The Moghul Part 22

"How utterly tiresome." Mukarrab Khan sighed and leaned back on his bolster. "Music is a living art, Amba.s.sador. It's meant to illuminate the emotions of the one who gives it life. How can written music have any feeling? My Ustad would never play a raga the same way twice.

Indeed, I doubt he would be physically capable of such a boorish feat."

"You mean he creates a new composition each time he plays?"

"Not precisely. But his handling of the specific notes of a raga must speak to his mood, mv mood. These vary, why not his art?"

"But what is a raga then, if not a song?"

"That's always difficult to explain. At some rudimentary level you might say it's simply a melody form, a fixed series of notes around which a musician improvises. But although a raga has a rigorously prescribed ascending and descending note sequence and specific melodic motifs, it also has its own mood, 'flavor.' What we call its _rasa_.

How could one possibly write down a mood?"

"I guess I see your point. But it's still confusing." Hawksworth took another sip of wine. "How many ragas are there?"

"There are seventy-two primary scales on which ragas are based. But some scales have more than one raga. There are ragas for morning, for evening, for late at night. My Ustad is playing a late evening raga now. Although he uses only the notes and motifs peculiar to this raga, what he does with them is entirely governed by his feeling tonight."

"But why is there no harmony?"

"I don't understand what you mean by 'harmony.'"

"Striking several notes together, so they blend to produce a chord."

Mukarrab Khan studied him, uncomprehending, and Hawksworth continued.

"If I had my lute I'd show you how harmony and chords are used in an English song." Hawksworth thought again of his instrument, and of the difficulty he'd had protecting it during the voyage. He knew all along it was foolish to bring it, but he often told himself every man had the right to one folly.

"Then by all means." The governor's curiosity seemed to arouse him instantly from the opium. "Would you believe I've never met a _feringhi_ who could play an instrument, any instrument?"

"But my lute was detained, along with all my belongings, at the customs house. I was going to retrieve my chest from the Shahbandar when you intercepted his men."

"Amba.s.sador, please believe I had good reason. But I thought I told you arrangements have been made." He turned and dictated rapidly to one of the eunuchs. There was an expressionless bow, and the man left the room. Moments later he returned through the bronze entry doors, followed by two dark-skinned servants carrying Hawksworth's chest, one at each end.

"I ordered your belongings sent from the customs house this afternoon.

You would honor me by staying here as my guest." Mukarrab Khan smiled warmly. "And now I would hear you play this English instrument."

Hawksworth was momentarily startled, wondering why his safety was suddenly of such great interest to Mukarrab Khan. But he pushed aside the question and turned to examine the large bra.s.s lock on his chest.

Although it had been newly polished to a high sheen, as had the entire chest, there was no visible evidence it had been opened. He extracted the key from his doublet, slipped it into the lock, and turned it twice. It revolved smoothly, opening with a soft click.

The lute rested precisely where he had left it. Its body was shaped like a huge pear cut in half lengthwise, with the back a glistening melon of curved cedar staves and the face a polished cherry. The neck was broad, and the head, where the strings were wound to their pegs, angled sharply back. He admired it for a moment, already eager for the touch of its dark frets. During the voyage it had been wrapped in heavy cloth, sealed in oilskins, and stored deep in his cabin chest. Not till landfall at Zanzibar had he dared expose it to the sea air.

Of all English music, he still loved the galliards of Dowland best. He was only a boy when Dowland's first book of galliards was published, but he had been made to learn them all by heart, because his exacting tutor had despised popular ballads and street songs.

Mukarrab Khan called for the instrument and slowly turned it in the lamplight, its polished cedar shining like a great jewel. He then pa.s.sed it to his two musicians, and a brief discussion in Persian ensued, as brows were wrinkled and grave points adjudicated. After its appearance was agreed upon, the instrumentalist gingerly plucked a gut string with the wire plectrum attached to his forefinger and studied its sound with a distant expression. The torrent of Persian began anew, as each string was plucked in turn and its particular quality debated.

Then the governor revolved to Hawksworth.

"I congratulate your wisdom, Amba.s.sador, in not hazarding a truly fine instrument on a sea voyage. It would have been a waste of real workmanship."

Hawksworth stared at him dumbfounded.

"There's not a finer lute in London." He seized it back. "I had it specially crafted several years ago by a master, a man once lute-maker to the queen. It's one of the last he made."

"You must pardon me then, but why no embellishment? No ivory inlay, no carved decoration? Compare, if you will, Ustad Qasim's sitar. It's a work of fine art. A full year was spent on its decoration. Note the head has been carved as the body of a swan, the neck and pegs inlaid with finest ivory, the face decorated with mother-of-pearl and _lapis lazuli_. Your lute has absolutely no decoration whatsoever."

"The beauty of an instrument is in its tone."

"Yes, that's a separate point. But perhaps we should hear it played by one skilled in its use. I must confess we are all curious what can be done with so simple an instrument." Mukarrab Khan shifted on his bolster, while the young man next to him toyed with a jewel, not troubling to disguise his boredom.

Hawksworth tuned the strings quickly and meticulously. Then he settled himself on the carpet and took a deep breath. His fingers were stiff, his mind groggy with wine, but he would play a song he knew well. A galliard Dowland had written when Queen Elizabeth was still alive, in honor of a Cornwall sea captain named Piper, whom she'd given a letter of marque to attack the Spanish, but who instead turned an uncontrollable pirate, pillaging the shipping of any flag convenient.

He'd become an official outlaw but a genuine English folk hero, and Dowland had honored his memory with a rousing composition--"Piper's Galliard."

A full chord, followed by a run of crisp notes, cut the close air. The theme was somber, a plaintive query in a minor mode followed by a melodic but defiant reply. Just the answer Piper would have given to the charges, Hawksworth thought.

The servants had all gathered to listen, and the eunuchs had stopped gossiping. Then Hawksworth glanced toward the musicians, who had shifted themselves onto the carpet to watch. Both the sitarist and his drummer still eyed the instrument skeptically, no hint of appreciation in their look.

Hawksworth had expected it.

Wait till they hear this.

He crouched over the lute and attacked the strings with all four fingers, producing a dense toccata, with three melodic lines advancing at once, two in the treble and one in the base. His hand flew over the frets until it seemed every fingertip commanded a string, each embellishing a theme another had begun. Then he brought the galliard to a rousing crescendo with a flourish that spanned two entire octaves.

A polite silence seemed to grip the room. Mukarrab Khan sipped thoughtfully from his cup for a moment, his jeweled rings refracting the lamplight, then summoned a eunuch and whispered briefly in his ear.

As the eunuch pa.s.sed the order to a hovering servant, Mukarrab Khan turned to Hawksworth.

"Your English music is interesting, Amba.s.sador, if somewhat simple." He cleared his throat as an excuse to pause. "But frankly I must tell you it touched only my mind. Not my heart. Although I heard it, I did not feel it. Do you understand the difference? I sensed nothing of its rasa, the emotion and desire one should taste at a moment like this, the merging of sound and spirit. Your English music seems to stand aloof, unapproachable." Mukarrab Khan searched for words. "It inhabits its own world admirably, but it did not enter mine."

Servants suddenly appeared bearing two silver trays, on which were crystal cups of green, frothy liquid. As the servant placed Hawksworth's tray on the patterned carpet, he bowed, beaming. Mukarrab Khan ignored his own tray and instead summoned the sitarist, Bahram Qasim, to whisper brief instructions in his ear. Then the governor turned to Hawksworth.

"Perhaps I can show you what I mean. This may be difficult for you, so first I would urge you try a cup of _bhang_. It has the remarkable effect of opening one's heart."

Hawksworth tested the beverage warily. Its underlying bitterness had been obscured with sweet yogurt and potent spices. It was actually very palatable. He drank again, this time thirstily.

"What did you call this? _Bhang?"

_"Yes, it's made from the leaves of hemp. Unlike wine, which only dulls the spirit, _bhang _hones the senses. Now I've arranged a demonstration for you."

He signaled the sitarist, and Bahram Qasim began the unmistakable theme of "Piper's Galliard." The song was drawn out slowly, languorously, as each individual note was introduced, lovingly explored for its own pure sound, and then framed with microtone embellishment and a sensual vibrato. The clear, simple notes of the lute were trans.m.u.ted into an almost orchestral richness by an undertone of harmonic density from the sitar's sympathetic strings, the second row of wires beneath those being plucked, tuned to match the notes of the song and respond without being touched. Dowland's harmonies were absent, but now the entire room resonated with a single majestic chord underlying each note. Gradually the sitarist accelerated the tempo, while also beginning to insert his own melodic variations over the original notes of the theme.

Hawksworth took another sip of _bhang _and suddenly noticed the notes seemed to be weaving a tapestry in his mind, evolving an elaborate pattern that enveloped the room with shapes as colored as the geometries of the Persian carpet.

Next the drummer casually introduced a rhythmic underpinning, his lithe fingers touring easily over and around the taut drumheads as he dissected, then restructured the simple meter of Dowland's music. He seemed to regard the original meter as merely a frame, a skeleton on which the real artistry had yet to be applied. He knowingly subdivided Dowland's meter into minuscule elements of time, and with these devised elaborate new interlockings of sound and silence. Yet each new structure always _Resolve_d to its perfect culmination at the close of a musical phrase. Then as he punctuated his transient edifice with a thud of the larger drum--much as an artist might sign a painting with an elaborate flourish--he would catch Hawksworth's incredulous gaze and wink, his eyes twinkling in triumph.

Meanwhile, the sitarist structured Dowland's spirited theme to the drummer's frame, adding microtones Dowland had never imagined, and matching the ornate tempo of the drum as they blended together to become a single racing heartbeat.

Hawksworth realized suddenly that he was no longer merely hearing the music, that instead he seemed to be absorbing it.

How curious . . .

The music soared on to a final crescendo, a simultaneous