The Moghul Part 78

"This last week you have found, so you think, your fortune. You have received worldly honors from the Moghul, you have news of imminent success for your English king. But these things will only bring you despair in the end."

"I don't understand what you mean."

Samad laughed and finished off his gla.s.s. "Then let me tell

you a story about myself, English. I was born a Persian Jew, a merchant at my birth by historic family vocation. But my people have ignored the greatest Prophet of all, the Prophet Mohammed. His voice invites all, and I heard that voice. I became Muslim, but still I was a merchant. A Persian merchant. And, perhaps not unlike you, I traveled to India search of . . . not the greater Prophet, but the baser profit. And here, my English, I found the other thing I searched for. I found love. Pure love, consuming love. The kind of love few men are privileged to know. The love of a boy whose beauty and purity could only have come from G.o.d. But this love was mistaken by the world, was called impure, and he was hidden from me. So the only one left for me to love was G.o.d. Thus I cast away my garments, my worldliness, and gave myself to Him. And once more I was misunderstood."

Samad paused and called for another gla.s.s of wine. Then he turned back to Hawksworth. "So I have told the world my story in verse. And now there are many who understand. Not the mullahs, but the people. I have given them words that could only come from a pure heart, words of joy that all men can share." Samad stopped and smiled. "You know we Persians are born poets. It's said we changed Sufism from mystic speculation to mystic art. All I know is the great poets of Persia found in Sufism a vehicle for their art that gave back to Islam almost more than it took. But then a poet's vocation must always be to give. I have given the people of India my heart, and they have loved me in return. Yet such love engenders envy in the minds of men who know it not. The Shi'ite mullahs would have condemned me for heresy long ago were it not for one man, a man who has understood and protected me. The only man in India who is not afraid of he Persian Shi'ites at court.

And now he too is gone. With him went my life."

"And who was that?"

"Can you not guess? You have already met him." Samad smiled. "Prince Jadar."

Hawksworth suddenly felt as though the world had closed about him.

"Why did you contrive to get me here tonight?"

"Because I wished to see you. And I can no longer walk abroad. It has been forbidden on pain of death. But death is something I am almost ready to welcome. One day soon I will walk the streets of Agra once more, for the last time.

Hawksworth wondered if the claim was bravado, or truth.

"But why did you want to see me?" Hawksworth studied Samad closely.

Suddenly he decided to ask the question directly. "To ask me to help Jadar? You can tell him for me that I want no part of his politics. I'm here to get a trade agreement, a _firman_. That's my mission, why I was sent.

Samad settled his winegla.s.s on the carpet with a sigh of resignation.

"You've heard nothing I have said. I am telling you it would be best for you to forget about your 'mission.' Your destiny is no longer in your hands. But if you will open your heart, you will find it has riches to compensate you manyfold. Still, they can be yours only if you can know love. But now, I fear, the only love you know is self-love, ambition. You have not yet understood it is empty as mirror.

_"The world is but a waking dream,

The eye of heart sees clear.

The garden of this tempting world,

Is wrought of sand and tear."

_

Hawksworth shifted and stared about the room. It was darker now but several men had entered. Few of them seemed to understand Samad's Turki.

"So what do I do now?"

"Stay with us for a while. Learn to know yourself." Samad rose and stepped off the dais. "Perhaps then you will at last find what you want."

He motioned for Hawksworth to walk with him to the balcony. Across the courtyard a single lamp burned in the turret of one of the buildings.

"Tonight must be remembered as a dream, my English. And like a dream, it is to be recalled on waking as mere light and shadow." He turned and led Hawksworth to the door. The men stood aside for them. "And now I bid you farewell. Others will attend you."

Hawksworth walked into the marble corridor. Standing in the half-light, her face warm in the glow of a lamp, was . . .

Shirin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The night sky above the courtyard was afire, an overturned jewel box strewn about an ivory moon. They pa.s.sed through a gateway of carved columns and ornate brackets, into a smaller plaza. The mosque was left behind: around them low were empty pavilions, several stories high, decorated with whimsical carvings, railings, cornices. Now they were alone in the abandoned palace, surrounded by silence and moonlight. Only then did she speak, her voice opening through the stillness.

"I promised to think of you, and I have, more than you can know.

Tonight I want to share this with you. The private palace of the Great Akman. The most beautiful place in all India." She paused and pointed to a wide marble pond in the middle of the plaza. In its center was a platform, surrounded by a railing and joined to the banks by delicate bridges. "They say when Akman's court musician, the revered Tansen, sat there and sang a raga for the rainy season, the clouds themselves would come to listen, and bless the earth with their tears. Once all this was covered by one magnificent canopy. Tonight we have only the stars."

"How did you arrange this?" He still was lost in astonishment.

"Don't ask me to tell you now. Can we just share this moment?"

She took his arm and motioned ahead. There, glistening in the moonlight, were the open arcades of a palace pavilion. I've prepared something especially for us." She guided him through a wide-open archway and into a large arcade, illuminated by a single oil lamp atop a stone table. In front of them, on the walls, were brilliantly colored renderings of elephants, horses, birds. She picked up the lamp and led him past the paintings and into the next room, a vast red chamber whose floor was a fragrant standing pool of water. In the flickering light he could see a marble stairway leading to a red sandstone platform projecting out over the water, supported by square stone columns topped by ornate brackets.

"This is where Akman spent the hot summer nights. Up there, on the platform, above a cooling pool of rosewater. From there he would summon his women to come to him from the _zenana_."

Hawksworth dipped his fingers into the water and brought it to his lips. It was like perfume. He turned to he and she smiled.

"Yes, the Sufis still keep rosewater here, in memory of Akman." She urged him forward, up the stairs. "Come and together we'll try to imagine how it must have felt to be the Great Moghul of India."

As they emerged onto the platform, the vaulted ceiling above them glowed a ruby red from the lamp. Under their feet was a thick carpet, strewn with small velvet bolsters. At the farthest edge was a large sleeping couch, fashioned from red marble, its dark velvet canopy held aloft by four finely worked stone columns. The covering of the couch was a patterned blue velvet, bordered in gold lace.

"Just for tonight I've made this room like it was when Akman slept here, with his chosen from the _zenana_." She slipped the gauze wrap from her shoulders. He looked at her dark hair, secured with a transparent scarf and a strand of pearls, and realized it contrasted perfectly with the green emerald brooch that swung gently against her forehead. She wore a necklace of pearl strands and about each upper arm was a band ringed with pearl drops. Her eyes and eyebrows were painted dark with kohl and her lips were a brilliant red

Without a word she took a garland of yellow flowers from the bed and gently slipped it over his head. Next to the couch was a round rosewood table holding several small bra.s.s vials of perfume and incense.

"Tonight this room is like a bridal chamber. For us."

A second garland of flowers lay on the bed next to the one she had taken. Without thinking, he reached and took it and slipped it around her neck. Then he drew his fingertips slowly down her arm, sending a small shiver through them both. Seeing her in the lamplight, he realized again how he had ached for her.

"A wedding? For us?"

"Not a wedding. Can we just call it a new beginning? The end of one journey and the beginning of another."

Hawksworth heard a sudden rustling behind him and then a sound. He turned and searched the gloom, where two eyes peered out of the darkness, reflecting the lamplight. He was reaching for his pistol when she stopped his arm.

"That's one of the little green parrots who live here. They've never been harmed, and they've never been caged. So they're unafraid." She turned and called to it. "If they're caught and imprisoned, their spirit dies and their beauty starts to fade."

The bird ruffled its wings again and flew to the top of the bolster beside Shirin. Hawksworth watched her for a moment, still incredulous, then settled himself on the carpet next to a chalice of wine that sat waiting. She reached and touched his arm. "I never asked you what your lovers call you. You're so important, n.o.body in India knows your first name, just your t.i.tles."

"My only other name is Brian." He found her touch had already begun to stir him.

"Brian. Will you tell me everything about you, what you like and what you don't?" She began to pour the wine for them. "Did I ever tell you what I like most about you?"