In the Shah’s employ is Janissary general Nino Argalia, an Italian convert to Islam, whose own story takes the narrative to Renaissance Florence. The tale dates to the time of Akbar’s grandfather, Babar (Qara Köz’s brother), and it involves her relationship with the Persian Shah. But it is the story of Akbar’s great-aunt, Qara Köz, that the man (her putative son) has come to the court to tell. He carries with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, which he translates for Akbar with vast incorrectness. Her story underlies the book’s circuitous journey.Ī mysterious yellow-haired man in a multicolored coat steps off a rented bullock cart and walks into 16th-century Sikri: he speaks excellent Persian, has a stock of conjurer’s tricks and claims to be Akbar’s uncle. The connecting link between the two cities and epochs is the magically beautiful “hidden princess,” Qara Köz, so gorgeous that her uncovered face makes battle-hardened warriors drop to their knees. Renaissance Florence’s artistic zenith and Mughal India’s cultural summit-reached the following century, at Emperor Akbar’s court in Sikri-are the twin beacons of Rushdie’s ingenious latest, a dense but sparkling return to form.
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