his shoulder, the saddle's covering of embroidered purple and black. Two guards rode in front of the nobleman. A third and most trusted guard rode behind.
Outside the Square of the Cannons before the Palace of Roses, royal pages in bright red uniforms with elaborate headgear awaited the guests. They led the gentlemen through the palace gates into a narrow strip of garden, under an elaborate archway, and into the Garden of the Marble Throne. The nobles began to whisper: the Terrace, usually cloistered by an immense curtain, was open to view. On it was a gigantic throne, carved of green marble, its legs life-sized statues of jinns and fairies.
When all the nobles had assembled in the garden, Fath Ali Shah's favorite eunuchs stepped onto the Terrace. They were five, all white, dressed in long coats tight at the waist and with long, flared skirts. One eunuch stood beside each pillar of the throne. The fifth and most beautiful took his place in front. In his hands he held a jewel-studded cushion on which rested the Holy Sword.
The royal page appeared.
"Make way!" he cried.
"His Imperial Majesty! The King of Kings! The Standard Bearer of Islam! The Shadow of Allah! The Shah of Persia!"
Trumpets blew. Drums roared. Fath Ali Shah appeared, wearing his Robes of Wrath.
He had on a long coat made of red velvet covered entirely with rubies. He wore a three-tiered crown of rubies, a ruby-studded dagger, shoes embroidered with rubies, necklaces and rings and bracelets of rubies.
In the Garden of the Terrace of the Marble Throne, the nobles trembled: Fath Ali Shah wore his Robes of Wrath only to pronounce a sentence of death upon an esteemed enemy. In these robes, and on this same throne, he had ordered the blinding and execution of his own brother. Another time he had watched his Prime Minister boiled alive in a pot of oil.
He climbed the three steps, then reclined on the Marble Throne.
"The ill-omened Russians," he spoke, "have violated the sacred soil of Our country. We have no doubt that our unequalled army at Sari is capable of destroying the fiercest of the Czar's troops. But what would happen, do you imagine, if We were to send Our household cavalry to attack them?"
The household cavalry, everyone knew, merely performed the task of protecting the person of the Shah. It would be destroyed in a matter of hours by the Czar's soldiers. Still, to please His Majesty, the nobles cried and groveled at the woes the cavalry would bring upon the Russians.
"May I be Thy sacrifice," one man said, stepping forth. "Your cavalry would drive the invaders back to Moscow!"
The Shah agreed.
"And what if," he went further, "We were to go to the front Ourself?"
It was too much to imagine—the torture Fath Ali Shah could personally inflict upon the Czar.
"So it is settled," he concluded, already pleased with his triumph. "Spread the word and let the Russians be forewarned!"
The war in Azerbaijan lasted thirteen years and ended in defeat. The Czar had not been shaken by Fath Ali Shah's wrath. The Persian army never did manage a real fight. What resistance the Czar faced came from patriotic men and women who fought without conventional weapons, and refused to accept Russian hegemony. But at last, in 1813, Fath Ali Shah conceded to the Czar the provinces already under occupation. To further appease his neighbor, he also agreed to pay to Russia enormous sums by way of reparations. Across Persia, everyone mourned. Mullahs and clergymen called the Shah a traitor and asked for his throne. They said he was weak and corrupt, that he had squandered Persia's wealth and fallen before the strength of infidels. Trembling in his throne, afraid that the mullahs would call Jihad—holy war—against the Crown, Fath Ali Shah called once again for the Jewish soothsayer from Esfahan, and this time she answered.
She appeared one day at the Square of the Cannons, standing by the side of the famous Pearl Cannon where thieves and murderers took refuge from the
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