The Moghul Read online

  "Tonight you may have been luckier than you suppose, CaptainHawksworth." The Shahbandar's fingers deftly counted the fivesovereigns through the leather pouch Hawksworth had handed him. Aroundthem the final side bets were being placed against the Portuguesecaptain who would play Mirza Nuruddin next.

  "It's hard to see how."

  "For the price of a mere five sovereigns, Captain, you've learned atruth some men fail to master in a lifetime." Mirza Nuruddin motionedaway the Portuguese captain, his doublet stained with wine, who waitedto take his place at the board. "I really must call the dancers now,lest some of my old friends lose regard for our hospitality. I hopeyou'll find them entertaining, Captain Hawksworth. If you've never seenthe _nautch_, you've yet to call yourself a man."

  Hawksworth pulled himself up and thought about the river and slowlyworked his way through the crowd to the edge of the marble court. Thedamp, chill air purged the torch smoke from his lungs and began tosweep away the haze of brandy from his brain. He stared into the darkand asked the winds if they knew of the _Resolve_.

  Could it all have been a trap? What if he'd told the Portugals, andthey had warships waiting?

  Without warning, the slow, almost reverent strains of a sarangi, theIndian violin, stirred from the corner of the courtyard, and the crowdshifted expectantly. Hawksworth turned to notice that a carpetedplatform had been erected directly in the center of the court, and ashe watched, a group of women, perhaps twenty, slowly began to mountsteps along its side. The torches had grown dim, but he could still seeenough to tell they all wore the veil of purdah and long skirts overtheir trousers. As they moved chastely toward the center of theplatform he thought they looked remarkably like village women going toa well, save they wore rows of tiny bells around their ankles and heavybangles on their wrists.

  The air was rent by a burst of drumming, and the courtyard suddenlyflared as servants threw oil on the smoldering torches around thebalcony. At that instant, in a gesture of high drama, the women rippedaway their turquoise veils and flung them skyward. The crowd erupted ina roar.

  Hawksworth stared at the women in astonishment.

  Their skirts, the skintight trousers beneath, and their short halters--were all gossamer, completely transparent.

  The dance was underway. Hips jerked spasmodically, in perfect time withthe drummer's accelerating, hypnotic rhythms--arching now to the side,now suggestively forward. Hawksworth found himself exploring thedancers' mask-like faces, all heavily painted and expressionless. Thenhe watched their hands, which moved in sculptural arcs through a kindof sign language certain Indians in the crowd seemed to know. Otherhand messages were understood by all, as the women stroked themselvesintimately, in what seemed almost a parody of sensuality. As the rhythmcontinued to intensify, they begap to rip away their garments one byone, beginning with their parted waist wraps. Next their halters werethrown to the crowd, though their breasts had long since found releasefrom whatever minimal containment they might have known at thebeginning of the dance. Their earth-brown skin now glistened bare inthe perfumed torchlight.

  The dance seemed to Hawksworth to go on and on, incredibly building toever more frantic levels of intensity. The drunken crowd swayed withthe women, its excitement and expectation swelling. Then at last thewomen's trousers also were ripped away, leaving them adorned with onlybangles and reflecting jewels. Yet the dance continued still, as theywrithed onto their knees at the edge of the platform. Then slowly, asthough by some unseen hand, the platform lowered to the level of thecourtyard and they glided into the drunken crowd, thrusting breasts,thighs, against the ecstatic onlookers. The cheers had grown deafening.

  Hawksworth finally turned away and walked slowly down the embankment tothe river. There, in the first hint of dawn, bathers had begun toassemble for Hindu prayers and a ritual morning bath. Among them wereyoung village girls, swathed head to foot in bright-colored wraps, whodescended one by one into the chilled water and began to modestlychange garments while they bathed, chastely coiling a fresh clotharound themselves even as the other was removed.

  They had never seemed more beautiful.

  Hawksworth was standing on the steps of the maidan when the sail of theEnglish longboat showed at the turn of the river. News of the shipwreckhad reached Surat by village runner an hour after sunup, and barks hadalready been sent to try to recover the remaining silver before theship broke apart. The frigate was reportedly no more than a thousandyards off the coast, and all the men, even Kerridge, the bosun, and thepilot, had been safely carried ashore by the current.

  Hawksworth watched the longboat's sail being lowered in preparation forlanding and tried to think over his next step, how to minimize thedelay and loss.

  We can't risk staying on past another day or two, not with only onevessel. If we're caught at anchor in the cove, there's nothing one shipcan do. The Portugals can send in fireships and there'll be no way tosink them with crossfire. The _Discovery _has to sail immediately.We've enough cotton laded now to fill the hold with pepper in Java.

  Damn Kerridge. Why was he steering so close to shore? Didn't he realizethere'd be a current?

  Or was it the pilot?

  Were we steered into this disaster on the orders of our new friendMirza Nuruddin? Has he been playing false with us all along, onlyclaiming to help us stay clear of the Portugals? By the looks of thetraders on the _maidan_ this morning I can tell they all think we wereplayed for fools.

  He tried to remember all the Shahbandar had said the night before,particularly the remarks he had not understood, but now the eveningseemed swallowed in a fog of brandy.

  But the game, he finally realized, had been more than a game.

  "The voyage will be lucky to break even now." George Elkington slidfrom the back of the sweating porter and collapsed heavily on the stonesteps. "The _Resolve _was old, but 'twill take forty thousand pound toreplace her."

  "What do you plan to do?" Hawksworth eyed Kerridge as he mounted thesteps, his doublet unrecognizable under the smeared mud, and decided toignore him.

  "Not a damn'd thing we can do now, save lade the last of the cotton andsome indigo on the _Discovery_ and weigh anchor. And day aftertomorrow's not too soon, by my thinkin'." Elkington examined Hawksworthand silently cursed him. He still had not swallowed his disbelief whenHawksworth had announced, only three days before, that he planned toleave the ships and travel to Agra with a letter from King James.

  "The Shahbandar has asked to meet with you." Hawksworth motioned toElkington as the last seaman climbed over the side of the longboat andonto the back of a waiting porter. "We may as well go in."

  A crowd of the curious swarmed about them as they made their way acrossthe _maidan_ and through the customs house. Mirza Nuruddin was waitingon his bolster.

  "Captain, my sincere condolences to you and to Mr. Elkington. Please besure that worthless pilot will never work out of this port again. Icannot believe he was at fault, but he'll be dealt with nonetheless."Which is partially true, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, since my cousinMuhammad Haidar, _nakuda _of the Rahimi, will take him on the pilgrimship for the next Aden run, and allow him to work there until hisreputation is repaired. "You were fortunate, at least, that the largestpart of her cargo had already been unladed."

  Elkington listened to Hawksworth's translation, his face growing evermore florid. "'Twas the damned pilot's knavery. Tell him I'd see himhanged if this was England."

  Mirza Nuruddin listened, then sighed. "Perhaps the pilot was at fault,perhaps not. I don't quite know whose story to believe. But you shouldknow that in India only the Moghul can impose the death penalty. Thismatter of the pilot is past saving, however. It's best we move on. Sotell me, what do you propose to do now?"

  "Settle our accounts, weigh anchor, and be gone." Elkington bristled."But you've not heard the last o' the East India Company, I'll warrantyou. We'll be back with a fleet soon enough, and next time we'll do ourown hirin' of a pilot."

  "As you wish. I'll have our accountants total your inv
oices." MirzaNuruddin face did not change as he heard the translation, but hisspirit exulted.

  It worked! They'll be well at sea within the week, days before thePortuguese warships arrive. Not even that genius of intrigue MukarrabKhan will know I planned it all. And by saving these greedy Englishfrom certain disaster, I've lured to our seas the only Europeans withthe spirit to drive out the Portuguese forever, after a century ofhumiliation.

  India's historic tradition of free trade, the Shahbandar had oftenthought, had also brought her undoing. Open-handed to all who came tobuy and sell, India had thrived since the beginning of time. Until thePortuguese came.

  In those forgotten days huge single-masted arks, vast as eight hundredtons, freely plied the length of the Arabian Sea. From Mecca's Jiddathey came, groaning with the gold, silver, copper, wool, and brocadesof Italy, Greece, Damascus, or with the pearls, horses, silks of Persiaand Afghanistan. They put in at India's northern port of Cambay, wherethey laded India's prized cotton, or sailed farther south, to India'sport of Calicut, where they bargained for the hard black pepper ofIndia's Malabar Coast, for ginger and cinnamon from Ceylon. India's ownmerchants sailed eastward, to the Moluccas, where they bought silks andporcelains from Chinese traders, or cloves, nutmeg, and mace from theislanders. India's ports linked China on the east with Europe on thewest, and touched all that moved between. The Arabian Sea was free asthe air, and the richest traders who sailed it prayed to Allah, the OneTrue God.

  Then, a hundred years ago, the Portuguese came. They seized strategicocean outlooks from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to the coast ofChina. On these they built strongholds, forts to control not the landsof Asia, but its seas. And if no man could remember the centuries offreedom, today all knew well the simple device that held the ArabianSea in bondage. It was a small slip of paper, on which was thesignature of a Portuguese governor or the captain of a Portuguese fort.Today no vessel, not even the smallest bark, dared venture the ArabianSea without a Portuguese _cartaz_. This hated license must name thecaptain of a vessel and verify its tonnage, its cargo, its crew, itsdestination, and its armament. Vessels could trade only at portscontrolled or approved by the Portuguese, where they must pay a duty of8 percent on all cargo in and out. Indian and Arab vessels no longercould carry spices, pepper, copper, or iron--the richest cargo and nowthe monopoly of Portuguese shippers.

  An Indian vessel caught at sea without a _cartaz_, or steering southwhen its stated destination was north, was confiscated; its captain andcrew were executed immediately, if they were lucky, or sent to thegalleys if they were not. Fleets of armed galleons cruised thecoastlines in patrol. If a vessel gave cause for suspicion, Portuguesesoldiers boarded her in full battle dress, with naked swords and battlecries of "Santiago." And while their commander inspected the ship's_cartaz_, Portuguese soldiers relieved passengers of any jewelrysalable in the streets of Goa. _Cartaz_ enforcement was strict, and--since a percentage of all seized cargo went to captains and crews ofpatrol galleons--enthusiastic. The seas off India were theirs by right,the Portuguese liked to explain, because they were the first ever tohave the ingenuity to make claim to them.

  The revenues the _cartaz _brought Portugal were immense--not because itwas expensive to obtain, it cost only a few rupees, but because itfunneled every ounce of commodity traded in the Arabian Sea through aPortuguese tax port.

  And it is the Portuguese taxes, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, not justtheir galleons, that the English will one day drive from our ports. Andon that day, our merchant ships will again lade the best cargo, sailthe richest routes, return with the boldest profits.

  "There seems nothing further then, Mr. Elkington, I can do for you."The Shahbandar smiled and bowed his small, ceremonial salaam. "Savewish you a fair wind and Allah's blessing."

  So it's over, Hawksworth thought as they turned to leave, the last timeI'll ever see you, and thank you very much, you unscrupulous deceivingson of a whore.

  "Captain Hawksworth, perhaps you and I can share a further word. Youare not, as I understand, planning to depart India. At least notimmediately. I'd like you always to know my modest offices remain atyour behest."

  Elkington paused, as did Hawksworth, but one of the Shahbandar'sofficials took the merchant's arm and urged him firmly toward the doorof the chamber. Too firmly, Hawksworth thought.

  "I think you've done about all for us you can." Hawksworth made noattempt to strain the irony from his voice.

  "Be that as it may, I've heard rumors that your trip to Agra may beapproved. Should that happen, you must know you cannot travel alone,Captain. No man in India is that foolhardy. The roads here are no moresafe than those, so I hear, in Europe. All travelers inland need aguide, and an armed escort."

  "Are you proposing to help me secure a guide? Equal in competence, mayI presume, to the pilot you hired for the _Resolve_?"

  "Captain Hawksworth, please. God's will is mysterious." He sighed. "Noman can thwart mischance if it is his destiny. Hear me out. I have justlearned there's currently a man in Surat who knows the road toBurhanpur like his own sword handle. In fact, he only just arrived fromthe east, and I understand he expects to return when his affairs here,apparently brief, are _Resolve_d. By a fortuitous coincidence hehappens to have an armed escort of guards with him. I suggest it mightbe wise to attempt to engage him while you still have a chance."

  "And who is this man?"

  "A Rajput captain with the army. A soldier of no small reputation, Ican assure you. His name is Vasant Rao."