A playful tone to his voice, the Shah asked, “How would you use the cauldron?”

“I’ll order the guards and the executioner to pitch the convict alive into the oil, of course.”

The Shah’s throat constricted to stop the lurch of bile. In his childhood, his father would force him to attend executions, aware that his young son did not have the heart for such brutalities.

The late shah had held on to his son’s hand and had threatened to lock him in the Cage if he did not control his “womanly” inclinations. “Watch with your head up and your eyes open,” his father had ordered.

The prince, who craved his father’s praise, resisted the flow of tears, but could not contain the urine that trickled down his legs.

The late shah had come down to the level of his terrified son’s ear and had whispered that he was not worthy of the throne.

The prince had been locked in the Cage.

Now the Shah realized that to deserve the throne one had to have the courage to stare at death without compassion. In a country that lived with the threat of invasion, the secret to survival was to destroy the enemy first. If a king did not have the heart for executions, before long the one who had would eliminate him. What he himself lacked, his daughter had in abundance.

His voice filled with pride. “Your sons would be worthy of the throne.”

“Pedar, why my sons? Why not me?”

The king was taken aback by this novel notion—the defiance of his mores—and had no reply.

Raven raised her gaze to the sun and wondered whether it was the sun or the heat of thwarting predicaments that caused havoc in her head. The summer was blistering. Why did the sun, this abnormality of nature, generate such upheaval in her? A relentless “summer thirst,” she called it, because it came with her anger and with the sun and would not be quenched until she triumphed over hurdles raised in her path.

“Come,” the Shah coaxed, “let us visit the secret watchtower.” He threw a black chador over her head. “We will cross the outer courtyard, where you will survey the attitude of the common people.”

They concealed their faces, Raven with the hem of her chador, the Shah with a loosened flap from his turban. They circled part of the palace where official buildings stood, and they passed through a gateway, entering a courtyard crowded with wagons, carts, carpenters, plasterers, guilders, and bargaining tradesmen. The salty smell of fish rising from wagons, the sweet scent of herbs wafting from handcarts, and the tangy aroma of spices floating from braziers mingled with the sun-warmed fragrance of mulberries.

The chatter of people mixed with the rumble of wagons and cartwheels, punctuated by the jingle of bells that hung from the necks of mules, camels, and horses. Above the clamor rose the cry of vendors of fruit, poultry, and dry goods. Flower girls hopped to the tune of their own songs, waving ice flowers with slender mahogany stems and translucent buds the color of lemon rind.