The Enchantress Of Florence

A tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogordell
Amore', the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real GrandMughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess thewhole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughalprincess, the youngest sister of Akbar
s grandfather Babar: Qara K z,'Lady Black Eyes', a great beauty believed to possess powers ofenchantment and sorcery, who is taken captive first by an Uzbek warlord,then by the Shah of Persia, and finally becomes the lover of a certainArgalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the armies of theOttoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress thecity is mesmerized by her presence, and much trouble ensues.The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting tocommand her own destiny in a man
s world. It brings together two citiesthat barely know each other - the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which thebrilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire and thetreachery of sons, and the equally sensual Florentine world of powerfulcourtesans, humanist philosophy and inhuman torture, where Argalia
sboyhood friend
il Machia
- Niccol Machiavelli - is learning, the hard way,about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn outto be uncannily alike, and the enchantments of women hold sway overthem both.But is Mogor
s story true? And if so, then what happened to the lostprincess? And if he
s a liar, must he die?