The masters of artillery and the royal apothecary worked together to construct pebble-like balls made of phosphorous and combustible matter. Compressed into compact pellets and wrapped in nonflammable pouches, they were first soaked in the poisonous sweat from the back of green and black frogs. The pellets were then allowed to saturate for weeks in oak barrels filled with distillate of mint. Once the pouches found the enemy, they would bore deep holes and explode inside their bodies, releasing poisons into their bowels.

His eyes ablaze, the Shah declared he would personally lead his men into battle, and as hard as his generals tried to dissuade him, warning that he might endanger his life and consequently the unity of his army, he would not listen.

“My shah,” Gold Dust pleaded. “Mongols make war as naturally as others make love. They cry when they drink wine and laugh when they wield the sword. You are your men’s unifying force. You must live.”

“Another one of your mother’s tales?” The Shah growled, “We shall prove to future generations that Mongol warriors fell on their knees in front of this Shah.” He slapped his chest, rising to indicate that the hours of debate were over. When the generals filed out of the hall, he held Gold Dust by the hand and led her to his private quarters.

Intoxicated with his new goal, he felt his past ardor return, and his body, which had for some time lost the strength and vigor to gratify her and had succumbed to need rather than to passion, now vibrated with life. She skipped around the maps that lay about and stepped out of her robes with such speed that she entangled herself and burst into laughter she had believed forgotten.

One by one, with unusual care, the Shah unraveled her garments. His gaze swept over her every strand of hair, her every alluring curve and slant. He caressed, smelled, and tasted her with the voracious appetite that emerges after long stretches of abstinence. He fell to his knees and pressed his lips to her thighs. The aroma of desire rose from her flesh. His forehead touched the ground under her feet.

Again, as in the past, they embraced with their eyes and wrestled with all their strength and made love with their every breath, their only audience three hooded falcons, blind to the couple’s passion but listening intently to their desire.

Gold Dust tussled to blot out the image of Soleiman in the alley as she had last seen him, his outstretched hand, offering a branch of cherry blossoms. She relived the incident behind the baths, not the way it had transpired, but the way she had longed for it to happen. She would rush to him—her footfalls light—soaring—borne on a breeze—tossing her chador to the skies—her body soaking up the sunlight—drowning herself in him—free from her past and from her mother’s clutch.

The Shah struggled against Gold Dust as she buried herself in Soleiman’s arms.