The Tartar, Teymour the Lame, known as Tamerlane in other lands, was rumored to be leading an army of strange species never previously encountered: a massive legion of heavyset creatures, half human and half beast, with scaly chests, stocky arms, short legs, and long muzzles that spewed noxious gasses. Although the enemy had not yet crossed the frontiers of Persia and was many farsangs away, a pestilential cloud caused by the fumes the creatures exuded floated past the house of the wealthy merchant Rouh’Allah the Spirit of God, all the way past the garbage pit, infesting Soleiman the Agile’s bare room, Rebekah the Bundle Woman’s small house, and the Ancient Zoroastrian’s home of bougainvilleas. A reeking blanket of vapor and fear levitated over the kingdom.

The mere mention of Teymour, a man whose eternal dream was to conquer the Persian Empire, was enough to send a chill through the country. Talk of his strange beasts added a sense of panic that was lethal to an army that must organize for war.

It was one thing to be threatened by warriors from other lands, but to have his people deceived into believing his empire would fall to peculiar fiends was an insult the Shah could not endure. He sent for his war minister and unleashed his fury. “The enemy must have spread this rumor to paralyze our soldiers.”

The war minister rolled bulging eyes and slipped a palm over his shaven head. “We must stop these lies before they cause irreversible damage. Agents will be dispatched to the frontiers to investigate the circumstances.”

While the Shah awaited news from his agents, Gold Dust pored over war journals recorded by royal historians. She studied the lives of Arab and Tartar leaders, their many triumphs and massacres.

Monumental sadness clouded her days. Memories of that afternoon behind the baths were still fresh. How could her heart so utterly deceive her? Or had her mother devised one of her ruses? That day, she had returned to the palace and to her private quarters, removing from her inner self the lining from under the rind of a pomegranate that, for years, had stopped the Shah’s seed. She had planned to conceive again, give birth to a son, even if he were to be like Raven. Maybe then she would have realized her mother’s wish and freed herself of her eternal grip. But she was punished. She remained as barren as the desert of Karbala. And the image of Soleiman’s love-stricken eyes thrived in the fertile land of her imagination.

She drowned herself in current problems, hid behind partitions while the Shah met with his men. Recording in her mind the path of the army, she later traced it from memory on a map she had smuggled from the Registry. Her mother’s stories churned, sifted, and rose to the surface. She awaited Rebekah’s next visit to establish the veracity of her own memories. She would present the king with particulars neither he nor his advisers would discover in books or from their spies.