Set in the early decades of the Mughal Empire, this first ever biography of Princess Gulbadan, the daughter of Emperor Babur, offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood in Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar. Longing for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she had known, she led, with Akbar's blessing, an extended pilgrimage by harem women to Mecca and other parts of Arabia. Amid increasing political tensions, the women's "un-Islamic " behavior forced their return, which was lengthened by a dramatic shipwreck in the Red Sea. Gulbadan wrote a book upon her return, the only surviving work of prose by a woman of her times. A portion of it is missing, either lost to history or redacted by officials who did not want the princess to have her say. As she contemplates the story of the missing pages, Lal breathes new life into an extraordinary Mughal figure, and establishes her place in a history that has long been dominated by men's actions and words.

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