Lazy clouds drifted over the gardens. From my vantage point behind some tall plants, I could see them roll by and blocking the bloated sun. I was in hiding and doing a fine job of it until-
"Aha!" Darius' voice crowed out as the fan-like leaves parted to reveal his round face. "Found you!"
He always did. In those days, he was my bosom companion and I could say without a doubt that he knew me best of anyone in the world. I propped myself up onto my elbows and twisted to face him.
"You always do," I said. My voice was petulant. I was nearing eight years of age. "How do you do that?"
Darius grinned.
"I know you," he said. At seven years old, he didn't have the art to be cryptic. I wouldn't have called him simple – and today, I still wouldn't – but there was a bluntness about his character that never sharpened.
He offered me his hand, which I gladly took. Our sticky, pudgy palms pressed hard against one another as he helped me to my feet. Before we could let go, there was a sort of yelp from the shaded porch mere feet away. My mother rushed to my side and pried me from Darius' grasp.
"Look at you!" she said. "Your nice, new robes: soiled, covered in dirt…! If your father saw you now…!"
"Madar," I groused. "You're embarrassing me in front of my friend…"
She started, as if noticing Darius for the first time. Her eyes, just as green as mine, narrowed and her lips became a thin line upon her face. She looked away from him, but not directly at me.
"It isn't right that you keep such company, Nadir," she murmured. Even then, I had no doubt that Darius could hear her. I wondered later if he was meant to hear her words. "A young man of your standing needs proper friends from proper families."
I wanted to ask what she meant by that, but her faraway look suddenly refocused. She looked me up and down and sighed.
"We'll have to clean you up, my son," she told me. "The new tutor has just arrived and I won't have you embarrassing yourself on your first day of lessons."
She tried to tug me towards the house. I remained unmoved. Legs locked, I stood in place, looking from my mother to Darius and back again. My brows knitted together.
"Isn't Darius coming to lessons?" I asked.
My mother hesitated. Finally, she looked at Darius. When she spoke, her voice was flat: "I believe Darius' mother is looking for him in the kitchens."
Her meaning seemed clear then: that Darius' mother needed his help with something. She was one of the maids in our home; responsible for meal preparation. I suddenly imagined Darius sticking his fingers into creamy desserts that were no doubt being prepared to celebrate my tutor's arrival from Tehran.
If only things were that simple.
I allowed my mother to tug me towards the house, but I looked back at my friend. He suddenly seemed solitary and far, far beyond my grasp.
But I was certain – or I told myself that I was certain – that tomorrow would find us in the garden again, playing hide-and-seek.
If only things were that simple.
I don't remember when exactly I learned that Darius was my blood brother. I remember learning mathematics and reading and writing and geography and history. I remember learning to ride a horse and to address my betters in an appropriate fashion. But the singular fact that defined my relationship with Darius was not something I learned. It was something I always knew in my bones, though as a child, I never could find the words to ask. After all, at that stage in life, I knew that to be brothers, two boys must share the same mother and father.
I do remember learning that Darius and I shared a father.
I was ten years old and hadn't exhausted this tutor as I had my last, bur his complaints were the same as they always had been: Nadir is too inquisitive and perhaps too observant. Though not exhausted, my tutor would sometimes turn me loose before lessons were scheduled to end. I noticed that when he did this, he always looked a little bit lost; like a child who had swam too far too quickly and who was rendered unable to do much more than float for sheer exhaustion. It was on one of those days I learned Darius and I were truly brothers. I wandered the halls of my family's estate and came upon the eunuchs' quarters. We had but three eunuchs serving our family at the time; all three were my mother's attendants; guards, if you will, who lived to shield her from strange men and to see that her every whim was catered to. My mother didn't have a lot of whims; often I wondered why she needed so many attendants, especially since the three of them were wont to gossip. If a rumor spread through the house, you could bet one of them had either started it or passed it on from a private third party.
I paused outside the open door out of idle curiosity.
"One does not wish to speak ill of one's mistress," one of the eunuchs – Melchior – said. "But-"
"If one does not wish to speak ill of one's mistress," said Farhad. "One ought to hold one's tongue."
Farhad always said sanctimonious things like that, but I knew as well as anyone that it was an act. He was usually the first to voice an impolite opinion. I had the sneaking suspicion he didn't want to be outdone.
"Perhaps I misspoke," Melchior said. "I will not speak ill. I will just say what I saw."
"Well, what did you see?" asked Bijan. He was the quietest of the three, but I could hear excited curiosity buzzing in his voice. Before he had been my mother's servant, he had been mine. For many years, he watched over me when my parents could not. Of the three, I liked him best. "What did the mistress do?"
It must have registered to me in some dim part of my mind that the woman they were about to speak of was my mother. But it didn't. Instead, I strained to hear as Melchior dropped his voice to a whisper.
"She struck Rayka across the face this morning. Just before breakfast."
"Then Rayka must have done something to deserve our mistress' wrath," sniffed Farhad. "Even a cobra will not strike unless provoked."
My jaw swung open. Rayka was Darius' mother. I had known her all my life and she had always been kind to me. Beyond kind, in fact. She would help me to line my pockets with stolen sweets from the kitchens as a young child and even now that I was older – ten seemed so mature and worldly wise at the time – she treated me as fondly as she would, were I her own flesh and blood. She was fiercely loyal to our family and I couldn't imagine her incurring my mother's wrath. Especially since so little seemed to ruffle my mother's feathers. She ran an efficient household and was the most proper of ladies.
"The only thing Rayka is guilty of is bearing the master the second son he craved," Melchior said. "It happens all the time in other households and no one treats it as a crime… Besides. It's been ten years. Give or take."
"Yes," said Bijan. "But what happens in other households is none of our affair. Old wounds can still ache, even ten years later."
Understanding crept up on me. At first, it moved slowly through my mind and then, without warning, the conclusion was drawn: Darius was my father's son. Every moment my mother pushed or pulled me away from him flashed through my memory and my blood began to feel hot under my skin. Why had no one told me I had a brother? Was that why I wasn't to play with him? Or was it because he was a servant's son? Even so, if he was my father's son – a prince's son, as I was – why was he shut away in the servants' quarters instead of learning languages at my side?
"Darius doesn't know, of course," Melchior said. It sounded like an afterthought. "Nor does the young master. But do you remember the way they used to chase each other in the gardens?"
"I always thought they did know," Bijan said. "Intuitively, I mean."
"What a ridiculous thing to say," Farhad said. "They were – are—just children."
"You don't give them enough credit," Bijan said. "Especially the young master. He's training to fill his father's shoes. And everyone says he's too observant for his own good."
Regardless of what everyone said about me, I felt too observant for my own good. I slunk away before the conversation turned to maligning my mother for smacking Darius' and long before anyone could suspect me of overhearing.