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my child?” Mariam Makani asked slyly, her dark eyes bright and amused.
    “Ohhh, Grandmother, you could never give me another present as wonderful as Hiraman Parrot!” Yasaman exclaimed, and then taking the parrot’s keeper by the hand, she led her off.
    “Has my son chosen a husband for her yet?” Mariam Makani asked.
    “She is too young,” Rugaiya replied. “You know how Akbar feels about marrying too young. Yasaman is not quite seven yet. There is plenty of time.”
    “She grows so quickly,” Mariam Makani noted. “She willbe taller than most girls, but already she is a beauty. Akbar is wise to wait with her. She will only grow more beautiful with each passing year. Her bride price will be great, and her husband a man of much influence and power. That is as it should be for a daughter of Akbar the Great.” She paused in her conversation to drink deeply from her cup. “Do you speak to her of Candia Begum?”
    Rugaiya nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It is not fair that she not know of the mother who gave birth to her and who left her so very reluctantly. Their separation was not of Candra’s making. Given the choice—and she was not—Candra would never have left her child.”
    “I am sorry I did not know her,” Mariam Makani said. “Akbar grieved greatly for her; and you and Jodh Bai speak so fondly of her. What was she like?”
    Rugaiya Begum was somewhat surprised by her mother-in-law’s query. Mariam Makani had never before inquired about Candra. In the brief time that Candra had been with them, Mariam Makani had been traveling on a religious pilgrimage. She had been home but a few days when her son’s two favorite wives had sent for her out of desperation. Candra was gone and Akbar had locked himself in a high tower of the Lahore palace. Candra’s weeping servants, Rohana and Toramalli, had brought the infant Princess Yasaman to Rugaiya Begum. They were virtually incoherent with their grief.
    “Candra was a beautiful woman,” Rugaiya said slowly, striving to remember the face of her long-ago friend. “She was quite different from anyone we have ever seen. Even the Portuguese women are similar to us in coloring, as you know. Candra had skin like polished silk. It was as white as the mountain snows. Her eyes were as green as the emeralds you wear, Mariam Makani; and her hair! Ahh, what hair she had! It was a deep, rich brown, and it was filled with fiery red lights. She called the color,” and here Rugaiya Begum cudgeled her memory for a long moment, “ Auburn! ” she finished triumphantly.
    “I have always known it was from Candra that Yasaman gained her light-colored eyes,” the elderly woman replied, “but I thought their eyes would be the same color. Emerald-green you say. How interesting. I have seen blue-eyed Englishmen at my son’s court; but none have had eyes like a turquoise, as does Yasaman. I wonder if there is one with such eyes in Candra’s family? But tell me, Rugaiya Begum, of Candra herself.Her beauty I suspected, for my granddaughter is beautiful. The fairest of Akbar’s children, in fact. Tell me of the woman my son loved so deeply.” Mariam Makani reached for a honeyed pastry and popped it into her mouth.
    “Candra was intelligent,” Rugaiya said quietly. “She had exquisite manners. The first time Jodh Bai saw her in the baths, Candra recognized in Jodh Bai a woman of royalty and bowed as they passed. She was kind, and there was no meanness in her at all. Almira and some of Akbar’s other wives were fiercely jealous of her. They set themselves against Candra and took every opportunity they could find to insult her. She met their insolence with spirited courtesy, accepting none of their slights, and defending her position with gallantry. Her demeanor infuriated them.” Rugaiya chuckled.
    “Did she truly love my son?”
    “Oh, yes! And when Yasaman was born to Candra, she was radiant with her happiness. Then when Yasaman was but six months of age, tragedy struck.