examined it, almost touched it, puzzled over it. And then he knew what
it was.
The mint at Surat. Where foreign coin is melted and recast as rupees.
Fifty lakhs of silver rupees would scarcely be missed. Especially if
the Shahbandar would allow his minters to work a normal day. The
backlog of foreign coin he holds unmelted, creating an artificial
shortage of silver, would easily cover fifty lakhs of rupees. I need
only borrow what I need, and with it buy back into service the cavalry
I need to reclaim the Deccan.
The Shahbandar.
But will he do it?
He will. If I can show him collateral.
I don't have enough collateral. Not in my own funds. Not even in the
local treasuries.
But there must be enough silver in eighteen thousand tents to assemble
five million rupees.
I will hold it, and give him a note of obligation using it as
collateral. If we reach Ahmadnagar, I will squeeze the five million
rupees many times over from every traitorous _mansabdar _I do not hang.
I will confiscate their _jagir_ estates and let them buy them back. I
can easily confiscate enough to return the Shahbandar his loan, and
then my men will have back their silver.
If we do not reach Ahmadnagar, it will be because we are dead. So what
will it matter? We will make an oath to reach the city or die.
Only one problem remains.
How to move the coin from Surat to Burhanpur. Secretly. No one must
know where it came from or that it's being transferred. But a train
with fifty lakhs of rupees must be heavily guarded. And the guards will
betray its value.
Unless there can be some other reason for a heavily guarded train from
Surat to Burhanpur. A reason that would not automatically evoke
suspicion. Possibly a person of importance. Someone whom all India
knows cannot be touched. Someone important to the Moghul.
And then the perfect answer came. The most obvious answer of all. Who
will soon be traveling from Surat to Burhanpur, en route to Agra, under
safe conduct of the Moghul? The Englishman.
The infidel _feringhi _need never know. That with him will be the
silver that will save Prince Jadar.