is full of ignorance, child. The lady Safiya Sultana is well-known for her wisdom and her healing arts, but she is not known for magic.”
Healing arts —that phrase could mean many things. From that moment, Akhtar watched the Shaikh's sister closely during the days, sidling along the wall to stand close to the lady's customary seat in the underground room. At night, anxious to miss no word of the ladies’ conversation, she remained as long as she dared on the sheltered rooftop where the family slept.
Observing Safiya Sultana, Akhtar had found her no idle person who spent her days taking opium, having her legs kneaded, and sleeping her life away as great ladies were reputed to do. At the first hint of dawn, as the first chanted note of the muezzin's call to prayer echoed through the darkness, Akhtar would jump from her string bed on the servants’ part of the roof and run to the family quarters to find that Safiya had already performed her own ritual ablutions and was now supervising those of the children. Once satisfied with everyone's cleanliness, Safiya stationed herself in front of her household women to lead them in the predawn prayer. Akhtar stood behind the rows of children and ladies, following the movements of Safiya's stout body as she stood, bent, then bowed her forehead to her prayer mat, her posture denoting surrender before God. Only after each Muslim household lady, servant, and child had completed that simple observance did Safiya retire to her own room to perform her own spiritual exercises, whatever they might be.
Akhtar would have given much to know whether those exercises involved magic.
Every grain of rice, every inch of ginger, pod of cardamom, clove of garlic, every nut, sweetmeat, and piece of fruit served at Qamar Haveli was measured out daily by Safiya Sultana. Each morning, watched carefully by two of the family's unmarried girls, Safiya ordered sufficient food for everyone in the house, and for twelve extra people, in the event guests arrived. If the food was not eaten, Safiya herself determined to which needy family the remainder would be sent.
She also oversaw the education of the family girls, not only in the household arts, but also in the Qur'an and its meanings, and in the works of the Persian and Urdu poets.
In that busy household, there were clothes to be made and embroidered, carpets to be beaten, and weddings to be planned, for the Shaikh's family was large, and many of its members counted upon Safiya Sultana to know the best prices for shawls, silks, and jewels.
There were also the sick and the injured to be treated. Only the day before, as the ladies were finishing their afternoon meal, a breathless male voice outside the curtained doorway had announced that the man who tended the new female buffalo had cut his arm open on a piece of jagged metal.
Safiya Sultana had swallowed her last chunk of melon and risen, puffing, to her feet. “Akhtar,” she had ordered, “bring one of our torn dupattas and come with me. Firoz, you know where I keep the dried neem leaves. Take two handfuls to the kitchen for boiling. And Rahima,” she told one of the younger women, “bring my chador.”
Moments later Safiya Sultana tramped down the stairs, a plain sheet of white cotton covering her clothes and shielding her face.
Akhtar had not had time to cover herself with her own dirty chador, forgotten on a shelf in a faraway part of the house. Instead, she wrapped her thick cotton veil over her head and face as best she could, afraid of revealing too much of herself to the stable hands.
“Never mind all that,” Safiya ordered, reading Akhtar's thoughts as she pushed open the gate leading out of the family courtyard. “Your clothes are modest enough for the work we are going to do.”
The scene at the stables had been disconcertingly bloody. The buffalo driver gaped with shock, cradling his dripping arm while a dozen men clustered around him, bloody straw at their feet, offering advice
Healing arts —that phrase could mean many things. From that moment, Akhtar watched the Shaikh's sister closely during the days, sidling along the wall to stand close to the lady's customary seat in the underground room. At night, anxious to miss no word of the ladies’ conversation, she remained as long as she dared on the sheltered rooftop where the family slept.
Observing Safiya Sultana, Akhtar had found her no idle person who spent her days taking opium, having her legs kneaded, and sleeping her life away as great ladies were reputed to do. At the first hint of dawn, as the first chanted note of the muezzin's call to prayer echoed through the darkness, Akhtar would jump from her string bed on the servants’ part of the roof and run to the family quarters to find that Safiya had already performed her own ritual ablutions and was now supervising those of the children. Once satisfied with everyone's cleanliness, Safiya stationed herself in front of her household women to lead them in the predawn prayer. Akhtar stood behind the rows of children and ladies, following the movements of Safiya's stout body as she stood, bent, then bowed her forehead to her prayer mat, her posture denoting surrender before God. Only after each Muslim household lady, servant, and child had completed that simple observance did Safiya retire to her own room to perform her own spiritual exercises, whatever they might be.
Akhtar would have given much to know whether those exercises involved magic.
Every grain of rice, every inch of ginger, pod of cardamom, clove of garlic, every nut, sweetmeat, and piece of fruit served at Qamar Haveli was measured out daily by Safiya Sultana. Each morning, watched carefully by two of the family's unmarried girls, Safiya ordered sufficient food for everyone in the house, and for twelve extra people, in the event guests arrived. If the food was not eaten, Safiya herself determined to which needy family the remainder would be sent.
She also oversaw the education of the family girls, not only in the household arts, but also in the Qur'an and its meanings, and in the works of the Persian and Urdu poets.
In that busy household, there were clothes to be made and embroidered, carpets to be beaten, and weddings to be planned, for the Shaikh's family was large, and many of its members counted upon Safiya Sultana to know the best prices for shawls, silks, and jewels.
There were also the sick and the injured to be treated. Only the day before, as the ladies were finishing their afternoon meal, a breathless male voice outside the curtained doorway had announced that the man who tended the new female buffalo had cut his arm open on a piece of jagged metal.
Safiya Sultana had swallowed her last chunk of melon and risen, puffing, to her feet. “Akhtar,” she had ordered, “bring one of our torn dupattas and come with me. Firoz, you know where I keep the dried neem leaves. Take two handfuls to the kitchen for boiling. And Rahima,” she told one of the younger women, “bring my chador.”
Moments later Safiya Sultana tramped down the stairs, a plain sheet of white cotton covering her clothes and shielding her face.
Akhtar had not had time to cover herself with her own dirty chador, forgotten on a shelf in a faraway part of the house. Instead, she wrapped her thick cotton veil over her head and face as best she could, afraid of revealing too much of herself to the stable hands.
“Never mind all that,” Safiya ordered, reading Akhtar's thoughts as she pushed open the gate leading out of the family courtyard. “Your clothes are modest enough for the work we are going to do.”
The scene at the stables had been disconcertingly bloody. The buffalo driver gaped with shock, cradling his dripping arm while a dozen men clustered around him, bloody straw at their feet, offering advice
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