Imported Kabuli pigeons, with their flawless white eyes and blue-tipped wings, were Nadir Sharifs secret joy. Unlike the inferior local breeds of the other devoted pigeon-fliers along the west bank of the Jamuna, Agra's palace-lined showplace, his Kabulis did not flit aimlessly from rooftop to rooftop on their daily morning flight. After he opened the shutters on their rooftop grillwork cage, they would trace a single circle of his palace, next wing past the Red Fort in a salute to the queen, then simply disappear into the infinite for fully half a day, returning as regally as they had first taken wing. Nadir Sharif was the prime minister of the Moghul empire, the brother of Queen Janahara, and the father of Prince Jadar's favorite wife, Mumtaz. Even in the first light of dawn there was no mistaking he was Persian and proud. The early sun glanced off his finely woven gauze cape and quickened a warm glow in the gold thread laced through his yellow cloak and his pastel morning turban. His quick eyes, plump face, and graying moustache testified to his almost sixty years of life, thirty spent at the Moghul court as close adviser to Arangbar and, before that, to Arangbar's father, the great empire-builder Akman. In power and authority he was exceeded only by the Moghul himself. Nadir Sharifs palace was deliberately situated next to the Red Fort, just around the broad curve of the Jamuna. The Red Fort, home of the Moghul, was a vast, rambling fortress whose river side towered over a hundred feet above the western curve of the Jamuna. From Nadir Sharifs rooftop the view of the river side of the fort and Arangbar's _darshan_ window was unobstructed. Darshan was the dawn appearance Arangbar made daily at a special balcony in the east wall of the Red Fort, next to the river gate. It was strict custom that the chief officials of Arangbar's court also appear daily, on a high platform just beneath the _darshan_ balcony, where along with the Moghul they greeted the well-wishers who streamed in through the river gate and provided visual confirmation that India's rule was intact. The square below the balcony--a grassy expanse between the side of the fort and the river wall, where Arangbar held noontime elephant fights and, on Tuesdays, executions by specially trained elephants--had already filled almost to capacity. Agra's most prominent noblemen were there, as prudence required, and today there also were clusters of important visitors. Several Rajput chieftains from the northwest, astride prancing Arabian horses, passed regally through the river gate and assumed prominent positions. Then a path was cleared for a large embassy of Safavid Persian diplomats, each of whose palanquins was borne by four slaves in gleaming velvet liveries; next several desert Uzbek khans in leather headdress rode into the square; and finally three Portuguese Jesuits in black cassocks trooped through the river gate and moved imperiously to the front of the crowd.