The Moghul Read online

  This tale is offered to the memory of one William Hawkins (1575-1613),a brandy-drinking, Turkish-speaking seaman and adventurer who was thefirst Englishman to reach the court of Jahangir, the Great Moghul ofIndia. There he delivered gifts from the new East India Company and aletter from King James proposing direct trade, then a zealouslyprotected monopoly of Portugal. As he gradually adopted Indian ways,Hawkins became a court favorite of the Moghul, who made him a knightly_khan _and eventually tried to keep him in India. After severalPortuguese-instigated attempts to murder him, Hawkins attached himselffor safety to a certain willful Indian woman. The end of their storyeventually became a minor legend throughout the early East IndiaCompany.

  As astonishing as some of the elements in the historical landscapedescribed here may seem today, they are all by and large fictional re-creations of actual events, practices, people--drawn from diaries ofseventeenth-century European travelers and from Indian historicalmaterials. Aside from the names, only the clocks in this remote worldhave been knowingly altered. Years in historical time have becomemonths in these pages, months have become days. Several vicious navalengagements between English frigates and Portuguese galleons, severalmajor land battles between Indian armies, have each been compressedinto one.

  But the major occurrences in this faraway saga all happened. WhileShakespeare wrote of commoners and kings, while colonists hewed logcabins from the wilds of the New World, a land ruled by violentintrigue, powerful drugs, and sensual beauty lay hidden in thatlegendary place known as Moghul India.

  BOOK ONE

  LANDFALL

  CHAPTER ONE