Nadira, the princess who’s name meant<em>Rare and Precious </em>was terrified. Hers had been a cloistered life. Like a treasure locked up tight in the palace vaults, the princess had spent her entire life behind the white-washed, glistening stones of her father’s stronghold. How now could she be expected to prove herself charitable and benevolent, when before this night, she had not known that poverty existed?<br/><br/>Nadira gasped as the tide of bodies, reeking in stark contrast to the jasmine and perfumes of her father’s harem, shifted. Everywhere the sheltered princess looked, she saw disease and deformities heretofore unknown to her. To virgin eyes that had spent a lifetime beholding naught but beauty and luxury, the sights before Nadira were not unlike a chamber of horrors.<br/><br/>In truth, for the purposes of this custom, it was as if Nadira were a babe, once more passing through the birth canal, that she might be born anew, a woman, a bride.<br/><br/>“Alms!  Alms!”  The crowd cried.<br/><br/>Overwhelmed, Nadira cried as well, unshed tears glistening in her lustrous, gray eyes. Trembling, the Rajkumari reached into her silken purse, producing coin after coin, placing each one in filth encrusted hands whilst trying to preserve the sanctity of her body by not touching the unwashed flesh of the poor.<br/><br/>Another surge of the crowd and Nadira stumbled backwards, further from her entourage that was desperately seeking her out. Reinforcements were being summoned from the palace. The Rajkumari had to be found. She was worth a king’s ransom…