He rode up to the chain of the Alborz Mountains to practice falconry and seized two peregrine falcons and one gyrfalcon from their nests, on the summit of the Damavand volcano. He tamed them, placing hoods over their heads and slipping brails around their wings to prevent them from fluttering. On their legs he attached jesses with bells. In a dark room, he puffed on a hookah pipe to calm the birds and remind them of his presence. After four sunrises, he lit a candle. The gradual illumination helped the falcons adjust to their surroundings. When they lost their fear and picked food from his palm, he perched them on his shoulders and on his heavily gloved forearm. They were trained to listen to the beat of his heart, to remain calm when he was, and to flutter wildly when he was angry or afraid.

His newfound serenity was shattered the day the Great Black Eunuch and his private army entered the Cage. All the princes but the young Shah crouched behind their divans, certain that the executioner had at last come.

“You are now the ruler of Persia,” the Great Eunuch announced, prostrating himself and kissing the Shah’s slipper. The eunuch held up a vial of earth. “Allah bless your father’s soul. The curse of madness consumed him.”

Following the eunuch to the Hall of Ceremonies to pay one last homage to the body, the prince was told his late father had, after hearing the rumor of another invasion, for a week ingested only myrrh and balsam to ensure the preservation of his body, then had drunk a vessel of bull’s blood, which coagulated in his throat and choked him. His body was covered with camphor and wrapped in a sevenfold winding sheet, the face included, as prescribed in Islam.

At the gravesite, the Shah threw earth from his father’s grave onto his own head, as was customary for sons to do.

The sultanas sighed behind the screen of opium.

Honey stroked Gold Dust’s hair. “The few who were intimate with the Shah believe he still craves the lazy days of his youth when threat of invasion did not penetrate the Cage.”

He managed to overcome his lethargy and rule the empire with rare compassion. But when the moods overwhelmed him, he withdrew, tending to his roses and coming back to the palace saturated with the smell of earth and roses.

Then he fell in love with Pari, a dainty dark-haired sultana. He built her a private quarter with a garden he personally tended to. His love for her manifested itself in the roses he bred, Persian ebony-tipped ones and others from distant continents. He produced a hybrid he named Pari. Its fame traveled the world. Gardeners from near and far came to Persia to learn the secret of a black rose with ruffled, onyx-colored petals, and purple capillaries, the fragrance of which was mute at dawn and shrieked at sunset. The Shah refused to share the mystery of Pari’s rose. Even the royal gardeners were not aware of the origin of the seeds that were delivered in secrecy every No-Ruz, the first day of spring.