A member of Mumtaz's guard burst through the doorway, then remembered himself and salaamed deeply to the prince. Guards around Jadar already had their swords half drawn. "Forgive a fool, Highness." He fell to his knees, just in case. "I'm ordered to report that your son is born. The _dai_ says he's perfectly formed and has the lungs of a cavalry commander." Cheers swept the room, and the air blossomed with flying turbans. Jadar motioned the terrified man closer and he nervously knelt again, this time directly before Jadar. "The _dai_ respectfully asks if it would please Your Highness to witness the cord-cutting ceremony. She suggests a gold knife, instead of the usual silver." Jadar barely heard the words, but he did recall that tradition allowed the midwife to keep the knife. "She can have her knife of gold, and you are granted a thousand gold _mohurs_. But the cord will be cut with a string." This ceremony must be a signal to all India, Jadar told himself, and he tried to recall exactly the tradition started by Akman for newborn Moghul princes. The birth cord of all Akman's three sons was cut with a silken string, then placed in a velvet bag with writings from the Quran, and kept under the new child's pillow for forty days. The guard salaamed once more, his face in the carpet, and then scurried toward the door, praising Allah. As Jadar rose and made his way toward the corridor, a chant of "Jadar-o-Akbar," "Jadar is Great," rose from the cheering Rajputs. Every man knew that with an heir, the prince was at last ready to claim his birthright. And they would fight beside him for it. Mumtaz lay against a bolster, a fresh scarf tied around her head and a roller bound about her abdomen, taking a draft of strong, garlic- scented asafetida gum as Jadar came into the room. He immediately knew she was well, for this anti-cold precaution was taken only after the placenta was expelled and the mother's well-being assured. Next to her side was a box of betel leaves, rolled especially with myrrh to purge the taste of the asafetida. "My congratulations, Highness." The _dai_ salaamed awkwardly from the bedside. "May it please you to know the child is blind of an eye." Jadar stared at her dumbfounded, then remembered she was a local Hindu midwife, from Gujarat province, where the birth of a boy is never spoken of, lest the gods grow jealous of the parents' good fortune and loose the Evil Eye. Instead, boys were announced by declaring the child blind in one eye. No precautions against divine jealousy were thought necessary for a girl child, a financial liability no plausible god would covet.