Mesrop explained that, with few exceptions, protected by the cloak of religion, they were an utterly unprincipled sect of rogues. Some earned a living at snake-charming or by giving displays with dangerous beasts. Others were professional story-tellers who could recite Ferdusi by heart and knew all the tales told by Shahrazade to her Arab Caliph. But a far greater number of them battened on the superstitions of the ignorant masses. Witchcraft was rife throughout Persia. Everyone carried charms against the Evil Eye, and for many other reasons. The Dervishes made a fat living by selling bits of parchment with cryptic symbols scrawled on them, and parts of animals which, when carried on a person, were said to work wonders.
The knuckle-bones of a wolf would give courage; its gall rubbed on a woman's belly would cause her to conceive; the skin of an ape's nose was a preventive against poison; the cunning and speed of the animal could be acquired by swallowing its ashes after it had been burned; the tail of a horse placed under a child's pillow would ensure sound sleep, and horses dosed with the blood of a hare would increase their speed. However, most of the talismans concerned love. The skin of a hyena worn next to a woman's skin would keep her husband faithful, and the liver of an ape would bring back the affections of one who had become enamoured of another woman.
When, in mid-morning, Roger got back to the mission, he found the big house in a ferment. The royal astrologers had informed the Shah that it would be propitious for him to honour the French visitors by dining with them that night. Soon after Roger had left to collect Lisala and Dona Christina, the Mirzatahcr—as the Comptroller of the King's Household was called—had arrived with a letter from the Grand Vizier, declaring His Imperial Majesty's intention. Three sizes of wax seals were used for such communications, and this had the largest so, even before opening it, Gardane realised that it must be urgent and important.
To the General's surprise, the Mirzataher took immediate charge of the proceedings. With him he had brought carpenters, tent pitchers and carpet layers. Under his directions the whole garden was covered with canvas so that it became a great marquee. Thousands of square yards of carpet were brought in wagons to be laid in the street outside, and the floors of all the downstairs rooms were covered in precious rugs. So, too, was the garden and, at its far end, a huge, silk carpet was folded into thirty-two layers and spread with priceless shawls to form a temporary throne on which the King of Kings would sit.
At midday, a score of cooks and confectioners arrived with pots, pans and vast quantities of food, to take over the kitchen. A ton of ice was carried in to cool the wines and sherbets. Meanwhile, upholsterers had draped the whole of the front of the house with gorgeous brocade curtains. The fountains were set playing, flowers arranged in their basins and jars of perfume placed beside them, to be tipped in before the Shah entered the building.
While all this was going on, the French stood about, submitting with such grace as they could to being pushed into comers. Gardane looked on speechless and sour, for the Mirzataher had told him that people honoured by the Shah in this manner always paid the cost of the entertainment and, in due course, he would be told the sum due from him.
Early in the evening the crowd was supplemented by His Majesty's singers, and the Luti Bachi—the Shah's jester— who brought with him a score of jugglers, dwarfs and other mountebanks. The time of the King of Kings' arrival was to be after the evening prayer, and Gardane was told that he must go the Palace to precede his royal visitor in the procession. Making the best of matters, he put on his smartest uniform and sallied forth.
The people of Isfahan, having learned of what was afoot, lined the streets and roof-tops to acclaim their Sovereign during his stately progress. Heading the procession came heralds carrying weighty clubs and trumpets. They proclaimed the mightiness of their master as the Centre of the Universe and by innumerable other titles. Following them came a great body of gorgeously-clad nobles. Then came Gardane with, immediately behind him, the Shah. After them rode two Princes, the Grand Vizier, other functionaries and the royal guards.
When the Shah had duly been escorted through the house to his temporary throne, Gardane,- as he had been instructed was customary, had, to his intense annoyance, to offer his royal guest one hundred gold pieces on a silver salver. The
Shah nodded acceptance of them and through his interpreter told the General that such freely-made tributes inspired confidence and would increase his condescension to his host. The courtiers made numerous speeches to their master, flattering him as the greatest, wisest and most generous monarch under heaven; then his dinner was served.
It consisted of a hundred or more dishes and basins, all of solid gold, heaped with different kinds of food. For some twenty minutes he picked a bit here and a bit there with his fingers. When he had done, the two Princes sat down and set to. Only after them were the senior hosts and the Ministers allowed to cat. The dishes were then carried to the junior members of the mission and the Court officials. Finally the still-plentiful mounds of lamb, chicken, fish, rice, fruit, nuts, cakes and sweets went in turn to the guards, jesters, musicians and servants.
An entertainment followed, the star turn of which was the recitation of new piece by a poet. It lauded the Shah to the skies so satisfactorily that His Majesty ordered the man's mouth to be filled with gold, and the French were astonished to see how many pieces he succeeded in having crammed into it without choking.
It was not until well after midnight that, with much ceremony, the Shah took his departure and his tired hosts were able to discuss the party. Gardane was in an unusually black humour which, at first, Roger attributed to the great expense to which he had been put; but soon learned that it was not for that reason only. The General had optimistically believed that the Shah's visit was to convey to him a reply to the Emperor's letter and, during the course of the conversations that had taken place, he had opened the subject with the Grand Vizier.
The Minister had expressed great surprise and had conveyed the reply, 'Surely you did not expect an important decision concerning war or peace to be decided in the course of a few days? It will be another fortnight at least before you receive a reply to your communication.'
He had then gone on to inform Gardane that meanwhile it was His Majesty's pleasure that his guests should amuse themselves by going on a hunting expedition in the great forests north of Tehran, and that arrangements were already in train for the whole of the mission to set out, with an appropriate escort, the following morning.
Later, when discussing the matter with one of the Shah's gentlemen who spoke a little French and with whom he had become friendly, the General had received a hint that the real reason that lay behind sending the mission away from Isfahan was to deprive the French of any opportunity to bribe Ministers into favouring their designs while their Emperor's letter was under discussion.
Apart from the General and Roger, the others were delighted at the thought of the expedition. The latter was naturally alarmed, as it could deprive him for the next two weeks of further meetings with his adorable Lisala. It struck him, too, as at least a possibility that Alfonso dc Queircoz, having many friends in high places at the Persian Court, might have put the idea into one of the Ministers' heads, with the object of getting Lisala's new admirer out of the way until the reply to the Emperor was ready and the mission no longer had any reason to remain in Isfahan.