Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,41
I attend to a matter of some urgency.”
He hadn’t even graced the women with his presence during a meal. They looked at each other, perplexed, except for Sultan-Zadeh, who seemed relieved. Pari’s mother and Zahra Baji filled the awkward silence by offering their congratulations to Sultanam.
I took the damp handkerchief from Pari.
“What is wrong with him?” she asked in a low tone.
“I fear he has forgotten himself,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t be in power if it weren’t for you.”
“Yes, whether he admits it or not.”
“Perhaps he requires time to settle in. It must be difficult to be a prisoner one day and a shah the next.”
“It was like speaking with a hermit who has forsaken proper manners,” she said, her face drained of color.
Servants entered with tablecloths and the beginnings of a feast of roasted meats and stews, but Pari told me she had no appetite and didn’t wish to stay. As she said her farewells, pleading a womanly ache, Khadijeh smoothed both ends of the kerchief that covered her hair and caught my eye. I adjusted my sash, our signal that I would visit her later in the evening, and she looked over her right shoulder to give her assent.
When it was so late that the moon had risen and all that could be heard was the howling of jackals, I arose from my bed to go see Khadijeh. The moon was obscured by a cloud, and I had to count the steps to where the path branched to the one I followed to her quarters. When I arrived, the eunuch on duty was asleep on the ground, his head against the door, his jaw open, his weapon slack in his hand. All the better for my purposes, since it saved me a coin. I stepped over him into the building and walked down the corridor softly until I came to Khadijeh’s door, which I pushed open. Despite the late hour, she was dressed and seated in a dark corner of the room. I sat beside her and took her small brown hand in my own.
“How I needed to see you!” she said. “Was it easy to get past the guard?”
“He is as fast asleep as if he were dead.”
Khadijeh smiled. “I put a sleeping potion in a jug of wine and offered it to him,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“Because he must not know you are here. No one must know,” she added vehemently, and then flung her arms around me and buried her head in my neck. I felt a tear on her cheek.
“Khadijeh—soul of mine—what ails you?” I asked, perplexed.
Her body trembled against mine. “I am to belong to another.”
My throat closed for a moment. I held her tightly and stroked her hair, inhaling the rose oil she used on her temples.
“Alas! I hoped it wouldn’t be so soon.”
She pressed herself against me, and I felt the roundness of her breast and thought about how she would soon be pressing against someone else.
“Ah, my beloved. How I will miss you!”
“And I you,” she said, tears springing to her cheeks.
“Who is your intended—a warrior from the provinces?”
“Better than that.”
“A nobleman here at court?”
“Wrong again.”
“What could be better than that?
“You won’t believe it. It is the new shah himself.”
“Deh!” I stared at her in surprise.
“It is the truth.”
“How wondrous is your fate. When you were ill on the slavers’ boat, when you and your brother were burned raw by the sun and scorned by men, you probably never imagined yourself as a queen!”
“Never,” she said, “except in my dreams. It is, of course, a temporary marriage.”
The Shah would save his four permanent marriages for women of good families with whom he wished to make alliances.
“No matter! One day you will be a royal mother, with your own quarters and your own servants. If you have a son who lives and prospers, you could become as powerful as Sultanam.”
I was babbling to avoid facing the terrible truth: that the one sweetness I had in the world was about to be taken away and given to a man who had done nothing to earn it.
“I would be grateful to have my own household rather than serving at the whim of others.”
“How did this come to pass?”
“Ever since Isma‘il was released from prison, Sultanam has been talking about finding him a wife. In his letters, he has fretted that he has only been able to sire one daughter. Sultanam thinks someone has laid the evil eye upon him, and she is determined to remove