"But why do these Persians, or theirimams, want to be rid of Samad?""Because he's a Sufi, a mystic, who teaches that we all should find God within our own selves. Without the mullahs. That's why the Persian Shi'ites despise him and want him dead.""Then he's supporting Prince Jadar?""Samad does not concern himself with politics. But it's the duty of the others of us, those who understand what is happening, to help Prince Jadar. Because we know he will stop the Persians and their Shi'ites who are now spreading their poison of hate in India, and he'll also rid India of the Portuguese. I'm sure of it." She paused for a moment. "You know, it's always seemed ironic that the Persians and the Portuguese should actually work together. But in a way each needs the other. The Portuguese have made the Persians, particularly the queen and her brother, Nadir Sharif, very rich, and in return they're allowed to send their Jesuits to preach. So both the Persians and the Portuguese want to prevent Prince Jadar from becoming the next Moghul, since they know he'd like nothing better than to rid India of them both.""But what does this have to do with me? I just want a tradingfirmanfrom Arangbar. He's still alive and healthy, and he should know the Portugals can't stop English trading ships from coming here. Why shouldn't he give us afirman?""Can't you see? The English can never be allowed to trade here. It would be the beginning of the end for the Portuguese. It would show all the world they no longer can control India's ports. But what I'm really trying to make you see is that it's not only the Portuguese who want to stop you. It's also the people who support them. So no one can aid you openly. The Persians are already too powerful. Still, there are those here who would protect you.""Who do you mean?""How could I possibly tell you?" She held him with her eyes. "I scarcely know you. But you should listen to your intuition. Samad says we all have an inner voice that tells us what is true."This time she did reach and touch his hand, and her touch was strangely warm in the chill of the room. "I can't tell you any more, really. So now will you play for me? Something tender, perhaps. A song you would play for the woman you left behind you in England.""I didn't have all that much to leave behind." He picked up the lute. "But I'll be happy to play for you.""You have no one?""There was a woman in London. But she married while I was . . . gone.""She wouldn't wait while you were away?" Shirin sipped again from her cup and her eyes darkened. "That must have been very sad for you.""It could be she didn't think I was worth waiting for." He hesitated. "I've had some time to think about it since. In a way it was probably my own fault. I think she wanted more than I was ready to give."She looked at him and smiled. "Perhaps what she wanted was you. And you wouldn't give yourself. Tell me what she was like.""What was she like?" He looked away, remembering Maggie's face with a strange mixture of longing and bitterness. "Well, she's like nobody I've seen in India. Red hair, blue eyes . . . and a salty tongue." He laughed. "If she was ever anybody's fourth wife, I'd pity the other three." He felt his laugh fade. "I missed her a lot when I was away before. But now . . ." He tried to shrug.She looked at him as though she understood it all. "Then if you won't play for her any more, will you play just for me? One of your English ragas?""What if I played a suite by Dowland, one of our English composers? It's one of my favorites." He found himself smiling again, the lute comfortable and reassuring in his grasp. "I hope you won't think it sounds too out of place.""We're both out of place here now." She returned his smile wistfully and glanced at the papers on the desk. "You and me."Hawksworth saw George Elkington approaching and dropped the dagger quickly into his boot."'Twill take a lifetime the rate these heathens dawdle." Elkington wiped a sweaty arm across his brow. Deep bags sagged under his bloodshot eyes. "An' we'll be months movin' the lead and ironwork with these damn'd rickety carts. Not to mention the silver bullion for buyin' commodity. We'll have to get a barge.""How many more trips do you need to bring in the wool?""Can't say. But 'tis clear we'll need more of these damn'd carts, for what little they're worth." As Elkington turned to spit, he spotted a porter who had let a roll of woolen cloth dip into the river, and his neck veins pulsed. "Hey, you heathen bastard, mind the water!" He stumbled after the terrified man trailing a stream of oaths.Hawksworth leaned against the wooden spokes of a bullock cart and quickly passed the stiletto from his boot back to his belt. As he watched, the bark tipped, beginning to list dangerously, and then he heard Elkington command the porters to stop the loading and prepare to get underway. Only five of the twenty-five bullock carts had been emptied, and the sun was already approaching midafternoon. As Hawksworth had watched the men at work, some corner of his mind had become dimly aware of a curious anomaly. Whereas the Shahbandar's porters were working at full speed, the drivers of the bullock carts seemed actually to be hindering the unloading—moving the carts around in a confused way that always kept the work disorganized. And a number of answers began, just began, to fall into place."Captain-General Hawksworth, do you expect to be joinin' us?" George Elkington stalked up and began to scrape his muddy boots on the spokes of the bullock cart"Elkington, I want you to dismiss these drivers." Hawksworth ignored his sarcastic tone. "I want the Shahbandar to supply all our men from now on.""What the bloody hell for?" Elkington tightened his hat and hitched up his belt."Something's wrong. Did you have any accidents coming in from Swalley?""Accidents? Nay, not a bleedin' one. Unless you'd call the axle of a cart breakin' the first day and blockin' a narrow turn in the road, with mud on both sides so we couldn't pass and had to unload the whole bleedin' lot and look half the mornin' for another cart to hire. An' then the drivers had a fight over who was responsible, and who'd pay for what, and we couldn't start till after midday. And yesterday one of their damn'd bullocks died, right in the road. Which is scarce wonder, considerin' how worn out they are. Nay, we had no accidents. The whole bleedin' trip was an accident.""Then let's get rid of them all. Men, carts, bullocks, the lot. And hire new. Let the Shahbandar hire them for us. We pay in silver, and give him his commission, and I'm sure he'll provide us what we need.""Think he can do any better?" Elkington's skeptical eyes squinted against the sun. "These damn'd heathens all appear similar.""I think he'll make a difference. They all seem terrified of him. We have to try." Hawksworth started for the barge."You don't have much time left." Shirin had said. "Try to understand what's happening."The porters were loosening the lines on the pegs. The bark was ready to get underway."Don't assume you know who'll aid you," she had said. "Help may come in a way that surprises you. It can't be known who's helping you."He waded through the mud and pulled himself onto thebark. Then he turned and rolled over onto a bale of cloth. The sky was flawless and empty."Just trust what feels right," she had said, and for no reason at all she had reached out and touched his lute. "Learn to trust your senses. Most of all"—she had taken his hand and held it longer than she should have—"learn to open yourself."They were underway.The Shahbandar watched from themaidanas the bark of English woolens moved in short spurts toward the steps below him. Oars sparkled in the sunshine, and the faint chant of the rowers bounced, garbled, across the waves. Behind him two short, surly-eyed men held the large umbrella that shaded his face and rotund belly. A circle of guards with poles pushed away traders who shouted begs and bribes for a moment of his time injtheir tent, to inspect their goods please and render them salable commodity with his chapp and an invoice stating their worth, preferably undervalued. The 2 1/2 percent duty was prescribed by the Moghul. The assessed value was not.Mirza Nuruddin ignored them. He was calculating time, not rupees.His latest report was that four weeks more were needed for the Viceroy to outfit the galleons and fireships. But the single-masted frigatta bringing the news from Goa was two weeks in travel. Which means the galleons will be here within three, perhaps two weeks, he told himself. A Portuguese armada of twelve warships. The Englishman's luck has run out. They'll be caught unlading and burned.He fingered the shred of dirty cloth tucked in his waist. It had been sent by Shirin, wrapped with a gift of aga of the rose. Her cryptic note had told him all he had needed to know. When his spies reported no one recently injured among the servants of the Portuguese Jesuits, the search had begun in the horse bazaar. They had found the man the next day. The truth had come quickly when Mirza Nuruddin's name was mentioned.And nothing had been learned. The man had been given the knife by Hindi-speaking servants. Their master's name was never divulged. But they knew well the routine of the Englishman, and the location of the observatory.And now I must tamper with your destiny, English captain. We are all—you, I, the prince—captives of a world we no longer can fully control.He asked himself again why he had made the choice, finally. To take the risks Jadar had asked, when the odds against the prince were growing daily. It was stupid to support him now, and Mirza Nuruddin had always held absolute contempt for stupidity, particularly when it meant supporting a hopeless cause.If the queen crushes him, as she very likely will, I've jeopardized my position, my holdings, probably my life.The prince does not understand how difficult my task is. The infidel Englishman is almost too clever.I had planned it perfectly. I had shown them the opportunity for great profit, then denied it to them. They were preparing to leave, but surely they would have returned, with a fleet. Then Mukarrab Khan approved their trade, after waiting until he was certain the Portuguese preparations were almost complete. So now they remain, awaiting their own destruction, never to leave again. And when these frigates are destroyed, will any English ever return?The Englishman will surely be dead, or sent to Goa. There'll be no trip to Agra. And Arangbar will never know why.But the silver coin will soon be ready. And the prince's cipher today said Vasant Rao himself will arrive in ten days to escort the Englishman and the silver as far as Burhanpur. Time is running out.There's only one solution left. Will it work?The barge eased into the shallows and the porters slid into the water, each already carrying a roll of cloth."I expected this difficulty, Captain Hawksworth. But yourpath is of your own making. You yourself chose to unlade at that distance from the port." They were in Mirza Nuruddin's chamber, and the Shahbandar faced Hawksworth and Elkington with his rheumy, fogbound eyes. The chamber had been emptied, as Hawksworth had demanded. "I propose you consider the following. Unlade the woolens from your smaller frigate immediately, and let me oversee their transport here." He drew nonchalantly on the hookah. "My fee would be a small commission above the cost of hiring the carts. One percent if they are delivered here within two weeks. Two percent if they are delivered within one week. Do you accept?"Hawksworth decided not to translate the terms for Elkington."We accept." It seems fair, he told himself. This is no time to bargain."You show yourself reasonable. Now, the lead and ironwork you have cargoed is another matter. Bullock carts are totally unsuitable for those weights in this sandy coastal delta. The weights involved require they be transported by river bark. And that means unlading at the river mouth."Hawksworth shook his head. "We'll dump the cargo first. We can't take the risk now.""Captain, there is risk and there is risk. What is life itself if not risk? Without risk what man can call himself alive?" Mirza Nuruddin thought of his own risk at this moment, how his offer of help to the English would immediately be misconstrued by the entire port. Until the plan had played through to its ending. Then the thought of the ending buoyed him and he continued, his voice full of solicitude. "I can suggest a strategy for unlading your ironwork at the river mouth in reasonable safety, after your frigates have been lightened of their wool. With an experienced pilot, you can sail along the shoreline, south to the bar, and anchor under cover of dark. Barks can be waiting to unlade you. If the lead and ironwork are ready for unlading, perhaps it can be completed in one night. You can unlade the smaller frigate first, return it to the cove you call Swalley, and then unlade the other vessel. That way only one frigate is exposed at a time."As Hawksworth and Elkington listened, Mirza Nuruddin outlined the details of his offer. He would hire whatever men were needed. He normally did this for foreign traders, and took a percentage from them—as well as from the meager salary of the men he hired. And he already had a pilot in mind, a man who knew every shoal and sandbar on the coastline.As Hawksworth listened his senses suddenly told him to beware. Hadn't Shirin told him to trust his intuition? And this scheme was too pat. This time his guts told him to dump the lead in the bay and write off the loss. But Elkington would never agree. He would want to believe they could unlade and sell the lead. His responsibility was profit on the cargo, not the risk of a vessel.So he would take this final risk. Perhaps Mirza Nuruddin was right. Risk exhilarated.He smiled inwardly and thought again of Shirin. And of what she had said about trusting his instincts.Then, ignoring them, he agreed to Mirza Nuruddin's plan.And the Shahbandar produced a document already prepared for their signature.CHAPTER ELEVEN"Now we will begin. As my guest, you have first throw of the dice." Mirza Nuruddin fingered the gold and ivory inlay of the wooden dice cup as he passed it to Hawksworth. Then he drew a heavy gurgle of smoke from his hookah, savoring the way it raced his heart for that brief instant before its marvelous calm washed over his nerves. He needed the calm. He knew that any plan, even one as carefully conceived as the one tonight, could fail through the blundering of incompetents. Or betrayal. But tonight, he told himself, tonight you will win the game.The marble-paved inner court of the Shahbandar's sprawling brick estate house was crowded almost to overflowing: with wealthy Hindu money-lenders, whose mercenary hearts were as black as their robes were white; Muslim port officials in silks and jewels, private riches gleaned at public expense; the turbaned captains of Arab cargo ships anchored at the bar, hard men in varicolored robes who sat sweltering, smoking, and drinking steaming coffee; and a sprinkling of Portuguese in starched doublets, the captains and officers of the three Portuguese trading frigatta now anchored at the bar downriver.Servants wearing only white loincloths circulated decanters of wine and boxes of rolled betel leaves as an antidote to the stifling air that lingered even now, almost at midnight, from a broiling day. The torchbearers of Mirza Nuruddin's household stood on the balconies continuously dousing a mixture of coconut oil and rose attar onto their huge flambeaux. Behind latticework screens thenautchgirls waited in boredom, braiding their hair, smoothing their skintight trousers, inspecting themselves in the ring-mirror on their right thumb, and chewing betel. The dancing would not begin until well after midnight.As Hawksworth took the dice cup, the sweating crowd fell expectantly silent, and for the first time he noticed the gentle splash of the river below them, through the trees.He stared for a moment at the lined board lying on the carpet between them, then he wished himself luck and tossed the three dice along its side. They were ivory and rectangular, their four long sides numbered one, two, five, and six with inlaid teakwood dots. He had thrown a one and two sixes."A propitious start. You English embrace fortune as a Brahmin his birthright." The Shahbandar turned and smiled toward the Portuguese captains loitering behind him, who watched mutely, scarcely masking their displeasure at being thrown together with the heretic English captain. But an invitation from the Shahbandar was not something a prudent trader declined. "The night will be long, however. This is only your beginning."Hawksworth passed the cup to the Shahbandar and stared at the board, trying to understand the rules ofchaupar, the favorite game of India from the Moghul’szenanato the lowliest loitering scribe. The board was divided into four quadrants and a central square, using two sets of parallel lines, which formed a large cross in its middle. Each quadrant was divided into three rows, marked with spaces for moving pieces. Two or four could play, and each player had four pieces of colored teak that were placed initially at the back of two of the three spaced rows. After each dice throw, pieces were moved forward one or more spaces in a row until reaching its end, then up the next row, until they reached the square in the center. A piece reaching the center was calledrasida, arrived.Hawksworth remembered that a double six allowed him to move two of his pieces, those standing together, a full twelve spaces ahead. As he moved the pieces forward, groans and oaths in a number of languages sounded through the night air. Betting had been heavy on the Shahbandar, who had challenged both Hawksworth and the senior Portuguese captain to a set of games. Only an adventurous few in the crowd would straddle their wagers and accept the long odds that the English captain would, or could, be so impractical as to defeat the man who must value and apply duty to his goods."Did I tell you, Captain Hawksworth, thatchauparwas favored by the Great Moghul, Akman?" The Shahbandar rattled the dice in the cup for a long moment. "There's a story, hundreds of years old, that once a ruler of India sent the game of chess, what we callchaturangain India, to Persia as a challenge to their court. They in return sentchauparto India." He paused dramatically. "It's a lie invented by a Persian."He led the explosion of laughter and threw the dice. A servant called the numbers and the laughter died as suddenly as it had come."The Merciful Prophet's wives were serpent-tongued Bengalis."He had thrown three ones.A terrified servant moved the pieces while Mirza Nuruddin took a betel leaf from a tray and munched it sullenly. The crowd's tension was almost palpable.Hawksworth took the cup and swirled it again. He absently noted that the moon had emerged from the trees and was now directly overhead. The Shahbandar seemed to notice it as well.Mackintosh watched as the last grains of red marble sand slipped through the two-foot-high hourglass by the binnacle and then he mechanically flipped it over. The moon now cast the shadow of the mainmast yard precisely across the waist of the ship, and the tide had begun to flow in rapidly. The men of the new watch were silently working their way up the shrouds."Midnight. The tide's up. There's nae need to wait more." He turned to Captain Kerridge, who stood beside him on the quarterdeck of theResolve. George Elkington stood directly behind Kerridge."Let's get under sail." Elkington tapped out his pipe on the railing. Then he turned to Kerridge. "Did you remember to douse the stern lantern?""I give the orders, Mr. Elkington. And you can save your questions for the pilot." Captain Jonathan Kerridge was a small, weasel-faced man with no chin and large bulging eyes. He signaled theResolve’s quartermaster and the anchor chain began to rattle slowly up the side. Then the mainsail dropped, hung slack for a moment, and bellied against the wind, sending a groan through the mast. They were underway. The only light on board was a small, shielded lantern by the binnacle, for reading the large boxed compass.The needle showed their course to be almost due south, toward the bar at the mouth of the Tapti. On their right was the empty bay and on their left the glimmer of occasional fires from the shoreline. The whipstaff had been taken by the Indian pilot, a wrinkled nut-brown man the Shahbandar had introduced as Ahmet. He spoke a smattering of Portuguese and had succeeded in explaining that he could reliably cover the eight-mile stretch south from Swalley to the unloading bar at the Tapti river mouth in one turn of the hourglass, if Allah willed. With high tide, he had also managed to explain, there were only two sandbars they would have to avoid.And there would be no hostiles abroad this night. Even the Portuguese trading frigates were safely at anchor off the river mouth, for this evening their captains had been honored by an invitation to attend the gathering at Mirza Nuruddin's estate."Your beginning has been impressive, Captain Hawksworth. But now you must still maintain your advantage." Mirza Nuruddin watched as Hawksworth threw a double five and a two, advancing two of his four pieces into the central square. The crowd groaned, coins began to change hands. "You have gainedrasidafor two pieces. I'll save time and concede this game. But we have six more to play.Chauparis a bit like life. It favors those with endurance."As the board was cleared for the next game, Mirza Nuruddin rose and strode to the end of the court. The wind was coming up now, as it always did on this monthly night of full moon and tide, sweeping up the river bringing the fresh salt air of the sea. And the currents would be shifting along the coast, as sandbars one by one were submerged by the incoming tide. He barked an inconsequential order to a hovering servant and then made his way back to the board, his guests parting automatically before him. The drinking crowd had already begun to turn boisterous, impatient for the appearance of the women. As always, thenautchgirls would remain for additional entertainment after their dance, in private quarters available in the rambling new palace."This game I will throw first." The Shahbandar seated himself, and watched as Hawksworth drew on a tankard of brandy, especially provided for the Europeans present. Then Mirza Nuruddin made a deft twist of the cup and the ivories dropped on the carpet in a neat row of three sixes. A servantbarked the numbers and the crowd pressed forward as one to watch."Fifteen fathom and falling." The bosun leaned back from the railing and shouted toward the quarterdeck. In disbelief he quickly drew the line in over the gunwale at the waist of theResolveand fed it out again."Now she reads thirteen fathom."Kerridge glanced at the hourglass. The sand was half gone, and the compass reading still gave their course as due south. Ahead the sea was blind dark but on the left the fires of shore still flickered, now perhaps even brighter than he had remembered them. Then he realized a cloud had drifted momentarily over the moon, and he told himself this was why. The pilot held the whipstaff on a steady course."I'd reef the foresail a notch, Cap'n, and ease her two points to starboard. I'll lay a hundred sovereigns the current's chang'd on us." Mackintosh ventured to break protocol and speak, his concern growing.I dinna like the feel of this, he told himself. We're driftin' too fast. I can feel it."Eight fathoms, sir." The bosun's voice again cut the dark."Jesus, Cap'n," Mackintosh erupted. "Take her about. The pox-rotted current's . ..""She'll ride in three fathom. I've sailed the James, six hundred ton, in less. Let her run." He turned to Elkington. "Ask the Moor how much longer to the river mouth."George Elkington turned and shot a stream of questions rapidly at the pilot, whose eyes glazed in his partial comprehension. He shook his head in a way that seemed to mean both yes and no simultaneously and then pointed into the dark and shrugged, emitting fragments of Portuguese."Em frente Sahib. Diretamente em frente."Then he gestured toward the waist of the ship and seemed to be asking the depth reading.As though in answer, the bosun's voice came again, trembling."Five fathom, Cap'n, and still dropping.""Cinco." Elkington translated, but his concerned tone wasa question. What does it mean?The pilot shouted an alarm in Gujarati and threw his fragile weight against the whipstaff. TheResolvepitched and shuddered, groaning like some mourning animal at tether, but it no longer seemed to respond to the rudder.Kerridge glared at the pilot in dismay."Tell the blathering heathen steady as she goes. She'll take—“The deck tipped crazily sideways, and a low grind seemed to pass up through its timbers. Then the whipstaff kicked to port, strained against its rope, and with a snap from somewhere below, drifted free. TheResolvecareened dangerously into the wind, while a wave caught the waist of the ship and swept the bosun and his sounding line into the dark."Whorin' Mary, Mother of God, we've lost the rudder." Mackintosh lunged down the companionway toward the main deck, drawing a heavy knife from his belt. As the frightened seamen clung to the tilting deck and braced themselves against the shrouds, he began slashing the lines securing the main sail.Another wave seemed to catch theResolvesomewhere beneath her stern quarter gallery and lifted her again. She poised in midair for a long moment, then groaned farther into the sand. As the frigate tipped, Mackintosh felt a rumble from the deck below and at that instant he knew with perfect certainty theResolvewas doomed to go down. A cannon had snapped its securing lines and jumped its blocks. He grabbed a shroud and braced himself.Then it came, the muffled sound of splintering as the cannon bore directly through the hull, well below the waterline of the heeling frigate."Takin' water in the hold." A frightened shout trailed out through the scuttles.The seamen on decks still clung to the shrouds, wedging themselves against the gunwales."Man the pumps in the well, you fatherless pimps." Mackintosh shouted at the paralyzed seamen, knowing it was already too late, and then he began to sever the moorings of the longboat lashed to the mainmast.Elkington was clinging to the lateen mast, winding a safety line about his waist and bellowing unintelligible instructions into the dark for hoisting the chests of silver bullion from the hold.No one on the quarterdeck had noticed when its railing splintered, sending Captain Kerridge and the Indian pilot into the dark sea."The strumpet luck seems to have switched her men tonight, Captain Hawksworth, like anautchgirl when herkarwa's rupees are spent." Mirza Nuruddin signaled for his hookah to be relighted. He had just thrown another row of three sixes, and was now near to taking the seventh game, giving him six to Hawksworth's one. All betting on Hawksworth had stopped after the fourth game. "But the infinite will of God is always mysterious, mercifully granting us what we need more often than what we want."Hawksworth had studied the last throw carefully, through the haze of brandy, and he suddenly realized Mirza Nuruddin had been cheating.By Jesus, the dice are weighted. He sets them up somehow in the cup, then slides them quickly across the carpet. Damn me if he's not a thief. But why bother to cheat me? I only laid five sovereigns on the game.He pushed aside the confusion and reflected again on the astounding genius who sat before him now, cheating at dice.His plan was masterful. Host a gathering for the captains at the bar the night we will unload. Even the Portuguese. No one in command of a ship will be at the river mouth, no one who could possibly interfere. All our wool's already been unladed and brought overland to Surat. Then we transferred the ironwork and lead on theDiscoveryto theResolve. So all the lead and ironwork in cargo will be unladed by moonlight tonight and on its way upriver by morning, before the Portugals here even sleep off their liquor.And theResolvewill be underway again by dawn, back to Swalley with no one to challenge her. Not even the Portuguese trading frigatta, with their laughable eight-pound stern chasers. TheDiscoveryis almost laded with cotton. Another couple of days should finish her. And then theResolve. Another two week at most, and they'll be underway.The East India Company, the Worshipful damned East India Company, will earn a fortune on this voyage. And a certain captain named Brian Hawksworth will be toasted the length of Cheapside as the man who did what Lancaster couldn't. The man who sent the East India Company's frigates home with a cargo of the cheapest pepper in history. The Butterbox Hollanders will be buying pepper from the East India Company next year and cursing Captain Brian Hawksworth.Or will it be Sir Brian Hawksworth?He tried the name on his tongue as he swirled the dice for one last throw. This time he tried to duplicate the Shahbandar's technique.Easy swirls and then just let them slide onto the carpet as you make some distracting remark."Perhaps it's Allah's will that a man make his own luck. Is that written somewhere?" The dice slid onto the carpet and Hawksworth reached for his brandy.Three sixes.Mirza Nuruddin studied the three ivories indifferently as he drew on his hookah. But traces of a smile showed at the corner of his lips and his foggy eyes sparkled for an instant."You see, Captain Hawksworth, you never know the hand of fortune till you play to the end." He motioned to a servant. "Refresh the English captain's glass. I think he's starting to learn our game."The longboat scraped crazily across the deck and into the surf. Then another wave washed over the deck, chilling the half-naked seamen who struggled to secure the longboat's line. Two chests of silver bullion, newly hoisted from the hold, were now wedged against the mainmast. Elkington clung to their handles, shouting between waves for the seamen to lower them into the longboat.Mackintosh ignored him."Hoist the line to the poop. We'll board her from the stern gallery. Take the longboat under and drop a ladder. You and you, Garway and Davies, bring the line about, to the gallery rail."The current tugged at the longboat, but its line held secure and the seamen passed the end up the companionway and toward the stern gallery, where the rope ladder was being played out."The longboat'll not take all the men and the silver. Blessed Jesus, there's ten thousand pound sterling in these chests." Elkington gasped as another wave washed over him, sending his hat into the surf. He seized a running seaman by the neck and yanked him toward the chests. "Take one end, you whoreson bastard, and help hoist it through the companionway to the poop."But the man twisted free and disappeared toward the stem. With an oath, Elkington began dragging the chest across the deck and down the companionway. By the time he reached the gallery, the ladder had already been dropped into the longboat.And five seamen were waiting with half-pikes."I'll send you to hell if you try loadin' that chest." Bosun's mate John Garway held his pike in Elkington's face. "We'll all not make it as 'tis."Then Thomas Davies, acting on the thought in every man's mind, thrust his pike through the lock hinge on the chest and wrenched it off with a single powerful twist. "Who needs the money more, say I, the bleedin' Worshipful Company, or a man who knows how to spend it?"In moments a dozen hands had ripped away the lid of the chest, and seamen began shoveling coins into their pockets. Elkington was pushed sprawling into the companionway. Other seamen ran to begin rifling the second chest. Silver spilled from their pockets as the men poured down the swaying ladder into the longboat. As Elkington fought his way back toward the stem, he took a long last look at the half-empty chests, then began stuffing the pockets of his own doublet.Mackintosh emerged from the Great Cabin holding the ship's log. As he waited for the last seaman to board the longboat, he too lightened theResolveof a pocketful of silver.With all men on board the longboat's gunwales rode a scant three inches above waterline. Bailing began after the first wave washed over her. Then they hoisted sail and began to row for the dark shore."Tonight you may have been luckier than you suppose, Captain Hawksworth." The Shahbandar's fingers deftly counted the five sovereigns through the leather pouch Hawksworth had handed him. Around them the final side bets were being placed against the Portuguese captain who would play Mirza Nuruddin next."It's hard to see how.""For the price of a mere five sovereigns, Captain, you've learned a truth some men fail to master in a lifetime." Mirza Nuruddin motioned away the Portuguese captain, his doublet stained with wine, who waited to 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 hope you'll find them entertaining, Captain Hawksworth. If you've never seen thenautch, you've yet to call yourself a man."Hawksworth pulled himself up and thought about the river and slowly worked his way through the crowd to the edge of the marble court. The damp, chill air purged the torch smoke from his lungs and began to sweep away the haze of brandy from his brain. He stared into the dark and asked the winds if they knew of theResolve.Could it all have been a trap? What if he'd told the Portugals, and they had warships waiting?Without warning, the slow, almost reverent strains of a sarangi, the Indian violin, stirred from the corner of the courtyard, and the crowd shifted expectantly. Hawksworth turned to notice that a carpeted platform had been erected directly in the center of the court, and as he watched, a group of women, perhaps twenty, slowly began to mount steps along its side. The torches had grown dim, but he could still see enough to tell they all wore the veil of purdah and long skirts over their trousers. As they moved chastely toward the center of the platform he thought they looked remarkably like village women going to a well, save they wore rows of tiny bells around their ankles and heavy bangles on their wrists.The air was rent by a burst of drumming, and the courtyard suddenly flared as servants threw oil on the smoldering torches around the balcony. At that instant, in a gesture of high drama, the women ripped away their turquoise veils and flung them skyward. The crowd erupted in a 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 with the drummer's accelerating, hypnotic rhythms—arching now to the side, now suggestively forward. Hawksworth found himself exploring the dancers' mask-like faces, all heavily painted and expressionless. Then he watched their hands, which moved in sculptural arcs through a kind of sign language certain Indians in the crowd seemed to know. Other hand messages were understood by all, as the women stroked themselves intimately, in what seemed almost a parody of sensuality. As the rhythm continued to intensify, they begap to rip away their garments one by one, beginning with their parted waist wraps. Next their halters were thrown to the crowd, though their breasts had long since found release from whatever minimal containment they might have known at the beginning of the dance. Their earth-brown skin now glistened bare in the perfumed torchlight.The dance seemed to Hawksworth to go on and on, incredibly building to ever more frantic levels of intensity. The drunken crowd swayed with the women, its excitement and expectation swelling. Then at last the women's trousers also were ripped away, leaving them adorned with only bangles and reflecting jewels. Yet the dance continued still, as they writhed onto their knees at the edge of the platform. Then slowly, as though by some unseen hand, the platform lowered to the level of the courtyard 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 to the river. There, in the first hint of dawn, bathers had begun to assemble for Hindu prayers and a ritual morning bath. Among them were young village girls, swathed head to foot in bright-colored wraps, who descended one by one into the chilled water and began to modestly change garments while they bathed, chastely coiling a fresh cloth around 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 the English longboat showed at the turn of the river. News of the shipwreck had reached Surat by village runner an hour after sunup, and barks had already been sent to try to recover the remaining silver before the ship broke apart. The frigate was reportedly no more than a thousand yards off the coast, and all the men, even Kerridge, the bosun, and the pilot, had been safely carried ashore by the current.Hawksworth watched the longboat's sail being lowered in preparation for landing and tried to think over his next step, how to minimize the delay and loss.We can't risk staying on past another day or two, not with only one vessel. If we're caught at anchor in the cove, there's nothing one ship can do. The Portugals can send in fireships and there'll be no way to sink them with crossfire. TheDiscoveryhas 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 realize there'd be a current?Or was it the pilot?Were we steered into this disaster on the orders of our new friend Mirza Nuruddin? Has he been playing false with us all along, only claiming to help us stay clear of the Portugals? By the looks of the traders on themaidanthis morning I can tell they all think we were played for fools.He tried to remember all the Shahbandar had said the night before, particularly the remarks he had not understood, but now the evening seemed 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 slid from the back of the sweating porter and collapsed heavily on the stone steps. "TheResolvewas old, but 'twill take forty thousand pound to replace her.""What do you plan to do?" Hawksworth eyed Kerridge as he mounted the steps, his doublet unrecognizable under the smeared mud, and decided to ignore him."Not a damn'd thing we can do now, save lade the last of the cotton and some indigo on theDiscoveryand weigh anchor. And day after tomorrow's not too soon, by my thinkin'." Elkington examined Hawksworth and silently cursed him. He still had not swallowed his disbelief when Hawksworth had announced, only three days before, that he planned to leave the ships and travel to Agra with a letter from King James."The Shahbandar has asked to meet with you." Hawksworth motioned to Elkington as the last seaman climbed over the side of the longboat and onto 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 across themaidanand through the customs house. Mirza Nuruddin was waiting on his bolster."Captain, my sincere condolences to you and to Mr. Elkington. Please be sure that worthless pilot will never work out of this port again. I cannot believe he was at fault, but he'll be dealt with nonetheless." Which is partially true, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, since my cousin Muhammad Haidar,nakudaof the Rahimi, will take him on the pilgrim ship for the next Aden run, and allow him to work there until his reputation is repaired. "You were fortunate, at least, that the largest part of her cargo had already been unladed."Elkington listened to Hawksworth's translation, his face growing ever more florid. "'Twas the damned pilot's knavery. Tell him I'd see him hanged 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 should know that in India only the Moghul can impose the death penalty. This matter of the pilot is past saving, however. It's best we move on. So tell 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 warrant you. We'll be back with a fleet soon enough, and next time we'll do our own hirin' of a pilot.""As you wish. I'll have our accountants total your invoices." Mirza Nuruddin face did not change as he heard the translation, but his spirit exulted.It worked! They'll be well at sea within the week, days before the Portuguese warships arrive. Not even that genius of intrigue Mukarrab Khan will know I planned it all. And by saving these greedy English from certain disaster, I've lured to our seas the only Europeans with the spirit to drive out the Portuguese forever, after a century of humiliation.India's historic tradition of free trade, the Shahbandar had often thought, had also brought her undoing. Open-handed to all who came to buy and sell, India had thrived since the beginning of time. Until the Portuguese came.In those forgotten days huge single-masted arks, vast as eight hundred tons, freely plied the length of the Arabian Sea. From Mecca's Jidda they came, groaning with the gold, silver, copper, wool, and brocades of Italy, Greece, Damascus, or with the pearls, horses, silks of Persia and Afghanistan. They put in at India's northern port of Cambay, where they laded India's prized cotton, or sailed farther south, to India's port of Calicut, where they bargained for the hard black pepper of India's Malabar Coast, for ginger and cinnamon from Ceylon. India's own merchants sailed eastward, to the Moluccas, where they bought silks and porcelains from Chinese traders, or cloves, nutmeg, and mace from the islanders. India's ports linked China on the east with Europe on the west, and touched all that moved between. The Arabian Sea was free as the air, and the richest traders who sailed it prayed to Allah, the One True God.Then, a hundred years ago, the Portuguese came. They seized strategic ocean outlooks from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to the coast of China. On these they built strongholds, forts to control not the lands of Asia, but its seas. And if no man could remember the centuries of freedom, today all knew well the simple device that held the Arabian Sea in bondage. It was a small slip of paper, on which was the signature of a Portuguese governor or the captain of a Portuguese fort. Today no vessel, not even the smallest bark, dared venture the Arabian Sea without a Portuguesecartaz. This hated license must name the captain of a vessel and verify its tonnage, its cargo, its crew, its destination, and its armament. Vessels could trade only at ports controlled or approved by the Portuguese, where they must pay a duty of 8 percent on all cargo in and out. Indian and Arab vessels no longer could carry spices, pepper, copper, or iron—the richest cargo and now the monopoly of Portuguese shippers.An Indian vessel caught at sea without acartaz, or steering south when its stated destination was north, was confiscated; its captain and crew were executed immediately, if they were lucky, or sent to the galleys if they were not. Fleets of armed galleons cruised the coastlines in patrol. If a vessel gave cause for suspicion, Portuguese soldiers boarded her in full battle dress, with naked swords and battle cries of "Santiago." And while their commander inspected the ship'scartaz, Portuguese soldiers relieved passengers of any jewelry salable in the streets of Goa.Cartazenforcement was strict, and—since a percentage of all seized cargo went to captains and crews of patrol galleons—enthusiastic. The seas off India were theirs by right, the Portuguese liked to explain, because they were the first ever to have the ingenuity to make claim to them.The revenues thecartazbrought Portugal were immense—not because it was expensive to obtain, it cost only a few rupees, but because it funneled every ounce of commodity traded in the Arabian Sea through a Portuguese tax port.And it is the Portuguese taxes, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, not just their galleons, that the English will one day drive from our ports. And on that day, our merchant ships will again lade the best cargo, sail the 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. "Save wish you a fair wind and Allah's blessing."So it's over, Hawksworth thought as they turned to leave, the last time I'll ever see you, and thank you very much, you unscrupulous deceiving son of a whore."Captain Hawksworth, perhaps you and I can share a further word. You are not, as I understand, planning to depart India. At least not immediately. I'd like you always to know my modest offices remain at your behest."Elkington paused, as did Hawksworth, but one of the Shahbandar's officials took the merchant's arm and urged him firmly toward the door of the chamber. Too firmly, Hawksworth thought."I think you've done about all for us you can." Hawksworth made no attempt to strain the irony from his voice."Be that as it may, I've heard rumors that your trip to Agra may be approved. Should that happen, you must know you cannot travel alone, Captain. No man in India is that foolhardy. The roads here are no more safe than those, so I hear, in Europe. All travelers inland need a guide, and an armed escort.""Are you proposing to help me secure a guide? Equal in competence, may I presume, to the pilot you hired for theResolve?""Captain Hawksworth, please. God's will is mysterious." He sighed. "No man can thwart mischance if it is his destiny. Hear me out. I have just learned there's currently a man in Surat who knows the road to Burhanpur like his own sword handle. In fact, he only just arrived from the east, and I understand he expects to return when his affairs here, apparently brief, areResolved. By a fortuitous coincidence he happens to have an armed escort of guards with him. I suggest it might be 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, I can assure you. His name is Vasant Rao."Mukarrab Khan reread the order carefully, scrutinized the black ink seal at the top of the page to assure himself it was indeed the Moghul’s, and then placed it aside. So at last it had come. The prospect of English presents was too great a temptation for the acquisitive Arangbar, ever anxious for new baubles. The Englishman would be going to Agra. No one at court could have prevented it.But that road—east through bandit-infested Chopda to now-threatened Burhanpur, then north, the long road through Mandu, Ujjain, and Gwalior to Agra—was a journey of two hard months. The Moghul’s seal meant less than nothing to highwaymen, or to servants and drivers whose loyalties were always for sale. It's a long road, Englishman, and mishaps on that road are common as summer mildew.
"But why do these Persians, or theirimams, want to be rid of Samad?"
"Because he's a Sufi, a mystic, who teaches that we all should find God within our own selves. Without the mullahs. That's why the Persian Shi'ites despise him and want him dead."
"Then he's supporting Prince Jadar?"
"Samad does not concern himself with politics. But it's the duty of the others of us, those who understand what is happening, to help Prince Jadar. Because we know he will stop the Persians and their Shi'ites who are now spreading their poison of hate in India, and he'll also rid India of the Portuguese. I'm sure of it." She paused for a moment. "You know, it's always seemed ironic that the Persians and the Portuguese should actually work together. But in a way each needs the other. The Portuguese have made the Persians, particularly the queen and her brother, Nadir Sharif, very rich, and in return they're allowed to send their Jesuits to preach. So both the Persians and the Portuguese want to prevent Prince Jadar from becoming the next Moghul, since they know he'd like nothing better than to rid India of them both."
"But what does this have to do with me? I just want a tradingfirmanfrom Arangbar. He's still alive and healthy, and he should know the Portugals can't stop English trading ships from coming here. Why shouldn't he give us afirman?"
"Can't you see? The English can never be allowed to trade here. It would be the beginning of the end for the Portuguese. It would show all the world they no longer can control India's ports. But what I'm really trying to make you see is that it's not only the Portuguese who want to stop you. It's also the people who support them. So no one can aid you openly. The Persians are already too powerful. Still, there are those here who would protect you."
"Who do you mean?"
"How could I possibly tell you?" She held him with her eyes. "I scarcely know you. But you should listen to your intuition. Samad says we all have an inner voice that tells us what is true."
This time she did reach and touch his hand, and her touch was strangely warm in the chill of the room. "I can't tell you any more, really. So now will you play for me? Something tender, perhaps. A song you would play for the woman you left behind you in England."
"I didn't have all that much to leave behind." He picked up the lute. "But I'll be happy to play for you."
"You have no one?"
"There was a woman in London. But she married while I was . . . gone."
"She wouldn't wait while you were away?" Shirin sipped again from her cup and her eyes darkened. "That must have been very sad for you."
"It could be she didn't think I was worth waiting for." He hesitated. "I've had some time to think about it since. In a way it was probably my own fault. I think she wanted more than I was ready to give."
She looked at him and smiled. "Perhaps what she wanted was you. And you wouldn't give yourself. Tell me what she was like."
"What was she like?" He looked away, remembering Maggie's face with a strange mixture of longing and bitterness. "Well, she's like nobody I've seen in India. Red hair, blue eyes . . . and a salty tongue." He laughed. "If she was ever anybody's fourth wife, I'd pity the other three." He felt his laugh fade. "I missed her a lot when I was away before. But now . . ." He tried to shrug.
She looked at him as though she understood it all. "Then if you won't play for her any more, will you play just for me? One of your English ragas?"
"What if I played a suite by Dowland, one of our English composers? It's one of my favorites." He found himself smiling again, the lute comfortable and reassuring in his grasp. "I hope you won't think it sounds too out of place."
"We're both out of place here now." She returned his smile wistfully and glanced at the papers on the desk. "You and me."
Hawksworth saw George Elkington approaching and dropped the dagger quickly into his boot.
"'Twill take a lifetime the rate these heathens dawdle." Elkington wiped a sweaty arm across his brow. Deep bags sagged under his bloodshot eyes. "An' we'll be months movin' the lead and ironwork with these damn'd rickety carts. Not to mention the silver bullion for buyin' commodity. We'll have to get a barge."
"How many more trips do you need to bring in the wool?"
"Can't say. But 'tis clear we'll need more of these damn'd carts, for what little they're worth." As Elkington turned to spit, he spotted a porter who had let a roll of woolen cloth dip into the river, and his neck veins pulsed. "Hey, you heathen bastard, mind the water!" He stumbled after the terrified man trailing a stream of oaths.
Hawksworth leaned against the wooden spokes of a bullock cart and quickly passed the stiletto from his boot back to his belt. As he watched, the bark tipped, beginning to list dangerously, and then he heard Elkington command the porters to stop the loading and prepare to get underway. Only five of the twenty-five bullock carts had been emptied, and the sun was already approaching midafternoon. As Hawksworth had watched the men at work, some corner of his mind had become dimly aware of a curious anomaly. Whereas the Shahbandar's porters were working at full speed, the drivers of the bullock carts seemed actually to be hindering the unloading—moving the carts around in a confused way that always kept the work disorganized. And a number of answers began, just began, to fall into place.
"Captain-General Hawksworth, do you expect to be joinin' us?" George Elkington stalked up and began to scrape his muddy boots on the spokes of the bullock cart
"Elkington, I want you to dismiss these drivers." Hawksworth ignored his sarcastic tone. "I want the Shahbandar to supply all our men from now on."
"What the bloody hell for?" Elkington tightened his hat and hitched up his belt.
"Something's wrong. Did you have any accidents coming in from Swalley?"
"Accidents? Nay, not a bleedin' one. Unless you'd call the axle of a cart breakin' the first day and blockin' a narrow turn in the road, with mud on both sides so we couldn't pass and had to unload the whole bleedin' lot and look half the mornin' for another cart to hire. An' then the drivers had a fight over who was responsible, and who'd pay for what, and we couldn't start till after midday. And yesterday one of their damn'd bullocks died, right in the road. Which is scarce wonder, considerin' how worn out they are. Nay, we had no accidents. The whole bleedin' trip was an accident."
"Then let's get rid of them all. Men, carts, bullocks, the lot. And hire new. Let the Shahbandar hire them for us. We pay in silver, and give him his commission, and I'm sure he'll provide us what we need."
"Think he can do any better?" Elkington's skeptical eyes squinted against the sun. "These damn'd heathens all appear similar."
"I think he'll make a difference. They all seem terrified of him. We have to try." Hawksworth started for the barge.
"You don't have much time left." Shirin had said. "Try to understand what's happening."
The porters were loosening the lines on the pegs. The bark was ready to get underway.
"Don't assume you know who'll aid you," she had said. "Help may come in a way that surprises you. It can't be known who's helping you."
He waded through the mud and pulled himself onto the
bark. Then he turned and rolled over onto a bale of cloth. The sky was flawless and empty.
"Just trust what feels right," she had said, and for no reason at all she had reached out and touched his lute. "Learn to trust your senses. Most of all"—she had taken his hand and held it longer than she should have—"learn to open yourself."
They were underway.
The Shahbandar watched from themaidanas the bark of English woolens moved in short spurts toward the steps below him. Oars sparkled in the sunshine, and the faint chant of the rowers bounced, garbled, across the waves. Behind him two short, surly-eyed men held the large umbrella that shaded his face and rotund belly. A circle of guards with poles pushed away traders who shouted begs and bribes for a moment of his time injtheir tent, to inspect their goods please and render them salable commodity with his chapp and an invoice stating their worth, preferably undervalued. The 2 1/2 percent duty was prescribed by the Moghul. The assessed value was not.
Mirza Nuruddin ignored them. He was calculating time, not rupees.
His latest report was that four weeks more were needed for the Viceroy to outfit the galleons and fireships. But the single-masted frigatta bringing the news from Goa was two weeks in travel. Which means the galleons will be here within three, perhaps two weeks, he told himself. A Portuguese armada of twelve warships. The Englishman's luck has run out. They'll be caught unlading and burned.
He fingered the shred of dirty cloth tucked in his waist. It had been sent by Shirin, wrapped with a gift of aga of the rose. Her cryptic note had told him all he had needed to know. When his spies reported no one recently injured among the servants of the Portuguese Jesuits, the search had begun in the horse bazaar. They had found the man the next day. The truth had come quickly when Mirza Nuruddin's name was mentioned.
And nothing had been learned. The man had been given the knife by Hindi-speaking servants. Their master's name was never divulged. But they knew well the routine of the Englishman, and the location of the observatory.
And now I must tamper with your destiny, English captain. We are all—you, I, the prince—captives of a world we no longer can fully control.
He asked himself again why he had made the choice, finally. To take the risks Jadar had asked, when the odds against the prince were growing daily. It was stupid to support him now, and Mirza Nuruddin had always held absolute contempt for stupidity, particularly when it meant supporting a hopeless cause.
If the queen crushes him, as she very likely will, I've jeopardized my position, my holdings, probably my life.
The prince does not understand how difficult my task is. The infidel Englishman is almost too clever.
I had planned it perfectly. I had shown them the opportunity for great profit, then denied it to them. They were preparing to leave, but surely they would have returned, with a fleet. Then Mukarrab Khan approved their trade, after waiting until he was certain the Portuguese preparations were almost complete. So now they remain, awaiting their own destruction, never to leave again. And when these frigates are destroyed, will any English ever return?
The Englishman will surely be dead, or sent to Goa. There'll be no trip to Agra. And Arangbar will never know why.
But the silver coin will soon be ready. And the prince's cipher today said Vasant Rao himself will arrive in ten days to escort the Englishman and the silver as far as Burhanpur. Time is running out.
There's only one solution left. Will it work?
The barge eased into the shallows and the porters slid into the water, each already carrying a roll of cloth.
"I expected this difficulty, Captain Hawksworth. But your
path is of your own making. You yourself chose to unlade at that distance from the port." They were in Mirza Nuruddin's chamber, and the Shahbandar faced Hawksworth and Elkington with his rheumy, fogbound eyes. The chamber had been emptied, as Hawksworth had demanded. "I propose you consider the following. Unlade the woolens from your smaller frigate immediately, and let me oversee their transport here." He drew nonchalantly on the hookah. "My fee would be a small commission above the cost of hiring the carts. One percent if they are delivered here within two weeks. Two percent if they are delivered within one week. Do you accept?"
Hawksworth decided not to translate the terms for Elkington.
"We accept." It seems fair, he told himself. This is no time to bargain.
"You show yourself reasonable. Now, the lead and ironwork you have cargoed is another matter. Bullock carts are totally unsuitable for those weights in this sandy coastal delta. The weights involved require they be transported by river bark. And that means unlading at the river mouth."
Hawksworth shook his head. "We'll dump the cargo first. We can't take the risk now."
"Captain, there is risk and there is risk. What is life itself if not risk? Without risk what man can call himself alive?" Mirza Nuruddin thought of his own risk at this moment, how his offer of help to the English would immediately be misconstrued by the entire port. Until the plan had played through to its ending. Then the thought of the ending buoyed him and he continued, his voice full of solicitude. "I can suggest a strategy for unlading your ironwork at the river mouth in reasonable safety, after your frigates have been lightened of their wool. With an experienced pilot, you can sail along the shoreline, south to the bar, and anchor under cover of dark. Barks can be waiting to unlade you. If the lead and ironwork are ready for unlading, perhaps it can be completed in one night. You can unlade the smaller frigate first, return it to the cove you call Swalley, and then unlade the other vessel. That way only one frigate is exposed at a time."
As Hawksworth and Elkington listened, Mirza Nuruddin outlined the details of his offer. He would hire whatever men were needed. He normally did this for foreign traders, and took a percentage from them—as well as from the meager salary of the men he hired. And he already had a pilot in mind, a man who knew every shoal and sandbar on the coastline.
As Hawksworth listened his senses suddenly told him to beware. Hadn't Shirin told him to trust his intuition? And this scheme was too pat. This time his guts told him to dump the lead in the bay and write off the loss. But Elkington would never agree. He would want to believe they could unlade and sell the lead. His responsibility was profit on the cargo, not the risk of a vessel.
So he would take this final risk. Perhaps Mirza Nuruddin was right. Risk exhilarated.
He smiled inwardly and thought again of Shirin. And of what she had said about trusting his instincts.
Then, ignoring them, he agreed to Mirza Nuruddin's plan.
And the Shahbandar produced a document already prepared for their signature.
"Now we will begin. As my guest, you have first throw of the dice." Mirza Nuruddin fingered the gold and ivory inlay of the wooden dice cup as he passed it to Hawksworth. Then he drew a heavy gurgle of smoke from his hookah, savoring the way it raced his heart for that brief instant before its marvelous calm washed over his nerves. He needed the calm. He knew that any plan, even one as carefully conceived as the one tonight, could fail through the blundering of incompetents. Or betrayal. But tonight, he told himself, tonight you will win the game.
The marble-paved inner court of the Shahbandar's sprawling brick estate house was crowded almost to overflowing: with wealthy Hindu money-lenders, whose mercenary hearts were as black as their robes were white; Muslim port officials in silks and jewels, private riches gleaned at public expense; the turbaned captains of Arab cargo ships anchored at the bar, hard men in varicolored robes who sat sweltering, smoking, and drinking steaming coffee; and a sprinkling of Portuguese in starched doublets, the captains and officers of the three Portuguese trading frigatta now anchored at the bar downriver.
Servants wearing only white loincloths circulated decanters of wine and boxes of rolled betel leaves as an antidote to the stifling air that lingered even now, almost at midnight, from a broiling day. The torchbearers of Mirza Nuruddin's household stood on the balconies continuously dousing a mixture of coconut oil and rose attar onto their huge flambeaux. Behind latticework screens thenautchgirls waited in boredom, braiding their hair, smoothing their skintight trousers, inspecting themselves in the ring-mirror on their right thumb, and chewing betel. The dancing would not begin until well after midnight.
As Hawksworth took the dice cup, the sweating crowd fell expectantly silent, and for the first time he noticed the gentle splash of the river below them, through the trees.
He stared for a moment at the lined board lying on the carpet between them, then he wished himself luck and tossed the three dice along its side. They were ivory and rectangular, their four long sides numbered one, two, five, and six with inlaid teakwood dots. He had thrown a one and two sixes.
"A propitious start. You English embrace fortune as a Brahmin his birthright." The Shahbandar turned and smiled toward the Portuguese captains loitering behind him, who watched mutely, scarcely masking their displeasure at being thrown together with the heretic English captain. But an invitation from the Shahbandar was not something a prudent trader declined. "The night will be long, however. This is only your beginning."
Hawksworth passed the cup to the Shahbandar and stared at the board, trying to understand the rules ofchaupar, the favorite game of India from the Moghul’szenanato the lowliest loitering scribe. The board was divided into four quadrants and a central square, using two sets of parallel lines, which formed a large cross in its middle. Each quadrant was divided into three rows, marked with spaces for moving pieces. Two or four could play, and each player had four pieces of colored teak that were placed initially at the back of two of the three spaced rows. After each dice throw, pieces were moved forward one or more spaces in a row until reaching its end, then up the next row, until they reached the square in the center. A piece reaching the center was calledrasida, arrived.
Hawksworth remembered that a double six allowed him to move two of his pieces, those standing together, a full twelve spaces ahead. As he moved the pieces forward, groans and oaths in a number of languages sounded through the night air. Betting had been heavy on the Shahbandar, who had challenged both Hawksworth and the senior Portuguese captain to a set of games. Only an adventurous few in the crowd would straddle their wagers and accept the long odds that the English captain would, or could, be so impractical as to defeat the man who must value and apply duty to his goods.
"Did I tell you, Captain Hawksworth, thatchauparwas favored by the Great Moghul, Akman?" The Shahbandar rattled the dice in the cup for a long moment. "There's a story, hundreds of years old, that once a ruler of India sent the game of chess, what we callchaturangain India, to Persia as a challenge to their court. They in return sentchauparto India." He paused dramatically. "It's a lie invented by a Persian."
He led the explosion of laughter and threw the dice. A servant called the numbers and the laughter died as suddenly as it had come.
"The Merciful Prophet's wives were serpent-tongued Bengalis."
He had thrown three ones.
A terrified servant moved the pieces while Mirza Nuruddin took a betel leaf from a tray and munched it sullenly. The crowd's tension was almost palpable.
Hawksworth took the cup and swirled it again. He absently noted that the moon had emerged from the trees and was now directly overhead. The Shahbandar seemed to notice it as well.
Mackintosh watched as the last grains of red marble sand slipped through the two-foot-high hourglass by the binnacle and then he mechanically flipped it over. The moon now cast the shadow of the mainmast yard precisely across the waist of the ship, and the tide had begun to flow in rapidly. The men of the new watch were silently working their way up the shrouds.
"Midnight. The tide's up. There's nae need to wait more." He turned to Captain Kerridge, who stood beside him on the quarterdeck of theResolve. George Elkington stood directly behind Kerridge.
"Let's get under sail." Elkington tapped out his pipe on the railing. Then he turned to Kerridge. "Did you remember to douse the stern lantern?"
"I give the orders, Mr. Elkington. And you can save your questions for the pilot." Captain Jonathan Kerridge was a small, weasel-faced man with no chin and large bulging eyes. He signaled theResolve’s quartermaster and the anchor chain began to rattle slowly up the side. Then the mainsail dropped, hung slack for a moment, and bellied against the wind, sending a groan through the mast. They were underway. The only light on board was a small, shielded lantern by the binnacle, for reading the large boxed compass.
The needle showed their course to be almost due south, toward the bar at the mouth of the Tapti. On their right was the empty bay and on their left the glimmer of occasional fires from the shoreline. The whipstaff had been taken by the Indian pilot, a wrinkled nut-brown man the Shahbandar had introduced as Ahmet. He spoke a smattering of Portuguese and had succeeded in explaining that he could reliably cover the eight-mile stretch south from Swalley to the unloading bar at the Tapti river mouth in one turn of the hourglass, if Allah willed. With high tide, he had also managed to explain, there were only two sandbars they would have to avoid.
And there would be no hostiles abroad this night. Even the Portuguese trading frigates were safely at anchor off the river mouth, for this evening their captains had been honored by an invitation to attend the gathering at Mirza Nuruddin's estate.
"Your beginning has been impressive, Captain Hawksworth. But now you must still maintain your advantage." Mirza Nuruddin watched as Hawksworth threw a double five and a two, advancing two of his four pieces into the central square. The crowd groaned, coins began to change hands. "You have gainedrasidafor two pieces. I'll save time and concede this game. But we have six more to play.Chauparis a bit like life. It favors those with endurance."
As the board was cleared for the next game, Mirza Nuruddin rose and strode to the end of the court. The wind was coming up now, as it always did on this monthly night of full moon and tide, sweeping up the river bringing the fresh salt air of the sea. And the currents would be shifting along the coast, as sandbars one by one were submerged by the incoming tide. He barked an inconsequential order to a hovering servant and then made his way back to the board, his guests parting automatically before him. The drinking crowd had already begun to turn boisterous, impatient for the appearance of the women. As always, thenautchgirls would remain for additional entertainment after their dance, in private quarters available in the rambling new palace.
"This game I will throw first." The Shahbandar seated himself, and watched as Hawksworth drew on a tankard of brandy, especially provided for the Europeans present. Then Mirza Nuruddin made a deft twist of the cup and the ivories dropped on the carpet in a neat row of three sixes. A servant
barked the numbers and the crowd pressed forward as one to watch.
"Fifteen fathom and falling." The bosun leaned back from the railing and shouted toward the quarterdeck. In disbelief he quickly drew the line in over the gunwale at the waist of theResolveand fed it out again.
"Now she reads thirteen fathom."
Kerridge glanced at the hourglass. The sand was half gone, and the compass reading still gave their course as due south. Ahead the sea was blind dark but on the left the fires of shore still flickered, now perhaps even brighter than he had remembered them. Then he realized a cloud had drifted momentarily over the moon, and he told himself this was why. The pilot held the whipstaff on a steady course.
"I'd reef the foresail a notch, Cap'n, and ease her two points to starboard. I'll lay a hundred sovereigns the current's chang'd on us." Mackintosh ventured to break protocol and speak, his concern growing.
I dinna like the feel of this, he told himself. We're driftin' too fast. I can feel it.
"Eight fathoms, sir." The bosun's voice again cut the dark.
"Jesus, Cap'n," Mackintosh erupted. "Take her about. The pox-rotted current's . .."
"She'll ride in three fathom. I've sailed the James, six hundred ton, in less. Let her run." He turned to Elkington. "Ask the Moor how much longer to the river mouth."
George Elkington turned and shot a stream of questions rapidly at the pilot, whose eyes glazed in his partial comprehension. He shook his head in a way that seemed to mean both yes and no simultaneously and then pointed into the dark and shrugged, emitting fragments of Portuguese.
"Em frente Sahib. Diretamente em frente."
Then he gestured toward the waist of the ship and seemed to be asking the depth reading.
As though in answer, the bosun's voice came again, trembling.
"Five fathom, Cap'n, and still dropping."
"Cinco." Elkington translated, but his concerned tone was
a question. What does it mean?
The pilot shouted an alarm in Gujarati and threw his fragile weight against the whipstaff. TheResolvepitched and shuddered, groaning like some mourning animal at tether, but it no longer seemed to respond to the rudder.
Kerridge glared at the pilot in dismay.
"Tell the blathering heathen steady as she goes. She'll take—“
The deck tipped crazily sideways, and a low grind seemed to pass up through its timbers. Then the whipstaff kicked to port, strained against its rope, and with a snap from somewhere below, drifted free. TheResolvecareened dangerously into the wind, while a wave caught the waist of the ship and swept the bosun and his sounding line into the dark.
"Whorin' Mary, Mother of God, we've lost the rudder." Mackintosh lunged down the companionway toward the main deck, drawing a heavy knife from his belt. As the frightened seamen clung to the tilting deck and braced themselves against the shrouds, he began slashing the lines securing the main sail.
Another wave seemed to catch theResolvesomewhere beneath her stern quarter gallery and lifted her again. She poised in midair for a long moment, then groaned farther into the sand. As the frigate tipped, Mackintosh felt a rumble from the deck below and at that instant he knew with perfect certainty theResolvewas doomed to go down. A cannon had snapped its securing lines and jumped its blocks. He grabbed a shroud and braced himself.
Then it came, the muffled sound of splintering as the cannon bore directly through the hull, well below the waterline of the heeling frigate.
"Takin' water in the hold." A frightened shout trailed out through the scuttles.
The seamen on decks still clung to the shrouds, wedging themselves against the gunwales.
"Man the pumps in the well, you fatherless pimps." Mackintosh shouted at the paralyzed seamen, knowing it was already too late, and then he began to sever the moorings of the longboat lashed to the mainmast.
Elkington was clinging to the lateen mast, winding a safety line about his waist and bellowing unintelligible instructions into the dark for hoisting the chests of silver bullion from the hold.
No one on the quarterdeck had noticed when its railing splintered, sending Captain Kerridge and the Indian pilot into the dark sea.
"The strumpet luck seems to have switched her men tonight, Captain Hawksworth, like anautchgirl when herkarwa's rupees are spent." Mirza Nuruddin signaled for his hookah to be relighted. He had just thrown another row of three sixes, and was now near to taking the seventh game, giving him six to Hawksworth's one. All betting on Hawksworth had stopped after the fourth game. "But the infinite will of God is always mysterious, mercifully granting us what we need more often than what we want."
Hawksworth had studied the last throw carefully, through the haze of brandy, and he suddenly realized Mirza Nuruddin had been cheating.
By Jesus, the dice are weighted. He sets them up somehow in the cup, then slides them quickly across the carpet. Damn me if he's not a thief. But why bother to cheat me? I only laid five sovereigns on the game.
He pushed aside the confusion and reflected again on the astounding genius who sat before him now, cheating at dice.
His plan was masterful. Host a gathering for the captains at the bar the night we will unload. Even the Portuguese. No one in command of a ship will be at the river mouth, no one who could possibly interfere. All our wool's already been unladed and brought overland to Surat. Then we transferred the ironwork and lead on theDiscoveryto theResolve. So all the lead and ironwork in cargo will be unladed by moonlight tonight and on its way upriver by morning, before the Portugals here even sleep off their liquor.
And theResolvewill be underway again by dawn, back to Swalley with no one to challenge her. Not even the Portuguese trading frigatta, with their laughable eight-pound stern chasers. TheDiscoveryis almost laded with cotton. Another couple of days should finish her. And then theResolve. Another two week at most, and they'll be underway.
The East India Company, the Worshipful damned East India Company, will earn a fortune on this voyage. And a certain captain named Brian Hawksworth will be toasted the length of Cheapside as the man who did what Lancaster couldn't. The man who sent the East India Company's frigates home with a cargo of the cheapest pepper in history. The Butterbox Hollanders will be buying pepper from the East India Company next year and cursing Captain Brian Hawksworth.
Or will it be Sir Brian Hawksworth?
He tried the name on his tongue as he swirled the dice for one last throw. This time he tried to duplicate the Shahbandar's technique.
Easy swirls and then just let them slide onto the carpet as you make some distracting remark.
"Perhaps it's Allah's will that a man make his own luck. Is that written somewhere?" The dice slid onto the carpet and Hawksworth reached for his brandy.
Three sixes.
Mirza Nuruddin studied the three ivories indifferently as he drew on his hookah. But traces of a smile showed at the corner of his lips and his foggy eyes sparkled for an instant.
"You see, Captain Hawksworth, you never know the hand of fortune till you play to the end." He motioned to a servant. "Refresh the English captain's glass. I think he's starting to learn our game."
The longboat scraped crazily across the deck and into the surf. Then another wave washed over the deck, chilling the half-naked seamen who struggled to secure the longboat's line. Two chests of silver bullion, newly hoisted from the hold, were now wedged against the mainmast. Elkington clung to their handles, shouting between waves for the seamen to lower them into the longboat.
Mackintosh ignored him.
"Hoist the line to the poop. We'll board her from the stern gallery. Take the longboat under and drop a ladder. You and you, Garway and Davies, bring the line about, to the gallery rail."
The current tugged at the longboat, but its line held secure and the seamen passed the end up the companionway and toward the stern gallery, where the rope ladder was being played out.
"The longboat'll not take all the men and the silver. Blessed Jesus, there's ten thousand pound sterling in these chests." Elkington gasped as another wave washed over him, sending his hat into the surf. He seized a running seaman by the neck and yanked him toward the chests. "Take one end, you whoreson bastard, and help hoist it through the companionway to the poop."
But the man twisted free and disappeared toward the stem. With an oath, Elkington began dragging the chest across the deck and down the companionway. By the time he reached the gallery, the ladder had already been dropped into the longboat.
And five seamen were waiting with half-pikes.
"I'll send you to hell if you try loadin' that chest." Bosun's mate John Garway held his pike in Elkington's face. "We'll all not make it as 'tis."
Then Thomas Davies, acting on the thought in every man's mind, thrust his pike through the lock hinge on the chest and wrenched it off with a single powerful twist. "Who needs the money more, say I, the bleedin' Worshipful Company, or a man who knows how to spend it?"
In moments a dozen hands had ripped away the lid of the chest, and seamen began shoveling coins into their pockets. Elkington was pushed sprawling into the companionway. Other seamen ran to begin rifling the second chest. Silver spilled from their pockets as the men poured down the swaying ladder into the longboat. As Elkington fought his way back toward the stem, he took a long last look at the half-empty chests, then began stuffing the pockets of his own doublet.
Mackintosh emerged from the Great Cabin holding the ship's log. As he waited for the last seaman to board the longboat, he too lightened theResolveof a pocketful of silver.
With all men on board the longboat's gunwales rode a scant three inches above waterline. Bailing began after the first wave washed over her. Then they hoisted sail and began to row for the dark shore.
"Tonight you may have been luckier than you suppose, Captain Hawksworth." The Shahbandar's fingers deftly counted the five sovereigns through the leather pouch Hawksworth had handed him. Around them the final side bets were being placed against the Portuguese captain who would play Mirza Nuruddin next.
"It's hard to see how."
"For the price of a mere five sovereigns, Captain, you've learned a truth some men fail to master in a lifetime." Mirza Nuruddin motioned away the Portuguese captain, his doublet stained with wine, who waited to 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 hope you'll find them entertaining, Captain Hawksworth. If you've never seen thenautch, you've yet to call yourself a man."
Hawksworth pulled himself up and thought about the river and slowly worked his way through the crowd to the edge of the marble court. The damp, chill air purged the torch smoke from his lungs and began to sweep away the haze of brandy from his brain. He stared into the dark and asked the winds if they knew of theResolve.
Could it all have been a trap? What if he'd told the Portugals, and they had warships waiting?
Without warning, the slow, almost reverent strains of a sarangi, the Indian violin, stirred from the corner of the courtyard, and the crowd shifted expectantly. Hawksworth turned to notice that a carpeted platform had been erected directly in the center of the court, and as he watched, a group of women, perhaps twenty, slowly began to mount steps along its side. The torches had grown dim, but he could still see enough to tell they all wore the veil of purdah and long skirts over their trousers. As they moved chastely toward the center of the platform he thought they looked remarkably like village women going to a well, save they wore rows of tiny bells around their ankles and heavy bangles on their wrists.
The air was rent by a burst of drumming, and the courtyard suddenly flared as servants threw oil on the smoldering torches around the balcony. At that instant, in a gesture of high drama, the women ripped away their turquoise veils and flung them skyward. The crowd erupted in a 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 with the drummer's accelerating, hypnotic rhythms—arching now to the side, now suggestively forward. Hawksworth found himself exploring the dancers' mask-like faces, all heavily painted and expressionless. Then he watched their hands, which moved in sculptural arcs through a kind of sign language certain Indians in the crowd seemed to know. Other hand messages were understood by all, as the women stroked themselves intimately, in what seemed almost a parody of sensuality. As the rhythm continued to intensify, they begap to rip away their garments one by one, beginning with their parted waist wraps. Next their halters were thrown to the crowd, though their breasts had long since found release from whatever minimal containment they might have known at the beginning of the dance. Their earth-brown skin now glistened bare in the perfumed torchlight.
The dance seemed to Hawksworth to go on and on, incredibly building to ever more frantic levels of intensity. The drunken crowd swayed with the women, its excitement and expectation swelling. Then at last the women's trousers also were ripped away, leaving them adorned with only bangles and reflecting jewels. Yet the dance continued still, as they writhed onto their knees at the edge of the platform. Then slowly, as though by some unseen hand, the platform lowered to the level of the courtyard 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 to the river. There, in the first hint of dawn, bathers had begun to assemble for Hindu prayers and a ritual morning bath. Among them were young village girls, swathed head to foot in bright-colored wraps, who descended one by one into the chilled water and began to modestly change garments while they bathed, chastely coiling a fresh cloth around 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 the English longboat showed at the turn of the river. News of the shipwreck had reached Surat by village runner an hour after sunup, and barks had already been sent to try to recover the remaining silver before the ship broke apart. The frigate was reportedly no more than a thousand yards off the coast, and all the men, even Kerridge, the bosun, and the pilot, had been safely carried ashore by the current.
Hawksworth watched the longboat's sail being lowered in preparation for landing and tried to think over his next step, how to minimize the delay and loss.
We can't risk staying on past another day or two, not with only one vessel. If we're caught at anchor in the cove, there's nothing one ship can do. The Portugals can send in fireships and there'll be no way to sink them with crossfire. TheDiscoveryhas 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 realize there'd be a current?
Or was it the pilot?
Were we steered into this disaster on the orders of our new friend Mirza Nuruddin? Has he been playing false with us all along, only claiming to help us stay clear of the Portugals? By the looks of the traders on themaidanthis morning I can tell they all think we were played for fools.
He tried to remember all the Shahbandar had said the night before, particularly the remarks he had not understood, but now the evening seemed 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 slid from the back of the sweating porter and collapsed heavily on the stone steps. "TheResolvewas old, but 'twill take forty thousand pound to replace her."
"What do you plan to do?" Hawksworth eyed Kerridge as he mounted the steps, his doublet unrecognizable under the smeared mud, and decided to ignore him.
"Not a damn'd thing we can do now, save lade the last of the cotton and some indigo on theDiscoveryand weigh anchor. And day after tomorrow's not too soon, by my thinkin'." Elkington examined Hawksworth and silently cursed him. He still had not swallowed his disbelief when Hawksworth had announced, only three days before, that he planned to leave the ships and travel to Agra with a letter from King James.
"The Shahbandar has asked to meet with you." Hawksworth motioned to Elkington as the last seaman climbed over the side of the longboat and onto 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 across themaidanand through the customs house. Mirza Nuruddin was waiting on his bolster.
"Captain, my sincere condolences to you and to Mr. Elkington. Please be sure that worthless pilot will never work out of this port again. I cannot believe he was at fault, but he'll be dealt with nonetheless." Which is partially true, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, since my cousin Muhammad Haidar,nakudaof the Rahimi, will take him on the pilgrim ship for the next Aden run, and allow him to work there until his reputation is repaired. "You were fortunate, at least, that the largest part of her cargo had already been unladed."
Elkington listened to Hawksworth's translation, his face growing ever more florid. "'Twas the damned pilot's knavery. Tell him I'd see him hanged 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 should know that in India only the Moghul can impose the death penalty. This matter of the pilot is past saving, however. It's best we move on. So tell 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 warrant you. We'll be back with a fleet soon enough, and next time we'll do our own hirin' of a pilot."
"As you wish. I'll have our accountants total your invoices." Mirza Nuruddin face did not change as he heard the translation, but his spirit exulted.
It worked! They'll be well at sea within the week, days before the Portuguese warships arrive. Not even that genius of intrigue Mukarrab Khan will know I planned it all. And by saving these greedy English from certain disaster, I've lured to our seas the only Europeans with the spirit to drive out the Portuguese forever, after a century of humiliation.
India's historic tradition of free trade, the Shahbandar had often thought, had also brought her undoing. Open-handed to all who came to buy and sell, India had thrived since the beginning of time. Until the Portuguese came.
In those forgotten days huge single-masted arks, vast as eight hundred tons, freely plied the length of the Arabian Sea. From Mecca's Jidda they came, groaning with the gold, silver, copper, wool, and brocades of Italy, Greece, Damascus, or with the pearls, horses, silks of Persia and Afghanistan. They put in at India's northern port of Cambay, where they laded India's prized cotton, or sailed farther south, to India's port of Calicut, where they bargained for the hard black pepper of India's Malabar Coast, for ginger and cinnamon from Ceylon. India's own merchants sailed eastward, to the Moluccas, where they bought silks and porcelains from Chinese traders, or cloves, nutmeg, and mace from the islanders. India's ports linked China on the east with Europe on the west, and touched all that moved between. The Arabian Sea was free as the air, and the richest traders who sailed it prayed to Allah, the One True God.
Then, a hundred years ago, the Portuguese came. They seized strategic ocean outlooks from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to the coast of China. On these they built strongholds, forts to control not the lands of Asia, but its seas. And if no man could remember the centuries of freedom, today all knew well the simple device that held the Arabian Sea in bondage. It was a small slip of paper, on which was the signature of a Portuguese governor or the captain of a Portuguese fort. Today no vessel, not even the smallest bark, dared venture the Arabian Sea without a Portuguesecartaz. This hated license must name the captain of a vessel and verify its tonnage, its cargo, its crew, its destination, and its armament. Vessels could trade only at ports controlled or approved by the Portuguese, where they must pay a duty of 8 percent on all cargo in and out. Indian and Arab vessels no longer could carry spices, pepper, copper, or iron—the richest cargo and now the monopoly of Portuguese shippers.
An Indian vessel caught at sea without acartaz, or steering south when its stated destination was north, was confiscated; its captain and crew were executed immediately, if they were lucky, or sent to the galleys if they were not. Fleets of armed galleons cruised the coastlines in patrol. If a vessel gave cause for suspicion, Portuguese soldiers boarded her in full battle dress, with naked swords and battle cries of "Santiago." And while their commander inspected the ship'scartaz, Portuguese soldiers relieved passengers of any jewelry salable in the streets of Goa.Cartazenforcement was strict, and—since a percentage of all seized cargo went to captains and crews of patrol galleons—enthusiastic. The seas off India were theirs by right, the Portuguese liked to explain, because they were the first ever to have the ingenuity to make claim to them.
The revenues thecartazbrought Portugal were immense—not because it was expensive to obtain, it cost only a few rupees, but because it funneled every ounce of commodity traded in the Arabian Sea through a Portuguese tax port.
And it is the Portuguese taxes, Mirza Nuruddin told himself, not just their galleons, that the English will one day drive from our ports. And on that day, our merchant ships will again lade the best cargo, sail the 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. "Save wish you a fair wind and Allah's blessing."
So it's over, Hawksworth thought as they turned to leave, the last time I'll ever see you, and thank you very much, you unscrupulous deceiving son of a whore.
"Captain Hawksworth, perhaps you and I can share a further word. You are not, as I understand, planning to depart India. At least not immediately. I'd like you always to know my modest offices remain at your behest."
Elkington paused, as did Hawksworth, but one of the Shahbandar's officials took the merchant's arm and urged him firmly toward the door of the chamber. Too firmly, Hawksworth thought.
"I think you've done about all for us you can." Hawksworth made no attempt to strain the irony from his voice.
"Be that as it may, I've heard rumors that your trip to Agra may be approved. Should that happen, you must know you cannot travel alone, Captain. No man in India is that foolhardy. The roads here are no more safe than those, so I hear, in Europe. All travelers inland need a guide, and an armed escort."
"Are you proposing to help me secure a guide? Equal in competence, may I presume, to the pilot you hired for theResolve?"
"Captain Hawksworth, please. God's will is mysterious." He sighed. "No man can thwart mischance if it is his destiny. Hear me out. I have just learned there's currently a man in Surat who knows the road to Burhanpur like his own sword handle. In fact, he only just arrived from the east, and I understand he expects to return when his affairs here, apparently brief, areResolved. By a fortuitous coincidence he happens to have an armed escort of guards with him. I suggest it might be 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, I can assure you. His name is Vasant Rao."
Mukarrab Khan reread the order carefully, scrutinized the black ink seal at the top of the page to assure himself it was indeed the Moghul’s, and then placed it aside. So at last it had come. The prospect of English presents was too great a temptation for the acquisitive Arangbar, ever anxious for new baubles. The Englishman would be going to Agra. No one at court could have prevented it.
But that road—east through bandit-infested Chopda to now-threatened Burhanpur, then north, the long road through Mandu, Ujjain, and Gwalior to Agra—was a journey of two hard months. The Moghul’s seal meant less than nothing to highwaymen, or to servants and drivers whose loyalties were always for sale. It's a long road, Englishman, and mishaps on that road are common as summer mildew.