"They're so . . . undignified. When I first saw you, that night you
came to Mukarrab Khan's palace, I couldn't believe you could be anyone
of importance. Then the next morning, at the observatory, you looked
like a nobleman. Tonight, you're dressed like a _feringhi _again."
"I like boots and a leather jerkin. When I'm wearing a fancy doublet
and hose, then I feel I have to be false, false as the clothes. And
when I dress like a Moghul, I always wonder if people think I'm trying
to be something I'm not."
"All right." She smiled resignedly. "But perhaps sometime tonight
you'll at least take off your leather jerkin. I would enjoy seeing
you."
He looked at her in wonderment. "I still don't understand you at all.
You once said you thought I was powerful. But you seem to be pretty
powerful yourself. Nobody I know could force Mukarrab Khan or Nadir
Sharif to do anything. Yet you made the governor divorce you, and then
you made the prime minister deceive half of Agra to arrange this.
You're so many different things."
"Don't forget. Sometimes I'm also a woman."
She rose and began to slowly draw out the long cinch holding the waist
of her wrap. Her halter seemed to trouble her as she tried to loosen
it. She laughed at her own awkwardness, and then it too came away. She
was left with only her jewels and the long scarf over her hair, which
she did not remove. Then she turned to him.
"Do you still remember our last night in Surat?"
"Do you?" He looked at her in the dim lamplight. The line of her body
was flawless, with gently rounded breasts, perfect thighs, legs lithe
yet strong.
"I remember what I felt when I kissed you."
He laughed and moved to take her in his arms. "But I thought I was the
one who kissed you."
"Maybe we should try it once more and decide." With a mischievous look
she caught his arms and wrapped herself around him. As he touched her
lips, she turned abruptly and the world suddenly seemed to twist
crazily around them, sending his head spinning. In shock he opened his
mouth to speak and it was flooded with the essence of rose.
The pool beneath the platform had broken their fall. He came up gasping
and found her lips.
She tasted of another world. Sweet, fragrant. He enclosed her slowly in
his arms, clasping her lean body gently at first; then feeling more and
more of her warmth he pressed her to him, both of them still gasping.
They seemed to float, weightless, serene in the darkness. Awkwardly he
began pulling away his wet jerkin.
"You're just as I imagined." Her hands traveled across his chest,
lightly caressing his skin, while the lamp flickered against the
paintings on the walls above them. "There's a strength about you, a
roughness." She nuzzled his chest with her face. "Tonight will you let
me be your poet?"
"Tonight you can be anything you want."
"I want to sing of you--a man I adore--of the desire I feel for you.
After we know each other fully, the great longing will be gone. The
most intense moment we can ever share will be past. The ache of
wanting."
"What you just said reminds me of something John Donne once wrote."
"Who is he?"
"One of our English poets and songwriters. But he had a slightly
different idea." He hesitated, then smiled. "To tell the truth, I think
I may like his better."
She lifted herself up in the water, rose petals patterned across her
body. "Then tell me what he said."
"It's the only poem of his I can still remember, but only the first
verse. For some reason I'll never forget it. I sometimes think of it
when I think of you. Let me say it in English first and then try to
translate.
_"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,