The Moghul

rear that murmured down an inclined and striated marble slab. Stairways on either side of the room curved around to an overhead balcony, directly above where he now stood, which was the post where eunuchs waited when the women came to cool themselves by the fountain.
    The balcony where he now stood jutted out from the fort, supported by thick sandstone columns, and from his position he could look along the side of the fort and see the Jasmine Tower of Queen Janahara. When he realized he also could be seen, he instinctively stepped back into the cool corridor.
    The women were inside their apartments, asleep, and the corridor empty as he began to descend the circular stairs leading to the next level below, the quarters for eunuchs and female servants. As he rounded the last curve of the stair and emerged into the light, three eunuchs stared up in shock from their game of cards. It vaguely registered that they probably were gambling, which he had strictly prohibited in the zenana , but he decided to ignore it this afternoon.
    The circular pasteboard cards of the eunuchs' scattered across the stone floor as they hurried to teslim . He paused to drink again from the cup and absently studied the painted faces on the cards dropped by the eunuch nearest him. It was not a bad hand. Lying on the marble were four high cards from the bishbar , powerful, suits—the lord of horses, the king of elephants, the king of infantry, and the throned wazir of the fort—and three from the kambar , weaker, suits—the king of snakes, the king of divinities, and the throned queen. He stared for a moment at the king of elephants, the suit he always preferred to play, and wondered at the happenstance that the king had fallen beneath the queen, whose face covered his golden crown. He shrugged it away as coincidence and turned toward the stairs leading to the next lower level.
    Two more levels remained.
    The air was increasingly musty now, noticeably smoky from the lamps, and he hurried on, reaching the next landing without stopping. The windows on this level had shrunk to only a few hand spans, and now they were secured with heavy stone latticework. The eunuchs were arguing at the other end of the corridor and failed even to notice him. He told himself to try to remember this, and drank again as he paused to listen to the metrical splash of the Jamuna lapping against the outer wall. Then he stepped quietly down the last flight of stairs.
    The final level. As he emerged into the corridor, two guarding eunuchs who had been dozing leaped to their feet and drew swords before recognizing him. Both fell on their face in teslim , their turbans tumbling across the stone floor.
    Arangbar said nothing, merely pointed toward a doorway at the end of the corridor. The startled eunuchs strained against their fat as they lifted torches from the walls and then turned officiously to lead the way. As they walked, Arangbar paused to stare through an arched doorway leading into a large domed room off the side of the hall. A dozen eunuchs were inside, some holding torches while others laced a white cotton rope through a wooden pulley attached to the lower side of a heavy wooden beam that spanned the room, approximately ten feet above the floor.
    The two eunuchs with Arangbar also stopped, wondering if His Majesty had come to supervise the hanging that afternoon of the two zenana women who had been discovered in a flagrant sexual act in the Shish Mahal, the mirrored zenana baths.
    Arangbar studied the hanging room for a moment with glazed eyes, not remembering that he had sentenced the women that same morning, and then waved the guards on along the corridor, past the doors that secured dark cells. These were the cells used to confine women who had broken zenana regulations.
    At the end of the corridor was a door wider than the others, and behind it was a special cell, with a window overlooking the Jamuna. He walked directly to the door and drank again from his cup as he ordered it opened. The guards were there at once, keys jangling. The door was massive and thick, and it creaked heavily on its hinges as they pushed it slowly inward.
    From the gloom came the unmistakable fragrance of musk and sandalwood. He inhaled it for a moment and it seemed to penetrate his memory, calling up long forgotten pleasures. Grasping the door for support, he moved past the bowing guards and into the cell. There, standing by the small barred window, her face caught in a shaft of