Free The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie Page B

kings, could be said to be an Eastern Elizabeth, mustachioed, nonvirginal, but in the essence of their greatness they were the same.
    Abul Fazl stiffened. “You dare to set my master no higher than a woman,” he said softly. “You are fortunate indeed to be holding that scroll which bears, as I see, the authentic seal of the crown of England, and therefore obliges us to give you safe conduct. Otherwise it would be my inclination to reward such insolence by throwing you to the rogue elephant we keep tethered on a nearby lawn, to rid us of unacceptable swine.”
    “The emperor is famous throughout the world for his generous appreciation of women,” said Mogor dell’Amore. “I am sure he will not be insulted, as the jewel of the East, to be likened to another great jewel, whatever her sex.”
    “The Nazarene sages sent to this court by the Portuguese of Goa speak poorly of your jewel.” Abul Fazl shrugged. “They say she is against God, and a puny ruler who will surely soon be crushed. They say that hers is a nation of thieves and that you are in all probability a spy.”
    “The Portuguese are pirates,” said Mogor dell’Amore. “They are buccaneers and scoundrels. No wise man should trust what they say.”
    “Father Acquaviva of the Society of Jesus is an Italian like yourself,” Abul Fazl rejoined, “and Father Monserrate his companion comes from Spain.”
    “If they come here under the flag of the scurrilous Portugee,” the other insisted, “then Portugee pirate dogs is what they have become.”
    Loud laughter broke out from a place above their heads, as if a god were mocking him.
    “Have mercy, great
munshi,
” a huge voice boomed. “Let the young man live, at least until we have read the message he brings.” The silken canopies fell away to the corners of the chamber and there, above them, seated on the cushioned top of the sandstone tree in the Position of Royal Ease, and dissolving into mirthful guffaws, was Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, the Grand Mughal himself, revealed to view, and looking like a giant parrot on an outsize perch.

    He had woken up in an oddly fretful mood, and not even his beloved’s most skilled ministrations had calmed him. In the middle of the night a disoriented crow had somehow entered Queen Jodha’s bedchamber and the royal couple had been awoken by its terrified cawing, which the sleep-heavy emperor heard as an intimation of the end of the world. For one terrifying instant a black wing brushed his cheek. By the time the servants shooed the crow out again the emperor’s nerves were jangling. After that his sleep was filled with portents. At one point he seemed to see the black beak of that apocalyptic crow reaching into his chest and pulling out his heart to eat it, as Hind of Mecca on the battlefield of Uhud had eaten the heart of the fallen Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle. If that mighty hero could fall to a cowardly javelin then he, too, might be felled at any moment by an arrow from the dark, flying as the crow flies, ugly, deadly, and black. If a crow could get past all the defenses of his guards and flap its wings in his face, then might not a murderer be able to do the same?
    Thus, full of forebodings of death, he was defenseless against the advent of love.

    The arrival of the rogue calling himself the English ambassador had intrigued him and after he ordered Abul Fazl to have some sport with the fellow his spirits began to lighten. Abul Fazl, in reality the most companionable of men, was better at performing ferocity than anyone in Sikri, and as the emperor listened to the fun below him, hidden as he was above the heads of the two men, the interrogator and the interrogated, the clouds of the night dissipated at last, and were forgotten. “The charlatan has acquitted himself well,” he thought. When he pulled the tasseled cords that released the silk canopies and revealed his presence to the men below, he was in a thoroughly affable frame of mind, but quite