The Moghul Part 21

Hawksworth tried to construct a ball of the mixture but finally despaired and simply scooped up a handful. It was rich but light, and seemed to hint of every spice in the Indies.

"There are times," Mukarrab Khan continued, "when I positively yearn for the so-called deprivation of Ramadan. When the appet.i.te is whetted day long, the nightly indulgence is all the more gratifying."

Hawksworth took another mouthful of the savory mixture. After the many long months of salt meat and biscuit, he found his taste confused and overwhelmed by its complexity. Its spices were all a.s.sertive, yet he could not specifically identify a single one. They had been blended, it seemed, to enhance one another, to create a pattern from many parts, much as the marble inlays of the floor, in which there were many colors, yet the overall effect was that of a single design, not its components.

"I've never tasted anything quite like this, even in the Levant. Could you prepare instructions for our ship's cook?"

"It would be my pleasure, Amba.s.sador, but I doubt very much a _feringhi_ cook could reproduce this dish. It's far too complex. First my kitchen prepares a masala, a blend of nuts and spices such as almonds, turmeric, and ginger. The bits of lamb are cooked in this and in ghee, which we make by boiling and clarifying b.u.t.ter. Next a second sauce is prepared, this a lighter mixture--curds seasoned with mint, clove, and many other spices I'm sure you know nothing of. This is blended with the lamb, and then layered in the pot you see there together with rice cooked in milk and saffron. Finally it's covered with a crust of wheat flour and baked in a special clay oven. Is this really something a ship's cook could do?"

Hawksworth smiled resignedly and took another mouthful.

Whoever thought there could be so many uses for spice. We use spice in England, to be sure--clove, cinnamon, pepper, even ginger and cardamom-- but they're intended mainly to disguise the taste of meat past its prime. But here spices are essential ingredients.

"Let us return to your requests, Captain Hawksworth. I'm afraid neither of these is entirely within my power to bestow. In the matter of trading privileges for your cargo, I'll see what can be done. Yours is an unusual request, in the sense that no Europeans have ever come here to war with the Portuguese, then asked to compete with them in trade."

"It seems simple enough. We merely exchange our goods for some of the cotton cloth I saw arriving at the customs house this morning. The Shahbandar stated you have the power to authorize this trade."

"Yes, I enjoy some modest influence. And I really don't expect that Prince Jadar would object."

"He's the Moghul's son?"

"Correct. He has full authority over this province, but he's frequently on campaign and difficult to reach. His other duties include responsibility for military conscription here, and maintaining order.

These are somewhat uneasy times, especially in the Deccan, southeast of here."

"When will we learn your decision, or his decision? There are other markets for our goods."

"You will learn his decision when it is decided." Mukarrab Khan shoved aside his plate and a servant whisked it from the carpet. "Concerning your second request, that I pet.i.tion Agra to authorize your travel there, I will see what can be done. But it will require time."

"I would ask the request be sent immediately."

"Naturally." Mukarrab Khan watched absently as more br.i.m.m.i.n.g trays were brought in, these piled with candied

fruits and sweetmeats. A hookah water pipe appeared and was placed beside Hawksworth.

"Do you enjoy the new _feringhi _custom of smoking tobacco, Captain Hawksworth? It was introduced recently, and already it's become fashionable. So much so the Moghul just issued a decree denouncing it."

"King James has denounced it too, claiming it destroys health. But it's also the fashion in London. Personally, I think it ruins the taste of brandy, and wine."

"Overall I'm inclined to agree. But tell me now, what's your opinion of the wine you're drinking? It's Persian."

"Better than the French. Though frankly it could be sweeter."

Mukarrab Khan laughed. "A common complaint from _topiwallahs_. Some actually add sugar to our wine. Abominable." He paused. "So I gather then you only use spirits?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are many subtle pleasures in the world, Amba.s.sador. Liquors admittedly enhance one's dining, but they do little for one's appreciation of art."

As Hawksworth watched him, puzzling, he turned and spoke quietly to one of the eunuchs hovering behind him. Moments later a small golden cabinet, encrusted with jewels, was placed between them. Mukarrab Khan opened a tiny drawer on the side of the box and extraced a small brown ball.

"May I suggest a ball of _ghola_? He offered it to Hawksworth. It carried a strange, alien fragrance.

"What's _ghola_?"

"A preparation of opium and spice, Amba.s.sador. I think it might help you better experience this evening's entertainment." He nodded lightly in the direction of the rear wall.

The snap of a drum exploded behind Hawksworth, and he whirled to see the two musicians begin tuning to perform. The drummer sat before two foot-high drums, each nestled in a circular roll of fabric. Next to him was a wizened old man in a black Muslim skullcap tuning a large six- stringed instrument made of two hollowed-out gourds, both lacquered and polished, connected by a long teakwood fingerboard. About a dozen curved bra.s.s frets were tied to the fingerboard with silk cords, and as Hawksworth watched, the player began shifting the location of two frets, sliding them an inch or so along the neck to create a new musical scale. Then he began adjusting the tension on a row of fine wires that lay directly against the teakwood fingerboard, sympathetic strings that pa.s.sed beneath those to be plucked. These he seemed to be tuning to match the notes in the new scale he had created by moving the frets.

When the sitarist had completed his tuning, he settled back and the room fell totally silent. He paused a moment, as though in meditation, then struck the first note of a somber melody Hawksworth at first found almost totally rootless. Using a wire plectrum attached to his right forefinger, he seemed to be waving sounds from the air above the fingerboard. A note would shimmer into existence from some undefined starting point, then glide through the scale via a subtle arabesque as he stretched the playing string diagonally against a fret, manipulating its tension. Finally the sound would dissolve meltingly into its own silence. Each note of the alien melody, if melody it could be called, was first lovingly explored for its own character, approached from both above and below as though a glistening prize on display. Only after the note was suitably embroidered was it allowed to enter the melody--as though the song were a necklace that had to be strung one pearl at a time, and only after each pearl had been carefully polished. The tension of some vague melodic quest began to grow, with no hint of a resolution. In the emotional intensity of his haunting search, the pa.s.sage of time had suddenly ceased to exist.

Finally, as though satisifed with his chosen scale, he returned to the very first note he had started from and actually began a song, deftly tying together the musical strands he had so painstakingly evolved. The sought-for resolution had never come, only the sense that the first note was the one he had been looking for the entire time.

This must be the mystical music Symmes spoke of, Hawksworth thought, and he was right. It's unlike anything I've ever heard. Where's the harmony, the chords of thirds and fifths? Whatever's going on, I don't think opium is going to help me understand it.

Hawksworth turned, still puzzling, back to Mukarrab Khan and waved away the brown ball--which the governor immediately washed down himself with fruit nectar.

"Is our music a bit difficult for you to grasp, Amba.s.sador?" Mukarrab Khan leaned back on his bolster with an easy smile. "Pity, for there's truly little else in this backwater port worth the bother. The cuisine is abominable, the cla.s.sical dancers despicable. In desperation I've even had to train my own musicians, although I did manage to steal one Ustad, a grand master, away from Agra." He impulsively reached for the water pipe and absorbed a deep draw, his eyes misting.

"I confess I do find it hard to follow." Hawksworth took a draft of wine from the fresh cup that had been placed beside him on the carpet.

"It demands a connoisseur's taste, Amba.s.sador, not unlike an appreciation of fine wine."

The room grew ominously still for a moment, and then the drums suddenly exploded in a torrent of rhythm, wild and exciting yet unmistakably disciplined by some rigorous underlying structure. The rhythm soared in a cycle, returning again and again, after each elaborate interlocking of time and its divisions, back to a forceful crescendo.

Hawksworth watched Mukarrab Khan in fascination as he leaned back and closed his eyes in wistful antic.i.p.ation. And at that moment the instrumentalist began a lightning-fast ascent of the scale, quavering each note in erotic suggestiveness for the fraction of a second it was fingered. The governor seemed absorbed in some intuitive communication with the sound, a reaction to music Hawksworth had never before witnessed. His entire body would perceptibly tense as the drummer began a cycle, then it would pulse and relax the instant the cycle thudded to a resolution. Hawksworth was struck by the sensuality inherent in the music, the almost s.e.xual sense of tension and release.

Then he noticed two eunuchs leading a young boy into the room. The youth appeared to be hovering at the age of p.u.b.erty, with still no trace of a beard. He wore a small but elaborately tied pastel turban, pearl earrings, and a large sapphire on a chain around his pale throat.

His elaborate ensemble included a transparent blouse through which his delicate skin glistened in the lamplight, a long quilted sash at his waist, and tight-fitting trousers beneath light gauze pajamas that clung to his thighs as he moved. His lips were lightly red, and his perfume a mixture of flowers and musk. The boy reached for a ball of spiced opium and settled back against a quilted gold bolster next to Mukarrab Khan. The governor studied him momentarily and then returned to the music. And his thoughts.

He reflected again on Abul Hasan's blundering "accident" on the _chaugan_ field, and what it must signify. If it were true the _qazi_ had been bought by the Shahbandar, as some whispered, then it meant Mirza Nuruddin must be alarmed to the point of imprudence. Fearful of what could happen if the English were detained long enough for the Portuguese warships to prepare. Which meant that somewhere behind it all lay the hand of Prince Jadar.

He examined Hawksworth again, wondering how this English captain could have savaged the Viceroy's fleet with such embarra.s.sing ease. What, he asked himself again, will the queen order done?

"I'm sorry you don't find our music more congenial. Amba.s.sador. Perhaps I too would be wiser if I loved it less. The pa.s.sion for cla.s.sical music has cost many a great warrior his kingdom in India over the last centuries. For example, when the great Moghul patriarch Akman conquered Baz Bahadur, once the proud ruler of Malwa, it was because that prince was a better patron of music than of the arts of war." He smiled reflectively. "Admittedly, the great Akman himself also flooded his court with musicians, but then he had the wit to study arms as well.

Regrettably, I find myself lacking his strength of character."

He paused to take a sip of nectar, then shrugged. "But enough. Tell me now what you really think of my Ustad, my master sitarist. There are those in Agra who will never forgive me for stealing him away."

"I'm not sure what I think. I've never heard a composition quite like the one he's playing."

"What do you mean by 'composition'?" Mukarrab Khan's tone was puzzled.

"That's how a piece of music is written out."

Mukarrab Khan paused and examined him skeptically for a long moment.

"Written out? You write down your music? But whatever for? Does that mean your musicians play the same song again and again, precisely the same way?"

"If they're good they do. A composer writes a piece of music and musicians try to play it."