I deserved. I will do everything in my power to live up to what I promised.”
“A silken cord has bound us since we were little more than children,” she said gently.