Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,2
the world’s special one!
No, my friend, you were never a favorite son
But just another human sufferer, once loved,
Now pierced by sorrow, weeping tears of blood.
When I had finished, Pari smiled. “Well done!” she said. “But is that from the Shahnameh? I don’t recognize it.”
“It is by Nasser, although but a poor imitation of Ferdowsi’s world-brightening verse.”
“It sounds like it is about the fall of the great Jamsheed—and the end of the earthly paradise he created so long ago.”
“That is what inspired Nasser,” I replied, astonished that she knew Ferdowsi’s poem well enough to question whether a small section of verse formed part of his sixty thousand lines.
“The great Samarqandi says in his Four Discourses that a poet should know thirty thousand couplets by heart,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.
“From all that I have heard, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did.”
She ignored the flattery. “And what do the lines mean?”
I pondered them for a moment. “To me, they mean that even if you are a great shah, don’t expect your life to proceed unblemished, since even the most fortunate will be tamed by the world.”
“Have you been tamed by the world?”
“Indeed I have,” I said. “I lost my father and my mother when I was young, and I have relinquished other things I had not expected to lose.”
The princess’s eyes became much softer, like a child’s. “May their souls be in peace.”
“Thank you.”
“I hear you are very loyal,” she said, “like others of your kind.”
“We are known for that.”
“If you were in my service, to whom would you show fealty, me or the Shah?”
How to respond? Like all others, I was bound first to the Shah.
“To you,” I replied, and when she looked quizzical, I added, “knowing that your every decision would be made as the fondest slave of the Shah.”
“Why do you want to serve me?”
“I was honored with the care of your half brother Mahmood for many years, and then I served as his mother’s vizier. Now that she is no longer at court, I crave more responsibility.”
That was not the real reason, of course. Many ambitious men ascended the ranks by serving the royal women, and that was what I wanted to do.
“That is good,” Pari replied. “You will have to be bold to survive in my employ.”
I like a challenge and said so.
Pari arose abruptly and walked to the alcoves in her wall, pausing before a large turquoise bowl whose design showed a black peacock fanning its beautiful tail.
“This is a valuable old bowl,” she said. “Where do you think it is from?”
“Nishapur.”
“Of course,” she scoffed.
Sweat traveled down the back of my neck as I tried to decipher a few hints from the color, the pattern, and the brushwork. “Taymur’s dynasty,” I added quickly, “though I could not say whose reign.”
“It was his son Shahrukh’s,” Pari said. “Only a few pieces of this type have survived in perfect condition.”
She lifted the bowl to admire it, holding it in her hands like a newborn baby, and I admired it with her. The turquoise was so brilliant it was as if the glaze were made of gemstones, and the peacock looked as if it might peck for grain. Suddenly Pari opened her hands and let the bowl fall to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. A shard came to rest near my bare feet.
“What do you have to say about that?” she asked in a tone as sour as green almonds.
“No doubt your courtiers would say that it was a shame for such a costly and beautiful bowl to be destroyed, but that since the act was committed by a royal person, it is a fine thing.”
“That is exactly what they would say,” she replied, kicking one of the shards with a bored look.
“I don’t imagine you would believe they meant it.”
She looked up, interested. “Why not?”
“Because it is nonsense.”
I waited with bated breath until Pari laughed. Then she clapped her hands to summon one of her ladies.
“Bring in my bowl.”
The lady returned with a bowl of a similar pattern and placed it in the alcove, while a maid swept up the shattered pottery. I bent down and examined the shard near my foot. The peacock’s head looked fuzzy, unlike the crisp lines on the bowl that had been brought in, and I understood that she had broken a copy.