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and amusement lit in quick succession over Sharif’s face. “A woman? Cause for concern? Surely you jest, Mahabat.”
    “You saw what happened at this morning’s jharoka. She stood in front of us, brazenly, like a woman of the streets. You saw this, and you do not think we need to worry?”
    Muhammad Sharif lifted himself on an elbow. “Ah, you are upset because her Majesty denied one of your petitioners. Her presence at the jharoka was surprising, that is all, most likely the result of a night of pleasure for the Emperor, Mahabat. It will not happen again.”
    “I am not upset about anything, Sharif,” the minister said, bitterness in his voice, though, for he was uneasy. If not for that low, soft word in Jahangir’s ear, Mahabat would not be thinking thus. “What you do not see is that this marriage is different. Emperor Jahangir married her for love.” His mouth twisted. Women had their uses for Mahabat, true, but love was not an emotion he would bestow upon them. “This Empress has no royal blood in her.”
    “She is the daughter of the diwan of the empire, Mahabat. Ghias Beg is responsible for even our salaries as part of his duties as a treasurer. He is well liked, and for the most part, known to be an honorable man.”
    What Sharif said was true. Ghias Beg had come to India as a penniless noble fleeing his Persian homeland. Emperor Akbar had taken him into his court, and when Akbar died, Jahangir made him treasurer of the empire. The Emperor’s new wife was Ghias Beg’s fourth child, born on his journey from Persia to India thirty-four years ago. To Mahabat, she was an old woman; he barely glanced at any woman over thirty. It was like marrying a mother, or an aunt. Yet the Emperor was enamored.
    “What is her attraction?” Sharif asked, echoing Mahabat’s thoughts.
    In reply the minister reached into an inner pocket of his qaba and pulled out a scroll of paper. Untying the red satin thread that held it together, he unrolled it and laid it in front of Sharif, watching as the Grand Vizier caught his breath and expelled it audibly. The portrait was done in watercolors. The background was of shimmering gold, real gold flakes. The woman in the picture sat with her head turned in half-profile, looking into a jeweled mirror held high in hands as delicate as closed lily buds. Her wrists were slung with jade bangles. She wore a small choli covering her breasts and a full-skirted ghagara, her waist bare between the two. Her bare back was swathed with the cascading darkness of her hair. But it was her face, her expression, that caught their attention. Her eyes were a lovely blue in the mirror’s reflection, deepening to almost indigo.
    She had not, however, a beauty classic of their time. She was too thin, her arms too slender, and not voluptuous enough. And her face was too strong, her cheekbones too pronounced. It was, Mahabat thought, almost a man’s face in its intensity, in its concentration of energy. It lacked softness. Yet something made their gazes linger.
    Sharif slowly traced the curve of her face, his finger tarrying longer than necessary over her shoulder. His touch was light, as though the picture was newly finished, the paint not yet dry.
    “This is the new Empress? Is it a true rendition?”
    “I think so. Yes, it must be. This is how she looks under the veil,” Mahabat replied, watching his friend. Now things made some sense to him, why the Emperor had married her, what her physical charms were. The rumors of her beauty, almost elevating her to a goddess-like stature, had been based on truth. If this portrait was to be believed.
    Sharif’s voice was quiet. “How did you get this?”
    Mahabat did not look at his friend. “The less you know the better. Emperor Jahangir would not forgive me for . . . er . . . borrowing this portrait. But I wanted you to know, Sharif. I wanted you to see what she looked like.”
    “You stole this portrait?”
    Mahabat nodded. “Just now. I went to the