Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,85

sky. I suspected Gowhar had tried to destroy incriminating papers, but then I noticed several charred poetry manuscripts, their pages browned and curled.

“Agha!” I cried out in alarm to the manservant. “Some books are being burned by accident!”

He looked away. Gowhar threw back her head and laughed, making a terrible sound.

“Not by accident.”

I stared at her.

“Isma‘il will not have them!” Gowhar cried. She opened her palms and gestured to the air around her. “They’re safe at last.”

“You mean—you mean—” I could not put the question into words. “Where are they?”

“I burned them.”

“All of them?”

“All except for those,” she said, gesturing toward the charred remains in the fire.

Thousands of books—the work of countless scribes, gilders, and illuminators—converted into smoke in one morning! The loss was too large to fathom.

Gowhar’s triumph faded when she saw my expression. Her sobs racked her body with so much force that she gasped and choked. I rushed to Pari’s house and fetched several eunuchs and a lady physician. They brought a sleeping potion to Gowhar, who drank it and said, “I pray I may never wake again.”

In the midst of all of these calamities, Mirza Salman summoned me to his office to tell me that Shamkhal Cherkes had been named Guardian of the Shah’s Most Precious Seal, taking Ibrahim’s place. Ibrahim’s grave had not even been dug when the announcement was made. How quickly a favorite had been destroyed, and how quickly all traces of him were already being rubbed away!

Pari resolved to visit her uncle to ask him to help save the remaining princes. As guardian of the seal, he now held one of the highest positions in the land.

“We can no longer think of ourselves, nor worry about proprieties,” Pari said sternly. I didn’t realize what she meant until she reached into a nearby trunk and handed me some women’s clothing: a black chador and a picheh for covering the face.

“As soon as we leave the palace, you must remove your turban and cloak yourself in these.”

“Leave the palace?”

“We are going in secret to see Shamkhal at his home. That will protect him from having to acknowledge our visit.”

“That is forbidden!”

“Javaher, we have no choice.”

If we were caught, I would be punished for allowing her to leave. I was risking my livelihood and possibly even my life. But Pari spoke the truth: What good would our lives be if Isma‘il killed all his brothers and, possibly, his sisters?

“Princess, how do you expect to get out?”

“Follow me.”

We walked through the harem gardens so quickly that the air around Pari seemed to move out of her way. I followed her to a remote corner of the grounds, which were surrounded by smooth walls too high for anyone to climb. To my surprise, she disappeared into thick hedges. Beyond them lay an old pavilion that might have once been used for outdoor picnics, but was now crumbling and surrounded by weeds. Pari stepped into a room inside the pavilion, whose flooring consisted of green and yellow glazed tiles, some of which were chipped. Bending down in the middle of the floor, Pari pushed aside a large, heavy tile, panting with effort. A wide opening led down into a passageway.

“Ajab!” I said. So that was how she and Maryam had managed to visit the gypsies. Nothing about the princess could be predicted.

We walked down an incline into the dank passageway, and I pulled the tile into place above us. We continued in the dark until we reached a tall wooden door, which Pari unlocked with a key the size of my hand.

“I don’t have a lamp,” she said, “but I know the way without fail. Hold the end of my kerchief so you don’t get lost.”

Pari locked the door behind us. The tunnel was as cold and silent as the grave.

“You must never speak of this,” she said.

“I promise,” I replied, delighted that she trusted me enough to reveal her secret exit.

We walked for a long time before arriving at a second door. Pari unlocked it and we entered another passageway, stepped up on a landing, and kept shuffling in the dirt until we emerged into another crumbling building in a copse of trees in one of the rarely used parks near the Promenade of the Royal Stallions.

I wrapped myself in the picheh and the chador, holding the black cloth under my chin. It was possible to see through the loose weave of the face veil, but I felt blinded. As we traversed the park, I tried to