When she had departed on the errand: "What is it, Smidha?"
Smidha edged closer and bowed her head, speaking quickly and quietly: "My sister's man says a slave was found dead just outside the harem walls, Begum Sahib. Nothing special in itself, but my friend who is also your sister Raushashana's nurse, says that her mistress was heard to claim the slave betrayed Nur Jahan. Just now, while you entertained her, I confirmed with one of the eunuchs that have responsibility for guarding her quarters that Nur is seeking a new cook-slave."
Jahanara closed her eyes, said a brief prayer for Vidya. She had never personally met the young woman who, outraged by the mistreatment of her lover, had offered to spy on her mistress. Now, carrying out Jahanara's will, she would become yet another of the faceless victims of courtly machinations. Victims Jahanara would carry the guilt of in her heart to the end of her days.
She shook her head, dread encroaching on her guilt. "Which eunuch?"
"Begum Sahib?"
"Which eunuch, Smidha?"
"Chetan, Begum Sahib."
"One of the Rajputs?" she asked, running through her mental portrait gallery of the servants of her enemy.
"Yes, the great big, round-headed one with the crooked nose."
Jahanara nodded. "He is entirely Nur's. She wanted me to know she caught my spy. Do we know how Vidya died?"
Smidha bowed her head. "Poison is suspected, mistress."
The princess bit her lip. "Then Nur was never successfully poisoned at all?"
Smidha shrugged. "That is possible, though she did request the Italian doctor come and examine her."
"To complete her falsehood. . or for something else?" Jahanara shook her head. "Set someone to watch him from now on."
"Yes, Begum Sahib."
"And still no word from Salim?"
"That messenger also has yet to report success in his duties. I begin to worry he might have been waylaid."
"Where is she getting the men to do these things for her?" Jahanara asked.
"I do not know, Begum Sahib. She has not changed her habits significantly since Vidya came to us last year."
"Oh, but that's just it, Smidha. We can't know how long Nur knew about Vidya's allegiance to me. Much of our information is suspect, then."
Smidha's half-smile showed Jahanara that her agile mind was working at full speed. "Yes and no, Begum Sahib. I always try to verify from multiple mouths what my ears hear from one source's lips. I do not like to look foolish, misinforming my mistress."
"So, then: what do we know?"
"That Nur Jahan is dangerous even while in your father's power."
"Who, though, is providing her with influence beyond these walls?"
Smidha shook her head, "We cannot know she is responsible for your messenger's failures just yet, Begum Sahib." Another shrug of round shoulders. "Assuming your suspicions are correct, however, I can think of a few umara who remember Jahangir's last years and Nur's regency in all but name as good ones for their ambitions, but none that your father and grandfather are not already aware of and keeping an eye on."
"What of Mullah Mohan?"
A delicate sniff. "That man, bend his stiff neck to treat with a woman? Hardly, Begum Sahib."
"I love you dearly, Smidha, and value your service above all others, but I think you might be letting your feelings color your assessment. She has the skill, he has the manpower."
Smidha flushed, bowed her head again, "It has been my pleasure to serve you, just as it was to serve your mother, Begum Sahib. Still-" She looked up. "I find that, of late, my heart is hard when it should be soft, and soft when it should be hard."
Jahanara patted Smidha on the arm. "You are my wisest advisor, Smidha. I just want to be sure we are not dismissing a potential truth."
The older woman bowed again, looked up sharply. "And now I think on it, the idea has merit: she did have occasion to speak with Mohan while arranging Jahangir's tomb and the mosque dedicated in his name." She shook her head again, concern drawing her brows together. "If she managed to draw that dried stick of a man into her web enough that he is willing to lend her his strength, what other dark miracles can she arrange?"
"And, having seen the steel of the trap the huntress has laid out for us, what bait is meant to bring us in, and how do we spring the trap without losing a limb?"
A Star is Born
Grantville, Tuesday, June 1635
It had been a hard day at the salt mines. Sebastian Jones trudged the last few feet up the garden path to the front door. He was just about to insert his key when the door was swung open.
"Did you have a good day at school?" his mother asked.
He grunted an answer and edged past her into the house and headed for the kitchen. He dumped his rucksack on the table and opened the fridge to inspect the contents. Moments later he had most of the constituents of a sandwich on the bench. He turned to the bread bin and hacked off a couple of slices.
"Dinner will be ready in an hour," Mary Ellen Jones muttered.
"But I'm hungry now," Sebastian protested as assembled one of his classic gourmet masterpieces. He cut his sandwich in half and loaded it onto a plate before grabbing a glass of milk and sitting down at the table.
"You had a delivery today."
He paused in his chewing to consider that. "Where is it?"
"In the garage."
Sebastian tried to think of what someone might be sending him that would be put in the garage. With nothing coming to mind he took a sip of milk.
"There are a number of packing cases and a big pile of corrugated cardboard."
Now Sebastian knew what was waiting for him in the garage. He guzzled down the milk and grabbed his sandwich before running for the garage.
He opened the door to see stack after stack of cardboard boxes and a stack of craft-produced corrugated cardboard.
"Is that mom's book?" Mary Ellen asked from behind him.
"Yes. Gran didn't want to pay the sales commission Schmucker and Schwentzel were asking, so I'm going to be handling sales from here."
"I hope that's not going to interfere with school. You know you need these extra classes in Latin if you're to do well at university."
"It won't, Mom," he said.
"It better not. Well, are you going to show me this book?"
Sebastian selected a carton and tried to tear through the packing tape holding it closed with his thumb nail.
"Here, let me," his long suffering mother said as she used her thumbnail to tear the tape. "If you'd stop chewing your nails you wouldn't have this problem."
He ignored the attack on his personal habits and opened the carton to reveal-books. He carefully lifted out the top book and unwrapped it. His mother looked over his shoulder as he slowly turned the pages, stopping every now and again when his mother laid her hand on his to give her more time to look at a photograph. Eventually Sebastian handed her the book.
"They're beautiful," Mary Ellen muttered.
Sebastian wasn't prepared to go that far, but the photographs of Grantville before and after the Ring of Fire were impressive. His gran sure knew how to get the best out of the limited technology they had. Many of the photographs had been taken on wet-plates, and lugging that equipment around had just about broken his back. Some were taken using the more modern dry-plate technology, but his gran wasn't overly impressed by the effects she was getting from her current emulsion.
****
The next day Sebastian didn't go straight home from school. He got off the bus at Grays Run and hurried along the road to the house where Gran lived with a carton of books balanced on his shoulder. She still had her house in Grantville, but she'd been lonely after Granddad died. She had, to quote his mother, fallen in with dubious company-the down-timers who lived there were Lutheran, while Tom and Celeste Frost were Catholic-and moved into the house on Grays Run.