"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 the _nautch_ girls 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 of _chaupar_, the favorite game of India
from the Moghul's _zenana _to 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 called
_rasida_, 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, that _chaupar _was 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 call _chaturanga_ in India, to
Persia as a challenge to their court. They in return sent _chaupar_ to
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 the
_Resolve_. 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 the _Resolve_'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 gained _rasida _for two pieces. I'll save time
and concede this game. But we have six more to play. _Chaupar _is 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, the
_nautch _girls 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 the _Resolve_ and 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. The _Resolve_ pitched 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.
The _Resolve _careened 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 the _Resolve_ somewhere 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 the _Resolve _was 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 a _nautch_ girl when her _karwa_'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 the _Discovery _to the
_Resolve_. 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 the _Resolve _will 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. The _Discovery _is almost
laded with cotton. Another couple of days should finish her. And then
the _Resolve_. 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 the
_Resolve _of 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
the _nautch_, 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 the _Resolve_.
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. The _Discovery _has to sail immediately.
We've enough cotton laded now to fill the hold with pepper in Java.
Damn Kerridge. Why was he steering so close to shore? Didn't he 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 the _maidan_ this 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. "The _Resolve _was 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 the _Discovery_ and 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
the _maidan_ and 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, _nakuda _of 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 Portuguese _cartaz_. 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 a _cartaz_, 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's
_cartaz_, Portuguese soldiers relieved passengers of any jewelry
salable in the streets of Goa. _Cartaz_ enforcement 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 the _cartaz _brought 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 the _Resolve_?"
"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, are _Resolve_d. 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.
He smiled to himself and took up the other silver-trimmed bamboo tube.
It had arrived by the same runner. The date on the outside was one week
old.
It always amazed Mukarrab Khan that India's runners, the Mewras, were
actually swifter than post horses. This message had traveled the three
hundred _kos _south from Agra to Burhanpur and then the remaining
hundred and fifty _kos _west to Surat--a combined distance of almost
seven hundred English miles--in only seven days.
Runners were stationed at posts spaced five _kos _apart along the great
road that Akman had built to link Agra to the seaport of Surat. They
wore an identifying plume at their head and two bells at their belt,
and they gained energy by eating _postibangh_, a mixture of opium and
hemp extract. Akman even conceived of lining the sides of the road
with white stones so his Mewras could run in darkest midnight without
lanterns. There were now some four thousand runners stationed along
India's five main arteries.
The only things swifter, Mukarrab Khan had often told himself, are
lightning . . . and a blue, white-throated Rath pigeon. A distance
requiring a full day for a runner could be covered by a pigeon in one
_pahar_, three hours, given good weather. Arangbar kept pigeons all
over India, even in Surat--but then so did everyone else at court.
Recently, it seemed, everyone was training pigeons.
Next to the date was the seal of Nadir Sharif, prime minister and
brother of the queen. Mukarrab Khan knew Nadir Sharif well. A dispatch
from Nadir Sharif, though it always reflected the wishes of the Moghul
or the queen, could be relied upon to be reasonable. If the Moghul in
fury condemned a man over some trivial transgression, Nadir Sharif
always forgot to deliver the sentence until the next day, having found
that Arangbar often tended to reverse sentences of death when musing in
his evening wine cups. This order will be reasonable, Mukarrab Khan
told himself, but it will have to be obeyed, eventually.
As always, Mukarrab Khan tried to guess the message before unsealing
the two-inch-long silver cap attached to the end of the tube. Probably
taxes, late delivery. Or perhaps there's been a discrepancy between the
open report filed from my chamber by the wakianavis, the public
reportefs, and the private report, which I supposedly do not see, sent
directly to the Moghul by the harkaras, the confidential reporters. And
if that's the complaint, it will disprove my suspicion that no one in
the Imperial chancery ever actually reads the reports. I deliberately
inserted a difference of one-half lakh of rupees as reported logged at
the mint last month, just to see if they would catch it.
Mukarrab Khan unrolled the dispatch. And his heart stopped.
Clasping the paper he wandered distractedly out of the now-empty
audience hall and down the stairs toward the courtyard. When he reached
the veranda he only half-noted the heavy clouds threatening in the
west, toward the sea, and the moist air promising one last spatter of
the monsoon. Servants were removing the tapestried canopy that shaded
his cushioned bench, and when they saw him they discreetly melted out
of sight, leaving one side of the cloth still dangling from the poles.
He dropped heavily onto the bench and reread the order carefully, his
disbelief growing.
On the recommendation of Queen Janahara, Mukarrab Khan had just been
appointed India's first ambassador to Portuguese Goa. He would leave in
two weeks.