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coarse enough to make any soldier proud. “No,” she sputtered, “he doesn’t see me that way. I’m a servant. Nothing more. ”
    I wiped mud from her back. “Dara sees people for who they are, not as servants or nobles.”
    Her face wrinkled, as if she’d bitten into a lime. “You live in a house of mirrors, my little friend. It sparkles now, but when it shatters you’ll see only fields of dung.”
    “Ladli!”
    “However Dara may view us still doesn’t make us equal.”
    “But it’s true in his eyes,” I replied, somewhat defensively. Looking toward the shore, I saw that Dara had climbed a boulder. His gaze might have been on us, or possibly on some elephants across the river. The ponderous beasts appeared content in the water, spraying themselves and each other. “Go to him,” I said, glancing about to ensure that we were mostly alone. After all, strangers would frown upon an encounter between them. “He’d like your company.” Her mouth formed a protest and I kissed her cheek. “He’s fond of you, Ladli. He always has been.”
    “But why, why would a stallion want a camel?”
    “You’re no camel, but a… ” I paused, wondering how he might see her, “but a snow leopard.”
    “A snow leopard! Really, Jahanara!”
    “You are exotic to him. You’re Hindu. You see things differently than we. And there’s no one more clever or beautiful.”
    “Have you been gulping your father’s wine?”
    “Go to him.”
    She hesitated, then hugged me. “What if he spurns my company?”
    “He’d be a fool to do so. And he is no fool.”
    Ladli turned, wiping mud from her arms as she waded toward Dara. She soon passed Aurangzeb, who stomped upon fish in the shallows. He said something to her, but she avoided his stare. When she approached the boulder, Dara rose. I smiled at his chivalry, proud that he was my brother. They sat an arm’s length from each other and started to talk.
    Floating on my back, with my feet touching the mud, I closed my eyes and reflected. I wished that I were talking to a boy, wished that there were someone who made me smile. If such a boy existed, I wondered what he was doing now. Perhaps he was the son of a nobleman and lived nearby in the Red Fort. Or he could be a carpenter, or even a soldier. Maybe he was born in a distant land and would someday visit Agra. Would I meet him here? Or would we grow old alone and apart? I suspected that my heart had an echo somewhere in the world, but I feared never discovering it.
    Father once told me that would-be lovers were similar to mountains. Two peaks, wonderfully akin and compatible in every way, may rise to the clouds but never witness each other’s majesty because of the space between them. Like a man and a woman from different cities, they would never find each other. Or, if the peaks were blessed, as my parents had been, they might be two mountains of the same range and could bask in each other’s company forever.
    Please, Allah, I prayed, let me be so deserving. Let my destiny be so grand. And please let it unfold soon. I dreaded what would happen once I came of age to marry and Father paired me with some stranger. I might never know love, never feel what Mother did as Father put his arm around her.
    I was still dreaming of love when a shadow loomed above me and suddenly I was thrust underwater. An immense force crushed against my chest, forcing me down into the mud. Confused, I struggled frantically. I opened my eyes, but saw no more than if a brown blanket had been thrown atop me. I tried mightily to rise up from under it, kicking and clawing and biting, fighting the urge to scream.
    When the weight on my chest abruptly lessened, I sprang to the surface. My nose burned and my lungs heaved as I spat out foul water. Recovering, I realized that Aurangzeb stood next to me. His face bore a wicked smile and he laughed. “What ugly beetles,” he said, pointing at my chest. Baffled, I looked down. To my horror I saw that my robe had