"Your Highness."
Mumtaz giggled behind her veil and turned to Shirin, speaking in Persian. "Do we have to speak barbarous Turki because of him?"
"Just for this afternoon."
"I welcome you in the name of His Highness." Mumtaz's Turki was accented but otherwise flawless. "He asked me to meet you and show you the garden and the palace."
She began chattering to Shirin in a mixture of Persian and Turki as they walked into the garden. It soon revealed itself to be a matrix of bubbling fountains and geometrical stone walkways, beside which rows of brightly colored flowers bloomed. Ahead of them the small three-story palace rose skyward like a long-stemmed lotus, its top a high dome with a sensuous curve. The ground floor was an open arcade, with light interior columns and a row of connecting quarters off each side for women and servants, screened behind marble grillwork.
Mumtaz directed them on through the garden and into the cool arcade of the palace. At one side, near the back, a stone stairway spiraled upward to the second floor. Mumtaz led the way, motioning them to follow.
At the second floor they emerged into a small chamber strewn with bolsters and carpets that seemed to be Jadar's reception room. Mumtaz ignored it as she started up the next circular staircase.
The topmost room was tiny, dazzling white, completely unfurnished. The ornate marble cupola of the dome towered some thirty feet above their heads, and around the sides were carved niches decorated with colored stone. Light beamed through the room from a wide doorway leading to a balcony, which was also bare save for an ornately carved sitar leaned against its railing.
"His Highness has taken a particular fondness for this room and refuses to allow anything to be placed in it. He sits here for hours, and on the balcony there, doing I don't know what." Mumtaz gestured toward the doorway. "He wanted me to bring you here to wait for him." She sighed. "I agree with him that this room brings a great feeling of peace. But what good is peace that cannot last? I don't know how much longer we can stay here." Mumtaz turned and hugged Shirin again. "I so miss Agra. And the Jamuna. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever see it again."
Shirin stroked Mumtaz's dark hair, then said something to her in Persian. Mumtaz smiled and turned to Hawksworth.