The Moghul Part 16

"Probably wisely," Hawksworth reflected. "It's said the flux is caused by an excess of humors in the blood. Bleeding is the only real remedy."

"I see." Mukarjee began to apply the paste and then to bind Hawksworth's leg with a swath of white cloth. "Yes, my friend, that is what the Portuguese do--you must hold still--and I have personally observed how effective it is in terminating illness."

"The d.a.m.ned Jesuits are the best physicians in Europe."

"So I have often been told. Most frequently at funerals." Mukarjee quickly tied a knot in the binding and spat another mouthful of red juice. "Your wound is really nothing more than a scratch. But you would have been dead in a fortnight. By this, if not by exertion."

"What do you mean?" Hawksworth rose and tested his leg, amazed that the pain seemed to have vanished.

"The greatest scourge of all for newly arrived Europeans

here seems to be our women. It is inevitable, and my greatest source of amus.e.m.e.nt." He spat the exhausted betel leaf toward the corner of the room and paused dramatically while he prepared another.

"Explain what you mean about the women."

"Let me give you an example from Goa." Mukarjee squatted again. "The Portuguese soldiers arriving from Lisbon each year tumble from their ships more dead than alive, weak from months at sea and the inevitable scurvy. They are in need of proper food, but they pay no attention to this, for they are even more starved for the company of women. . . . By the way, how is your wound?" Mukarjee made no attempt to suppress a smile at Hawksworth's astonished testing of his leg.

"The pain seems to be gone." He tried squatted in Indian style, like Mukarjee, and found that this posture, too, brought no discomfort.

"Well, these scurvy-weakened soldiers immediately avail themselves of Goa's many well-staffed brothels--which, I note, Christians seem to frequent with greater devotion than their fine churches. What uneven test of skill and vigor transpires I would not speculate, but many of these _feringhis _soon find the only beds suited for them are in the Jesuit's Kings Hospital, where few ever leave. I watched some five hundred Portuguese a year tread this path of folly." Mukarjee's lips were now the hue of the rose.

"And what happens to those who do live?"

"They eventually wed one of our women, or one of their own, and embrace the life of sensuality that marks the Portuguese in Goa. With twenty, sometimes even thirty slaves to supply their wants and pleasure. And after a time they develop stones in the kidney, or gout, or some other affliction of excess."

"What do their wives die of? The same thing?"

"Some, yes, but I have also seen many charged with adultery by their fat Portuguese husbands--a suspicion rarely without grounds, for they really have nothing more to do on hot afternoons than chew betel and intrigue with the l.u.s.ty young soldiers--and executed. The women are said to deem it an honorable martyrdom, vowing they die for love."

Mukarjee rose and began meticulously replacing the vials in his cloth bag. "I may be allowed to visit you again if you wish, but I think there's no need. Only forgo the company of our women for a time, my friend. Practice prudence before pleasure."

A shaft of light from the hallway cut across the room, as the door opened without warning. A guard stood in the pa.s.sageway, wearing a uniform Hawksworth had not seen before.

"I must be leaving now." Mukarjee's voice rose to public volume as he nervously scooped up his umbrella and his bag, without pausing to secure the knot at its top. Then he bent toward Hawksworth with a quick whisper. "Captain, the Shahbandar has sent his Rajputs. You must take care."

He deftly slipped past the guard in the doorway and was gone.

Hawksworth examined the Rajputs warily. They wore leather helmets secured with a colored headband, knee- length tunics over heavy tight- fitting trousers, and a broad cloth belt. A large round leather shield hung at each man's side, suspended from a shoulder strap, and each guard wore an ornate quiver at his waist from which protruded a heavy horn bow and bamboo arrows. All were intent and unsmiling. Their leader, his face framed in a thicket of coa.r.s.e black hair, stepped through the doorway and addressed Hawksworth in halting Turki.

"The Shahbandar has requested your presence at the customs house. I am to inform you he has completed all formalities for admission of your personal chest and has approved it with his _chapp_."

The palanquin was nowhere to be seen when they entered the street, but now Hawksworth was surrounded. As they began walking he noticed the pain in his leg was gone. The street was lined by plaster walls and the cool evening air bore the scent of flowers from their concealed gardens. The houses behind the walls were partially shielded by tall trees, but he could tell they were several stories high, with flat roofs on which women cl.u.s.tered, watching.

These must all be homes of rich Muslim merchants. Palaces for the princes of commerce. And the streets are filled with dark-skinned, slow-walking poor. Probably servants, or slaves, in no hurry to end the errand that freed them from their drudgery inside.

Then as they started downhill, toward the river, they began to pa.s.s tile-roofed, plaster-walled homes he guessed were owned by Hindu merchants, since they were without gardens or the high walls Muslims used to hide their women. As they neared the river the air started to grow sultry, and they began pa.s.sing the clay-walled huts of shopkeepers and clerks, roofed in palm leaves with latticework grills for windows.

Finally they reached the bazaar of Surat, its rows of palm trees deserted now, with silence where earlier he had heard a tumult of hawkers and strident women's voices. Next to the bazaar stood the stables, and Hawksworth noticed flocks of small boys, naked save for a loincloth, scavenging to find any dung cakes that had been overlooked by the women who collected fuel. The air was dense and smelled of earth, and its taste overwhelmed his lingering memory of the wind off the sea.

The streets of Surat converged like the spokes of a wheel, with the customs house and port as its hub. Just like every port town in the world, Hawksworth smiled to himself: all roads lead to the sea.

Except here all roads lead to the customs house and the Shahbandar.

Then, as they approached the last turn in the road, just outside the enclosure of the customs house, they were suddenly confronted by a band of mounted hors.e.m.e.n, armed with long-barreled muskets. The hors.e.m.e.n spanned the roadway and were probably twenty in all, well outnumbering the Rajputs. The hors.e.m.e.n made no effort to move aside as Hawksworth and his guards approached.

Hawksworth noticed the Rajputs stiffen slightly and their hands drop loosely to the horn bows protruding from their quivers, but they did not break their pace.

My G.o.d, they're not going to halt. There'll be bloodshed. And we're sure to lose.

Without warning a hand threw Hawksworth sprawling against the thick plaster side of a building, and a large, round

rhino-hide buckler suddenly was covering his body, shielding him entirely from the hors.e.m.e.n.

Next came a melee of shouts, and he peered out to see the Rajputs encircling him, crouched in a firing pose, each bow aimed on a horseman and taut with its first arrow. The musket-bearing hors.e.m.e.n fumbled with their still unc.o.c.ked weapons. In lightning moves of only seconds, the Rajputs had seized the advantage.

Not only are their bows more accurate than muskets, Hawksworth thought, they're also handier. They can loose half a dozen arrows before a musket can be reprimed. But what was the signal? I saw nothing, heard nothing. Yet they acted as one. I've never before seen such speed, such discipline.

Then more shouting. Hawksworth did not recognize the language, but he guessed it might be Urdu, the mixture of imported Persian and native Hindi Karim had said was used in the Moghul's army as a compromise between the language of its Persian-speaking officers and the Hindi- speaking infantry. The Rajputs did not move as the horseman in the lead withdrew a rolled paper from his waist and contemptuously tossed it onto the ground in front of them.

While the others covered him with their bows, the leader of the Rajputs advanced and retrieved the roll from the dust. Hawksworth watched as he unscrolled it and examined in silence. At the bottom Hawksworth could make out the red mark of a _chapp_, like the one he had seen on bundles in the customs house. The paper was pa.s.sed among the Rajputs, each studying it in turn, particularly the seal. Then there were more shouts, and finally resolution. The dark-bearded leader of Hawksworth's guard approached him and bowed. Then he spoke in Turki, his voice betraying none of the emotion Hawksworth had witnessed moments before.

"They are guards of the governor, Mukarrab Khan. They have shown us orders by the Shahbandar, bearing his seal, instructing that you be transferred to their care. You will go with them."

Then he dropped his bow casually into his quiver and led the other men off in the direction of the customs house, all still marching, as though they knew no other pace.

"Captain Hawksworth, please be tolerant of our Hindu friends. They are single-minded soldiers of fortune, and a trifle old-fashioned in their manners." The leader of the guard smiled and pointed to a riderless saddled horse being held by one of the riders. "We have a mount for you. Will you kindly join us?"

Hawksworth looked at the horse, a spirited Arabian mare, and then at the saddle, a heavy round tapestry embroidered in silver thread with ta.s.sels front and back, held by a thick girth also of tapestry. The stirrups were small triangles of iron held by a leather strap attached to a ring at the top of the girth. A second tapestry band around the mare's neck secured the saddle near the mane. The mane itself had been woven with decorations of beads and small feathers. The horse's neck was held in a permanent arch by a leather checkrein extending from the base of the bridle through the chest strap, and secured to the lower girth. The mare pranced in antic.i.p.ation, while her coat sparkled in the waning sun. She was a thing of pure beauty.

"Where are we going?"

"But of course. The governor, Mukarrab Khan, has staged a small celebration this afternoon and would be honored if you could join him.

Today is the final day of Ramadan, our month-long Muslim fast. He's at the _chaugan_ field. But come, patience is not his most enduring quality."

Hawksworth did not move.

"Why did the Shahbandar change his order? We were going to the customs house to fetch my chest."

"The governor is a persuasive man. It was his pleasure that you join him this afternoon. But please mount. He is waiting." The man stroked his moustache with a manicured hand as he nodded toward the waiting mount. "His Excellency sent one of his finest horses. I think he has a surprise for you."

Hawksworth swung himself into the saddle, and immediately his mare tossed her head in antic.i.p.ation. She was lanky and spirited, nothing like the lumbering mount his father had once taught him to ride at the army's camp outside London so many, many years ago.

Without another word the men wheeled their horses and started off in a direction parallel to the river. Then the one who had spoken abruptly halted the entire party.

"Please forgive me, but did I introduce myself? I am the secretary to His Excellency, Mukarrab Khan. We were cast from the civilized comforts of Agra onto this dung heap port of Surat together. Perhaps it was our stars."

Hawksworth was only half-listening to the man. He turned and looked back over his shoulder in time to see the Rajputs entering into the compound of the customs house. The leader of the hors.e.m.e.n caught his glance and smiled.

"Let me apologize again for our friends of the Rajput guard. You do understand they have no official standing. They serve whomever they are paid to serve. If that thief, the Shahbandar, discharged them tomorrow and then another hired them to kill him, they would do so without a word. Rajputs are professional mercenaries, who do battle as coldly as the tiger hunts game." He turned his horse onto a wide avenue that paralleled the river. The sunlight was now filtered through the haze of evening smoke from cooking fires that was enveloping the city.