Excerpt from Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You were quite brave today," Father said softly to me.

"But I told the truth," I replied. "His hands were hard and he had to steal." Despite having last sat on Father’s lap several years before, I felt an urge to do so. But my body was now too awkward, and so I dropped beside him. Around the pavilion servants lit torches to push aside the encroaching darkness.

Mother moved closer to us, leaning against the long, circular cushion supporting our backs. She reached over to reposition an emerald turtle pinned atop my veil. "Your beauty becomes you, Jahanara," she said. "But more important, so does your mind."

Though poets would never write of my face, as they did Mother’s, I hoped to inherit a drop of her wisdom. "Truly?"

"I wouldn’t say so if it were untrue."

Father leaned toward Mother to refill her wine goblet. I’d seen him do such tasks a thousand times, when even minor nobles had servants attend to these duties. Father, however, preferred to please Mother himself. And while most lords surrounded themselves with young concubines, Father chose to be alone with Mother. He was kind to his other wives but seldom visited them. Even at such a young age, I was keenly aware of the rare quality of my parents’ love for each other, and often wondered if it was a blessing that I was destined ever to experience. It seemed impossible that I’d ever know such bliss, impossible that I might become worthy enough to merit a man like my father.

Weary, I closed my eyes. I leaned against Father, found the rise and fall of his chest comforting. He stroked my brow until the crickets’ songs were loud and unbroken. Then he eased me onto a rug at his feet, placing a cushion beneath my head. When he kissed my forehead, I sighed and feigned sleep.

"Allah has blessed us with children," Father whispered. "So much pleasure in the making, so much joy in watching them blossom."

I’d heard of this pleasure before and fought my inclination to dream. Silence lingered, followed by the sound of a kiss. I opened my eyes a fraction and saw that their faces had separated but were only a finger’s width apart.

"How is it," Father asked, "that my love for you does not lessen? My body stiffens with the years, my hands ache with the monsoon. Yet now, as I see you before me, I am struck only by joy."

"You married well," Mother replied mischievously. "If you hadn’t found me, you’d be much older today. And I might still be selling beads to nobles, to greedy men only intent on pleasing their mistresses. To men who think with the wrong organ."

Father chuckled, his rumblings comforting to me. "The fools jest that I envy them, that I long for the women they hoard," he said, sipping his wine. "Do you think they could even fathom how I’d give up my empire for you, how without you by my side I’d be like a falcon with no wings?"

"You should have been a poet," she replied, smiling playfully, for Father delighted in words. "We’d starve, most assuredly."

"But, Arjumand, most poets write of pain, of misery, of want. I could only give verse to love, which most readers find a tedious subject. How could I write of hate, when I harbor none? Or of jealousy? Or of sorrow? No, it’s better that the poets and philosophers debate these creations. They are not of my world."

"Nor mine."

"Then let them write, my love, while we live."

In the ensuing silence my heart beat strongly. And when they kissed again, I opened my eyes wider.

From Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors. Copyright 2004 John Shors. All rights reserved.