Jahanara, shaken by the heat of him, spoke quickly, “Dead, Father. Baram Khan sickened and died in that far-off land that is host to the village from the future.”
Shah Jahan looked away, sniffed.
Released from his gaze, Jahanara felt as if she had stepped from a cold darkness into warm sunlight. Remembering her purpose, she gathered her tattered calm and summoned her body-slave to bring forward the ‘postcard.’
Father’s anger was not entirely gone. “Who brings his lies before us, if he is dead?”
She took the card. “I beg your indulgence, Father. Decide after you have seen the proofs before dismissing the claims.”
“Who?” he asked, still insisting, but more gently.
“No one you know, Father. He is another disciple of Mian Mir, one who has proven an honest and loyal servant to the living saint and, by extension, your person. He took great risks-at hazard of his own life-to bring word ahead of Baram Khan’s remaining servants.”
Clearly still skeptical, the emperor opened his mouth to ask another question.
Greatly daring, Jahanara spoke over him. “This, Father, is one of the proofs.” She lowered her head and presented the postcard.
His hand left hers, pulled the photograph from her outstretched hand.
She left her hand extended, hoping he would take it again.
Long moments passed in a silence Jahanara barely dared breathe into.
A tear struck her palm.
Jahanara looked up.
Shah Jahan, emperor of the Mughals, cried a river of tears in total silence, postcard in hand.
Sole Heir
Grantville, Early Spring 1636
"I got a letter today from Wolmirstedt. They wanted me to know that Otto Schmidt died. His shop is sitting empty. They are asking if we're coming back. And, they want to know what we're going to do about Anna," Arnulf Meier announced to his family, and everyone else at the dinner table.
The dining room table seated all ten members, eleven counting the baby, of the three families who shared the house when they were all there at once, which they usually were at supper time. Everyone except Madde and the baby had jobs. Not that Madde didn't work. She had a baby to take care of, plus she kept the common areas of the house and cooked most of the meals for all three families.
All four of the boys worked full-time, or part-time before and after school, in the old mine they, along with Officer Lyndon Johnson of the Grantville police department, leased from the government. They still had not gotten around to mentioning to their parents just how much money they had in the bank from selling the large stash of aged moonshine they had originally found in the mine where they now grew mushrooms, aged cheese, and processed copper for wire. Nor had they ever mentioned what they were doing with that money in the way of investments and business start-ups.
Herr Meier looked at his eldest son Paulus. "You remember Anna. When you were apprenticed to Herr Schmidt we assumed you would one day marry her. She was his only living child so you would eventually take over the shop. You couldn't take over the shop now even if you wanted. You aren't a shoemaker, and you have no interest in being one. And even if you were and even if you did, you aren't old enough.
"But that still leaves Anna. On the one hand, there never was a formal betrothal agreement. So we have no legal obligation to see the two of you married. And, her dowry is a shoemaker's shop which doesn't have enough business to make a living and isn't going to, the way things are. This means, she doesn't really have any other prospects.
"On the other hand-" Arnulf looked at his oldest son. "-the letter made it clear that some people there are still assuming you will marry Anna. The letter also made it clear that some people there feel we have some obligation to take care of the girl. Which, I suppose we do. As much as there was a shoemaker's guild in Wolmirstedt, we are what is left of it.
"So, Paulus, what are you going to do about Anna?"
Paulus looked back at his father. The blank look on the boy's face caused Arnulf to suppress a smile. He knew he had caught his son in an unguarded moment. He was sure his son's face completely and exactly reflected the boy's state of mind. It looked like the thought of marrying Anna, or anyone else at this time, for that matter, was, to his son, a completely unparsed sentence. Arnulf felt certain that, regardless of what things were like here in Grantville, the boy was still used to the idea of men getting married around thirty to women around twenty.
Shortly Paulus spoke, "Father, that is not for me to say!"
Arnulf worked hard at keeping a smirk off of his face. "Son, you can't have it both ways. When I suggested you help me out in the shop and finish learning the trade, you told me you were over eighteen and therefore an adult. You told me you've got a good job working in Officer Johnson's mine with the mushrooms and the cheese. You said that as long as you're paying your share of the rent and expenses, which I have to admit is true for both you and your brother, I don't have anything to say about how you spend your time or your money. I am still trying to figure out how Ebert managed to apply the same logic to stay out of the shop. He isn't eighteen yet. But, now you want to turn around and tell me you are too young to take on an adult's responsibility when it comes to dealing with the hard questions of life. Well, make up your mind. Are you an adult or aren't you?"
Arnulf continued with a solid demeanor and a straight face. "You're legally an adult only because we are in Grantville. Anywhere else in the civilized world, you would be right. It would not be for you to say. But, here in Grantville, up-timers see nothing wrong with a boy getting married as soon as he's out of high school as long as he can make a living. You're out of high school. You've got a good job in Officer Johnson's cheese mine. You can afford to support a wife and kids."
Herr Meier lost the fight at keeping a straight countenance. His face glowed with a smirk like a pig with a secret stash of apples. The three men at the table had figured out, at least in general, what their sons were up to, even if they had no idea just how much money the boys were worth or just how many different businesses they were shareholders in or how much property they owned (besides the house they all lived in), or even where exactly the money had come from in the first place. The boys were paying a reasonable amount of money every week to the support of the families and the three families were enjoying what they all considered to be a very comfortable standard of living. So Herr Meier and the other two fathers had agreed amongst themselves to sit back and wait for the boys to bring it up. But, since he could put his son in an uncomfortable spot without breaking the secret, it amused Herr Meier to do so.
"So there it is." Arnulf recapped the pertinent facts, "Anna is probably assuming you are going to marry her someday. Wolmirstedt is assuming we will take responsibility for the girl, even if there never was a formal betrothal. So! What are you going to do about Anna?"
Paulus blinked. As he thought about it he realized, somewhere, not far from where his id hid from his ego, he still assumed he would one day marry Anna Schmidt. This was perhaps part of the reason why dating was not something he had taken an interest in, no matter how many girls threw themselves at him. He was a plain-looking fellow, and no one had been particularly interested in him before he went into business. Now he assumed it was his money they were interested in. This was a perfectly reasonable reason for them to be interested in him, when one looked at it logically. But, now that he dragged his unexamined thoughts into the light of day, he found that his logic had been corrupted by up-time romantic thought. On the one hand, if they didn't want anything to do with him before, he didn't want anything to do with them now. On the other hand, in another unlit crack or cranny, one that had not been corrupted by Grantville's improbable and improper ways, dating was courting, and he was ten years away from being old enough to have a family of his own and therefore he had no reason to be courting anyone, not to mention the expense of doing so. These were the first assumptions he looked at. His second thoughts were of Anna herself. He hadn't seen her in over five years. His father had collected him from Herr Schmidt's shop on his way out of town. Herr Schmidt had decided to stay and hide and thought his apprentice should stay with him. Paulus tried to conjure an idea of what she might look like now. He couldn't get past the picture of a scrawny redheaded lass standing under her mother's hand, while his father and her father yelled at each other.