“Thank you, Aunt,” Arwa said. “I appreciate your wisdom.”
Arwa wore her veil.
Jihan led the retinue as always, with Gulshera once again at her side, where Arwa had no opportunity to speak with her.
They crossed the great bridges of the silver lake to the imperial palace proper once more, but this time they did not go to the Hall of the World. Instead they entered the women’s quarters of the Emperor’s own great palace. Arwa stared about, wide-eyed. Arwa had near laughed, when Jihan had called her household humble. But she had not been lying. In comparison to the central women’s quarters, theywere. The ceilings were gold, the walls mirrored with gems and silver alike.
They were led to a grand hall. Musicians were playing in the corner of the room. A courtesan was dancing, dressed in a long skirt of deep blue and imperial green. Large tables, arranged to reflect the importance of their occupants, were set around the room to hold lesser members of each imperial household.
The table of the imperial family was unmistakable. At the center of the room, small but wrought of ivory carved to resembled roses, it was surrounded by a corona of cushions of brocade and velvet where the family’s closest companions knelt in attendance. At the table itself, an older woman with henna-red hair drawn back beneath a high coned cap was already seated. Princess Masuma, surely. Next to her sat the boy Prince Nasir. He was smiling, chattering volubly to his aunt beside him.
On the other side of the table, expression set and grim, sat Prince Akhtar. He turned as Jihan and her women entered. His expression thawed a little at the sight of her. He quirked an eyebrow, still unsmiling.
“Have you come to save me from this farce?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She glided forward and performed a graceful bow to her brothers and her aunt. Then she rose. “I see you began without me. A shame. I do so love our family gatherings.”
“I told Akhtar he should ask you to hurry,” said Nasir, practically squirming in his seat. He had a great deal of energy, this one, when propriety did not force him to be still. “Parviz will be here soon.”
“And I told Akhtar not to rush you,” Masuma said, smiling sweetly. Her eyes were flat. “I know how young girls are.”
“Thank you, Aunt,” Jihan said, with equal poison. “How kind.”
“This is a celebration for your brother, Jihan,” Masuma said. “Do try to sound less—difficult.”
“I will do my best, Aunt.”
“What does it matter? He won’t appreciate it,” Akhtar said to Masuma, drumming his fingers idly against the table. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Aunt; he may be your favorite, but you know him. He’ll make sour faces and revile you for wasting your coin on frivolity. He doesn’t understand the value of making people happy.”
Masuma’s lips thinned.
“Sit, Jihan,” she said sharply. “Let your retinue go and enjoy themselves.”
She spoke to Jihan as if she were a child, and Jihan kneeled at the table with a sweep of her skirt and a tilt of her chin that was all defiance. Her smile was sharp enough to cut, and Masuma’s expression soured all the more at the sight of it.
As Arwa moved to her own distant table, slowed by the press of women around her, she heard Nasir begin to describe Parviz’s arrival to the city with anxious enthusiasm. There were flowers, he told them, roses and carnations and marigolds, thrown in abundance so that Parviz’s chariot crushed them as he moved and released perfume into the air. And he threw gold coins to the people watching too—
“I’m surprised no one was harmed,” muttered Akhtar. “But he does like to make a spectacle of himself.”
Masuma gave him a sharp look.
“More drink for you, I think,” she announced, gesturing a servant over. “Perhaps it will soften your tongue.”
Nasir wilted into silence.
Oh, child, Arwa thought, as she walked. She felt suddenly rather old.You will never soften that family of yours, though you may break yourself trying.
Food was served. Great platters of fruit, fish and meat charred to sweetness and rich with spices, bread so thin it flaked in her fingers, and rice dotted with raisins and pomegranate seeds that burst sharp and sweet against her tongue. The courtesans danced; the musicians played; the women gossiped and laughed and ate. Parviz arrived in the midst of all the revelry without fanfare. Only the lull of silence that fell over the feasters made Arwa aware that he had entered.
His tunic was plain gray, his turban unadorned. She would not have known him for who he was if he had not crossed the room to face his family, if he had not had a military man’s posture, straight and tall. He walked with a soft, weighty tread. He bowed his head to each of his siblings and his aunt in turn, without speech, without meeting their eyes. Then he sat, made a curt gesture to a trembling maidservant, and took the carafe of wine from her hands. And drank.
Arwa watched him. They all watched him, celebration tilting ever so slightly into unease. Even seated, even silent with wine in his hands, he had a terrible, compelling gravity to his presence. He belonged somewhere more severe, more dangerous, a world of steel and war. Beneath his gaze the feast felt… frivolous. Small.
Masuma tried to make conversation, her smile painfully fixed. Nasir looked between all of them, eyes darting to and fro.
Akhtar said nothing. His mouth was thin.
Jihan raised her own glass.
