He picked up the prayer beads from the table beside him and as he did so he noticed his hands were those of an old man. They had not aged as well as his face. The skin covering his long, slim fingers was almost translucent; a tiny brown liver spot nestled between his thumb and forefinger. The world had pointed fingers at him his entire life, and it had judged him harshly. He knew he had made mistakes and would one day have to answer for them. His own daughter had cursed him, demanded that life extract payment for her loss. How could he expect the rest of the world not to? He wondered how much more he owed on the debt, and how much of his blood others had demanded. He sighed deeply as he considered all this and more. His decisions had been reasoned and measured and coloured by knowledge not held by those who sat in judgement. Prayer bead to prayer bead he read the Ayat-ul-Kursi. The verse had served him well and allowed him to reach old age. He was acutely aware of the ripeness of this time. He knew that it would be over soon, and he would not need to carry the demands of the world alone for much longer. There came a point in every life when another was needed to lean on, someone stronger, younger, one who was ready. Akbar Khan had arrived at that point, and now he waited for the other to join him.

The room was almost in darkness now. The house was silent, the only sounds coming from the storm outside. A loud crash startled him and he turned to see the branches of the heavy apple tree that reached up to the house thrashing against the bedroom window. It had grown fast and become unruly in the last twenty years. The gardener had advised it be chopped down before its roots destroyed the foundation of the house but Akbar Khan had resisted. The sound of its branches tapping on his window helped him sleep, as did the pies his wife made from its fruit every summer, a delicious taste he’d acquired in the early days of his arrival in this country. But now the time had come to heed the gardener’s advice; the tree would be cut down after the wedding. Akbar Khan watched as its boughs bent low, so heavy with fruit that some touched the ground. They bowed lower than all the branches of all the other trees in the garden without damage to themselves, just as the Khan, laden with power and knowing just how to wield it, prostrated himself before his Maker.