"Be assured this time the prince will bring his own undoing." Nadir Sharif accepted a betel leaf from the tray, a gesture, and absently rolled it between his thumb and finger. He wondered nervously why she had summoned him to the Jasmine Tower the minute he left the English _feringhi_. He normally enjoyed meeting her there, amid the marble screens, where they could recline on the carpeted terrace and admire the broad Jamuna. As her brother and prime minister, it was not unseemly for him to visit her in her quarters. "The campaign in the Deccan will change everything, Your Majesty. It cannot end as did the last one, with Malik Ambar surrendering out of fright. The Abyssinian surely suspects by now that Jadar is isolated." Queen Janahara was no longer listening. Her thoughts were seething over the two surprises of the day. The first was Nadir Sharif's absence from her historic appearance at the _darshan _balcony. She had already been informed of his absence by four separate eunuchs. All assumed it was deliberate. Nadir Sharif. My own brother. Can he be wavering? Or merely bargaining? Why? Has something happened with Jadar? The march south should have been the end of him. The _mansabdars _and their troops south of the Narbada were in shambles. But somehow Jadar has managed to recall enough cavalry to continue his campaign. What is he planning? That question called to mind the second problem of the day. The Englishman. She knew, as Arangbar did not, that the Englishman had already met with Jadar. Why had Jadar contrived such a meeting? The prince must know that both she and Nadir Sharif had full support of the Viceroy of Goa. Did he also know that the Viceroy had even offered secretly to help arm the Deccanis against him, an arrangement she was now negotiating? What of the English _feringhi_, his letter, his meeting with Jadar? She had studied him carefully through her screen when he appeared at the afternoon _durbar _and she had ordered a Persian translation of his letter prepared immediately. And what she read was disturbing. The English king had, it was true, asked merely for a trading _firman_. But who knew what sea power waited behind the English appearance at Surat? She knew Jadar despised Christians, but he would not scruple to use them one against the other. Where would it lead, if Jadar could enlist English sea power in the struggle that loomed ahead, and somehow neutralize the influence of the Portuguese? Maddeningly, the Moghul seemed amused by the Englishman, by his rude manner. "Why did His Majesty invite the _feringhi _to the _Diwan-i- Khas _tonight?"