The Feast of Roses (60 page)
Read The Feast of Roses Online
Authors: Indu Sundaresan
She was weak, rabidly hungry, shaking from a want of water and food. Shuja took the armlet himself to Fakir Azizuddin, who waited at the northernmost end of the middle terrace, his face turned away from Wafa Begam. Shuja’s steps were halting, dragged on the ground.
Azizuddin examined the armlet and the enormous stone in the center, which caught fire in the light from the sun and shed its lovely glow over his dark face.
“Thank you, your Majesty,” he said.
Within the hour, servants had brought in covered dishes wrapped in red satin cloth and laid them out on a carpet in the Aiwan pavilion. Shuja, Wafa, and Ibrahim ate everything in sight, drank cups of wine, and fell onto the carpets sated and full.
The next day, they found all the entrances to the Shalimar thrown wide open, no guards around, the heated air from the plains rolling in. Freedom, Shah Shuja thought, as he watched the Englishman, Mountstuart Elphinstone, ride his horse into the lower terrace and bow his head. More horses were brought in; they jumped into the saddles and rode away south toward the Sutlej River. When they had crossed the river and entered the lands of British India, they were guided to a splendid
haveli
in Ludhiana.
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Mountain of Light
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♦ ♦ ♦
Mountain of Light
by Indu Sundaresan
INDU SUNDARESAN
, born and raised in India, came to the United States for graduate school. In addition to her first novel,
The Twentieth Wife,
which was published in 2002, her short fiction has also appeared in
The Vincent Brothers Review
and on
iVillage.com
. She lives in the Seattle, Washington, area.
Also by Indu Sundaresan
The Twentieth Wife
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Though names, characters, and places are based on actual people and places, they are used fictitiously.
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Copyright © 2003 by Indu Sundaresan
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ISBN: 0-7434-8196-8
ISBN 13: 978-0-7434-8196-0 (eBook)
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