They had come a long way east, to a city where a woman called Noor Shah kept a great house.
She was famous, and people came from everywhere to see her. She could look at a person and take hold of their mind, so that whatever she told them was true, was true for them. And once she had somebody, they stayed.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji stopped outside the city, and Bhai Mardana Ji was hungry.
Do not go into the town, said Guru Ji. Wait here with me.
But he had been hungry a long time, and at last he said he was going in to find food, and Guru Ji did not stop him. He only said: then keep your spirits up. Your heart is soft and you are a musician.
So Bhai Mardana Ji walked into the city.
And in the city was a house with a door standing open, and inside it a courtyard, and on a cloth a plate of rice, still steaming, and the smell of saffron.
He went in.
Girls came, without a word, and set down a chair for him, and water, and milk. Nobody spoke. It was like watching puppets. Behind him the door closed.
And that was the end of Bhai Mardana Ji knowing anything for a while.
She took his mind, easily, the way she had taken so many. And afterwards, whatever she told him, he believed.
She gave him chillies and told him they were sweet dates, and he ate them and said, yes, how sweet.
And she said: you are not a man. You are a ram.
And Bhai Mardana Ji made the bleating noise a ram makes.
And everybody in that house laughed.
Three days and three nights like this, she was saying to her women, and he will be mine altogether. Look at him. He does exactly as I say.
One of them said: mistress, he has a kind face. I feel sorry for him.
And out in the forest the afternoon went on, and Guru Nanak Dev Ji waited, and his friend did not come back.
So he got up and walked into the city.
He walked wherever his feet took him, and he came to that house, and by some chance the door Bhai Mardana Ji had gone through was standing open again.
He looked in.
And Noor Shah, in the middle of her own courtyard, in the middle of her own laughing household, felt her heart give a jump. It had never done that before, not once in her whole life. She looked up to see why.
And a voice came across the courtyard, sweet and enormous.
The Lord is true.
She could not look at him. Her eyes went sliding off and shut, and that had never happened either. She wanted to go inside and send her people out to deal with him, and her feet would not move. She got one step backwards and then she was stuck.
So she sent out what always worked.
A maid came running with a silver plate heaped with food, and held it up to him. Guru Ji lifted his hand. Not yet, he said.
The plate went away. A tray came instead, with pearls on one dish and gold coins on the other. He put up his hand again.
Then children came out in bright clothes and sat at his feet and sang him a beautiful song, and it was a very good song, and he stood there and did not move at all.
O Lord, said Guru Ji quietly. You are great.
And over on the other side of the courtyard, Bhai Mardana Ji put his hands to his ears and looked around him and began to stir, like somebody surfacing out of a dream.
Then Guru Ji walked forward and said one sentence.
Give me back the Lord's man. It is a poor business, making fools of holy people.
And Noor Shah looked at Bhai Mardana Ji and said: go. You are free.
He opened his eyes. It was afternoon. He got up without quite knowing why, walked toward the gate, saw the back of somebody he loved going out ahead of him, and followed it.
Long afterwards, when she had given away everything she owned and was living quite differently, Noor Shah found Bhai Mardana Ji and asked him to forgive her.
Goodnight. He walked into that house all by himself. He did not have to walk out by himself.